Read Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil Online
Authors: Barbara Monajem
"Pancake egg?" He watched Art pour a dollop of beaten egg onto the pan.
She nodded. A tear trickled down her cheek and splashed on the stove. "I really miss some of the family stuff, Gideon. Not Dad calling Mom stupid, but things like pancake eggs and Mom's biscuits." Carefully, she poured two more dribs of egg onto the pan.
Gideon mussed her hair. "Me too, kiddo." He eyed the egg. "Teddy bear?"
"For my big teddy bear of a brother." Two more dribs became the feet, then a couple more the ears. "I thought we could be family again, you and me. And I thought you could marry Ophelia and she would be part of our family and we could be part of hers. And maybe I could get married to, uh, some really nice guy, and..."
Gideon dropped two slices of bread in the toaster and got out mugs for coffee. "It sounds idyllic, Art, but I'm already behaving like Dad, and I met Ophelia only two days ago."
"But you still want her, right?"
"I don't know what I want. But I have to ask you some cop questions now, baby. Why were you at that apartment?"
"To get my pictures, of course," Art said belligerently. "Andrea's, too. Listen, one little fight with Ophelia is no reason to forget about her."
"Did you touch anything while you were there?"
Art narrowed her eyes. "So you're going to run away from the first intelligent girl you've fallen for because you're afraid you might turn out like Dad? Grow up and control yourself instead."
"Please answer my question," Gideon said.
Art sighed elaborately. "I watch TV. I read books. I wore latex gloves."
"Thank God for that, but I want the truth about those photographs. Why would you panic about a couple of photos, when everyone in the art class drew pictures of you? You might find them embarrassing, but breaking and entering, maybe risking your life, to get them? You knew the blackmailer was probably dead. The chances the pictures would get out were minimal. I don't pretend to understand the female mind, but isn't breaking and entering a little over the top?"
Art flipped the teddy-bear egg gently over, her eyes firmly on the pan. "They weren't exactly nude modeling pics, and I don't feel like explaining it to you."
"This from the woman who vacuums naked?"
"I can vacuum any way I like!" Art flamed.
"With the curtains closed, sure," Gideon said. "As long as you don't endanger yourself, you can do whatever you please. Did I make a fuss about you going out with Dufray?" He popped two more slices in the toaster.
"No, and I appreciate that, but these pictures might sort of maybe look like"--her voice went softer--"porn, and I could lose my job, and..." It trickled away to nothing.
She's an adult,
Gideon reminded himself.
What the hell has she been doing?
He forced himself not to grit his teeth. "And what?"
Artemisia got a stubborn look he remembered well from their childhood. "None of your business. It's nothing to do with these murders, and I'm not involved with anyone who shoots porn. I know you're killing yourself not to yell at me, but it would be better if you let me live my life and fixed your relationship with Ophelia instead." She scooped the egg onto a plate, placed two raisins for the teddy's eyes, and poured more egg into the pan. This time she gave it eight little legs. "Will you be able to get the pictures back? Please,
pretty
please?"
"Eventually, I hope so. For the moment, they're all missing. Computers, CDs, negatives, prints...gone." Gideon ran a hand through his damp hair.
"That's awful. Poor Gideon," Art said. "There's a lot of pressure on you to solve this, right? Especially after not being able to arrest Constantine last year."
"Baby, the only pressure is to get this guy before he kills someone else. Nobody will try to bribe me to plant evidence in this case."
Art gawped. "People wanted you to make up evidence against Constantine? They offered you money to prove he killed his wife?"
"You bet. Almost turned me off being a cop." Gideon watched his sister smoothly flip the egg. "A spider. That's gotta be symbolic." He tossed the toast onto a plate.
Artemisia blushed. "I have issues, and I am not going to explain them to you."
Good. "Just don't go thinking of catching Dufray in your web. He didn't kill his wife, but he's a dangerous man."
"I won't." Artemisia blushed again. "He's fun, but awfully scary. You know those rumors about him sending bad dreams? I think they may be true." She flapped a hand. "I don't expect you to believe me. And don't start worrying I'll sleep with Tony the vampire, because I won't. Although I totally understand why you can't keep your hands off Ophelia."
Gideon looked up from pouring the coffee. "So that's the secret you were so proud of keeping." He set the two mugs on the table, along with a carton of milk and a canister of sugar.
"Yeah, but now I don't have to, at least from you, and I can even say I told you so, but I won't. Isn't it cool? She has fangs!"
"Yeah, the fangs are definitely cool."
Even more definitely, hot.
He pulled a chair up to the kitchen table.
And I can't afford to think about them now.
Artemisia served the spider egg with its own two beady raisin eyes and sat opposite him. "You have to apologize to her."
Gideon cut his teddy bear into quarters and then eighths before he answered. "When I get a spare moment, I'll give her a call."
"A call? You have to go see her! Apologize in person!"
"Sis, I don't think she ever wants to see me again." He speared two pieces of teddy bear and washed them down with a swig of coffee. "I can't say I blame her."
"Of course she does. Gideon, you hurt her. She was crying last night."
Gideon wondered how much worse he would feel before this was over.
"She's not the weepy type, Gideon. Not like Mom. Not like me. Ophelia's tougher than that. She gets mad instead, but last night she was mad and crying, too. She even tried to get me to take Gretchen." Art rolled up her spider egg and cut it in pieces. "Gretchen wouldn't."
"Good for Gretchen, but I can't go see Ophelia. She's...Even if she'd listen to me, she's too distracting. I've got to keep my mind on my work."
"Gideon, you
have
to."
"Artemisia, butt out."
"Oh, how wonderful!" Art shouted. "You'll go back to dating bimbos just for the sex, and everything will be hunky-dory!"
"Now you're acting like Mom." He felt like a jerk again at the crestfallen look on his sister's face. "Sorry, but if you get to handle your issues, then I get to handle mine."
The phone rang. Gideon leaped gratefully to get it and hung up on a wrong number ten seconds later.
"Your message light's on," Art noted. She crammed in a mouthful of egg and toast.
Gideon fast-forwarded through the saved message from Ophelia; the last thing he needed was to give Artemisia more ammunition. He erased the next two irrelevancies, and Darby Sims's voice came on.
"Damn it, Gideon," Darby said, "pick up if you're there." Pause. "Listen, bro, we
have
to talk about your sister and Dufray. It's after midnight, and she's still not home." Art gasped, coughed, and gasped again. Gideon strode over and whacked her on the back. After a longer pause, Darby spoke again. "She's too sweet and innocent to hang with that dude. Call me."
Artemisia spat out a hunk of toast. "Thanks," she rasped. She took a swallow of coffee and coughed again.
"What the hell does he expect me to do?" Gideon slathered raspberry jam on his toast. "Forbid you to see Dufray? Challenge him to a duel?"
In a husky voice, Art said, "Does he think I'm a baby?" She ripped off a bite of toast. "I am so
enraged
at him." She glowered down at her plate.
Huh. Casually, he asked, "You had a thing for Dar way back when, didn't you?"
"A high-school crush on a college student," Art said, reddening. "I can't believe this." Her voice shook ever so slightly. "He talks like I'm still sixteen." She washed down her toast and, in a tone she probably thought sounded as casual as Gideon's, asked, "Has he moved home, or is he going back to Atlanta with that awful woman?"
Gideon gulped down the last of his coffee. "He was interviewing to be a tattoo artist the other day, so I guess he's staying. What do you want me to tell him?"
"I don't know," Art said grumpily. "Whatever brothers tell nosy, irritating, well-meaning friends." She gathered up the dishes and dumped them in the sink. "I've got to run, or I'll be late for school." She hurried out the door.
In a minute she was back.
Just like Mom,
thought Gideon almost affectionately.
"Go see Ophelia. I mean it." She banged out the door again. This time she drove away.
Ophelia woke unrefreshed after a night of fruitless thoughts and turbulent dreams where Gideon told her she was stupid and Constantine offered an endless line of gleaming, macho trucks. She swung out of bed and glared at Gretchen. "I suppose you slept just fine."
The dog's jaw creaked as she yawned.
"Today you're going back to Gideon, like it or not." Ophelia showered and dressed in shorts and a blatantly cheerful yellow tank top. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and rinsed one of last night's bruised apples. Early sunshine filtered through the bedroom blinds. It was perfect spring working weather, but the police had her two remaining usable maple trees.
Gretchen whined at the front door. Ophelia unlocked it and took a bite of the apple, resigning herself to another trip to the nursery. She followed Gretchen onto the porch and down the stairs to the yard...and saw that the front garden was dead. Dead impatiens, dead hostas, dead elephant's ear. The winding border of liriope? Dead. Two recently rescued azaleas, verging on dead. Yellow patches of grass splotched the still mostly green lawn.
In a few quick steps she reached the back garden. The small expanse of grass behind the house contained not one green blade. A drooping swatch of dead mint ringed the lawn. The flowerbeds next to the house were wilted and brown, and she didn't have to go into the greenhouse to see that not much green remained there, either.
Her fists clenched and her fangs slotted down. Useless, since whoever had done this was long gone. Probably days gone. It was a no-brainer to figure this one out. Ophelia peered under the house, and sure enough, the weed-killer bottle was empty. Who could possibly hate her so much?
She bit her lip hard, drawing blood and keeping back the tears until she was indoors with the door shut behind her. Then, huddled on the couch, shutting out the image of all the dead plants, the thoughts of all the wasted effort and all the work required to restore the garden, she tried to focus on what really mattered: Who had done this? And why?
Gretchen scratched on the screen door. She let the dog in and, on autopilot, made peanut-butter sandwiches for both of them. "Blame your stupid Gideon that you're not getting more of that nutria," she told the dog, her voice shaking, but with which emotion she wasn't sure, wishing she could call Gideon about this catastrophe but knowing she wouldn't. She managed to swallow two bites of her sandwich before tossing it to the dog. Gretchen gulped down the food but watched Ophelia with huge, reproachful brown eyes.
Don't call him stupid,
she seemed to say.
"I'll call him stupid all I want," Ophelia retorted, not meaning it, feeling plain lousy. She grubbed around for a pair of old sandals and filled the water bowl for Gretchen, then latched the outside door and locked the dog in the screened porch. She scooped up her pellet rifle and a handful of pellets and let herself out the front, ignoring the dog's indignant howls. "Too bad," she called as she walked around the side of the house. "I need some alone time, so you can't come."
Donnie Donaldson's screen door opened with a slight squeak, and Donnie appeared on the back porch with a can of lubricating oil. "What happened to your yard?" He screwed off the red top of the can.
"Somebody poisoned my garden," Ophelia said. She kicked at the dead impatiens. "Have you seen anybody--anybody at all--hanging around my yard in the past week?"
Donnie shook his head, making sympathetic noises. "Willy again, you think? He was mighty pissed off last night." He dripped oil into the upper hinge.
"Willy wouldn't know enough to do this," Ophelia said. "Anyway, it was probably done several days ago. All my weed killer is gone. Somebody who knew about gardening, or at least had the patience to read the directions, must have mixed it properly and used all I had left to cover so much ground." She ripped an elephant's ear out by the roots and dumped it at the edge of the drive.
"Jesus." Donnie oiled the lower hinge. "Sort of makes you want to give up, don't it?"
"Give up?" Ophelia stared at him. She tossed another elephant's ear to the side. "What are you talking about?"
Donnie made a broad sweep of his hand. "You been fixing up your yard for close on two years now, got it looking real beautiful. Now your soil's poisoned. Everything's ruined." He swung the now-silent door back and forth.
"No, the weed killer breaks down quickly," she said. "I can plant again right away. I'll try something new. Customers always want the same old thing, but I can experiment at home."
Donnie digested her words. "Better find out who did it first, or he might come do it again. Or something even worse." He set the can of oil inside his back door, picked up a couple of half-full green trash bags, and ambled down the steps. "Vi really wants you back in town. She went on and on about it the other day. Told me how good you were for business in the club, and how much she misses you."
"She's conveniently forgotten how much we fought," Ophelia said. "Vi and her club do perfectly fine without me."
Donnie stuffed dead leaves from a pile on the lawn into one of the trash bags. After a minute, he asked, "Who was that fella last night? New boyfriend?"
Ophelia gave him a wilting look. "Jabez is just a friend." She surveyed the front garden, trying to feel enthusiastic about starting over.
"You dumped the corrupt cop?" Donnie knotted the top of the trash bag and nestled it against a roll of carpet cushion in his truck.
Ophelia swung round. "He is not corrupt, and I was never going out with him. And in case you've forgotten what I said yesterday, Constantine did not kill his wife."
Donnie raised his hands in mock horror. "Whoops, I forgot. Vi might not sleep with me if I dis Dufray. Like she'll sleep with me anyway. Gotta be a lot richer than I am to touch Vi." He set to work on the next trash bag.
"Whatever gave you that idea? Vi's not interested in men with money. She has plenty of her own. She's a tease, Donnie, but if you persist she'll come around."
"If I have money she'll come around," Donnie replied. "It's the way of the world. I've been doing good lately. Another year or two, I'll be in her league." He crammed the leaves down in the bag. "You really gonna buy the cop's dog? Why's it howling like that?"
Ophelia blinked at him and then remembered what she'd told Donnie and the photo-shop guy only yesterday or a century ago. "Because I'm going for a walk, and I don't want her along."
"Doesn't sound like you're keeping her," Donnie said. "Maybe you should buy another dog, then. Violet's right, it's not safe here." He hooked his thumbs in his belt and frowned. "You're too stubborn and ornery for your own good. Think of how Vi would feel if something happened to you."
"I like it here," Ophelia said shortly. "So I'm staying."
"I don't know whether I'm glad to hear that or not," Donnie said. He knotted the top of the garbage bag and tossed it into his truck.
Next week,
Gideon told himself as he neared Ophelia's house.
Or tomorrow.
Maybe even by tonight something would have opened up, and he could think straight enough to make that call. In the meantime, he'd drop Ophelia's belongings at Violet's house and get on with interviewing everyone who might have seen something at the photo shop yesterday afternoon.
Without really looking, he noticed Donnie Donaldson loading a bag of trash into his white contractor's truck, while Constantine's bright blue pickup hulked in Ophelia's driveway. Jabez must have left at first light.
But something about Ophelia's house and Ophelia's presence there sucked his gaze to the side, and he really looked.
He swerved into the driveway, Ophelia and her guns and her prohibition be damned. Before he had even opened the door of the Mercedes, a melancholy howl sounded from behind the trailer. He got out of the car and saw the extent of the damage, and an almost physical pain gripped him. "What the hell happened here?"
Donnie Donaldson balanced a TV-sized box on the tailgate of his truck and shifted an orange trash bag to make room for it on the bed. "Someone poisoned her garden. Weed killer."
"Where's Ophelia? Inside?"
Donnie shook his head, tsk-tsking. "She went for a walk. Wanted to be alone. She's all shook up, poor thing. Coupla years' work shot, just like that." He straightened a pile of two-by-tens next to a roll of carpet cushion and tied a red rag around the wood where it hung off the end of the truck. "Stinks, don't it?"
"Why didn't she take my dog with her?"
"Like I said, she wanted to be alone. She's putting up a good front, but if you ask me...This shit, on top of Willy and Lisa threatening to call the cops last night 'cause they think she molested Joanna. I heard she was caught with a dead body in her truck. That's not true, is it?"
"Where'd she go?" Gideon demanded. Gretchen yowled inside the screened porch.
Donnie motioned with his chin past the dead back lawn and the greenhouse to the row of compost piles leading toward the woods. "There's a path to the river. She took a rifle, so you better watch your step, officer. It's all her property, the whole way down. She didn't want to see you last night, and she sure ain't gonna want to see you now."
"I can't just drive off and ignore this," Gideon said.
"Don't say I didn't warn you." Donnie climbed into the white truck and drove away.
Gideon took a chisel from the trunk of the Mercedes and pried open one of the screens to free his dog, then strode down the path and into the woods after the departing Gretchen. The trail twisted through the trees for close to half a mile, and at any other time Gideon would have noted the dappled beauty of the woods in the early-morning sun, and maybe even appreciated the labor of love that kept the path clear, but all he could think of was Ophelia crying after he'd been such a jerk, and then going home to Willy's hateful accusations, and finally waking up to a dead garden.
He came out of the woods high on the riverbank not far from a bat house tacked on a metal pole. Another bat house stood in a cleared spot thirty yards downriver. At this point, the water picked up from its usual meander, passing a flurry of rocks and snags, till it rounded the bend farther down and quieted again close to Gideon's place. Upriver a few old farmhouses like the one Gideon had inherited perched not far from the water. Directly across from where he stood, behind a thin layer of trees, several houses abutting the new golf course were being built.
The path turned abruptly right upriver and descended between water oaks and pines toward the water's edge. A flower garden twined in and out of the trees. Gideon heard Ophelia's voice admonishing Gretchen and let go of a long breath. He came into the open a foot or so above the river. Ophelia stood barefoot below him on a snag, a wreath of ivy and tiny blue flowers resting on her curls. She clutched a rifle in one hand, and her eyes dared him to wrong her again. Gretchen nosed upstream along the water.
Gideon cleared his throat. "Donnie told me you were here," he said. "Art spoke to me this morning. I owe you an apology."
Ophelia nodded. Her grip on the rifle slackened while she watched him, saying nothing. He stepped carefully down the slick mud of the bank, feeling his heart would burst at her beauty, the water sparkling behind her, the sunshine splashing the trees across the river.
Instinct clapped him hard between the shoulder blades. He sprang forward and toppled Ophelia into the water as a bullet whined. A knifelike pain slapped across his thigh. The two of them plunged underwater in a tangle of limbs as another shot cracked the water, and Ophelia kicked away and disappeared, the wreath bobbing and twirling in her wake.
Gideon launched himself after her, hampered by the drag from his clothes and shoes, fighting to stay under until they rounded the first bend. The sniper was on the far side of the river; of that Gideon was sure. Across from Ophelia's, the man had had cover, but he would be hard put to shoot at them unseen from the construction site and the half-finished golf course, which stretched below Ophelia's along the opposite bank. Gideon came up for air at last, hopefully out of sight of the sniper, and made for the flash of her yellow top, but when he got there Ophelia had taken it off and was already diving ahead. He kicked off one shoe as he dove again, rolling downriver, cursing his thigh as he ripped off the second shoe. He hauled his shirt over his head and kept going.
Several breaths later, Ophelia surfaced next to him by the bank. "Where'd you get hit?" Her naked breasts floated enchantingly at water level. "How bad is it?"
"Not so bad I can't enjoy the view," Gideon said, but Ophelia was already underwater, widening the rip in his trousers and licking at his thigh.
She surfaced again a few seconds later, pushing her fangs delicately back into place. "It's just a graze. Around the next bend, there's a little alcove under the bank where I can fix it properly."
"I know where that is," Gideon said. She must have done something properly already, because his thigh no longer burned. He plowed downstream beside her until they passed the cypress that marked the bend, then pulled hard toward the bank. Ophelia shimmered ahead of him under the willows. She peeled off her shorts and underwear, wrung them out, and stashed them at the back of the alcove.