Rosemary Remembered - China Bayles 04 Page 6

  "But Dad," Brian said, "it won't be dark for a couple of hours yet. Why can't I — "

  McQuaid lost it. " 'But Dad' nothing," he roared. "I want you home. Not at Trekker conventions, not riding around country roads where Jacoby can jump out of a bush and grab you, but home. Got that?"

  Brian threw me a desperate glance. "China, can't you — ?"

  This was another lose-lose situation, and I wasn't getting trapped in it. I shook my head. "This is between you guys. I'm only a bystander."

  Brian glared at me, then at his father. "You're mean!" he cried. "Both of you!" And ran out of the room.

  McQuaid shook his head. "Sometimes I just don't know. I guess I'm too hard on him. But how else am I going to make him listen?"

  I didn't say anything for a moment, hoping he might find an answer in himself. Finally I said, "What's this about Sally going to court?"

  He pushed his plate back, his meal unfinished. "She's asking for a rehearing. She doesn't want Brian living with us because we're not married." His mouth was hard, bitter. "It might warp his morals."

  I stared at him. "Of all the narrow-minded — !"

  McQuaid held up his hand. "I know, I know. But she's the mother, and we're living in sin. All she needs is to find a sympathetic judge, and she gets the kid." He rubbed his eyes with his fingers. "Shit," he said. "There's no justice."

  I got up and went around the table and massaged his shoulders for a moment in silence. "I'm sorry, McQuaid," I said. "But maybe she won't go through with it. And even if she does, there's no guarantee she'll win."

  He picked up his fork and turned it in his fingers. "She's a mess. She's a total disaster as a mother."

  I didn't say anything. Who am I to criticize the quality of Sally's mothering when I don't have a clue? I straightened up. "Want me to help with the dishes before I head for the shop?"

  "The shop?" McQuaid was immediately tense. He swiv-eled to look up at me. "You're going over there tonight? Alone?"

  We were back to the control issue again. "I was running errands most of the day," I said, as patiently as I could. "I've got a jillion things to catch up on before the conference opens tomorrow, and I need to do some work on my newsletter." China's Garden comes out three or four times a year, and it takes a lot of work. I was already overdue with the summer issue. "I won't be late," I added persuasively. "I promise."

  Inside, the liberated, emancipated part of me was surprised. You promise? Since when did you start punching a time clock?

  McQuaid looked at me a minute, thin-lipped. Then he began to gather up the dishes. "Give me five minutes to load the dishwasher. And five minutes to call Jeff Clark. I expect he's upset about Rosemary. They were pretty serious, you know."

  I stared at him. "No, I didn't know. I didn't even know they knew one another until Matt Monroe told me this afternoon."

  He shrugged. "It's not something Jeff wanted other people to know just yet."

  "How long have they been seeing each other?"

  "A few months, I guess. I don't know. He only told me a couple of weeks ago."

  "Well, Jeffs gone fishing at South Padre," I said. "Matt was trying to get him this afternoon. He might not even hear about Rosemary until tomorrow morning." I got back to the immediate subject. "You're coming to the shop?"

  The other China sneered. Sounds to me like protective custody.

  "Yeah," he said. "And so is Brian." He picked up his plate. "Jeff went fishing, huh? I wonder how come he didn't ask me to go with him. He didn't even mention it."

  I was scowling. "Both of you are coming?"

  "That's what I said," he replied grimly. "You don't think I'm going to let you spend an evening in that shop all alone? With a killer on the loose?" He handed me the empty casserole dish. "Take this. And that salad bowl, and those glasses. I'll get the other stuff." He filled his

  hands and nudged me in the direction of the door. "Come on, Bayles, get your ass in gear. We don't have all night."

  The sneer got louder. You idiot. You gave up your independence to some ex-cop can tell you to get your ass in gear? What a dolt!

  Chapter Four

  Herbal Protection Bath

  In many cultures, herbal baths are an important ritual. The bathers believe that when certain herbs are steeped in bathwater, they release not only their scent but their "virtue," their special energies. The bath based on the protective herb rosemary, for instance, is thought to make the bather safe from the forces of negativity and evil. To recreate this ritual for yourself, put into a quart jar a cup and a half of rosemary leaves and one-half cup each of bay leaves, basil, and fennel. Pour boiling water over the herbs and let them steep. Strain into a warm bath. As you relax, allow yourself to feel safe and cared for. Ruby Wilcox

  "Personal Herbal Rituals"

  in A Book of Thyme and Seasons

  "Robbins did it," Ruby said. She poured hot water over a mint teabag. There was a plate of sesame seed cookies on the far end of the counter, and she took one. I always set out tea and cookies for customers, and Ruby helps herself.

  "You're excused for cause," I said, retrieving the cash drawer from the box of cleaning supplies where I hide it at night. I figure that the last place a burglar will bother to look for money is under the dust rags.

  "Excused for cause?" She bit into the cookie. "What does that mean?"

  "If you were a prospective juror, you'd be disqualified in voir dire. Pretrial questioning. You've made up your mind before you heard the evidence. Hell, before there is any evidence."

  Ruby tossed her head. She was all in white this morning: skinny white calf-length pants, loose white top, sandals that were no more than two white straps between her toes, white hair band subduing, more or less, her Orphan Annie frizz. "I'm not a juror. I'm a citizen, and I have the right to my opinion."

  "And Robbins has the right to be considered innocent until the jury says he's guilty. Anyway, he's got an alibi."

  It's interesting. When McQuaid and I debated Robbins's guilt yesterday evening, I was on the other side. But that's no surprise. It's almost instinct for me to take up the cause of the accused.

  Ruby gave her tea bag a scornful swish. "His sister? We know where her loyalty lies."

  I put the cash drawer into my vintage brass register and changed the date stamper. It stuck, as usual. The darn thing always malfunctions when the humidity's high. I got out my nail clipper, flipped out the little metal file, and tinkered with the stamper. Maybe someday I'll break down and get a register that really works, one of those electronic jobs that don't make any noise. But I'd miss the old-fashioned brassy clang that celebrates every sale.

  "You know Curtis Robbins's sister?" I asked.

  "No," Ruby admitted. "I don't know Curtis Robbins, either." She dropped her tea bag in the wastebasket. "But any sister worth her salt would lie for her brother, wouldn't she?"

  "Not unless she wanted to go to jail for perjury," I said evenly. The date stamper finally clicked into place and I closed the register. Behind me, I could hear the air conditioner whimpering. It didn't sound at all good.

  "I still think Robbins did it," Ruby said. "He manages a sporting goods store, doesn't he? They sell guns, don't they?"

  "That's an undistributed middle," I said.

  "What?"

  "It's a fallacy."

  "What?"

  "A faulty argument," I said. "But never mind — everybody does it, even lawyers." I got out the lemon oil and a cloth and began to wipe the wooden counter. It's only cheap pine sanded smooth, but polished, it looks very nice.

  Ruby shook her head, musing. "It's hard to believe she's dead. I just keep remembering Rosemary the way she was. She really had it together."

  I thought of the Rosemary I had seen lying on the seat of McQuaid's truck, blood and bits of the inside of her head splattered all over. I shivered. / didn't want to remember Rosemary the way she was, at least not the way I had found her. "I wonder if she really did have it together. Anyway, I'm not sure that an
y of us knew her well enough to know."

  "Of course we knew her." Ruby was indignant. "She did our taxes, didn't she?"

  "That gives us some magical insight into her personality?" I unlocked the front door, flipped the Closed sign to Open, and trundled the rack of potted herbs outside. I was putting down a clay pot of aloe vera when Sheila Dawson came up the walk.

  "McQuaid told me about Rosemary Robbins's murder," Sheila said. "What a rotten shame."

  "Yes," I said. Sheila's in her thirties, with shoulder-length blond hair, creamy skin, Jackie's style and Hillary's chutzpah. In her slim pink suit, dyed-to-match pumps, purse, and pearls, she looked like a Dallas Junior Leaguer on her way to lunch at Daddy's club. But under that feminine frivolity, she's all cop. Last March, she was hired as CTSU's chief of security. Before that, she was assistant chief of security at UT Arlington, and before that, a sergeant with the Dallas PD. You have to wonder about somebody who looks like a homecoming queen and thinks like the regional director of the FBI.

  Ruby came out on the step behind me with the broom in her hand. "Hi, Sheila. I didn't know you knew Rosemary."

  "That gal was one sharp tax lady," Sheila said. Her smile was sad. "She knew every trick in the book, even some that weren't. But who cares how she did it? She got me a refund."

  "She got me one, too," Ruby said. She began to sweep with short, hard strokes. "A nice refund. Not to mention straightening out all my tax problems. I didn't owe the IRS as much as they said I did." She swept harder.

  Sheila turned to me. "Have you talked to Bubba? Has he turned up any leads?"

  "Her ex did it," Ruby said, still sweeping. "He was abusing her. He manages a sporting goods store, you know. He could use any gun he wanted and put it right back on the shelf, and nobody'd be the wiser."

  "Did Rosemary say anything to you about being abused?" I asked Sheila.

  She shook her head. "No, but I did get the impression that she was afraid of him. The husband, I mean. Rob-bins. That was before they were divorced, which I think happened pretty recently." She started to say something else, but changed her mind.

  "The cops aren't tough enough on abusers." Ruby was halfway down the walk, sweeping violently. "Neither are the courts. A slap on the wrist—that's all those fuckers get. Pardon my French."

  "Ruby," I said gently, "you are destroying my broom."

  "Oh," she said, and stopped sweeping. "Sorry."

  "What about leads?" Sheila repeated.

  "You probably know as much as I do," I said, picking yellow leaves off a curly-leaf parsley. Hot weather is hard on potted plants. If these didn't sell pretty soon, I'd give them away. There's nothing worse for a shop's reputation than selling tired, root-bound plants. "They recovered the spent bullet from the floor of the truck —a .38. The only prints were Rosemary's, McQuaid's, and mine. A neighbor heard a gunshot about nine-thirty, although it might have been a firecracker. And Robbins has an alibi — his sister. That about covers it, as far as I know."

  "Well, I'll keep my eyes and ears open," Sheila said. "Sometimes Bubba tells me things." I had to smile at that. When I first met Sheila, I nicknamed her Smart Cookie because of her ability to get people to do what she wants. She'd known Bubba Harris for a total of two minutes when she had him eating out of her beautifully manicured hand. Talk about the politics of pretty. She looked at me. "I hear McQuaid has a different theory."

  "When did you hear about that?" News travels in nanoseconds around Pecan Springs. Sometimes I think the grapevine's gone on-line on Internet.

  "We're both on the Traffic Committee," Sheila said. "We had a meeting late yesterday and he gave me an earful. Mistaken identity, huh?"

  "Yeah." I was skeptical.

  "An ex-con?"

  Ruby looked at me. "McQuaid thinks somebody else did it?"

  I nodded. "Jake Jacoby. Somebody McQuaid sent up. He got out last week on early release." I laughed. "McQuaid thinks he's out to get Brian and me."

  Sheila gave me a glance. "It happens, you know."

  "Yeah, sure." I pulled several dried leaves off a rose geranium, which is a pelargonium, actually, discovered in mountains of South Africa by English and Dutch explorers in the 1630s. The dried leaves are wonderful in potpourri. Yellowed parsley isn't good for anything but compost.

  Sheila was taking it seriously. "McQuaid says you and Rosemary could pass for sisters, and that she had his truck. He seems pretty well convinced it was Jacoby."

  "He's also convinced that I need protection," I said. I picked up the hose and turned it on the plant rack. "I had work to do here last night, and he insisted on coming along. He brought Brian, too, so he could protect both of us at the same time. Between the two of them, I didn't get done half of what I needed to do."

  "I sympathize with McQuaid," Sheila said thoughtfully, "but he's got to learn to let go. Dan had the same problem." Dan was Sheila's former fiance She broke their engagement a couple of months ago because she wanted to live her life her own way, and he couldn't give her enough room. "He wanted me to change careers because law enforcement's too dangerous. I kept telling him that I'm only a campus cop. My most dangerous assignment is convening Student Traffic Court."

  I grinned, thinking that Sheila wasn't telling the whole story. "You did bag a real criminal a few months ago, as I recall." My friend Dottie Riddle had been accused of murdering one of her colleagues, and Sheila and I had collaborated to get the matter straightened out.

  Ruby was leaning on the broom. "All men are into this protection thing," she said. "When they were kids, they watched all those big strong TV cowboys with six-guns protecting the frail, helpless women. Now that they're grown up, they get a testosterone rush from taking care of us."

  "Yeah, sure," Sheila said with a laugh. "The same frail, helpless woman who walked across the Great Plains with a kid on each hip and her kitchen on her back. Right?" She shook her head. "If you ask me, men don't learn it from John Wayne. It's genetic. They can't help themselves. I remember my daddy trying to teach me to float. He wouldn't let go. How was I going to learn to float when he had his hand under my butt?"

  "It's a power thing, in my book," I said. "They're strong, we're weak. We need them to look out for us because we're not strong enough and smart enough to do it ourselves."

  "I'm not sure that's always true," Ruby objected. "A person can be responsible because he cared. Like Sheila's daddy teaching her to float. He was doing it because he loved her."

  Sheila snorted. "Sure he loves me. He loves me so much that he'll never let me go. You should've heard him squawk when I moved into my first apartment. And when I became a cop? He wanted to ride in the squad car with me. Would you believe?" She turned to me. "Do you have any lavender soap? The last stuff I got was wonderful."

  "I think so." I turned off the hose. "Ruby can show you where it is. I've got to get out to The Springs — registration for the herb conference starts in a couple of hours." I turned to Ruby. "Keep an ear out for that air conditioner, will you? If it dies, call Harold's Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration. The number's next to the phone."

  "Laurel and I will take care of everything," Ruby said. "You just have a good time at the conference."

  "Stay out of trucks," Sheila said, "and watch for Jacoby."

  I laughed shortly. "I thought protectiveness was a guy thing."

  "Not when we do it," Ruby said. "Go on to your conference, and don't worry."

  "Yes, go." Sheila waved me away. "Have fun with your herby friends. Don't give a second thought to ex-cons or murderers."

  At the conference that day, everything went beautifully. I ran around getting things organized while the other members of the planning committee conducted registration for the early-comers, convened the preconference seminars, and got all the vendors sorted out. The hotel staff did everything right, too: the meeting rooms were set up the way we'd asked, room registration went without a hitch, and even the herb garden was completed — all except for the big rosemary bush, which was still balled and
ready for planting, sitting next to the trench that had been dug for the new fountain, which wasn't hooked up yet either. The newly transplated herbs were looking droopy, though, and the rosemary definitely ought to be in the ground, keeping its feet cool.

  But herbalists don't wilt. We did what herb lovers always do when they get together. We talked nonstop herbs: planting and cultivating and harvesting them, buying them, marketing them, crafting with them, cooking with them. We talked about medicinal herbs, culinary herbs, decorative herbs, fragrance herbs, speciality herbs, landscape herbs. We traded recipes, merchandising tricks, names of reliable wholesalers, and horror stories about the Food and Drug Administration. It was a great day for herbs, and it went on being a great day into the late evening. At ten o'clock, I left the night owls to their late-night drinks and headed for home, bone weary but cheerful. It had cooled off slightly, and there was a breeze from the south. We'd be able to sleep tonight with the windows open.

  My cheerfulness faded when I walked into the kitchen.

  "I didn't think you'd be so late," McQuaid said crossly. He was in jeans, barefooted and barechested, his dark hair wet from the shower. McQuaid is remarkably sexy in bare feet and no shirt, but the appeal was spoiled by his scowl.

  "It's only ten-twenty," I said. "I had a lot of people to talk to. I hung around after dinner to catch up on the gossip." The real business at herb conferences, like anywhere else, goes on in the hallways and elevators and over coffee — or herb tea, if you're a purist.

  "You drove home alone?"

  I tried for a little humor. "I should have brought a bevy of dancing boys?"

  McQuaid's mouth turned up at the corner. "Sorry. I was worried. I guess I've been pacing."

  "You guess?" I looked at the floor. "You've worn a path."

  "You ain't seen nothin' yet." McQuaid thrust something at me. "Here. Take a look."

  He had given me two eight-by-ten glossies, mug shots. An unshaven face with bulging eyes scowled defiantly out at me. The neck was sinewy and thick, and above the tee shirt and onto the throat curled a rattlesnake tattoo. I shuddered. "Not my type."