Lavender Lies (9 page)

He grasped the significance of the letter on the first reading. “You think Coleman wrote this?”

“Last night, Pauline said that Coleman wanted ‘teamwork’ —the same word this writer uses. It seems like a pretty substantial coincidence.” I paused. “Phyllis said at first that Jorge hadn’t heard anything more from the blackmailer, but when I questioned her, she admitted she wasn’t sure whether he had or not.”

“I see,” McQuaid said slowly. He looked at me sideways. “You know the Garzas pretty well, don’t you?”

“I helped them get a few legal issues straightened out when they first started their alien assistance program. I know Phyllis better than Jorge.”

“Does either of them have what it takes to kill somebody?”

“That’s an unanswerable question,” I said bleakly. “How can you know how far a person will go to protect somebody or something he—or she—loves?” There are human imponderables here that no forensic psychologist can unravel. People do things when their livelihoods or their loved ones are threatened that they couldn’t imagine doing under other circumstances. “But if I’d killed Coleman, I sure as heck wouldn’t volunteer this letter.” I paused, thinking. “Of course, it was Phyllis who brought it in, not Jorge. I told her about Coleman’s murder, and I swear it was a surprise to her.”

McQuaid got my point. “What about Jorge? Could he have done something like this?”

I hate being a stoolie on my friends. “I suspect he isn’t an easy man to live with,” I said reluctantly. “Phyllis has told me enough, now and then, to give me the idea that they’ve had their share of marital problems. And there was that sad business about his leaving the ministry and getting a job as a social worker, which she never tried to explain.” I met McQuaid’s eyes. “I don’t know for sure that there has been any domestic violence, but it’s possible.”

“Yeah,” McQuaid said dryly. “Ministers and social workers are like cops. The last ones you’d suspect of beating their wives. But it happens.”

“Do your best to protect Phyllis,” I said, not liking to think what Jorge was going to say—or do—when he found out that the cops had possession of the letter. True, Phyllis knew what I intended to do with it when she gave it to me. But that didn’t keep me from feeling as if I’d betrayed her.

“I’ll try,” he said. “But this is a murder investigation. If Garza had anything to do with Coleman’s death, we’ll find it out.” He looked at me. “Do you happen to know which of the others Coleman might’ve tried to get to?”

I took out my notes and put them on the table. There were two names in the “for” column and five names in the “against” column, including Pauline’s and Phyllis’s.

McQuaid ran his finger down the “against” list. “Blast,” he muttered. “Guess I’m going to have to talk to all of them.” He looked at his watch. “Bob better get out here pretty quick. I’ve got to get back to the office.”

“That’s the trouble these days,” Bob said, appearing with our plates. “Ever’body’s in too big of a hurry to chew right, an’ when they get the bellyache, they blame the food.” He looked at me. “Maria says to tell you that she dropped a punch bowl by your store a little while ago. She heard you needed one.”

“Thanks,” I said. To McQuaid’s questioning look, I added, “For the reception. Which reminds me. We have to decide about music for the ceremony.”

“How ‘bout ‘Boot Scootin’ Boogie?” Bob said. “That’ud gitcha down the aisle fast.” He two-stepped off, singing it.

“I don’t want to think about music,” McQuaid said. “Whatever you decide will be okay with me.”

“Ruby says it should be Pachelbel’s
Canon.
Would you like that?”

McQuaid looked confused. “Isn’t that the one with guns and bells?”

“You’re probably thinking of the 1812
Overture,”
I said tactfully. “That has cannons in it.”

“Oh.” He picked up his knife. “Well, that’s how much I know about music. You choose. Come on, let’s eat. I’ve got to get back to work.”

“If I choose,” I said, “it’ll be something like ‘Devil With a Blue Dress On.’ ”

“Great,” he said, chewing fast. “That’ll work. And listen, let’s leave the license until tomorrow, okay? I probably should’ve let you go out to lunch by yourself and sent Dorrie across the street for a burger for me. This is a murder investigation. I haven’t got time to be sociable.”

“For the recessional,” I said darkly, “we can play ‘All My Exes Live in Texas.’ ”

Lavender Sweet Lavender
Judyth A. McLeod

Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris, 1609
John Parkinson

 

 

 

After lunch, Ruby and I left Laurel to keep an eye on both shops and adjourned to the tearoom to make centerpieces—small pots of lavender and other herbs set into plastic containers wrapped with batting to make them look puffy, then covered with chintz in colors that coordinated with the tablecloths. They would do double duty for the reception and for the grand opening later.

“Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart,” I said, tying a red ribbon around a puffy chintz-covered pot. In the background, providing an accompaniment to our work, was the hammering and muffled conversation of the two young men who were installing the pantry shelves. In the foreground sat Khat, the large and elegant seal-point Siamese that lives in the shop. I took him to live with me when McQuaid and I moved in together, but that didn’t last very long. Khat and Howard Cosell are not a match made in heaven.

“What we need,” Ruby said, “is to write the names of the herbs and their symbolism on little white cards. You know, sage for wisdom, mint for virtue, rosemary for fidelity, parsley for ...” She frowned. “What does parsley represent?”

“The woman of the house is boss,” I said. In one graceful motion, Khat sprang up on the table to see what we were doing.

“No, seriously.”

“Yes, seriously. That’s what it means. They used to say that about a lot of herbs, actually. ‘Rosemary grows where the woman is master,’ that sort of thing. Back when herbs were mostly used as medicinals, a woman who grew them knew her stuff, poison-wise. You probably didn’t want to mess with her.”

“Well, we certainly can’t write that,” Ruby said, moving her material aside so Khat would have a place to sit. “McQuaid wouldn’t want people thinking you have the upper hand, even if it is just a joke.”

“McQuaid is too busy with his murder investigation to think about anything else,” I said. “Over lunch, he added more names to his suspect list. It now includes all but two members of the City Council.” Purring throatily, Khat lay down, arranged his paws, and gave us a penetrating Siamese stare.

“The City Council!” Ruby looked baffled. “Why?”

“Because Coleman seems to have been applying a little covert leverage to get the votes he wanted.” The minute the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Giving necessary information to an investigating officer is one thing. Gossip is another. I tucked some basil into a pot and added, to cover my blunder, “Basil means ‘the enemy is near.’ You could write that down.”

“Ha ha,” Ruby said. “Where do you get all this weird stuff?”

“That’s not weird,” I said, glad of a new subject. “The Victorians had all sorts of meanings for herbs and flowers. They made up floral dictionaries and—”

The French door flew open and Laurel Wiley staggered in with a tall stack of punch bowls. “Where do you want these?” she asked, holding the top one with her chin.

Ruby’s lips moved as she counted. “Six punch bowls?”

“And that’s not all,” Laurel said as I took the bowls and put them on the floor. She straightened up and flipped her brown braid back over her shoulder. “There are five more in the shop, and more on the way. I just got another couple of phone calls.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake,” Ruby said plaintively, “tell them we don’t need any more! I hope these have names on them.”

“Some do and some don’t,” I said, inspecting.

Ruby groaned.

“I’ll tell them,” Laurel said, and disappeared. Khat, imagining that she had gone to find him a treat, leaped off the table and went after her, his black tail in the air.

“I guess asking Fannie to find punch bowls wasn’t a very good idea,” Ruby said.

“It was too good an idea,” I replied. I looked at the chintz-covered pots lined up on the table. “How many of these do we have to make?”

“A dozen.” Ruby picked up another pot and began to work. “What’s this about Coleman and the Council and leverage?”

Rats. I thought I’d successfully dodged that bullet. “I’m sorry, Ruby. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Actually, it’s not a surprise.” Ruby tied a green ribbon around a pot of sage. “I ran into Pauline when I went to lunch. She was sitting by herself on the patio at Dos Amigas, looking wretched. I sat down with her and two minutes later she whipped out her hanky and started to cry.”

“And the more she cried,” I guessed, “the more she talked.”

“That’s Pauline,” Ruby said philosophically. “She’s a very tough lady, but she’s got no
give.
When something gets to her, she goes to pieces. She’s afraid Darryl’s in trouble. She wasn’t clear about the details, but it has something to do with Coleman and the annexation proposal and her being a romantic fool. I got the impression that Darryl had a good reason to be jealous of Coleman.” She looked at me. “McQuaid doesn’t think
Darryl
did it, does he?”

“McQuaid doesn’t think anything yet,” I said. “The investigation is just getting underway.”

She tucked tissue paper around the pot and gathered the chintz with her hands. “So what’s this about a list of suspects?”

Since she already knew about Pauline and Darryl, it wouldn’t hurt to tell her a little more of the story. “Well,” I said cautiously, “it may be that Coleman was killed because he was attempting to blackmail somebody.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Ruby murmured, looping the rim of the pot with a lavender ribbon. “Like, a Council member, maybe?”

“Possibly.”

“Like Phyllis Garza? Was that why she was here this morning? I saw her when she left, and she looked pretty upset. What did he do, send her a letter? Call her on the phone?”

“Ruby,” I said, “will you
stop?
I really don’t think McQuaid would like it if I said anything else.”

Ruby was silent for a minute, regarding her handiwork. “If you wanted me to,” she said at last, “I could find out whether Coleman tried to get Darla McDaniels’s vote. I went to school with her. We were both on the cheerleading squad our junior year and we had a crush on the quarterback.” She giggled. “But
she
married the jerk.”

“You were a cheerleader?”

“Sis boom bah.”

“Knowing you, I find that hard to believe.”

Ruby tossed her frizzed curls. “I don’t see why. I mean, I was a perfectly normal Texas teenager.”

“That’s the part that’s hard to believe,” I said. “And Darla McDaniels was a cheerleader too? She must have ... well, changed.” Darla is on the high side of one-eighty.

“We’ve all changed,” Ruby replied. “But we were good friends once. I’m sure she’ll open up to me about Coleman. You should come too, though, and hear what she says.”

“Actually,” I said, “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to talk to anybody. McQuaid won’t want us messing around with his investigation.”

Ruby frowned. “Maybe so. But if McQuaid asks Darla whether Coleman was blackmailing her, she’ll say no. I mean, I would.” At my questioning glance, she added, defensively, “Well, I would. If I said yes, I got a letter or a phone call or whatever from that turkey, McQuaid would put me on the suspect list immediately, which would mean that he’d want to interrogate me and check my alibi and all that police stuff. And if Coleman was blackmailing me, it means I’ve done something I don’t want anybody to know about, so I wouldn’t be anxious to tell the cops anything.” She tossed her red curls, warming to her subject. “On the other hand, if I’d killed Coleman to keep him quiet, do you think I’d tell the police he was blackmailing me? Not on your life. That would be criminally stupid.”

“Dang,” I said. Sometimes Ruby’s logic amazes me.

“In either case,” she went on, “it would be a heck of a lot easier to deny everything and save myself a lot of grief, and maybe some public exposure I couldn’t afford. Take it from me, China, McQuaid’s investigation will still be at ground zero on Sunday afternoon. He’ll probably show up for the wedding, but you can forget about the honeymoon. Unless
we
help.”