Floral Depravity

by Beverly Allen

  We found Kathleen Randolph sitting at a table with a blond woman with big hair and wearing a black pantsuit. A half-empty bottle of some kind of liquor—I’d say scotch, but I’m not an expert in potent potables—stood on the table between them, and based on their slouched postures and loud cackling laughter, I’d say they’d been at it for some time.

  Liv leaned closer to me. “They don’t seem all that broken up about it, do they?”

  Kathleen raised her gaze to meet mine, smiled, and beckoned us over, managing to knock the liquor bottle over in the process, which was met by more raucous laughter. “Audrey, Liv. Come sit down and drink a toast with us. We’re toasting the dear departed.”

  Kathleen tried to rise out of her seat, but lost her balance and fell hard against the old wood chair, which creaked in protest. Not that Kathleen was a large woman, just that the chairs were all exceptionally old.

  Liv waved her back down and slowly lowered herself onto the third chair at their table. I pulled another one from an empty table and joined them. No, as Liv pointed out, neither of these women seemed especially distressed by the recent death. But on the other hand, it hardly proved their guilt, either. But maybe while their lips were sufficiently loose . . .

  “We need more glasses,” Kathleen said.

  The big-haired blonde pointed to Liv’s belly. “Maybe they want something else,” she said in a drawl I suspected was as much booze as it was Texas. Maybe sixty-forty.

  “Oh, right. Good idea.” Kathleen signaled the waiter, who rushed over. Liv asked for a lemonade and I seconded that.

  “See?” Kathleen told the blonde. “That’s how they stay out of trouble. Make a lot fewer mistakes that way.” And then she stared morosely into her glass.

  Yes, apparently misery loves company, but only if that company is also suitably miserable. Or comparatively toasted. So much for loose lips.

  The blonde, whom I had decided must be Mrs. Brooks, seemed to pick up on Kathleen’s mood shift. She lifted her glass and stared at the amber liquid. “I wonder how many bad decisions they pack into every bottle.” She pushed herself into a straight posture. “I was drunk when Barry Brooks proposed to me. Not that it was one of them romantic proposals. He was drunk, too. Suggested we drive to Vegas and get hitched. Hardly the proposal of a girl’s dreams. Apparently I was fool enough to go along with it, even though I was sober by the time the limo pulled into that chapel.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the Barry I married,” Kathleen said. “What? No prenup?”

  My ears perked up at that. Even though Mrs. Brooks wasn’t at the reenactment, she’d have a motive if she was going to inherit part of the estate. She could have hired someone.

  “Ah,” said the blonde, “apparently I signed that before I sobered up.” So if the current Mrs. Brooks, who seemed to be enjoying her new single status, had wanted to divorce Barry Brooks, she would have done so without any of his money. I wondered if his will offered her better parting gifts than his prenuptial agreement. If it had, the victim might have handed his wife a really great motive.

  “That’s my boy,” Kathleen shouted. “Liked his booze. Liked his women. Loved his money.”

  “Hear, hear!” Mrs. Brooks said, and raised her glass before downing it in one gulp.

  The waiter slid two glasses of lemonade onto the table and wisely skedaddled while Kathleen refilled the whiskey glasses, sloshing a good part of the bottle onto the tablecloth in the process.

  Liv sipped her lemonade while I cradled my glass in my hands, trying to figure out how to approach this woman. “Mrs. Brooks,” I finally said.

  “Oh, call me Dottie.”

  “Dottie, I was wondering . . . Did your husband seem apprehensive at all about coming to the camp this year?”

  Dottie squinted at me, or maybe she was trying to look backward into her own skull to find the answer to my question. “I don’t think so. He lived for these things. I don’t know that he was looking all that forward to the wedding. I’m not sure he trusted his future daughter-in-law.” Dottie reached out and patted Kathleen’s hand. “No offense. I don’t think he trusted anybody.” She turned back to me. “But he was happy he didn’t have to wear a tux. He hated those things.” She snorted then turned back to Kathleen. “I should have him laid out in one. What do you think?”

  “Cummerbund and everything?” Kathleen asked.

  “With a big loud bow tie,” Dottie said.

  Kathleen clinked glasses with her. “Do it.”

  I waited for their cackling laughter to die down. “What about the people that your husband traveled with?” I said. “Could one of them have wanted him . . . you know.”

  “Dead?” she said.

  Again the mood at the table had shifted to the morose. I was such a party pooper.

  She sniffed. “Well, the first person who comes to mind would be Raylene, his mistress.”

  “You knew about his mistress?” Liv asked.

  “My husband could hardly be considered discreet.”

  “Why do you think she might have killed him?” I asked. “Had the relationship gone south?”

  “Well, I’m only guessing, but Barry had a short attention span, if you get my drift. He was always playing around. One of them tarts could have done him in, too, but who can keep track of them? But Raylene was more serious. She’s a smart woman, smart like a fox, and Barry did ruin her life.”

  I cocked my head and waited for her to go on.

  “Raylene was smart enough to rise in the ranks of Brooks Pharmaceuticals”—at least I think she was aiming for the word “Pharmaceuticals.” Excessive scotch and good diction don’t mix—“on her own. But Barry, he was the gatekeeper. I’m sure he made it very clear to her what promotion in the company would entail for a pretty woman.”

  “That’s sexual harassment,” Liv said.

  “Yep. I suppose it is,” Dottie said, then snorted. “After all, a glass ceiling is basically a horizontal surface, and Barry was fond of horizontal surfaces. And then there’s the men in the company, all who couldn’t advance because of . . . Raylene’s unique qualifications.”

  “They might have been jealous and wanted him out of the way so everyone advanced,” Liv said. I knew she had more names to add to her murder board.

  “And”—Dottie shook her finger at the air near me—“there’s everyone who ever did business with the man. He was ruthless.”

  “Hear!” Kathleen said.

  “And devious.”

  “Hear, hear!”

  “And didn’t think the rules applied to him.”

  Kathleen stood up and hoisted her glass. “To Barry!”

  “To Barry.” Dottie crossed herself.

  “To Barry,” Liv said, and clinked her lemonade glass with mine.

  Chapter 10

  I arrived at Larry’s just after one of Ramble’s three police cars. I pulled in behind it. Other cars, several with out-of-state plates, were parked along the shoulder of the rural road. I suspected some of the reenactors had moved their vehicles from the parking lot to the road to be closer when they sneaked through Larry’s property.

  The driver’s side door of the police car swung open and Bixby climbed out a bit hesitantly. I expected it had to do with his costume. He’d gotten with the program and was attired in what was probably not a very authentic peasant’s outfit. He wore what looked like worn work pants that had been purposely tattered on the bottom and an oversized shirt that someone had tea-dyed to look old.

  “Chief,” I said, “you look—”

  “Ridiculous,” he growled.

  Lafferty climbed out of the passenger seat, looking almost an exact duplicate. “Oh, hi, Audrey,” he said, twirling like a debutante so I could see his new duds. “Aren’t they great? Judith made them out of old clothes she got from the thrift store. She can do anything.”

  At L
afferty’s praise of Bixby’s daughter, the chief couldn’t hide a prideful smile. Bixby squinted at me. “Are you going to the camp? I thought I advised you not to go alone.”

  “Good thing you’re here, then,” I said.

  I struggled to keep up with them as we climbed the steep driveway that led to Larry’s greenhouses. This time there was no sign of him planting, weeding, watering, or fertilizing. I almost mistook him for a scarecrow when I finally spotted Grandma Mae’s old friend parked by the fence with his shotgun in his hand.

  “You be careful with that thing,” Bixby called to him as he climbed the fence.

  “Can’t you do anything about those trespassers?” Larry said.

  “Wish I could,” Bixby said. “But you know it’s not my jurisdiction. You have to call the sheriff.”

  “I do, but he just puts me on hold. I guess I’m not a priority.”

  Bixby shrugged.

  “I’ll remember that come the next election.” Larry lifted his gun and took a warning shot over the heads of a group of chickens that were headed his way. They squawked and fluttered and took off in the other direction.

  “Just don’t shoot anybody,” Bixby said, and he offered an arm to help me climb the fence.

  As we made our way down the deer path, running the gauntlet of mosquitoes, which seemed to be out in full force, Bixby struck a casual tone. “So what brings you out this fine afternoon?”

  “Thought I’d talk to a few people.” I pitched his casual tone right back at him. “And what brings you out?”

  Bixby laughed. “A few follow-up questions.” He squinted at me. “Who are you planning to talk to?”

  Of course he had to ask that. Good thing I had a doubleheader planned. “I was hoping to meet Raylene Quinn. Dottie Brooks had some interesting things to say about her.”

  “I’m sure she did,” Bixby said. “Wives usually have interesting things to say about their husbands’ mistresses.”

  “But you don’t think Raylene could have done it?”

  “Oh, I think she could have done it, all right. Brooks would have given her plenty of motive. But she’s a smart cookie. PhD in biochemistry. Advanced degrees coming out of her ears and other selected orifices.”

  Lafferty nudged me. “Isn’t it great? She’s got a PhD. Get it? That makes her Doctor Quinn. And she’s a medicine woman, like on TV.”

  Bixby sighed through bared teeth. “Anyway, sufficiently motivated, she could have murdered Brooks in any number of ways, in any number of locations, and made it look like Brooks died from natural causes. I did a little research. In the labs at that place, she’d have access from everything from the common cold to anthrax. The thing you have to ask yourself is—”

  “Why here?” I said. “Why now? And why with monkshood?”

  “Right.” He stopped to pull a limp tissue from his pocket and wipe his nose.

  “So if it was Raylene,” I said, “it wasn’t planned way ahead.”

  “We call that premeditated,” Lafferty offered.

  “Thanks,” I said. He did sound like he was trying to be genuinely helpful and not condescending. Not sure he succeeded.

  “So if Raylene was the killer,” I went on, “something new must have set her off, and she had to work with what was at hand. I should be asking what pushed her over the edge and made her want to kill him.”

  Bixby shrugged. “Or you could ask the same of anybody.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “No problem, Deputy.” His tone was teasing on that last word, but I could have sworn he winked at me.

  “So, who were you headed to talk to?” I asked. “Excuse me, follow-up with.”

  “I had Lafferty run some basic backgrounds on the witnesses and he came across a few idiosyncrasies with one of them.”

  “Oh?”

  “Guy appeared out of the blue,” Lafferty said. “I think it’s suspicious.”

  “But that was almost twenty years ago,” Bixby said, “and he’s been clean since, so I’m sure it’s just some paperwork glitch.”

  I nodded. I knew where this was going.

  “Unless he’s in Witness Protection,” Lafferty suggested. “That would be cool. Or a retired spy. That would be even cooler.”

  Apparently Lafferty had the same hopes for my father that I did.

  “Good luck with that,” I said after we reached the clearing.

  “Um, Deputy?” Bixby grasped my arm, not harshly, but firmly. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and aimed for my most innocent look. “I barely know the man.” Which was true.

  He squinted at me. “What man? I never told you who we were talking about.”

  I inhaled while I tried to frame an answer, then exhaled without speaking. After too long of a beat, I finally said, “That’s right. You didn’t.”

  * * *

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. I wanted to bang my head against a wall, but there were no walls in sight. Just tent after tent, rippling in the light autumn breeze, which was sending just a tinge of the odor of woodsmoke our way from the wildfires on the opposite end of the county.

  Bixby had been trawling to discover if I knew anything about the mysterious priest with the lack of a past. And I’d fallen for it. I should have known he wouldn’t voluntarily discuss the case with me.

  “Stupid.”

  “Whoa,” Melanie said. “Someone’s got your hackles raised.” Melanie, a little grimier and with a few more dark circles under her eyes than she had the other day, was walking through the bazaar with Carol. I must have looked puzzled because she tried to explain herself. “I don’t actually know what that means, though. Hackles, that is. I hope I didn’t say something bad.”

  I shook my head. After all, I wasn’t sure what hackles were, either. “No, you’re fine. I was just thinking.” And while I was thinking . . . “Oh, Carol. I’m glad I ran into you. Opie wanted to know if she could borrow a book. I have the title right . . .” I didn’t have to reach into my cleavage to retrieve the title, thanks to the bag that Liv had bought for the butter, into which I’d shoved my money and my cell—and my keys and license. All the modern contraband I shouldn’t have in camp at all.

  I handed her the paper, and she opened it. “No problem. I can get it right now, if you want. Are you going to be around the bazaar?”

  “I was just going to talk to Raylene Quinn. Do you know her?”

  “Oh, yeah. I know her.” By her sour expression, either Carol wasn’t fond of Raylene Quinn or she’d developed an instant case of indigestion.

  I raised an eyebrow and she went on.

  “My persona this year is a stable hand, so one of my jobs is to help take care of the animals. She stepped on a bit of manure the other day and nearly had a cow.” Carol stopped and chuckled to herself. “Well, it was horse manure, really. I mean, what did she expect? Into each stable some poop must fall. It’s not like we can follow them all around with pooper scoopers like they do the little dogs in Central Park.”

  “I was there,” Melanie said. “Man, she lost it.”

  “So you’d say she has a temper?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Melanie said. “Ooh, is she a suspect? Didn’t she work for Mr. Brooks? On the outside, I mean.”

  I nodded. “Although their relationship might have been a little more involved than that.”

  “Oh!” said Melanie. “They were having a thing!” She turned back to Carol. “Well, that explains why she was so miffed at you then. She saw you talking to her boyfriend.”

  “That was nothing,” Carol said. “He talked that way to all the girls.”

  “He came on to you?” I asked her.

  “No more so than anyone else. It was a little creepy because he’s so much older, but it was mostly flirting. I shut him down pretty quick.”

 
“And you said he did this to a lot of women here?” I asked.

  “Almost all of them,” Melanie said. “I think he tried to pinch me once, but thanks to these full skirts, he didn’t get very far.”

  I paused for a moment to consider unwanted advances as a motive. Might someone have been that angry that they killed Brooks when he tried something? It didn’t, however, seem likely. A good slap would suffice. But if Raylene was having a thing with him, as Melanie had put it, and she had seen him trying to flirt with someone else—now that seemed more plausible. That could explain why Raylene in a fit of pique would have resorted to whatever weapons were close at hand.

  “Any idea where I can find Raylene?” I asked. I was a little averse to honoring her PhDs because then I’d have to call her Dr. Quinn.

  “She’s probably working her booth,” Melanie said.

  “She has a booth?” I asked. “I thought she was some high-powered executive in Brooks’s company.”

  “Yes, but that’s in the real world,” Carol said. “Here, everyone has a job. A persona. And since she apparently didn’t want to be cleaning out stables with the rest of us, she applied as an artisan.”

  “What does she do?”

  “Oh,” said Melanie. “Oh! I never thought of that.”

  Carol raised her eyebrows. “I never thought of that, either.”

  “What is it? What does she do?”

  Melanie turned to me. “She’s the herbalist.”

  * * *

  Raylene Quinn was standing behind the rough plank counter at the herbalist’s stall, the same one I’d passed the other day, located between the glass blower, whose assistant gave me a dirty look, probably worried I was there to ask for another discount, and the dairy maid, who again was bent over her wares. Raylene wasn’t exactly a young woman, but well maintained. I couldn’t tell if it was genetics or cosmetic surgery, but if it were the latter, she had a good surgeon. No unnatural or stiff facial expressions.

  And the cool blue eyes she studied me with seemed to radiate depth and intelligence: just the kind of woman you’d expect not to be hooked up with a womanizer like a Barry Brooks. And now that I was standing right in front of her, inspecting the herbs, spices, and tonics she had for sale, I had no idea what to ask her.