2 Landscape in Scarlet (11 page)

Madame Mimm then did something Juliet hadn’t expected. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she fainted dead away, slumping in her chair and the
n sliding to the floor in a heap
o
f
shawls and beads.

“Well damn,” Juliet said and then went to the woman’s aid.
She hadn’t meant to scare her
to the point of passing out
. She just wanted the palm
reader to think she was a kook and maybe tell her something about why the dead man couldn’t be a ghost.

It took splashing her with cold tea
from the plastic cup under the table
and a few slaps on the face which had aged a decade
and gone sickly gray
, but Lois Alderman soon came back around
and was again looking hostile
.

Juliet offered to fetch someone from the first aid tent, but Madame Mimm adjusted her turban and
scattered shawls and then
declined outside assistance.

She also declined to discuss Michael Comstock or his ghost and Juliet didn’t press. It would have been cruel.
T
hough some people might have found it suggestive of a guilty conscience that the woman thought Michael’s ghost
could be about, perhaps in her own tent even
—
ghosts in literature usually only hanging around to accuse the guilty party of murder most foul
—
Juliet didn’t read it that way. Madame Mimm believed in spirit
survival and feared it.
Her faint had been deep and real.
Given her genuine belief
in haunting
, it seemed unlikely that she would do anything to attract a ghost. In Juliet’s mind, that probably let her off the hook as Comstock’s killer.

That left Xander Lawson.

“Oh goody,” she muttered
once outside again
, not thrilled with visiting the big man with the large hammer
.

Juliet went immediately to see Xander Lawson
,
betting that he would be more inclined to talk if Madame Mimm didn’t warn him away from her.

“Hello,” she said,
barely stepping into his booth and
half hoping he would keep fussing with the forge.
She didn’t care for the smell of the fire which was not made with wood and smelled a little like a car accident.

“Look around if you like.
You’ll have to choose quickly though. I’m packing up.
” The voice was gruff and, to Juliet, unpleasant. His profile
as he glanced over his bulging shoulder
wasn’t ugly, but his face looked like it was made of cured leather
,
and lit as it was with the glow of embers and with the filter
ed
light bleeding through the red awning, he looked like something out of a horror film. The heavy hammer in his hand also affect
ed
her objectivity.

Juliet pretended to shop.
Everything he had for sale was heavy and looked like repurposed weapons. Except for a birdcage. Juliet had never seen one done in wrought iron, but the blackened metal leant itself to the towered castle he had fashioned.

“Oh, it’s been sold,” Juliet said, half relieved and half regretful. “I’m not surprised. It’s very striking.”

Xander grunted but turned to face her, lips folding over his large teeth.

“Was it a commission?” Juliet asked. “Or do you make them from time to time?”

“It was commissioned,” he said grudgingly
and didn’t volunteer anything else
.

“It must get hot working over a forge all day,” Juliet tried doggedly. “Does the fire go out if you take breaks
?”

“No.” He smiled at her suddenly. All those teeth startled her. “You’re the sweatshirt lady. You’ve been around to visit everyone
, asking questions
.”

“Yes. That’s me, the social butterfly.”

Xander shook his head.

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, no. I
—
I’m the one who found the balloon man’s body yesterday.” Juliet looked away from him and studied a garden stake that rather looked like a demon’s sword. “It’s been bothering me that I didn’t see that he was sick. That I just thought he was drunk and was glad when he staggered away. It’s been haunting me a bit. It’s especially bad because no one seems to know much about him. We let a stranger die alone because we didn’t know that he had medical problems and didn’t want to get involved.
I’m
… ashamed of myself.
”

This was truth, albeit of a very selective kind.
It was irrelevant too, but many men expected women to be inane.

“I knew him. You weren’t missing much.
But carry rancor to the grave and no further,
”
Xander said, startling Juliet
by using her own words
.
“H
e’s dead now. Let God sort
him
out.”

Maybe his face tried to soften
as he said this
, but with hardened leather it was difficult to tell.

“I’m not so sure that God was looking either,” she said and then turned to leave. She wasn’t sure how she was going to explain her hunch to Garret, but her gut was saying that Xander Lawson wasn’t the killer either.
They had to look for someone else, someone with an unknown motive.

“Hell
’
s bells,
”
she said to the mostly fresh air outside. “Now what?”

In spite of
her
intention to find out all she could about Comstock and his
murderer
, Juliet found herself increasing
ly
drawn to her sketch book.
Drawing could be therapeutic, a way to reach other parts of the mind that might have noticed something her waking brain was unaware of.

The trees especially called to
her
once the afternoon advanced and the shadows grew long and twisted away from their makers. Unable to resist the pull of a new shirt design she began to draw. She considered cedars and redwoods but found herself drawn to an old oak. It was creepy without having any of the genuine horror she felt for the yew with its grasping branches and poisonous foliage.

Chapter 7

Juliet
’s car drove itself around most of the potholes in the private road and accepted the rest without complaining out loud.
This was good because its owner was distracted
and slightly depressed
.

She
reached the compound and
rejoined the present when she
found
two news automobiles in the lot and
people already gathered at Robbie Sykes cottage
where
80s
music was playing
. The caretaker was throwing a party for the two latest arrivals to the art colony.

Juliet examined the cars. One was a new hybrid, the other was a very old, multicolored Volkswagen Bug slowly bleeding oil onto the gravel. She grabbed one of the many oil trays leaning against the trees that ringed the lot. They looked like giant cookie sheets. Finding one that wasn’t too disgusting, she slid it under the blue-yellow-red car. Robbie kept a supply of oil trays because many of the residents had leaky cars and he didn’t want petroleum products getting into the groundwater.

Juliet gathered up her sweater, purse
,
and sketch pad. She felt a bit naked, not having anything else to carry. She was used to having a fair amount left over after shows.

“Damn.” All she wanted was to go to her cottage, share some tuna with Marley
,
and go to bed
and brood in peace and quiet
. But that wouldn’t be polite, so she strapped on her professional smile as she closed the car door and forced her feet toward Robbie’s bungalow.

The two strangers were easy enough to spot
since it was a small gathering and Elizabeth and Asher were missing
. The younger of the two
arrivals
was trapped in a corner and being breathed on by Carrie Simmons. He seemed less flattered than frightened
by the attention
. Juliet decided that she would do one last kind thing and went to rescue the man.
Carrie surrendered without a fight, leaving only her perfume behind.

As so often happens,
Juliet’s
good impulse was rewarded with less than what it deserved. Once Carrie was vanquished, Juliet soon found that the new glassblower was
always
inarticulate and deadly boring. He might have had a fine mind, but if there were any thoughts
in
there he was keeping it a secret.
He also smelled rather heavily of citronella.
If he was trying to avoid mosquito bites, it was too late. He was covered in them. Which was odd because Juliet hadn’t seen any mosquitos for a week.

Rose floated over.
She was
glad
to leave him to
h
e
r neighbor
who looked genuinely happy at being introduced to a new resident
.
Perhaps he would relax
more
around their diminutive neighbor.

Gritting her teeth, Juliet moved on.
Thomas Jones, a stuttering potter, was more interesting and talkative, but his tripping consonants grew more pronounced the more excited he became
and the thought of meeting other artists had him very, very excited
.

“I don’t suppose you knew Michael Comstock,” she said abruptly and got sudden silence and a blank owlish stare for her troubles.

“W
-w
ho?”

“No one. Well, welcome to the Wood.”
Juliet smiled for as long as she could and then fled to the familiar comfort of Raphael and Esteban
who were near the door, ready to make a fast escape
.

“Do
ne do
ing your duty?” Raphael asked softly.
His dark eyes laughed at her.

“Yeah
—
and where is the wine? Robbie can’t be throwing a party without liquor.
Doesn’t he know that we are artists and that we need help facing other people?
”

“
Alas, h
e is
doing just that
. Both of our new tenants are teetotalers.
One
—
the rabbitty
-
looking fellow with Rose
—
is currently a vegan but originally a fruitarian. That means that he only ate fruits and vegetables that had fallen to the ground naturally. Both belong to PETA.
”

“Of course they
do
,” Juliet muttered.
“Oh well, I don’t have time to like anyone right now anyway. I am completely out of sweatshirts and
thoughtless
people persist in dying around me where I can’t ignore them.”

Esteban grinned
at her exasperation
, his teeth very sharp and white in his tanned face.

“Come with me,” he suggested. “I have discovered the great American pastime of making bathtub gin.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing with all those glass tubes?” Juliet asked, diverted.

“Yes,” Raphael said dryly. “That’s what he’s been doing. And so far he has managed to brew up an effective mosquito repellant
and paint stripper
. If you must numb your brain come down to my cottage. I have some lovely scotch that wasn’t bottled yesterday.”

“Okay. But I can only stay for a bit. Marley and I have a date to enjoy a tuna fish sandwich.”

“
You sound depressed.
No joy in White Oaks
this afternoon
?”