Rosemary Remembered - China Bayles 04

by Susan Wittig Albert

  Our relationship has gotten stronger over the last three years, although I've dragged my feet hard enough to leave heel marks in the dirt. Love isn't the problem, for McQuaid is a gentle man with whom I share a great many mutual interests, some of them delightfully, deliciously sensual. The two of us are very good in bed together, and getting better all the time.

  No, it wasn't my feeling for McQuaid that kept me from making a commitment. The problem was that I wasn't happy about the idea of a full-time, live-in relationship. I cherished my personal space. I loved having my own business and being my own boss. I refused to jeopardize either state of affairs, and McQuaid was double jeopardy. He was a single parent with a young son. What's more, he hadn't planned to stay at CTSU forever. He aimed at a full professorship at some big-city university that could pay him what he was worth. A long-term relationship with him meant not only becoming a mother but moving back to the city—neither of which I was prepared to do.

  But last spring, McQuaid turned down an offer of a professorship at New York University and accepted tenure at CTSU. The same week, he and Brian lost their lease. After a lot of soul-searching on my part and some undue influence from McQuaid, I finally agreed to go halves with him in an eighteen-month lease on a five-bedroom house large enough for two adults and one child and their various belongings, including a fine library of herb books, one large gun collection, and an assortment of reptiles and spiders (including—you won't believe this—a tarantula named Ivan the Hairible). Not to mention Khat, a testy Siamese, and an irrascible basset hound appropriately named Howard Cosell.

  Living with McQuaid has surprised me. There is the ordinary rub of small conflicts, day to day, but overall it's soothing, this cozy cocooning, this enfolding of body and spirit in the pleasant warmth of home and hearth. But another part of me—the independent China—stubbornly insists that it's too soothing, too cozy. If the feminist movement taught you anything, I hear her whisper, it taught you that there are board rooms to be invaded, career ladders to be climbed, financial killings to be made. So what are you doing washing the dishes and changing the sheets? Haven't you got anything better to do?

  And then there's Brian, who's eleven. I'm forty-four,

  I've never been a mom, and life under the same roof with a preadolescent male requires some major attitude adjustments on my part. What's more, Brian has lived alone with his father for the five years since his parents were divorced. He naturally resents having to share his dad with an uppity and intrusive female who's used to having her own way.

  And one more thing. For all of my adult life, I've been responsible to nobody, with nobody responsible for me. Now, though, I feel responsible to McQuaid. Worse, he seems to feel he's responsible for me. For instance, his telling me just now to be careful. It may seem to you like a small thing, but it bothers me and I get sarcastic, as I did a second ago. It usually doesn't accomplish anything. It didn't this time, either.

  His voice grew hard and measured: his pull-over-and-step-out-of-the-car voice. "I said be careful, China. Houston Homicide just called. Pardons and Paroles turned Jake Jacoby loose day before yesterday."

  That got my attention. Seven or eight years ago, Jake Jacoby killed his wife and mother-in-law and barricaded himself in his house. McQuaid talked him onto the porch and into the arms of the police. Jake was not grateful.

  "I thought he got twenty-five years," I said. It had been a crime of passion and Jacoby had hired a good defense lawyer — not me, thank God. I had plenty on my conscience, but not that one.

  "Twenty-five years?" McQuaid's chuckle was bitter. "You know better than that, counselor. The prisons are jammed. The prisoners are getting two days' automatic good behavior for every day served." He paused. "Where's your gun?"

  "Forget it," I said. My gun—a 9mm Beretta—was behind the paneling in the storage room behind the shop.

  I'd only used it for real once, and somebody—who, it doesn't matter just now—was dead. I wasn't going to use it again. Ever.

  There was a silence. When McQuaid spoke, his voice was controlled. "Be reasonable, China. According to the prison grapevine, Jake's sworn to get even. I've given Brian his orders, and now I'm telling you. If Jacoby comes around the shop — "

  "If he comes around the shop, I’ll call the police," I said, being reasonable.

  "The police!" It was McQuaid's turn for sarcasm. "You think Bubba's going to be waiting around the corner for you to scream?" Bubba Harris is the chief of the Pecan Springs police, a good old boy with a cigar and a beer belly. He's tough and he runs a tight town, but he's short on manpower.

  I had to concede that there was some logic to Mc-Quaid's concern. But it wasn't logic we were talking about, it was control. The emancipated China rose up in me, the China who hates to be told what to do by somebody who thinks he knows better. She was indignant, and she spoke for me.

  "Look," she said, "I'm going to pick up the truck and get started on the seven trillion errands I have to run before noon. If you want to discuss this over lunch —"

  "I don't want to discuss it at all. Go get your gun and put it in your purse. Jacoby's dangerous."

  "I don't have a license for a concealed carry."

  "Since when did you let a little thing like that stop you?" His voice was crisp. "I want you to watch out for him, China."

  With an exaggerated sigh I said, "Okay. Who am I watching for?"

  "He's six foot three, black hair, black mustache, five-inch knife scar on his right forearm, snake tattoo on his right shoulder and the right side of his neck. He thinks he's naked if he's not carrying a knife or a gun." McQuaid was grim. "I want you to be careful, China. Very careful."

  "I'll be careful," I said. I hung up, being very careful not to slam the phone.

  "What was that about?" Ruby asked. She moved the bowl of mint next to the cash register, pausing to sniff its fragrance.

  I fished the keys out of my purse. "A man with a snake," I said. "And an ex-cop with a father complex."

  Chapter Two

  For you there's rosemary and rue....

  William Shakespeare The Winter's Tale

  It was still early, but the heat was waiting outside like a ferocious tiger ready to pounce. Parked in the sun, my twelve-year-old Datsun was an oven, the seat scorching, the steering wheel too hot to grip. The air conditioner made a valiant effort, but the air on my face was a dry blast off the Sahara. I rolled the window down and the humidity rolled in. Texas in July. How did people survive here between the time the settlers built their log cabins and the first air-conditioning salesman knocked on the door? Especially the women, swaddled in long skirts and crinolines and buttoned into bodices so tight they could hardly breathe. Sheer torture, being confined like that.

  Just so I could tell McQuaid I'd been careful, I cast a cursory glance around. No sign of a six foot three, black-mustached ex-con with a knife scar and a snake tattoo. Shaking my head at McQuaid's paranoia (once a cop, always a cop, always on guard against something), I pulled out onto Crockett, made a left, and drove a block to the courthouse square.

  The tourists flock to the century-old stone-and-timber buildings in the center of Pecan Springs like pigeons to a roost. (In fact, the City Council recently built a public potty behind the library to meet their basic needs, a move which is said to have been instigated by Henry Hoff-meister of Hoffmeister's Clothing & Dry Goods, who got tired of providing toilet paper and a flush for the masses.) They come to Pecan Springs not just for scenic beauty but for a nostalgic taste of small-town Texas, which the merchants ladle out liberally. The square is decorated with flags, red-white-and-blue bunting, and posters announcing that the streets will be roped off on Saturday evening for the square dance competition.

  This morning, a small group of silver-haired ladies in summery dresses and white shoes were standing on the corner listening to Vera Hooper, the town docent. Wearing a denim skirt and yellow tee shirt hand-painted with green cacti. Vera was extolling the architectural wonders of the Adams Cou
nty Courthouse, which was constructed a hundred years ago of 160 flatcar loads of pink granite, hauled in from Burnet County by rail. As I passed. Vera pointed across the street to the Sophie Briggs Historical Museum, which features (among other enticements) a dollhouse that once belonged to Lila Trumm, Miss Pecan Springs of 1936, as well as Sophie Briggs's collection of ceramic frogs. The Sophie Briggs Museum is a big draw in our town. It's amazing the interest people can have in ceramic frogs.

  The square is the first stop on the Gingerbread Trail. After the ladies have admired the courthouse and availed themselves of the new public potty, they'll board an air-conditioned minibus, The Armadillo Special, and tootle south on Anderson Avenue to admire the fine old Victorian houses that line both sides of the street. Pecan Springs was settled by German immigrants in the 1840s, but the big building boom didn't come until the '90s. That's when the arrival of the railroad brought the money to build the courthouse, the gingerbread Victorians, The Grande Theater, and The Springs Hotel. An opulent era, but I'll bet the residents would have traded it all for central air-conditioning. I'll further bet that Vera Hooper's ladies wouldn't have been so enthusiastic about the Gingerbread Trail if they were required to hoof it, rather than riding the air-conditioned Armadillo Special.

  I waved at Vera and headed down Anderson to Chisos Trail and made a right. A few blocks west, I drove into Pecan Park, a recently built development of expensive homes surrounded by synthetic green lawns, unnatural rock terraces, and landscaped garden pools. Pecan Park doesn't have much to do with Pecan Springs. As I drove along I was reminded of the Houston suburb where I used to live: green, serene, and empty. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that very few of the residents were around this morning to enjoy their upscale homes. Most of them probably had to work from before dawn to past dark to make enough money to pay their upscale mortgages.

  Rosemary Robbins lived on a winding street a couple of blocks off Chisos Trail. Her house was set well back from the road behind a screen of cedar and yaupon holly, with a carefully arranged clump of purple crepe myrtle and plumy pampas grass surrounded by a bed of flaming red salvia, all heavily mulched with bark chips and without a single weed, compliments of Garcia's Garden Service. A cement drive looped behind the streetside clump of oaks and onto the street again. Through the trees, I could see McQuaid's Blue Beast, sitting sheepishly behind Rosemary's stylish gray Mazda. This was not the neighborhood where a battered old truck felt at home — or a twelve-year-old Datsun, either.

  I swung into the drive, parked far enough behind The Beast to give myself maneuvering room, and got out.

  McQuaid had asked Rosemary to lock the truck and leave the key in the magnetic box under the fender. I wouldn't bother to knock on her door. I'd just get in the truck and drive off. McQuaid and I could pick up my Datsun this evening.

  As I stepped out into the heat, the cicadas began a loud metallic drone. Their high-pitched crescendo was counter-pointed by the sardonic clucking of a yellow-billed cuckoo, the bird that Leatha, my mother, called a rain crow. When I hear that sinister clucking, I remember summer afternoons when I was ten, eleven, twelve, reading a book in my favorite tree, Leatha on a chaise longue beneath me, her gin glass within easy reach. The rain crow is a bad-luck bird, Leatha always said, in her soft Southern drawl. When you hear it, watch out. Warnings like that were her defenses against the random perils of a world over which she had little control. Look for cars. Keep your hand on your purse. Lock the car doors. Don't let him touch you.

  Perversely, I left the Datsun unlocked. I walked toward The Beast, wanting not to think of Leatha's warning — or of McQuaid's. Sure, Jacoby was a bad actor, and what he had done to his wife and mother-in-law was enough to curl anyone's hair. But Jacoby could be anywhere, Dallas or Houston or El Paso. Anyway, I reminded myself—or rather, the independent China reminded/?^ — Jacoby wasn't the real issue. I slipped my hand under the fender and took out the magnetic key box. The real issue was a power issue. The real issue was —

  No key. Well, no problem. Rosemary had probably left it under the seat. And if the truck was locked, I could knock at the door. Her Mazda was here, so she was still at home.

  But the truck wasn't locked. What's more, it wasn't even shut. I pulled the door open and saw her.

  Rosemary. On her right side across the vinyl seat, face turned up, empty eyes open, glassy, sightlessly staring. A neat, smooth, black hole under her left cheekbone, the seat under her head rusty with dried blood, furry with flies. Dark blood, like red ink, spattered all over the passenger side of the cab, the dash, the windshield. Blood and bits of something. Bits of the inside of Rosemary's head.

  I gagged and stepped back. The cicadas were a hundred buzzing rattlers, the heat a hard, sweaty hand pressing on my head. I grabbed the door to steady myself, then yanked my hand back, hoping I hadn't smudged whatever prints there were.

  After a minute I forced myself to look again, but not at Rosemary. The keys were in the ignition, Rosemary's purse on the floor, the wallet visible. A plastic grocery sack beside the purse spilled bars of soap, a carton of milk, a head of cabbage, all polka-dotted with blood. A Handy Jack Dry Cleaners bag full of clothing hung from the hook over the passenger door, blood-spattered. In the back of the truck I could see a gray metal file cabinet and a chair. Groceries, the dry cleaning, used furniture. Ordinary artifacts of ordinary, everyday life.

  But for Rosemary Robbins, there was no more ordinary life, no life at all. The brassy rattle of the cicadas was suddenly swallowed up in her stillness. A sour sickness curdled in my throat. I swallowed it down and leaned over her body, clad in expensive beige slacks, creamy silk blouse, paisley scarf, to feel for a pulse at her throat. Nothing. Her skin was cool, her stillness utter, complete, final.

  I looked down, feeling her separateness, sensing the absolute distance between us. Who had she been, this woman I had admired but barely known? What had empowered her, brought her pain, brought her peace? What had brought her to this terrible end? And I knew with sad certainty that it was only here, only now, in this last, quiet moment, that Rosemary Robbins could be whatever woman she was. In a little while, she would be the coroner's corpse, the cops' homicide, the DA's murder victim, the media's crime of the hour. Each of us, the living, would dissect her, construct her, imagine her, compose her as it suited our purposes, our needs. It was only in this moment, her death just discovered and not yet acknowledged, that she could be simply and purely herself, whoever she had been. Here, on the sly verge of death, I wished I had known her better.

  I stepped back and took a deep breath, coming back to myself. Then I turned away and left the body in peace for the time it took to find a neighbor at home and call 911. When the PSPD showed up, I was beside the truck again, waiting, pacing, collecting observations: the door had been unlatched, the window was rolled up, unbroken, her wallet was still in her purse, there was no sign of a weapon. Unless the gun was out of sight beneath her, she hadn't committed suicide. If she'd been murdered, the killer must have shot her through the open door while she was sitting behind the wheel—last night, probably, just as she got home with her furniture, the groceries, the dry cleaning. I wondered whether she'd known what was about to happen. And wondered why, in God's name. Why Rosemary? My eyes, of their own accord, went to the spattered blood, the bits of flesh. Why, why?

  The first cop on the scene was a slight, nervous brown-skinned man with large spaniel-brown eyes and a name badge that identified him as Gomez, H. He took one look at the body and ran back to the car to radio for assistance. A few minutes later a second cop arrived, Walker, G., a broad-shouldered woman with a competent jaw, a gritty voice, and a look of twitchy impatience, like a second-string offensive tackle with something to prove — Grace Walker, promoted a couple of months ago from prisoner attendant at the jail to patrol officer. Grace's mother, Sadie Stumb, works at Cavette's Grocery, on the corner of Guadalupe and Green. "That girl," Sadie always tells me proudly, as she rings up my fresh produce, "that Grace, she's goin
' far. Ever'body better git outta her way."

  Grace looked at Rosemary, then back at me. "Friend of yours?" She turned once again to peer closer. "Sister?"

  "Sister?" I was surprised. "What makes you say that?"

  Grace raised her heavy eyebrows in a facial shrug. "You look kinda alike. Brown hair, square sorta face."

  "Not a sister," I said. "A friend." But that wasn't true, either. Rosemary Robbins and I hadn't been close enough to be friends, except in the most superficial sense. "A business associate, actually," I amended.

  I glanced at the still face once again. I hadn't even known Rosemary well enough to know who would be sad, now that she was dead. Who would find the world empty, now that she wasn't in it?

  "What kinda business?"

  "She was my accountant. She did my taxes, handled my business accounts, stuff like that." I could hear a siren in the distance. More police were on the way.

  "Taxes, huh?" Grace moved her shoulder in an economical gesture, expressing understanding. "Maybe somebody didn't get what they thought they had comin', and they took it out on her. I read the other day that accountants are always gettin' threats from people who think they been ripped off. Like lawyers, you know? Lawyers are always gettin' theirselves killed. Somebody just busts into the office and starts shootin'." She sighed and lifted her cap off her head, wiping her sweaty forehead. "Doesn't hardly pay to get ahead, does it?"

  The police car pulled up at the curb, and we both turned. If this had been Houston, the vehicle would have been a Mobile Crime Scene Unit, a large white van equipped with state-of-the-art portable forensic technology and manned by a half-dozen criminalists. But this wasn't Houston, and Police Chief Bubba Harris had brought only two uniforms with him. One of them began to loop yellow crime-scene tape across the drive while the other unpacked camera gear. Bubba (his real name is Earl, but not even his mother uses it) conferred with Gomez for a moment, then with Grace Walker, putting them to work. Then he turned to me.