Lavender Lies (33 page)

Ruby gave a windy sigh of relief. “Good,” she said. “Wonderful. I can stop worrying about whether we can all crowd into the tearoom. Now, about the cake.” With a rueful grin, she gestured in the direction of a half-dozen brown waffle-like layers stacked on the rack. While we were out playing crime stoppers, my mother had been practicing. “Leatha’s heart is in the right place, but baking obviously isn’t the best use of her talents. If we put something like that on the table, we’ll all be embarrassed. Tomorrow, I’ll call Lucy’s Cakes in Austin and order a regular wedding cake. Maureen Rodman got hers there last year, and it was gorgeous.”

I sipped my lemonade. Ruby certainly had a point. But suddenly Leatha’s cake-baking didn’t seem funny anymore, or embarrassing, or annoying. It seemed sweet and caring. It seemed like the sort of thing a mother would do for a daughter she loved.

I put down my glass. “No, don’t order anything, Ruby,” I said. “Bertha and Betsy will be here tomorrow, and Bertha will be glad to help Mom with the cake. Maybe I’ll have time to help her, too.”

Ruby arched her eyebrows.
“Mom?”

Howard Cosell stumped over and flopped down beside me, his great sad eyes asking for the last bite of my sandwich so he wouldn’t starve during the night, alone and abandoned in his doggie bed. I got up, sprinkled a few milk thistle seeds on what was left of my bread and bologna, and dropped it into Howard’s bowl.

“Yeah,
Mom,”
I said. “Nobody’s got a corner on perfect. I’ve lived with hard feelings and anger long enough, and I’m tired of hanging on to pain. It’s time to get past that stuff.”

“Well, good,” Ruby said. She reached under the table, pulled out a box, and put it in front of me. With a secret smile, she said, “Here. Tell me what you think of this.”

I looked down at the box. The label said Sexy Secrets. Ruby’s mail-order wedding costume. I opened the lid apprehensively, unfolded the tissue paper, and peeked. Sure enough. Laurel had been right. It was a nightgown, fine, filmy, and utterly transparent.

“Damn it, Ruby,” I said, “you can’t wear this out in public!”

Ruby looked shocked. “I’m not going to wear it anywhere. Much less in public. It’s for you, silly.”

“For me?”

“Sure. What do I want a nightgown for? I always sleep naked.”

“But—”

“It’s your nightgown. For your wedding night. How can you go on a honeymoon without a sexy nightgown?” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t answer that. You were probably planning to sleep in one of McQuaid’s old T-shirts. Or you were going to run out to Walmart at the last minute.”

She was right. It was either the T-shirt or Walmart. “Thank you,” I said humbly. “You’re a good friend, Ruby.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Oh, by the way. Your machine is blinking.”

I went to the answering machine and punched the button. It was Harold Tucker. “I just want to make sure you received our letter,” he said. “As we said there, I’ve accepted an offer to teach at Indiana State, and we hope to put the house up for sale as soon as possible. Of course, we’ll be glad to consider any offer you would care to make before we list the house with a real estate broker. Please get back to us as soon as you can and let us know if you’re interested in buying it.” He left a phone number and rang off.

“Oh wow!” Ruby exclaimed. She threw up her hands. “This wonderful house is for sale, China! What fantastic, marvelous, incredible news! Why, it’s every bit as good as winning the lottery!”

“Our house is for sale?” I asked, dazed. “We can buy it and live here forever? I don’t believe it!”

The kitchen door opened and McQuaid hobbled wearily in, leaning on his canes. He had a day’s worth of black beard stubble, and the front of his shirt displayed a coffee stain the size and shape of a necktie. Sheila came behind him carrying his briefcase, her holster slung over her shoulder like a bandido. She was still wearing biker shorts and the orange T-shirt, and she hadn’t combed her stringy blond hair. Both of them looked tired.

“Where’s Marvin?” I asked, looking over Sheila’s shoulder. “Isn’t he with you?”

“He’s on his way back to Austin,” McQuaid said. “The case is closed, as far as he’s concerned.”

Which was exactly the way it should be, as far as
I
was concerned. “You’d better sit down,” I said. “I want you to listen to something.” As McQuaid dropped into a chair, I hit the replay button and Harold Tucker made his astonishing offer for the second time in five minutes.

“Sold,” McQuaid said. “I’ll call him tomorrow.”

“Just like that?” I asked, surprised. “But—”

“Just like that,” McQuaid said firmly. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“But where will we get the money for the down payment?”

“I can loan—” Ruby began.

“Hush, Ruby,” McQuaid said. He patted my hand. “Don’t worry, China. We’ll get the money. This is
our
house, and that’s all there is to it.”

“The boss has spoken,” Sheila said. “Ours is not to wonder why.” She glanced at Ruby. “It’s late. How come you’re here?”.

“I’m waiting for you,” Ruby said. “I couldn’t go to sleep without knowing what happened.” She stood up. “You guys want some lemonade? How about a sandwich?”

“Yes to both.” McQuaid looked at me. “Jackson showed up at the jail, so I guess you talked to him.” His grin was lopsided. “Thanks, hon. Sorry to shovel that messy job onto your plate.”

Hon. Oh, well. Some things you have to live with. “It had to be done,” I said. “How’s Jennie? What happened?”

“Long story,” McQuaid said wearily, lowering himself into a chair.

Ruby poured the last of the lemonade and put the glasses on the table.

“Thanks,” Sheila said. She drank half of hers in one long thirsty swallow. “Lovely.”

“You’re welcome,” Ruby said, returning to the counter for the sandwiches. “I did your laundry,” she added.

“You did my laundry?” Sheila asked in surprise. “Gosh, that was nice.”

“It was the least I could do for our next chief of police,” Ruby said. She put the plate on the table and went back for cookies. “Remind me to ask you about that funny little lacy thing, though.” She put a hand on McQuaid’s shoulder as she put the cookies on the table. “Did Jennie confess?”

“It doesn’t work that way, Ruby,” I said. “First McQuaid reads her rights, then she gets a lawyer, who tells her not to say anything until—”

“She confessed,” Sheila said, and reached for a sandwich. “What funny little lacy thing? Are you talking about my new camisole?”

“Oh, is that what it was?” Ruby asked. She sat down. “There’s milk in the refrigerator, if you want some.”

I turned to McQuaid. “She confessed? Where the hell was her lawyer? Who coerced her into—”

“Hold on, China,” McQuaid said, raising his hand. “Nobody coerced her. We couldn’t keep her from telling us what happened, Miranda or no Miranda.” He bent over to rub his bad leg. “She was so anxious to get it off her chest that she just spilled it all. She killed Coleman, and she fully intends to plead guilty. The Letty business is a little more complicated.”

“She intends to plead guilty now,” I said. “But wait until her husband gets her a good defense lawyer. Heck, not even a good one—a mediocre one will do the same thing. He’ll get the confession thrown out and you’ll have to make a case on whatever nimsy—”

“It’s her right index fingerprint on her husband’s gun,” Sheila said. “And she knows some details of the crime scene that didn’t make it into the newspaper. It’s a tight case, China. Not even you could get her off.”

“What about Letty?” Ruby asked.

“Jennie says she went to the Coleman house after Letty called and invited her,” McQuaid said. “There must have been something in that breakfast conversation at the diner with Dr. Jackson that made the connection in Letty’s mind. Anyway, Letty accused Jennie of having an affair with Coleman and asked her, point blank, whether she had killed him. Jennie said she went to pieces and told Letty the truth. At that point, Letty tried to shove her down the stairs, but fell herself, instead.”

“Self-defense,” I said.

“Manslaughter,” McQuaid said.

“Accidental death, maybe,” Sheila said. She went to the refrigerator and came back with the milk. “If the county attorney gets a guilty plea in Coleman’s murder, he might decide not to prosecute her for Letty’s death.”

Ruby reached for a cookie and sat back. “So why did she kill Coleman? She was pissed about the other women? He threatened to blow the whistle on their affair?”

“Nope,” McQuaid said. “He threatened to blow the whistle on Dr. Carlson. Jennie killed Coleman to keep him from revealing that her husband had kidnapped his granddaughter and was practicing dentistry under an assumed name. Coleman had happened to see Melissa’s picture somewhere, and looked her up on the Missing Children’s Web site. He put two and two together and came to the conclusion that Jack Carlson and Carl Jackson were the same man, and that the good doctor’s Texas dentistry registration was phony.”

“Pretty juicy blackmail stuff,” Sheila said, around a mouthful of sandwich. “Especially for Jennie. Listening to her talk, I’d say that above anything else, she values her husband’s status in the community. She loves Melissa and doesn’t want to lose her, but mostly, she wanted to keep Coleman quiet about who Jackson was and what he had done. She wanted to go on joining clubs, wearing nice clothes, and playing the dentist’s wife.”

“But what was Coleman after?” I asked, frowning. “What did Jennie have that he wanted? Neither of the Jacksons is on the City Council, so he wasn’t after a vote. Was it more sex? Money? What?”

Sheila poured herself a glass of milk. “A piece of land.”

“Land!” Ruby exclaimed. “Good Lord, didn’t he have enough of that?”

“Rachel Lang told me the Jacksons had bought some residential property here,” I said. “She thought they were planning to build a house.”

“Who the hell is Rachel Lang?” McQuaid demanded irritably. “Why do I feel as if I’m the last to know any of this stuff?”

“She’s Melissa’s real mother,” I said. I grinned at him. “Don’t be impatient, hon. All will be revealed in good time.”

“About the land,” Sheila said. “The Carlsons—it sounded as if Jennie was the major player here—had snapped up a piece of real estate that Coleman needed in order to have access to the most scenic section of the Blessing. Without that land, he’d have to build a road across a ravine, at a cost of something like a half million dollars. He asked the Jacksons for an easement, but they refused.”

“Ah,” I said, “Coleman would keep quiet about Melissa if the Jacksons would sell him their land—at bargain basement prices, no doubt.”

“Yup,” McQuaid said. “But Jennie didn’t trust him to keep quiet. She was afraid he’d keep upping the ante.”

“And if he blew the whistle, it would mean the end of the practice, the end of their comfortable life in Pecan Springs—the end of everything, really,” Sheila said.

“So she killed him,” Ruby said reflectively.

“She killed him,” McQuaid said. “Murder.”

“But not just like that,” Sheila said. “She pulled out the gun, he tried to take it away from her, there was a struggle, it went off, blah blah blah.”

“Manslaughter,” I said. “You wait. That confession isn’t worth the time it took to write it down.”

McQuaid shrugged. Ruby sighed. Sheila looked off into space. Nobody seemed to feel like arguing with me. Finally, after a long silence, Sheila said, “Well, one good thing came out of all that stuff tonight.”

“Yeah?” I asked glumly. “What?”

“This case has reminded me of the things I like about police work. I’m going to make a run for police chief.”

“Way cool!” Ruby exclaimed. “Just think of it—a female police chief in Pecan Springs! That ought to make the good old boys choke on their chewing tobacco.”

I looked at McQuaid. “How do you feel about Sheila’s running for your job?”

“More power to her.” He stretched wearily. “After the week I’ve had, I’m ready to turn in my badge and let Marvin finish filling out the paperwork. This case has reminded me of all the things I don’t like about police work. He gave me a narrow look. ”Which is not to say that I wouldn’t take an investigative assignment or two, as opportunity knocks.”

“I don’t think I want to hear any more knocking,” I said firmly. “I’m more interested in hearing you say that you’re quitting—if that’s what you really want to do.”

“Well, listen up, babe.” He leaned forward and said, loudly and distinctly, “I quit.” He leaned back and gave me a crooked grin. “How’s that?”

“Way cool,” I said. Now, the only problem I had to solve was finding another dentist.