Lavender Lies (32 page)

“I don’t like this,” Sheila said, shaking her head. “You don’t know it’s Iris. Hell, it might even be Jackson—and he could be armed. Stay where you are.” She dove back into the Explorer and came up with a holster. She began to strap it on her hip.

“What
are
you doing?” Ruby asked nervously.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Sheila reached under the seat and took out a .357 Magnum, checked the cylinder, and bolstered it. “I’m putting on my gun.”

Ruby tilted her head critically. “It looks a little ... well, weird,” she said. “With your biker shorts, I mean.”

“Who cares how it looks,” Sheila said adjusting the holster so that it rode low across her hips. “It’s how it shoots that counts.”

I cleared my throat. “I really don’t think a gun is necessary, Smart Cookie. It’s probably just Iris. If we go in with a gun, she’ll have a heart attack.”

“Don’t tell
me
when to wear my gun,” Sheila snapped. “Who’s the cop here, anyway?”

I blew out a breath. “All right, all right. Ruby, Sheila and her gun are going with me. You stay and guard the car.”

“I’m not standing here in the dark by myself,” Ruby declared flatly. “I’m coming with you guys.”

When Ruby makes up her mind, there’s no reasoning with her. So the three of us made our way across the dark parking lot to the porch, tiptoed up the steps, and stopped at the door. I pushed gently but it didn’t open. I took the key out of my pocket, put it into the lock, and turned. It stuck. I gave it a little jiggle and turned again. This time, the lock clicked. I pocketed the key and pushed the door open. With Sheila just behind me, right hand on her gun, and Ruby bringing up the rear, I crossed the threshold into the reception area.

The room was dark, but there was enough light coming through the window onto the porch to see that it was empty. I turned to my left. A splinter of light was showing under the door—the only door to Coleman’s windowless office. The intruder was trapped.

“Stay back.” Sheila stepped around me, pulling her gun, and went to stand beside the closed door, back against the wall. “I’ll kick the door open,” she whispered. “If this is a thief, he’s probably armed. The opening door will startle him, and he’ll fire. Then I’ll step through and get the drop on him.”

Ruby opened her purse. “I’ve got some handcuffs in here somewhere,” she said, rummaging around.

“Handcuffs?” Sheila asked, startled.

“I found them when I was cleaning out some Halloween stuff at the store,” Ruby said. “They’re just toys, but they’d probably work. I was taking them home, so I’d have them in case somebody tried to burgle me.” Triumphantly, she pulled them out and dangled them in front of us. “Here they are!”

Sheila rolled her eyes. “Here we go with the door. Stand back. One, two—”

“Wait,” I said. “Let’s do it my way first, huh? I’ll open the door a crack and try to get a peek at who’s in there—without getting shot at.”

Sheila hesitated. “Okay,” she said finally. “Be careful, though. I don’t want to see you get shot just before your wedding.”

“I don’t want me to get shot
period,”
I said. “It is not part of my life plan.”

I went to the door, put my hand on the knob, and turned it, trying not to make any noise. The door opened a fraction of an inch, but all I could see was one end of the sofa that stood against the opposite wall, and the back of the chair facing it. The room was lit only by the light in the burbling aquarium and a light at the far end, probably Coleman’s desk lamp. I opened the door another fraction, then another, hoping that the intruder was too engrossed to notice. So far, not a sign of anybody. Then, suddenly, I realized where the intruder was: crouched on the floor behind Coleman’s massive desk, at the far end of the room. I pulled the door shut and stepped back.

“Whoever is in there is down on hands and knees, busy with the safe,” I said quietly. “Let’s just walk up and say ‘hi.’ We’ll have the advantage of surprise.”

“Well,” Sheila said.

“I don’t know,” Ruby began.

“Good,” I said. “Come on.” I opened the door and went into the room, Sheila and Ruby close behind. We walked silently across the velvety carpet until we reached the desk. Sheila moved to my right, her gun at the ready. I put both hands on the desk, leaned over it, and said, very plesantly, “Hi. Can we help you find something?”

There was a yelp of surprise, a scramble of hands and feet, and a flurry of papers. The woman crouching behind the desk turned her pale, startled face up to me, lips parted, eyes wide with fear.

“Oh, God,” she cried. Her head went down, her hands came up to cover her face, and she burst into wild weeping.

The woman was Melissa’s step-grandmother. Mrs. Carl Jackson.

Jennie.

And then the whole muddy, murky mess became suddenly very clear.

“The Meaning of Lavender,” by China Bayles
The Pecan Springs
Enterprise
Home and Garden Section

 

Ruby’s Lemonade with Lavender and Rosemary

 

 

 

“Jean,” Ruby said. “I still can’t believe that Jennie Jackson is the
Jean
we were looking for.”

“Jennie, Jean—it was a natural mistake,” I said. I glanced up at the schoolhouse clock that hangs over the refrigerator in my kitchen. The hands pointed to midnight, and McQuaid wasn’t home yet. “Letty told Rena Burnett that she’d gotten the name off the answering machine, and that maybe she hadn’t heard it right.” Darla Jean and Bobbie Jean were home free, after all.

“So Jennie Jackson was having an affair with Edgar Coleman,” Ruby mused.

“That’s what it looks like,” I said. “She must have found herself in a situation that was getting increasingly out of control, and it frightened her into doing something dramatic. But we’ll have to wait until McQuaid gets home to hear the rest of the story.”

After we had caught Jennie in the act of rifling the safe, we parked her on the sofa with a large supply of tissues. I offered the phone to Sheila. “Call McQuaid.”

“You call him,” Sheila said. “You thought this up.”

“Nobody knows that but you, me, and Ruby,” I said. “The City Council will be impressed when they hear that their future police chief has already solved the crime of the year.”

“But that’s not fair,” Sheila protested.

“The truth won’t sell one extra ounce of potpourri,” I said, “whereas you can use the brownie points.” I thrust the phone into her hands. “Call.”

“If it’ll make you happy,” Sheila said, and dialed. While we waited for McQuaid, I took the opportunity to glance through the documents Jennie Jackson had pulled out of the safe—a picture of Melissa, a print copy of a listing from the Missing Children’s Web site, and a couple of highly incriminating letters Jennie had written to Coleman while they were lovers, before they had their fatal falling-out.

When McQuaid got there, he took custody of Jennie, detailing Sheila and another cop to collect all the materials from the safe and seal the office.

“I’m sure you’ll say I’m being irrational to pity a murderer,” Ruby said sadly, “but I felt sorry for Mrs. Jackson. She looked so forlorn, sitting there on the sofa, crying her heart out. I can’t help feeling that she got caught in Coleman’s web, and it wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t have guessed how this was all going to turn out.”

“Maybe she should have given the matter some thought before the two of them fell into bed,” I said tartly. “Anyway, she’s a grownup and presumably mature enough to be held accountable for her actions. If you really want to feel sorry for somebody, feel sorry for Melissa.”

As Jennie was being hustled into the police car, she turned her tear-stained face to me and asked me to tell her husband what was going on. So Ruby and I drove Sheila’s Explorer back to the apartment, where I left Ruby and picked up my car. Dr. Jackson was watching TV in his bath-robe when I knocked on his door shortly after ten. He was stunned when he heard that Jennie was about to be charged with Edgar Coleman’s murder, and utterly dazed when he learned that Rachel Lang was in town and that she knew he had Melissa.

“It’s like the roof has suddenly caved in,” he whispered, his face ashen. “What am I going to do? What’s going to happen to Jen? Is Rachel going to take Melissa away from me?”

Looking at him, at the tears welling in his eyes and the defeated slump of his shoulders, I judged that flight was a very remote possibility. And now certainly wasn’t the time to discuss any criminal charges that might be filed against him, or whether he had learned, after the fact, about what Jennie had done. Now was the time to face up to what had happened and make sure that everyone’s rights were protected.

“Go talk to your wife, if they’ll let you,” I said gently. “Get her a good criminal lawyer and ask him to represent you, too. Sit down with him and make a clean breast of the last ten years with Melissa so he—or she—knows how best to defend you, if it comes to that. Make sure that Jennie does the same thing. You’ 11 both need all the help you can get.” I looked around. “Is Melissa asleep?”

“She’s finishing a book report,” he said. “On the computer upstairs.”

“Why don’t we tell her that you’ve been called out on a patient emergency,” I said. “Since your wife isn’t here, you’d like her to go home with me.”

“Melissa,” he groaned, rubbing his hands over his eyes. “Melissa, Melissa. How am I ever going to tell her what’s happened?”

“Rachel Lang has already asked me to talk to her,” I said. “She has to know the truth about herself and her mother, and you, too. She has to build a new life, and tomorrow is the best time to begin.”

He gave me a despairing look. “I did it for her,” he said. “Only for her. All the running and the hiding, all the times we had to move to a new place and start over again—it was all for Melissa, to keep her from finding out who she was, who her parents were. I had to, don’t you see? I was afraid the courts would give Melissa back to her mother, in spite of the fact that she was unmarried and an ex-con and certainly not fit to raise a child. And my son ...” He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “You know about Jim?”

“I was told that he died in a fire in Miami,” I said.

Jackson nodded. “It was all about drugs.” He rubbed his forehead. “If Rachel had married him, he might have been able to straighten himself out, and things would’ve been dif ferent. But when she turned him down, he began to slide.” His voice was bleak. “In the end, he wasn’t a fit parent, either.” There was a long silence; then Jackson said, very softly. “It wasn’t his fault, though. I want you to understand that. It was the drugs. And it wasn’t malice that made me take Melissa away from her mother. I did it because I loved her.”

“Even addicts are accountable for their actions,” I replied. “And it was up to the court—not you—to decide whether your granddaughter should be with you or go to her mother.” Our judicial system is deeply flawed, but that doesn’t change our moral obligation to live by the law and fulfill our obligations to one another—especially the children.

He turned away with a choked sob. “Tell Melissa I love her,” he said. “Ask her not to ... to blame me too much.”

He got dressed and left for police headquarters. Melissa packed an overnight bag and came with me without question, and I put her to sleep in the other bed in Leatha’s room. My mother sat up when we came in.

“Wazzat?” she asked. “Whosis?”

“It’s Melissa,” I said. “She’s spending the night. Okay?”

“S’fine,” Leatha said. “No snakes.” She fell asleep before I finished tucking Melissa in, her mouth open, snoring gently, foam curlers like fat pink butterfly larvae clustered all over her head.

I went downstairs to wait for McQuaid and found Ruby in the kitchen, making sandwiches and pouring lemonade. “What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised. “It’s after eleven.”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Ruby said. “I’m making us some sustenance. We’ve got to come up with a contingency plan.” She poured me a glass of lemonade. “The Weather Channel says that Josephine is going to dump a ton of rain from Corpus to Beaumont, and miles inland.”

“The Garden Room at the Pack Saddle Inn,” I said. “It’s got a great view of the river, very scenic, with swans, ducks, and plenty of room for the reception. And Linda Davis, the manager, says it’s available. I’ll call her first thing in the morning and confirm.” I sipped my lemonade.