Thyme of Death (6 page)

Brian is a big reason why I’d like
this relationship to stay where it is. Brian’s a sweet kid. He’s got his father’s
blue eyes and crooked smile and persuasive charm, and there’s an elfin quality
to him that hooks me whenever I’m around him. But I’m pretty negative about
motherhood. Between my mother’s alcoholism and my father’s workaholism, my
childhood was what Ruby would call definitely toxic. Given the scarcity of
healthy parenting models in my life, I’m skeptical about my ability to be an
adequate mother.

And another thing. I’m not on the
career track any longer. McQuaid is. He started his Ph.D. at Sam Houston State
while he was on homicide detail with the Houston P.D. In a few months he’ll
finish his dissertation and have the credentials to move to an associate
professorship in a big-time criminal justice program somewhere. But I’m no more
eager to be a faculty wife than I am to be a mommy. I like living alone in my
four stone-walled, cypress-beamed rooms, surrounded by my herb gardens. I like
being in business for myself. I like Pecan Springs.

The trouble is, I also like McQuaid.
Given this conflict, I’ve carefully built up my defenses, avoiding any topic
with long-term implications
- s
ay, past the next two or
three weeks.

But tonight I was feeling less
defensive than usual. Maybe it was the thought of Jo’s body sprawled on the
sofa, reminding me that life is beautiful, brief, and fragile. Or maybe it was
the laugh crinkles around McQuaid’s ice-blue eyes, or the Bach concerto he put
on after dinner, or the champagne we poured to toast the completion of chapter
four of his dissertation, which is called “Organization and Training for
Small-City Law Enforcement.” Whatever it was, even though dessert was still on
the table and the dishes weren’t washed, I found myself on the bed in McQuaid’s
arms with his mouth urgently searching mine, my defenses crumbling. McQuaid had
his hand on my right breast, inside my unbuttoned

blouse, when there was a knock at
the kitchen door.

“Let ‘em knock,” McQuaid muttered,
kissing my throat. “There’s no law says you have to answer.”

For a moment I yielded to his kiss.
Then the knock came again. I pushed him away and struggled to sit up. “It might
be Meredith. Maybe she needs to talk or something.”

“Helluva time to
talk”
McQuaid
said.

“I’ll make it quick,” I promised. I
yanked my blouse on and buttoned it up.

But it wasn’t Meredith. And I couldn’t
make it quick.

The woman who stood on my back step
was a petite, dusty-blond woman in her late thirties with china blue eyes, a
nose that turned up perfectly, and a Barbie-doll smile carefully outlined in
two tones of pastel pink lipstick. She wore a classy pink crepe suit with
padded shoulders and a pink jewel-neck silk blouse. The woman was Roz Kotner.

“Hello, China,” she said.

“Hello, Roz.” I groped for my top
button and wished I’d glanced in the mirror after I’d wriggled out of McQuaid’s
clutches.

“I didn’t have time to call.” Roz
spoke fast and breathlessly, with the same wispy little girl’s voice I’d
noticed on TV. It was impossible to tell if it was her real voice or the
product of years of performance aimed at six-year-olds. It made me feel like an
elderly tourist in Munchkin Land. “I was in San Francisco when my secretary
finally reached me with your message, and I just jumped on the plane and came,
without thinking what I’d do when I got here.” Her voice wavered and broke and
tears flooded her blue eyes. “I can’t believe she’s dead. I just talked to her
a few days ago, and she didn’t seem terribly ill. I didn’t expect she’d go that
fast. What happened?’

I opened the door wider. “You’d
better come in.”

As she stepped inside, Roz saw the
table set for two and the remains of dinner. I saw her glance at my disheveled
hair and put it all together. “Oh, but you have company,” she said quickly. “I
don’t want to intrude.”

I closed the door. “Roz,” I said, “it
wasn’t the cancer. It was an overdose of sleeping pills.”

“Oh.” The sound was small,
tentative, a thin wisp of air escaping through parted lips. “Then she ...”

“It could have been accidental. Jo
wasn’t used to taking pills. She might not have known how many. She’d been
drinking, too.”

“I... see.” Roz looked down. There
was a silence, then, “Her daughter was staying with her?”

“Yes. Meredith. As I told your
secretary, there’s a memorial service tomorrow. You’ll stay?”

“Of course,” Roz said. She fumbled
in her pink leather bag and came up with a small linen handkerchief. “Jo and I
have been friends for a long time.” The tears were pooling in her eyes,
threatening to spill over onto her cheeks. “But we had ... well, words, over
the phone. About an old matter, very silly and petty, really. But now—” She
shook her head and began to sob. “Now it’s too late. Now I can’t tell her how
sorry I am.

I put my arm around her shoulders
and guided her to the kitchen rocker. McQuaid came to the door, combing his
fingers through his hair, and gave me a questioning look. I shook my head. He
frowned mightily, raised both shoulders in an eloquent shrug, and disappeared
back into the other room.

I let Roz cry for a few moments.
Then I said, as gently as I could, “Look, Roz, there’s nothing you can do
tonight. You’ve had a long day and you must be tired. Why don’t you let me open
up the cottage for you?” Being both a tourist mecca and a college town, Pecan
Springs has the usual motels and several nice bed-and-breakfasts. But it was
late, and Roz was upset.

She blew her nose. “Would you? I
hate to be a bother, but I’d much rather stay here. I have pleasant memories of
my last visit. Jo and I had so much fun laughing at—” Tears threatened again. “Of
course, I’ll be glad to pay.”

“It’s no bother. And don’t even
think about paying.” I stood up. “There are clean sheets on the bed, but let me
get you some fresh towels.”

I cast a regretful glance toward the
empty doorway. McQuaid never goes anywhere without his briefcase. No doubt he
was opening it now, settling down at my desk to grade papers or work on his
notes for the next day’s lecture. If I hurried, I might get back to him before
he buried himself completely in whatever he was doing. Once he got involved
with his work, the chances of taking up where we’d left off were just about
shot for the evening.

In an earlier incarnation, the guest
cottage had been a one-story stone stable. The architect who redesigned the
house turned it into a rustically elegant two-room affair (three, if you count
the bathroom) with rough-plastered white walls, a skylight, a fieldstone
fireplace with a hand-hewn oak mantel, and a terra-cotta tile floor. There’s a
small bedroom with white-painted French doors that open onto a tiny
thyme-bordered patio, and a larger living-dining area, separated from the
kitchen by a counter. The windows, old-fashioned casement windows that open out
with a crank, are deeply recessed into the stone walls. When I first moved in,
I thought of renting the place, but I don’t much like the thought of a
full-time tenant living in my herb garden.

I turned on the lights and the
hot-water heater, plugged in the refrigerator, and put out some fresh towels
and some handmade lavender soap. I showed Roz what was in the small liquor
cupboard beside the fireplace.

“If you want something else, Bart’s
Liquor Store is across town, on the highway.”

“I only drink occasionally,” Roz
said. She sat down on the small batik-print loveseat in front of the fireplace.

“Poor Jo,” she said, pressing her
fingers to her temples. “It’s hard to believe she could do such a thing. But
she never wanted to be dependent on anybody. I can see why she might have . . .”
Her voice trailed off.

“I know,” I said. I had the feeling
she wanted me to sit and talk, but I had other things on my mind. I looked
around. “Can I do anything else for you?”

Roz thought for a moment. “Jo’s
daughter
-
Meredith?

I’ve never met her, you know, and I’d
like to. Let me take the two of you out to dinner tomorrow evening.”

“I’ll have to ask Meredith,” I said,
moving toward the door. ‘Tomorrow’s not going to be easy for her.”

“Of course,” Roz said. “Just tell
her how anxious I am to meet her. We have so much in common, loving Jo as we
did.”

“I will,” I said. I put my hand on
the knob. “Anything else? You’ll be all right, here by yourself?”

“Quite all right,” she said. She
sighed. “I just have to get used to the idea that Jo’s gone, that’s all. Good
night.”

“Good night,” I said, already on the
stoop.

But I was too late. When I went into
the living room, McQuaid was sitting at my desk, hunched over a yellow legal
pad, taking notes out of
Modern Correctional Practice.
There were two
other books on the desk, and his leather briefcase
-
large enough
to be a satchel
-
was open on the floor beside him.

I came up behind him and put my arms
around his neck. “Hi,” I said in my huskiest, sexiest voice.

“Hi,” he said absently. “Hey, China,
when you were in practice, how much did you get involved with community
reentry programs? What’s your feeling about them? Do they work?”

I dropped my arms with a sigh. I
knew the signals.

I could forget about sex for the
moment.

“Oh, by the way,” McQuaid said,
putting down his pencil, “I forgot to tell you. Brian will be home at
nine-thirty tonight, so I can’t stay late.”

Maybe it was just as well, I
thought. My body might be here, but my mind was far away. With Jo, whose
absence was a sad, lonely ache.

CHAPTER 4

I called Meredith at eight-thirty
the next morning, Thursday. Lucille had arrived from Hawaii the afternoon
before. I figured that the two of them hadn’t had a very happy evening, but
when Meredith answered the phone, she sounded upbeat enough. I asked if I could
give her and her aunt a ride to the park that afternoon. “Thanks,” Meredith
replied, “but Lucille rented a car at the airport. You can give me a ride home,
though. She’s driving to Austin after the service to catch a flight back.”

“Sure,” I said. “Are you feeling up
to dinner? Roz Kotner would like to take us.” “Roz? When did she get here?” “Last
night. She’s staying in my cottage.” “Did she say anything about the argument
with Mother?”

“Just that it was silly and she was
sorry. I think maybe that’s why she wants to take you to dinner. To make
amends. How about it?”

Another pause. “Well, I guess,”
Meredith said slowly. “But let’s make an early night of it. Today isn’t going
to be the easiest day of my life.”

At nine I propped open the front
door of my shop with the stone figure of Haumea, the Hawaiian goddess of wild
plants, that Ruby had given me for my birthday. I swept the walk, hung a large
herb wreath outside the door, and lugged a heavy tray of potted thyme and basil
and rosemary plants out to the sidewalk to entice casual passersby into the
gardens and the shop.

I have a good feeling about Thyme
and Seasons. The shop’s only twenty by twenty, but I use every square inch.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves along the back wall hold jars and bottles of dried
herbs, tinctures, salves, and ointments. Herb books are neatly racked in the
corner, and shelves on another wall are full of potpourri and potpourri
makings. A wooden display case houses essential oils, bottles, and perfume
supplies. Other shelves hold various herb products that I make or buy from
local craftspeople—gift baskets, vinegars, seasoning blends, jellies, soaps,
candles. Handmade baskets are stacked in the corners and spill onto the floor.
Dried flowers are everywhere, bunched in jars and hanging from the wooden
beams, and braided ropes of red peppers and garlic hang on the stone walls.
Compared to my office in the law firm, with its bone walls, designer silk ficus
trees, and greener-than-grass carpet, the shop feels natural and homey. It
feels
real.

I dusted the counter, turned on the
hot plate under the teakettle, and got out a tray of herb-cheese biscuits. I
serve my customers hot herb tea and a snack during the cool autumn weather,
iced herb tea or homemade nonalcoholic ginger beer during the summer.

I poked my head through the door to
Ruby’s shop to see if she was there yet. The Crystal Cave was dark and silent
and smelled of the incense that Ruby burns constantly. She doesn’t open until
ten. We joke that people who buy crystals and incense sleep later man people
who buy herbs.

Roz came through the door five
minutes later. She was wearing a soft lemon-yellow top and matching slacks,
with a paisley scarf looped with studiedly casual artifice about her throat.
She smelled lemony, too—some sort of fruity, citrusy perfume. I told her that
Meredith had agreed to dinner.

“I’m glad,” she said. She appeared
to be looking for something. “China, do you have any garlic extract?”