Larkspur

by Sheila Simonson

  D'Angelo introduced me to his future wife in neutral tones.

  She shook hands. "Awful, wasn't it? Llewellyn may have had his faults but he was a first-rate poet. He deserved better."

  "The service was not without its dramatic moments."

  She threw back her head and laughed. "My God, what a wonderful woman. Has she ever considered theater? I mean acting in plays, as opposed to what we saw today. I suppose her voice is untrained."

  "You could ask." If Denise took up acting maybe she'd ease off Dennis and Ginger.

  We talked for a while about voices that didn't fit the speakers' personalities. With Denise the problem was not so much her voice as what she said. D'Angelo listened and sipped coffee. Finally he murmured, into a pause, "I'm supposed to join your mother at the townhouse in about an hour. It would be less harrowing if I'd met her."

  I looked at the eddying poets. "Let's go get it over with, then. She's predisposed to like you, you know."

  "Oh?"

  "Llewellyn told her you were willing to do the shitwork."

  After a startled pause, Martha Finn laughed her throaty laugh, and D'Angelo's tension seemed to ease.

  As we made our way through the thronged lawyers, I saw that Lydia had crashed the party. She was standing at Ma's right hand and saying something so hearty it shook the fringes of her hand-loomed shawl. Ma wore the blank look she puts on when she's about to say something awful like, "Do I know you?"

  I picked up my pace. "Mother..."

  Ma raised an eyebrow at me.

  "I see you've met Lydia. Huff Press," I added, with a warning grimace.

  Ma's blankness gave way to comprehension. She said a flattering word about a chapbook the press had printed that spring.

  Lydia's gray eyes lit, and she was off on a technical discussion of the problem of woodcuts in computerized publishing. I let her talk for awhile then interrupted her as ruthlessly as she had interrupted Ma's conversation with the poets who were now drifting Denise's direction. Someone had found Denise a chair. She was surrounded by admirers.

  "Ma, this is your partner in crime, Winton D'Angelo."

  Mother brightened and shook hands with D'Angelo and Martha. Lydia watched the introductions with a proprietary air, shawl adroop, but she made no further attempt to monopolize the conversation. By the time we went out to hail a taxi I could see that Ma had warmed to her. It's hard to resist eager admiration.

  We were running late. I would have liked to have had time to savor Llewellyn's townhouse--decor and view. Llewellyn's taste had been cheerfully eclectic--a jade horse here, a French seascape there--but the whole had a lived-in charm that expressed the happier side of the poet's personality. I waited in a little brick-walled garden, a glass of wine in my hand, while the lawyers gave Ma and D'Angelo Llewellyn's papers. There were legal formalities. Finally we called another cab, whipped by the St. Francis for Mother's bag, and made it to the airport in time to board the small propjet.

  D'Angelo and Martha had left before we did with the papers. Neither of the Joneses had come to the townhouse. It would belong to Dennis. It was hard to imagine him in a setting so essentially urban. Denise, however, would be in her element.

  The flight was bumpy and noisy. Ma dozed. I stared down at the dun-colored valleys and earthquake-scarred hills below. North of Red Bluff the air turned calmer. We flew by the west face of Mt. Shasta. It was short of snow, thanks to the drought, but Ma was impressed. We landed at Weed at five thirty. Jay didn't meet us.

  That was not a problem, though Ma seemed disappointed. I was disappointed. I wondered if there had been some development in the investigation. Had Miguel surfaced? We declined rides with D'Angelo and the Huffs, climbed into Ma's rented car, and headed north.

  The drive to Monte takes about an hour. I was at the wheel. At first we talked family. Then Mother commented on the service and reception. She seemed fascinated with Denise, whom she had seen dance thirty years before. She talked about her friends among the poets. She didn't mention D'Angelo. Of Lydia she said merely, "That is an ambitious woman."

  We wound slowly up the wooded slope of the Siskiyous where almost every turn produces a spectacular view. Ma was drinking in the scenery. After awhile she said, "Tell me about the investigation. I gather the young chauffeur did it."

  I hesitated. There had been little talk of the murder at the reception, probably because everyone was making the assumption Ma had made. "He's still missing," I said neutrally.

  Ma sighed. "I suppose Dai used him. Dai was a good poet, but being a good poet doesn't necessarily translate into being a good person. Sometimes the opposite. Frost was a difficult man, Thomas an alcoholic."

  "I liked Llewellyn."

  "Yes, darling, but you didn't have to put up with him day in and day out. He had the arrogance of wealth as well as an artistic ego, a double load. I've seen him deliver crushing snubs."

  "Are you saying he was asking for it?"

  "Heavens. No, I'm just trying to understand. If Hal had killed Dai I wouldn't have been surprised. They provoked each other deliberately sometimes."

  I supposed Llewellyn's affair with D'Angelo could be classified as provocation. I didn't say anything to Ma about it. She'd find out, sooner or later. "There's the money, too."

  "But surely Dai didn't leave the boy much." She was still thinking of Miguel as the murderer.

  When I didn't reply she went on, "Doesn't your...Jay tell you what's happening?"

  "In a general way. He's been digging for motives, since everyone at the lodge had means and opportunity. Miguel will get $25,000 when the estate's settled."

  Ma snorted.

  "Junkies have killed people for a couple of dollars. $25,000 would go a long way in Baja."

  We contemplated Yankee dollars in a depressed economy. I took the first Monte exit, drove to the mall, and showed Ma the bookstore. I think she found the setting disappointing. She patronized Ginger but not grossly. We left. I was hungry, and the Eagle Cap Lodge lay fifteen miles out of town.

  I drove to my apartment and handed Ma the keys to the rental. "I'll lead you out there in the Toyota. Do you want to see my apartment now or tomorrow?"

  "I think I need a shower and dinner. Let's go on to the lodge."

  There was no sign of Jay's Blazer in the lot, so I hopped in my car and led the way. The manager escorted us to Ma's suite upstairs in the main lodge. Dad had rented a cabin the year before. The man bowed us in the door and promised to reserve us a table in the dining room.

  "Oh, Lark, look!"

  I shut the door and turned. Ma was standing at a low table by the French door that led to a little balcony. "Nice view?"

  "I mean the flowers! I wonder who sent them?"

  My eyes adjusted to the indoor light. An exuberant bouquet of daisies in a tall vase graced the table--white daisies, lilac daisies, black-eyed Susans, the Shasta daisy.

  "Maybe Dad..."

  Ma found a card, read it, and began to laugh.

  "What is it?"

  She handed me the card, still chortling.

  "Welcome to Monte! Goats and monkeys! Sorry I couldn't make it." It was signed "Jay."

  I was pleased but a bit jealous. He had sent me a bouquet of roses when he couldn't make the playoff game and a formal arrangement for the opening of the bookstore, to which he did come, but this posy showed imagination. "Uh, goats and monkeys?"

  "Othello welcoming the doge to Cyprus." Ma plumped onto the couch and tossed her funereal gloves at the table. "Is Jay in the throes of jealousy?"

  "More likely in the throes of investigation. You wanted a shower?" I was hungry.

  Ma went off to get ready. I leaned back and stared out the window. The room overlooked a formal garden and a croquet lawn. Handsome people in fashionable resort wear were strolling among the flowers.

  While Ma was dressing, Martha Finn called to invite her to D'Angelo's apartment for cocktails Sunday. I said I'd relay the message.

  Dinner was worth waiting for. It was ne
arly ten before I reached Monte. A light showed in my living room.

  I trudged upstairs and unlocked the door. "Ma liked the flowers."

  "Good."

  "And she got the joke." I set my handbag on the coffee table. Then I took a good look at Jay. I suppose I shrieked. "What happened?"

  "I had an encounter," he said around a split lip, "with a bear."

  "Oh, shit. Ted Peltz." I wanted to touch him and was afraid to, so I stood in the middle of my heirloom Turkish carpet and gaped. Besides the split lip, he had a purpling contusion on his right cheekbone, and he was sitting in that careful way that indicates taped ribs. His right hand was swollen.

  He eased his shoulders against the sofa back. "I went out to interrogate the Peltzes and stepped--excuse me, dived--into a little domestic disturbance. Fortunately I had...backup." His speech was the slightest bit slurred.

  I sat, very gingerly, on the edge of the couch and touched his face. The unbruised part. "They must have given you something."

  "Pain pill. How was the trip?"

  I let my hand drop to my lap. "Of all the irrelevant questions."

  "Hey, don't cry. He looks worse."

  At that moment I hoped Ted Peltz was dead. Being a civilized person I repressed the thought, but it was there. I sniffed. "Tell me."

  He meditated. "Well, I pulled up, and I could see there was trouble. Peltz and his wife were on the porch. The door was open, as if she'd run out to get away from him. She was screaming, and he was smashing at her with his fists."

  "Jesus."

  "I called for the patrol car. Then I got out and drew my gun. I yelled at him to freeze, but he didn't stop. It was like he didn't hear me."

  I shivered.

  "He was whaling away at her, and she was screaming and twisting around, trying to escape. He threw her against one of the posts that hold the porch up. I couldn't get a clear shot."

  "So you dived in."

  He was silent.

  "Didn't you?"

  He closed his eyes.

  "Why didn't you wait for Cowan--it was Cowan?"

  "Dan, yeah."

  "She should have left him," I gritted. "I can't understand that kind of passivity. It doesn't make sense. She must have known what he was like."

  He said carefully, "My stepfather--my first stepfather, not Alf--was an abusive drunk. I don't mean he was always drunk or always violent. Ma married him when I was four, and I guess he didn't get out of control until the second baby came, Karen. He was almost human when he was sober." Jay had two half-sisters, Judy and Karen, as well as his fifteen year old brother, Freddy, Alf's son. Jay's father had been killed in Korea when Jay was a couple of months old.

  I waited.

  "Richardson didn't want another kid. After Karen was born the...episodes got closer together. He was getting plowed every weekend, and when he got plowed he'd go after Karen. Ma would step in, and Richardson would beat on her. That went on for almost three years."

  "For Godsake, why didn't your mother leave him?"

  "She was a high-school graduate with no job experience. Richardson made a decent living as a farm-machinery salesman. She was afraid to stay with him and afraid to leave him."

  I couldn't say any thing to that. My own life had been so far removed from the threat of poverty as to make the dilemma incomprehensible. Almost.

  He went on, eyes, closed, "One Saturday he got himself wasted and started in on Karen. He threw her across the room. He broke her collarbone and knocked her cold, concussed her. Then he sobered up and started crying. Ma took Karen to the hospital. When they released her, Ma piled us kids into the Volkswagen and left Richardson."

  "How old were you?"

  "Ten. It was grim for a while." He drew a breath, wincing. "But not as grim as waiting around for my stepfather to murder my mother."

  I was silent.

  After a long moment he said, "I think I was trying to explain to you why I didn't wait for Dan to show up."

  "I understand."

  He looked at me. "No, you don't." He shut his eyes again. "I had this theory I would wade in and administer a choke hold. Mind you, that's a no-no, but I was well-taught, and I thought I could do it. Theory bumped up against fact."

  "It didn't work?" A choke hold is supposed to render a perpetrator unconscious by cutting off the supply of blood to the brain. It sometimes does that permanently.

  Jay said wryly, "It made him mad. Madder."

  "Then what?"

  "Then we rolled down the steps and across the yard. Tearing into it. He threw me against the satellite dish. That's when my ribs got it."

  My hands were clenched in my lap. I flexed the fingers. "And?"

  "He may be heavier, but I'm quicker. Also he was carrying a lot of blubber. I was bashing his head against the edge of the satellite dish when Dan pulled me off him."

  I waited.

  "I think Dan must have used the choke hold, but I'll deny it under oath. That fucker was on something, maybe angel dust, maybe crack. Feeling no pain."

  "An animal."

  "Whatever. When Dan got the cuffs on Peltz, he radioed for the chopper. This time it came. They flew Mrs. Peltz to County Hospital, and they think they'll be able to prevent permanent brain damage. He fractured her skull."

  "My God."

  "The ambulance came, too. The medics strapped me up and hauled Peltz to the hospital with Dan riding shotgun."

  "Remind me to buy Cowan a six pack."

  "Goddamn, Lark, don't patronize Dan," Jay said through clenched teeth. "He's a good cop."

  This was a bone of contention between us. After a moment I said, "Two sixpacks?"

  I can count on Jay's sense of humor. His mouth relaxed. "A case of Coors. Don't be cheap."

  I leaned back against the couch. "When did all this happen?"

  "Around eleven. The idea of sending flowers out to the hotel came to me around three. Must've been the hospital ambiance."

  When I didn't say anything, he went on, "I knew I'd be stuck at the hospital or the courthouse until nine at least. I was frustrated. I'd also prefer not to meet your mother looking like the wrong end of an Ali fight, but it was probably in the stars."

  "Ma was flattered by the flowers."

  "Good."

  "Did you eat anything?"

  "Please. Don't mention food."

  I sat up. The couch jounced, and Jay groaned. "I'm sorry. Did he hit you in the stomach?"

  "He tried. In defense of my midsection I'm a regular tiger, though. I don't think he jarred anything loose. Except my ribs. And my professional judgment."

  Quit, I started to say. Resign. Take the college job. I was ready to throw myself on the floor and beg and grovel, but it did occur to me that was not the moment to raise the issue. I managed to bite back the words. "Tell me what I can do for you."

  He sighed. "Help me out of this shirt."

  "What?"

  "I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to get myself undressed and into bed. It got to be a very large problem. Like the national debt."

  I stood up and grasped his left hand. "Come on, tiger."

  "Do I have to move?"

  "If you wait it'll get worse."

  I put him to bed with another pain pill. Then I went back into the living room and thought.

  I thought about Jay and about my own reaction to the Peltz story. Was I going to be able to handle that side of Jay's job? Jay was an investigator, at least temporarily a supervisor, and most of the time he pushed papers. He didn't particularly like pushing papers. I wondered if he had to have action and thought miserable Freudian thoughts about the nature of accidents. Did he just happen to find himself in dangerous situations, or did he seek them out subconsciously? I got a very bad headache.

  My thoughts strayed, as they had done since Friday, to the murder of Dai Llewellyn. Ted Peltz would surely have been at the top of the list of suspects if Miguel had not disappeared. I wished Miguel would turn up. Sightings of the Mercedes from as far away a
s Arizona and Montana had consumed a lot of Jay's time during the past week.

  Ted Peltz. I had been assuming a man out on bail on a serious charge would not be stupid enough to commit another crime, but my assumption was clearly wrong. He must have known he was under surveillance, yet he had assaulted his wife with deadly effect under the influence, if Jay was right, of an illegal drug. Whether stupid or not, Peltz had to be crazy. The murder of Llewellyn was a bizarre act. Nothing straightforward about stewed larkspur.

  Then there was Denise. If Peltz had thought he had a motive for murdering Llewellyn, Denise must have known she had. Jay believed Llewellyn had supported her--and Dennis. If that were true, then she must have expected Llewellyn to leave his son something, perhaps not as much as he had done, but something. Denise had a straightforward motive for killing the old man, but she was not a straightforward woman, and if she had made up her mind to commit murder, she would surely have chosen a melodramatic, even bizarre method.

  If I had been inclined to regard Denise as a silly woman, my opinion had altered since the funeral. Denise was as clever as paint and capable de tout.

  That was a depressing thought, too. I was fond of Dennis. I wanted him to benefit from his father's death. The headache tightened around my temples. Well, there was always D'Angelo.

  I could not imagine D'Angelo shooting Llewellyn or stabbing him, face to face. Poison was well within his scope, though, and he had supplied us with the motive. That he had done so freely was not necessarily a sign of innocence. A clever murderer might well show such disarming frankness, so long as he believed others to be under heavier suspicion. I had no strong feelings about D'Angelo, but I did like Martha. I hoped he wasn't guilty.

  As for the Huffs, they had a motive of sorts. My brief experience of running a small business made me understand the importance of the cancelled loans and the seed money--not a trivial motive but surely not as strong as Denise's. As for other feelings, I had sensed that Bill was uncomfortable in Llewellyn's company. It was a mere impression, however, hardly evidence. Lydia seemed the more balanced of the two, but her interest in Llewellyn's work was clearly stronger than Bill's.

  What about Janey? What about Domingo? At that point my headache reached the aspirin stage, and I went into the bathroom and took two.