Art's Blood (9 page)

Ben smirked at Elizabeth and whispered, “That reminds me, Kyra asked me to call Phillip and tell him about the fire. She asked him if he could come back out. He said he was free late this afternoon— he wanted to speak to you but I told him you were in the garden. I also told him I knew you’d want him to stay for dinner this time— being as you’re such a nurturer.”

Elizabeth began a retort but stopped, intrigued by the turn the conversation on the porch seemed to have taken. “…blackmail!” Willow was saying. “Aidan told me that he thought that Boz knew something damaging about someone and that this someone would pay anything, do anything to keep it quiet. Had you heard this?”

Kyra’s answer was barely audible but it seemed to be negative and Willow continued. “Anyway, my lawyer’s looking into it. And it would be good for you to share this knowledge with the investigator you were telling me about— the more people working on this, the better.”

Curiouser and curiouser,
thought Elizabeth, intrigued by the idea of another suspect in Boz’s murder, and noting, yet again, how Willow’s slight accent seemed to come and go. The last of the tomatoes were washed and laid on dishtowels to dry when Kyra and Willow returned to the kitchen. Willow reached up to envelop Elizabeth in a patchouli-scented hug. “Thank you, Elizabeth, for taking care of our Kyra. This is exactly the place she needs to be at this time. She’s a very special girl— to me, as well as to my Aidan.”

She released Elizabeth, stepped back, and once again brought her palms together.
“Namaste
to you all and Spirit’s blessing and protection on this sacred ground.” A beatific smile spread across her face. “Now I must return to Asheville. I have a class in etheric healing this afternoon, so I will say farewell. I shall walk slowly back down to my car, feeling Mother Earth all around me and making affirmations for Aidan’s speedy release.
Namaste.”

And she was gone.

By noon the heat was fierce. Elizabeth put away her weed-eater and wearily sought the porch’s inviting shade. She paused on the top step to enjoy the sight of the neatly trimmed herb garden and flower beds and the intoxicating smell of fresh-cut grass drying in the August sun. Beautiful, even if it
would
have to be done again in two weeks. She hung her straw hat on the back of a porch rocker, then took off her sweat-soaked purple bandana and draped it over the railing to dry. Sinking gratefully into one of the rockers, she loosened her boot laces and pulled off the filthy, grass-covered lumps that had lost all resemblance to the sporty hiking boots they once had been. She leaned back in her chair, savoring the absence of noise and vibration. The weed-eating had taken several hours and she was ready for a rest.

Ben and Kyra had left shortly after Willow’s departure. Kyra had to go to the sheriff’s office to make a statement, and she desperately needed to do some shopping, having brought only a single change of clothes to Elizabeth’s house. “I’ll take her into Ransom and on into Asheville, Aunt E,” Ben had said. “There’s some stuff I need to get and I don’t think she should be on her own, not till we find out more about the fire.” They had headed down the hill, Ben looming protectively over Kyra.

Elizabeth had watched them go, bemused. “Smitten,” she murmured, smiling at her nephew’s back as he shepherded his charge down the road.
But I don’t know…Kyra seems nice enough but she’s got a lot of baggage…and I always pictured Ben pairing up with some granola-Birkenstock type— someone who’d be into farming like he is. Certainly not an artist of the Goth or whatever-it-is persuasion.

She had mulled over this conundrum as she worked and had come to the conclusion that it was none of her business. Now as she sat rocking gently, feeling a little breeze dry her sweaty face, she told herself that she was grateful Ben was there to help Kyra through this difficult time.
He’ll be fine,
she assured herself.
He’s just responding to the old damsel-in-distress situation. If what Willow said is true, Aidan’ll be free soon and things will sort themselves out.
“Or not,” she told a sleeping Ursa, standing to brush the bits of grass off herself.

She fixed a quick lunch— thick slices of dead-ripe, garden-warm tomato, liberally salted and peppered and piled on homemade bread.
The quintessential summer sandwich,
she decided as she swirled the pale yellow mayonnaise on the bread. The mayonnaise, a treasured recipe from her grandmother, was slightly sweet and slightly lemony— and a slightly guilty pleasure.

When the last delectable crumb had been consumed, she settled in front of the computer with a glass of iced coffee and checked her e-mail. A long message from Rosemary, whose busy schedule made such communications all too infrequent, was a welcome sight.

T
HE
M
ULLINS FAMILY.
E
LIZABETH SAT AT THE
computer, staring at her daughter’s words. Rosemary had been a school friend of the oldest Mullins child
— we’re
best
friends, Mum. And we cut our fingers and swapped blood so now we’re blood sisters!
When the tragedy occurred, so horribly, so unforgettably on that Halloween nineteen years ago, the ten-year-old Rosemary had gone silent for almost a week, refusing to go to school or even to leave the house. Sam and Elizabeth, after trying unsuccessfully to comfort her, had made an appointment with a child psychologist, but before the first meeting, Rosemary was back to normal— a little quieter and more thoughtful than before, but willing once again to participate in life. The meeting with the psychologist had been unrevealing and Rosemary had balked at further visits.
I’m fine, Mum,
she had insisted.
I just don’t want to have to talk about it anymore.
And she never spoke of her friend again.

A terrible time. A terrible tragedy. And never solved. The Mullins family had moved away eventually and the story had been all but forgotten. All but.

Elizabeth began to tap the computer keys, composing a return message to her daughter. She was writing, not to the self-assured, brilliant young rising star of the UNC–Chapel Hill English department, but to a skinny pale-faced ten-year-old who wouldn’t cry, who had grown up overnight.

She keyed Send, then remembered that she had told her daughter nothing of the recent events— the death of Boz and the fire at Dessie’s house.
It’ll keep,
she thought.
Rosie hasn’t been home since they moved in. She wouldn’t know who I was talking about.

It was only one o’clock and far too hot to go back out to the garden. Elizabeth decided to make a trip to the grocery and to the recycling center.
And the post office and I might as well swing by the library.

The articles were easy to find. Seated at the microfiche machine, Elizabeth followed the screaming headlines of those first few weeks of November to the more subdued stories of the following months. Eventually, when no solution to the case was found, the story had disappeared. Elizabeth chased the sad tale from issue to issue of the county’s weekly paper, making a copy of each article. She was gathering the pages together, a sorry few to recount such a tragedy, when Barb, one of the longtime librarians, came into the research room.

“Find everything you needed, Elizabeth?” Barb looked doubtfully at the slim sheaf of paper.

“Thanks, Barb. I think I found everything there was. What do I owe for the copies?”

“Today they’re on the house. The library has a big favor to ask. We want to do a quilt exhibit of Marshall County quilts— old and new— and someone said you’d be a good one to ask.” Barb looked embarrassed but continued. “And we’d really like to do it by the end of September— there’s this big meeting….”

“ ‘I’m jist a girl who cain’t say no….’ ” Elizabeth belted out the only line she knew of the tune from
Oklahoma!
then pounded on the steering wheel. “When will I learn?” She groaned and thumped the steering wheel again. “Bloody hell! Pull together a quilt exhibit at such short notice! Even if Barb
will
print up the labels and signage, I’ve still got to write up the stuff.
And
collect the quilts.
And
make hanging sleeves for them.
And
bloody return them.”

She made a quick trip to the post office to mail the copies of the newspaper stories to Rosemary. Still fuming about this new commitment of time and energy, she came to Gudger’s Stand and turned onto the bridge that would take her to Ridley Branch. The little park below the bridge was crowded with buses and vans from the various rafting companies that used this spot as a put-in point for their white-water trips down the French Broad. Several cars were parked on the bridge itself, their passengers standing beside them watching a flotilla of rubber rafts filled with shrieking preteen girls set off on their trip to Hot Springs.

As always, turning onto Ridley Branch’s quiet country road filled Elizabeth with a sense of peace. Though she was, in the local vernacular, a “transplant,” twenty-some years had allowed her roots to grow deep, and she loved this place with all her heart. The natural beauty of the land coupled with the deep integrity of its people spoke to her in a way that she couldn’t begin to explain. Suddenly her irritation over the added responsibility of the quilt exhibit vanished.
It’ll be a chance to visit some of the realold-timers,
she reminded herself.
It’ll probably tickle them to see their quilts hung up and treated like the artworks that they are.

And she liked Barb and the library. And she
always
liked seeing quilts, making them, talking about them. It was just the timing— this was a busy season at the farm, harvesting and drying the herbs and flowers, constructing the wreaths, packing and shipping them to the stores or for the catalogues that carried them. “So, when
isn’t
busy, Elizabeth?” she said aloud. “Just get on with the job. And if Aunt Omie will lend the animal quilt, we’ll have a perfect centerpiece for the show.”

As she neared her neighbor Birdie’s house, a thought occurred to her.
Birdie’s got some quilts and besides, she probably wants to hear about the fire.
Impulsively, Elizabeth braked and turned across Miss Birdie’s plank bridge, causing an unfamiliar car that had been behind her since Gudger’s Stand to slam on its brakes, then swerve around her. Miss Birdie was sitting on the porch, leaning over the ladder-back chair in front of her. Her face broke into a smile of greeting at the sight of Elizabeth’s car.

Miss Birdie, a widow in spite of the name she was known by, was in her eighties and lived alone after the recent death of her son— her only child. She was one of the last of the older generation on the branch and very dear to Elizabeth.

“Well, Lizzie Beth, that fool feller like to run into you.” Birdie peered after the shiny black sedan that was disappearing around a curve. “Don’t know who that feller is but I see him comin’ and goin’ right often. Wearin’ them fancy dark glasses like he thinks he’s some movie star.” She shook her head in disapproval and went on without waiting for a response. “What about that fire? I heared the sireens last night and seen the light in the sky. I called down to Robertses and they told me what was happenin’ and said not to worry fer the fire engines was there. I walked down there this mornin’ to see fer myself. They ain’t a thing left of Dessie’s house but the cement steps.”