Murder Crops Up (7 page)

“Carlotta said you were probably growing something illegal here as well.” Lois peered into the backyard as if I might have a nice raised bed full of marijuana plants. “She said, how can you live in a place like Palo Alto if this is all the money you earn?”

I took her arm, not gently, and marched her toward the gate. “You and Carlotta can jump in the lake. You’ve seen what you came for. Now get out.”

She pulled her arm free and faced me. “I’m not done yet,” she protested. “What’s got you so mad, anyway?”

“Lois, you come here, you insult me, you imply I’m a criminal—”

“Aren’t you?” Her face showed genuine puzzlement. “Carlotta said—”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what Carlotta said.” Barker came and stood beside me, his hackles raised. Lois glanced at him, uncomfortable. “She knows nothing about me. Her tiny brain has only one thought in it—that I should have done what she wanted. Maybe she never learned that people don’t have to do what she wants. Of course, with you licking her lying boots, it seems she doesn’t have to learn."

Lois gasped. I felt ashamed of myself briefly, as if my mother’s astral body stood at my elbow and pinched my arm with disapproval.

“I wanted to say,” Lois began after a moment, “that I didn’t believe what Carlotta said about you shooting your ex-husband.”

“Well, believe it.”

“And you went to jail and everything?” Lois was avid for details. “I can’t believe it. You seem so quiet.”

“I’ll try to be noisier.” I stepped forward to usher her through the gate. She didn’t move.

“Nevertheless, Carlotta shouldn’t say you killed Rita to keep her from telling that you sell what you grow in the community garden. I came to see for myself, and I see she’s wrong.” She spoke with a huffy dignity.

“Oh.” Some of my anger drained away. “Well, thanks, I guess.”

“You’re welcome.” Lois inclined her head graciously. “It didn’t make any sense for her to say that. You weren’t the one who thought Rita—” She stopped.

“Thought Rita what?”

Lois veered away from that topic. “I have been—very upset,” she announced, and I could see by the watery shine of her faded eyes that she was close to tears. “My sainted Sidney! It was more than I could take. And then Carlotta said—” She took a hankie out of the large, tan handbag that hung from her bony arm, and burst into sobs.

I began to think I’d have her on my hands for the rest of the afternoon. “Maybe,” I said in desperation, “you should come in and have a glass of water or something. Did you eat any lunch?”

She let me guide her up onto the porch and into the living room. “I don’t remember,” she sniffed finally. “It’s all been just horrible. Horrible.” She wiped her eyes and put away the handkerchief, resting her skinny hand on my arm. “If I said something that offended you, I’m sorry. I’m just not myself right now.”

I thought she’d seemed very much like herself. It was this nicer Lois I didn’t recognize. “I’ll get you a drink.”

She followed me into the kitchen, gazing around in frank curiosity. There’s not much to see—old linoleum on the floor, old white-painted wood cabinets around the walls. “That’s Vivien’s kitchen table, isn’t it?” She pointed at the dinette set with its red Formica top. I polished it every so often, and the chrome legs gleamed. I’d even been able to repair the rips in the vinyl chair seats. “You’ve kept it very nice.”

“I think of Vivien every day.” This was true. I just hadn’t meant to let it slip out to an unsympathetic person like Lois. She nodded her head in agreement, though.

“She was a lovely person. We were in the same bridge club for a couple of years. I always thought Carlotta was off-base to pressure her to sell her home. And she was well within her rights to leave it to you, I suppose.” Big of her to concede that. “Certainly it’s better to have people living in houses than parking around in their cars.” The disapproval was back in her voice. She accepted the glass of water I gave her and sipped it slowly, checking out the curtains I’d made from a cheerful red and yellow thrift-store tablecloth.

“So, about Rita—” I began.

“You have a lot of papers in there.” Carlotta looked through the kitchen door. Manuscripts in various stages of completion were piled around my elderly computer. “Are you a typist or something?”

“I’m a writer, as Carlotta no doubt told you.” Carlotta was not currently enrolled in the writing workshop I taught for the senior center downtown, but that didn’t stop her from coming by to harass me. Anyone who sold to such a motley collection of magazines, she’d tell my students after the class, couldn’t be much of a writer. It’s true that
Organic Gardening
and
True Confessions
—both of which had bought pieces from me, though not on the same subject—don’t pay well. But I had sold an article to
Smithsonian,
and that, I felt, boosted my stock considerably.

“Where do you get your ideas?” Lois sipped daintily at her water. She eyed one of the red vinyl seats, as if planning to settle in for a cozy afternoon’s gossip. In light of Rita’s death, it was too surreal.

“Lois, what did you mean about Rita? You started to say that someone was angry at her, didn’t you?”

Lois set the water down on the table. “For your information, I know nothing about Rita’s death. All I know is, however she died, she’s desecrated my beloved Sidney. I should have known a low-class girl like that was trouble from the get-go.”

“Sidney?” I interrupted what promised to be the usual tirade on Rita’s bad behavior. “What does Sidney have to do with this?”

“He can’t do anything. He’s been dead for over a year.” Lois was indignant. “And I’ll thank you not to mention him so disrespectfully. You barely knew him. He’s Mr. Humphries to you.”

“Mr. Humphries, as you point out, is dead. So how does Rita’s death relate to his?” I started to have wild ideas about Lois as some kind of twisted, elderly serial killer.

“So you hadn’t guessed. I thought you had. Rita did.” Her lips pinched together.

“Guessed about—”

“About Sidney. Being there.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “In the shrine. You know—that little wooden chest. You called it a shrine one day. That’s why I thought you knew. I’ve been so worried that you would tell. Rita said—” She bit her lip.

It was all starting to come clear. “You have your husband buried in your community garden plot?”

"Just his ashes,” she said quickly. “He wanted it, you know. He spent hours every day at our garden.” Her eyes shone with tears again. “It was the happiest time of our lives. He built the little shrine before he died and made me promise, and of course I’ve kept my promise.” She drew herself up, putting the hankie away again. “No matter what Rita said, Sidney stays, and that’s that. And whoever profaned his resting place by killing her there is going to pay."

I watched, dumbfounded, as Lois stalked from the room. I was just in time to catch the front door after she flung it open.

“Lois, wait—”

“I’m busy,” she snapped over her shoulder. “Some of us want to know what really happened, you know.”

She crunched her way down the drive. Barker and I looked at each other, and then I went out to finish my weeding.

Chapter 8

It was nearly dinnertime when I finished weeding. I let Barker into the house and was following him when I heard, faintly, Drake’s ringing telephone. I hadn’t expected to hear from him until later that evening, but I didn’t want to miss his call if he was early.

Keys in hand, I raced for his back door, and picked up the phone just before the answering machine did.

“Did you, like, run all the way from your house?” My seventeen-year-old niece, Amy, answered my breathless greeting. “This is so cool, because I didn’t think I’d actually, like, be talking to you, since you don’t even live there. I was just going to leave a message. You should get your own phone, Aunt Liz.”

I said, through gritted teeth, “Hi, Amy. I ran for the phone because I’m expecting a call.”

“Oh. Well—”

“But it’s nice talking to you.” I tried to sound more enthusiastic. “What’s happening?”

Amy hesitated. “See, there’s this amazing thing. Our school burned down.”

“What?” I pictured the high school, the same one I had attended in Denver in my own far-off youth. The last time I’d been back, it hadn’t looked the same, though—it had sprawled into a huge complex of more than a dozen buildings. “All of that’s gone?”

“Not gone exactly.” I could almost see Amy’s shrug, her wide grin. “I mean, the fire started in the cafeteria, and it’s, like, gutted, along with the gym. Everything else is just smoke-damaged and all wet and stinky and stuff. So we get off until after Thanksgiving, while they clean it up.”

“Great. Sounds like you’ll get a long vacation.” I glanced at the calendar that hangs above Drake’s phone. Counting the Thanksgiving holiday, she had nearly two weeks off. “It’ll be a drag making all that up."

“Yeah, we have to go to school right up to Christmas. The skiers and shredders are totally bummed. But I don’t care."

“Shredders?”

“You know—the snowboarders.” Amy sounded impatient, but she didn’t go on with her story. It wasn’t like her.

“Drake’s in Seattle right now,” I said, rushing to fill that unnerving silence. “His dad’s real sick. He’s supposed to call about it, and I should really keep the line free—”

Amy interrupted, her voice urgent. “I thought it would be a good idea for me to come out and visit you—make, like, a college visit, see? Juniors on college track are supposed to visit schools we want to go to, and I definitely want to go out there.”

“I just saw in the paper that most everyone in Stanford’s freshman class is a valedictorian.”

“My grades are okay.” Amy shrugged away this reality check. “And there’s lots of good schools besides Stanford. I won’t be any trouble, Aunt Liz. You won’t have to drive me around—I’ll ride the bus or take the train. I’ve got some cash stashed away.”

I tried to say something, but she talked right over me. “Mom says I have to be invited. But she wants me to leave, I think. We’re really—not getting along well right now.” She ended with a gulp that might almost have been a sob.

I could sympathize. Amy is actually the only member of my family I feel close to. My parents have disapproved of me since I was twenty, which makes them less than pleasant companions. My sister and brothers resented my not living close enough to Denver to help in the care of my frail mother and cantankerous dad. My nephews have little to no interest in their spinster aunt. I was very fond of Amy, and the urge to help her was strong.

“The thing is, Amy, this isn’t a good time.” That was an understatement. Being the target of a gossip campaign was hard enough without adding Rita’s death into the mix. “There are things going on—”

“I won’t interfere. And Aunt Molly says Uncle Bill has frequent-flyer miles he never uses, so she’s going to give me enough for a ticket. I’ve never flown before, do you realize that?”

“Many people have never flown before.” Including me. I contemplated the wonder of getting from Denver to San Francisco in two hours instead of three days of hard driving—hard on Babe, at least.

“You don’t understand, Aunt Liz. I have to get away.” Usually she was levelheaded and sunny. But just then, Amy sounded downright hysterical. “I just can’t be here with her right now. I hate her so much!”

Renee, Amy’s mother, was often at loggerheads with her daughter. Renee was not a sympathetic woman, and although she adored Amy, her love took the guise of constant nagging and worrying. If she’d agreed to let Amy come visit me, without insisting on coming along, it was a sure sign that she’d reached the end of her rope.

Amy waited, not saying anything. I capitulated.

“Okay. Come on out. But be prepared to work. I’ve got a lot of fall digging to do.”

She didn’t gush her delight, as I expected her to. “Thanks, Aunt Liz,” she said, her voice small. “You’ll never know what this means to me.” She hesitated. “I’m going to get my plane reservation now. Can I call you back soon with the time?”

After Amy hung up, I reviewed the conversation and found it worrisome. I didn’t feel equipped to cope with teenage needs and angst, and frankly didn’t want to face any of it. But perhaps it wouldn’t involve me. I’d provided a place of refuge for Amy before, and certainly I could respect her privacy in a way that seemed impossible for Renee to do. If my niece had had a painful love affair or flunked one of her accelerated classes, I wouldn’t pry. Whatever it was, she couldn’t be any worse off with me than in the bosom of my caustic family.

Since I had to wait for Amy’s call back, I made myself at home. Drake’s house is larger and in better shape than mine. The back door opens right into the big kitchen, which gleams with his collection of well-kept cookware. He’d replaced the appliances and cabinets a couple of months before, and added vinyl flooring embossed to look like Mexican pavers, but much easier on the occasional dropped dish. Meticulous order prevailed. I liked that.

His telephone and answering machine were on a small desk near the door, along with neatly labeled binders of recipes, a messier one of phone logs, and a folder jammed full of scraps of paper that were in some mysterious way important. The answering machine’s blinking light indicated a message. I do not like telephones, but I do like answering machines. They keep callers at a distance, they lessen the intrusion.

Drake keeps a notebook for recording my messages, as well as a log for his. Since I don’t get that many messages, I assumed the one on his machine would go in Drake’s log, not mine.

The message was for me, from Drake. He’d already heard about the contretemps at the garden.

“Dammit, Liz, you are some kind of trouble magnet. Don’t go poking around into this one. I don’t care if you know every person in that garden like the back of your hand. Just stay out of it and let Bruno do his job.” He added, as an afterthought, “I miss you. I’ll call at eight tonight.”

Not a message I needed to write down. I reset the answering machine and put on the kettle to make tea. Drake has a supply of my homemade tea bags in a glass canister near his stove. He’s a coffee man himself, though struggling to cut back his consumption. His chrome-laden Italian espresso machine didn’t make that easier. In the evenings he’d froth up a bunch of milk for his decaf cappuccino and my hot chocolate. It seemed luxurious to me, to sit sipping our foamy drinks, watching a video if we were at his house, or talking about books in my living room. At times, I’d found it stifling, too. I had felt bad about the relief his departure for Seattle caused me, bad because his dad’s illness was a cause of distress, not relief. And while I missed him, missed those creamy cups of conviviality, I also welcomed the quiet, the lack of demand.