Larkspur

by Sheila Simonson

  "Don't count on it." The waitress removed our plates.

  We declined the deep fried ice cream. While we waited for our coffee, I thought Mother's proposition over. Her presence would provoke Denise to a bravura performance, but it would also give Ginger status. A little exercise in class warfare.

  "All right." I stirred my coffee. "You can come if you promise to sit there and look poetic."

  Ma beamed at me.

  "One o'clock. Have you driven your rental yet?"

  "No, but it's an automatic. I won't have any trouble." She sipped. "Do we rendezvous at the bookstore?"

  "Yes. Annie comes on at one."

  "Excellent. Now," Mother said demurely, "I want you to take me out to Jay's house."

  I protested, but she had made up her mind, so we piled into the Toyota. Jay lives a fifty minute drive from the courthouse but only twenty minutes from Eagle Cap Lodge.

  I was hoping he wouldn't be home yet, but the Blazer sat on its gravel patch by the back entry. I gave a toot on the horn by way of warning. He might have been in the hot-tub we installed just before the snows came, though it wasn't hot-tub weather.

  Ma was frankly gawking. "Some log cabin."

  I knocked. As I was about to knock again Jay opened the door.

  "What the hell, Lark...oh."

  "Sorry to intrude. My mother wanted to meet you."

  "Hello, Jay. Thanks for the daisies," Ma chirped, sticking out her hand.

  He shook it, wincing, and showed us in without visible enthusiasm. He was wearing cut-offs and an unbuttoned shirt, which would have been sexy except for the Velcro corset.

  Jay's house is a log cabin. Each timber is squared and notched to fit with the others so tightly that no insulation is necessary even at that altitude. It has skylights and double-paned thermal windows all over the place, and there's a gleaming Franklin stove in the living room. The effect of diffused sunlight on all that exposed red cedar is friendly rather than rustic, and the whole layout is very modern.

  The house was a kit. Jay and his brother put it together themselves. Jay is secretly proud of it, so I thought he'd get over his snit faster if he gave Ma the grand tour. I told him I'd finish his laundry.

  While I tossed underwear in the washer and hung shirts fresh from the dryer I could hear their voices. Ma is always interested in how things are made. I thought she'd like the crisp, tiled kitchen, and I knew she'd get a kick out of Freddy's room, which is a loft over the kitchen reached by a cleverly hung ladder. It's Freddy's to use whenever he visits. He takes his computer up there and plays games.

  When I heard Ma's voice ten feet above me I knew I'd guessed right. I paired socks then sneaked into the bedroom in case it needed tidying. Except for the stacks of paperbacks on the headboard, it was neat, but everything was covered with a week's worth of dust. I plumped a pillow on the futon and decided to let the dust lie.

  Jay stuck his head in the door. "You want a glass of wine?"

  "Sure." I was too relieved that my strategy had worked to gloat. He sounded twenty degrees warmer.

  By then it was sunset, and the sea-breeze stirred the air enough to make sitting on the deck pleasant. Ma was leaning back in a lawn chair, drinking in the view of the lake. It is not a lake in the Llewellyn sense. It's a glacial tarn, small, deep, and dotted with boulders, one large enough to be called an island. The light that bathed it was pink-gold, and the air was full of birdsong. A riffle of wind moved over the water.

  Jay came out with two glasses of white wine and a beer on a myrtle wood tray.

  Ma smiled up at him as she took her wine. "It's a lovely place, Jay."

  "Hell to get in and out of in winter." He served me, set the tray down, and took his beer to the rail. I think it hurt him less to stand than to squat on one of the lawn chairs, which were K-Mart specials and inclined to collapse. He leaned against the rail. He had buttoned his shirt.

  Ma said, "I thought we ought to meet before I leave."

  Jay nodded.

  I sat up and the plastic webbing creaked. "Leave? When?"

  "Tuesday morning."

  Three more days. I sipped my wine and leaned back. The end was in sight.

  "I had to see the lodge and get to know D'Angelo," Ma said earnestly. "I owed it to Dai."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Ma made a face. "Good heavens, do people out here really say that?"

  "Yes, ma'am." Jay smiled a split lip smile. "Especially cops."

  "Well, try Mary next time. Do you have any idea when you're likely to find the murderer?"

  The smile went. "We have a warrant out for the chauffeur's arrest. No leads worth a damn. I was hoping the state lab could give me something on the poison, but they tell me it was made from a variety of larkspur that grows wild in this area."

  "Frustrating."

  "I'm up against a wall. Unless something gives soon I'll have to put the case on the back burner. I have half a dozen others pending."

  Ma frowned over her wine. "You mean give up?"

  "I'm not likely to give up on a murder I was forced to witness." Jay wiped the condensation from his beer bottle on his shirt and drank. "I just won't be able to spend a lot of time on it. We're understaffed."

  Mother sipped, still frowning. "Isn't this Ted Peltz a likely suspect?"

  "Yeah, though he's not very subtle. He could have planned it, I suppose. He's in custody, but he'll be out as soon as he can make bail."

  "On the wife-beating charge?"

  "There won't be a wife-beating charge."

  Ma was shocked and said so. I could feel the tension level rising again.

  "People like the Joneses don't want their names dragged through the courts." Jay took a swallow of Henry Weinhardt's.

  "But the young woman was almost killed."

  Jay took another swallow. "They'll protect her and buy her a divorce."

  "Leaving the son-in-law free to prey on other women?"

  "They don't give a damn about other women. That's a trend," he said dispassionately. "You can really see it in Beverly Hills. Private cops. Walled estates. They build themselves a castle, then pull up the drawbridge, and to hell with the peasants outside."

  "They?"

  "People like the Joneses who think they can buy justice." He finished his beer and set the bottle on the tray. "Sometimes they're right."

  "You don't like that."

  He stared at her. "My liking it or disliking it doesn't change the way things are. The Joneses will see that their daughter doesn't press charges."

  "I'm sorry," Ma said gently.

  Jay looked away.

  Ma rose. "You'd better drive me home, Lark. It's late."

  "Okay." I rummaged for my keys while my mother and Jay exchanged politenesses.

  As I rose to go, he said, "Thanks for doing the wash, Lark."

  "You betcha." I was still a little steamed. Also worried. However, the meeting with Mother had gone off smoothly. No casualties. I was glad it was over.

  Jay watched us go from the back porch.

  Three quarters of the way to the turn-off to Eagle Cap, Ma said, "Are you going to marry him?"

  "The question has not arisen."

  "Perhaps not orally." Did I say my mother is shrewd? "Do you want to marry Jay?"

  "Yes."

  "Good."

  I must have driven three miles without registering a thing, so profound was my astonishment. I almost missed the turn-off.

  It was a night for surprises. When I got back to Monte I drove to the bookstore to help Ginger close up. I told her Mother and I would go with her to beard Denise in her den. Ginger was pathetically grateful. When Dennis came, she told him, and he was pathetically grateful.

  I chugged to the apartment, my mind on Denise, and nearly rammed the back of the Blazer. Jay had parked in my slot. I took the stairs two at a time, then stood outside my door for a minute to calm down. It would not do to appear too eager.

  Jay was standing by the window eating my last pint of yogurt. He w
aved a spoon. "Hi."

  "Hi, yourself." I set my handbag down on the coffee table. "Ma approves."

  "Did she like the house? That's good."

  "Of you, idiot."

  He scraped at the last morsels of yogurt. "I thought I was a surly sonofabitch, myself."

  "Maybe she likes Heathcliff types."

  He took the empty carton into the kitchen, came back, and gave me a nice yogurt-flavored kiss.

  "Yum. What was that for?"

  "Bribery. You're going to have to put me to bed again."

  So I did.

  We had maybe three hours of harmonic vibrations--sleep, to put it another way--when the telephone rang. Jay didn't wake immediately, as he usually does. I answered. Kevin Carey.

  "You'd better put Jay on the phone. We found the chauffeur."

  "Where is he?"

  "Where was he," Kevin corrected.

  "Is he dead?"

  "Very dead."

  Jay muttered something.

  "It's Kevin. They've found Miguel's body."

  He lay very still. "Shit." He didn't sound surprised.

  I handed him the receiver and lay back, listening to a series of glum grunts. Finally he said, "Okay. Half an hour," and hung up.

  The news had begun to register. I was near tears. "I'm sorry."

  "Yeah. I can't drive, Lark." He had taken pain pills.

  "I can." I slid from bed and gave him my hand. We got him dressed, I jumped into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, and we took off.

  "Where?" I revved the Toyota's engine. It's a cold starter.

  "South. The road that cuts off toward Weed through the high country."

  "Why there?"

  He leaned back, eyes closed. "No idea." We rode in silence.

  We found the crime scene easily enough. Kevin had already sent the evidence team out.

  The Mercedes had been parked in one of the big sheds the county uses to shelter its snowplows in winter. Piles of gravel and cinder had hidden the car from the road, and it would not have been visible to the helicopter searchers either.

  I pulled in behind one of the county cars. Its blue light whirled, and the headlights stabbed at the highway shed. The lights from two other cars and a couple of floodlights assaulted the darkness. Deputies, some in uniform, some not, moved in and out of shadow. Barricades already blocked access to the turn-around area behind the shed.

  Jay opened his door and swiveled sideways. "You'd better go home, Lark. Thanks."

  "Thank you," I said crossly. "I won't get underfoot."

  "I don't think it's going to be real appetizing after a week of hot weather."

  "Oh." I had no desire at all to see Miguel's body. Or smell it. Jay pulled himself to his feet. I got out the other side, and we looked at each other over the roof of the car.

  "I'll be here until sunrise at least. You'd better go home."

  "Why sunrise?"

  "They'll be taking tire casts, combing the weeds for evidence. I can't tell them what I want until I see the area."

  "Okay." I started to say I'd go home.

  "Dodge?" Dan Cowan strode up looking self-important. "You better talk to the guy who found him. Oh, hi, Lark."

  "Hi. How's Fern?" Fern was Dan's wife.

  "She has hay fever real bad. I sent her to her sister in Fort Bragg." Cowan turned back to Jay. "Transient. I picked him up about half a mile down the road trying to thumb a ride. He says he was going to call us from town, but I doubt it."

  "He touch anything?"

  "I don't think he did much damage. Too freaked out."

  "Okay. Where?"

  "Back of the patrol car."

  "I'll take a look at the body first." Jay's voice sharpened. "They haven't disturbed anything, have they?"

  "Waiting for you. Secured the site. Gunshot wound to the head. Looks like suicide."

  Jay took a deep breath, a mistake, and clutched at his side. "Karl here yet?" Karl was the medical examiner, Dr. Holst.

  "On his way."

  "Okay. Show me." Jay had forgotten my presence. I didn't remind him. He and Dan Cowan moved off toward the heaps of cinder. They were approaching the shed from the far side, to avoid trampling on tread marks and footprints, I supposed.

  I closed the passenger door and got back in the car, turning off the lights. I closed my door, too, but I rolled the window down. I was upset, puzzled, and wide awake.

  I could see Miguel stealing the car and trying to get away. I could also see Miguel committing suicide if he had killed Llewellyn and been overcome by remorse. He had been an emotional young man. What I didn't understand was why he would steal the Mercedes, gas the car and have the oil checked, drive south of Monte fifteen miles or so on a back road, and then kill himself. Why not do it at the lodge? And where had he got the gun?

  I brooded, drowsing a little until some movement or voice from the scene roused me. I was at the scene but not of it. No one came near me. I couldn't see the Mercedes from my position behind the patrol car, and the cops were careful not to trample the access lane, so most of the coming and going happened on the far side of the shed. It was all very distant and surrealistic, like seeing film noir at a drive-in.

  When Dr. Holst came, his crew took their stretcher around the far side of the shed, too. I watched them carry Miguel in a body bag to the waiting ambulance. It was an ordinary ambulance, like the one that had taken Llewellyn from the lodge.

  No reporters had showed up. Bill Huff's paper was a weekly. I doubted his reporters stayed up all night listening to the police band. The stringer for the Chronicle lived in Weed. The TV station was up in Oregon. There didn't seem to be any neighbors, either, so I was the only ghoul on the site. Not a very alert ghoul. After the ambulance left I drowsed and, finally, slept.

  "Lark!"

  I jolted awake. My neck was stiff.

  Jay was leaning against my side of the car looking down at me. It was daylight. "I thought you were going home."

  "I fell asleep," I said sheepishly. "What's happening?"

  "I'm waiting for Kev. You might as well hang around and drive me into town."

  "Okay. What time is it?"

  "Six." He walked stiffly around to the other side and got in, leaving the door open. "I'm too grogged out to do much more here."

  "Pills wear off?"

  "Yeah." He shut his eyes. "Jesus, what a time to be crocked up. I wish I could swallow a couple of gallons of coffee."

  "Was it bad?"

  He grimaced. "I tossed the yogurt."

  "Ugh. Did I hallucinate, or was that a CHiPs car I saw around four thirty?"

  "State car. I had them take the gun to the lab in Sacramento. I need the report on that before I can do much." A car drove up at high speed, light revolving. "That'll be Kevin."

  The county car wheeled neatly in behind me, boxing me in. Kevin jumped out, and Jay stood up again, clutching at his ribs. I got out, too. I needed to get the circulation going.

  Kevin did a double-take when he saw me.

  I gave him a smile. "Taxi service."

  "Oh, yeah. How're the ribs, partner?"

  "I have eaten tastier," Jay said with dignity.

  Kevin grinned. He is a slender black man, not very tall, with a neat beard and glasses. He and Jay work well together. Kevin's wife teaches sociology at the junior college and yearns for the big city, but Kev is a fanatical skier, so she's probably stuck in Monte. Considering that Jay was brought in from the LAPD over Kevin's head, it's a tribute to Kev's good nature--and maybe to Jay's--that they've become friends.

  Jay said glumly, "You were right. I should've taken the kid into custody. If I had, he'd still be alive."

  "I wonder why I don't feel a lot of satisfaction."

  Jay sighed. "It's murder."

  "No possibility of suicide?"

  "Have a look."

  "The body's gone."

  "Yeah. Have a look at the car, though. He was shot with the windows open. Then the killer closed 'em."

  "Electric
windows--engine running?"

  "Either that or the killer turned on the ignition after Miguel was dead, closed the windows, turned the refrigeration up, and left the engine on. Car's out of gas."

  "Refrigeration? Shit. That's going to blur the time of death."

  Jay shrugged and winced as the incautious movement pulled at his sore ribs. "That's going to be foggy anyway. He was probably killed within an hour of the time he left the Chevron station on Grand. Proving it..."

  I interrupted. "I know it's none of my business, but how could you tell he was killed with the windows open?"

  Jay looked at me. "We haven't found the slug. It may be lodged in the upholstery. Still, the window on the driver's side wasn't smashed. And it was, uh, smeared but not..."

  "Splattered," I finished, sick.

  "You get the picture. Also we're going to find blood and, uh, so on, on the grass--when it's light enough."

  "I'm sorry." I kept saying that futile little phrase. I was sorry. For Jay, who was obviously blaming himself, but especially for Miguel. I had liked Miguel.

  "...some attempt to make it look like suicide," Jay was saying to Kevin. "If the killer had left the windows open I wouldn't be so damned sure it wasn't."

  "Weapon?"

  "A Beretta. Automatic."

  Kevin groaned. "Common as blackberries."

  "It's a 380."

  "That'll help some."

  I wondered what kind of gun Domingo had showed me, not that it mattered. It was obviously not the murder weapon. I also remembered Bill Huff's arsenal. Unfortunately that wasn't worth much as evidence. Northern California is NRA territory. A lot of people collect guns.

  "...prints?" Kevin was asking.

  "The gun was lying by the gearshift. His prints, pretty blurred. Gun was clean--too clean. So was the ignition. I sent the weapon and the brass to Sacramento."

  Kevin shoved his glasses up his nose. He squinted at Jay in the sharp morning light. "You look like hell. I can take over here. Get some sleep. I'll call you when the lab report comes in from Sacramento."

  Jay frowned. "What about the press?"

  "They'll be stirring around soon. I called the sheriff right after I called you. He'll make a statement."

  "Give him something constructive to do," Jay said gloomily. "Can we maybe not mention that it's murder?"

  "No sweat. Give them the guy who found him."