An Unthymely Death (5 page)

“Exactly,” I said. “Hannah’s property would go to her brother, Harold. And he’s an old man. It wouldn’t be long before everything belonged to his daughter.”

“It makes sense,” Ramona said reluctantly, “but it’s just a theory. How are you going to
prove
it?”

“I wonder,” I said, “where that can of smoking tobacco came from. It was an odd brand, as I recall. Duke’s, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s it,” Ruby said. “You don’t suppose Luella would have been careless enough to buy it around here, do you?”

As it turned out, that was exactly what had happened. It took us less than an hour to canvass three convenience stores and the only grocery in town. In the end, we found one that carried that particular brand of tobacco, and a curious clerk who remembered Luella’s purchase.

“We don’t sell that brand very often,” she said, “so I remember. It was a lady that bought it, which kind of surprised me, since smoking tobacco ain’t exac’ly what most women around here buy. They smoke cigarettes, y’ know—and they don’t usually roll their own. But I figgered maybe she was gittin’ it for somebody else.”

Once we had the clerk’s statement, it didn’t take long to convince the sheriff to arrange a lineup and persuade Luella to be a part of it. The clerk identified her without hesitation. Confronted with the evidence of her crime—the tobacco purchase and the second investment account—Luella broke down and confessed. The case became even stronger when the police found Luella’s fingerprint on the inside of the tobacco can lid. Not long after, Jessica was a free woman.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said to Ruby and me as we stood together in Hannah’s garden—hers, now.

“We don’t need any thanks,” I said. Around us, the thyme that Hannah had planted was blooming, each bush covered with bees gorging themselves on the fragrant nectar. I thought of an old bit of folklore I’d heard once—that each thyme blossom contains the soul of a departed loved one—and felt glad that Jessica would be around to take care of the garden and carry on Hannah’s tradition of growing thyme. “It’s enough to know that the garden will go on, just as Hannah wanted it to.”

Jessica’s smile made her face almost pretty. “Yeah. Well, that’ll happen, for sure. But in the meantime, don’t forget these.” She bent over to pick up a tray of sturdy lemon thyme seedlings.

So Ruby and I drove home. Hannah’s untimely death was tragic, yes. But now I’d have a bit of her garden, growing in my own. And as someone said once, “Thyme heals all wounds.”

THE KHAT WHO BECAME A HERO

IT was a gray, drizzly Tuesday afternoon outside, but inside Thyme and Seasons, the air was sweet and lavender-scented, soft music was coming through the open door of Ruby Wilcox’s Crystal Cave, and I had just finished happily hanging a dozen bright red chile-pepper ristras on the wall, carefully handcrafted by my friend Carmelita. Every now and then, as I look around my shop, I have the feeling that my life is complete. A wonderful husband and son, work that I enjoy in a business of my own, and a quiet life in a pretty place. What more could anybody want?

Except that something was definitely missing from this state of perfection, and I was worried about it. Khat’s kitty dish was full of his low-calorie kitty food, his catnip mouse was lurking in the corner, and his favorite kitty cat-nap pillow was waiting on the windowsill. But Khat himself was nowhere to be found.

Khat—an inordinately large Siamese who looks out on the world with a serene air of imperial authority—has been Top Cat at Thyme and Seasons for the last four or five years. He originally belonged to a lady who had the misfortune to die under mysterious circumstances. Alone in the world, without someone to look after, he appointed himself my guardian and declared that he intended to spend all of his nine lives making sure that I behaved properly.

At the time, I could take cats or leave them (preferably the latter), but my wishes apparently don’t count for much. When Khat makes up his feline mind to something, no mere fallible human can dispute him. I did, however, reserve the right to give this animal a new name. His deceased owner had called him Pudding, which suited him about as well as a filmy Victoria’s Secret bra suits me. But nothing else came to mind, and I fell into the habit of calling him Cat, or The Cat, which seemed perfectly appropriate. When Ruby objected that The Cat was not sufficiently distinctive for an animal with such a sovereign air, we compromised on Khat, which Ruby instantly amended to Khat K’o Kung. She is a great fancier of Koko, Qwilleran’s talented Siamese cat-sleuth in the Cat Who mysteries, and has always wanted a cat who could tell time, read backwards, and had fourteen tales.

Khat K’o Kung adopted me when I still lived in my bachelor quarters behind the shop. After McQuaid and I moved together to the house on Limekiln Road, I tried to take Khat with me. But after a week’s trial, he announced that he refused to share any part of his life with Howard Cosell, McQuaid’s crotchety old basset hound, and preferred to live in the shop from here on out, thank you very much.

So that’s the way it is. Every morning, I unlock the door, step inside, and Khat wraps himself around my ankles, purring loudly enough to be heard at the Alamo. If I’m late, he’s waiting impatiently on the front stoop, charcoal tail wrapped around his four charcoal feet, blue eyes blinking his displeasure at my dismal lack of punctuality. Next stop, kitty food bowl, and just a little extra liver, please, to make up for your lateness.

Except that this morning, Khat wasn’t waiting on the stoop, or in the store, or next door, in Ruby’s Crystal Cave. He wasn’t chasing grasshoppers in the gardens, either, or terrorizing mice in the stone stable behind the shop, where I sometimes teach herb classes. At first, I hadn’t been very worried. But it was almost closing time, and since Khat was not only about to miss his breakfast, but dinner as well, I was beginning to get concerned.

“Here’s the menu for the Friends luncheon on Friday, China.” It was Janet, the cook who manages the kitchen at Thyme for Tea, the tearoom that Ruby and I opened nearly two years ago. Short and dumpling-shaped, with merry hazel eyes and a cheerful face framed by curly brown hair, Janet has the look of a cherubic Munchkin. A couple of months ago, she went to Dallas to a week-long school for gourmet cooks, and ever since, she’s been trying out the new dishes she learned. From the look of her menu, she was about to spring some gourmet surprises on the Friends of the Pecan Springs Library.

“Makes me hungry just to read this, Janet,” I said, scanning the items. I squinted at the salad. “Bocconcini? What’s that?”

“Mozzarella balls,” Janet explained. “Marinated in olive oil and basil vinegar, with red pepper flakes.” She looked smug. “One of the gourmet tricks I learned in school.”

“Maybe it’s a little too gourmet for the Friends of the Library?” I suggested tentatively.

“We have to raise their standards,” Janet replied. “Otherwise, I’d be flippin’ burgers and fryin’ up onion rings, like Lila Jennings over at the Diner.” She frowned. “I hope I don’t have any trouble finding those little balls in Pecan Springs. Guess I better give young Mr. Cavette a call and see if he can get them.”

“Speaking of finding,” I said, handing the menu back to her, “have you seen Khat? He wasn’t here when I opened this morning.” I gestured toward his dish. “His breakfast is still waiting.”

“Oh, dear.” Janet looked distressed. “Poor kitty, he’ll starve.”

“Not for a few months yet,” I said dryly. Khat tops the scale at eighteen pounds, and although I feed him a low-calorie cat food and watch the snacks, he never seems to lose any weight. A few missed breakfasts might be a blessing in disguise. “But it would be nice if he’d check in so I could quit worrying about him,” I added.

“I’m sure he’ll be here in the morning,” Janet said reassuringly. “You know how he feels about his security job.”

I nodded. At night, Khat likes to pretend he’s a Rottweiler, as one startled Pecan Springs patrolman discovered when he thought he saw somebody lurking in the shadows after midnight. Khat leaped off the arbor and sank his claws into the cop’s shoulder. Trespassers, beware. Thyme and Seasons is patrolled by an attack cat who takes his work seriously.

 

 

But on Wednesday morning, Khat was still AWOL. I left Ruby to mind the store for an hour, climbed on my bike, and rode around the neighborhood, looking and calling. As I biked past old Mr. Cowan’s house, Miss Lula, his yappy little Peke, dashed out of the shrubbery and snapped at my sneaker. I said a few nasty words under my breath, and Mr. Cowan rose up out of the bushes, a pair of binoculars in one gnarled hand and a bird book in the other.

“Don’t you kick poor little Miss Lula,” he cried.

I braked. “I wasn’t going to kick her,” I replied warily, as the dog danced around me, cursing me in Chinese. Miss Lula is about the size of a half-grown possum, but her teeth are like needles. “I’m looking for my cat. Have you seen him?”

“Nah,” Mr. Cowan said. He pulled down the brim of his Texas Rangers baseball cap. “Lost, is he? Run away from home? Got smashed flat by a car, mebbe?”

I shuddered. “I hope not, but I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

“Good riddance, if ya ask me,” Mr. Cowan said cheerfully. “The birds around here ’ud be a whole lot chirpier if that durn cat was to take a hike. Why, just last week, I caught him stalkin’ a grackle out in the alley. Woulda got him, too, if Miss Lula hadn’t of broke it up.” He cackled. “Damn funny, it was. The grackle squawkin’, the cat cussin’ and gnashin’ his teeth, and Miss Lula so proud of herself she could spit. I heaved a zucchini at him.”

Since the Pecan Springs City Council spends ten thousand dollars a year to make life unpleasant for the grackles, I hardly thought it was sporting of Mr. Cowan and Miss Lula to keep Khat from doing his little bit in defense of clean windshields. But I only sighed and said, “If you see him, let me know, will you?”

“Don’t count on it,” Mr. Cowan said. “I got a soft spot in my heart fer grackles.” He frowned. “Janet said she wanted some of my cherry tomatoes for that party on Friday. Tell her she better get herself over here and pick ’em ’fore the coons do. I got a mama coon and two babies livin’ under the garage. Cutest little guys on four feet—’ceptin’ fer you, Miss Lula,” he added hastily.

“I’ll tell her,” I said, wondering if the presence of a mother raccoon in the neighborhood might have anything to do with Khat’s extended absence. I don’t think a coon would attack a cat, especially one as large and formidable as Khat K’o Kung, but you never know. I shook my head. It was something else to worry about.

Mr. Cowan sat back down in the bushes. Licking her doggie chops, Miss Lula watched me out of sight.

 

 

A block farther on, I saw Vivian Baxter out in her garden, hoeing. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and was completely enveloped, chin to ankles, in a brown cotton smock that made her look like Brother Cadfael. I climbed off my bike and leaned it against a tree.