2 Landscape in Scarlet

by Melanie Jackson

  Chapter 4

  The undertow of evening was pulling on the fair by the time Juliet got back to her tent. She had had only two sales while she was gone, Rose informed her regretfully.

  “I think things are winding down,” she said back absently and then scrubbed at her face. She was cold and tired and looking forward to sitting by the fire with a cat in her lap. “They’ll be better tomorrow morning.”

  “I hope so.”

  They were definitely seeing the end of the party. People were noticing the dark creeping in, the chill, the ocean wind, and they were gathering up their children and walking up the street to their abandoned cars and the motor court inn. It was time for dinner—if there was room for any more food after the hotdogs and caramel apples. It was time to scurry away from the dying sun and seek shelter from the dangerous things in the night. Time to turn on the TV and maybe watch a scary movie about dead things, played by actors, also long dead while their digitized ghosts lingered on in energy waves to haunt the living world. Then time for bed, for sleep, for dreams.

  Almost no one needed any more wine or trinkets, or artery-clogging food—and those that did purchased them quickly and left. Only a few vendors were left in their booths when the Cyclops opened its yellow eye and looked over the remains of the day’s feast.

  Madame Mimm, Lulu Weston and her assistant, and Xander Lawson left as a group, heading for the inn. They weren’t chatting and Lulu looked small huddled inside her sweater. She wondered if someone had told them of Comstock’s death. There hadn’t been time for Sheriff Garret to question anyone, but word had a way of getting around regardless.

  One more day of festival, Juliet found herself thinking as she pulled tarps over her table. One more day and then everyone would go home, including the murderer. For no reason that she could explain, Juliet was sure that the murderer was still there and that it had been one of the vendors—one of the strangers—that had done the deed.

  At least she wouldn’t have to worry about thieves. There would be more than just the one security guard patrolling that night. Poor Garret and Henderson.

  “Are you ready?” Rose asked. Her face was shadowy.

  “Ready?” Juliet asked.

  “To go to Elizabeth’s. She’s expecting us tonight.”

  “Yes,” she said, but was sorry that Rose had reminded her. “And very ready for some dinner.”

  She never had gotten around to eating that fried Twinkie and was feeling the need. Juliet hurried toward the kettle korn booth. Maybe it wasn’t too late to get some popcorn.

  * * *

  “The part about finding dead people wasn’t in the retirement brochure. No one said ‘come to California and discover dead bodies,’ ” Juliet complained to Esteban as they settled in at Elizabeth and Asher’s cottage. Asher was out and they had come to keep his mother company. Juliet had brought a bag of kettle korn, and Esteban brandy. Rose had some carrot sticks and a bag of knitting. She took special orders for people who wanted things knit out of their pet’s fur. It wasn’t inexpensive because she had to first spin fur into yarn but there were always orders.

  “You got a brochure? I’m jealous. All I got was a bullet. But then I’m a lot tougher than a woman could be.”

  “Braggart.” Juliet threw her napkin at him. Rose looked startled but Elizabeth just smiled indulgently and kept pouring tea. That was because Rose was a little afraid of Esteban and Elizabeth was not. And they were both correct in their gut feelings. Esteban could be a dangerous man. It was also true that he would never hurt either one of them, or Juliet either. “Now you have a matched set. A few more and you can make a charm bracelet. Or, you could stop at earrings. It’s what a smart man would do.”

  They joked about it because it was that or cry.

  “Now I know what to make you for Christmas,” he said.

  “Thoughtful of you but—yuck.”

  Rose smiled uneasily as they bantered, though Esteban was a resident of Bartholomew’s Wood and a regular visitor at Elizabeth’s teas. They all stopped in to see her from time to time because it was so hard for her to get around in a wheelchair, particularly after nightfall, which came early in the autumn. Juliet thought she knew why Elizabeth and Raphael remained in the compound in spite of the physical inconveniences. If they had a house they would have to hire staff—a maid and gardener at the least. They had the money for it, but for intensely private people, having others around when they were working would be a constant irritant. Here they were sheltered, surrounded by other artists who respected their privacy, and had a system that saw to their needs without undue intrusion into their creative lives.

  “Rose, you knew Comstock, at least a bit,” Juliet said. “Was he always so … creepy?”

  Juliet still would have preferred to have nothing to do with the situation, but there was a weird intimacy to finding someone who has died, especially if murdered. She couldn’t say why, but being the first person to find the body conferred an obligation. The obligation was, in part, that though one couldn’t fix the past and prevent the death, one did need to try and alter the future—especially if it looked like a murderer might get away with the killing. The echoes of the victim’s death demanded it.

  “I didn’t know him—not really,” Rose said. “But there were stories—never proved—but enough rumors that, well, they got around outside of his own town.” She took a cup of tea from Elizabeth. No one offered her brandy. Rose did not usually partake of amnesia in a bottle. Not publicly.

  Juliet understood what she meant. Sometimes rumors reached a critical mass and exploded into general public awareness. That didn’t mean they were true. And personal experience had taught her that people got upset when they found out that their world was not hermetically sealed, that sometimes unpleasantness and danger leaked in. Sometimes they reacted strongly when it happened and they went looking for someone to blame.

  “What kind of rumors?” she asked.

  Rose blushed and Juliet knew that it was something sexual or at least a personal sin rather than monetary malfeasance.

  “He was a troop leader in some kind of a boys’ club for the Parks and Recreation Department. There were stories about him supplying the boys with beer and other things. For a price.” Rose talked to her knitting. “He eventually got fired.”

  “Did any of the kids come forward to complain? I don’t recall hearing anything,” Esteban asked, accepting a teacup and then opening the brandy to add a splash. He did partake, though Juliet had doubts about there being enough liquor to ever make Esteban completely forget himself.

  “No. Not a one. But … well, would you leave your child in a club if there were stories like that? And the liability for the Parks and Recreation Department was too high for them to consent to keeping him on the job. They offered him something else but he refused.”

  “In all honesty I wouldn’t leave a child there.” Juliet didn’t like saying it, but when it came to children…. No, she wouldn’t take the chance. “He denied wrongdoing?”

  “Of course. Emphatically. But what else could he say? He appealed the decision to let him go and it went to an arbitrator or something, but he lost. And then Xander Lawson’s nephew—the son of his youngest sister—and some other boy overdosed. The other boy didn’t die, but Joel Cray did. I can’t say that it was a huge tragedy to most of the other students. He was a deceitful, vicious bully, always in trouble, too, but once he died….”

  “A dead kid is a dead kid,” Juliet murmured. “Parents panic and want someone to blame.”

  Standing on what they saw as moral high ground, feeling no guilt or empathy for spreading and believing rumors without proof—nor should they feel guilt. If they were right.

  But if they erred? If Comstock were innocent?

  She thought of the dead man’s face as he was loaded into a body bag. It had lost its integrity, its humanness—supposing he had ever had any. The distorted grimace of pain and then onset of rigor mortis while the face was shoved askew by the groun
d was so exaggerated that Juliet had to wonder if he had torn muscles in the final moments of life. Had anything he had done in life deserved such a death?

  “Comstock would have been the easiest target, yes?” Esteban added, pulling Juliet away from her grim memory.

  “I fear so. At the time it struck me as being.…”

  “Vindictive? Unfair?” Juliet suggested.

  “Well, yes. You see, Lulu lived in the same building with him. When it became apparent that there wasn’t any evidence that he was responsible and the police wouldn’t arrest him, she started up a petition to get him thrown out. She was friends with Xander and Lois—Madame Mimm, she was also Joel’s aunt, you see—and Lulu wanted to help her friends get justice.”

  Xander and Madame Mimm were siblings. And Lulu a close friend. Juliet frowned, not liking the way this was adding up.

  “Well, I guess they wouldn’t want him in the rec room and swimming pool or any place he could meet kids,” Elizabeth said, but she obviously didn’t care for what they had done either.

  “Yes—except there are no children in the building,” Rose said. “So, he got angry and decided to sue. You may have heard about this. It got some attention in the news. Anyhow, the jury found in his favor, but they awarded him only one dollar in damages. And, of course, he had to move after that. How could he stay?”

  “Carry rancor to the grave but no further,” Juliet muttered and Esteban looked at her. “I wonder if everyone is happy now that he’s dead.”

  Rose shuddered.

  “I don’t know how anyone stands it. Out there.” Again, she sounded very fearful.

  “We are lucky to live here,” Juliet said, but didn’t remind her that murder had visited them last summer. “Rose, I was thinking about taking a self-defense refresher course. Would you like to come with me? It makes me feel so much better to know that there are nonlethal ways of handling a bad situation, no matter when or where it happens.”

  Esteban shot her a glance.

  “You … you have a gun, don’t you?” Rose asked.

  “Yes.” Rose knew this already. “But sometimes one can deal with things using nonlethal force. It’s a matter of learning how to improvise so you don’t have to shoot up your plaster and have bodies leaking on the upholstery.”

  Esteban started to smile.

  “I am betting, bella, that anytime you pick up a weapon it will be lethal. And anything can be a weapon.”

  “Like a kitchen knife,” Rose suggested, entering into the spirit of the conversation.

  “A nail gun,” Elizabeth said.

  Juliet shook her head at their bloodthirsty answers but had to smile at the enthusiasm.

  “More like a frying pan, at least at my place. But, I have to admit that, that if I feel the need to hit someone with a frying pan, I will be using lethal force. You should never pick up a weapon if you don’t mean to use it. That’s the first thing they teach you. Reach for the pan, you better mean it.” She demonstrated a backhand stroke that would have looked good on a tennis court.

  Rose giggled.

  “Anyway, I wasn’t thinking of a defense class for using household items as weaponry. More like one that practices kicking guys in the balls and poking their eyes out. You know, basic self-defense with knees and elbows.”

  Rose gasped but then giggled again.

  “Think about it,” Juliet said and let the matter go.

  The party broke up a little before nine. Rose was walking down the path to her bungalow and Juliet and Esteban needed to travel up to the third and fourth terraces.

  “I’ll walk down with you,” Juliet finally said to Rose, shivering a little as the wind pushed by her.

  “And leave me to play the role of the cad? I shall be a gentleman and see you both down,” Esteban insisted.

  Rose stuttered something about that being very nice. Juliet didn’t think he was being nice. He knew that she wanted to talk to Raphael and proposed to join the conversation unless expressly forbidden to participate. And since it wasn’t a lovers’ tryst, and Esteban’s insights could be useful, Juliet didn’t bother making any excuses for why his company wasn’t needed.

  Anyway, how could she explain that her natural reaction to being part of another murder investigation was to speak to the artist who had helped her solve the last one?

  They bade Rose a good night and as soon as her door closed, they turned toward Raphael’s bungalow where a light burned on the porch. They were expected.

  “Bella, do you need a refresher course in self-defense?” Esteban asked her. “Because we could spar if that is what you want. I am thinking that your training was … comprehensive, yes?”

  “Yes.” Her boss had insisted though she never planned on being involved in any kind of field work. She said nothing about him calling her bella. It meant beautiful in Spanish. “But I wasn’t suggesting it for me—though there is no harm in brushing up.”

  “You are trying to help the mouse?” he asked. “That is generous of you.”

  “Well, someone has to do it. She’s going to get an ulcer if she doesn’t stop worrying.”

  “Come in,” Raphael said, answering the door almost at once when Esteban knocked. “I had almost despaired of you.”

  “You know me rather too well,” Juliet said, glad to draw near the potbellied stove. The night had gone from merely crisp to downright cold in the hours she had been at Elizabeth’s cottage. “And now I feel like we are playing at being the three musketeers. Which is fine as long as you are Athos and Porthos and I get to be Aramis.”

  “Tous pour un, un pour tous,” Raphael murmured, and Juliet suspected that he had read Dumas in the original French. As had she. The thought made her feel a shade less grim.

  “This is a bad business though,” Raphael said.

  “And it will be bad for business if it isn’t resolved,” Esteban added, also taking a seat. “The news crews will be back and scare away the families and bring in the thrill seekers.”

  “Who don’t buy art. Not even t-shirts.” Juliet nodded.

  “So, we agree. Tell me about what happened,” Raphael said. “Not the official version, please. I have the general outline of what the sheriff believes took place.”

  “You know I could be wrong about what I am thinking. It happened before,” Juliet reminded him, not asking him how he had discovered what the sheriff thought. It could be that Garret also liked discussing things with Raphael.

  “Yes, once, but I want to hear your theory anyway.” He was calm, taking away any drama from the memory of her one botched case.

  Juliet took a breath. She didn’t bother trying to dress up her thoughts with “alleged” and “possibly.” She simply said what was on her mind.

  “I think he was poisoned—with taxine or some other vegetable alkaloid, probably administered through his asthma inhaler. I believe the killer followed him when he saw that Comstock was really ill and headed for the stables which were mostly deserted at that time because of the chunkin. I think the killer shoved him into the bushes where the body would be harder to find and stayed there until he—or she—was sure Comstock was dead, willing to finish the job if the drug didn’t work. And we have three really good suspects for the murder—none of whom feel quite right to me but who most certainly could have done it and who will have to be questioned.”

  “Go on. Tell me about them,” he said. “Why would they turn their hands to murder?”

  Esteban stretched out his legs, getting comfortable, content that she do the talking. Raphael also looked completely at ease, the light of the fire playing over his handsome though rather aquiline face.

  Juliet laughed shortly. They were like friends on a camping trip, telling ghost stories around the campfire. Of course, these stories were real and potentially deadly.

  “There was a not very nice boy named Joel Gray.…”

  Chapter 5

  All the stores downtown were decorated with sheaves of corn and flamboyant squash and gourds. There was no ra
in, but the trees along the street danced in the wind, swaying left and right and whispering incessantly as they continued to disassemble themselves and leave their colorful litter in the gutter.

  Juliet had left the compound early. She decided not to be tempted by fair food which was caloric and lousy, and stopped at the Spalding’s bakery for a pumpkin cupcake, which was the most delicious thing she could imagine. Had she no fear of fat she would probably end up bankrupt and owing the bakery her soul to pay off her line of credit. But since she did fear fat, she only got three—one for her, one for Garret, and one for Rose—and a cup of coffee since she liked hers rather weak and not so thick with grounds that she couldn’t see through it.

  There was also, most conveniently, enough time to drop by Garret’s office and have a little chat, if Dave Spalding hurried. He did not seem inclined to haste but wished to tell everyone about deciding to try for a place on Cupcake Wars.

  Juliet gritted her teeth and smiled.

  The sheriff was in, as she expected him to be. It was apparent that he hadn’t spent the night with his feet up, sipping beer and watching football. In fact, there was a slight bruise on his left cheek almost as dark as the bags under his eyes.

  “Juliet?” he asked hopefully as she opened her white bag and pulled out a pumpkin cupcake. His cheeks were unshaven, proving the night had been a long one and he hadn’t been home yet. Garret as much as anyone knew that there was a tourist ecosystem that could be disrupted by a killing and would do everything he could to prevent it causing damage. “Have you heard anything, or had any thoughts since yesterday?”

  She could understand why he was hoping for a positive answer. The police department was a small one and there were a lot of people at the fair. Any of them could be the killer.

  “Eat up. Sugar will give you energy. You seem to need it since you are walking into doors.”