Hemlock

by Susan Wittig Albert

  I noticed that he hadn’t asked about Margaret Anderson. “I don’t know, but it seems likely. There was no security—no alarms, no video surveillance. There still isn’t. And it would have been easy to duplicate a key.”

  He was thinking out loud. “So Scott could have been taking valuable stuff out of the library and handing it over to Conway to sell.”

  “Scott or Anderson,” I said. “Or both. Conway may have had access, too, even after Carswell sent him away.” I held up my hand, cautioning.

  “But this is all speculation, Chief. I haven’t talked to either of the two women. What’s more, it hasn’t yet been confirmed that any of the items on Jed’s site came from the Carswell collection. That task may take a while. And Socrates.com may not be the only website he owns.” For good measure, I added, “The state sales tax people and the IRS may be interested in this, too. If he’s running the website off the books, he’s likely not paying taxes.”

  The chief pulled on his lip. Thinking out loud, he disregarded my caution about speculation. “And then Conway and his partner got crosswise—probably over money—and she shot him.”

  If that’s the direction we were going, I’d go along, although I was still wondering why he seemed to discount Anderson as a possible partner.

  “You might want to start with Conway,” I said. “He’s in a tight place. On the one hand, he surely knows the identity of the shooter and should be more than happy to tell you. On the other hand, if they were working together in a criminal enterprise, he’s weighing the likelihood that whatever they were up to will be exposed and he’ll be implicated. He definitely doesn’t want to incriminate himself. Still, since it appears that he’s going to recover, it’s in his interest to cooperate.” I smiled thinly. “You might want to get to him before his lawyer does.”

  The chief digested that, then reached for the phone. “Phyllis,” he said, “call Mary Jean over at the hospital and find out when’s the soonest I can talk to Conway.” He put the phone down and looked at me. “You a lawyer?”

  The question put directly like that, I couldn’t evade. “In a former incarnation. Licensed but no longer in practice.”

  “What flavor?”

  “Criminal defense attorney.”

  “Figures,” he said, turning back to his computer. “Probably easier to stay married to an ex-cop if you’re not in the business of defending crooks.” He typed for a moment, then turned the monitor so I could see it. “This your husband’s outfit?”

  We were looking at the website of McQuaid’s PI firm. “That’s it,” I said, smiling a little. It looked good. Black background, white lettering, red accent lines, a photograph of the scales of justice. Mostly McQuaid’s work, but I had offered a few suggestions.

  “The firm’s investigators,” he read aloud from the site, “have considerable experience working alongside state police agencies as well as federal agents of the FBI, ATF, DEA, IRS, and the US Postal Inspection Service. The firm’s founder is a graduate of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at me. “All true? No hype?”

  “Every word,” I said. That paragraph came right straight out of McQuaid’s résumé.

  “Impressive. Hope business is good.” He took his glasses off and dropped them into the drawer. “You an investigator with the firm?”

  “No, I’m not.” Which is also true. I have occasionally been on the perimeter of McQuaid’s work but I’ve never been fully involved with it. Still, this seemed like the right time to come clean about who I was.

  “The truth is that I am a longtime friend of Dr. Harper. She asked me to see what I could learn about the theft of the Blackwell Herbal. She was deeply frustrated that the foundation’s board refused to publicly acknowledge that it had been stolen so that collectors and booksellers could be on the lookout. If nobody’s looking, it’s not likely to be recovered.”

  “Yeah, well, she has cause to worry. The case is still open, and Rogers considers her a suspect.”

  “Exactly,” I said dryly. “Under the circumstances, if the thief isn’t found and charged, it may be impossible to clear her name. And salvage her professional reputation.”

  The phone rang. The chief picked it up, listened a moment, then said, “On our way.” He hung the phone up and stood. “We’re going to the hospital.”

  I stood too. “You want me to come along?”

  “Yeah. Conway wants to thank the woman who saved his life. And when I question him, I may need someone who can back me up with book stuff, art stuff—details I’ve got no way of knowing.” He cocked his eyebrow at me. “You’re that person. Or as close as I can come. So get a move on.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  I wasn’t surprised. We were on the same team.

  * * *

  *Ruby’s adventure story is told in Widow’s Tears. Annie, the ghost in China’s herb shop, appears in Queen Anne’s Lace.

  Chapter Twelve

  I have presented to view divers forms or plots, amongst which it is possible you may find some that may near the matter fit, and shall leave the ingenious Practitioner to their consideration and use.

  Leonard Meager

  The English Gardener: Or, a Sure Guide to Young Planters & Gardeners, 1688

  In the time I’d spent with the chief, the temperature had dropped ten or fifteen degrees and snow had begun to spit from the leaden sky. When I came out of the police station, the wind ran icy fingers down my collar, grabbed fiercely at my hair, and ripped my breath away. Virgil had arrived.

  I was wearing only my corduroy blazer, so I ran to the car and grabbed Jenna’s parka from the back seat, although when I put it on, it was like folding myself into an ice pack. When I put a hand into a pocket, I was glad to find a pair of mittens.

  At the hospital, I parked as close as I could to the entrance. When I got out and yanked the parka hood over my head, something cold and wet hit my cheek. I looked down as a large white snowflake splatted onto my cocoa-brown sleeve. In Pecan Springs, it snows only once or twice a decade, so I was as thrilled as a kid with a new sled.

  The chief, not so much. When I caught up with him outside the entrance, he was glaring up at the sky. “I’m ready to be done with this winter crap,” he growled as he opened the door. “Hard on the city’s snowplow budget.” Which isn’t a topic I had given much thought to, so I followed him without reply.

  Inside, the small community hospital had a sharp antiseptic smell. The hallways were bright and busy, and the people wore that look of focused intensity you see on the faces of those who are working on important—perhaps life-altering—tasks. Conway had been moved out of the ICU into a private room, and a uniformed cop was parked on a chair outside the door. The day-shift cop, Curtis said. He hadn’t been taking any chances that Conway’s assailant might come back to finish him off.

  The charge nurse—Mary Jean—and the chief were first-name acquaintances. She sniffed her displeasure when she saw that he had brought somebody with him. But he was firm, so she directed us to Conway’s door and told us we had fifteen minutes. The room was small, with one window in the outer wall so the patient could watch the snow falling onto azaleas covered with pink blooms and one on the hall so the nurses could watch the patient.

  Conway was flat on his back in the narrow bed, his head elevated a couple of inches. His left side was heavily bandaged, an IV drip was taped into the back of his right hand, and he was hooked up to several monitors strategically stationed at the head of the bed. He was pale and deflated, as if the life force that pumped him up had seeped away, along with the blood he’d lost. An oversized florist bouquet of orange and yellow lilies sat on the wheeled table over the foot of the bed.

  We took off our parkas and dumped them on the room’s only chair. “Hey, Jed,” Curtis said in a friendly tone. “How you doin’ there, man?”

  �
�Not just real well.” Conway’s voice was a hoarse whisper and he cleared his throat and tried again. “But they’re saying I might live.” He managed a wan smile.

  “Glad to hear it,” Curtis said. “When I saw you on that gurney, I figured you for a goner.” He gestured to me. “Hey, this is the pretty lady who found you and called nine-one-one. China Bayles. An investigator all the way from Texas, on the hunt for that big old book that got stolen from Sunny Carswell’s library. She happened to walk in the front door of your store about the time you were going down at the back. Kept you from leaving any more blood on your carpet.”

  Conway’s eyes focused on me and he tried for another smile. “I really can’t thank you enough. You being there—lucky thing for me.” His forehead puckered. “An investigator?”

  I returned the smile, murmured the obligatory “So glad I could help,” and moved back against the wall without answering his question.

  Curtis stepped closer to Conway. “I guess you know why I’m here, Jed. There are things I’ve got to know, and the sooner the better.” He reached up and flicked the switch on the black body cam he wore clipped to his uniform shirt. “For the record, we’re on camera. Let’s start with who did this. Who shot you?”

  I approved. Some cops object to body cams, but they work for both cops and citizens. The protection goes both ways. And in this circumstance, it was an unobtrusive way to document the interview.

  Conway turned his head. “I don’t feel like—”

  “Come on, man,” Curtis said impatiently. “You and me, we go way back. But this is not a social call and I don’t have time for games. You give me what I need and I’ll see what I can do to keep you out of the worst of the trouble.”

  “Trouble?” Conway turned back again, alarmed. “I’m the victim here. Somebody came in through the back door of my shop, looking for money.” His voice got squeaky. “Big bald biker-type white guy with a tattoo on his neck and a—”

  “Stuff it, Jed,” Curtis snapped. “You sure the hell are in trouble. Don’t make it worse with obstruction.” He glanced at me and leaned closer. “Blackwell,” he said distinctly.

  Conway’s eyes widened. “No, no. He was white. Biker. Snake tattoo on his neck.”

  “Socrates dot com.”

  Conway sucked in a breath. “Means nothing to me. I—”

  “Sunny Carswell.”

  “Sunny—”

  The chief held up a finger, then another. “Amelia Scott. The Hemlock Guild. That expensive book that’s gone from the Carswell library. Those high-priced flower prints you’re pushing. Socrates dot com.” He was holding up five fingers. “All this shit is tied together in one big plot. I want to know how, and you’re going to tell me.”

  “I’m calling the nurse.” Conway felt for the call button that was on the bed, close to his hand. “I need to get some sleep.”

  “Forget it.” Curtis shoved the button out of reach. “You know I won’t quit on this, Jed. And if you won’t talk to me, the next person standing here will be the DA. You don’t want to deal with her, do you? Marlene won’t care how bad you hurt. She’ll haul your ass out of that bed and plant you in front of the grand jury so fast it’ll make your head swim. She’ll ask you about those pricy pictures you’re hawking on that website of yours. How you got ’em, who’s buying them, what kind of taxes you’ve been paying on the income. She’ll haul Amelia in there, too.” His cell phone rang and he reached into his pocket to silence it. “Your gal pal is in it just as deep as you are. And whoever shot you is in deeper.” His voice grew rougher. “Who was it? Amelia?” His voice altered. “Margaret?”

  Conway closed his eyes. “Not Margaret,” he whispered. “Margaret had nothing to do with any of this. I want . . .” He stopped.

  I was waiting for him to say “I want my lawyer.” Actually, that’s what he should have said. If I’d been a member of the North Carolina bar I would have felt obligated to step forward and say, “This cop may be a friend but you don’t have to answer his questions, Mr. Conway. Whatever you’ve got to say, you need to say it to your attorney first.”

  But I wasn’t and I didn’t and Conway didn’t either. Instead, he lay there in bed and thought about things. When he opened his eyes again, he said, “It’s complicated, Jeremy.”

  “It’s always complicated,” Curtis said flatly. “That’s the hell of it. Mary Jean will be booting me out in a few minutes. So start with whoever it was who put the gun to your back and pulled the trigger. We can get to the rest of the plot later.”

  There was a long silence. “Shit,” Conway said finally. He took a breath. “To tell the truth, I’m pretty damned sick of living like a criminal. I want my life back.” Another breath. “It was Amelia. It was Amelia all the way.”

  “Amelia Scott?”

  “How many other Amelias do we know?” Conway was wearily ironic. “But the shooting wasn’t her fault. I’m sure she only meant to threaten me.” He gulped a breath. “The gun must have gone off . . . you know, accidentally.”

  “Got it. Amelia Scott tried to shoot you. Accidentally. So how did you work this little operation? She lifted the stuff out of the Carswell library and gave it to you to fence?” Curtis’ voice took on an edge. “And Margaret? What about her? Is she any part of this?”

  “No, no,” Conway said again. “Not Margaret. She worked at Sunny’s library, yes. But she had nothing to do with this. Jeez, Jeremy, you of all people ought to know that. Margaret wasn’t in on this.”

  Something about the way he said that caught my attention. Why should Curtis know what Margaret was involved in?

  The chief grunted. “So okay. So how did this cottage industry work? Amelia stole, you fenced? Is that it?”

  “Fenced.” Conway winced at the word. “Yeah, basically. I’d tell her what to look for, what I had a buyer for, what I knew would sell. She’d get it out of the library. Had to do it that way, after Sunny shut me out. But then the new director—Harper, her name is—said she was closing the library to visitors and wouldn’t let Amelia in. As far as I was concerned, that was the end.” He coughed, painfully. “I told Amelia I was calling it quits.”

  I suppressed a wry chuckle. I’d often wished I had a hundred bucks every time I heard a crook claim that the crime he’d been caught in was his last crime. I had the feeling that there was more to this plot than Conway was telling us. Much more.

  “Calling it quits?” the chief asked. “Ending the partnership, you mean? Closing down the website? What?”

  “All of it. I wanted out. I was ready to . . . go straight, I guess you’d say. When the book went missing, Dr. Harper started tightening security at the library. She told the foundation board they had to have cameras and an alarm system. I told Amelia we were done.” Another cough, harder this time. He lay back, pale and wasted-looking. “That’s when she lit into me about the Blackwell book.”

  “Lit into you?

  “Yeah. Yesterday. We were in the shop and she was loud and pretty wired. I told her I had to open the store and I walked her to the back door to let her out. But she was screaming and—” His jaw was working. “I kind of pushed her out the door and turned to go back into the shop and . . . and, that’s when it happened. When the gun went off. I don’t think she meant to do it.”

  “You said she lit into you about the book. You’re talking about the big one that was stolen from Hemlock House a couple of weeks ago?”

  “Yeah. The Curious Herbal. Amelia believes I took it. She wanted her half.”

  “Wait a minute. Amelia believes you took the book? You’re saying you didn’t?”

  “I didn’t.” He looked up, his eyes on Curtis’ face. “Swear to God I didn’t, Jeremy. In fact, when I heard it was gone, I figured she had taken it. Amelia.” He dropped his eyes. “I may have given her a pretty hard time about that.”

  Oh, he had, had he? I could imagine the two of them
, fighting over who had stolen the Herbal, each one accusing the other. I could see the argument escalating until it finally ended with a gunshot.

  He was going on, as if he were glad to get this off his chest. “I don’t have a clue where the damned book is, and I kept telling her that, over and over. But I couldn’t convince her. She just kept saying she knew I’d taken it out of the library and sold it to that collector in Brussels who wants it. She said she had to have the money and I had to hand it over. She’s got money troubles.” His smile was a grimace wobbling with exhaustion. “Like me. Like you.” He closed his eyes and his voice dropped to a whisper I could barely hear. “Like everybody. Money troubles.”

  I was squirming. If this were a movie, we’d just had our confession moment—taped on the chief’s body cam, start to finish—and the end titles soundtrack was coming up while the closing credits rolled. But in real life, the Hemlock County DA would be a lot happier if Curtis would break off the interrogation right now and do two things.

  One, subpoena Conway’s bank account records, to see if there were any recent large deposits.

  And two, question Amelia Scott. It was time to confront her with Conway’s accusation. Get her denial or her explanation. Or that of her lawyer.

  But most important, get the weapon Scott had used to shoot Conway—before she chucked it in the river and they had to pay a dive team to look for it. Which was probably not in the city’s budget.

  And he ought to have a talk with Margaret Anderson, too. I could think of several reasons why Conway might want to convince the chief that she wasn’t involved in his scheme. The most likely: that she had taken the Herbal, he had sold it for her, and the two of them had split something close to a hundred thousand dollars.

  I had thought about this earlier, after I’d heard from Claudia Roth that Anderson was angry when the board replaced her. Stealing the Herbal would settle accounts with the board for essentially firing her and at the same time get even with her rival for being better qualified. Plus, of course, there was all that money. I had even considered Margaret as a candidate for Conway’s shooter. Now, I mentally subtracted the Smith and Wesson from my image of the frosted hair, the red twinset, and the Manolos.