Blood Orange: A China Bayles Mystery

by Susan Wittig Albert

  It was just before eleven when the bell over my shop door tinkled and the door opened with a rush of fresh, rain-cooled air. I looked up with a chipper smile from the book order I was working on and offered my standard customer-relations greeting, which varies according to the weather (wet, hot, chilly, windy, etc.). “Wet out there today, isn’t it? Come in and make yourself at home.”

  The woman closed her floral print umbrella and looked around for a place to put it.

  “Right there,” I said, pointing to the pottery umbrella urn. “Don’t worry about the drip. That’s what it’s for.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She was in her early thirties, I’d guess, short and athletic looking, with quizzical eyebrows, gray eyes behind round gold glasses, and brown hair frizzed by the damp. She was wearing an orange and white printed scrub top, orange scrub bottoms, and white canvas flats, and was carrying a brown leather shoulder bag. “You’re Ms. Bayles?”

  “China,” I corrected her. “Welcome to Thyme and Seasons. Can I help you find something this morning?”

  “I’ve found her,” she said. “You.” She came to the counter where I was working, and I pushed my laptop to one side. “My name is Lara Metcalf. Kelly Kaufman is a friend of mine.”

  “Oh, gosh!” I reached across the counter and we shook hands. “How is she?” I asked anxiously. “Chief Dawson told me about the accident early this morning. But maybe you have a later report?”

  “Things haven’t changed much since last night, I’m afraid.” She pushed her fingers through her damp hair. “I’ve just come from the hospital. Kelly is on life support. I know nurses on her floor, and I got a peek at her chart. There’s internal damage, as well as head trauma.” She paused. “No point in your going over there to visit, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said soberly. “Sounds pretty bad.”

  “It is. The doctors aren’t optimistic.” She took a deep breath. “But as a nurse myself, I’ve seen miracles, people coming back from the dead almost. I’m hoping for one now.” Her voice took on an edge. “Did the chief tell you about the damage to the van’s rear end? Matt and I—Matt’s my husband—think somebody deliberately hit the Astro from behind.”

  “Yes, she did. Kudos to you for noticing that rear-end damage.” I paused. “Is Matt a big guy who sometimes wears blue scrubs? Does he have snaky tattoos? And maybe a pony tail?”

  “That’s him.” Her smile was crooked. “He did a couple of tours with the Marines in Iraq, and one of the tattoos says ‘semper fi.’ It sort of crawls up his arm, so maybe it does look snaky. He works at the hospital.” She gestured at her scrubs. “I worked at the hospice with Kelly until about six months ago. Now, I’m over at the Madison Clinic.”

  The Madison Clinic. I guessed that Lara might have been the reason Kelly found a job there, and it occurred to me that she might know why her friend left the hospice. But at the moment, I was more interested in Lara’s husband.

  “Matt,” I said. “He’s the guy who picked Kelly up at the cottage yesterday morning?”

  “You know about that?” She seemed surprised.

  I smiled wryly. “Our neighborhood watch squad is on the alert twenty-four hours a day. They like to think they’re on top of all suspicious activity. Sometimes they are.”

  She nodded. “Whatever works. Anyway, Matt was pretty close to the end of his shift at the hospital when Kelly phoned and asked if one of us could pick her up. She was kind of in a panic, so he drove on over when he got off work.”

  “In a panic?” I asked sharply.

  “That’s right. She said she woke up about four a.m. when she heard somebody trying to get in through the French doors in the bedroom. A dog across the alley started barking and the intruder took off, but she was pretty scared.” She gave me a narrow-eyed, challenging look. “Tell your neighborhood watch squad that they let that one get past them.”

  “Miss Lula didn’t,” I replied. “That was her, barking.” But to myself, I thought, That settles it. I don’t care what it costs. I’m installing an alarm system in that cottage.

  Lara was going on. “The three of us—Kelly and Matt and I—have been friends since nursing school. So of course we said yes when she asked if she could hang out at our house for a few days. She had this idea of making it look like she’d been kidnapped or something. I told her it was silly, all that stupid cloak-and-dagger stuff. If somebody really wanted to find her, they could probably locate her at our place just as easily.” She gave a little shrug. “But as I said, she was panicked. She was hoping to throw the intruder off her trail, at least for a while. And she likes the idea of having Matt around. He’s a big guy. He certainly makes me feel safe.”

  I was thinking of the attempted break-in that had frightened Kelly and the evidence of the actual break-in that Sheila and I had seen a little while ago. Whoever had tried the first time had been serious enough to come back for a retry. Had the same person rammed her vehicle from behind?

  “I get that she was frightened,” I said slowly. “I just think there were better ways to handle her exit. She could have called me, for instance, to let me know what was going on.”

  “She realized that later.” Lara’s voice was sympathetic, and there were smile crinkles around her gray eyes. “But we all do stupid things when we’re scared. And she was plenty scared. I told her she shouldn’t blame herself.”

  I liked this woman for her sensible compassion and for sticking up for her friend. “Actually, she was right to be afraid,” I said, and told her about the break-in. The neighborhood watch team had dropped the ball on that play, I thought.

  “Oh, dear,” Lara said softly. “I’m glad Kelly wasn’t there when that happened.”

  The shop door opened and a rotund, moon-faced woman wearing a transparent plastic raincoat came in, her bouncy gray curls hidden under a plastic rain bonnet. “Hey, China,” she said. “Don’t you just love the rain?”

  “Absolutely, Janelle,” I said heartily, past Lara’s shoulder. “If you can’t find what you’re looking for, just ask.”

  “I just came for some more goldenseal root,” Janelle said cheerfully, heading for the rack of bulk herbs. “Evinrude has weepy eyes, and I make a strong tea of the goldenseal and use it as an eyewash. It really helps. And Evinrude doesn’t mind it at all.” She frowned. “He used to growl at me when I used the chemical stuff.”

  I chuckled. “I’d growl at you, too,” I said. “Evinrude’s got the right idea.” I glanced at Lara, whose eyebrows had gone up under the frizz of her hair. “Evinrude is Janelle’s dog,” I explained. “He’s a Great Dane.”

  “I was wondering,” Lara said, and laughed.

  “Don’t let him hear you say dog,” Janelle cautioned. “He thinks he’s one of us. He just happens to have four legs instead of two.” A moment later, she had made her purchase and was out the door. I returned to my conversation with Lara.

  “I heard from a friend that Kelly left her job at the hospice rather unhappily,” I said. “Maybe you know what that was all about.”

  Lara hesitated, as though she were deciding whether she should share what she knew. “I know a little,” she said slowly. “She and the owner—Marla Blake—disagreed about patient care.”

  “You mean, whether the patients got as much attention as they needed?” I asked.

  “Well, not so much that, I think. It was more about whether they were all qualified.”

  Ah. There was that term again, the same one I hadn’t understood the night before, when Kelly had mentioned having documentation of “unqualified people” on her laptop.

  “And there were some record-keeping issues,” Lara went on. “When I worked with Kelly at the hospice, I remember that she was kind of a nut about records.” She read the question on my face and added, “I mean, she thought that all the hospice nurses should keep detailed notes, not just check off their v
isits.” She sighed. “Sorry. That’s about as much as I can tell you.”

  Which didn’t mean that it was as much as she knew.

  Lara regarded me thoughtfully. “Kelly spoke very highly of you, China. In fact, she was hoping you might be able to help her . . .” She paused, and her unfinished sentence hung in the air between us like an invitation.

  “Help her obtain evidence of a murder,” I said. “Evidence that would stand up in court. At least, that’s what she told me when she phoned last night. Unfortunately, that’s as far as we got. But Chief Dawson said that you mentioned it to her.” I gave her a questioning look. “What do you know about it?”

  Lara shook her head. “Next to nothing. I only know what I overheard her telling you on the phone. I asked her about it before she left for your house, but she said she didn’t want to tell me, because that might make me an excessive something or other.”

  “Accessory after the fact?” I hazarded.

  She brightened. “Yes, that’s it exactly. She said she’d seen it on a courtroom TV show and she didn’t want to risk getting me into trouble.”

  Ah, so. “I don’t think that would have applied in this case,” I said gently, “but Kelly’s concern for you is certainly admirable.” I hesitated. “Do you know if the police are making any progress on their investigation into the car crash?” I wasn’t counting on Sheila to keep me posted.

  “I haven’t heard a thing. But Matt is convinced that it was Kelly’s husband, Rich, who hit her. He and Kelly have been having a lot of trouble about their divorce lately. Arguments, shouting matches, even push-and-shove stuff. In fact, Matt thinks it might’ve been Rich prowling around your cottage the other night. Me, I don’t agree.”

  “What does Rich drive?”

  “A Ford F-150.”

  “Color?”

  Lara hesitated slightly. “It’s orange. He went to UT, you know.” She added hastily, “But Rich and I grew up together, China. I’ve known him ever since we were kids. He might have threatened Kelly, but he wouldn’t try to kill her.”

  “Maybe just scare her a little?” I asked. “Like, maybe he just drove up close and tapped her with his front bumper?”

  “Not even that,” Lara said flatly. “I’m sure it wasn’t Rich. If you ask me, it was the same person who committed the murder Kelly wanted to tell you about. The killer knows she’s onto him and was trying to shut her up for good.” Her eyes filled with tears and she turned her head aside. In a lower voice, she added, “If that’s who did it, he might get what he wanted. Kelly may never be able to tell anybody what she knew.”

  Sadly, I thought that could be true. But Lara was overlooking something and I needed to point it out.

  “This county is full of University of Texas alums,” I said, “and lots of them drive orange vehicles.” It’s true. Orange may be an unusual vehicle color choice in most states, but not in Texas. Here, to demonstrate their loyalty, some people get their cars custom-painted orange and install a fancy orange-and-chrome-plated longhorn emblem on the front of the hood. “Any one of them could have been headed west on Limekiln Road last night,” I added. “Kelly might have been hit from behind by a driver who was texting, and when he saw what he’d done, he panicked and fled the scene.”

  “I suppose it could have happened that way,” Lara conceded.

  “So for the car crash, we have three possibilities.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “It might have been the husband, the killer, or a distracted driver. That is, assuming that your van really was hit from behind.” Lots of possibilities, very little evidence.

  Lara propped her elbows on the counter and leaned forward on them. “Kelly was coming to you to ask if you would help her get evidence on a murder. There was another legal thing, too, but I don’t know what it is. So I guess—” She pushed her lips in and out. “I guess that’s why I’m coming to you, China. To ask you to help me find out what Kelly knew.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Why do you want to know?” It’s a question people ought to ask themselves before they start looking for answers to questions they don’t understand. Sometimes, it turns out that they really don’t want to know, after all.

  She was silent for a moment. “Well, for one thing, she’s my dearest friend. She was digging into something that seemed terribly important to her. I don’t know what her reasons were, but I want to help. I think I owe her that, as a friend.” She paused, narrowing her eyes. “And for another, I think finding out about this murder she was talking about will lead us to the person who hit her last night.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Did she give you any clues? How much do you think she knows about this alleged murder?”

  “Well, it’s not just ‘alleged.’” Lara was defensive. “I mean, it really happened. At least that’s what Kelly believed. From the little she said, I think she knew who got killed, and how, and why. Definitely why.” She paused. “I mean, she didn’t tell me these things, but she knew. It made her very apprehensive.”

  I’ll bet it did. I reached for something a little more tangible. “On the phone, Kelly told me that she knew who the killer was—or that she thought she did. Did she say anything more than that to you? Did she give you any clue to the identity of the victim?”

  “No, not in so many words. But I got the idea that this whole thing is connected to the hospice, somehow or other.” Lara pulled her mouth down. “I’m sorry, China. I’m telling you what I know. I wish it could be more.”

  So did I. But if the murder was related to her hospice work, the victim would be the place to start. The alleged victim, I reminded myself, of an alleged murder. This whole thing could be a figment of Kelly’s overactive imagination. If only we had a little more information—

  “Do you know if Kelly told her lawyer anything about this so-called murder?” I asked.

  Lara frowned at so-called, but she didn’t try to argue. “Charlie Lipman, you mean? I doubt it. She told me she didn’t trust him. That’s why she wanted to see you.”

  “Really?” Charlie had his problems, but that didn’t make him incompetent or untrustworthy. All lawyers bend the rules a little when they have to. But I’d never known Charlie to do something seriously unethical. “Do you know what her problem with him was? He was handling her divorce, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, and she thought maybe he could help her with this other legal thing. But that was before she found out that he—” She stopped. “No, she didn’t tell him anything about what she suspected.”

  I frowned. “Found out what? Come on, Lara. I can’t help unless I know what’s going on.”

  She hesitated. “Well, okay. She told me she found out that Mr. Lipman had a serious conflict of interest.”

  “What kind of conflict?”

  “I don’t know. He told her he could still represent her on the divorce, but she had to get another lawyer to represent her on this other business. She made a couple of calls from our house yesterday. She said she was calling lawyers he recommended. But she wasn’t satisfied.”

  “Do you know who she called?”

  “No,” she answered slowly. “But I think I could get the numbers for you, if you need them. They’re probably in my phone.”

  “That might help,” I said, “depending on the firms she called.” I picked up a business card and jotted down my cell phone number on the back and handed it to her, making a mental note to ask Charlie what the conflict was. That wasn’t privileged. And under the circumstances, I might be able to persuade him to tell me. “What I really need, though,” I added, “is access to her laptop. She said there were things on the computer that she wanted me to see. Documentation of some sort.”

  “The police have it now,” Lara said. “I found it in the wreck, under the front seat.”

  “That’s what Chief Dawson told me. Their forensics guy is supposed to be going over it today.” I paused. “It was a good th
ing you thought to hunt for it, Lara. It may not tell the police anything, but if it had disappeared, there wouldn’t be anything at all to go on.”

  “That might not be true,” Lara said. She flipped open the top of her brown shoulder bag and took out a white envelope, folded over several times. “There’s this.” She put the envelope on the counter in front of me. “I found it in the glove compartment of the van this morning. The dashboard was so smashed that Matt had to take a crowbar to the glove compartment to get it open. He was looking for the registration and the insurance stuff. This was in there, too. I probably should have given it to the police, but I thought I’d take it home and look at it on my computer first. Now I think you should have it.”

  I opened the envelope and shook something out on the counter. It was a black gizmo the size of my thumb and weighing about as much as a saltine cracker.

  I picked it up. It was a flash drive. A teensy-tiny technological miracle capable of storing every bit of data from my computer and probably from every computer on our block, as well. It could give me the access I needed to Kelly’s computer—if she had been in the habit of using it to back up her files.

  “Hey, thanks,” I said. “This could help.” Maybe. Of course, there might be nothing on it, or nothing of any significance. “I’ll look at it as soon as I can.” If it turned out to be something the cops should have, I’d give it to Sheila.

  “You’re welcome,” Lara said. “Give me a call when you’ve figured it out.” She glanced at her watch, then stepped back. “Sorry, China, but I gotta go. Matt’s waiting for me. I’ll look for those telephone numbers when I get home this afternoon.”