Death with a Dark Red Rose

by Julia Buckley

  I thought about this, then walked to the door and peered down the hall. I turned back to him. “Why not in the hallway? One on each side. People have to travel down there to get to the bathroom, right?”

  “Yes, I had considered that. You think that’s all right? Not—tacky, to have them there?”

  “No. It’s wall space, and people will want chances to study the art up close, wherever that may be.”

  He clapped his hands together. “All right, then! We have a plan. The food is covered, the guests have RSVP’d, Allison has her music list, I hope?”

  “Yes, I sent it to her last night.”

  “Good. She’s a talented girl. Camilla loves to hear her sing.”

  “So do I. It will be great, Adam. You don’t have to worry.”

  He shrugged. “It’s the first party I’ve ever thrown for her. I mean, I’ve gone to her birthday parties for years. But I’ve never been in charge of one. Certainly never expected to be planning one as her husband.” The awed look was back on his face, and I gave him a quick one-armed hug.

  “She will have the best time ever. Now, let me sort these. Did you want them in chronological order? That would make the most sense, right? If so, The Lost Child can go on the north wall, and we’ll snake around from there.”

  “Good. You order them for me, and I’ll dig out the easels from my storeroom. Be right back.”

  He left, and I started stacking. North wall, west wall, south wall, east wall. The easels and the hallway would hold the most recent twelve novels. I lifted the canvas of For the Love of Jane and walked to the west-wall pile. I held it for a moment, contemplating the cover, recalling the complex plot that had assaulted me with surprises, one after another. Camilla’s plots were famous for that rapid-fire, chapters-long denouement. “Huh,” I said, distracted by a thought. In the book, Jane’s husband had disappeared, just as Luis had disappeared . . .

  Adam came bustling in. He was never happier than when he was working on a project. “Okay. You’ve been a lifesaver, Lena. Now I’m going to give you a pad of sticky notes, and if you’ll number them according to the order they were published, that will be great. Do you actually know that by heart?”

  “No. I can tell you what decade they all came out, but not what year. I’ve been double-checking on my phone. There’s a website that lays them all out in order.”

  “Wonderful.” He walked briskly over and kissed the top of my head. “I have to go check some things in the kitchen. When do you need to get back?”

  “Just within the hour would be great. But you know what? I want to walk over to town to get a couple things. Can you pick me up outside Sullivan’s Drugs in half an hour? I can stroll over and wait for you out front.”

  Adam’s hands went to his hips. “No, I cannot do that. Do you think I want my wife to divorce me a day after our wedding? Because that is what she would do if she knew I let you wander out alone while men are looking in your windows and following you in cars.”

  This was true, and not a happy thing to contemplate, but his expression made me laugh anyway. “Okay, geez. And don’t think I don’t see through you, Adam. You’re the protective one; you’re as transparent as my dad. He was always blaming things on my mother. ‘You have to be home by ten or Mom will worry.’ ‘Mom gets concerned when you don’t spend enough time on your homework.’ I’m pretty sure he hadn’t even consulted my mom before he made some of those speeches.”

  Adam shrugged. “I am protective, and I am unrepentant about that fact. After this summer—” He broke off ruefully. Adam had saved my life back in July, and we had become much closer since that day.

  I lunged forward to hug him. “I know, Adam. I love you, too.”

  He squeezed me tightly for a moment. “I don’t mean to be a lecturer. But you are young, and like my own children, you tend to feel immortal. I don’t think you can help it—it’s probably woven into your DNA. But I am far enough down the path of life that I can look behind me and see the pitfalls. It’s my job, as I see it, to keep you young ones out of those pitfalls.”

  “Adam. No wonder Camilla loves you.” I went to the wall with my pad of sticky notes, then paused. “When did you propose to her, anyway?”

  “Last week. We were walking the dogs, crunching over the leaves on the bluff road, and she had been to the dentist, remember? She was murmuring that she still felt woozy, and what if a heroine were to be abducted while under sedation?”

  “By an evil dentist?” I said dubiously.

  “That’s what I said, and we both laughed. She never stops plotting, that one. And I just—it overwhelmed me, in that moment, how much I love her. I said, “How about if you marry me, Camilla, at long last?”

  “Oh, Adam. That’s so romantic. When I think of your years of devotion! Did you fall in love with her at first sight, the way James did? Was it just an instant thing, way back when she came to Blue Lake?” I was putting numbers on the notes now, and adhering them to the proper covers.

  Adam shook his head. “No, it was long before she came to Blue Lake. She and James wrote letters, as you now know. Sometimes he let me read the ones she wrote. Often, she simply related things about her day—what her mother said, how she’d seen a gray kitten in the road, how her sisters were annoying but she loved them anyway, things like that. And you know better than anyone that she has a way with words. I—fell in love with her voice, long before I saw her face.”

  I paused on the verge of adhering a note to the canvas of On London Bridge and studied his handsome face. “You are just too perfect. Both of you. You have to tell that story at her party; you’ll have people in tears. Allison will be all over you, probably while singing some saccharine love song.”

  Adam laughed heartily at the thought. “Maybe not, then.”

  I turned to glance out the window behind his desk. “Oh, yuck. Look at the weather! Wasn’t the sun shining when I got here? Now it’s overcast, and that looks like freezing rain.”

  “Welcome to autumn.”

  “Yeah, blech. Okay, last five. One, two, three, then my beloved Salzburg Train—the book that brought Camilla and me together—then Death on the Danube. And we’re done!! Although I understand we’re going to see the tentative cover for Death at Delphi any day now.”

  “We’ll leave that to people’s imaginations,” Adam said. “As it is, Camilla will complain about all of these, asking what in the world we’re supposed to do with them all.”

  “I have an idea about that. You know that long hall that goes from her front door to her kitchen?”

  “Yes.”

  “We could give it a fresh coat of paint—white or cream—and then hang these as though it’s a little gallery. It would make that hall look bright and beautiful instead of dark and uninviting.”

  Adam beamed. “A great idea. We can do it while she’s off at some appointment. It will be a secondary birthday surprise.”

  “Exactly.” I looked at my watch. “All right, now we really should go. Make a quick stop and then see what’s happening at the house. Those developments Camilla texted you about. Things keep happening—”

  “As ever,” Adam said. “Right, let me talk to them in the kitchen, and then I’ll get my keys.”

  * * *

  * * *

  WE DROVE OUT of the lot, tiny ice pellets clicking on the windshield. “I’ll have to stop for gas, too,” Adam said. “Sorry about that.”

  “No problem. Are you going to Bentley’s? I’ll run next door and grab some cat food; then I won’t need Sullivan’s Drugs. Sam’s kittens are going through my usual stash.”

  Bentley’s was one of two gas stations in Blue Lake, up the hill from Wheat Grass on Green Glass Highway. Next door was a tiny grocery store where Camilla and I sometimes stopped for staples on the way home from some event or other.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Adam said. Ever the gentleman, he pul
led up in front of Highway Convenience Mart to spare me from the worst of the rain. “I’ll get some gas and come back here in a minute.”

  “Got it. I’ll wait just inside the door.” I waved and darted through the cold rain into the store, where I searched for the pet aisle. I walked past the dairy section, where a man was peering into a carton of eggs. He glanced up at me and we both froze. Joe Piper clearly recognized me and saw that I recognized him. His brows came down in a scowl and I’m sure my face grew red. I looked away and forced myself to find the proper section, to grab a bag from the shelf with slightly shaking hands, and to move briskly to the front of the store. I had the vague sense that Piper was still standing by the eggs, murmuring into a phone; I barely heard the young man in front of me when he held up the cat food and joked about the cute face of the feline on the bag. I muttered my agreement, keeping Piper in my peripheral vision. He had ended his call, and now he stared out the front windows of the store, seemingly watching for something. The attendant rang me up and told me to have a nice day.

  I thanked him and went to the door, peering through the cold spray to find Adam’s car. Someone loomed up in my periphery; I had one second to wonder if it was Joe Piper before he moved behind me and pushed the door open by reaching over my head. I had no choice but to move out into the rain because he was tall and broad, and he was pushing me forward. “Hey! Stop it!” I cried.

  Then his voice was in my ear. “We need to talk, Lena,” he said, just as a dark car pulled up next to me and a back door opened. “Get in,” he said.

  “What? No, I—”

  But again, his bulk and strength were moving me forward against my will, pushing me into the car, where Elena Castellan sat glaring at me. Joe got in on the other side; I was effectively trapped between them. “What—what is this? I don’t even know you!” I protested.

  “We don’t know you, either, but that hasn’t stopped you from following me all over town, has it?” Elena asked in a voice as icy as the rain that pelted the windows. “To my shop, to the vet, to this store.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Save it,” she snapped. “Drive, Tommy.”

  Another man sat at the wheel, and now the car moved forward, away from poor Adam, who was probably still filling his tank and worrying over those pitfalls that lay in wait for people like me.

  18

  How she regretted ever climbing into the car!

  —From Danger at Debenham Station, a work in progress

  THE MAN CALLED Tommy pulled onto the highway and drove for about a minute before pulling off again onto a tree-lined road that led to nothing but a deserted barn. Sam had pulled into the same spot once when we were driving home from a trip to Chicago and he found (he said) that he couldn’t wait to kiss me . . .

  I didn’t want to be on this lonely rutted lane. Was this how it had been for Luis? They had driven him somewhere and said, This is the end of the road?

  “I don’t understand why I’m here,” I said, my voice shaky. “Let me go, before I call the police!”

  Elena snorted. “Oh yes, your police friends. I just bet they’d be happy to haul all three of us away, wouldn’t they? Lock us up and throw away the key so that no one ever knows about this meeting.”

  I reached for my phone in my jacket pocket, but Joe Piper leaned over and wrested it from me. “Give it back!” I cried. “Give me back my phone, and let me out of here!”

  I lunged toward the door on Elena’s side and tried to open it; she tore my hand away, and the two of us were suddenly wrestling, gasping, almost spitting at each other in our fury.

  “Let me go!” I cried, trying to tear her clawlike grip from my arm. “How dare you?”

  She squeezed harder, her face mean. “You’ve got a lot of gall, lady. How dare I? Why don’t you tell me why you came to my coffee shop? Why you were outside the vet when I came out? Why you seem to be spying on me for them every chance you get?”

  “I’m not spying for anyone! I went to your coffee shop because I wanted coffee.”

  “Right. God, I am sick of the lies in this town. Even little Pollyannas like you lie right to my face! I can’t stand it anymore!” Her eyes glittered with some dangerous emotion.

  A pulse of anger burst through my fear. “If you don’t commit crimes, people tend to leave you alone!”

  She snorted. “I don’t need lectures from you, a freaking double agent!”

  I stared at her. “What does that mean?”

  She said nothing; her jaw was tight with anger.

  I tried to tone down my panic, to reason with them. “I can assure you that you will be in very big trouble if you don’t take me back to the store this instant. Adam will be looking for me, and the security camera will provide your license number.”

  Elena and Joe Piper exchanged a grim glance. She stuck out her chin. “Then I guess you don’t have much time to tell us the truth.” Her hand was still clutching my arm, and the grip seemed to tighten. The threat in her tone made me even angrier.

  “To tell you the truth? You haven’t told the truth to anyone!”

  “What?” Her voice was cold.

  I hesitated. What the heck? I didn’t have anything to lose at this point by putting my cards on the table. “You want the truth? I know you’re lying about your husband. I know you know what happened to him, and that you have a cover story. I know the two of you probably hurt him, and he was a good man.” I glared at her, and then at Joe Piper. “And if he’s dead, you’ll have a lot to answer for, no matter what you do to me!”

  Her hand dropped away from my arm, and in the next instant I found myself unencumbered, wiping at my furious tears. Elena’s eyes looked almost black as she pondered my words, her face blank and white. “What? What did you say?”

  I still knelt on the floor, facing Elena and her lover. “I know that you killed Luis. I know about his car, his blood. Everyone does—it was in the darn paper. And I know that you lied to the police, and to Carl, and to the man who came to your coffee shop to fill out an application. You’ve lied to everyone, because you hurt your husband. You and your conspirator from Plasti-Source, your hulk of a boyfriend here. I suppose you did it together.”

  Elena’s eyes sparked with a sort of interest. “You think I killed Luis?”

  “Yes. Are you telling me you didn’t?”

  She studied my face closely, leaning in to do it. She turned to Joe Piper, seemingly sending him some unspoken message. He shrugged at her and handed me a handkerchief from his pocket.

  I wiped my eyes and blew my nose. “What’s going on?” I said.

  Elena sighed and leaned back. “You write those books, right? With Camilla Graham.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve read about some stuff you did. In the paper. But I had thought—” She shook her head. “No, of course that doesn’t make sense.”

  She looked at Joe Piper again. “She helped catch that psycho from Greece. She helped put him away.”

  Joe nodded, then looked at me. “And you helped prove Sam West wasn’t guilty, right?”

  “Again, I will ask you what is going on? Why am I in your car? What do you want from me?”

  She nodded. “Let me introduce myself to you. I’m Elena Castellan. Luis is my husband.”

  “I know that.” My voice sounded bitter, even to me.

  She pointed at Joe Piper. “And this is my brother, Joe. He helped Luis get the job at Plasti-Source.”

  “Your brother.” My brain felt dull, full of cotton. The car shook with the onslaught of the cold wind.

  She nodded. “Tommy’s my brother, too. They’ve been helping me since this whole thing happened.”

  “What whole thing?”

  “I think I’ve been all wrong about you, Lena London. But I think you’re wrong about me, too. I apologize for the rough treatment.
Joe, give back her phone.”

  He handed me my phone and I took it, scowling, still kneeling at their feet. “Please take me back to the gas station.”

  She shook her head. “In a minute, but first we have to talk. I need to set you straight about a few things, and you’re going to want to hear them.”

  “Why is that?” I glared at her.

  She didn’t answer; she looked out the window and said, “You’re friends with the cops, right?”

  “A couple of them, yes.”

  “Be straight with me. Are they dirty? Are Blue Lake cops corrupt?”

  I barked out a laugh. “That is the pot calling the kettle black, Elena. Doug Heller and Cliff Blake are as honest as they come. They’ve been trying to find your poor husband even though you didn’t report him missing. Who sounds corrupt in that scenario?”

  Her dark eyes slid back to meet mine. “How did they know he was missing if I didn’t report it? See, that’s why I wonder about Blue Lake cops.”

  Was this woman for real? “Because Carl Frailey, who is a good friend to Luis, reported him missing. Even though his wife and his boss conveniently decided he wasn’t. Cops tend to think things like that are fishy. Which they are.”

  To my amazement, she smiled. A real smile, an almost happy one. “Carl Frailey!”

  She looked at Joe, who smiled as well. “Little Carl, man. He’s the fly in the ointment. He and Luis do have a bond.”

  Elena pointed at my phone. “Go ahead and text your friend. Tell him there’s been a misunderstanding and that you’ll meet him at home. But there are a few last things I want you to know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like this: I love my husband. I always have and I always will. Joe there is one of his best friends.” For the first time her dark eyes softened and filled with tears. “And for the life of me I cannot imagine who would want him dead.”