Lavender Lies

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “Since Edgar died ... that is, since he was ... killed, I’ve been thinking ...” She dug a tissue out of her black bag and wiped her eyes. “I mean, I’ve been terribly worried about ... well, some of the things he was ...” She swallowed and used the tissue again. “But I don’t think anyone can help, really.” Her thin voice broke, and she put one trembling hand to her mouth. “Everything is in such a terrible mess. I really shouldn’t be bothering anybody with my troubles.” That last bit sounded, I thought, a little forced—but she had been through a great deal in the last few days. She was entitled.

  “Drink your sherry,” Fannie advised. “China will help if she can.” She smiled at me. “Won’t you, China?”

  I took my cue and made a reassuring noise that Letty seemed to take for assent. She sipped her sherry, straightened her shoulders, and made a fresh start. “Edgar was involved in a great many things I didn’t understand,” she said. “He was always getting phone calls in the middle of the night and he rented mailboxes in three or four cities. I know of at least three bank accounts, and—” She broke off.

  “It sounds as if he may have had some unorthodox business dealings,” I said cautiously. “But I’m not sure how that affects you, Letty. The police will check the mailboxes and the bank accounts to be sure there’s nothing criminal and—”

  “—and there was another w-w-woman, too,” Letty said, in a choked voice, not hearing me. There was a silence.

  After a moment, Fannie leaned forward. “I heard something about Edgar and his secretary,” she prompted. Her voice was sympathetic. “Iris Powell—isn’t that her name?”

  “Iris?” Letty gave her a distant look. “Edgar was only playing around with her. He did that quite a bit, but it didn’t mean anything.”

  “You knew about Iris?” Fannie asked in surprise.

  Letty nodded bleakly. “Pauline Perkins, too.” She straightened and returned Fannie’s look with something close to defiance. “Maybe you think I was a fool. But that was the price I paid for falling in love with a younger, good-looking man who was, well, oversexed.” She gave an apologetic little cough. “Unfortunately, I’ve never been ... that way. In fact, for me it’s just the opposite. I was afraid I would lose him if I didn’t let him—” Her face was burning and she dropped her eyes. “If he couldn’t find an outlet for all that ... sexual energy. So I told him he could have his affairs as long as he was discreet. As long as it was just a ... well, just a physical thing. I couldn’t have tolerated it if he’d had any real feeling for anybody else. That’s what I would consider infidelity.” She sighed. “But in the past month or so, I began to think that maybe he ...” Her voice trailed off.

  “That he had fallen in love with someone?” I asked gently.

  “Yes.” She raised her dark, anxious eyes to mine. “That’s why I’ve come to you.”

  I returned the look, wondering what special strengths—or what particular weaknesses—were required of a woman to acknowledge and accept her husband’s adulterous games, one after another. But Letty wasn’t the first and she wouldn’t be the last to tolerate such behavior within the confines of her marriage, even after it became public knowledge. That must be the worst of it, actually—knowing that other people know, thinking about what they’re saying, feeling the humiliation of their curiosity or their censure or their pity.

  I cleared my throat. “What made you think there was somebody else?”

  “Edgar was ... different. Moody, preoccupied. Most of the time, he was so easygoing and jovial, always making jokes. But lately, he had something on his mind, and it was bothering him.”

  “Maybe it was the annexation proposal. The Council turned it down—that couldn’t have made him happy.”

  “It wasn’t that.” Letty sighed. “Anyway, there were other things. A note, a couple of phone calls. He was very secretive about it.”

  “Do you know who she is?”

  “I think so,” she said. Her voice was taut, her fingers twisted into a knot. “But I’m really only guessing about their relationship. I want you to find out if I’m right.”

  Fannie leaned forward. “Hold your horses, Letty. This is a matter for the police. If Edgar was seriously involved with somebody else, they need to know.”

  Letty whirled to face her. “But what if I’m wrong?” she cried in an anguished voice. “Just look what’s happened to poor Pauline Perkins! I learned today that her husband is filing for divorce, and all because of what Edgar did to her.” I wanted to point out that Pauline herself wasn’t totally blameless, but Letty was going on, becoming more passionate. “You know what people are like in this town. Once you’ve crossed the line, they never forgive you. Pauline’s political career is finished. This other woman ... she’s married, and active in church and volunteer work. Her husband is a professional, and they have a child. They’re decent people, and I don’t want to see their marriage wrecked.” Her mouth tightened and her voice became hard, knife-edged. “Unless it’s true. Then I’ll tell the police myself, with pleasure. I swear I will.” She held out her hands to me, imploring. “Please—will you help?”

  “You need a private detective,” I said.

  She shook her head. “I need somebody I can trust. Somebody who lives here and knows people and can find things out without stirring up suspicions. Somebody who understands about investigations and the way the law operates. You used to be a criminal attorney, and Fannie and Charlotte say I can trust you. You’re the perfect choice.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting that the man I live with happens to be the temporary chief of police?” I asked. “How do you know I won’t go straight to him with anything I find out?”

  “I trust you not to tell him what he doesn’t need to know,” Letty said.

  I sat back. I wanted to tell Letty that I had a wedding to attend to, which was far more important than discovering which of her dead husband’s sexual infidelities had been fired by love rather than lust. But if I took her plea at face value, there was both wisdom and compassion in it. For the sake of all concerned, it would be far more sensible to conduct a speedy private inquiry. If I found out that there had been another affair, I would turn the names, dates, and serial numbers over to Letty, who would then go to McQuaid with the information. Or I could tell him myself, at any time it seemed appropriate.

  But there was something else. For some reason—I wasn’t sure why—I couldn’t quite take Letty’s proposal at face value. I couldn’t get over the feeling that there was another motive behind it, something she wouldn’t or couldn’t reveal. Maybe it was guilt; surely she had to acknowledge to herself that if she had refused to accept her husband’s behavior, he might still be alive. Or maybe it was a flaming anger, deep down inside, where she couldn’t reach it. Fortunately or unfortunately, even the merest whiff of deception or self-deception intrigues me. I’m tantalized by the thought that somebody is hiding something from me or from themselves, and I want to know what it is. And more: I had come away from this afternoon’s conversation with Winnie with the distinct idea that several people knew more about Coleman’s recent activities than they were likely to tell the police. Plenty of murder cases are never solved, especially when the suspect list numbers in the double digits and every suspect has something important to hide. This case was beginning to smell like one of them.

  I looked at Letty. “I think you may have the right idea,” I said slowly, “but I need to think about it. I’m getting married this Sunday, and I’m pretty busy.”

  Fannie gave a short laugh. “That’s the understatement of the year,” she said to Letty. “China already has more on her plate than she can say grace over.” She frowned, and I knew she was sorry that she’d allowed Letty to inflict herself on me. “Letty, if I’d known what you intended to ask, I wouldn’t have—”

  “It really won’t take much time,” Letty said, almost desperately. “Maybe all you have to do is ask her and she’ll tell you. Her name is—”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to
know who she is unless I’m going to do something about it.” The way things turned out, it was a dumb response, and if Ruby had been there, she would have given me a sharp kick in the shins. But Fannie was right. I already had too much to do without getting involved in Letty’s problem, and I wanted to make that point.

  Letty put her hand on my arm. Her fingers were like claws, and there was an enormous power and passion behind her Please.

  “Let me think about it overnight,” I said.

  So that was how we left it. I got her phone number and promised to call her in the morning. Fannie gave me a hug, hiked up her running shorts, and the two of them drove off. With a sigh of relief, I headed for the kitchen. Constructing designer sandwiches for a pair of ravenous kids is hardly the world’s most demanding job, but after that session with Letty, I was ready to throw myself into it, heart and soul.

  Throughout my life, I have lived in a number of apartments, condos, and houses and cooked in kitchens that ranged in size from microscopic to midget. This kitchen, however, has enough sink and counter space to build a twelve-course dinner, with room left over for a large fridge, a scarred pine table that seats eight comfortably, my beloved Home Comfort gas range (which is old enough to qualify for Social Security), and an oak rocking chair beside a floor-to-ceiling window, where Howard Cosell can lie and grind his teeth over the mockingbirds diving for bugs in the grass. I sighed as I got out sandwich fixings and a head of cabbage, thinking with regret that there would soon be another kitchen in my life. But no sooner than January, the lawyer in me vowed, no matter what the Tuckers had up their devious sleeves. In the meantime, I would enjoy every minute of this one.

  So I happily shredded cabbage for cole slaw, arranged cold cuts, and sliced Swiss cheese and huge Big Boy tomatoes and a sweet yellow onion the size of a grapefruit, humming “Whistle While You Work” and refusing to think about rascally husbands, ruined marriages, and murder. Until Brian and Melissa walked in and put the gun on the table in front of me.

  “We didn’t touch it, honest,” Brian said earnestly. “Except with the stick, that is.”

  “That’s how we carried it,” Melissa elaborated. “With the stick in that trigger thing. We didn’t want to mess up the fingerprints. If there are any.”

  “The trigger guard,” Brian said importantly, reaching down to pet Howard Cosell, who had come away from the window to see what was going on. “Hi, Howard Cosell, you good old dog.” He headed for the phone, leaving a trail of muddy footprints on the floor.

  “I was afraid it would go off,” Melissa told me, her face sober. “Brian said it wasn’t loaded, so it wouldn’t. But we were careful anyway.”

  “Wasn’t cocked,” Brian corrected her, dialing. “I could tell by looking at the hammer.”

  “Right,” Melissa said respectfully. “Cocked. Brian knows all about guns.” She shrugged out of her backpack, and I saw that she was muddy to the knees. Howard Cosell abandoned Brian and came over to sniff Melissa’s jeans. “We kinda thought,” she said, “that it could be the same gun that killed that guy in the garage. That’s why we didn’t want to mess up the fingerprints. We didn’t want anybody to see us, either, just in case.”

  I stared at the gun—a .32 Beretta caked with mud—where it lay beside half a head of cabbage, an onion, and a plate of sliced tomatoes. I could see tiny dried blood spatters on the top of the barrel. “Where did you find it?” I asked.

  “On the bank of the creek,” Melissa replied. She frowned. “There was somebody who saw us, though. A woman in a car. She was watching.”

  “Hey, listen, Dad,” I heard Brian say.

  Dad? I whirled around. “Brian, I think you’d better let me talk to—”

  “Hey, man,” Brian said into the phone. “Melissa and me, we like found this pistol and kinda thought maybe it’s the one you’re looking for. You know, the one that killed that guy you and China didn’t want to talk about last night.”

  I could hear McQuaid’s explosive What? from where I stood.

  “Yeah,” Brian said. “Cool, huh? Anyway, we brought it home. It’s here on the table. What time are you coming for supper?”

  Melissa tilted her head, regarding me with a worried look. “What happened to your nose?”

  “A door,” I said to her. To Brian, I said, “He’s not coming for supper. He’s working late.”

  Melissa stopped looking at my nose, reached into her pack, and pulled out a lidded quart jar. It was filled with dirty water and a dozen greenish creatures with big eyes and long tails. “Tadpoles for the snakes,” she explained, setting the jar on the table. “They look like sperm, don’t they? With eyes.” She dove back into her pack and came up with a small wasp’s nest. “Don’t worry,” she told me reassuringly. ”There aren’t any grown ones in there. Just a bunch of grubs.”

  “Okay,” Brian said into the phone. “I’ll tell her. See ya.” He hung up.

  “And this,” Melissa said with pleasure, “is a present for you.” She pulled out a bread wrapper filled with muddy leaves and handed it to me. “It’s mint. We found it growing wild, where we found the gun. A great big patch of it. We thought you could make some tea with it.” She eyed me thoughtfully. “Or maybe you could put it on your nose. You know, like they did in the old days. It might be good.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Sounds like a fine idea.” I looked at Brian. “What did your father say?”

  “He said he’ll see us when he gets here.” Brian squatted down so that his eyes were level with the glass jar. “Some tadpoles,” he said admiringly. “Man, they’re really big. Like wow.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Tadpolis giganticus. Where did you find the gun?”

  “Same place we found the tadpoles. Hey,” he said to Melissa, “they look like that sperm stuff we saw on TV, don’t they?”

  “Yeah,” Melissa said, very seriously. “Except they’ve got eyes. Sperm don’t have eyes, do they?” She appealed to me. “Do they, China?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “I never looked.” When I was their age, the thought of sperm had never crossed my mind.

  “Probably not,” Melissa said thoughtfully. “The egg is so big, all they have to do is bump into it. They don’t need to look where they’re going.”

  Lord deliver us. I turned to Brian. “Where exactly did you find the gun? Like where on the map?”

  “Jordan’s Crossing.” Brian unscrewed the lid and poked the tadpoles with his finger. They began to wiggle madly. “You know, where the creek goes through those big concrete pipes. It was just laying there, like maybe somebody threw it out of a car window or something.”

  “Lying,” I amended.

  “Not,” Brian said indignantly. “It’s the truth, ain’t it, Melissa?”

  I sighed. “Go on.”

  “That’s all. It was just laying there, and we saw it.” He held the jar up. “I wonder how many we got. A couple of dozen, at least.” He began to count. “One, two, three—”

  “Fifteen,” Melissa said. “I counted them when I put them in.” She frowned. “Be careful, Brian. That jar is really slip—”

  The good news is that the tadpole jar did not fall on the gun and destroy whatever evidence it might have offered. The bad news is that it fell on the table, bounced and splashed, then rolled off the table and onto the floor. Shortly after we had put out the dog, rounded up fourteen frantic tadpoles and restored them to a new quart jar, and cleaned up the mess, McQuaid hobbled in. Marvin Wallace was with him.

  “Where’s the gun?” Marvin demanded. “I want to see it.”

  “Good evening,” I said pleasantly. “So nice of you two to take time out of your busy schedule to drop in. Would you like to stay for supper, or shall I pack you a brown bag?”

  Marvin had the grace to look embarrassed. McQuaid gave me a tentative grin, testing my mood. “Mind if Marvin joins us?”

  “Of course not,” I said. The gracious hostess. “I’ll put on another plate.”

  “Here’s the gun, Dad
,” Brian said. He and Melissa proudly displayed their find. There was a brief consultation, then McQuaid sacked and labeled the gun.

  “Good job, kids,” Marvin said, clapping his hand on Brian’s shoulder and smiling at Melissa. “You did the right thing—although you might have left the gun there and gone to a phone to call us.”

  “But we were afraid somebody might take it,” Brian objected. He turned to his dad. “Is it the gun you’re looking for?”

  “Could be,” McQuaid said noncommittally. “We won’t know until the ballistics tests are run.” He didn’t mention the blood, which the children might not have seen.

  Melissa was staring at Marvin, who was still wearing his white Stetson. “I’ve never met a Ranger before.”

  Marvin took his hat off and bowed. “At your service, little lady,” he said, sounding like a character in a grade-B Western.

  Melissa gave him a dark look. “I’m not very little,” she said. “And I’m not a lady.” I smiled. Out of the mouth of babes.

  McQuaid straightened up, leaning on his canes. “Okay, you guys did good. Now we’ll go to the creek and you can show me where—”

  “No,” I said firmly. “Now we eat supper, then you go to the creek.”

  Marvin looked at his watch. “I don’t mean to be rude, but do you suppose we could hurry it up a little?”

  “Sure,” I said. “If you and McQuaid will set the table, we can get dinner out of the way in a jiffy.”

  Marvin gave me a startled look, but followed instructions. I put the food on the table, and we all sat down. I very much wanted to tell McQuaid about my conversations with Winnie and Letty and find out what was going on at his end of the investigation. I also wanted to know what he had learned when he interviewed Phyllis’s husband, and whether it was true that Darryl had filed for divorce. But I wasn’t about to ask questions in front of the kids, so the guys got to keep their cop-secrets to themselves. With Brian and Melissa monopolizing the dinner table conversation, we heard more about the sexual habits of reptiles than we wanted to know. To change the subject from the striking similarity between tadpoles and sperm, I asked Melissa how she liked living in Pecan Springs.