Death Come Quickly

by Susan Wittig Albert

  McQuaid opened the refrigerator door. “Jake, how much would you charge to keep Brian in line?”

  “Sometimes the magic works; sometimes it doesn’t.” Jake gave a little shrug. “I know he hears me, but he doesn’t always listen.”

  “I’ve had the same experience,” I said dryly. “The napkins are in the drawer by the dishwasher, Jake—let’s use the red ones. You kids can have milk or tea, whichever you want.” To McQuaid, I added, “Pour a glass of that for me, would you?” He was getting the white wine out of the refrigerator.

  “Done,” he said and put my wineglass beside my plate. He bent over the casserole dish. “Hey, chicken.” He frowned at it. “That isn’t—”

  “No.” The timer buzzed and I went to the stove. “A thousand times no.” I took the rolls out of the oven. “Why is everybody so concerned about the source of that chicken? You don’t really think I would—”

  “I’ll go see what Brian and Caitlin are up to,” Jake offered diplomatically and headed for the door.

  McQuaid lounged against the counter. He was wearing jeans and my favorite blue plaid shirt, the same color as his eyes, and his dark hair was rumpled, as usual, where he’d been running his fingers through it. He has a jagged scar across his forehead—a knife-fight trophy from his days as a Houston detective—and his nose has been broken more than once. His features are too rugged to be called handsome, but he’s certainly tall, dark, and sexy, every inch an alpha male. After he left the police force, he served for several months as Pecan Springs’ acting police chief; on another occasion, he took an undercover assignment with the Texas Rangers. He got badly shot up on that case, though, and I don’t mind telling you that I was nervous when he hung out his shingle as a private detective. But most of his cases have been of the seek-and-find variety, more of an intellectual challenge than a physical one—at least so far. I’m not as uneasy about his work as I used to be, especially since Blackie came on board. Blackie Blackwell is the quintessential lawman’s lawman, smart, cool, and utterly dependable. I worry less, knowing he has McQuaid’s back.

  McQuaid sipped his wine. “How was your day?”

  “The usual,” I said. “Until Ruby told me that Karen Prior was mugged last night.”

  “Mugged!” That caught his attention and he straightened up. “Karen? Where? Is she going to be okay?”

  “Yes, mugged. At the mall. And no, not okay. The docs repaired a brain hemorrhage, but it doesn’t sound good. She’s in a coma, on life support—or she was, late this afternoon.”

  “Aw, hell.” McQuaid groaned. “Life support. Did they get the s.o.b. who did it?”

  “Not yet. A couple of girls spotted the getaway vehicle. A late-model four-door.”

  “Say what?” McQuaid pulled his dark brows together. “Since when are muggers driving late-model cars?” He paused, frowning. “Is there more to this than a simple mugging?”

  I began chopping a cucumber. “There might be. Sheila told Ruby and me that Felicity—she’s Karen’s daughter—reported that her mother got a phone call before she went to the mall last night. Felicity had the impression that the call might have had something to do with a documentary that a couple of Karen’s students are working on. Coincidentally, one of the girls happens to be Jake’s sister.”

  “Oh, yeah? Gretchen? Good student. She took a couple of courses from me—Enforcement Systems and Practices and Criminal Investigations, as I remember. Got an A in both. She’s thinking about a career in law enforcement. Or at least she was.”

  I nodded. “Felicity seems to think that her mom might have been planning to meet the caller. Which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the assault, of course.” In fact, when the phone call was checked out, the caller would probably turn out to be one of the students working on the film.

  “Nevertheless.” McQuaid swirled the wine in his glass. “The cops are looking into it with that in mind, I suppose.” He pushed his lips in and out. “You talked to Sheila today, huh? Did she mention . . . ?” He eyed me quizzically, leaving the sentence hanging.

  “Yes and yes.” I finished chopping the second cucumber and added it to the purslane and Malabar spinach in the salad bowl. “Sheila said Blackie was planning to talk to you. I hope he’s pleased.”

  “Dazed is more like it,” McQuaid said with a chuckle. “His boys are grown and he could be a grandfather. Now this.” Blackie has two sons from an earlier marriage, one in Dallas, another in the air force. “A baby is going to be a big change for him.”

  “In more ways than one,” I said, thinking that babies were entering into the day’s conversations a little more frequently than I was accustomed to. I began dicing the tomatoes. “Sheila is going to have to juggle her workload. And Blackie might not be so willing to take cases that involve travel.” I put the tomatoes into the salad. “I hope they know what they’re getting into.”

  “Does anybody?” McQuaid asked thoughtfully. “I mean, you can look only so far ahead. The rest . . .” He shrugged. “But that’s life. You just have to take it on faith.” He held up his wineglass, studying it. “But they must have wanted a baby. Otherwise—” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  “Mistakes happen,” I said. I chopped the green onions, dumped them into the bowl, and found the salad tongs in the drawer.

  “Mistakes don’t happen to Blackie and Sheila,” McQuaid said with a confident chuckle. “They’re careful. And deliberate.”

  “Also maybe passionate,” I said, amused. “Just a little.” He was watching me speculatively, one dark eyebrow quirked. I frowned, thinking of Sheila. And Sylvia Banner. “You don’t . . . I mean, you’re not wishing that we . . .” I got the dish of beans—canned pork and beans with some added garlic and chopped onions—out of the microwave. “That it was happening to us?”

  “Nooo,” he said slowly, drawing out the word. “The thought did cross my mind a while back. That it might be nice for us to have a child of our own. But that was before Caitie came along. She’ll be with us for at least six more years, and by that time—”

  “And by that time Brian may have given us a grandchild,” I said with a little laugh.

  He pulled his dark brows together. “Brian? You’ve got to be kidding, China. He’s . . . he’s just a kid! He—”

  “I’m willing to bet that the kid has the right equipment,” I said equably. “And that it’s in excellent operating order. Let’s just hope his head overrules the rest of him—and whatever might be going on between him and Jake.”

  McQuaid scowled. “I’d better have another talk with the boy. Make sure he understands the ground rules.” He finished off his wine. “Oh, by the way, we picked up a new case this week.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” The “Associates” part of the agency name is wishful thinking. There are just the two of them, McQuaid and Blackwell. Sometimes they’re stretched, and sometimes they get cases that have to be worked when the only people on the streets are the law and the outlaw. They can end up working twenty-four/seven. I couldn’t begin to imagine what Blackie was going to do when there was a baby in the house. He and Sheila would have to have live-in help, wouldn’t they? No wonder they were thinking of getting a bigger house.

  “Definitely good,” McQuaid replied. “And definitely better than the alternative. But Blackie still has his hands full with that situation in San Antonio, so this one is mine.”

  I eyed him. “Care to tell me about it?” Sometimes he will; mostly he won’t.

  “It’s a bee in Charlie Lipman’s bonnet.” He shrugged. “He doesn’t have a client—it’s something he wants to look into for his own reasons. It’s personal.”

  Ah, personal. Which meant that McQuaid wasn’t going to give me any of the grisly details, at least not right away. Charlie Lipman, Pecan Springs’ most popular lawyer, has been a close friend for as long as both of us have been in Pecan Springs. McQuaid handles most
of Charlie’s investigations. And since Charlie’s clients are usually prominent local citizens, McQuaid often finds himself digging up dirt on prominent local folk. It’s a good thing he doesn’t tell me everything he knows. I might not be able to function around some of these people.

  “Judging from what Charlie has told me so far, though,” he added, “it’s a thin case. A very thin, very old cold case. If I can dig up any leads at all, it’s likely to involve some forensic accounting.”

  “Well, if you’re looking for accounting help, you won’t do better than Kate,” I remarked. Kate Rodriguez is Amy’s partner: Amy, the wild child, Ruby’s daughter and the mother of Baby Grace, Ruby’s granddaughter. Amy and Kate have been living together for several years now. Kate owns her own accounting firm and does the books and the tax accounting for Ruby’s and my shops and our tearoom.

  “No problem there,” McQuaid replied. “Kate is the first one I thought of, too. The big problem is getting my hands on the records. That’s going to take some out-of-the-box thinking.”

  “I’m sure you’ll come up with something creative.” I put the dish of beans on the table. “Supper’s ready. You’d better go out and see what’s keeping the kids.”

  McQuaid set his empty glass down and pulled me against him. “Yeah,” he said. “But all this talk about babies reminds me of sex.” He tipped my head back and gave me a lascivious grin. “Maybe we could make a date, you and me. Like, tonight?”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said and kissed him on the chin. “But no babies. You hear?”

  “Aww,” he said, drawing the word out. “You are such a spoilsport, China.”

  But he was grinning when he said it.

  Chapter Three

  In England, red roses must be pruned carefully, for bad luck will follow if the petals fall from the blossom as it is cut. In Italy, in the last century, you weren’t supposed to give a fully opened rose to someone as a gift. If you did, a close relative of the recipient would surely die.

  China Bayles

  “Herbs of Good and Ill Omen”

  Pecan Springs Enterprise

  When Jake comes for supper, she and Brian usually take over the kitchen cleanup. This evening, though, McQuaid wanted Brian’s help with a project out in the barn, and the two of them disappeared. Caitie had done the dishes the night before, so I gave her a break and volunteered to work with Jake. Anyway, I wanted to talk to her.

  “I understand that Gretchen is working on her thesis project with Dr. Prior,” I said as we cleared the table. “I wonder—did you hear what happened?”

  If Jake were an ordinary teen, I wouldn’t have gone into it with her. But she demonstrated just how adult she is when she and Brian were involved in a tragic—and deadly—situation with one of the coaches at the high school a couple of years ago. She has her head on straight.

  “Gretchen told me that Dr. Prior was mugged in the parking lot at the mall.” Jake carried the casserole dish to the kitchen counter. “Actually, Dr. Prior is a friend of Mom’s, as well as Gretchen’s supervisor. She’s been to our house for dinner a couple of times.” She shook her head gravely. “Sounds pretty awful.”

  “I’m afraid it is,” I replied. “I just heard about it this afternoon. I wonder—did Gretchen know any of the details?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jake said. “She and Kitt—Kitt Bradley is Gretchen’s partner on the documentary—wanted to go straight over to the hospital to see her. But when they heard that she’s on life support, they thought they would probably be in the way. They decided to send flowers instead.” She turned around. “What should I put this leftover chicken into?”

  I got a dish out of the cupboard. “Here—this one’s about the right size.” I paused. “I understand that Felicity—Dr. Prior’s daughter—thought her mother got a phone call from somebody before she went to the mall. About the documentary, I mean.”

  Jake scraped the chicken into the dish. “That’s what Kitt told Gretchen. They were wondering who it could be.”

  “It wasn’t one of them? Kitt or Gretchen?”

  “Nope.” She looked up at me, her blue eyes troubled. “In fact, Gretchen got a call herself.”

  I turned on the water to rinse the plates. “About the documentary, you mean?”

  “Yeah.” Jake put the dish in the fridge. “Some guy. Gretchen asked who it was, but he wouldn’t give his name. He was, like . . . warning her. He said it wasn’t a good idea to go around stirring up hard feelings about something that was over and done with. She should stop doing it and make sure her film never came out. And then he hung up.” She paused. “Gretchen said it was kind of creepy.”

  “I’ll bet.” I began putting the plates into the dishwasher. “When did this happen? Did she tell Dr. Prior about it?”

  “Last week sometime. I don’t remember when. And no, she didn’t tell Dr. Prior, at least not right away. She and Kitt talked and decided it wasn’t important enough to bother her with it.” She paused. “But a couple of days later, Kitt got a call, too, so they changed their minds.” She gave me a sideways glance. “Kitt recorded it. The call, I mean, on her cell phone. She wasn’t sure it was legal to do that, though. So please don’t tell anybody.”

  “She doesn’t have to worry.” I rinsed the silver and began dropping it into the dishwasher bin. “Texas has a one-party-consent wiretapping law. Kitt can record any call she’s on without telling the other party.” I paused. “We’re assuming, of course, that the other party to the call is in Texas. If he—it was a guy?”

  Jake nodded.

  “If he was calling from a state that requires two-party consent, it would be illegal. But it was somebody who knew about the documentary, so we’re safe in assuming that he’s from Pecan Springs.” I paused. “And that he might be the same guy who called Gretchen.”

  Jake nodded again.

  “Do you know what he said?”

  “It was pretty much the same message that Gretchen got. A warning. She should stop filming because the documentary was stirring up old bad feelings. Stuff like that.”

  “She still has the recording?”

  “Well, she did—I guess she still does. She came over to our house and played it for Gretchen. It sounded . . . well, it was a little scary. That’s when she and Gretchen decided they should tell Dr. Prior.”

  “When was that?”

  “The call? A couple of days ago. They told Dr. Prior right away.” Jake looked worried. “Do you think those calls had anything to do with the mugging?”

  “Maybe. But Gretchen and Kitt really ought to talk to the police, Jake. There’s obviously something going on here.”

  “They don’t want to get involved,” Jake replied. “They’ve mostly finished filming and they’re ready to start editing. Their deadline is coming up in a few weeks.”

  “I understand about not getting involved,” I said. “And that was pretty much okay—until Dr. Prior was assaulted. Now that’s happened, the girls need to come forward with what they know, so the cops can put all the information together.”

  As I spoke, I thought of something else, and my skin prickled. Karen had been attacked—savagely attacked—and the evidence was mounting that the assault wasn’t random, that it had something to do with the documentary she was supervising. If that was true, Gretchen and Kitt could be in danger, as well.

  But I didn’t say this to Jake. And I wasn’t going to trust the girls to decide to share what they knew with the police. I said, “Tell you what, Jake. Chief Dawson is a good friend of mine. I’m going to call her tonight and tell her about these phone calls. Please let the girls know that somebody from the police will be in touch with them, and that it’s perfectly okay to tell the investigator about Kitt’s recording. In fact, if she still has it on her phone, they’ll be glad to have it. It may turn out to be important.”

  “Sure,” Jake said gratefully. She gave
me a quick glance. “Thanks, China. I’m glad I talked to you. I was beginning to worry a little bit. Now I know that everything will be okay.”

  “I’m sure it will,” I said. But I wasn’t quite as confident as I sounded.

  As soon as Jake and I finished tidying up the kitchen, I went into the living room, sat down in my favorite chair, and called Sheila at home. I gave her a quick rundown on the phone calls that Gretchen and Kitt had received, and mentioned that Kitt had recorded hers.

  “Smart move,” Sheila said approvingly. “Very smart. That recording could give us something to work on, China. Thanks for letting me know.”

  I hesitated. “I don’t want to jump into the middle of this, but I’m concerned about the girls’ safety. They’re making a film about a murder that’s still officially unsolved, and it sounds like somebody seriously wants them to stop what they’re doing. We know of two warning phone calls for sure, and maybe a third—the one to Karen. And there’s the attack.”

  “I’ll have the investigating officer call both students and make arrangements to talk to them,” Sheila said. Then she paused, thought for a moment, and said, “No, I’ll handle this myself. I need to get out of the office. I feel like I’m drowning in paperwork.” She sighed. “Or maybe I just want to put off dealing with the department’s pregnancy policy. I’ve been sitting here, reading what we have, and I can see how much work it needs. I feel like I’m about to stir up a hornet’s nest. And since I’m the one who’s pregnant, I’m the one who’ll get stung.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” I said sympathetically. “But I agree that it’s a good idea for you to get away from the paperwork. I think the girls will be more comfortable talking to you, anyway.” As chief, Sheila doesn’t have the time to do much fieldwork, even though she’s very good at it. “Oh, and don’t forget about tomorrow,” I added. “Lunch is on us.”

  “Just don’t ask me to eat the daisies,” she said.

  “Roses,” I corrected her. “We’ll be eating roses.”