Thyme of Death (9 page)

Constance came up to Roz and pumped her hand eagerly. She reached
into her capacious canvas bag and pulled out a steno pad and pen. I wondered
what she would write about Jo’s memorial service and how she would fit Rosalind
Kotner into the story. But whatever her angle on Roz, there wasn’t much of it.
After a thirty-second conversation, Constance tucked away her pad and pen,
extended a fat hand, and said good-bye.

A moment or two later, Violett Hall came over to Roz. She was
wearing a serviceable black skirt and neat gray blouse and jacket, and her
Mamie Eisenhower bangs were sprayed flat against her forehead. Her face was
flushed and her smile was eager. Roz seemed less eager to see Violett, but
Violett planted herself in front of Roz, still smiling, and began to talk. I
couldn’t hear what she was saying, but the more animated she became, the more
strained and uncomfortable Roz seemed. After a few minutes of this odd
exchange, Roz nodded nervously, as if agreeing to something she wasn’t exactly
pleased about, and Violett walked away with the air of someone who has
accomplished her Mission.

I was distracted by several members of the garden club wanting to
reminisce about Jo, and when I spotted Violett again she was talking to Jane
Dorman. I was surprised to see Jane. I had supposed that, PO’d as
she’d been
over Roz’s refusal to renew the contract, she’d head straight for the airport.
But maybe a four-million-dollar deal was too sweet to lose without a fight. Or
maybe she’d stayed especially for the memorial service. After all, she’d once
been Jo’s guest. I was also surprised to see Jane actually bending over to
listen to Violett. I wondered what Violett Hall could have to say that would
command Jane Dorman’s attention for more than thirty seconds.

Roz also seemed surprised to see the
conversation. Her jaw tightened and she watched with a nervous frown. A few
minutes later, she brushed off the last few autograph seekers and made her way
over to Jane and Violett, who stopped talking when they saw Roz coming. The
three stood together in an uncomfortable tableau, then Violett detached herself
and walked away. Roz went in a different direction, and Jane came toward me.

“China,” she said brusquely, without
preamble, “I’m in a jam. The Chrysler I rented at the airport has some sort of
ignition problem, and the tow truck is coming to get it. I have to make a
five-thirty flight back to New York. Could I impose on you—?”

“I’d be glad to,” I said, “but
Lucille, Jo’s sister, is headed back to the airport.” I pointed her out,
standing next to the mayor. “I’m sure you can ride with her.”

Jane nodded her thanks and went
toward Lucille, her gray heels digging little round holes in the turf. I was
about to go over and speak to Meredith when I saw Ruby talking to Bubba. It
looked as if she were in her confrontational mode. I stepped closer, wanting to
listen but definitely
not
wanting to be involved.

“You have to look
deeper”
Ruby
was insisting. “You can’t be content with the way things seem on the surface.
This is obviously a very complicated case.”

Bubba’s mouth twitched as if he
sorely missed his cigar. “There ain’t anything deeper to look into,” he said.
He gave her a shrewd, narrow-eyed look. “A’course, Miz Wilcox, if you’re holdin’
onto information—”

Ruby sniffed. “I’ve already told you
what I know— that Jo Gilbert didn’t commit suicide. What about the person who
was with her the day she died?”

Bubba shrugged and hooked his thumbs
in his belt. “Not enough,” he said, shaking his head. “Not near enough. So the
daughter smells perfume. So what? Why, the mayor wears perfume, and half the
City Council.” He grinned. “Hell, mebbe the
whole
City Council, for all
I know.”

Ruby glared at him. “I just want you
to be aware that as far as I’m concerned, this case isn’t closed, not by a long
shot. Jo Gilbert was beating the pants off Arnold Seidensticker and his
developers. If she’d had another month to get the greenies and the no-growthers
together, Seidensticker could’ve kissed his airport good-bye.”

Bubba paled visibly, and I did too. “Hey,
hold on there,” he began. “You’re not accusin’ Mr.—”

“I’m not accusing anybody,” Ruby
replied, much to my relief. “I’m telling you that there’s more to this matter
than meets the eye. I know there’s been foul play here, and when I find out—”

“Well, that’s good, Miz Wilcox,”
Bubba said. “When you find out what it was, you tell me, and we’ll
both
know.”
He jammed his hat on his head and marched off to his squad car—in search, no
doubt, of his cigar.

I shook my head. This time, at
least, Ruby had the good sense not to libel Arnold Seidensticker. But what
would she say
next
time? I went over to Ruby and was on the point of
cautioning her about it when RuthAnn Landsdowne joined us. Her dark brown hair
was cropped in a severe pageboy and she was wearing low-heeled burgundy pumps
and a burgundy suit with square shoulders that gave her the solid, rectangular look
of someone who could be counted on to carry the flag. Her jaw was working, her
eyes were red-rimmed in her plain face, and she was sniffling into her handkerchief.

“Such a sad affair,” she said with a
sigh. “Jo and I did so much good work together. I had such respect for her. And
now ... this.” She blew her nose hard. “And to think that I was
there
that
day. I could have—”

Beside me, Ruby stiffened. I
frowned. “You were
there?”
I asked. “At Jo’s?”

“About eleven-thirty,” RuthAnn said
painfully. “Just about the time she—” She broke off, shaking her head, and the
tears threatened again. “If only I’d gone in. I might have
saved
her!”

I made the obvious answer, but it
held no comfort. “You couldn’t have known.”

RuthAnn wiped her eyes. When she
spoke, she was clearly making an effort to control herself. “The Coalition was
holding a meeting at three that afternoon. Jo said she had something important
to tell us—some reason or other why the airport couldn’t be built.” She smiled
a small, wavering smile. “She said she was ninety-nine percent sure we could
sabotage it. I asked her how she knew, but all she’d say was ‘A little bird
told me.’“ The corners of her mouth trembled. “Jo didn’t make a lot of jokes.
That one sticks in my mind.”

“So what
did
you do?” Ruby
asked.

“I wanted to go over the agenda with
her. But there wasn’t any answer when I knocked, so I left. She didn’t show up
at the meeting, and when I called to find out why, her daughter said—” Her
rectangular shoulders shook, seemed to lose their solidity. She choked up. “You’ll
have to excuse me,” she said, ducking her head, and hurried away.

Ruby turned to me. “Are you thinking
what I’m thinking, China?”

I sighed. “I’m thinking that it was
a damned shame that RuthAnn Landsdowne didn’t put one of those capable
shoulders to the door and break it down. She’s right. She might have saved Jo’s
life.”

Ruby frowned. “Yes, that. But I’m
thinking that she must have just missed—”

“Ruby,” I said,
“stuff it.”
I
was having a hard enough time dealing with my own sadness without having to
listen to Ruby’s imaginative theories. If she wanted to express her grief by
composing a bunch of weird scenarios, that was fine. But I didn’t want to hear
them.

“But China,” Ruby said, “don’t you
see how—”

Roz interrupted us. “It was a lovely
service, wasn’t it?” she asked breathily. “And it’s wonderful to know that Jo
was so deeply loved.”

Roz’s remark was so stickily
sentimental that it didn’t warrant response. I looked in Meredith’s direction.
The crowd around her had thinned out, and Mayor Perkins and the women’s quartet
were saying their good-byes. “I’m about ready to take Meredith home,” I said. “Do
you know what time you’d like to go to dinner?”

“Perhaps we could ask Meredith,” Roz
said. “I haven’t met her yet.”

Meredith acknowledged the
introduction without special warmth. Roz didn’t seem to notice. She spoke for a
few moments about her friendship with dear Jo and how much she was looking
forward to getting acquainted with Jo’s daughter. Meredith listened, nodding
politely. After a few moments, we agreed to dinner at six-thirty, and Meredith
turned to me. “I’m ready to go home, if you and Ruby are.”

Roz smiled graciously. “I’ll see you
this evening,” she said, and turned to give an autograph to Reverend Lewis’s
wife.

Ruby and I drove Meredith home, not
saying very much. Meredith asked us in for a cup of tea, but her invitation
didn’t carry much conviction, and I knew she wanted to be alone. I let Meredith
out and headed for Ruby’s apartment complex, which is on Ferguson, about three
blocks from the shop. Ruby rented the place on a month-to-month with the idea
of finding something permanent. But it’s been a year and she hasn’t started
looking.

We were almost there when Ruby broke
the silence. “I was listening to my Inner Guide this afternoon,” she said
thoughtfully. “During the memorial service.”

I sighed. Ruby has been reading the
books on channeling that she stocks in her shop, and lately she’s begun to
get messages from her Inner Guide. It’s really her right brain speaking, she
tells me. Her intuition. That’s what channeling is all about—becoming more
intuitive.

“You see, your left brain, the
logical brain, is always chattering away,” she had said. “The noise is so loud
you can’t hear your right brain. You’ve got to shut up the left brain so you
can pay attention. Then your Inner Guide can get through.”

“How do you do that?” I’d asked
sarcastically. “Stuff a pillow in one speaker and turn up the volume on the
other side?”

But I couldn’t disagree with Ruby
about the importance of intuition. I’d had a few hunches of my own from time
to time, especially when I was working on a difficult case. Whether it was my
Inner Guide communicating or (as Ruby had said when she read my horoscope) the
fact that my Moon was in Pisces with Neptune just a few degrees off my Gemini
Ascendant, listening usually paid off. This time, I had an intuition about what
her
intuition was about. I was right.

“Arnold Seidensticker did it,” she
said. “I’m positive.”

I sighed again as I pulled the Datsun
into the parking lot of the Enclave, Ruby’s upscale apartment complex. The
Enclave is faced with weathered gray cedar and has a cactus garden out front
featuring a homicidal-looking prickly pear and a handsome saguaro cactus
planted in a pool of pea gravel. Some landscaper probably stole it from the
national monument west of Tucson. Shoppers who see a large saguaro for sale
ought to inquire after its pedigree—although that doesn’t guarantee they won’t
be lied to.

I turned off the ignition. “Ruby,” I
said, “for God’s sake, will you lay off Arnold Seidensticker?”

Ruby turned an anguished face toward
me. “I
can’t
lay off, China! Not when Jo is dead, and nobody knows who,
or why, or how, or—” She bit off the words. “I already know who,” she said,
narrowing her eyes defiantly. “Did you hear RuthAnn say that Jo had found a way
to stop the airport? Obviously, Arnold Seidensticker killed her to keep her
from revealing it. I intend to nail him. Are you going to help, or do I have to
do this on my own?”

“Me?” I yelped. “You want
me
to
help
you
try to pin a murder on Arnold Seidensticker? You’ve got to be
out of your mind!”

Ruby put her hand on the door
handle. “I thought we were friends.” Her voice sounded small and hurt. “I mean,
really friends,
China.”

“We are,” I said firmly. “But I’m
not into suicide pacts. Anyway, it’s
your
Inner Guide who’s throwing
Arnold Seidensticker’s name around. My Inner Guide hasn’t spoken up yet.” There
was a tragic mystery behind Jo’s death. But it wasn’t the mystery that Ruby
wanted to make it into, something that a little part-time sleuthing could
solve. The mystery had to do with the kind of person Jo was, with those inner,
hidden depths that we never truly know.

Ruby shrugged, resigned. “Well,
then, I guess I’ll just have to solve this on my own.”

I leaned forward urgently. “Listen,
Ruby, I venture to say that I’ve been around more criminals than you have. I’ve
got a pretty good sense when it comes to knowing who’s capable of what kind of
crime. I’m telling you that Arnold Seidensticker just isn’t the type to kill
somebody. But he
is
the type to get very upset if he catches you
throwing spitballs at the sacred Seidensticker name. He wouldn’t stoop to
something as crude and vulgar as poking nasty pills down your gullet, but he
might not be averse to a little mannerly arm-twisting in the courts. If I were
you, I’d be careful.”

“I’ll do what I have to do,” Ruby
said icily, picking up her purse. When she got out of the car, she slammed the
door so hard that my ears popped. At 110,000 miles, my little Datsun is still
drum tight. Not a rattle anywhere. When you slam the doors, it pops your ears.
Top that, General Motors.

Trying not to think just what kind
of trouble Ruby could get herself into playing Kinsey Millhone, I drove back to
my place, changed into my jeans, poured myself a glass of hibiscus tea, and
pulled up a chair to the desk in the kitchen where I keep my computer. It was
time to do some bookkeeping chores and find out whether Thyme and Seasons Herb
Company was going to allow me to buy groceries this month. It was a job that
held my attention completely.

Almost. I was distracted by an
occasional vision of Ruby being accosted by Arnold Seidensticker’s high-priced
lawyer and slapped with a big-time libel suit.

I was distracted by a phone call
from McQuaid, asking me about the service and reminding me that he was coming
over for dinner tomorrow evening. It was his turn to cook, and how about shrimp
gumbo?

I was distracted when I glanced out
the window and saw Violett Hall walking quickly down the path that led to the
guest cottage. She moved with purpose, like a woman with an important Mission.

I was distracted for the last time
when Violett left the cottage ten minutes later, head down, shoulders hunched,
chin flattened against her chest. Whatever her Mission had been, she looked as
if she had just been shot down.

CHAPTER 6

A little before six I changed into a
blouse and denim skirt, still puzzling over what was going on between Roz and
Violett. But whatever it was, it wasn’t high priority with me. I had plenty to
worry about with Ruby, who could get herself into serious trouble if she went
around sullying Arnold Seidensticker’s good name. I was betting she wouldn’t
turn up anything connected with Jo’s death, because all my legal training and
experience told me that Seidensticker, conservative and smart as he was, wouldn’t
risk killing a woman who was going to die in a matter of months. But Ruby might
be able to dig up some dirt on him, or he might think that’s what she was
doing. Depending on the dirt, that could mean trouble for Ruby.

At six, I went to the cottage to
pick up Roz for dinner. There was a red Buick Century parked in the alley—her
rental car, I assumed. I knocked at the door. Roz opened it with a glass in her
hand. Her blond hair was loose to her shoulders and she was wearing a short,
silky black thing that hit her at midthigh, open to reveal scanty black briefs
and a black bra. There was an unmistakable aura of my best scotch about her.

“Come in and sit down,” she tossed
over her shoulder as she headed for the liquor cupboard. “I’ll fix you a
drink.” Her words were slightly slurred.

I shook my head. “No, thanks.
Meredith will be waiting.”

Roz poured herself another drink. I
noticed that the bottle had been substantially diminished and made a mental
note to buy another—
after
she’d left. If she was going to guzzle the
stuff at that rate, she could buy her own.

Roz tossed her hair back with a
petulant gesture and gulped her drink. “Meredith can wait until I’m damn good
and ready.” She held up the bottle, gauging what was left. “That may not be for
a while.”

I frowned. When I’d left Roz after
the memorial service, she’d been fine. It was safe to assume that her visit
with Violett had changed her mood as much as it had changed Violett’s.

“The golden goose,” Roz muttered,
flinging herself on the loveseat.

“What?” I asked, startled.

“The goose that laid the golden egg,
goddammit,” Roz said morosely, staring into her scotch.

I was no wiser than I was before.
All I knew was that StrawBerry Bear was on her way to a good drunk.

Roz heaved a sigh, as if the
explanation were too much trouble. “They all want a ride,” she said thickly, “but
do they want to pay the fare?” Pounding her fist on the arm of the loveseat,
she answered her own question. “Shit, no. They just want me to keep on laying
golden eggs so they can keep on lifting them.” She waved her drink, spilling
most of it. “Mother-fucking sheep in wolf’s clothing.”

I couldn’t help smiling. This was
not the demure, Barbie-doll creature who had shown up on my doorstep in her
pink suit and her sweet childish voice or the grieving friend struggling for
composure at the memorial service. This was a half-naked profane broad
spilling drunken metaphors. Which one was real? Who was the authentic Rosalind
Kotner?

But it was time to get the show on
the road. I reached for the phone and dialed Meredith’s number. When she
answered, I explained that Roz and I had been held up. It might be closer to
seven when we got there, but we’d make it as quickly as we could. Meredith was
annoyed, but agreeable.

“What’d you do that for?” Roz asked
irritably, when I hung up the phone. “I said she can wait.”

I headed for the coffee maker. “Get
in the shower.”

Roz chugged the rest of her scotch,
stood up unsteadily, and took a step toward the liquor cupboard.

“Unless you want to call off the
dinner tonight,” I said to her back.

Roz turned. Her black robe, wet with
spilled scotch, clung to her breasts, surprisingly full for such a small-bodied
woman. “You think I’m drunk.”

“No, but I think you’re getting
close. You can chug-alug scotch on your own time. If you want to go to dinner
with Meredith and me tonight, I suggest that you get in the shower.”

Roz came closer. “Says who?”

“Says me,” I replied firmly, filling
the coffee maker. “You can shower or you can drink. You can have dinner with
Meredith and me or you can drink. Your choice.”

She looked at me again, measuring.
Then she laughed with throaty good humor, to show she’d enjoyed the volley and
didn’t resent briefly retiring from the court. She went to the shower. When she
came back fifteen minutes later, wearing the lemon-yellow top and slacks and
paisley scarf she’d worn that morning, she was almost sober. And she no longer
smelled of scotch. She smelled of the lavender soap I’d put in the shower. Just
the same, I decided I’d drive. If Roz got picked up on suspicion of DUI, she’d
probably want me to be her lawyer. I’ve never gotten a kick out of defending
drunks, especially famous drunks.

Roz spoke in my Datsun, on the way
to Meredith’s. “I don’t want you to think I do this all the time.”

I shrugged. “How much you drink is
your business.” “It’s just that...” She stopped and looked out the window. “You
have no fucking idea.” “Probably not,” I agreed, wondering what we were talking
about.

Roz gave a harsh, bitter laugh. “You
couldn’t begin to guess how many people sponge off me. There’s no fucking end
to it. Producers, directors, agents, coaches, business managers, accountants
... next week I’m having the auditors in.”

I didn’t doubt that show business
was no business in which to find true love and happiness. It was probably a
lot like the legal business—full of arrogant, greedy people glad to take their
bite and then some. And it wasn’t any fun to keep looking over your shoulder,
wondering who was going to slip it to you next. If that was why Roz had turned
down the contract, I could certainly sympathize. I might even applaud. But I
didn’t particularly want to listen to her chorus of complaints. So I just gave
a non-committal “hmm.” Luckily, we were almost at Meredith’s, and there wasn’t
time for any more confidences.

The back seat of my Datsun is
cramped, but there’s room for a short-legged passenger or a long-legged one who
can hike her knees to her chin. Meredith was the latter. She climbed in, we
exchanged greetings, and started off.

“Mm-mm-m,” Meredith said
appreciatively, sniffing. “Lavender.”

“Lavender?” Roz asked.

“The soap I put in your shower,” I
explained. “I made it myself, out of the lavender that grows along the path.
The scent might be a little strong.”

“I have a sensitive nose,” Meredith
said, and fell silent.

Roz wanted to go to the Spanish
Courtyard, an upscale restaurant overgrown with a fake jungle of ferns and
philodendrons, which featured an imitation mariachi band with too much
tambourine. McQuaid had brought me here a few months before, and we’d since
crossed it off our list. I hoped we’d finish our dinner and be gone before the
mariachis showed up.