“Nothing doing, counselor,” Sheila said firmly. “You hear from your client, you let me know, pronto. And that means me, personally.” She paused and added emphatically, “You got that?”
“Got it,” Lipman growled, and hesitated. “Maybe something else goin’ on, huh? Related to Timms’ case? If so, I need to know.”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Sheila replied.
There was a brief silence while Lipman considered this. “Yeah. Well, what’s happened to Hardin? He’s not returnin’ my calls. Where is he?”
“Gone fishing,” Sheila replied shortly, and broke the connection. She called Dispatch and ordered the APB on Timms’ vehicles.
She stood for a moment, thinking. At this point, all they had was the first report of a suicide. There was no way to know whether this incident was in any way related to Timms’ alleged break-in at Kirk’s place of business the previous week or to the stalker Kirk had mentioned to China. But Sheila had long ago stopped believing in coincidences, and she wanted to see Timms in custody as soon as possible.
Was there a connection?
What was it?
Chapter Four
Uncaria tomentosa is another hold-fast herb with the folk name of cat’s claw, or Uña de gato. This woody vine is native to the Amazon rain forest and other tropical areas of South and Central America. Like a cat, it uses its sharp, hooked-shaped horns to cling to the trees it climbs, often more than twenty feet.
For over two thousand years, the Ashaninka rain forest people of Peru have used the inner bark of the stems and roots of this hold-fast herb as an immune enhancer, a contraceptive and abortifacient, as well as a treatment for a wide variety of diseases: gastric ulcers, diarrhea, gonorrhea, arthritis and rheumatism, intestinal disorders, diabetes, and cancer.
China Bayles
“Herbs That Hold Fast”
Pecan Springs Enterprise
Still thinking about Larry Kirk’s death, I watched Sheila walk away, then turned back to Ruby and Ramona. Ramona was wiping her eyes and sniffling. Ruby was rubbing Ramona’s back and murmuring sisterly words.
“Look,” I said. “This has been pretty rough for everybody.” It was the understatement of the week. I took a deep breath. “Ruby, how about if we go to your house and have a cup of tea?”
Ramona brightened. “Or supper? I made corn chowder with sausage. Plenty for all of us. And we could have a salad.”
Ruby gave her sister a hug and dropped her arm, her gauzy sleeve fluttering. “There are peaches, too, so there’s shortcake for dessert.” She glanced at me. “McQuaid and the kids are spending the evening in Seguin, aren’t they? You’ll join us, China?”
“Thanks,” I said gratefully. “I’d like that.”
To tell the truth, I didn’t want to be by myself just now. Larry Kirk had been a friend—and a reliable helper. He was a jack-of-all-computer-trades. He had repaired my ailing printer, added more memory to my computer, and taken over my faltering website, making it not only attractive, but functional. And no matter how busy he was with his business, he always found time to update the shop’s website and answer my questions without making me feel like a totally incompetent person with a brain the size of a BB. I was going to miss him. A lot, damn it. And I couldn’t help feeling responsible. Maybe the stalking had nothing to do with what had happened. But maybe it had. If I’d answered his email earlier—
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “I can’t believe he’s dead,” I said, mostly to myself. We started to walk down the driveway to the street. “What a horrible thing.”
“Ghastly,” Ramona said. She wrinkled her nose. “The kitchen reeked of beer. There was beer all over the floor. I guess he knocked it off the table when he… when he shot himself.”
I cleared my throat. “How do you know that’s what happened? That he shot himself, I mean.”
She turned to stare at me. “Well, because of the gun. It was right there in his hand.”
In his hand? I thought. If he had fallen from the chair, knocking the chair over, wouldn’t the fall have dislodged the gun? “Where was he shot?” I asked. “In the head, the chest?”
Ramona pressed her lips together. “There was a round hole above his temple. And a lot of blood.” She shuddered. “Do we have to talk about it, China? It’s too horrible.”
We reached the sidewalk and turned toward Ruby’s. Suddenly, a cute, athletic blonde broke away from the nearest clump of neighbors and dashed toward us, a journalist’s steno pad in one hand. It was Jessica Nelson, a reporter for the Enterprise. Last spring, as an intern, Jessica had scored a big story when she foiled her own abduction and helped to solve a murder, gaining national notoriety as the Seven Iron Slugger. Now, she’s finishing grad school and working part-time at the newspaper. I wasn’t surprised to see her here. She shows up whenever anybody whispers the words breaking news.
“China!” Jessica exclaimed. “And Ruby! So great to see you again!” She put out her hand to Ramona. “Hi. I’m Jessica Nelson. I write for the local newspaper. You’re Ramona Donahue?”
Ramona nodded wordlessly.
“I understand that you discovered Mr. Kirk’s body.” Jessica flipped her steno pad to a new page. “Can you tell me about it?” She glanced down at the shredded knee of Ramona’s pants. “Gosh, I hope you’re not hurt. I heard that you fell down the back steps.”
“That’s right.” Confronted by the possibility of media attention, Ramona forgot that she hadn’t wanted to talk about it. “What would you like to know?”
“Stop.” I put up my hand. “Jessica, you know better. Ms. Donahue isn’t talking to you until Chief Dawson says she can.”
“Aw, come on, China,” Jessica wheedled. “Mr. Hibler says we’re going with a front-page story on this. All I want is a little human interest. I’m not asking for state secrets.”
Ramona frowned at me. “Really, China, I don’t see why you’re being so mean. It’s not—”
“I’m being mean in order to keep Jessica out of Sheila Dawson’s doghouse. She can have all the human interest she wants, after the police release.” I smiled at Jessica. “Check back tomorrow, Jess. And in the meantime, check with the chief.”
Jessica sighed. “You’re a hard woman, China Bayles.”
“You think I’m hard?” I chuckled wryly. “Try crossing Sheila Dawson.”
“Actually, I’ve already got quite a few nice little bits,” Jessica said defiantly. “I talked to the next-door neighbor who was picking her squash when Ms. Donahue discovered the body. That’s human interest, don’t you think? She said she was going to make a casserole for her nephew, who was coming over for supper.” She flipped a page. “I also talked to the old lady who heard the gunshot. That’s what she thought it was, anyway.”
“A gunshot?” I asked sharply. This was news to me. “Who? When?”
Jessica peered at her notes. “Mrs. Wauer,” she said. “Ethel W-a-u-e-r. A sweet little old thing. She says she heard it just before two o’clock.” She began to read. “‘I was giving Oodles a bath—I have to wear my raincoat because he shakes water all over me, and of course then I have to mop the floor. The bathroom window was open because when Oodles is wet, he doesn’t always smell real sweet, which was how come I happened to hear it.’” She frowned. “I guess I should have asked Mrs. Wauer about Oodles.”
“He’s a miniature white poodle,” Ruby volunteered. “I know, because Ethel Wauer lives next door to me. Between me and the squash lady.”
“Oh, really?” Jessica was scribbling. “So it’s you, Mrs. Wauer and Oodles, Mrs. Jessup and her squash, and the Kirks, in that order. Right?” Ruby nodded and Jessica paused, looking back at her notes. “Mrs. Wauer said she thought at first that the noise was a car backfiring or maybe a door slamming, so she didn’t think anything of it. But Oodles began to bark like crazy and—”
“Oodles barks like crazy at everything,” Ruby said. “Oodles barks at cars, skateboards, airplanes, lawnmowers, and the garbage t
ruck. I’m sure there are people on this block who wish somebody would shoot him. That’s off the record, Jessica,” she added hastily.
“Oh, pooh,” Jessica pouted. “But I’ll leave it out if you insist, Ruby.” She turned back to Ramona. “Now then, Ms. Donahue. How did you happen to go to the Kirks’ house this afternoon?”
I intervened. “That’s enough, Jessica. Why don’t you give Ms. Donahue your card? She can call you when this conversation is appropriate.”
“China, you are such a spoilsport.” With a disappointed sigh, Jessica took out a card and handed it over.
“Thank you, Ms. Nelson.” Ramona flipped an icy look in my direction. “I’ll be glad to talk to you whenever. You can bring a photographer, too.” She touched her hair. “Just be sure to give me a little notice.”
“Thanks, Ms. Donahue,” Jessica said with a grin. “I really appreciate it.” She turned to me. “China—”
“And that information about Mrs. Wauer and the gunshot—you need to be sure it gets to the police before it gets to the front page of the Enterprise. There might be nothing to it, or it might help establish the time of death. Okay?”
“Okay.” Jessica raised her hand in a wave, turned, and jogged off in pursuit of more human interest.
The little knots of onlookers had begun to disperse as the neighbors found better things to do than hang around gawking at a flock of police and emergency vehicles that didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Ramona, Ruby, and I began to walk back toward Ruby’s house.
Ruby was musing over the information Jessica had given us. “Mrs. Wauer says she heard the gunshot at two o’clock. Ramona, what were you doing at two? Did you hear it?”
Ramona shook her head. “I was having a nap,” she said guiltily. “I had an appointment to talk to somebody about a business opportunity, but I thought I’d lie down first. Just for a few minutes—but I fell asleep. When I finally woke up, I had to hurry and get dressed, so I wouldn’t be late. And then I went to the Kirks’ to take back the dish and then—”
Ruby looked at me over Ramona’s head and rolled her eyes.
“And to think that while I was napping,” Ramona went on in a dramatic voice, “poor Mr. Kirk was—” She stopped, shivering. “What if I had walked in on him just as he was deciding to do it? Maybe I could have stopped him. Maybe—”
“Hush, Ramona,” Ruby said. “You didn’t and you couldn’t, so don’t go making out that you’re responsible. Larry Kirk was a grown-up. He was going to do whatever he was going to do.”
Ruby wasn’t talking to me, but I was listening, and I appreciated her advice. She was right. Even if I had answered Larry’s email when I got it, likely the outcome would have been the same—which didn’t make me feel any better, of course.
Ruby turned to me. “I couldn’t help overhearing. It sounds like Sheila is planning to take this case herself. That’s a little unusual, isn’t it, China?”
“Clint Hardin went fishing,” I replied, “so she’s stepping in for him.” I meant what I said to Sheila about getting out from behind the desk. She has done a lot for the police department since she became chief, but she has a tendency to stay in the office, almost as if she’s hiding out. That’s just my opinion, of course, but McQuaid shares it, I know. He’d mentioned to me that Sheila should get out on the street more often.
“That police chief,” Ramona remarked thoughtfully. “She is certainly a beautiful woman. And young.”
“Sheila isn’t as young as she looks,” I replied. “She’s nearly forty.”
Ruby linked her arm into her sister’s. “Didn’t you meet her at the picnic last week, Ramona?”
“I did. Met that hunky husband of hers, too. The one who used to be a sheriff.” Curiously, she looked from Ruby to me. “How did you guys get to know her?”
“Well, let’s see,” I said. “Ruby and I first met Smart Cookie when she—”
“Smart Cookie?” Ramona interrupted, surprised.
“That’s what China and I call her,” Ruby replied. “But don’t say it where her officers can hear. They wouldn’t understand.”
“We met her when she was the chief of the security service at CTSU,” I went on. “Before that, she was deputy chief of security at the University of Texas campus in Arlington.”
“No kidding.” Ramona sounded impressed. “Chief of security.”
“And before Arlington,” I added, “she was a detective with the Dallas Police Department. She moved into campus security after she got shot for the second time. Can’t say I blame her.”
“Eek,” Ramona said faintly. “You mean, really shot? Like, with a gun?”
We were approaching Mrs. Wauer’s house. Oodles was out on the front porch, bouncing up and down behind the folding baby gate that keeps him from running out and biting passing pedestrians on the ankle. He was yapping at the top of his lungs, telling us exactly what he was going to do if we had the nerve to come within reach of his killer teeth and claws.
“Really shot,” I replied, “with a gun. She doesn’t like to talk about it, but I know that she almost died. She’s had a long career in law enforcement—although it hasn’t been an easy one. There are more women in policing than there used to be, but it’s still a man’s world. A woman has to be plenty tough to move into a command position in a paramilitary organization dominated by men, especially in a small town like Pecan Springs. A small Texas town.”
“Doesn’t sound like you’re a big fan of the police,” Ramona remarked wryly.
“China used to be a defense attorney,” Ruby said with a laugh. “Defense attorneys hate cops.”
“Defense attorneys don’t hate cops,” I protested, as we turned up the walk to Ruby’s front porch. “They’re fine with the police when the cops do what they’re supposed to do, obey the law, and behave themselves. Which they don’t always do, you know. There are plenty of examples of cops acting outside the law.”
Like most other residences in the neighborhood, Ruby’s two-story frame house sits in the middle of a large, shady yard. But while the other houses are traditional Victorians—which is to say that they look like dowdy old ladies on their way to a friend’s funeral—Ruby’s Painted Lady is nothing short of dazzling. Ruby has radically rejuvenated the old house by painting the siding, shutters, porches, and gingerbread trim with wonderfully wild color combinations: spring green, smoke gray, fuschia, and plum. The wicker furniture on the front porch is daffodil yellow, the cushions are covered in a bright red-and-green tropical print, and green-painted buckets of red geraniums march up the steps. Ruby says she knows why her house makes its next-door neighbors uncomfortable. “It’s as if your grandmother painted her nails passion purple,” she says, “put on fire-engine-red lipstick and mauve eye shadow, and went out dancing with a man half her age. The other houses are all jealous.”
“I guess that’s what I don’t understand,” Ramona said thoughtfully. “Chief Dawson really is an exception, isn’t she? I mean, this is Texas, which has to have more macho males per square mile than anywhere else in the world. And she could be a fashion model. How in the world did she ever get the job?”
“Right time, right place,” I replied, as Ruby opened the door and we followed her inside.
“I want to hear about it,” Ramona said, heading for the stairs. “But first I have to get out of these pants. They’re ruined. Excuse me.”
Ruby and I went down the hall toward the kitchen. When she moved in, the house was in terrible shape, outside and in. It took months to restore the golden oak woodwork and floors. And then, being Ruby, she papered the walls in bright orange, yellow, even red, electrified with black-and-white stripes and checks and zigzags and polka-dots, like a Mary Englebreit painting. Bam. Pow. Kazaam.
But for all this sizzling color and pattern, it’s still a comfortable house, with Ruby’s quilts and weavings hung on the walls, baskets and sculpture and bowls and books arranged on the shelves, with a star map painted on the dark blue living room ceiling. And the kitch
en—well, a couple of years ago, Ruby grasped the decorating possibilities inherent in watermelons. She put up red-and-white striped kitchen wallpaper, added a watermelon border, and painted the table red and the four chairs green and red, with little black seeds painted on the seats. A watermelon rug, watermelon place mats, and red and green dishes. It’s a picnic.
Ramona came back downstairs in jeans and a white sleeveless top and the three of us collaborated on supper. Ruby sliced peaches for shortcake, I made a simple salad with greens from Ruby’s garden, and Ramona took the lid off the slow cooker to stir the soup. While we worked, Ruby and I filled Ramona in on Sheila’s back story. Actually, I was glad to be able to talk about this and get my mind off Larry’s situation, which loomed like a somber cloud at the back of my mind.
“It began with a bad situation in the police department,” I said, “which at the time was all male. A woman named Dolly Patterson applied for an opening as a patrol officer. She had completed three years of college, graduated from the police academy, and had four years’ street patrol experience in El Paso, with excellent evaluations from her field officers. Bubba Harris—he was the chief at the time—passed her over in favor of a guy with no college, no academy, and no experience, who just happened to be the nephew of the city attorney. Ms. Patterson filed a discrimination suit and won, as anybody with a lick of sense could have predicted. Especially the city attorney.”
Ramona put the lid back on the slow cooker. “But I still don’t see what that has to do with—”
“At the time,” Ruby said as she sliced peaches, “Sheila was serving as chief of security on the campus. She had been there only a couple of years, but during that time, she completely reorganized and upgraded the department. She started a training program, purchased new equipment, hired more people—including women and blacks—and earned a couple of national law enforcement awards.”
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