Larkspur

by Sheila Simonson

  Ma answered him absently. She was watching me. I grimaced and rolled my eyes kitchenward. Ma's frown deepened.

  As I began to move back toward the hallway, I heard the three women erupt from the kitchen on a gale of giggles, Lydia's rather shrill. I moved up to the arch and waited for them.

  Martha led the way, bearing a tray of canapés on which peeled shrimp figured largely. Janey was carrying a bowl of salsa and a basket of assorted crackers. Lydia brought up the rear, empty-handed. When she spotted me, she trolled out gaily, "Were you about to send a posse for me? Two white wines, Win. One with spritzer." Innocent as a newborn babe.

  "I had to stop Janey from pigging out on the crackers and salsa," Lydia added with one of her malicious grins.

  Janey scowled at her and put the crackers down on the coffee table. Ma was setting the neat stacks of notebooks on the carpet beneath the table to make room for the goodies.

  Everyone fluttered and settled, so many doves in the cote.

  Lydia--could she not sit still?--jumped up again and danced over to D'Angelo. "Oh, gorgeous. Lime slices. I'll take the tray, Win. Mix yourself a nice gentlemanly scotch, and let me be your cup-bearer. Lark?" She thrust the tray out at me.

  I took my tall ginger ale glass and a paper napkin. The two gin and tonic glasses sat smugly and identically beside each other. My stomach twisted. Surely Lydia hadn't had a chance to lace Ma's drink. Or mine.

  The phone rang.

  "Damn," D'Angelo said mildly. "Can you get that, Martha?"

  Martha popped a prawn in her mouth and looked around.

  "Over by the fern."

  "Right." She rose, in no hurry, and caught the phone on the fourth ring.

  My hand was clenched around the cold glass so hard it was a wonder I didn't shatter it.

  "Hmm? Oh, hi."

  D'Angelo brought the wine glasses to the table and went back for his scotch. I was still frozen in the doorway. Ma and Janey were dipping prawns in the fiery-looking salsa.

  "Sure, Bill. I'll get her." Martha turned. "Lydia, it's Bill."

  Lydia made a face and trotted to her, taking the receiver. It was one of those portable phones that always sound tinny. "Thanks. What is it, darling? We're...what?" Her voice rose.

  I was watching her closely. She went so pale I thought she was going to faint.

  "No. No, look again, I'm sure I saw it..." She clung to the receiver. "Try the cabinet."

  I took a step into the room, the better to see her face.

  "Right. Yes. Let me know." She hung up, slowly. Her color was coming back. She met my eyes, hers glittering. Her lips moved on a single syllable, but I couldn't read them.

  "What did Daddy want?" Janey, wine glass in hand, took a sip.

  "Just looking for something he misplaced." Lydia moved slowly back toward the table. "Men. They can never find anything. Why is that, Win?" She settled on the oatmeal couch.

  "Dunno," D'Angelo said cheerfully. "I can. Maybe it's because I put everything where I can find it." He sat beside her and swallowed scotch.

  Lydia reached for her gin and tonic and took a large gulp. She glanced up at me as I made my way back to the low-slung chair. Her eyes glinted. "How are the local Gestapo doing?"

  I mis-stepped. Ma drew in a sharp breath, and all of us stared at Lydia.

  A hectic flush reddened her cheekbones. She finished her drink in a second large gulp and got up again. "I need another. Do you mind, Win?"

  He gaped at her. "Feel free."

  I reached the chair and sat slowly. So Jay was at the Huffs' house, probably searching it. Why wasn't Lydia proclaiming the fact at the top of her lungs? Gestapo indeed. Was Bill under arrest? If he were, surely he would have told Lydia so and set her to stirring up his lawyers. At the very least she should leap up and fly to his side. But she didn't.

  I suppose my confusion was mirrored in my face.

  D'Angelo said mildly, "I haven't found Dodge overbearing, Lydia. Aren't you being unfair?" I gave him a grateful smile.

  Lydia poured a little tonic in her gin and stirred vigorously. "Probably. Sorry. I'm jumpy today."

  Ma rose from her squishy cushion and took her own drink to the bar. "Needs freshening," she murmured.

  "What did Daddy lose?" Janey inspected another prawn, dipped it carefully in the hot sauce and took a bite.

  "Never mind," Lydia muttered.

  Janey chewed. "Maybe I could help him find it."

  "I don't think so." Lydia made her way back to the couch. "I don't really think so, Janey."

  The interchange was peculiar, to say the least. It seemed to baffle Janey. She sipped her wine. "Is he...has he been drinking?"

  Lydia stared down at her, mouth tight. "For Christsake, of course he's been drinking. Bill drinks. Sometimes he drinks himself under the table, in case you hadn't noticed. For what it's worth, he isn't drunk yet."

  Janey's mouth set in a prim line. "You shouldn't talk that way about my father."

  "I am your father's wife," Lydia said coldly. "I'll talk about him any way I damned well please. I'm sick of covering up for him, sick of sparing your feelings and his feelings and everybody's feelings but my own. He's an alcoholic, and the sooner his nearest and dearest admit it the better."

  "I used to attend Al Anon meetings," Martha observed. She spread cream cheese on a Trisket. "My mother drank. They're very helpful. Isn't it interesting how many different kinds of support groups have developed over the past twenty years?"

  Ma clinked a spoon on the ice in her drink. She picked up Martha's cue. "So kind and practical. A solution to the modern loss of neighborhood. People used to talk their problems over with their next-door neighbors. Now we have little virtual neighborhoods, some of them linked only by technology. A friend of mine has started a support group for poets through one of the larger business networks."

  "Is that on CompuServe?" D'Angelo wasn't slow, either. He got up and gave Ma his place on the sofa.

  They were soon deep in an amiable but very abstract discussion of synthetic communities. Gradually Lydia's flush faded. She set her drink on the table.

  Win eased to the carpet between Janey and me. Ma set her drink down untouched. When a pause in the discussion gave her the opportunity, she suggested to D'Angelo that he purchase a modem and a personal computer for the Foundation.

  They began to bicker in a cheerful way over Mackintoshes and IBM PCs, familiar territory. I threw in my two cents' worth, though my head spun from the unreality of the conversation. Janey ate another cracker. With cheese. At that rate she'd have to run ten miles a day. She kept glancing at Lydia, glancing and munching.

  Lydia said nothing. She didn't look particularly embarrassed. In fact she looked absent, as if she were brooding over the preservation of Patagonian plant species, or something equally remote.

  Lulled by the chatter and the lack of incident, I got up and went to the bar myself. The ice cubes had melted in my ginger ale. I poured the watery slop in the bar's tiny "sink." When I got back to my chair, they were still chattering, this time about the Foundation. Win was hugging his knees in a boyish way that should have stirred up any latent rheumatism in his spine. He and Ma were trying to decide whom they should invite for the inaugural summer session of Siskiyou Summit, and Martha had wandered vaguely to the window.

  Because of Win's position on the carpet, I could no longer see the surface of the table. Janey was still hunched over the goodies, and Ma had her eyes on Win. She reached for her drink.

  I sat up and craned. Her drink and Lydia's had been sitting side by side, and I had lost sight of the glasses for a good five minutes. I didn't think Lydia had made a move, but I wasn't sure. I cleared my throat. "Uh, Ma..."

  She looked at me, drink halfway to her mouth, the slight frown she used when my manners left something to be desired creasing her brow.

  "Uh, don't drink it. Let me make you another."

  "I just freshened it, Lark." The glass touched her mouth.

  "Don't!" I got up. My face
was probably crimson, and I felt everyone's eyes on me. Even Lydia's.

  She stared at me without expression.

  Ma set the glass down. "What in the world..."

  Then Lydia did something completely off the wall. She picked up Ma's glass, eyes locked on mine, raised it, and took a large swallow.

  Ma and Win gaped like gaffed flounders. Martha took a step toward us. I know I was staring.

  Janey began to giggle.

  "Shut up, Janey." Lydia's voice was almost dreamy. "Why don't you all shut up?" She raised the glass again and finished Ma's drink.

  The doorbell rang. We froze in a tableau. After a long pause, the bell rang again. Martha moved across the room to answer it.

  My limbs unlocked, and I walked around the sofa to stand behind my mother.

  "What is it?" She swiveled so she could see me.

  "I don't know. Something's crazy..." My voice dried up. Martha had returned, with Jay, Bill Huff, and Dan Cowan on her heels. Jay gave me an unsmiling nod and looked at the others.

  Beside him, Bill was red in the face, perspiring. He took a half-stumbling step down into the living room, leaving the others standing on the hall level. "Lydia?"

  "They know?" Her voice sounded calm, almost serene.

  He nodded, his face a mask of misery. "I'm sorry. I couldn't help it."

  Janey was looking from one to the other, big brown eyes wide. Slowly her hand rose to her lips. She began to titter.

  "Oh, don't!" Bill's voice rose. "Don't, Janey."

  Jay said in undramatic, almost conversational tones, "Mrs. Huff, I have one question to put to you. If you prefer to come to the courthouse..."

  "Ask me now."

  Jay frowned.

  Janey had both hands over her mouth. Her eyes were bright, and she emitted tiny snorts of laughter.

  Jay ignored her, eyes still on Lydia. "I have reason to think you were the one Denise Fromm invited to lunch yesterday."

  Wait a minute, I thought. He hasn't read her her rights. I opened my mouth.

  "That's right," Lydia said flatly. "She was dead when I got there, and my cat was yowling by the gazebo. Denise gave us those cats. That was when I knew what had happened. I tried to shoo Ethel away, but she wouldn't go, and she wouldn't let me touch her either, and then I panicked. I got in the car and left. I drove home."

  Bill groaned. "I wasn't there. She couldn't reach me. If I'd been there..."

  Lydia shrugged. "It was too late, Bill. You know that. Janey was taking a shower. I waited for her. When she came out, I asked her where she'd been. She said running, but she was lying. She was still wheezing a little, the way she does when the cats get into the house. After she dressed she went out to her car. I watched her from the study window. She took the cat-carrier out of the front passenger side and put it in the garage."

  Janey?

  Janey's flush had faded. Her hands drooped to her lap. She was frowning at Lydia, but she looked more bewildered than angry.

  Jay finally turned to look at her. "Jane Huff, you're under arrest for the murders of Miguel Sanchez and Denise Fromm. You have the right to remain silent..." He finished the Miranda warning.

  "Daddy?" Janey started to rise. She had been sitting so long in one position her legs had probably cramped. She leaned on the coffee table as she struggled to her feet. "Daddy..."

  Bill didn't answer. He wasn't even looking at her. His poached-egg eyes pleaded with Lydia.

  Lydia said nothing. Her profile was stony, but her cheeks were flushed.

  Chapter XV

  Janey turned on Jay. "You're wrong, you know. It's Lydia." She sounded reasonable, like a librarian explaining a fine. "It was Lydia all along."

  "I don't think so, Miss Huff."

  "But I don't have a motive."

  "We have a witness."

  "Lydia would say anything. She hates me, she's always hated me, you can't..."

  "An independent witness." Jay sounded almost sorry for her.

  So the power saw had come through. Nobody moved. I was still trying to assimilate the idea of Janey as a cold-blooded killer.

  "Are you going to take her to jail?" Lydia's voice was slightly slurred.

  "As soon as the deputy arrives." Jay turned to look at Dan Cowan. "Kay's on her way?"

  Dan nodded. He was chewing gum.

  Bill looked at Janey for the first time. "I'll call your mother."

  Lydia coughed.

  "Call my mother?" Janey's voice rose. "Call Mommy to make it all right? Fuck you, Daddy dear. I want a lawyer, your lawyer, your nice expensive screw-the-wife-and-kiddies lawyer, and I want him now. I'm not going to take a fall for your artsy-fartsy wife."

  Take a fall. I wondered what Janey had been reading. I wondered what the hell was happening.

  Lydia coughed.

  "Miss Huff," Jay said pleasantly. He is at his pleasantest when other people are screaming, a habit I'd have to watch out for. "Would you object to rolling up your sleeves?"

  Janey gaped.

  "Your sleeves," he repeated, mild as May.

  "Janey!" Bill said sharply. Janey looked at him. Lydia's cough turned into a choke.

  I remembered Ma's drink. "Jay, she's poisoned!" I took Lydia's heaving shoulders. "Ma's gin and tonic."

  My mother swiveled. "Lydia?"

  Lydia began to retch.

  It was a reprise--with embellishments--of our Independence Day nightmare. The ambulance came quickly, though. Jay monitored Lydia's pulse, while I stood by. Bill fussed and wept. The others looked on, more-or-less wringing their hands. Except for Janey.

  She watched the procedures, jaw set, sleeves still down, and didn't say another word. Somewhere in the middle of the confusion the female deputy arrived and took her arm. As the medics carted the gurney bearing Lydia out the door, Janey began to cry. Martha Finn went to her and held her by the shoulders. Janey wept on Martha's I. Magnin dress.

  Bill had gone in the ambulance without a backward glance for his daughter. The rest of us, Jay included, stood in the shambles of the living room staring at the three women.

  Martha patted Janey's shoulders and made soothing sounds.

  The deputy cleared her throat. "Shouldn't we take her in?"

  Jay said, rather sharp now that things were peaceful, "Search first. Ms. Finn..."

  Martha regarded him coolly above Janey's honey blonde flip, which was now rather rumpled. "What is it?"

  "Will you accompany Miss Huff and Deputy Ryan to a bedroom? And stay with them while Kay does a body search?"

  Martha grimaced then nodded. "Come along, Janey."

  Ma bent down and picked something up. "I think this is her purse." It was one of those small leather clutches, pink like Janey's outfit, and it was unzipped. Ma poked in it. "Is this what you're looking for?"

  Jay was beside her in one stride. "Jesus, don't smear the prints." He whipped out a handkerchief and took a small brown bottle from her.

  Ma backed off, still holding the purse.

  Jay folded his handkerchief tenderly around the bottle and handed it to Dan Cowan, who was still chewing his cud.

  Janey sobbed. Jay jerked his head at Deputy Ryan, and she and Martha took Janey out of the room and down the hall.

  There was no further drama. The search went quickly and produced nothing new. Jay appropriated the purse and the glasses Lydia had drunk from. The evidence crew arrived and shoved us into the ferny corner of the room by the telephone, where we stared at each other and said nothing. Finally Jay, Dan Cowan, the woman deputy, and Janey left. Janey was not handcuffed, and she had stopped crying, but she still had said nothing at all.

  That left me, Ma, Martha, and Win in the trashed room.

  "I don't believe it," Ma grumbled, tidying the spattered and smeared hors d'oeuvres' tray. "Not Janey. She was crying."

  Martha took the tray from Ma with fastidious fingers. "Lydia upstaged her." There ensued a long silence. Martha went off to the kitchen.

  Part of my mind agreed with Mother. The
rest, sifting through the events of the previous ten days, began to see Martha's point. She saw the killer in theatrical terms, and she was right about one thing. Lydia was always upstaging Janey.

  After awhile Win said from the bar, "I suppose they'll order a psychiatric evaluation."

  "I hope so," Ma snapped. "It doesn't make sense, none of it. You didn't think Janey was the culprit, Lark. You warned me not to drink that gin."

  "I thought it was Lydia," I agreed, unhappy, "but I was wrong. Janey makes better sense."

  "She had scratches on both forearms and a bruise on one shin where Denise must have kicked her. She's guilty, all right. Why did Lydia swallow the drink?" Martha exploded. "That I don't understand."

  None of us understood. It was crazy. I thought of Miguel, of Denise, her eyes bulging, tongue protruding, of Llewellyn dying as I breathed for him. Crazy was the word. Crazy and cold.

  When we had restored the room to a semblance of order, I took my mother home to my apartment. We left her car in Win's parking lot. I think Win and Martha were glad to see us go.

  Mother and I collapsed in the living room and stared at each other for awhile. Finally I said, "We ought to call Dad."

  "Yes." She didn't sound enthusiastic.

  "What I need is a good long run. I know that doesn't appeal to you..."

  She gave a snort of laughter. "Whether it appealed or not, I couldn't. I'm an elderly lady with varicose veins."

  "Now, Ma. How about a swim?"

  "I don't have a suit."

  "We'll find one for you at the health club." She resisted half-heartedly, but I dragged her off. I swam laps and she paddled around in a green tank-suit somebody had abandoned. When we got out, we looked like skinned rabbits--or March hares--but we felt better. At least I felt better, and Ma said she did.

  My bookstore looked abandoned. No reporters or gogglers haunted the half-vacant parking lot. They would tomorrow, when I re-opened. I wanted to get back to my books. Work was going to seem strange without Ginger.

  The phone rang as we entered the apartment, and I caught it before my message tape kicked in. It was Ginger.