Larkspur

by Sheila Simonson

  "Want a shower?"

  "Show me the way."

  While she showered I found a shortish skirt and a tee shirt for her. She looked ridiculous in them. The skirt reached her ankles. But she said she felt almost energetic enough to get the car, so we bundled her suit and pantyhose into a paper bag and drove over to the mall.

  Ma got out. "Is that a Chinese place? Now I'm hungry." It was seven.

  "It's not great. Strictly Cantonese."

  "I could probably eat shredded wheat."

  We got takeout stuff, and I bought Jay a bunch of steamed rice and a chicken and pea pod stir fry I thought he could probably eat. Then I took the food home, Mother following in the rental, and we ate.

  "Who killed Denise?" Ma dipped a spring roll in hot sauce.

  I choked on a bite of lemon chicken. "How would I know?"

  "Jay has no suspicions?"

  "Lots." I was beginning to think. "Maybe Domingo."

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "He would never have killed Dai. And he's basically a gentle man. Maybe we need one of those charts."

  "Charts?" I was completely at sea.

  Ma sighed. "Have you never read an old-fashioned mystery?"

  "I read science fiction."

  "I refuse to comment. Forget the chart. Start with the obvious premise. If there's only one murderer, what's the sequence? X kills Dai by poisoning the drink. Miguel sees something and tries to blackmail X. X meets Miguel, shoots him, and manages to make it look like suicide."

  "That's just the press interpretation." I took a forkful of fried rice. We hadn't bothered with chopsticks. "Jay never had any doubt it was murder." I explained about the windows of the Mercedes.

  "All right. The blackmail attempt occurred when, Saturday?"

  "Probably."

  "The murderer must have felt confident at that point. A week elapsed during which the bombshell of Dai's will exploded. Ted Peltz came back from San Francisco and beat his wife."

  "And Jay."

  "So Peltz is in jail and his wife in the hospital. Then this morning, just after the news of Miguel's suicide is broadcast on the radio, Denise calls Ginger. She has a guest coming to lunch and postpones the interview with her future daughter-in-law."

  "What about Lydia?"

  "Yes, somewhere in there Lydia called Denise. If Lydia's telling the truth, it was probably before Denise called Ginger, because Denise didn't say anything to Lydia about another guest coming."

  "That doesn't mean anything. Maybe Denise just didn't mention the luncheon."

  Ma sighed. "We're hypothesizing."

  "All right. Denise heard from her 'guest' who was a close enough friend that Denise invited her--Ginger said it was a woman--to lunch on very short notice. Then Denise called Ginger. The murder must have occurred right after that. Denise had time to set the table but not to put the food out. She was strangled in the gazebo. And Lydia's cat witnessed the killing."

  "Then we drove up, and you found the body, perhaps an hour or an hour and a half later. Who?"

  I said slowly, "Lydia."

  "Why?"

  "I think she was lying about the phone call. And she could have faked the faint. The medic said her pulse was strong."

  "If it's Lydia, she has nerves of steel. All that chat with me about the Foundation and the book of Dai's poems."

  "The murderer is a smart ass."

  "What?"

  "A sick joker. Look at all the little extras. The larkspur. Lydia came into the store almost as soon as I got the invitation and urged me to come to the lodge. I suspect inviting me was her idea. So she could have brewed up the poison well in advance. Then in Miguel's case the trick with the windows and the refrigeration. It wasn't necessary but it did blur the time of death and create a cute little puzzle."

  "But what about the gun?"

  "What about it? Bill Huff has a roomful of guns."

  "Would Lydia have incriminated her husband?"

  "Maybe they were in it together. The bequest to the Huff press was small, relative to the size of the estate, but Llewellyn forgave two large loans. The book side of the business isn't profitable."

  Ma munched. "I don't like two murderers."

  "Ma," I exploded, "I don't like any murderers. How can you be so detached? If you'd seen Denise's face..."

  Ma sighed. "I'm sorry, darling. I know it was awful for you. I'm upset, too, and you know me, when I'm disturbed I verbalize. Bear with me."

  "It's okay," I muttered.

  "You said cute touches. Jay said embellishment. I suppose the cat is the unnecessary complication in Denise's killing, but it implicates Lydia. Why would she do that to herself?"

  "Maybe the cat was accidental. Maybe it followed her car." That was dumb. Ethel was a cat, not a dog. "It could have been there for its own reasons." Something tugged at my mind. Two cats...

  "A coincidence?" Ma shook her head. "Well, maybe. The question is why was Denise killed? I don't see her as a blackmailer, somehow."

  "I have a hard time seeing Miguel as a blackmailer. Denise might not have wanted money, but she liked to bully people, control them." I thought of poor Dennis. And Ginger. "And she would have relished a dramatic confrontation."

  "I suppose so. We're assuming the mysterious guest was the killer. Who, then? Winton D'Angelo?"

  "Ginger said a woman, but if it wasn't the guest..." In one of those flashes of insight that change the way you see things, like a twisted kaleidoscope, I suddenly saw a new pattern. Llewellyn and Denise. Both successful artists, full of renown. There was an element of gratuitous spite in those killings. And Miguel might have been Llewellyn's latest lover. "Ma, you can't go to D'Angelo's for cocktails tomorrow. I won't let you."

  "Let me? We have important things to discuss."

  "Look, you're a prominent poet. So was Llewellyn. Denise was a famous dancer. If D'Angelo's gone off the rails he could be doing in every successful artist within range."

  Ma broke open a fortune cookie. "That's not very likely."

  "Nothing about these murders is logical."

  "I disagree. I think it's a straightforward case of greed, followed by blackmail. I grant you the fancy touches but it's possible to be greedy and imaginative. My money is on the Huffs. I don't like Lydia."

  We drank green tea and polished off the fortune cookies in silence. Finally Mother stood up. "I'd better go, darling. Give Jay my love and tell him I'm betting on him."

  I saw her off in her rental. When she left, we embraced with unusual energy. We needed the contact.

  Jay came in soon after that. I fed him pea pods and rice. I was tidying the kitchen, and he was sipping his gunky herb tea when he said, without preamble, "When did your mother leave?"

  "Half an hour ago, maybe forty-five minutes. What's wrong?"

  He had gone out to the phone in the living room and was punching in numbers. "Just checking."

  I watched him, bewildered.

  "It's okay." He waved me off. "Yeah, can I speak to the manager?"

  I went back to the kitchen and ran the garbage grinder. I think I was brain dead by then.

  Jay came back. "Your mother picked up her room key five minutes ago. She's okay."

  I stared at him. Why should she not be? I felt a chill. If Jay's suspicions were anything like mine, I wanted a twenty-four hour guard on my mother. I almost said so, but the last stirrings of common sense told me Ma would be all right until morning. She always bolted hotel room doors. When I considered what might have happened to her on the way out to the lodge--on that steep winding road--I had to drink a cup of herb gunk to calm down.

  By that time Jay and I were somnambulating. We fell into bed within half an hour. No conversation. I had a nightmare, of course.

  When I finally battled my way to consciousness the details had mercifully receded, except for Denise's gargoyle face. I lay as still as I could so as not to wake Jay, but the vision of Denise seemed to float in mid-air, bloodshot eyes reproaching me. My stomach rebel
led.

  I bolted for the bathroom and threw up. No more Cantonese dinner.

  I crept back into the darkened bedroom, shivering and half-crying. I did try to be quiet.

  "Nightmare?"

  I started. "What else?"

  Jay's voice was drowsy. "'Lectric blanket."

  "What!"

  "'Syour electric blanket still hooked up? Turn it on high."

  It was July, but such is my attention to housekeeping detail the blanket was still hooked up. I fumbled with the controls and slipped back into bed. My teeth were rattling in my head.

  Jay took my hand. "You know it's not your fault." He sounded wider awake.

  "I should've gone out earlier. Ginger was supposed to be out there at one, originally." I was quaking like an aspen, but the blanket was starting to warm up.

  "Denise told Ginger not to come at one."

  "Yes, but what if we'd gone out anyway?" We'd been at Wind Song, pigging out, while Denise was dying.

  Jay ran his thumb in a slow circle over the base of my hand, massaging, unclenching my fingers. "You couldn't have known she'd be killed, Lark."

  "Okay, true, but..."

  He was talking softly about by-stander reaction, telling me how none of it was my fault or Ginger's or Ma's or Denise's--or anybody's but the killer's. His thumb moved in firm circles, kneading. I suspect he was talking just to talk. He told me how clear and cooperative I'd been, the ideal witness.

  Gradually my shivering eased. I drowsed, conscious only of the soft rumble of his voice, concentrating on it as noise, because I didn't want to think.

  As I inched closer I was vaguely aware of the cracked ribs and the Velcro contraption that kept us on our own sides of the bed. The electric blanket was helping me, but warm flesh would have been better. Jay was saying very good things that had nothing to do with Denise's murder.

  I suppose I murmured something.

  "...and I think you'd better marry me," he was saying. "Are you going to?"

  "Yes, of course." I gave a muffled squawk and sat up. "What!"

  He made a noise that started as 'phew' and ended in a grunt of pain.

  I fell back on the pillow. "Did you or did you not just propose to me?"

  He chuckled. "Yes, and you said 'of course.' I'm damned flattered, and I'll hold you to it."

  "I can't be blamed for anything I say under hypnosis." I was reaching for him, trying to find his face. I connected with his sandpapery chin.

  He nibbled my fingers.

  "Hey! Of course I'll marry you, but why ask me now? The time is hardly auspicious."

  Jay took another finger nibble. "You taste good."

  "It's not exactly romantic."

  Jay sighed. Not deeply. Deep sighing would have been a bad idea. "I wanted to ask you starting around the middle of last August. But it wasn't the right time. Then you moved into your own apartment."

  "I needed room..."

  "Not the right time," he agreed, mocking but not harsh. "It was never the right time, Lark. I was going to ask you when we went out to Llewellyn's lodge. I was working up to it."

  "Definitely not the right time. Okay, but why now? I just threw up, I feel rotten, I can't even hug you."

  His voice roughened. "I asked because I felt about as low as I could, and I figured if you said no I couldn't feel much worse."

  I flopped back against the pillow. "Oh. Gosh, Jay, how could you doubt..." I sniffed a huge sniff. "I love you."

  "I guess you must."

  "When?"

  "What?" His turn for confusion.

  "When do you want to get married?"

  He laughed--or started to and groaned. "Any time. Except today. Give the ribs a chance to heal."

  I was beginning to feel good and, unfortunately, amorous. I raised up on my right elbow and kissed him--delicately so as not to undo the split lip. "I suppose we can talk it over later."

  "That's right."

  I squiggled up against the Velcro.

  "Don't get too comfortable. I need another pain pill."

  So I got it for him. He went to sleep almost at once, but I turned the redundant blanket off and lay awake awhile, entertaining visions of orange blossoms. I'm ashamed to admit Denise hardly crossed my mind.

  I woke next morning to the sound of Jay yelping in the shower. I dashed to the bathroom and pulled the shower curtain open.

  "I thought that would bring you," he said complacently and gave me a wet kiss. "Come on in, the water's fine."

  We had a pleasant interlude, cautious but satisfying, in the shower. In the course of our slippery conjunction, we managed to assure each other that he had indeed proposed, and I had indeed accepted, and neither of us had been hallucinating.

  That was about as far as our nuptial planning got, because Jay was on his way to work. Kevin had called him with word of a possible make on the gun that killed Miguel. They had found a thumbprint, very old, on the clip, and the state lab's new computerized scanner was going to try to find a match.

  "It'll turn out that the gun was stolen from some blameless citizen five years ago." Jay was trying to fit his .38 into the holster at the back of his waistband. Ordinarily he wore a shoulder holster, but the cracked ribs made that impractical. He grumbled and winced and finally got the gun fitted in where he could get at it in a pinch. Then I helped him into his jacket, and he was off.

  I phoned Ma.

  It was not yet eight, so I had the satisfaction of waking her up. Revenge is sweet.

  "Uh, you what?"

  "I'm getting married!"

  "Unh?"

  I took pity on her. "We decided last night. I thought you should be the first to know."

  "Er, that's wonderful, darling." But what do you want me to do about it at this hour? She didn't say that, but I could hear her thinking it.

  I grinned at the phone. "Never mind, Ma. We'll just pop over to Reno and get it over with quick. Tell Dad when you call him." I hung up and went into the kitchen, chortling.

  Ten minutes later the phone rang again.

  "Just kidding!" I caroled, cradling the phone on one shoulder and picking up my coffee cup.

  "Lark?"

  Oops. "Oh, hi, Ginger. How are you? How's Dennis, more to the point."

  "Awful. He had an awful night." I could hear her swallow. "Can we come over?"

  "Now?"

  "Dennis wants to talk to you."

  "Jay..."

  "Not Jay. I mean not yet. It's...well, it's strange."

  I scowled at the phone. If Dennis had information, he ought to take it straight to Jay. I thought of Dennis's shock and misery the day before--and Jay's role in it--and I had to soften. "Well, okay. Jay's already at the courthouse. I'll make a pot of coffee. Did you eat breakfast?"

  "No, yes, it doesn't matter." She was distracted by something and turned from the phone. "He's gone to work," I heard her say. She covered the receiver with her hand. Conferring with Dennis. She turned back to the receiver. "Fifteen minutes?"

  "Okay."

  She hung up. I prowled around tidying the living room. I defrosted a coffee cake in the microwave and fixed coffee. I was out of cream but it didn't matter because westerners drink theirs barbarian black. I was wondering what Dennis had thought of, of course, and curiosity and apprehension coiled my insides like a watch-spring. I needed a good run.

  The bell rang just as the microwave bonged. I flipped it off and went to the door.

  Ginger and Dennis were leaning on each other, looking as if neither of them had slept. I ushered them in and poured them coffee without making small talk.

  When Ginger had taken a couple of sips and looked as if she might live, I said cautiously, "Did you get hold of the kids?"

  "Yeah. Larry wanted to come over and mount guard." She sniffed. "Tammy was ready to quit work."

  "Great kids."

  She sniffed again, teary-eyed.

  I set them next to each other on my sofa, but they weren't quite touching. Not a good sign. "More?"

&
nbsp; Dennis nodded, still mute, and Ginger muttered something that might have been 'yes' so I went for the pot. I also cut the coffee cake into wedges and grabbed some paper napkins. When I'd set the cake on the coffee table and poured, I took the pot back to the kitchen to brew refills. I returned to see Dennis absent-mindedly ingesting a wedge of cake, so he was probably going to be all right.

  I plunked down on the rocker. "What did you want to tell me?"

  He finished chewing solemnly and patted his mouth with a napkin. Ginger and I watched him put his brain in gear.

  He was a big, slow man--not stupid, slow. He almost always came to reasonable conclusions, but his thought processes were tortuous. I could see he was working something through in his head.

  I leaned forward, and the chair creaked. "I ought to warn you that I won't withhold evidence from Jay. Neither should you."

  He sighed. "The thing is, see, I don't know if it's evidence. I called Mother yesterday around eleven thirty. I was worried about her and Ginger meeting, see?"

  Ginger took a sip of coffee and didn't look at him.

  "See, the thing is we quarreled." He swallowed hard, and there was a long pause.

  I waited.

  "I was trying to tell her how wrong she was about Ginger. I said some things." He cleared his throat and went on doggedly, "I said some rotten things to her, and she kind of...well, I think she was sort of teasing me."

  Torturing him, more likely. I nodded.

  "She told me she was going to call and put Ginger off, because this friend was coming to lunch. I blew up. I didn't listen real close. I was mad." He twisted the paper napkin in his big hands. "I told her she'd better see Ginger that afternoon or she wouldn't be seeing me, and she teased at me some more, and then, when I said some other things, she said she'd see Ginger at two. I told her she'd better and hung up. I was steamed." His voice shook. "And that was the last time I heard her voice."

  "Oh, Dennis."

  Ginger sat very still.

  Dennis cleared his throat again. "I think she told me who was coming to lunch. I think she said it was Lydia."

  Chapter XIII

  "Lydia?" I felt a chill along my spine. "Are you sure?"

  "I thought about it, Lark. I don't know. I saw Lydia at the farmhouse when I got there, didn't I? Maybe I just imagined my mother said it was Lydia. I wasn't listening to what Denise said. I don't want to get anybody in trouble."