Hangman's Root (15 page)

Ruby stamped her foot. "I will not lower my voice! I don't care if the whole world hears me! China Bayles, you are an ice-cold, stone-hearted, insensitive—"

"Mother!" Amy roared. "Will you shut up? You're making a fool of yourself!"

Ruby stared at Amy, her fists clenched, her eyes filling with tears, the tears spilling over and running down her cheeks.

Amy closed her eyes and spoke into the silence. Her voice was rough. "I didn't come here to ask China anything about you, or about us. I came here about. . . something else entirely. Something that doesn't have anything to do with you." She opened her eyes, so vulnerable, so filled with pain, so like Ruby's. "In fact, I almost didn't come, because I didn't want to set you, "

"Didn't want—" The words came out like a small cry, and Ruby put one fist to her mouth, holding them back.

"No." Amy spit it out. "I didn't."

Ruby put out a hand. "But you can't mean that. Amy. You went to all the trouble to find me. You cared about me. You can't just turn away and pretend I'm not—"

"Yes, I can!" Amy shouted furiously. "Looking you up was a stupid idea! I should have known better!" She wheeled and almost ran for the door. When she reached it, she turned. "I want you to forget about me, okay?" she cried. "Just forget I ever existed. Go back to thinking I'm dead, or lost, or whatever it was you thought before I came along and messed up your life!"

I stared at her. Ruby's explosion I could attribute to her misunderstanding of the situation. Amy's was inexplicable. Nothing Ruby had said could account for her reaction.

"Amy," Ruby whispered, pleading.

"Just forget me!" She slammed the door behind her so hard that the glass shattered all over the floor. Ruby stood rooted, wordless, her eyes streaming tears.

"I'm . . . sorry," I said. The words were so meager, so inadequate, that I immediately wished I hadn't said them. I stepped forward and put my arms around her. 'Tm so sorry," I said again. Two times inadequate is no improvement, but I couldn't think of anything else.

"Why?" Ruby sobbed brokenly, onto my shoulder. "Why is she doing this?"

"I don't know," I said. "I wonder if it's because—" I didn't finish the sentence. Ruby didn't want to hear what I was wondering. Neither did I. It would only make both of us feel worse.

Whatever else it accomplished, the fight between Amy and Ruby had vented the passion that fueled our fire—Ruby's and mine, I mean. Closing was half an hour away, but Ruby hung up our "Closed" signs and locked both doors while I nailed a piece of plywood over the empty pane. Then we adjourned to my kitchen. Ruby sat down at the table and dropped her head in her hands.

"She's right. I was a fool to think we could mean anything to one another."

"You're a mother," I said. "Sometimes mothers just don't know when to quit."

I hadn't meant to come out with it that way, but it was true. My mother recently decided that she and I should become best friends and make up for all our lost years. The new intimacy she clearly hopes for has been hard for me to take. I spend a lot of effort finding excuses not to see her or return her calls. I could sympathize with Amy—on that score, anyway. But my heart— yes, my stony, icy, insensitive heart—went out to Ruby.

Ruby raised her head. "All I want is for us to get to know one another Is that too much to ask of a daughter you haven't seen since the day she was born? Well, is it?"

I looked at her. Ruby is truly a wonderful person, but she has

an unfortunate tendency to obsess. My experience as her best friend has taught me that the best antidote to obsession is diversion. Ruby needed something else to think about.

"Ruby," I said, "it's tough about Amy. But something much worse has happened. Dottie Riddle was arrested this morning for killing Miles Harwick."

Dottie was Ruby's friend before she was mine. "Omigod," Ruby breathed. "Tell me about it."

Ah, diversion. I related what I knew of the situation, up to the point where The Whiz had asked me to investigate. I had just finished the story and was wondering where to go from there when synchronicity knocked. It was The Whiz herself, with a briefcase in one hand and a bottle of sherry in the other, one sensibly shod foot tapping out the ten seconds it took me to get to the door and open it.

"I hope you've got time for business," she said, not wasting any breath on a greeting. She stepped inside and stopped, casting a questioning look at Ruby. "Oops. Didn't know you had company."

"Ruby isn't company," I said, suddenly inspired. "She's my assistant investigator. Ruby Wilcox, Justine Wyzinski. Dottie's lawyer. Otherwise known as The Whiz."

Ruby's eyes flew wide open. I gave a warning shake of my head.

"Good work, Hot Shot." The Whiz put her briefcase on the table, opened it, and began to thumb through her notes. "Judging from what turned up this afternoon, there's enough to keep two people busy. Glad you're here. Ruby. This way we won't waste any time." The Whiz had switched from impulse power to warp drive.

"I'm glad too," I said. "Time and tide wait for no woman."

"Absolutely." Scraps of paper were flying right and left as Justine sorted. "I have to be back in San Antonio fifteen minutes ago, so we'll get right down to it. Ruby already knows the facts of the case, I assume."

"Right," I said.

Ruby stared at me as if she'd lost her tongue. Her mouth soundlessly formed the words "Assistant investigator?"

I bent over her and whispered into her ear. "Be cool." Out loud, I said, "I'll locate something to go with that sherry." I headed for the refrigerator to find the caviar that had escaped being tucked into an omelet that morning.

Physically, the Whiz reminds me of Janet Reno, upon whom may the heavens heap blessings for being so forthright about the difference between appearance and substance and the incontestable significance of the latter as compared to the former Justine is sturdy, with broad shoulders and ample hips. Her usual costume is a dark, baggy jacket with the lining hanging a half inch below the hem, a dark skirt (wrinkled), and a white blouse (untucked). Her chestnut hair looks as if she combed it before the hurricane, and her glasses are always crooked because she takes them off and swings them by the temple, using them to punch out her words. She does not dress for success. She doesn't have to.

Notes sorted, more or less, she sat down and yanked off her glasses. "Number one, the warrant. Your police chief was after a drug, a hairbrush, and a rope. Why did he want all that crap?"

"The drug was pentobarbital sodium." I put caviar and wheat crackers on the table. Ruby was getting up to open the sherry and locate glasses. "One empty fifty-milliliter multiple-dose vial of Beuthanasia-D Special, and one full vial. Both were located in the medical supply cupboard of Dottie's cattery. The M.E. found the same substance in Harwick, and the lab identified it in the dregs of his coffee. Not a lethal dose. Just enough to render him groggy. Groggy enough," I added, "to submit to being strung up."

Ruby put down the sherry glasses, being cool. "Beuthanasia is used for—"

"For euthanizing animals," I said. I poured sherry.

The Whiz reached for her glass. "How'd you find all this out so fast?"

"Superior intelligence," I said. Ruby giggled, then remembered what we were talking about and straightened her face.

"Seriously," The Whiz said.

"Hey," I said, injured. "No insults. Or you won't get the rest of it."

The Whiz sighed. "Let's not waste time."

"He wanted the rope for comparison to the one that hung Harwick."

"But why the hairbrush?" Ruby asked.

"There were some hairs caught in the noose," I explained. "Bubba's trying for a match. The leak," I added, "is the chief of Campus Security." I grinned. "Smart Cookie. She doesn't think Dottie did it."

"Hubba hubba." The Whiz grinned back, appreciative. "Keep that leak dripping. Hot Shot." She sat back, sipping her sherry. "Beuthanasia," she mused. "If not Dottie, then who? Harwick himself?"

Good question. If Harwick was trying to frame Dottie, Beuthanasia was almost as good as a fingerprint. But Dottie wasn't the only one who might have had access to the drug.

"Harwick was planning to euthanize his research animals when he was finished with them," I said. "There ought to be some Beuthanasia, or something close to it, in his lab or in the animal holding facility in the basement of the science building. If that's true, Harwick had access to it. And so did one or two other people."

Other people. As I spoke, my stomach tightened. Other people, like Kevin the animal keeper, who could have taken it from the holding facility. Did he have a motive to use it? Or had he given it to Amy? I pulled in my breath. I had congratulated myself for diverting Ruby's attention from Amy to Dottie. I hadn't stopped to think that the investigation might circle back to Amy.

"Other people." Justine was slathering caviar on a wheat cracker. "Yeah, right. Uncover as many suspects as possible. Rve,

ten, a dozen. Let's people the landscape with possibilities. Confuse the D.A. with options."

Ruby sat down and sipped her sherry, looking thoughtful. "The thick plottens, as Kinsey Millhone says."

"Kinsey Millhone?" The Whiz was blank.

"A famous PL," I said, and hastily added "fictional" before The Whiz could suggest that we hire her.

"Oh." Justine dismissed famous fictional detectives with a wave of her hand. "The problem is," she said, "that we don't know diddly-squat about Harwick. That's a good job for you. Ruby. Check him out, top to toenails." She began rattling things off "Who he buddied with, what he did for fun besides torturing beasties, what his colleagues thought about him, who his mother was, what he wanted for his birthday. Get your hands on anything and everything worth knowing about the guy And do it lickety-split. Fm hoping to head this one off before it gets to the grand jury. Got it?"

Ruby's "Got it" was crisp, incisive. She was already practicing her new persona.

I looked at Justine. "Did Dottie come clean in the interrogation about the letter she forged?"

"You bet," she said. "I doubt if the chief believes her, though. He can't afford to. The letter is his motive."

"He'll believe her when he brings in a handwriting expert," I said.

"We need our own expert. See who's available." She loaded another cracker with the last of the caviar. "You eat like this all the time?"

"Fve gone totally decadent since I left the rat race," I said. "So what you want from Ruby and me—"

"Is anything you can dig up on Harwick." She stuffed the cracker in her mouth. "And Riddle."

"On Dottie?" Ruby asked dubiously. "But she didn't do it."

"So?" Justine was imperative even with her mouth full. "You

believe that. But the cops don't and the prosecutor probably won t either. So talk to her. Dig out what she knows.'' She banged the knife on the table to emphasize her words.

"Okay," I said mildly. The Whiz obviously relished the opportunity to order us around like legal clerks. "We'll come up with a game plan. When will you be back?"

"For the preliminar)^ hearing tomorrow afternoon." The Whiz chugalugged the rest of her sherrv^ and fished among the papers in her briefcase, coming up with a dozen business cards. She handed them to me. "Put your names on these and use them," she instructed. "And just remember. A woman's been accused of murder. If we do right by her, she might not have to stand trial. If we don't, she might w ind up in Huntsville. Simple as that." She turned to me. "And if we gotta go to court, let's get a not-guilty on the first go-round, okay. Hot Shot? I hate monkeying with appeals."

With that final rah-rah. The Whiz banged her briefcase shut and charged out the door.

Ruby looked at me. "Hot Shot?"

I rolled mv eyes.

"Oh." Ruby took several cards, pensive. "Well, all I've got to say is if anybody can get Dottie off, she will."

"Yeah," I said, almost grudgingly. Maybe The WTiiz's exhortation to the troops would have had more effect on me if I hadn't heard it a half-dozen times from my senior partner But I had to admire the drama.

The door opened again. "Excuse me," The Whiz said, somewhat abashed. "I forgot to give you a message from Dottie. She wonders if you'd feed her animals and shoot Ariella, whoever that is." She frowned. "I hope it's legal."

"Ariella's a diabetic cat," I said. "The Lioness of God. She gets shot ever)^ day."

"We'll take care of it," Ruby said. "Feeding wont take long."

"Are you kidding?" I asked. "That woman's got over a hundred and fifty cats. Plus a hundred guinea pigs—maybe two hundred, by this time. It'll take hours." I looked at The Whiz. "It'd be faster with three of us."

"I bill at one fifty an hour," The Whiz replied. She looked at me. "By the way, what are you and Ruby billing at? I need to factor it in."

"Who's paying?" Ruby asked quickly. "You or Dottie?" The Whiz was aghast. "The client always pays." Ruby and I traded glances. "It's on the house," I said. "That's what I call loyalty," The Whiz said, and shut the door

It took thirty seconds to shoot Ariella and ninety minutes to feed the cats and the guinea pigs. I got back just in time to meet McQuaid. We came up empty-handed again. One of the houses had a kitchen the size of my refrigerator and the other was across the street from the middle school, which in my view made it the House from Hell. Anyway, feeding Dottie's cats and dealing with her problem, on top of a half-day's work in the shop, had left me as edgy as if I'd been sacking rattlesnakes. McQuaid dropped me at my door with a quick kiss and a cheerful promise to keep me up to the minute on Sheila's leaks. Friendship is easier to live with than romance.