Rosemary Remembered - China Bayles 04

by Susan Wittig Albert

  Life is sometimes very complicated.

  When McQuaid called me at the shop, I could hear the frustration in his voice. "I've been trucking around Mexico City all day, and I haven't been able to dig up a trace of Clark," he said. "He's vanished into thin air. I have no idea where to look next."

  "I have," I said. "How about Acapulco?" It only took a minute to fill him in on what Matt had learned from the credit card company, and another couple of minutes to tell him about the situation with the hotel books. "Matt wants you to get the next plane to Acapulco. And he wants you to be careful. Clark could be dangerous."

  "Oh, Christ," McQuaid said. "Anything else I don't want to hear? Any word from Jacoby?"

  I pushed away the involuntary shiver that came with the memory of the cold, rough voice on the phone. For better or worse, I had already made up my mind not to tell McQuaid about Jacoby's threatening phone call that morning. What could he do? Abandon his search and fly home? Stay with the search and lay down even more stringent rules for Brian's safety, while worrying himself half-crazy?

  "No," I lied. "Nothing." It wasn't an easy he. It separated us in a way that distance couldn't. "Nothing from Bubba, either," I added. At least that much was true.

  "No news is good news, I guess." McQuaid's tone was dry. "What did you do today?"

  "Oh, the usual," I said evasively. There was no point in telling him that I'd staved off a process server, eliminated two suspects, and discovered two more. The eliminations only tightened the case against Jeff, which he didn't need to hear. I had nothing concrete to report about the bookkeeper, although of the two suspects, she was by far the more viable. I didn't have anything on Matt, either. I'd spent the entire day coming up with nothing. A big, fat zip, at least as far as evidence was concerned.

  "Good," McQuaid said emphatically. "I'm glad you're managing to stay out of trouble. What's the kid up to?"

  I glanced over my shoulder. Brian was perched on the stool behind the counter, a book in his lap. "He's studying Klingon. He bought a new dictionary when he was up at the campus today."

  "At the campus?" McQuaid asked, alarmed. "I thought he was at the store, with you."

  "Smart Cookie volunteered to baby-sit," I said lighdy, "so I took advantage of the offer. I figured that Brian's as safe under the wing of the campus cops as he is here." Safer, actually, but I wouldn't tell McQuaid that.

  "Oh," McQuaid said, the relieved father. "Yeah, you're probably right. I doubt if Jacoby could get his hands on him with Sheila around."

  "Do you want to talk to him? Maybe the two of you can have a conversation in Klingon." Brian isn't the only Trekkie in the family. When there's nothing else on TV, McQuaid reruns tapes of The Next Generation, and he and Brian keep up a running critique on the action.

  "I don't know if I can," McQuaid said. "About the only Klingon I can remember is BortaS blr jablu'Dl'reH QaQqu' nay.

  "Which means?"

  " 'Revenge is a dish best served cold.' " He chuckled. "You haven't heard that famous Klingon proverb? Everybody in the galaxy knows it."

  "My galactic education obviously doesn't extend to proverbs," I said. "But Brian seems to have gotten as far as 'Where does one find the ice cream?' There's probably a connection there somewhere."

  "Well, fetch him," McQuaid said. "I might as well display my ignorance."

  While Laurel and I discussed what to do with the air conditioner (Harold was out back, working on it), Brian and McQuaid talked. Unfortunately, their conversation did not come to a happy end.

  "It's not fair to keep me from going to the convention!" Brian cried, stamping his foot angrily. "You know how much I want to get that card."

  I couldn't hear what McQuaid said in rebuttal but whatever it was, Brian wasn't having any. "You're a Mar-casian slime mold!" he burst out. He thrust the receiver at me and stormed furiously out of the store.

  "What's a Marcasian slime mold?" I asked.

  "It would turn your stomach," McQuaid said. He sighed. "If I'd said something like that to my old man, he would have belted me. And my mother would've washed out my mouth with lye soap and sent me to my room for a month or two."

  "Don't you think maybe it would be okay for Brian to go to the convention with Arnold?" I ventured. I didn't want to say it to McQuaid, but the boy would be safer there, where he was just one small Trekkie among hundreds. Here, he was out where Jacoby could target him.

  "No convention," the Marcasian slime mold said sternly. "I want him home, where he's safe. Where he's in your sight every minute."

  I cleared my throat. "Actually, I don't think I — "

  "Look, China," McQuaid said, "I'm sorry you're stuck with the little turd. If there were any other way—"

  "It's not Brian," I said. "Actually, he's behaving pretty well. It's just that — "

  The other China spoke in an I-told-you-so tone. You just don't like being responsible for the boy, do you? Admit it. It's a good thing you and McQuaid aren't married. What kind of mom doesn 't want to be responsible for her child?

  "Hey, I've got a thought," McQuaid broke in. "Why don't you phone Blackie and ask him to take Brian for a day? Jacoby's not going to try anything if the kid's in the custody of the sheriff."

  "Now that," I said, "is an outstanding idea. I'll do it." Of course you will, the other China said. You'd jump at anything to get the kid off your hands. "Anything else?"

  "Keep your sense of humor. I'll phone you tomorrow. Oh, by the way. JIH bang SoH."

  "Okay, I’ll bite. What does it mean?"

  "I love you," he said. "In Klingon."

  "Bang means love?" Suddenly I missed McQuaid very much, missed laughing at silly word jokes, missed lying beside him in the early morning before the world woke up and the clay's complications had to be dealt with.

  "Bang means love," he said, and chuckled. "Klingons don't mess around." There was a silence. "When I get back, though," he said reflectively, "a little messing around would certainly be in order. Wouldn't you say?"

  I would, but we didn't have time to go into it. Laurel was just coming in from the back, where she had been checking on Harold's autopsy of the air conditioner. Laurel is one-quarter Native American (her full name is Laurel Walkingwater Wiley, and her mother's mother was a Cherokee), and she almost never complains. She wasn't complaining now, either, although her face was flushed with the heat, sweat was running into her eyes, and her tee shirt was plastered to her back. Native Americans are a stoic lot.

  "Harold says that what's wrong with it now isn't the same thing that was wrong with it last time," she said.

  I sighed. "I suppose he wants more money to fix it."

  "Four hundred," she said. "It's the compressor. He admits that it might have been bad when he did the other stuff."

  "Four hundred more?" I exclaimed. "Okay, that's it for Harold. We're calling your cousin. If we've got to put in a new compressor, I'd rather pay somebody else to do it."

  Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Where the yarrow grows There is one who knows.

  Folk saying

  When we got home, I made Brian sit in the locked car while I gave the house a good looking-over. But everything was locked up tight and all I found were a couple of hang-ups on the answering machine. There was another while I was making the spaghetti sauce, but I didn't have any reason to believe that it was Jacoby. He'd promised to phone, but he didn't strike me as the kind of man who'd call and hang up, just to keep me on edge. Just the same, I was a good deal more unsettled than I let on, either to Brian or Sheila, who arrived just in time to make the salad. Hang-ups unnerve me. I hate to pick up a telephone, say hello, and get an earful of sinister silence, followed by a dial tone.

  For the most part, our evening was uneventful. Sheila helped load the dishwasher after dinner, then drove back to her house to pick up some clothes. Brian, still sulking about his conversation with the Marcasian slime mold, took Ivan the Hairible into the living room to comfort himsel
f with a Star Trek rerun. I went into McQuaid's office to get out the schedule of store events for August.

  Summer can be slow, so I like to schedule plenty of activities to bring people into the shop. I plan everything early in the year to cut down on the expense of mailing announcements, and then do a monthly calendar to hand out to customers, post in the store, and place in the newspaper. August's schedule includes a demonstration of herbal candle making by Gretel Schumaker, who runs Candle Works at the Craft Emporium; a class on herbal pestos (basil isn't the only pesto herb); and a Lammas festival that Ruby and I will cohost. The ancient midsummer celebration of Lammas (Old English for loaf mass) consecrated the first loaves of bread baked from the new harvest. In honor of Lammas, I'll teach a class on herbal breads, while Ruby will do a class on ritual. We'll bring the two classes together for our celebration.

  But before any of these good things can happen, I have to put together a flyer, which meant turning on McQuaid's computer and settling down to work. I was nearly done when Brian came in and tried once more to cajole me into taking him to the Star Trek convention. He started off by telling me how much he wanted the Air. Data card he was sure he'd find at the show, then reminded me that if he spent the day in Austin he'd be out of my hair, and finished up with the promise that if I'd let him go with Arnold, he'd be exceptionally good for at least two months.

  "I can't let you go, Brian," I said.

  His face wrinkled. "But China — "

  "It's not me, it's your dad. He's worried about this Jacoby thing."

  He flung up his arms angrily. "Jacoby, Jacoby. I'm sick of hearing about the guy. Nobody can be as bad as Dad says he is."

  I thought about the cold, hard voice on the phone. "I wouldn't be too sure about that," I said. "There are some pretty violent people running around out there."

  "My mother would, let me go."

  "Even after your father said no?"

  "Sure. She doesn't care what he says."

  "Well, / care. You have to mind your dad."

  He scowled deeply. "If I can't go, I'll never, never speak to you again."

  "That sounds like blackmail," I said.

  He gave me a dark look. "I don't know why you had to stick your nose in, anyway. Dad and me were doing all right by ourselves. Dad's a good cook, and I pick up my stuff. We don't need some woman cleaning up after us."

  The other China was deeply offended. Tell him that women weren't created to clean up after men, she said. But I settled for "I'm here because your father and I want to be together."

  He raised his chin. "Well, nobody asked me what / wanted. So why don't you just leave?" He turned and left the room.

  I stared after him despairingly. If I ever had any hope that we might be a family, I could scrap it. If Brian truly didn't want me here, he could very easily come between his father and me. Maybe I'd better think of other alternatives. I'd already gone too far in remodeling the shop to move back there. But I could stay with Ruby for a while. Or I could move into the cottage behind the shop. To be fair, I'd have to make some sort of deal with McQuaid about the lease on the house.

  But that was next week or the week after. It was tomorrow I had to deal with. I called Blackie, who readily agreed to McQuaid's suggestion that he take Brian the next day.

  "Have him ready at eight," he instructed. "I'll stop by on my way to the office. Any sign of Jacoby?"

  "No," I said. "A couple of hang-ups on the answering machine is all."

  "Any trouble, you holler," he said. "See you in the morning."

  I'd been off the line for only a minute when the phone rang again. I picked it up uneasily, but it was not a hangup. It was Ruby.

  "Everything okay over there?"

  "Why? Should there be something wrong?"

  "Well, no, not really. I was just thinking about what La Que Sabe said last night and wondering — "

  "La Que Sabe doesn't know everything," I said testily.

  "You don't need to get huffy, China. I know you were out talking to people today. What did you find out about Rosemary?"

  "About Rosemary? Well, let's see," I said. "I found out that her ex-husband thinks she was sleeping with a real estate dealer named Howard Rhodes. I found out that Rhodes's daughter thinks she blackmailed her father or blew the whistle on him for cheating on his taxes, or both. And I found out that Matt thinks she may have uncovered some accounting hanky-panky and tried to blackmail Jeff Clark."

  Ruby blew out a long breath. "You're making all that up.

  "I am not. It may not be true, but it's what I found out."

  "Oh," Ruby said, relieved. "You mean, that's what people told you about Rosemary." "That's what I said."

  "Well, we shouldn't confuse what people say about Rosemary with the truth," Ruby reminded me sagely.

  "Whose truth? We're sort of like the blind men with the elephant. Each of us knows only a little bit about her, and nobody's bit matches anybody else's bit."

  There was silence for a moment. Finally, Ruby said, "Ondine started back to Berkeley this morning. But La Que Sabe left a message for you. She wants you to be sure to remember about el r(o abajo. She says it's important."

  The river beneath. The place where I was supposed to find the truth about Rosemary's murder. "Remembering el r(o abajo is not exactly like remembering the Alamo," I said. "It can't be all that important if I don't know what it means. If La Que Sabe wants to get her message across, she shouldn't talk in riddles."

  "Messages from channeled entities are often enigmatic," Ruby objected.

  "This message isn't enigmatic," I said. "It's just plain silly. 'The river beneath.' What does La Que Sabe expect me to do? Fetch a forked stick and start dowsing?"

  "Maybe you shouldn't take it so literally. Maybe she means, like, well, the river of human motivation that flows under all our actions."

  "Well, if that's what she means, I've got news for her. It's not a river, it's an ocean. There's so much motivation in this case, you could drown in it."

  Ruby cleared her throat. "There's one more thing," she said. "It's about the air-conditioning. I hate to complain, but it was ninety-two in the Cave this afternoon, and my customers are wilting. Can't Harold do something?"

  "Harold's been fired," I said. "Laurel phoned her cousin Emily, who inherited an air-conditioning repair shop from her father. Emily's supposed to be there first thing tomorrow."

  "Wonderful!" Ruby exclaimed. "Never ask a man to do a woman's work."

  Five minutes after Ruby and I finished our conversation, the phone rang again. It was Sally. She asked to speak to McQuaid, and when I told her he wasn't there, to Brian. Her voice was edgy and almost hysterical, and I wondered whether she was on some kind of medication. McQuaid was right — she didn't seem emotionally stable. I wasn't sure it was a good idea for Brian to talk to her, but she is his mother and who am I to say no? I yelled up the stairs to Brian that his mom was on the line and hung up the downstairs phone when I heard him pick it up.

  A few minutes later, Sheila arrived, wearing sleek black pants and a slithery top that made her look like Bat-woman and carrying a bag of lavender cookies from Pam Neely. Inspired, I made some lavender-mint tea punch. I took a plate of cookies and some punch upstairs to Brian, put them beside his door, and told him they were there. I didn't get any answer.

  Downstairs again, I went over for Sheila what I'd learned in the course of the day.

  "Sounds like a soap opera," she said, when I'd finished relating Priscilla's narrative. "So now we know Clark's motive. Are you ready to admit that he's guilty?"

  "I'm not trying to defend Jeff Clark," I said, not entirely truthfully. "All I want to do is find out the truth — for Rosemary's sake, if nothing else."

  "Very noble," Smart Cookie muttered. "What's next?"

  "Blackie's keeping Brian tomorrow, and I'm driving to Austin to talk to the bookkeeper, Carol Connally."

  Sheila cocked her head. "Austin, huh? It just so happens that I'll be there. I've got a 1:30 meeting w
ith the UT campus security staff. How about lunch? We could do Katz's."

  "Sure," I said. "I'm hoping to to see Connally in the morning. I have a feeling that there's a lot more to be known about this situation."

  How much more, I couldn't have guessed.

  Sheila left at seven-thirty the next morning, with a promise to meet me at twelve-fifteen for lunch at Katz's Deli, at the corner of Sixth and Rio Grande. I went upstairs and put on a lightweight khaki suit, ivory blouse, and brown pumps. Blackie showed up twenty minutes later to collect Brian, who was delighted to go off with the sheriff but still pointedly refused to speak to me. Wearing his Captain Kirk jersey and Mr. Spock ears, he shouldered his gear bag and loped out to the sheriff s white Jeep Cherokee. The sheriff lingered to talk to me.

  Blackie Blackwell is a dry, quiet man about my age, with a square jaw, solid shoulders, and a Marine Corp haircut. But beneath his dispassionate intelligence and singleness of purpose, there's a compassionate heart. Even people who don't trust cops trust him. Blackie's a widower with no children, but he's an expert on kids. He's a scoutmaster and the uncle of three boys—two in high school and one a year older than Brian—who frequently come to stay with him.

  "Kids go through phases," he said, when I told him that Brian was giving me the silent treatment. "Don't sweat it, China."

  "The thought has occurred to me that Brian needs more mother than he's getting," I said ruefully. "Maybe he should spend more time with Sally. But she's pretty unstable right now. I don't know if he could handle that."

  Blackie grinned and patted my shoulder. "Kids are re-siliant. He'll survive, and so will you. A few more years, and you'll forget that there ever was a day like this." His mouth tightened. "Anything new from Jacoby?"

  "Not a word," I said. "What have you heard?"

  He shook his head. "Nothing. The guy's layin' low. You be careful, China. He's a mean SOB. I'm glad that Dawson woman is staying with you." He chuckled. "According to Bubba, she's a first-class lady. Number one on his list."