Lavender Lies Read online

  “He’s in there,” she said, tilting her head toward the chiefs door. She turned a page. “Him an’ the Ranger are talkin’ about the Coleman case.”

  “I don’t suppose he’d mind if I interrupted him for a minute. I need to ask him something.”

  Dorrie looked doubtful. “The chief wouldn’t,” she said. “The Ranger might. He looks like the kind who—”

  But I was already on my way to the door. I rapped lightly and opened it.

  McQuaid and the Ranger were seated at the conference table. McQuaid was in working clothes, a blue shirt, jeans, and scuffed boots. The Ranger looked as if he’d just come from dress parade, with creases down the front of his starched Western-style shirt; gray polyester Western pants, snug-fitting and also sharply creased; and a spit-and-polish finish on his shiny black boots. On the table in front of McQuaid was an untidy litter of handwritten notes on odd bits of paper, napkins, and the backs of matchbooks. Arranged with precision in front of the Ranger were two pencils, a yellow pad, a lap top computer, and his white Stetson.

  “Oh, hi, China,” McQuaid said. He leaned back with a slight grin. “Guess who.”

  The Ranger jumped up and stuck out his hand. “China Bayles! Hey, girl, you are a sight for sore eyes.”

  “Good to see you again, Marvin,” I said.

  There is something about Marvin Wallace’s enthusiasm that always strikes me as phony, and I detest it when an ol’ boy calls me a “girl.” But I usually try to remind myself that this is just Marvin’s style and I shouldn’t take it personally. McQuaid and Marvin had served together on the Houston police force, before McQuaid left to get his criminology degree and Marvin became a Ranger. Marvin drops in at the house when he’s in our area and spends a couple of hours nagging McQuaid about going back into law enforcement. I’m sure he was thrilled down to the toes of his polished boots when he heard that McQuaid had accepted a temporary assignment with the Rangers last February and was now serving as Pecan Springs’ interim chief. It must have given him hope.

  “China and I are getting married,” McQuaid said, putting an arm around my shoulders.

  “This weekend,” I added.

  Marvin was startled. His glance went from me to McQuaid and back again. “This ... weekend?” His tone implied that I must be mistaken.

  “Right,” I said, pleasantly cheerful. “Sunday at four. Would you like to come?”

  Marvin’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Thanks, but no thanks,” he said stiffly. “I don’t make personal plans when I’m on assignment. The case comes first.”

  “Well—” McQuaid said. He dropped his arm uncomfortably, looking as if he were being measured and found to be a half-inch too short. “I mean, sure it does. On the other hand—” He grinned, half-abashed. “I mean, a wedding’s pretty important too.”

  I appreciated McQuaid’s dilemma, trapped between his temporary allegiance to his badge and his long-term commitment to his soon-to-be-wife, but I also needed to be sure that Marvin knew exactly where things stood.

  “Our wedding,” I said firmly, “has been in the works for several months, long before Edgar Coleman got himself shot to death. The arrangements have been made, the food’s planned, and friends are coming from out of town. Our honeymoon is finalized, too. We’re flying to Hawaii early Monday morning.” Marvin was looking grim, so I tried to ease the tension a little by fluttering my hands and swaying my hips in an imitation of the hula. “Aloha, blue Hawaii,” I warbled.

  Marvin was not amused. He turned to McQuaid. “Sounds like we’ve got somewhat of a problem.”

  You’ve got somewhat of a problem, Marvin, I thought darkly. But I put on a bantering smile. “Hey, come on. Where’s the old confidence? Where’s the Ranger spirit? There isn’t a killer in Texas who can buffalo you two guys. This is only Tuesday, for Pete’s sake. Sunday is five whole days away. By then, you’ll have the perp in jail and the case on the county attorney’s desk.”

  As a cheerleader, I thought I sounded pretty darn good, but Marvin was not moved.

  “You can tell a professional lawman by his dedication to the case,” he said. He gave McQuaid a tight smile. “I’ve always considered you a pro’s pro. The best there is, in fact. But if a wedding is more important than bringing a killer to justice—” He shrugged. “Maybe it would be a good idea if I brought another man in from Austin. If China keeps insisting that you get off the case before it’s wrapped up, I sure as hell don’t want to be left shorthanded. Looks like it’s shaping up to be an important investigation.”

  “Just a damn minute,” I said hotly. “Who says I’m insisting that McQuaid get off the case? I didn’t say—”

  “China doesn’t tell me what to do,” McQuaid growled. He folded his arms with a stem look. “And it’s my case, remember? If anybody else comes in from Austin, it’ll be on my say-so, not yours.”

  “Okay, okay,” Marvin said soothingly. He gave me a patronizing smile. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty of wedding details to keep you busy, China—dresses, flowers, food. All that great girl stuff.” He glanced at his watch. “And we’re wasting time, McQuaid. While we’re talking, the killer could strike again.”

  “Oh, right,” I said, sarcastic. “This killer had it in for Edgar Coleman. He’s not interested in anybody else.”

  “China,” McQuaid said warningly. He put his hand on my arm and lowered his voice. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yes,” I said, also in a low tone. “It’s about the case. I’ve been thinking that I ought to talk to—”

  “Let’s go over these suspects one more time.” Marvin sat down in front of his computer and hit a key. The screen blinked into life. “I want to be sure I’ve got their backgrounds straight when I interview them.”

  I tried again. “I’ve made a list of the Council members who—”

  McQuaid squeezed my arm. “Okay if we put it off until tonight?” His tone was apologetic, and his eyes asked me to understand.

  “Glad I got to see you again, China,” Marvin said, addressing his computer screen.

  “Likewise, I’m sure,” I said furiously.

  I turned on my heel and walked smack into the half-open door.

  “What did you do to your nose?” Ruby asked when I got into the car five minutes later.

  “Nothing,” I said in a muffled voice, and slammed the door so hard that the Toyota rocked.

  Ruby tucked her book into her purse. “Then why are you holding those ice cubes to it? And what’s with the doorslamming?”

  “None of your beeswax,” I said. The paper towel was starting to disintegrate and icy water was running down my forearm. When I had my accident in the barn earlier in the summer, I had banged up my nose—this felt like déjà vu. “Let’s get the hell out of here. We’re wasting time.”

  Ruby turned the key in the ignition. “So McQuaid said yes, huh? He wants us to expedite this investigation?”

  “Who cares what McQuaid wants,” I muttered. “He can’t tell me what to do. And Marvin doesn’t need to patronize me.”

  “Marvin who?” Ruby asked.

  “Marvin Spit-and-Polish Wallace,” I said. “The Wonder Ranger.” I leaned my head against the back of the seat, squeezing my eyelids shut to keep the tears from leaking. My nose was hot and throbbing, my face hurt, and I had one hell of a headache. I was going to walk down the aisle wearing an ivory dress and matching black and blue shiners.

  “So what are we going to do?” Ruby asked.

  “We’re going to Winnie’s house,” I snarled. The ice cubes were melting all over my jeans. I opened the window and tossed them out. “Drive, damn it, and stop asking questions. We’ve got suspects to interview, and Sunday’s getting closer by the minute.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The god of silence is represented as a young man, half-naked, holding a finger to his lips and with a white rose in the other hand. A white rose used to be sculptured over the door of banqueting rooms to remind guests that they should never repeat outside the thing
s they had heard in their festive moments. The same emblem was once carved on confessionals. Sometimes actual white roses were hung by a host over the tables where he entertained his guests—the origin of the phrase sub rosa, “under the rose. ” The phrase goes back in English at least until the time of Henry VII.

  The Meaning of Flowers

  Claire Powell

  Winnie Hatcher was one of the first people I met when I came to Pecan Springs. She dropped in at the shop on the day I opened and offered to introduce me at the next meeting of the Myra Merryweather Herb Guild. We’re not friends, exactly—more like friendly acquaintances. Winnie is involved in so many activities—the City Council, the local environmental group, the anti-gun lobby, her garden—that she doesn’t have a lot of time for friends.

  Winnie lives in an older neighborhood, not far from CTSU, on a street shaded by massive pecan trees and wide-spreading live oaks, heavily populated by squirrels and boisterous grackles. Driving past, you probably wouldn’t give her house a second glance. It’s a small cottage fronted by a patch of close-clipped grass about the size of a green pot-holder, bordered by a ragged fringe of bright yellow day lilies. The house itself is weathered gray, with red shutters that could use a coat of paint and a green screen door with the bottom cut out so Winnie’s multitudinous cats can come and go. What is special and different about Winnie is hidden behind the house, where it can’t be seen from the street.

  Ruby knocked at the front door, waited a few minutes, then opened it and called. “Yoo-hoo. Anybody home?” When no one answered, we went around to the picket fence at the side and Ruby called again. “Winnie, we’re here.”

  “Come on in,” a deep, almost masculine voice boomed out. “And mind you latch the gate. I haven’t got around to fixing the hinge.”

  Winnie has been meaning to fix that hinge for years. But a sagging gate doesn’t detract from the beauty of the rose bower overhead, covered by delicate butter-cream blossoms brushed with apricot, and beyond that, a garden glowing with the pale, muted pastels of old roses, blended with the abundant soft blues and greens of Winnie’s carefully tended perennial borders. It’s like stepping into a jewel box heaped with magnificent opals and pearls and topazes.

  “Oh, lovely!” Ruby exclaimed, gazing up at the rose-covered arch. She took a deep breath. “And what a wonderful scent!”

  “Fine, isn’t it?” Winnie said happily, coming toward us down the gravel path with a basket of spent blooms in one hand and clippers in the other, trailed by a black cat and three black-and-white kittens. She was dressed in baggy khaki pants and a faded green shirt with one sleeve ripped at the elbow. Her straggly gray hair was half-covered with a red bandanna, and she wore another one, loose and damp with sweat, looped around her neck. Her face was sun-browned and freckled, and her skin was almost as weathered as the shingles on her house. Winnie pays more attention to her plants than to herself, but beneath that seasoned exterior is a sharply tenacious intellect. I didn’t think Coleman would have been dumb enough to have tried for her vote, but she might know something that would help us.

  I sniffed at one of the climber’s musky blossoms. “I’d love to have a few of these for my bouquet, Winnie.” I spotted some lavender and picked several stems. Sniffing it can sometimes help a headache.

  “Take all you like. It blooms like a sonofagun right up to frost.” She reached up to clip a couple of spent flowers and dropped them into her basket. “It came from my granny’s garden in South Carolina. Dates back to before the Civil War. It’s a Juane Desprez.” Winnie pronounced it Zhohn day-pray.

  “Amazing.” Ruby’s eyes widened in surprise. “It looks awfully healthy to be almost a hundred and fifty years old!”

  “Not this plant, Ruby.” Winnie grinned, showing a chipped front tooth. “Although this one is no spring chicken either.” She stripped off her gloves and dropped them into the basket. “My momma brought it back as a cutting from Charleston after Pearl Harbor, when she went East to see my daddy off to war.” She glanced at me and frowned. “What’d you do to your nose, China?”

  “I walked into a door,” I said briefly.

  She came closer, squinting at my face. “People’ll think somebody socked you a good one.”

  “That’s their problem,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah? Could be yours. Well, are we going to stand out here in the sun, or are we going to sit on the porch and have a cup of tea like civilized folks?” She brushed a bee aside. “I can give you some rose petal jam cakes. I made them for tomorrow’s herb guild meeting.”

  “Jam cakes?” Ruby said quickly. “Terrific!” Winnie’s rose petal jam cakes are unique. She swears she’ll die clutching the recipe, and the only way anybody will get it is to pry it out of her dead fingers.

  “Good,” Winnie said and added, with a glance at me, “And maybe we can fix it so you can stand up in front of Maude Porterfield and say ‘I do’ without looking like a victim of domestic violence. Wouldn’t be good for the groom’s reputation. Yours either.”

  “You know,” Ruby said, “I never thought about plants having birthdays.” She gave a rueful laugh. “Most of mine don’t make it out of their babyhood, poor things. My thumbs are both purple, not green.”

  “Winnie’s roses are antiques,” I said. “They’ve had a lot of birthdays.” I was grateful to Ruby for changing the subject. The less said about my nose, the better. At Ruby’s questioning glance, I added, “Technically, a rose is antique if it was introduced before the Civil War.”

  Winnie pulled off her red neckerchief and mopped her face with it. “I’ve got some that are older than that.” She pointed to an erect, bushy shrub with dark gray-green foliage, covered with bright red hips—the small, flask-shaped fruit that some roses produce. “That gallica, for instance. The Apothecary Rose. Been around since the Middle Ages.”

  Ruby looked at the bush with respect. “Is this what Brother Cadfael would have grown in his garden?”

  “Brother Cadfael?” Winnie asked. “Never heard of him.” She bent over to pick a yellow leaf and held it up critically, examining it. “Damned black spot,” she muttered. “One whiff of my baking soda spray, and you’re history.”

  “Brother Cadfael was invented by Ellis Peters,” I explained. “He’s a fictional twelfth-century monk who grows herbs and solves murders.”

  Winnie headed toward a ramshackle back porch, its screen door canopied by fat pink cabbage roses. “I never read murder mysteries.” She opened the door and set her basket on a bench. “Real ones are hard enough to stomach.”

  “Oh, right,” Ruby said. “Even when it’s somebody like Coleman.”

  Winnie made a face. “We won’t talk about him. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as my momma used to say.”

  Ruby laughed a little. “Yes, the way I hear it, he was asking for trouble. I guess you know him from his Council appearances, huh?”

  Winnie acted as if she hadn’t heard. “If your Brother Cadfael grows roses,” she said to me, “I might be interested in reading about him. Back in the Middle Ages, roses were medicine, you know.” She pulled the bandanna off her head and ran her hands through her hair so that it stood up in damp gray spikes, giving her the look of an overage punk rocker. “Good medicine, too. If somebody had a heart problem, or a stomach ailment or a fever or trouble with his liver, he’d be treated with roses.” She gestured toward a table at the far end of the screened porch, centered with a glass bowl weighted with crystal marbles and filled with large floppy white roses. “You girls sit there and look out over the garden and decide what you’d like to cut for the wedding. I’ll be right back with the jam cakes and tea.”

  We settled ourselves in the wicker chairs, and I glanced around. The porch might have been a set for a 1930’s movie, with an old oak icebox standing against one wall and a bench with a white enameled bucket and wash basin on the other, an embroidered hopsacking towel hanging above it. The painted floor was covered with a worn braided rug, on which lay several napping cats, like orange an
d white and gray dust mops. Somebody had told me that Winnie had inherited a great deal of money from her parents when they died ten years ago, but it didn’t show in the modest way she lived.

  “ ‘Treated with roses’?” Ruby asked, after we sat down. She leaned forward and sniffed deeply at the bouquet of white roses. “How do you treat somebody with roses?”

  “With a tea made from the petals,” I said. “Or with rose honey or rose syrup. Or rose vinegar, or oil of roses, or rosewater. Or you could make rosehips into jam, or brew them as tea, or powder them to be added to wine. The hips are loaded with vitamin C and some P and K—although of course people didn’t know that back then. They just knew it worked.” I inhaled the fragrance of the roses. “The scent was thought to relieve headaches and encourage sleep, too. Early aromatherapy. And it still works.”

  With a glance over her shoulder, Ruby lowered her voice. “Did you notice the way Winnie avoided my question about Coleman? She must know something.”

  “If she does, I doubt if Marvin Wallace could get it out of her,” I said, with a certain satisfaction.

  Ruby nodded. “No matter how much Council members may know about Coleman, they aren’t going to tell a Ranger.” She looked up as Winnie came toward us. “Oh, goodie! Jam cakes!”

  Winnie put the tray on the table and handed me a damp cheesecloth pad, folded into a poultice. “Hold this across your nose and under your eyes,” she instructed.

  “Rose petals?” I asked, taking it.

  “Right.” Winnie set three glasses and a pitcher on the table, followed by a plate of jam cakes decorated with fresh mint leaves and a single white rose. “In India, they use roses to treat abrasions and inflammations.” She grinned. “I’d say you’ve got one hell of an inflamed nose, China. Comes from sticking it into somebody’s business, I don’t doubt.”