Mourning Gloria

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “Yes. Saturday night. I happened to see the fire and turned in the alarm. But it was too late for the victim. She died before anybody could get to her.”

  She squinted at me through a cloud of tobacco smoke. “Is that how you lost your eyebrows?”

  “Yeah. I was standing too close when the place blew up.”

  She bit her lip. “Was the dead girl a student? The deputy didn’t know. The reporter didn’t know, either.”

  “I don’t think anybody knows for sure. She hasn’t been identified yet.” I paused, wondering where to go next. I opted to fish. “Did Jessica spend much time with you?”

  “She was here maybe a half hour, something like that.” Lucy pulled on her cigarette, appearing to be subdued by the idea of someone dying in a place where she had lived. “She said she was writing a human-interest feature, so she was interested in all kinds of stuff. Like how long Larry and I lived in the trailer, what it was like to live that far out in the country, that sort of thing. Oh, and she wanted to know whether we ever had any problem with the wiring or the electrical. Anything that would cause a big fire.”

  I guessed that neither the deputy nor Jessica had told Lucy that the fire had been set by an arsonist, so I didn’t enlighten her. “What did you tell her?”

  Lucy pressed her lips together. “Well, I said there wasn’t anything like that wrong with the place, not that I knew about, anyway. Once a skunk made a nest underneath and had some babies, and there was some sort of problem with the plumbing. But the rent was right, and . . .” She paused, frowning. “I wonder how come that girl couldn’t get out when the place caught on fire.”

  “Smoke inhalation, maybe,” I said. “Why did you want to live out in the country?”

  She gave me a quick glance, then looked away. “Mostly to get away from neighbors,” she said evasively. “Although we had some nice neighbors out there. They just weren’t right under our noses, like they are in this place.” She put out her cigarette in the overflowing beanbag ashtray in front of her and clasped her hands around her arms, as if she were cold. “Gosh, just thinking about that girl gives me the shivers. If I had stayed there, I could’ve ended up dead. Like her, poor thing. So I guess the new owner did me a favor, kicking Larry and me out the way he did.”

  “He kicked you out?” I asked experimentally.

  “Yeah.” She didn’t take the bait. “Which is why we got this place.”

  I tried another tack. “Was your roommate here on Sunday, when the deputy came?”

  “Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “I’ve got the place all to myself for a month or so. Larry left early Sunday morning to drive down to San Antonio, where his folks live. After that, he’s going to Mexico. A field trip. For his research.”

  “Does he know about the fire?”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t—and definitely not from me. I haven’t talked to him since he left.” She nodded toward the photos on the wall. “He’s the one who’s really into stuff like that. Plants, I mean. This year, he’s working on some sort of native corn, that’s why he’s going to Mexico. But last year, he did a big paper on the psychoactives that are used in native cultures. Like, in rituals and that kind of stuff. The way they do it—it’s not like recreational drugs, the way it is in this country. They’re not doing it for fun, or just to get high. The plants are part of their religious celebrations.”

  I nodded sympathetically. “That’s sometimes hard for people to understand.”

  She unclasped her hands and sat back against the sofa cushions. She was silent for a moment, then: “You know, I said I never loaned my key out. But Larry might’ve—at least, that’s what I heard. I didn’t tell the deputy because I didn’t know it until after he was here, but . . .” She stopped, frowning. “I don’t want to get Larry in trouble, though.”

  I smiled in what I thought was a sisterly way. “Oh, you won’t.” I paused. “So?” I asked invitingly.

  “Well, I was over at the Hort Center for a class on Monday morning and I ran into this girl—Zoe—who was a teaching assistant during the spring. In a class Larry and I had with Dr. Laughton.”

  “Zoe Morris?” I hazarded. The person who had left a message on Jessica’s answering machine.

  “Oh, you know her?” She brightened, as if my knowing Zoe forged another link in our sisterly friendship. “Small world, isn’t it? Anyway, I happened to run into Zoe and I was telling her about the fire and the questions the deputy asked and all that, and she said she thought Larry might have loaned a key to the trailer to somebody else. Some girl.”

  I was beginning to connect the dots. “And you told Jessica Nelson about this?”

  She took out another Salem and lit it. “Yeah, and it turned out that she knew Zoe, too.” She flicked the lighter flame. “Jessica and I, we talked about a lot of different stuff. This feature she’s writing—well, it’s really in-depth. She’s trying to put herself inside that trailer.”

  “I know,” I said ruefully. “She wants to get close to the story.”

  “Absolutely,” Lucy said. “And I wanted to help her. Anyway, I told her what she wanted to know. She asked if she could get in touch with Larry, so I gave her his parents’ phone number in San Antonio.” She tilted her head to one side, gazing at the curling smoke. She was frowning slightly. “You say she’s disappeared? Like, nobody’s heard from her?”

  I nodded. “Did she say where she was going when she left here?”

  Lucy thought about this. “Well, not exactly. But she seemed really interested in finding out about that key—you know, whether Larry had actually given it to somebody, and if so, who that was. So I sorta have the idea that she might’ve been headed to the Hort Center to talk to Zoe.”

  Given what I’d heard on the answering machine, I thought that was a pretty good guess. But I had another question. “Do you know anybody who drives a new red Mustang convertible? Maybe somebody who visited you when you were living at the trailer?”

  “A new Mustang?” She blew out smoke, giggling. “A convertible? We had friends out there sometimes, but nobody like that.”

  I nodded. “Thanks. Oh, there’s one more thing, Lucy. Would you mind giving me the number for Larry’s parents? If I can’t locate Jessica, I might try there. It’s possible that she got in touch with them.” And if Larry was still in San Antonio, she might have driven down there to talk to him. Even in traffic, the city is no more than a forty-minute drive from Pecan Springs—an easy trip.

  Lucy got out of her chair, carrying her cigarette. “Sure, I can do that. I’ll get it.” As she passed the wall of plant photos, she glanced up, then back to me. “Oh, by the way,” she said, in an offhanded tone. “Morning glory seeds really do work. Since you’re into herbs, you oughtta give ’em a try. I mean, it’s just another aspect of plant culture, like the way some plants taste and smell. Something you ought to experience. And it’s legal. Completely and totally legal.”

  I stood, too, regarding her thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll do that. How many seeds should I take?”

  “It would be better if you take them in capsules. That way, you’d know how much you’re getting. You don’t want to use seeds you get from a seed store. Those are treated with all kinds of poisonous stuff. You need to get them from . . .” She gave me a glance. “From somebody who knows not to use treated seeds.”

  I frowned curiously. “Capsules? You mean, you process the stuff?”

  “Sure. It’s so simple, even a kid can do it.” She was candid, showing off, bragging a little, telling me something I didn’t know and she did. “You grind up the seeds, see, and soak them in naptha and then in alcohol. Everclear is good, or vodka or gin. You want hundred proof.”

  “Naptha,” I mused aloud. “That’s a solvent, isn’t it? Could you use lighter fluid, maybe? Or camp stove fuel?”

  “Yeah, people do use lighter fluid. And camp stove fuel is really good, because it’s easy to get. You can buy Coleman’s at lots of places around town.” She paused at the door to the other
room. “Anyway, after you’ve soaked the seeds in alcohol, you strain out the seed mash and throw it away and then you evaporate off the alcohol you’ve soaked it in. What you get is a yellow gummy stuff on the bottom of your pan. Scrape it up and put it into capsules. It’s good. Really good. Not as potent as LSD, of course, but close. LSA, they call it.” She paused, eyeing me, and got cautious. “Of course, we’re speaking academically here, as Dr. Laughton says.”

  I became enthusiastic. “Really? The effect is like LSD? Gosh, I had no idea. That could be really interesting!”

  She pursed her lips. “Lysergic acid amide, is what it is. An all-natural high. Nothing synthetic about it. Heavenly Blues are the best. Pearly Gates and Flying Saucers are also good.” She grinned. “Speaking academically.”

  Naptha was natural? “These untreated seeds—where did you say I should get them?”

  Whatever she had been about to tell me, she suddenly thought better of it. “Oh, off the Internet,” she said, with a vague wave of her hand. “Google it. You’ll find them. Or maybe . . .” She paused.

  “Maybe locally?” I hazarded.

  She shrugged. “Mine come direct from Mexico. My friend Matt brings them back a couple of times a year.”

  I filed the information. “The process sounds like a lot of work,” I said, as if I were having second thoughts. “Have to get the seeds, then there’s all that grinding and soaking and evaporating.”

  “Yeah.” She gave me a sly grin. “If you’re doing it just for yourself, probably it is. Too much work, that is. Of course,” she added, in a meaningful tone, “you could just buy the capsules. I might have a few to spare.”

  I nodded. I was beginning to get the picture. And it wasn’t a pretty one.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jessica

  When Jessica woke up again, her eyes felt gritty and swollen and her nose was dripping and she wondered if she’d been crying in her sleep. She lay very still, pretending for a precious few moments that this whole thing had been just a very bad dream and she would be waking up in her bed, safe at home, with the early-morning sun coming through a crack in the blind and the wonderful fragrance of coffee wafting from the kitchen. Coffee, that was what she needed. She would swing her legs out of bed, grab her wrap, and pad barefooted to the kitchen, where she would pour herself a mug of rich, dark coffee. With that in her hands, she could face the world. She could face Amanda. She could—probably—even face Butch, next door.

  But she could pretend for only a moment, for it wasn’t her bed she was lying on. It was rough, cold cement, and she couldn’t get up because her wrists and ankles were bound so tightly that she couldn’t feel her hands and her feet. Her mouth was taped shut. There was no coffee, no kitchen, no Amanda.

  She stirred, shifting her head, which didn’t seem to hurt as much as it had before, and strained to listen to the silence, trying to hear any sounds, any sounds at all. Nothing, as still as the grave, and dark as the grave, too, a heavy, smothery dark that was so thick she could almost eat it. She turned her head to look over her shoulder, imagining that the smudge of light was a little brighter than the last time she had looked. Was it sunlight? A lightbulb somewhere in the distance? No way to tell. Maybe there was no smudge at all, just a trick of her imagination.

  Feeling helpless, hopeless, she fought back another threatening flood of tears. No. No, no, no. She wasn’t going to cry again, and she wasn’t going to let herself feel. Feeling led to crying and crying drowned out thinking, and she had to think. Think. She’d go back where she was before, to the business of remembering her movements, what she had been doing before whatever happened that had brought her to this place.

  Okay, Jessica, she told herself, back to remembering, one step at a time, pushing through the gray fuzziness that filled her brain. Lunch with China, and that awful tortilla soup with too much something in it. Cinnamon? She couldn’t remember what China called it. Too much something. Anyway, after lunch and after their talk (China didn’t think she ought to get involved, just write a straight story), she had gone to the trailer to take more pictures, and then to the auto parts place, where she’d gotten the name of that guy. She couldn’t remember it right now, except that it had two fs in it. Or maybe it had been the other way around, the auto parts place first, then the trailer. But that didn’t matter. Somewhere along the way, she had gone to the sheriff’s office, where she’d seen the photos of the charred body, those awful, horrible photos. She pushed the memory away. She needed to stay with something safe. The silver bracelet with the initials G.G. The footprint, which the sheriff had said was made by a Converse shoe.

  She squeezed her eyes shut to think better, although it was so dark it didn’t matter whether her eyes were open or closed. After the sheriff’s office, she’d gone to see the girl with the B-movie name, Lucy LaFarge, who lived in that cruddy little apartment with the purple door on North Brazos. She remembered the door very clearly because the paint had been flaking off, and there were ugly green drapes at the window. Lucy’s face was a little foggy, but she remembered going inside and talking, and the way the place smelled of tobacco smoke and marijuana, and the photos of plants taped to the wall over the computer. Lucy had already known about the fire, because a deputy had been there the day before, but there was something else, something—

  She pressed her lips together, pushing herself to remember.

  Oh, yes. Yes, there it was. The key, which the guy who lived in the trailer with her, the guy with two fs in his name—Cliff, maybe? Or was it Jeff? She couldn’t remember—had loaned to a girl in one of his classes.

  Yes, that was it! She pressed her lips together harder. Zoe Morris, at the Hort Center, had told Lucy about the key, and Lucy had told her. So she’d gone to the Center to see Zoe, and Zoe had said that the girl’s name was Gloria and that she had been in one of Dr. Laughton’s classes. And Zoe had also known the guy’s name—Wolff, Larry Wolff, with two fs. Yes, that was it, not Cliff or Jeff, but Wolff, and he was the one who had given the key to Gloria.

  That was all Zoe could tell her, although she’d promised to do some checking and call with anything she found out. But on her way out of the building, Jessica had had the bright idea of checking the bulletin board beside Stu Laughton’s door—although she was crossing her fingers that Stu had already gone home for the day because he was the very last person on earth she wanted to see. She had been ducking him for weeks, ever since she’d broken off their relationship. It was one thing to be involved with a man who was separated from his wife. It was another thing entirely if he and his wife were still trying to keep it together, even if it was only for the kids. And the kids were twins, for pete’s sake, twin girls, like her and Ginger.

  She sucked in a breath. Stop, she told herself sternly. Don’t go there. Don’t think of Ginger. It hurts. Go back to the bulletin board, where she’d hit pay dirt, because she’d found a typed list of students’ lab assignments. There was Larry Wolff’s name, along with two other guys, Matt Simmons and Brian Lafferty. And Gloria. Gloria Graham.

  She had stared at it for a moment, clutching her notebook. There it was! Gloria Graham. G.G. The initials engraved on the bracelet in the photo. Which meant that the dead girl was probably the one to whom—according to Zoe, anyway—Larry Wolff had given the trailer key. Gloria Graham. She had felt a surge of triumph. If she was right, she was way out front of everybody else, ahead of the police, even!

  She had a name, what she needed now was an address. So instead of going home, the way she had intended, she had driven over to the newspaper office, where she could log on to all the up-to-date address and phone directories. From there on, it was a bit of good luck, bad luck.

  The good luck was that she had found an address for Gloria Graham, in a rundown, neglected-looking apartment building at the west side of campus, not far from Lucy’s place on Brazos. When she got there, though, it turned out that Gloria had moved. This bad luck was canceled out by some good luck when the girl who was living in the
apartment—Vickie Vickers—turned out to be Gloria’s former roommate. Vickie confirmed that the Gloria she was tracking was the same Gloria who was taking classes in horticulture and gave her a new address on the east side of campus.

  So that was her next stop. No, next was Taco Bell, because it had been hours since she had eaten (just the salad, not that awful soup) and she was hungry. Then she had driven to Gloria’s apartment complex, which was very different, new and upscale and obviously much more expensive than the other place, with a clubhouse and a great-looking pool and a parking garage for tenants. She had parked in the lot and—

  She stopped. The thick, shadowy silence around her had been broken by a sound. A thud, maybe, like the slam of a heavy door.

  Instinctively, Jessica closed her eyes against the dark. Better pretend to be asleep or unconscious. Better not let on that she was awake and thinking. And remembering.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Archaeological evidence tells us that for native peoples of the Andes, coca (Erythroxylon coca) has been an important medicinal plant for at least five thousand years. Chewed as a stimulant, it enhanced physical strength and energy, enabling the body to make better use of the limited oxygen at the high altitudes. As a tea, coca was used for digestive problems. As a poultice, the leaves were used to treat headaches and were chewed to relieve toothaches and sore throats. As a salve, coca soothed arthritis pain and muscle aches.

  The plant was also considered to have spiritual properties, and tribal shamans still use it to induce a trance-like state. Coca enables the shaman to cross “the bridge of smoke” and enter the world of spirits.

  Cocaine (a crystalline tropane alkaloid obtained from the leaves of the coca plant) is second only to marijuana in its use as a recreational drug in the United States. The drug is responsible for street crime, organized crime, and government corruption in both North and South America.