A Sprig of Blossomed Thorn

by Patrice Greenwood

  “I trust Kris, yes,” I said firmly. “She’s a good and honest person. Her lifestyle’s a bit different than mine, but as long as she does her job well and does credit to the tearoom, I have no complaint.”

  Lydia looked thoughtful. “I could try and talk to them, I guess, but they’re never around. Ramon goes out with them, he never asks them to the house.”

  “Maybe because he knows you disapprove.”

  She nodded. “He knows that all right. I’d better talk to him.”

  I smiled, then finished my wine and checked my watch. It was getting close to five.

  “Would you like some more to drink?” Lydia asked.

  “No, thank you. I should probably be going soon, but I did want a word with Rosa. Is she in the house?”

  Lydia nodded. “She was in the kitchen a minute ago.”

  We went back into the house and parted in the living room. I returned to the kitchen, but didn’t see Rosa. Sherry was still there, though the woman she’d been talking with was gone. She glanced up at me and smiled, the smile of one greeting a comrade. It made me realize that she and I were the only Anglos present.

  “Hi,” she said. “Ellen, right?”

  “Right.” I set my empty cup on the counter.

  “I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier, I just love your tearoom.”

  “Oh! Thanks. You’ve been to tea, then?”

  Sherry nodded. “I took my mother on Mother’s Day. She adored it.”

  “You’re from Santa Fe?”

  “We moved here when I was ten. Mom and Dad bought a little shop over by Sanbusco and sold antique furniture. They did pretty well.”

  “Is that where your gallery is?”

  “No, I’m on Canyon Road.”

  I raised my brows. “Big time.”

  She gave a nod of acknowledgment. “I got lucky. Hired on at the White Iris after college, and when Vanessa retired I bought her out.”

  “Very nice.”

  We were momentarily alone in the kitchen. I took a step closer to Sherry and lowered my voice.

  “Pardon me for asking a nosy question, but I’ve been wondering—was Maria unkind to you?”

  Her cheeks pinked up, but she hastily shook her head. “Not unkind. She was always polite—painfully polite. I know she disapproved of me, and I think she wished I’d just go away, but she never said so to my face.”

  “It must have been awkward.”

  “More for Matt than for me. They argued so much over me, and I know he loved her.” She shook her head. “What can you do? We fell in love. There was no question of breaking up.”

  “Is the rest of the family supportive?”

  She nodded. “Mostly. Rick’s a bit like his mom, but he’s more open-minded. He knows Matt won’t change his mind.”

  “That seems to be a family trait.”

  “Yes.” She laughed softly. “I said no the first couple of times Matt proposed. I knew it would be a problem with Maria, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “Do you find the cultural difference a problem? Between you and Matt, I mean.”

  I was asking more for myself than out of speculation about Maria’s death. I waited rather tensely for her answer.

  She frowned slightly in thought, then shook her head. “Matt is just Matt. I love him for himself. The rest is small stuff, nothing we can’t work out.”

  My stomach did a slow flip. The implication that the same might apply to me and Tony was frightening, though there was one important difference: Sherry and Matt were both devout Catholics. That had to work in their favor with Matt’s family.

  I tried to distract myself, get back to my ostensible inquiry. Polite nosiness about the family’s loss was far safer than these speculations.

  “You must have mixed feelings about Maria’s death,” I said.

  Sherry gave a small sigh. “I’m sad about it. Matt’s feelings are more mixed than mine. He loved her very much, but he’s also relieved, and feels guilty for that.”

  I nodded. All very understandable. From Sherry’s demeanor I could not imagine that either she or Matt had had anything to do with Maria’s death. I would have sworn she hadn’t, and she was smart enough to have been suspicious if Matt had acted the least bit oddly. If I was wrong, then she deserved an Academy Award.

  A quick footstep drew our attention. Matt came into the kitchen.

  “There you are,” he said. “It’s time to go.” He glanced at me and smiled briefly. “Sorry to interrupt, but we’re meeting people for dinner.”

  “Big client,” Sherry added. “Shmooze and booze time.”

  I nodded understanding. “It was nice chatting with you,” I said to Sherry. “I’ll have to come by and visit your gallery. I haven’t been over to Canyon Road in a while.”

  “Please do.”

  I turned to Matt, offering a hand. “I’m glad to have met you, though I’m sorry it’s under such sad circumstances.”

  Caught off guard, he showed a flash of dismay. His grip was rather firm, and I saw him swallow. In that moment he reminded me strongly of Rick.

  “Thank you,” he said in a rough voice, then released my hand and shepherded Sherry out of the kitchen.

  I stayed behind, thinking about the last few minutes. If there was anyone I was unsure of, it was Matt. He seemed genuinely distressed, but could that not be caused by guilt?

  Unlike Estella, he wasn’t estranged from Maria. He’d continued to see her and argue with her. It was conceivable that he could have gotten close enough to inject her with botulism, but where would a lawyer get hold of the stuff? And while he might be able to inject her, I doubted he’d be able to do it without her noticing.

  I was beginning to agree with Tony. It looked like this was not a murder. Perhaps I’d been wasting my time, perhaps even annoying the Garcias. Time to throw in the towel, I decided.

  Julio came in, took a glass from a cupboard, and filled it with water from the dispenser in the door of the refrigerator. A son comfortable in his own home, though I knew he no longer lived there. I wondered how close he had been to Maria.

  “How are you doing?” I asked him.

  He hunched a shoulder and chugged the water. Tense, I thought, but I couldn't figure out a way to help.

  “You look very elegant,” I said.

  He exhaled in an ironic huff. “Sacrificial costume for the matriarch.”

  “Do you not like wearing a suit?”

  “It's not who I am.”

  Who he was: bright, creative, unconventional. The latter would probably have annoyed Maria, from what I had learned. I wanted to encourage him to talk about his grandmother, but I sensed this wasn't the right place.

  “Just a heads-up,” I said instead. “I'll be asking you to draft a menu tomorrow. Annual dinner for a club. I need to give them a quote.”

  “OK. Big dinner?”

  “Big group, probably a lighter menu. It's mostly women.”

  “Maybe a buffet.”

  “Sure. See what you can come up with.”

  “OK. Is there a theme?”

  I bit my lip. “Roses.”

  Julio grimaced, and turned to refill his glass.

  “Kris wants to talk to you about her dinner, too. She asked me to give you her condolences.”

  He nodded, then stared into the glass.

  “You sure you're OK coming in tomorrow? Tuesdays are slow—“

  “I'm OK. Thanks.”

  OK, but angry, I thought. Why?

  “All right,” I said. “See you later.”

  I left him in the kitchen and went into the living room, looking for Rosa. She wasn’t among those sitting and chatting. I glanced toward the back door and saw her coming in from the portal.

  “Mama said you were looking for me,” she said, coming up to me.

  “Yes. Care to walk me to my car?”

  “Sure.”

  We went out the front and down the sidewalk to the street. The afternoon heat rose up from the pave
ment, a contrast to the cool comfort of the Garcias’ garden.

  “I just wanted to let you know you can take tomorrow off if you wish,” I said. “Tuesdays are usually slow.”

  “Thanks. Maybe I will. Okay if I call later and let you know?”

  “Absolutely.” I passed Kris's good wishes along to her, then glanced at the house and gestured toward the front yard. “Your father told me you take care of the roses.”

  Rosa nodded. “Nana’s flowers. She always checked how they were doing when she came to visit. If they weren’t in good shape she’d start working on them, and Papa would worry she was overdoing it.”

  “You have a lot of rosebushes. It must be time-consuming.”

  Rosa nodded and smiled sadly. “Papa wants to plant a rosebush at the cemetery, but they won’t allow it.”

  “Well, there are other places he could plant one,” I said, thinking of the Our Lady of Guadalupe rose.

  “I don’t think he should plant a rose for her memorial,” Rosa said. “It was a rose that poked Nana, and that’s why she died.”

  23

  “What?” I said, staring at Rosa in surprise.

  “It was a rose that poked her,” she repeated. “It got infected and never healed. She told me about it, and when they said it was the hurt on her wrist that had gotten the botulism, I realized it must have been the poke from the rose.”

  “Did she tell you which rose caused the wound?”

  Rosa shrugged and shook her head. “Could’ve been here, or it could’ve been in the city garden. She went to visit there a lot. It doesn’t matter, does it? You said the botulism probably came from the soil.”

  “Yes, I did say that.”

  I frowned. Maria had recently been released from the hospital, and was in no shape to be down on her knees gardening. I couldn’t picture her coming in contact with the soil. Getting poked by a rose I could picture, but how would the wound have been infected?

  “Rosa, when did she tell you about being poked? Do you remember?”

  Rosa frowned, thinking. “It was the same day she decided to come to the tearoom, and I know I made the reservation a week in advance, so—almost two weeks ago?”

  “And when was the last time you saw her near a rosebush?”

  “She comes to dinner here every week, but she hasn’t been out in the garden since she came home from the hospital.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Rosa nodded. “Why?”

  “Just trying to narrow things down.” I glanced at my watch. “I think I’ll stop by the City Rose Garden.”

  “I wish I could come with you,” Rosa said. “Nana had a favorite rosebush there. I’d like to try to figure out which one it was.”

  “I think I can tell you that.”

  Rosa’s eyes widened. “You can? Oh, please take me with you then! I want to see it.”

  “Won’t your parents mind your leaving?”

  “No, it’ll be fine. I’ll go tell Mama where I’m going.”

  She ran back to the house as fast as her long dress would let her. Her urgency surprised me a little, but I wasn’t about to question it. If seeing her grandmother’s rosebush would comfort her, I was all for it. I dug in my purse for my keys, and by the time I had the car unlocked she was back, with her own small purse in her hands.

  “Didn’t your grandmother ever take you to the city garden?” I asked as I started the car and fired up the air conditioning.

  Rosa shook her head. “That was something she did away from the family. She had stuff like that. The Chamber of Commerce, business stuff, you know. She took Papa to the Chamber meetings sometimes, but she never took us to Rose Guild stuff. I’m not sure she really liked it.”

  “She liked it enough to stay in for twenty years.”

  “She was always complaining about it, though. The other ladies argued a lot, I guess. It didn’t sound like fun.”

  I turned toward the City Rose Garden, which was only a few blocks away. Glancing at Rosa, I wondered how specific Maria had been about what went on in the Rose Guild.

  “I think it was mostly just one or two ladies arguing,” I said. “I’ve met several who were very nice.”

  Rosa shot me a skeptical glance. “She said they didn’t want to plant her rosebush.”

  “Well, that’s true, but it was only a few of them.”

  “I asked her to show me the rose after they planted it, but she said no. Said she didn’t want to take the chance we might run into one of the nasty ladies. She didn’t want me anywhere near the fighting.”

  “That bad?”

  Rosa nodded and looked out the window. The garden was ahead on our left, full of people as before. I parked in the first space I could find, and walked with Rosa toward the corner where Maria’s rosebush was planted.

  “Why do you want to see this rose if your grandmother wanted you to stay away?”

  A determined frown came onto Rosa’s face. “She could take care of it when she was alive. Now it’s my job.”

  “The Guild will take care of it, I’m sure.”

  Rosa shook her head. “Nana didn’t trust them to, and neither do I.”

  We passed an elderly couple sitting on a bench and traded smiles with them. Even on this warm Monday afternoon there were several people in the garden. I found myself tallying up the Anglos and Hispanics. Looking for balance, an even mix? There were a slight majority of whites, though most of the kids were Hispanic.

  Stop it, I told myself. No one’s keeping score.

  We neared the corner of the park, and I started looking for Maria’s rosebush. I didn’t see the splash of pink where I expected it. For a moment I thought I’d gotten turned around, then I recognized a Brigadoon rose nearby.

  I stopped in front of a gap in the cornermost bed. With Rosa beside me, I stared at the shorn-off stumps of canes that were all that was left of the Our Lady of Guadalupe rose.

  24

  Rosa turned a hurt face toward me. “Was this it?”

  I nodded. A terrible sinking feeling gripped me. Why would someone chop down a perfectly healthy rosebush? Aphids aside, the Our Lady rose had been a beautiful plant. Could someone have hated Maria enough to have cut down her rosebush the very day of her funeral?

  I knelt to look more closely at the stumps. They were still green, and the sap on the cut ends looked relatively fresh. My guess was that the rose had been cut that morning.

  I stood up and looked around, wondering if anyone from the Guild was in the garden. I didn’t see anyone I recognized.

  “They hated her, didn’t they?” Rosa said.

  I looked at her and saw tears streaking her face. I gave her my handkerchief and put an arm around her shoulders.

  “No, dear. They didn’t hate her.” Not all of them.

  “Then why did they cut down her roses?”

  “I don’t know, honey. I don’t know.”

  She cried into my shoulder for a couple of minutes. I held her, knowing she probably needed the release.

  I suspected Lucy Kingston had cut down the rose, though I had trouble imagining her doing something so vicious. Lucy was a follower, Joan had said. This act of hatred seemed more like the act of an instigator.

  As we stood there, I noticed an older Hispanic woman looking at us from a yard across the street. She came out through a gate in the picket fence and crossed the street toward us.

  “You looking for Maria’s rosebush?” she said in a challenging voice. “It’s in the dumpster.” She waved an arm toward a trash dumpster over by the Guild’s storage shed, her face in an expression of contempt.

  Rosa was pulling herself together, but was in no shape to answer yet. She sniffled into my handkerchief.

  “Did you see who cut it?” I asked the woman.

  She nodded. She wore a striped top and beige slacks, and a well-worn wedding ring. Her dark hair was piled on her head in an old-lady salon do. She seemed a nice neighborly type, except that at the moment she was scowling.

  �
�One of those Rose Club people,” she said. “I don’t know her name, but she always wears a floppy hat.”

  That could describe half the Rose Guild, I thought.

  “She was here earrrrly in the morning,” said the neighbor lady, relishing her recital. “I saw her through the window when I was making my coffee. She had some of those big clippers—” she gestured as if using long-handled shears “—and she just chopped it, snip, snip! Then she rolled it up in a tarp and threw it in the trash.”

  I looked at the dumpster, frowning. I was beginning to have a nasty suspicion.

  “You friends of Maria’s?” the neighbor asked.

  “Yes,” I answered for both of us. “This is her granddaughter. Did you know Maria?”

  “I knew who she was. She didn’t know me, but I saw her come to the garden to take care of that rose.”

  “When was the last time you saw her here?” I asked.

  “A week ago Sunday. She came and pruned that rosebush, even though she was in a walker!”

  My pulse started to accelerate. The timing was right, if I recalled correctly. Tony had said that botulism could take several days to build up in the system.

  “You didn’t see her get down on the ground, did you?” I asked.

  The neighbor shook her head. “No. She had a little bucket hanging on the walker, and she put the clippings in there, then she threw them away when she was done.”

  “Was she wearing gloves?”

  “No. She didn’t used to wear gloves, not that I ever saw.”

  “Nana never wore gloves,” Rosa said in a thick voice.

  A choice that might have cost her life, I thought. Keeping that to myself, I turned to the neighbor.

  “Thank you. May I ask your name? I’m Ellen Rosings.”

  “Alma Chacón.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Chacón. You’ve been very helpful.”

  She smiled then, transforming from angry old lady to sweet old lady in an instant. “Maria was a saint,” she declared with a firm nod, then turned to go back to her own garden.

  I looked at Rosa. “Do you mind waiting here for a couple of minutes?”

  Rosa shook her head, still staring at the severed cane stumps. I squeezed her shoulders and let go.