by Lora Roberts
“Isn’t it early for that?”
“No.” Bridget shuddered. “Already it’s monstrously crowded at that big warehouse toy store, a place I hate so much that every time I go, I vow I won’t go back. I ended up at the Sport and Toy downtown, paying a lot more. But you know, they had everything the boys wanted, stuff the other place was already out of.”
“It seems to me that what those boys want changes almost daily. What if they outgrow Nerf before Christmas?”
“A risk I’ll have to take.” Bridget shrugged. “I’m getting burned out on the whole present thing. We’re going to make stuff for everyone else in the family.”
When we went inside, Amy was up, standing by the kitchen sink with a glass of milk in her hand. She greeted Bridget with pleasure, and I was relieved that Bridget didn’t lecture. I got an empty milk carton out from under the sink and filled it with water for Bridget’s roses.
“Aunt Liz,” Amy said, staring out the window over the sink, “who is that woman? She’s been watching your driveway ever since I got up.”
I glanced out the window, not too surprised to see Carlotta’s Buick parked at the end of the drive. “She’s a nutty woman who’s stalking me. No big deal.”
Bridget was shocked. She joined me at the sink. “It’s Carlotta,” she exclaimed. “What in the world—you say she’s stalking you?”
I was sorry I’d spoken so. It was beginning to seem funny to me, although the sight of her did send a bit of chill along my spine. “She’s watching me. Thinks I’ll mur—thinks I’ll misbehave, I guess.”
“The hag,” Bridget muttered. “I’ll speak with her on my way home.”
“Are you going?” Amy had overlooked my slip, which was good, since I didn’t want to have to go into all that right now. “I was wondering—could I talk to you for a little while, Mrs. Montrose?”
“Why, certainly, Amy.” Bridget shot me a glance, but I didn’t look at her. “Shall we walk around Liz’s garden?”
I had hoped Amy would consult with someone more fitting to advise her than a spinster aunt. Bridget was that someone, as far as I was concerned. Despite her hard-line stance earlier, I knew she would do her best to give Amy an impartial viewpoint. I went to my desk to get my work in order, but with Amy temporarily out of the way, my thoughts returned to Carlotta, to Lois, to Tamiko. A picture of Rita, awkwardly disposed in Lois’s garden plot, rose in my mind, and I remembered what Lois had said about her sainted Sidney. I wondered if Bruno knew about Lois’s shrine.
Bridget and Amy came back. Amy looked subdued; she’d been crying. Bridget gave her a sympathetic pat. “I’m sorry, hon. I would like to help you make up your mind, but I can’t. You’ve got to do this one on your own, unless your family—”
“You don’t understand. No one understands.” Amy headed for the bathroom, the only private refuge in my little house.
Bridget looked troubled. Then she turned to me. “I almost forgot what I really came over for. There’s a memorial thing for Rita tonight at the garden. People have been putting flowers and candles there where she was found, and there’s going to be some kind of brief ceremony. I’ll stop by for you.”
“I don’t want to go.” Thinking about the looks, the whispering, made me cringe.
“You should, though. Don’t let the whisperers have power over you, Liz. I’ll stick by you, and I know Tamiko will, too.” A shadow crossed her face when she mentioned my garden neighbor. “She’ll need your support as well. We’ll prop each other up.”
I surrendered, reluctantly. “Okay, I’ll go. But if it’s horrid, I may have to bolt.”
“Understood.” She took her milk carton of roses and left. I stood at the sink, scrubbing a couple of winter squash for baking, and saw her stop by Carlotta’s car on her way to her own car. Bridget’s shoulders slumped when she turned away after speaking to Carlotta. I felt like slumping, too. From the bathroom came the sound of Amy’s gusty sobs.
I turned my back on the view of Carlotta parked at the end of my drive and put a pot of water on the stove. Then I went to my desk. Even if I wasn’t really getting anything done, I could pretend I was working. There was some comfort in that.
Chapter 13
No matter what her state of mind, Amy’s appetite remained unimpaired. She devoured a large quantity of pasta with vegetables, and most of an acorn squash. I had taken a loaf of zucchini bread from the freezer, and she ate that, too, spread with the cream cheese and honey mixture I make up and keep for a treat. She polished it all off with quantities of milk, and seemed more relaxed. I hoped I could afford to feed her for the next couple of weeks.
“That was good,” Amy complimented me. “I’m thinking of being a vegetarian, Aunt Liz. Mom cooks so much meat all the time. It’s oppressive.”
“I’m only a vegetarian for economic reasons,” I reminded her. “And you probably need to eat meat right now. I don’t know much about pregnancy, but aren’t you making a lot more red blood cells or something?”
“I don’t care.” Amy’s jaw set mulishly. “I won’t be pregnant for long, anyway.” She sighed. “I think.”
I wanted to ask what course of action she planned to follow, but I didn’t. There was nothing she could do until Monday. Then I hoped to persuade her to see a doctor. She looked perfectly healthy, but it was best to be sure.
“God,” she went on. “If only he wasn’t such a jerk. It would be so wrong to allow his spawn to populate the world.”
“Maybe the baby would take after you.”
“And be a total idiot?” She laughed, shortly. “No, thanks.” She looked down at herself. “Besides,” she said, the words bursting out, “it’s just too creepy. Like an alien force, invading my body. Changing everything. Would you believe my boobs could get any larger? And yet they did. Yuck! And other stuff happening, too.”
“Did you get morning sickness?” I stacked her plate with mine.
She took the plates from me. “I’ll wash the dishes. You made dinner, after all. And I’ll do my share, Aunt Liz. You won’t regret taking me in.” She carried the dishes over to the sink, and I followed her with our glasses. “Yeah,” she went on, picking up the last conversation but one, just like the White Queen, “I hurled a bit—that’s what tipped me off. And now I have this strange feeling in my guts. I just want to go back to how things used to be. And I’m never going to even look at another guy for as long as I live!” She scrubbed the plates with violent thoroughness.
I rinsed and wiped, trying to be sympathetic without committing myself. “Won’t Renee expect you to call and say you got here okay?”
“Good idea.” Amy glanced around. “Did you finally get a phone?”
“No. But Drake’s away, so we can use his.”
“You mentioned he was gone.” She looked at me. “For good?”
“I don’t think so.” While we walked across the lawn, I told her about Drake’s dad. It was half past five, way too early for him to call. And if I went to the memorial for Rita at the garden, I might miss his call anyway.
Amy spoke briefly to her mother, and then handed the phone to me. I hadn’t expected that, or I wouldn’t have been standing around Drake’s kitchen, waiting for Amy to finish her call.
Renee was her usual grumpy self. “I don’t know what ails that child,” she said, with no preliminary niceties. “But I’m counting on you to talk some sense into her, Liz.”
“I don’t know any.”
She snorted. “Don’t give me that.” There was a pause, and she spoke again. “Is—do you think—has she said anything?”
“She’s enjoying her unexpected holiday.” Amy’s eyes were on me, silently demanding, pleading for, my complicity. “Barker’s delighted to see her.”
“She’s standing right there, I suppose.” Renee sighed into my ear. “Well, maybe you can call me when she’s not there. I know there’s something behind all this. If she’s in trouble—”
“I have to go, Renee. We’ll keep you posted.” Amy needed no urging to leave.
I saw there were messages on the phone, but I didn’t linger to check them out. Renee might call back, and there was no point in verbally dueling with her.
We went back to my house through the deepening dusk. Barker was restless, and Amy volunteered to take him for a walk.
“I’m going out for a while,” I told her. “Bridget’s coming to pick me up.”
“That’s okay. I’ll just hang around after I get back and read or something.” Amy patted my shoulder. “Don’t feel you have to entertain me. I know I’m butting in here, and I won’t be any trouble.”
“You’re not any trouble.” I gave her a hug. “I wouldn’t go to this thing, but Bridget thinks I should.”
“Is it a party?” Amy looked speculative.
I shook my head. “Memorial service, sort of. For someone who died.”
“Oh.” She lost interest.
When Bridget arrived a few minutes later, she brought a book with her.
“In case you’re interested,” she said, handing it to Amy. “About pregnancy and birth. You should know both sides before you make up your mind.”
“I guess.” Amy took the book reluctantly. “You two have fun, if you can.”
Bridget was driving Emery’s car, a middle-aged Honda that was nevertheless luxurious by my standards, and by hers, since her regular vehicle was a rusty Suburban. She glanced at me while she started it up. “How’s it going, anyway?”
“Renee suspects. We talked to her earlier. I think she’s following a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.”
“Hmph.” Bridget charged onto Middlefield. “I hope I never get into that position with Moira. It would break my heart if she was in trouble and wouldn’t come to me.”
“It’s pretty common, though.”
“Are you taking Amy to the doctor tomorrow?”
“I’m not taking her anywhere.” Bridget started to speak, but I interrupted her. “As you pointed out, I’m not her mom. She’s not my responsibility. If she wants a ride somewhere and it’s important, I’ll give her one, but I won’t herd her around.”
Bridget glanced at me skeptically. “Right. So you aren’t going to see that she goes to a clinic?”
“I left the phone book open to Planned Parenthood on the kitchen table,” I admitted, coming down from my moral high horse. “But you don’t understand, Bridget. Amy’s here because she wants to do something about it. If she was going to stick her head in the sand, she could do that in Denver.”
“True enough.” Bridget shook her head. “You read all these stories in the newspaper about girls who have babies without anyone in their families knowing they were pregnant—including themselves, evidently. So sad.”
“Well, Amy’s in charge. She’ll handle it. I see my role as support person and hand-holder.”
“You’re very wise for someone who’s never been a parent, Liz.” Bridget turned onto Channing.
“It’s easier to be objective from the outside,” I said. “If I had children, I’d be just as irrational with them as any parent.”
Bridget opened her mouth, then closed it again. I knew the question she wanted to ask, but she respected my privacy too much to ask it.
“I won’t ever have children, Bridget.” I looked at her in the glow of the instrument panel. “I know it seems immature and childish to you to duck that kind of commitment. But I can’t have them, and I’m not exactly sorry. I wasn’t cut out to be a mom.”
Bridget looked as if she were bursting with questions, but at last, she just shrugged. “Oh, well. Maybe Amy will give you her baby.”
She concentrated on pulling into the parking lot, while I sat, utterly silenced by the conviction that when I let Amy come to visit me, I’d gotten in way over my head.
Chapter 14
It was full dark when we got out of the car and walked toward the garden. A pallid crescent of moon low in the sky gave little light. The surrounding trees filtered the glare from streetlamps along Embarcadero and by the library. The darkness was lively with people, however. They shone flashlights on each other and spoke in low voices. An occasional laugh broke the hush.
Bridget and I followed a couple of women along the perimeter path. I didn’t recognize them, but they were talking about Rita, and their voices came back to us plainly. “I heard she was in an abusive relationship,” one of the women said.
The other woman snorted. “If so, she was the abuser. I’ve known her since her mother married Jack Dancey. Nobody ever put anything over on that girl. The scenes she made! I tell you, it’s a wonder someone in the family didn’t kill her before now.”
The first woman seemed to feel aggrieved that her nugget of gossip was dismissed. “Well, that’s not what I heard. I heard that she and the youngest Dancey boy were quite an item at one time.”
Her companion was silent a moment. “That’s true,” she said grudgingly. “But it didn’t last long, and no one in the family liked it. After all, Rita made such a point of being a Dancey, using the family name, wanting everything Jack’s boys had. It seemed almost incestuous that she and Tom should date.”
“She’d date anything that moved,” the first woman declared. By now Bridget and I had closed in on the two women in a shared wish to hear every detail of their conversation, but they didn’t notice. “I heard she went out with several of the men gardeners, even married ones!”
“Well, she’s dead now, poor thing,” the other woman said with belated charity. “It’s a blessing, really, that her mother didn’t live to see this. She died of breast cancer a couple of years ago. Jack was devastated, but perhaps it was all for the best. Angela just doted on her daughter.”
The women fell silent as we came to the area of fence near Lois Humphries’s garden plot. A large crowd had gathered outside the garden there. Among them I saw several people I knew, including Webster Powell, who paid no attention to me, and a few other gardeners whose glances slid off when I encountered them. Carlotta stood near the fence. No one was talking to her, either. Evidently news of our scene in the garden the day before had spread.
The boards Lois had wanted used as fencing were still in a pile on the ground—all but one of them, which had been set across two upturned buckets, forming a makeshift altar. This was crowded with candles, tall ones as well as votives, and surrounded by bunches of flowers. Behind it the old wire mesh fencing had been roughly nailed onto the new uprights I had dug holes for, keeping the crowd away from Lois’s plot.
Bridget stepped through the crowd, brushing past Webster, to add the candles she’d brought, lighting them from the other flames. I handed my flowers to her, and she placed them with those already there.
Then she rejoined me at the back of the crowd, letting others add their contributions. “Boy,” she whispered. “Candles can really put out the heat. You can feel it all the way out here.”
“They make a surprising amount of light.” The candles gave a soft glow to that whole area of the garden. Behind the fence, the caution tape fluttering around Lois’s plot was clearly visible. Also visible was Lois herself, frowning as she stood in the path next to the tape. She clutched something to her chest; at first I thought it was her ubiquitous clipboard, but the shape was different, more like a box.
“I guess the police investigation isn’t over yet,” Bridget said. “That’s why they’ve set this up outside the fence. I thought it was going to be where Rita was found.”
The woman in front of us turned around, revealing herself as Tamiko, her round face impassive. “Lois didn’t want it in her plot. Said it would be a desecration.”
We exchanged looks, our faces made dark and mysterious by the flickering light.
“Why did she say that?” The voice behind me made me jump.
“Oh, hi, Bruno.” Bridget looked past me. I turned to see Bruno Morales standing in the path. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“As you say, we are still investigating. Why is Mrs. Humphries so angry at the dead woman?”
“I don’t think
she’s angry, Detective Morales.” Tamiko’s voice was level. “She just didn’t want a shrine constructed on her garden plot.”
“I can understand that.” Bruno moved closer. “But why is she concerned with desecration?”
“She’s kind of nutty.” Bridget glanced around before imparting this in a low voice. “Obsessive.”
Tamiko looked at Bridget, then at Bruno. “It’s more than that. Her husband’s ashes are kept there. In effect, it’s already a shrine.”
Bridget took a moment to absorb that.
“It’s true,” I said. “She told me yesterday afternoon.”
Bruno took out a pocket notebook and a tiny penlight, and made a note. Bridget nudged me.
“Webster sure doesn’t look heartbroken.”
Webster was talking with another gardener, and judging from his smile, he didn’t have a care in the world.
Bruno jumped on Bridget’s remark. “Why should he be heartbroken?”
“We heard some gossip on the way from the parking lot,” Bridget told him. “These women were saying that Rita dated her stepbrother, Tom Dancey, and one of them said she dated anything that moved, including some of the men gardeners. I remembered then that she and Webster went out for a while.” She looked at Tamiko. “You know, Tamiko. It was when he planted raspberries between your plot and his, and you asked Rita to make him get rid of them because it was against the rules to plant anything invasive, including raspberries. And she didn’t. You told me then that they were involved and that’s why she let him get away with it.”
“I really don’t remember,” Tamiko said deliberately, and moved away.
“Why would she say that? She was really upset about it at the time,” Bridget said, staring after Tamiko.
Bruno made another note. “I would like to ask a favor of both of you,” he began. Then a tall man standing next to the altar began to speak to the crowd. The authority in his voice quieted everyone, even Bruno.
“Thank you all for coming tonight. I’m Tom Dancey, Rita’s brother. Rita would have appreciated your concern. She loved her work in the garden, and looked forward to a long and happy association here. This senseless accident had been difficult for her family to accept.” He paused and shaded his eyes.
