A Sprig of Blossomed Thorn (21 page)

“And the girlfriend?”

“Shy and sweet. Matt introduced her as his fiancée, by the way.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Gone public. That's new.”

“I had that impression.”

“Did you meet Eva?”

“Just now. We didn't talk.”

He took a swallow of coffee. “You talked a while with the Rose Guild lady. Did she say anything interesting?”

I didn't care to reopen our discussion of racial equity at this moment, so I said, “Not especially. Have you interviewed her?”

“Yeah, her and the other one, you gave me her name. Kingston.”

“Lucy Kingston.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you learn anything interesting from her?”

He took a sip of his coffee. “Yeah. She hated Maria Garcia's guts.”

 

 

21

M
y stomach sank. I couldn't believe that Lucy Kingston, who was sweet if a little feather-headed, could have done Maria harm.

“Does she have an alibi?”

Tony laughed. “Alibi? I don't even know if a crime was committed, let alone when. Nah, she doesn't need an alibi. She's too open about hating Maria. If she'd tried to kill her, she'd have been more discreet.”

“Oh. You don't think she might be putting on an act?”

“If she's acting, then she deserves an Academy Award. Besides, where would she get hold of botulism, and how would she get close enough to Maria to infect her with it? The wound was a puncture on the wrist, so if someone inflicted it deliberately they'd have to get close. Or be pretty good with a blowgun.”

I suddenly remembered seeing a bandage on Maria's wrist at the tearoom. Tony was right, it would have been difficult to stick her there with a hypodermic or some such without coming in close contact. Even on my brief acquaintance with Lucy, I couldn't picture her getting within kissing range of Maria.

Tony finished his coffee and crumpled the paper cup. There was no trash can nearby, so after glancing around he just kept it in his hand.

“I'm pretty close to wrapping this one up,” he said. “It'll go on the books as wound botulism, unknown source, unless I uncover something surprising in the next day or so.”

“Disappointing.”

He shrugged. “All in a day's work. We don't solve every case. Sometimes there isn't a case.”

“Have you talked to all the family?”

“Yeah, pretty much. They weren't all chummy with Maria, but I don't think any of them hated her enough to want her dead.”

I mused on that. Estella certainly didn't seem broken up about Maria's death. In fact I suspected she'd been reluctant to take her place with the family on this day of public mourning, though she'd done so in the end. Could she have hated her mother enough to kill her? I didn't see it, but then I had only observed her from a distance, mostly.

Matt and Sherry had reason to celebrate Maria's demise, though they were doing so with quiet decorum. Would they have found it worthwhile to kill for the freedom to marry? I couldn't guess.

Perhaps I was concocting all these suspicions out of thin air. Perhaps Maria had truly died of an unfortunate injury, a sad mischance.

Tony pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at the screen. “Gotta go. Glad I got to see you. Watch out for those Goths, OK?”

I smiled in response, though my heart wasn't in it. Tony strode away, and I realized belatedly that I'd failed to invite him to the lecture. I considered going after him but decided to wait and call him later, when I hoped to be in a brighter mood.

He tossed his coffee cup into a trash can by the back door, then pushed the door open, letting in a blast of sunshine. Hot on his heels, catching the door even before it fell shut, was Estella Garcia. Going out for a smoke, no doubt.

The crowd was diminishing as people began to leave. The receiving line had finally dispersed. Rosa came up to me, looking composed if a little strained, and pressed a slip of paper into my hand.

“That's our address. You know where Escalante Street is?”

“Yes, I can find it. Thank you, Rosa.”

She nodded, looking sad. “We're going to the burial now.”

“Rosario?”

Another nod. Santa Fe's oldest cemetery was a prestigious resting ground. Maria would have had to pay quite a bit to be buried there, or perhaps her family owned one of the coveted plots.

Rosa glanced toward her parents, who were talking with a handful of well-wishers, edging their way toward the exit. “I'd better go. See you at the house?”

I nodded and gave her a reassuring smile. An answering smile flicked across her face, then she turned and left.

The crowd around the buffet had thinned, but there wasn't much left of the food and I really had no appetite. I decided to stop at home and just have a quick bite of something before joining the Garcia gathering.

I walked out to my car, sighing with relief at having fulfilled my duty and escaped. Funerals reminded one of one's own losses, and mine were still recent enough to ache.

I drove back to the tearoom and went in. Strains of doleful rock music drifted down from upstairs; something from Kris's collection. I went up and looked into her office.

“Have you had lunch?”

Kris nodded.

I was about to leave, then I changed my mind and stepped in. “You know, there's something you might be able to help me with. Those kids I told you about have been in my garden the last three nights, partying and looking in the windows.”

Kris's eyes widened. “Every night? Geez! You mentioned they'd been around once.”

“Well, more than once now. I don't suppose you've heard anything about it in your community?”

She shook her head. “My friends aren't into partying in other people's gardens.” She frowned, and added, “That kind of thing gives us all a bad rep.”

“Well, maybe you could put it out on the grapevine that I'd like them to cease and desist.”

“Sure. They're looking in the windows?”

“Of the dining parlor. I gather they've heard about Captain Dusenberry.”

“Oh. Yeah, that's possible. There's a certain crowd that's into graveyards and that kind of stuff.”

“But not your crowd?”

“Just because we're interested in the macabre doesn't mean we're into trespassing,” she said with a touch of disdain. “We're classier than that.”

I couldn't help smiling. It wouldn't have surprised me to learn that Kris had clandestinely visited a graveyard or two, in her wild and far-distant youth.

I stepped toward the doorway. “I'm going to grab a bite, then I'm going out again. I can take the deposit if it's ready.”

She nodded. “It is. Want it now?”

“No, I'll get it on my way out.”

I went across the hall to my suite. I didn't feel like making salad, so I grabbed a raspberry yogurt out of my fridge. Sitting in my living room to eat it, I found myself staring at the candlesticks flanking the door. I didn't like them there, either. Someone could catch their clothing on fire, coming through the doorway, if they weren't expecting candles right there.

I frowned. Was it that I didn't like the candlesticks at all? Maybe I should give them to Kris. The Goths would probably flip for them.

No, Tony would be hurt if I gave them away. And really, I did like them. They ought to fit in with my Renaissance decor. I just hadn't found the right place yet.

I finished my yogurt, then moved the candlesticks into the hall, to stand outside my door. An announcement that one was about to enter a different style. A pair of sentinels guarding my gate.

Kris came out into the hall carrying the bank bag. “Oh, those are cool! Where did you get them?”

“They were a gift,” I said.

“Can we have them in the dining parlor for our dinner?”

“Sure. Kris, do you think I'm a Luddite?”

She laughed. “Not even close. A Luddite wouldn't be addicted to shopping online.”

I reached for the bank bag. “I don't know when I'll be back. I'm going to visit with Julio and Rosa's family for a little while.”

Kris nodded and handed me the bag. “Give them my condolences.”

“I will. Thanks.”

The afternoon was heating up, and I was somewhat regretting my dark clothing by the time I'd sat in line at the bank drive-up and made my way across town to the Garcias' home. The driveway and the curb out front were full of cars. I parked a little way down the street and walked back to the house, which was shaded by grand old cottonwoods in a large front yard. The front door stood open and I stepped in, finding myself in a smaller but still substantial subset of the crowd at the funeral.

The house, an older home that was probably actual adobe, had the look of rambling comfort that marked a modest home improved by repeated additions. The living room was small and crowded with chattering people, who spilled out through the open back door onto a
portal
.

I didn't see any of Rosa's family in the living room, though I recognized several faces from earlier in the day. A lot of the chatter was in Spanish, which made me feel out of place even though I'd taken it in school.

I walked through and out onto the
portal
, admiring the back yard, which was possibly even larger than the front. A glowing lawn was shaded by old cottonwood trees and surrounded with burgeoning rosebushes. I spotted a bush covered in pink blossoms and went over for a closer look. I was pretty sure it was an Our Lady of Guadalupe. I bent down to inhale its fragrance—sweet and old-fashioned.

“Hello again,” said a woman's voice beside me.

I turned to face Estella Garcia, cigarette in one hand and a beer bottle in the other. I smiled and took a tiny step away from the smoke.

“Hello.” Feeling self-conscious, I added, “Rick invited me.”

She nodded and took a drag on her cigarette. “Want a drink?”

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

She led me to a folding table at one end of the
portal
, where a crystal punch bowl, open bottles of wine, and a steel washtub filled with ice and beer sat next to a stack of plastic cups. Something for everyone.

“There's sodas in the ice chests,” Estella said, indicating two coolers underneath the table.

“This looks good,” I said, reaching for a cup and the ladle in the punch bowl.

Estella drained her beer and took a fresh one from the tub. “Man, I'm glad this is almost over.”

I couldn't quite conjure a response, so I just smiled and stepped out into the yard again. Estella came with me, and we strolled over to the roses together.

“Such a beautiful garden,” I said. “Maria must have planted these.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Estella. “And guess who got to take care of them when she was too busy with the restaurant?”

“You don't like gardening?”

She shrugged. “When I was a kid I resented it, you know? Didn't like roses because I had to prune the damn things all the time.”

“They do need a lot of attention.”

“She paid more attention to these bushes than she ever paid to us.”

Estella took a long drag of her cigarette, almost down to the filter, then dropped it and ground it into the lawn with her heel. A tiny wisp of smoke rose up from it. I stared at it, wondering how to answer her bitterness.

“You got kids?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I'm not married,” I said automatically, though these days it wasn't necessarily a requirement.

“Well, take my advice, and don't ever get married,” Estella said.

I met her gaze. “I heard you were divorced.”

“Yeah. Dumbest thing I ever did, marrying that asshole.” She looked away, gazing distantly in the direction of the roses, and took a long pull at her beer. “Cost me a lot to get rid of him, but I had to. Bastard would have killed me some day.”

“He abused you?”

“Oh, yeah. I've still got the scars.”