Sapphire Nights

by Patricia Rice

  “You skipped over the planter boxes,” she reminded him. She watched him from beneath long lashes as she braided her hair.

  “I don’t know anything about flowers,” he admitted. “They look pretty and much better than before.”

  “Fine then,” she said with a shrug. “We’ll collect some of my ghost compost on the way down the hill. Cass said I could use her wheelbarrow.”

  “Ghost compost?” he asked warily as she marched for the front door. He’d stupidly been hoping for a kiss or a hug or some token of affection after the night they’d shared. But they were doing sex, not affection, he reminded himself.

  The arguing was just the same.

  “The dead lady promised me compost and she provided,” Sam said airily as she grabbed a walking stick and headed down the outside stairs. “Or perhaps you need to take your car back to town. I want that compost before someone else collects it, so I’m walking.”

  Abandoning his car, Walker followed her along the overgrown path to Cass’s place. He watched in puzzlement as she waved her hand at a half-rotted wooden shed and the doors fell open as if on well-oiled springs. She disappeared inside, and he peered in after her.

  The immaculate interior was easily twice the size of the exterior.

  Chapter 22

  Morning, June 22

  * * *

  Sam took Walker’s silence as incredulity at the shed, not her comment about ghosts. Men were so very visual.

  After his painful revelation of how he’d lost his wife and son, she understood he was entitled to cynicism. She admired his fortitude in finding a means to move forward despite the emotional and physical obstacles. Her loss of her parents had been traumatic, but nowhere on the level he’d suffered. She was in serious danger of opening her heart to him, but she feared, after his experience, he’d never believe she wasn’t crazy if she talked to ghosts.

  Without speaking, they borrowed Cass’s wheelbarrow and shovel. They crunched down the lane to the ghost house, where they collected very real, very smelly compost. Sam’s scientific mind acknowledged that someone may have overheard her talking and decided to spook her, as they had poor Xavier. But the part of her head that Cass had inhabited wanted to believe she’d talked to the ghost of the woman who had created this wonderful garden.

  While they shoveled, Walker studied Grace’s house and yard, probably looking for evidence of how the mound had been delivered. Sam didn’t care. She had what she needed, and he didn’t object to pushing the heavy wheelbarrow the rest of the way down the lane.

  She handed him the apartment key before he loped back up the path to collect his car. “In case the sheriff needs to examine the crime scene. Just drop it off when you’re done.” She stood on her toes and kissed his bristly cheek—he hadn’t had a razor with him. “Let me know if you need more Lucy translations.”

  He kissed her back, a little more fervently than expected after his silence.

  Feeling a little foolish carrying a beautifully carved walking stick into a restaurant, Sam tucked it behind the counter, then washed, and put on a clean apron. After last night’s craziness, she was heeding Mariah’s warning to carry a weapon.

  “Anyone heard how Mr. Black is doing?” she asked as she carried the coffee carafe up and down the counter, filling cups.

  “Brenda took Cass down to the hospital this morning,” Mariah said, setting out a plate of poached eggs for Harvey. “They can call Dinah’s landline and let us know if they hear anything.”

  “Is Dinah okay?” Sam asked in a low voice, nodding at the kitchen.

  “Yeah, her mother’s funeral was yesterday, so there’s no purpose in her going home now. It was cruel of her brother not to let her know.”

  “No need to go talking behind my back,” Dinah said with dignity, appearing in the doorway carrying a plateful of powdered beignets. “Tullah will help me speak with Maman when she’s ready. I forgive those who hurt me. Their ignorance only hurts them.”

  “Nice attitude,” Sam said in admiration.

  “We need a national Forgive the Ignorant Day,” Harvey said cynically, eyeing the beignets with a gleam of hope in his eye.

  Dinah slapped the plate down in front of him. “Here, this is partial payment for Sam’s staff. You behave, and you’ll get more. She’s going to be a valuable asset to this community.”

  “I paid for the walking stick,” Sam admonished. “Unless, of course, you wish to kill Harvey with kindness. In that case, I’m all on board with that.”

  He slanted her an evil look from under his sinfully long black lashes, but with a mouth full of hot grease and sugar, didn’t respond.

  She started to inquire about Daisy’s lamassu but decided the fewer people who knew Daisy had been there last night, the better off she was. Daisy would not do well under interrogation.

  “Has Mr. Gump abandoned us?” she asked, for no good reason other than to hear about the Kennedys’ decision to develop their land.

  “He was at the lodge last night but must have driven back to the city,” one of the lodge employees said. “He’s talking about opening an office up here once the construction starts.”

  That was not a statement to unite community spirit. The café went silent.

  “Was that mural painted when the café opened?” a young hiker asked, oblivious to the animosity. He nodded at the faded painting behind the appliance counter. If his scruff was any indication, he’d been camping in the woods. He hungrily eyed Harvey’s beignets.

  Sam turned around to study the faded paint lost among the appliances and dishes. Now that she knew her adopted parents were artists, she understood why the mural and the paintings elsewhere called to her.

  Harvey pushed the plate toward the hiker, grabbing a couple more for himself as he studied the mural. “No idea. Anyone else?”

  Dinah glanced at it. “It was here when I opened the place. I keep meaning to either clean it up or paint it over, but it grows on me.”

  Sam had been meaning to take a look since she first noticed it. Taking this opportunity, she pushed aside the huge coffee machine to see the bottom right corner. “It’s not just dirty, I think it’s tempera!” she said in surprise. “It’s been varnished over.”

  Spitting on one of the clean rags Dinah kept under the counter, Sam dabbed at a corner of the paint, hoping to find a date or signature under the grease and grime. “Why would anyone use anything as difficult and delicate as tempera in a restaurant?”

  “What’s tempera?” Mariah leaned over to watch.

  “It’s an ancient form of paint, made from egg yolk, used well before oils were invented. Many old European murals still survive because the stuff lasts forever, but it’s thin and cracks easily. Cleaning it isn’t a good idea.”

  “And you know this how?” Harvey asked, licking powdered sugar from his fingers.

  “My parents were artists. They had long involved discussions with other artists and insisted on showing me every ancient painting that ever existed in our corner of the world.” Which was a curiosity in itself since she’d never shown any interest in art. Sam shoved that thought aside for later reflection.

  She removed pots hanging over the mural and pushed the juice machine to the side. “Mostly, tempera is a medieval medium, but Andrew Wyeth and a few other twentieth-century artists dabbled in the stuff, probably as a back-to-nature statement.”

  “The hippies,” Harvey said, finishing his last beignet and dusting off his fingers. “They were into living off the land. Doesn’t get more natural than eggs. Yuck.”

  “They make a modern tempera now, and I’m not expert enough to know if this is from a jar or the real egg yolk kind. The natural kind can be dangerous, since natural color additives can be poisonous.”

  The minute she said poisonous, the café grew quiet. Dinah joined Mariah in studying what little they could see of the muted colors of the painting.

  “It’s kinda pretty,” Dinah said, stepping back to admire the representation of the café and its
customers in a different era. “Not real bright but quiet and peaceful like. Like in the churches,” she added in surprise.

  Sam didn’t dare touch the mural again but nodded. “The old church artists knew tempera works best with solid objects like stone, so they used it on church walls or painted on boards for religious icons. It lasts forever.” Sam rapped her knuckles against the wall. It felt like concrete.

  “Is the painting valuable?” Mariah asked.

  “I have no idea.” Sam stepped back to admire what she’d uncovered. “I could call around and see if anyone would be interested in looking at it. Do you have any famous artists from this area? That would lure someone up here faster.”

  She turned around to greet a customer just entering—one of the sheriff’s men, she guessed, even though he was in plain clothes.

  He simply asked for eggs and coffee, but the mural conversation ended. The Lucys didn’t talk in front of authority—except for Walker, who had apparently gained their trust.

  The hiker, however, didn’t know to keep his mouth shut. “Didn’t Lucinda Malcolm live up here in the sixties? We had an art teacher who knew her and never shut up about her.”

  “Seventies,” Sam said automatically, because Jade claimed she was a relation to the famous artist. “I’d think she must have been pretty old by then. Her work dates back to the early twentieth century, but she didn’t become well known until late.”

  “Yeah, that’s her,” the hiker said, satisfied. “Do you think she could have painted that mural?”

  Sam was about to say the painting looked as if it had been done in the seventies, judging by hairstyles. But Mariah untied Sam’s apron and shoved her toward the door. “Time to go play in your planters. We can take it from here.”

  More secrets. Sam scowled and tossed her apron under the counter where she kept the walking stick. Harvey got up to accompany her out.

  “I’ll tell Cass,” he said quietly as they walked out together. “No one tells me anything either, but there are rumors about the artists who lived up here over the years. Not just artists, but writers and musicians and other creatives. It’s one of the reasons I’m here.”

  “If they all turn out like Daisy, you’d be better off going back where you came from,” Sam said irritably. “I don’t like secrets and gossip. I’d go with you to talk to Cass but she isn’t home.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll know when she is. Keep the staff with you, though. There’s something funky happening here, and you do seem to be the eye of the storm.”

  “Oh, thanks for that.” She glared and then peeled off to go down the alley to the compost pile Walker had hauled down for her. She’d rather plunge her hands into manure than keep secrets.

  Maybe she’d confront Cass when she got back, and then leave Hillvale forever.

  Or maybe she’d go back to the studio and call the art gallery that showed Jade’s art. The owner was the one who had talked so fervently of Lucinda Malcolm’s work—and the mystery of who Lucinda really was, since the name was a pseudonym.

  At least she’d left the diner before disclosing that secret to the hiker.

  At the end of his shift, Walker drove into Hillvale and parked his car. He paid particular attention to Sam’s planters. As he got out, he could smell the malodorous gunk she’d put into them. The damned flowers seemed to have doubled in size since yesterday. He couldn’t believe Mariah had told the whole damned town that Sam was a Lucy because of them.

  He’d just thought the blooming pots were artistic and the Lucys should appreciate her. But now that he really looked at them. . . The tiled and painted planters were filled with an amazing collection of exuberantly colored plants that spilled over the sides as if they’d been growing for months.

  Flowers were flowers, and he didn’t have a scale to judge their growth by. But that shed of Cass’s. . . that he knew was all wrong. If he hung around Hillvale much longer, he’d be as crazy as the Lucys. He’d have to check the back of the shed sometime and see if it was an optical illusion built into a hill.

  As he’d hoped, he found Sam helping with the dinner rush. She acknowledged him by lifting one plate-filled hand but went on to deliver her orders. He settled on a counter stool to wait.

  Tarot-reading Amber had set up her cards in a booth and was doing a reading for Dinah, who ran out of her kitchen to flip a card, then ran back to finish whatever was cooking.

  Ever-nosy Mariah came over to bring him water and take his order. “So, did the sheriff find anything interesting up at the resort?”

  Walker shrugged and hid a grin behind his water glass. “No ghosts,” he reported.

  She took the plastic menu from him and swatted his hand. “Dinah is fixing muffulettas tonight. You’ll have that.”

  “I don’t like olives, so give me a burger.” Walker didn’t bother snatching back the menu. Dinah would give him whatever she wanted anyway.

  Keeping her voice low, Mariah wrote down his order. “You’re so boring, I don’t know what Sam sees in you. You can’t even give us information that might be vital to our survival. We should know if we’re living with a killer in our midst.”

  “I can tell you that the sheriff can’t find Daisy to see when she left her lamassu at Sam’s door.” Walker grinned at Mariah’s disgruntled expression.

  She huffed and stuck his order on Dinah’s spindle.

  Sam came over, but not to rescue him. “The detective who checked my place went over to the Kennedy vault. Did he find the gun there?”

  Exasperated, Walker narrowed his eyes at her. “You know I can’t tell you that. Do I need to eat up at the lodge?”

  She leaned over to kiss his cheek. “No, honey pie, because we’re just looking for confirmation of what we already know. They took fingerprints of the entire resort staff, including Uncle Lance and all available Kennedys, so they’re matching against something. And the sheriff personally returned my key, so I’m hoping I’m not a suspect, yet.”

  Dinah emerged from the kitchen and slapped a sandwich in front of him, with fries big enough to feed a family of four. “No olives. What’s the word on Xavier?”

  “Cass didn’t call you?” Surprised, Walker bit into his sandwich. He was starving. Filled with thinly sliced hams of various types, topped by an Italian style dressing and fresh tomatoes, whatever in hell he was eating made his mouth water.

  “She did, said he was rambling,” Amber said as Dinah stopped by her table to turn another tarot card. “We thought you’d know what happened to him.”

  “That’s private information,” Walker said between bites. He wished for a beer, but Dinah didn’t have an alcohol license. Felons couldn’t get them.

  “We need a mind-reading psychic.” Sam refilled water glasses up and down the counter. “Xavier knows something.”

  “Daisy might help. Anyone seen her around?” Aaron the antique dealer spoke up from the end of the counter, where he’d been checking his phone.

  “You got reception on that thing?” Walker asked, curious.

  “Nah, I can pick up the mayor’s wi-fi. Someone ought to check on Daisy, though. I saw her taking that golf cart of hers toward the burn area after Mariah’s meeting last night.”

  Walker wanted to question how Aaron had the password to Monty’s private communications, but the question about Daisy had silenced the room.

  “She left a stone butterfly on my stairs,” Sam offered to the room in general. “But she may have left that before the meeting.”

  “Isn’t she with Valdis?” Dinah called from the kitchen.

  “Haven’t seen Valdis since the meeting either,” Amber said, inching out of her booth. “She didn’t come to Cass’s.”

  All around him, the locals were paying their bills and gathering up their dinners. Mariah rushed out of the kitchen to distribute recycled paper bags—no Styrofoam containers for the tree huggers. Walker finished off half his sandwich and stuck the other half in a bag Sam handed him.

  “They can’t wander off for a day w
ithout everyone getting worried?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Apparently not. I’m guessing I better go with them.” Sam removed her apron.

  “They’re adults. I can’t radio the sheriff unless we know for certain they’ve been missing at least twenty-four hours. And there isn’t much we can do now. It will be dark in a few hours.” Walker stood up and followed Sam and the rest of the crowd out.

  “Where did we see them last?” Aaron asked of the gathering circle in the parking lot.

  “Daisy drove me into town on her golf cart after we left the vortex,” one of the more frail, elderly ladies said. “I thought she was heading home.”

  “Anyone else see Daisy or Valdis after that?” Mariah asked.

  Aaron gestured toward the burned-out hill looming over the town. “I saw Daisy driving that way. Anyone else?”

  Silence. Out of curiosity, Walker waited to see what they would do next. He checked his watch. The public meeting at the vortex had started breaking up after ten last night. In a few hours, he could call the office, but no one would instigate a night search unless he reported the women had fallen off a cliff.

  It would be a simple matter to look for the cart. He could lead a team, if that’s what they decided to do. But this was a Lucy gathering. Stepping in with the voice of authority would only send them to the hills without him.

  “Aaron, do you know where they were sitting in the amphitheater?” Mariah asked. “Can you run up there and get a feel for them?”

  Okay, that wasn’t the direction he’d seen this going. Walker watched with curiosity as the antique dealer jogged off up the hill.

  “We need our staffs,” Tullah called, locking up her shop, apparently apprised of the situation by one of the older women who accompanied her.

  “Flashlights, water,” Walker told them in resignation, gathering that practical wasn’t on their minds. “If we’re going up to the burn site, you’ll need stout shoes. Boots preferably, for snake protection.” He glanced down at Sam’s sneaker-clad feet. “You should stay here. We’ll need a communication center.”