2 Landscape in Scarlet (7 page)

“You got a brochure? I’m jealous. All I got was a bullet.
But then I’m a lot tougher
than a woman could be
.
”

“Braggart.” Juliet threw her napkin at him. Rose looked startled but Elizabeth just smiled indulgently
and kept pouring tea
. That was because Rose was a little afraid of Esteban and Elizabeth was not. And they were both correct in their gut feelings. Esteban could be a dangerous man. It was also true that he would never hurt
either one
of them, or Juliet either. “Now you have a matched set. A few more and you can make a charm bracelet. Or, you could stop at earrings.
It’s what a smart man would do.
”

They joked about it because it was that or cry.

“Now I know
what to make you for Christmas,
”
he said.

“
Thoughtful of you but
—
y
uck.”

Rose smiled uneasily
as they bantered
,
t
hough Esteban
was a resident of Bartholomew’s Wood and a regular visitor at Elizabeth’s
teas
. They all stopped in to see her from time to time because it was so hard for her to get around in a wheelchair
, particularly after nightfall, which came early in the autumn
.
Juliet thought she knew why Elizabeth and Raphael remained in the compound in spite of the physical inconveniences. If they had a house they would have to hire staff
—
a maid and gardener at the least. They had the money for it, but for intensely private people, having others around when they were working would be a constant irritant. Here they were sheltered, surrounded by other artists who respected their privacy, and had a system that saw to their needs without undue intrusion into their creative lives.

“Rose, you knew Comstock, at least a bit,” Juliet said. “Was he always so
… creepy?”

Juliet still would have preferred to have nothing to do with the situation, but there was a weird intimacy to finding someone who has died, especially if murdered. She couldn’t say why, but being the first person to find the body conferred an obligation. The obligation was, in part, that though one couldn’t fix the past and prevent the death, one did need to try and alter the future
—
especially if it looked like a murderer might get away with the killing. The echoes of the victim’s death demanded it.

“I didn’t know him
—
not really
,” Rose said
.
“
But there were stories
—
never proved
—
but enough rumors that, well, they got around outside of his own town.” She took a cup of tea from Elizabeth.
No one offered her brandy. Rose did not usually partake of amnesia in a bottle.
Not publicly.

Juliet understood
what she meant.
S
ometimes rumors reached a critical mass and exploded into general public awareness. That didn’t mean they were true.
And personal experience had taught her that people got upset when they found out that their world was not hermetically seal
ed
, that sometimes unpleasantness and danger leaked in. Sometimes they reacted strongly
when it happened
and they went looking for someone to blame
.

“What kind of rumors?”
she asked.

Rose blushed and Juliet knew that it
was
something sexual
or at least a personal sin
rather than monetary malfeasance.

“He was a troop leader in some kind of a boys
’
club
for the Parks and Recreation Department
. There were stories about him supplying the boys with beer and other things. For a price.” Rose talked to her knitting.
“He
eventually
got fired.”

“Did any of the kids come forward
to complain
?
I don’t recall hearing anything
,
” Esteban asked
,
accepting a teacup and then opening the brandy to add a splash.
He did partake, though Juliet had doubts about there being enough liquor to ever make Esteban completely forget himself.

“No. Not a one. But
… well, would you leave you
r
child in a club if there were stories like that?
And the liability for the Parks and Recreation Department was too high for them to
consent
to keeping
him on the job.
They offered him something else but he refused.
”

“
I
n all honesty I wouldn’t
leave
a child there
.” Juliet didn’t like saying it, but when it came to children…. No, she wouldn’t take the chance. “He denied wrongdoing?”

“Of course. Emphatically. But what else could he say?
He appealed the decision to let him go and it went to an arbitrator or something, but he lost.
And then Xander Lawson’s nephew
—
the son of his youngest sister
—
and some other boy
overdosed. The
other boy didn’t die, but
Joel Cray
did. I can’t say that it was a huge tragedy to most of the other students. He
was a deceitful, vicious bully, always in trouble, too, but once he died….”

“A dead kid is a dead kid,” Juliet murmured. “Parents panic and want someone to blame.”

Standing on what they saw as moral high ground, feeling no guilt or empathy for spreading
and believing
rumors without proof
—
nor should they feel guilt. If they were right.

But if they erred?
If Comstock were innocent?

She thought of the dead man’s face as he was loaded into a body bag. It had lost its integrity, it
s
humanness
—
supposing he had ever had any
. The distorted grimace of pain and then onset of rigor mortis while the face was shoved askew by the ground was so exaggerated that Juliet had to wonder if he had torn muscles in the final moments of life.
Had anything he had done
in life
deserved such a death?

“Comstock would have been the easiest target,
yes?
” Esteban added
, pulling Juliet away from her grim memory
.

“
I fear so.
At the time it struck me as being
.
…”

“Vindictive? Unfair?” Juliet suggested.

“Well, yes. You see,
Lulu lived in the same building with him. When it became apparent that there wasn’t any evidence
that he was responsible
and the police wouldn’t arrest him, she started up a petition to get him thrown out.
She was friends with Xander and Lois
—
Madame Mimm
, she was also Joel’s aunt
, you see
—
and
Lulu
wanted to help
her friends get
justice
.
”

Xander and Madame Mimm were siblings. And Lulu a close friend. Juliet frowned
, not liking the way this was adding up
.

“Well, I guess they wouldn’t want him
in
the rec room and swimming pool or any place he could meet kids
,
” Elizabeth said
, but she obviously didn’t care for what they had done either
.

“Yes
—
except there are no children in the building
,” Rose said
.
“
So, he got angry and decided to sue. You may
have
heard about this. It got some attention in the news. Anyhow, the jury found in his favor, but they awarded
him
only one dollar in damages. And, of course, he had to move after that. How could he stay?”

“Carry rancor to the grave but no further,” Juliet muttered and Esteban looked at her. “I wonder if everyone is happy now that he’s dead.”

Rose shuddered.

“I don’t know how anyone stands it. Out there.”
Again, she sounded very fearful.

“We are lucky to live here,” Juliet said, but didn’t remind her that murder had visited them last summer.
“Rose, I was thinking about taking a self-defense refresher course. Would you like to come with me? It makes me feel so much better to know that there are nonlethal ways of handling a bad situation
, no matter when or where it happens
.”

Esteban shot her a glance.

“You
… you have a gun
,
don’t you?”
Rose asked.

“Yes
.” Rose knew this already. “But sometimes one can deal with things using nonlethal force. It’s a matter of learning how to improvise so you don’t have to shoot up your plaster and have bodies leaking on the
upholstery
.”

Esteban started to smile.

“I am betting,
bella
, that anytime you pick up a weapon it will be lethal. And anything can be a weapon.”

“Like a kitchen knife,” Rose suggested, entering into the spirit of the conversation.

“A nail gun,” Elizabeth said.

Juliet shook her head at their bloodthirsty answers but had to smile at the enthusiasm.

“More like a frying pan, at least at my place. But, I have to admit that, that if I feel the need to hit someone with a frying pan, I will be using lethal force. You should never pick up a weapon if you don’t mean to use it. That’s the first thing they teach you. Reach for the pan, you better mean it.” She demonstrated a backhand stroke that would have looked good on a tennis court.

Rose giggled.

“Anyway, I wasn’t thinking of a defense class for using household items as weaponry. More like one that practices kicking guys in the balls and poking their eyes out. You know, basic self-defense with knees and elbows.”

Rose gasped but then giggled again.

“Think about it,” Juliet said and let the matter go.

The party broke up a little before nine. Rose was walking down the path
to her bungalow
and Juliet and Esteban needed to travel up to the third and fourth terrace
s
.

“I’ll walk down with you,” Juliet finally said to Rose, shivering a little as the wind pushed by her.

“And leave me to play the role of the cad? I shall be a gentleman and see you both down,” Esteban insisted.

Rose stuttered something about that being very nice. Juliet didn’t think he was being nice. He knew that she wanted to talk to Raphael and proposed to join the conversation unless expressly forbidden to participate. And since it wasn’t a lovers
’
tryst, and Esteban’s insights could be useful, Juliet didn’t bother making any excuses for why his company wasn’t needed.

Anyway, how could she explain that her natural reaction to being part of another murder investigation was to speak to the artist who had helped her solve the last one
?

They bade Rose a good night and as soon as her door closed, they turned toward Raphael’s bungalow where a light burned on the porch.
They were expected.

“
Bella
, do you need a refresher course in self-defense?” Esteban asked her. “Because we could spar if that is what you want. I am thinking that your training was
… comprehensive, yes?”

“Yes.” Her boss had insisted
though she never planned on being involved in any kind of field work. She said nothing about him calling her
bella
. It meant beautiful in Spanish. “But I wasn’t suggesting it for me
—
though there is no harm in brushing up.”

“You are trying to help the mouse?” he asked. “That is generous of you.”

“Well, someone has to do it. She’s going to get an ulcer if she doesn’t stop worrying.”

“Come in,” Raphael
said, answering the door almost at once
when Esteban knocked
. “I had almost despaired of you.”

“You know me rather to
o
well,” Juliet said, glad to draw near the potbellied stove. The night had gone from merely crisp to downright cold in the hours she had been at Elizabeth’s cottage.
“And now I feel like we are playing at being the three musketeers. Which is fine as long as you are Athos and Porthos and I get to be Aramis.”

“
Tous pour un, un pour tous,
”
Raphael murmured, and Juliet suspected that he had read Dumas in the original French. As had she. The thought made her feel a shade less grim.