On spring mornings, McQuaid and I usually take our breakfasts onto the back porch, where we can enjoy the fruity scent of the Zepherine Drouhin rose that climbs the trellis and watch kamikaze hummingbirds looping-the-loop around the feeders. But this morning we were all in a hurry. McQuaid was going to Houston, so he was up by six and gone by seven, snatching the egg-sausage-potato taco I’d microwaved for him as he dashed out the door. He was barely out of sight when Brian clattered down the stairs, wolfed his taco, grabbed his books and overnight bag—this was the weekend of the Science Club’s field trip to Lost Maples State Park—and made his usual last-minute beeline for the seven-ten school bus. Howard Cosell watched mournfully from the steps as his favorite kid disappeared down the lane. With his buddy away, Howard’s school-year weekdays are blank, bleak, and boring, with nothing to do but nap and keep an eye out for obstreperous squirrels.
I went back upstairs, dressed hurriedly—it doesn’t take long to put on yesterday’s jeans, a Thyme & Seasons tee, and my favorite khaki vest with button-down cargo pockets—and phoned Sheila to tell her I was on my way to her house. Then I dropped four wrapped tacos in a bag and went out to the white Toyota that replaced my little blue Datsun, which I literally drove to death. I didn’t intend to do any more digging into Colin’s murder without discussing it first with Smart Cookie and getting her blessing. It’s only in mystery novels that an amateur sleuth goes merrily off on her own investigation, risks death to nab a very nasty killer, and hauls him or her to the nearest police station (under citizen’s arrest), where she is congratulated by the cops and the district attorney for correcting their investigative errors, tying up all their loose ends, and reestablishing order in the world.
It doesn’t work that way in real life, and it shouldn’t. Citizen arrests are fraught with peril and loaded with legal liability. Being sued for wrongful arrest, assault, or stalking can be an unpleasant, expensive experience. What’s more, I keep my bar membership current, which makes me an officer of the court, which leads me to be conservative when it comes to things like evidence tampering and breaking and entering. I hate to run afoul of the law when it’s not absolutely necessary.
The forecast predicted storms by evening, but the morning was cool, bright, and breezy. The sun was just coming up when I swung onto Sheila’s street. She lives in a pretty, old-fashioned frame house with a wooden front porch swing, a white picket fence around a large yard, and a giant pecan tree out front that routinely produces enough pecans to keep the neighbors in pies all winter long. After she moved in, Ruby and I helped her Xeriscape her yard with rosemary, salvias, lantana, yucca, red-hot poker, daylilies, native grasses, and yaupon holly—plants that thrive with no extra water and almost no tending. In return, Sheila gave us each a big sack of pecans. She doesn’t have the time to bake pecan pies or cope with prima donna plants that fall into a deep sulk when they don’t get the attention they crave.
The chief was still in her pink silk pajamas, with a toothbrush in her hand. “It’s a good thing you called,” she said groggily, when she answered the doorbell. “I forgot to set the alarm clock.” She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “No telling how long I would have slept if the phone hadn’t rung.”
“I hope you’re hungry,” I said, holding up the bag of tacos and heading for the kitchen. “I’ll make coffee while you get dressed.”
When she reappeared, nattily dressed in her blue and gray uniform and her blond hair scooped into a roll at the back of her head, the coffee was ready, the orange juice was poured, and the tacos were steaming from their three minutes in the microwave. I had even taken a minute to slip out the back door and snip a few daisies for the center of the table.
“Hey, nice,” she said, casting an admiring eye over the table. She unwrapped a taco, added a hefty jolt of hot sauce, and tasted it. “Every bit as good as McDonald’s.”
“Better,” I said, trying not to sound offended. “It’s homemade, with low-fat sausage and no extra salt.”
“Everybody needs salt,” she replied in a matter-of-fact tone. She finished the first taco and added hot sauce to the second. “So you talked to Ruby yesterday? How did she handle it? Is she okay?”
“It was tough,” I said bleakly. “Brutal. She had already resigned herself to losing him, but not this way. Nobody wants to do it like this.”
“Of course.” Sheila’s face was grim. In some people’s hearts, there’s a place for everyone they have ever genuinely loved, no matter how long ago or how little. Surely, she must have many of the same feelings Ruby had, although they might be muted by time and distance and by the presence of other lovers in her life. But if that’s what was in Smart Cookie’s heart, she was not going to share it with me. Instead, she asked a cop’s question, in a cop’s hard voice.
“Did Ruby have any information that might shed some light on his murder?”
I matched her tone, starting with the most important item. “Colin left a shoebox in her guest-room closet. He was coming to pick it up the night he was killed. She’s commissioned me to go and get it. I think you should come along.”
“A shoebox?” She frowned. “I take it that it’s not full of shoes.”
“Photos, according to Ruby. If you’re busy, send somebody else. If this turns out to be evidentiary material, you’ll need a chain-of-custody—”
“I know what I need,” she said crisply. “I’m just trying to remember what’s on the calendar for today. I’ve got to be somewhere shortly, but it shouldn’t take more than an hour. Will nine thirty be okay? I can meet you there. We can get into Ruby’s house?”
“I’ve got a key.” I picked up my orange juice. Nine thirty would give me time to get the box, then head for Thyme and Seasons. After all, I do have to work for a living, and the shop opens at ten. “There are a couple of other things,” I added, “neither very important. I understand from Ruby and from Colin’s part-time shop clerk that a woman named Lucita called him occasionally.” I knew from the glint in Smart Cookie’s eye that L-word had clicked, although I had cleverly avoided mentioning that I had read the note under the yucca pot. “She’s a bookkeeper at Sonora.”
“Sonora Nursery? Here in town?”
I nodded, wondering if she was making the connection to the logo on the envelope. “I also picked up some reliable gossip about Colin and Wilford Mueller, who have reportedly been at it hammer-and-tongs about a roof that needed fixing. And Darla McDaniel mentioned that she saw Colin having some sort of set-to with a guy in the First Baptist parking lot—a blond guy, big, burly, with a crew cut. He looked to her like a cop.”
She frowned. “Like a cop?” I could see the wheels turning. Sheila knew about Colin’s past history. If I could add two and two and come up with a dirty dozen, so could she. Was this a friend of the Dallas cops, looking for revenge?
“Like a cop, according to Darla. You might want to talk to her about it and see if she can give you a better description.”
I paused, considering the peril I was in. For obvious reasons, I hadn’t planned to tell Sheila that I had gone to Colin’s shop. What I needed now was a distraction, to keep the chief from asking the next logical question: How had I managed to learn all this stuff in just over twelve hours? Something popped into my head and out my mouth before I gave it a second thought.
“Oh, and Ruby says to tell you that she intends to adopt Rambo.”
As a distraction, it certainly worked. Sheila’s eyes widened in alarm. “Ruby wants to adopt that monster? Take him to live with her?” She shuddered violently. “That’s nuts. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
I shrugged. “I guess she has a soft spot in her heart for orphans. Or maybe she wants to honor Colin’s memory by taking care of his dog. Anyway, she asked me to go over there and feed and walk him, and I agreed.”
“Well, I can think of better ways to honor Colin,” Sheila retorted tartly. “A wreath at the cemetery, for instance. Wreaths don’t bite. Wreaths don’t leave big piles of dog poop i
n the yard.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to be unsympathetic, China, but if Ruby is going to do this idiotic thing, she has to do it right away. The neighbors are complaining about the barking, and they’re terrified of that Rottweiler. He’s dangerous.”
“She can’t pick him up,” I said, frowning. This distraction was proving to be a problem. “She’s stuck in Fredericksburg until Ramona comes on Sunday—and even then, she might not be able to get away. Doris is in pretty bad shape.”
“Then I’ll send somebody to get the dog and take him to the shelter,” Sheila said flatly.
Sometimes I don’t know what gets into me. In this case, maybe it was sympathy for a dog who was left all alone, through no fault of his own. I heard myself saying, “Don’t do that, Sheila. I’ll take him. It’ll only be for a few days.”
“You are as crazy as she is,” Sheila said. “What about Howard Cosell? That Rottweiler will eat him up and won’t even burp.” Howard, who positively dotes on Smart Cookie, is the only dog she can tolerate. “Anyway, you ought to ask McQuaid before you make a commitment like this.”
I shrugged. “Howard will pretend Rambo doesn’t exist.” Maybe. “McQuaid won’t care.” Much. “And Brian will be thrilled.” Absolutely. In fact, I could count on Brian to keep Rambo happy and occupied evenings and weekends. The rest of the time, the dog could stay in Howard’s dog run. Howard doesn’t like to use it because it keeps him from chasing the squirrels.
“It’s your funeral,” Sheila said. There was a paper napkin on the table and she pushed it toward me. “Write down the names you mentioned, if you don’t mind.” She paused. “Especially that part-time clerk. Name, please, and address, if you know it. I’ll want to talk to her.”
Rats. The diversion had been good while it lasted, but it had reached a dead end. When Sheila talked to Marcy, she would find out about our nighttime encounter in Colin’s shop. She’d probably think there were other things I hadn’t told her, too, which would not make her happy. I’d better come clean right now and save us both a lot of trouble.
I put on my best mea culpa look. “I apologize, Sheila. I wasn’t going to tell you this because I knew it would only complicate matters. The truth is that I was in Colin’s shop yesterday evening, and I happened to—”
“In Colin’s shop?” Sheila squawked, her jaw going slack. “What the hell were you doing there, China? That’s a crime scene! You were trespassing! You were—”
“I was not trespassing,” I said, in my firmest, most lawyerlike tone. “The shop was not posted as a crime scene, I made sure of that. There were no notices, no yellow tape. And there was nothing inside but merchandise.” Well, almost nothing.
Sheila gave a disgruntled nod. “We had a domestic abuse case that escalated into a shooting yesterday afternoon, over on Dunbar Road. We were still working Colin’s house and I needed some people at Dunbar. We never got to the shop.” She gave me a sour look. “You know, if you weren’t such a good friend, I’d arrest you for breaking and entering. In fact, I might do it anyway.”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “Ruby gave me her key and the alarm code and asked me to do a case-related errand for her, since she couldn’t be here to do it herself.”
Sheila eyed me. “Case-related?”
“A woman named Lucita had phoned the shop when Ruby was there. The call seemed urgent and personal, and she jotted the phone number down on Colin’s shop calendar.” I smiled disarmingly. “You know Ruby and her intuitions. She got the idea that you should know about it, so she gave me her key and asked me to get the number.”
“Did you?”
“Yep.” My leather shoulder bag was on the table and I pulled out the calendar page. “However, I seriously doubt that the woman had anything to do with Colin’s death. I think she was calling about some plants he bought.” I copied the Sonora number onto the paper napkin. “Oh, and the alarm code is nineteen sixty-three,” I said, writing that down, too. “You don’t want your people setting it off.”
Sheila gave me a pointed look. “The clerk?”
“Marcy Windsor. Here’s her address and phone number.” As I wrote, I added, “She dropped by the store last night to pick up the back pay that Colin owed her—a hundred fifty-two seventy, which I let her take out of the register. She’s the one who told me that Lucita works at Sonora.”
“Hell’s bells,” Sheila muttered, looking at the napkin I handed her. “Why is it that you always know everything? And you always know it before anybody else.”
“I don’t know who killed him,” I said gloomily. “Do you?”
“Not yet,” Sheila replied, low and fierce. “But I will, damn it.”
I wanted to ask her whether the search of Colin’s house had turned up anything useful or interesting—drugs, a big stash of cash, a little black book full of names—but she was wearing her poker-player’s face and I knew I wouldn’t get anything out of her. If her cards were any closer to her vest, they’d be in her bra.
Sheila looked at the clock, pushed back her chair, and stood up. “I’ve got to go. I’m supposed to talk about safety to Jackie Barnes’ third-graders over at Torres Elementary. It’s just around the corner, but I’ll be late if I don’t hurry.”
“You go on,” I said. “I’ll clear the table and lock up.”
Nodding, she took her cop cap off the peg. “See you at nine thirty, at Ruby’s.”
I rinsed off the plates, put them in the drainer, and locked the door after me. I had a whole hour before I had to meet Sheila—time to go to Sonora and poke around. Talking to Lucita was probably a waste of effort, but I could at least verify my conclusion that her calls to Colin had to do with his account. And I could tell Ruby that I had acted on her hunch, which would make her happy. Anyway, I’m always glad to have an excuse to go to the nursery.
I get a rush from cultivating a successful relationship with a new and unusual plant. Our gardens are like our houses and neighborhoods: most of us are more comfortable with things and people and plants—maybe especially plants—that we’ve known for a long time. We’re reluctant to accept something new and different, especially when what’s available is a seedling or immature plant and we’re not exactly sure what kind of care it requires or how big it will be or what it will look like when it grows up. It’s not that we’re prejudiced or narrow-minded, of course. We’re just slow to accept something new. Our imaginations need to be educated.
Which is why display gardens are so valuable. A nursery can place mature specimens of exotics into a lovely setting that shows gardeners how the plants will look in their backyards. And that’s what Allan Conrad and his wife, Betty, have done. They’ve landscaped the front part of their nursery so extensively that it looks like a botanical garden. It’s a treat for me to walk around and admire their work. Learn from it, too. Some of the things I’ve learned (well, copied, if you want the truth) have shown up in my display gardens at Thyme and Seasons—although I couldn’t begin to afford the landscaping the Conrads have done. Compared to them, I’m operating on a shoestring.
When you come through the gate at Sonora, the first thing you see is a large circular garden, some thirty or forty feet in diameter. In the middle is an eight-foot waterfall that plunges down a wall of rough limestone and into a shallow pool surrounded by showy clumps of exotic grasses; a tall, wooly Argentine saguaro cactus; several mature Mexican bamboo palms, still bearing a few bright red berries; and a monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana) that looks like it might be at home on the African veldt, in the company of lions. The taller, bulkier plants are set off by ferns, cycads, cacti, and yuccas, all attractively and naturalistically arranged, their pots hidden by logs, rocks, and foliage.
The central garden isn’t all, of course: another large garden features drought-tolerant plants that thrive in the kind of dry heat we have in the Hill Country—agaves and prickly pear and aloes, inter-planted with a dozen varieties of yucca among large rocks, set off with an attractive gravel mulch. Sonora specializes in
yuccas. They grow some, import many from Mexico, and distribute them to other nurseries. They also sell them on the Internet, and orders for potted yuccas arrive from and go out to all parts of the country. More power to them, I say. The Conrads’ success is testimony to the transformative power of the American dream: it’s possible to put your knowledge and skills to work, and succeed even beyond your furthest hopes.
Somewhere just inside the gate, I usually run into Allan Conrad with a watering wand in his hand, paying watchful attention to his plants—a good idea, considering the fact that they represent a sizable investment. Allan is a short, heavyset man with brown eyes, dark hair, and a thick dark mustache, who always wears a plaid shirt, jeans, and a white straw hat. When we were discussing the purchase of Wanda’s nursery, I learned that he got his start in his father’s nursery in Phoenix, where he met and married Betty, a pretty Mexican-American with a couple of young kids. She was born in Brownsville, a sprawling Texas town on this side of the Rio Grande, across from its Mexican sister-city, Matamoras.
After several years, the Conrads moved from Phoenix to Brownsville, where Betty wanted to raise her children. Allan got a good job with a wholesale grower who imported and distributed plants from Latin America and began learning more of the aspects of his trade. An experienced plantsman, he often returns to Mexico, taking long and arduous trips through the forests and mountains looking for exotic plants that might be cold-hardy enough to survive in American landscapes and gardens. He brings back seeds and cuttings and propagates the plants, with the hope that some of them will be interesting and adaptable enough to find an American market.
And they have—at least, that’s the way it looks from the outside. Sonora has become the most successful nursery in the area—in all of Central Texas, actually. I’ve often wondered how they do it, given the notorious difficulty of making a success of the nursery business. The advertising, the facilities, the nursery stock, the labor—everything costs twice as much as you think it’s going to. You need an enormous amount of capital to make it all work.
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