2 Landscape in Scarlet (16 page)

“I already have.”

“Want to get some coffee?
” he asked, abandoning all efforts to come off as a he-man.
“
There is no need to be uncivilized.”

Juliet thought about pointing out that she would rather shove him under a bus than go anywhere with him, but it wasn’t true. Davis was just a messenger. He would likely go away after his job was done.

And it was cold.

“Okay. Let’s get some coffee. I know a place.”

“Would it be tactless to say that you aren’t what I was expecting?” he asked after a short silence. Rain had begun to fall.
Neither of them had hats or umbrellas so did nothing about covering up.

“It probably depends on how you follow up that comment.”

“They said you were eccentric but harmless. An artist. Retired from active duty and never in the field anyway.”

“Well, they got three out of four.
That’s about par for them.
”

“Ah, but which three?”

“I’ll leave that determination up to you.”
Juliet cleared her throat. “Do you know Jerome Pinter?”

Davis looked surprised, and not in a good way.

“Only by reputation. A buddy of mine took a demotion to get out from under him. I’m just the nearest feet on the ground.” He grimaced as dirty water ran into his mouth. Or maybe he didn’t care for Jerome either. The man was a careerist who filled the agency quota for both ruthless opportunists and power hungry jerks
,
who expected blind obedience from those under him.

That meant he didn’t get the best people and certainly none that had big ideas o
r
showed initiative. When he needed someone with brains, he had to poach them.

“Your friend was smart.
Any nose compared to his is cheap
.”

“You were one of his?”

“Nope. And I never will be.”

“Okay. I understand that. I still gotta deliver my message.”

“I know. The good news is that I’ve decided not to shoot the messenger after all.”

“I appreciate that.”

They were standing in line at the crowded bakery where the smell of pumpkin cupcakes was getting the better of Juliet’s resolution to cut back on sweets. Beside her, Davis sniffed with the nose of a long-term cupcake addict. Their clothes had begun to steam
but the rain had washed the worst of the dirt away
.
They looked only slightly disreputable.

“What’s good here?” Davis asked.

“Everything.”

Juliet
noticed at the table nearest the ovens was Lulu’s assistant, Vinnie, and the potter, Samuel Levy. His bald head was sweating and he kept wiping his face with his napkin. The two were deep in conversation, the boy smiling and at ease.
He looked very different from the tense young man at the festival.

“Vinnie.”
She paused and said again
,
“Vinnie.”

Vinnie
—
Vincent Hearst
—
who was living with his stepfather for a while to keep him away from the publicity and gossip.

Apparently, living in or near the town where Michael Comstock had chosen
to make
his new home.

Was that bad luck on Comstock’s part? Or deliberate planning? Had he been stalking the boy?

Juliet wasn’t aware of drawing in her breath, but Davis heard her.

“What is it?” he asked softly, making like a ventriloquist.

Juliet stared at Vinnie with his tattoos and leather jacket, trying so hard to look tough, but ruining it by grinning as he devoured what looked like his fourth cupcake. There was still a bit of the child in the curve of his cheek and in his enthusiasm for the mounds of chocolate icing that had smudged his nose.

Levy was watching him with indulgence, his expression warm, as loving as any parent’s.

Juliet was not a maternal woman, but she understood why, if someone had hurt this boy, that it would make a father
—
or stepfather
—
lash out in a fatal and final way at the person who had harmed him
and was threatening to harm him again
.

Comstock had chosen the wrong place to relocate.

“Miss Henry,” Dawn Hendricks greeted her, pausing as she wiped down a newly vacated table. Dawn was a junior at the local high school and wanted to get into an art college. Juliet had seen her work hanging in the bakery and made Raphael look at it too. On
the
strength of her sketches, he had promised to write her a letter of recommendation when the time came. “Here for your pumpkin cupcakes? They’re fresh out of the oven. The coffee is fresh too.”

“Yes, I can smell them. Dawn, do you recognize the man with Vinnie? Over by the ovens.”

“Sure. That’s his stepdad. He’s a potter. They come in once a week for lunch. The two of them are really tight. It’s almost creepy. Who like
s
their parents that much?”

“Thanks, I thought I knew him from somewhere
,
” Juliet said and the girl beamed with pleasure that she had been able to help and then walked away on squeaking sneakers. “Hell
’
s
b
ells. Why did I come in here today?”

“What? Is it the kid?” Davis
was still speaking out the side of his mouth, his lips barely moving.

“Davis, keep our place in line and get me two pumpkin cupcakes and a decaf coffee. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay. Back from where?”

“I need to get the sheriff. I
—
I think I’ve found
the
murderer.”

Davis stared at her, for a moment wondering if this was some new ploy to avoid him and then, correctly reading her face, decided it wasn’t.

“So go,” Davis said. And Juliet went.

“Garret,” Juliet said the moment she opened the door and saw him at his desk. She stayed on the mat where she dripped pathetically.

“Juliet, what happened?” he asked as he took in her bedraggled state.
Unfortunately, he looked almost as tattered.

Henderson was also staring. She supposed that she looked quite a bit different than she had an hour ago.

“Nothing
—
well, nothing important. Look, I think I found the killer.”

He blinked.

“Where? Who?”

“Samuel Levy. I don’t have every detail
straight yet
but he’s Vincent Hearst’s stepfather. The two of them are eating lunch at the bakery.
Now might be a good time to have a word.
”
She didn’t sound enthusiastic.

“And you’re sure
it’s him
?” Garret asked.

“Yes.
And I think I can connect al
l
the dots now.
”

“Okay. Let’s bring him in for questioning.”

Juliet opened her mouth to say that she wished he wouldn’t, but closed it again. If she had truly wanted to ignore the killing, she wouldn’t have told Garret what she had discovered.

It was just that principl
e
s
that sometimes
looked fine in the abstract were harder to face in the flesh.
She might have waffled
on reporting her suspicions
if the killing hadn’t been premeditated. But it had.

She trailed Garret back down the sidewalk and into the bakery. Davis was waiting with her cupcakes and two coffees in to-go cups.
The two men nodded
politely
, but Juliet saved the introductions for later.

Garret
was a good small town sheriff. He
managed to get Levy and Vinnie out of the shop without any disturbance
and no handcuffs
. The only sign that something was wrong was how pale the boy and his stepfather were. They all trailed back to the sheriff’s office
and crowded around the desk. Davis remained standing since there weren’t enough chairs
.

Though he was coming in at the last act and had no program to sort out the players,
Davis stayed while
Juliet
explained her reasoning to the sheriff in more detail
.
She stared at the wall while she talked, unwilling to look at Levy or Vinnie though she could feel their eyes on her.

She described how Comstock had been surprised that Levy wasn’t hostile when they met at the festival,
perhaps because Comstock didn’t realize that he was Vinnie’s stepfather. He
had finally agreed to have lunch with
the potter
while everyone went off to the chunkin.
Levy saw his chance and suggested that Comstock go for the food since he needed to stay and mind the tent.

The day had warmed enough that the balloon man had left his coat in Levy’s
booth
while he went to fetch some hotdogs or chicken skewers. It would take some investigating to prove this but chances were good that Comstock would be remembered
by the food vendors
because of his striking appearance
and because Lulu had been fleeing from him
and probably making
nasty
comments to anyone who would listen
.

Darby and Harrison already knew that he had been in Levy’s tent around that time
and that Comstock had left his coat there
.
Carrie had also seen him talking to Vincent who pointed him to Levy’s tent.

Levy had known from Vincent about the inhaler that Comstock, a habitual suit wearer, always kept in his coat pocket. He had known about the yew being poisonous from his ex-wife who was an avid gardener
and wrote a weekly garden-tip column for the local paper
. It added up nicely.
He hadn’t known for sure when, but he planned on finding some time
during the festiv
al
to make the switch with the inhalers. It was just blind luck that the balloon man had actually left his coat unattended in Levy’s tent.

Juliet didn’t mention that it was probably the
ex-
wife who had actually made the poison. Nor did she dwell on how this act was clearly premeditated
and how many people may have colluded to make it happen
.
Who could tell? Maybe Xander and Madame Mimm would have been willing to let Levy make a switch in their booths if push had come down to shove. Madame Mimm’s tent would be an especially good place to do it with it being so dark and closed on all four sides.

Above all,
Juliet
didn’t say anything about how it might have been Vinnie who
decoyed
the balloon man to Levy
’s tent
in the first place. After all, it might not have happened that way and the family was about to be punished enough
for what they had done
.

The white-faced
Levy opted to say nothing until his attorney arrived but Vinnie broke down and told them how Comstock had given drugs to the boy
s
and abused a lot of them while they were under the influence. Vinnie was sure that Comstock had been stalking him, trying to intimidate him into staying quiet
about what had happened
. There had been anonymous emails and someone had vandalized his motorcycle and slashed the tires on his mother’s car. They had known it was Comstock, but there was no way to prove it.

Julie nodded sympathetically. It all helped make the potter’s actions understandable, but Levy would probably still be found guilty of murder.

*  *  *

Davis and Juliet left after the attorney arrived from Santa Cru
z
along with Vincent’s
distraught
mother.
Juliet could see the resemblance to Madame Mimm
and figured the other siblings would arrive soon
.

“Time to blow this pop stand,” she muttered and got an answering gleam of amusement from Davis.

Not knowing what else to do,
Juliet
w
alked
back to the bakery.
They moved slowly
, doing their best to stay under the awnings
. Juliet was sure her muscles were about to start creaking at audible levels. They felt cold and tight in a way that had little to do with external temperatures. Driving home, climbing the hill to the bungalow
,
and building a fire would all take effort.

Looking at Davis
and his muddy gray suit that could have been made any time after 1950
, she realized that she was also dressed with a certain vagueness of couture that allowed her to blend with her
natural
surroundings. Compared to his dull clothes she was a shining example of sartorial magnificence
in green and brown
, but by California standards she was plain and boring. Juliet resolved to wear one of the colorful sweatshirts she made for the tourists
the next
morning. She wished that she was wearing one right then because it would be warm and might also give Davis a brain seizure and cause him to forget about her.