The band segued into the plaintive strains of “Solitude.” “By a strange coincidence, both the reports of the sheriff and the coroner are sealed.”
Abigail frowned. “Sealed? Isn’t that unusual?”
“Since we can rule out a matter of national security, I’d say it points to some kind of local conspiracy.” His voice was dry.
She leaned over to study the photographs.
The pressure of his gaze caused her to look up. Ross’s face was only inches away. “Abigail doesn’t suit you at all. I believe I’ll call you ‘Red.’” He reached out to brush her cheek with a gentle finger.
Red as in a glowing ember, soft feathers, or passion-ripe lips? The knot was back in her stomach and she tilted her head away. “Can you break the seal?”
He grinned. His teeth gleamed in the lamplight, revealing that one front tooth had a tiny chip. “Charging out your time tonight? Can’t figure the going rate for a flirtation? Okay, Ms. Dedicated Professional, I’ll talk to Judge Sparrow and see what I can do.”
She ignored the sarcasm. “What’s your theory about her death? An accident or deliberate attack?”
The article fell to the floor; she could see the mischief dancing in his eyes. “No theory about Rosemary, but I believe tonight we’ve validated one of my long-held hypotheses.”
I’ll hate myself in the morning, she thought, but couldn’t resist. “Which is?”
“Pizza is an aphrodisiac.” He slid toward her and the leather creaked.
Chapter 14
Abigail poked around in her refrigerator. The pizza might as well have been cardboard after Ross’s confession and the sultry atmosphere of that kitchen; she was still hungry. She decided her craving was for something sweet—pecan ice cream! A memory flashed like a slide on a screen, of how Michael used to burst into the house after an emergency run to the store. “Get out the spoons!”
Cuddling together, they would feed each other the sweet dessert, the intimate gestures leading to other intimacies while the rest of the ice cream melted unnoticed.
Abigail became conscious of the bite of fingernails into her palms. Slamming the refrigerator door, she rested her forehead against the coolness of its pebbled surface. Flashes of intense longing for Michael struck like lightning from a clear summer sky, triggered by the most trivial of objects, a song on the radio, a shabby sweater—or ice cream.
But tonight, thoughts of him slipped through her fingers like sand as her mind returned to a leather couch and a mural she would see in her dreams. After she’d fended off Ross’s advances, any attempt to discuss the case had been met with the polite attention of a man forced to listen to a stranger’s chatter on a bus. He seemed more interested in a verbal sparring match with Abigail.
The man made her uncomfortably aware of him—perhaps she should end the partnership. But Ross had the power to break the seals on the reports and a reputation as a zealous crusader for justice. As she gave her hair the ritualistic one hundred brush strokes, Abigail wondered if that crusader had risen from the ashes of a child’s battered body and bruised heart.
She put the hairbrush down and stared at her reflection in the mirror. His outburst had frightened her. One moment joking and the next, at the flashpoint of white-hot rage.
A very sexy, complex man and Abigail had found the evening unsettling, as though the heat of his sensuality had melted the ice coating her responses since Michael’s death. She felt like a balloon that had slipped from a child’s grasp and was now floating free. But as a balloon’s fragile skin is vulnerable to harsh winds and sharp objects, her own emotional freedom was menaced by a pair of green eyes. Ross seemed to be offering a no-strings relationship, but Abigail wasn’t used to untied packages. Too soon, she thought, too soon to surrender herself to another person, one who is a virtual stranger.
For a brief moment, over the cooling pizza, she’d glimpsed a hurt, bewildered child inside Ross. But the child had changed before her eyes into a man who wanted more from her than a business partnership—from wanting to cuddle the pain away, she’d rocketed to aching to feel the pressure of his lips on hers, the magic of his fingers on her bare skin, their bodies moving in mystical rhythms…the music…
She realized the mirror woman was breathing rapidly, her eyes luminous, as though she’d just risen from a lover.
Reading in bed was always Abigail’s last resort to make herself sleepy, but tonight she settled down with Elaine’s tome on herbs and a glass of warm milk, hoping to avoid thinking any more about Ross or Rosemary. Echoes of the day’s conversations kept distracting her, however, and she closed the book and stared into space.
Connie’s story had convinced her that Spider had been the one who isolated Rosemary on a lonely country road and drove over her helpless body. But the pearl found in the bodice of the girl’s dress intrigued her—both Flora and Connie had sidestepped speculation as to where Rosemary had obtained a necklace of real pearls.
Connie had stopped with Rosemary’s exit from the Brown Dog. Why had it been so important that the girl have a new dress? Was Connie correct about Rosemary’s determination to escape the confines of Lincoln City? Abigail’s instincts told her that somehow the theft of the dress and the pearl necklace were the keys to the mystery surrounding Rosemary’s actions that steamy August night.
She flipped the pages of the book, unable to concentrate on Elaine’s measured prose, until she came to a page marred by a pencil sketch of an arrow pointing to a heart. Snatching up the envelope that lay beside the bouquet on her night table, she tore it open and compared the card’s sketch to the one in the book.
Identical. She stared at the drawing until the meaning of the print underneath the sketch filtered through the fog of shock. Herbs and Flowers—Messengers of Love and Hate. The chart listed plants and the traditional meanings given to each one; captioned drawings of the plants paraded across the page. Six of the drawings were circled.
Abigail swung her legs over the side of the bed and compared the greenery in her bouquet to the six marked sketches. Basil—hate. Fennel—grief. Elder—misfortune. Unscented geranium—folly. Rue—grief. Tansy—hostility.
Her hands were shaking and she folded them on the book in her lap. Hate, grief, misfortune, folly, hostility.
Abigail ran her tongue over dry lips. Someone had marked this book, called the library, and reserved it for her. That same person had made up a bouquet of hate and delivered the message to her office. The chattering of her teeth was the only sound in the room. Tossing the book aside, she began removing the plants one by one, visions of a ticking bomb speeding her fingers.
The vase was only half empty when Abigail discovered a crushed rose tangled in the stems of the remaining plants and remembered that today was August 1st—and back in 1937 Rosemary only had one week to live.
Chapter 15
Helen Peters shook the tablecloth and toast crumbs scattered on the evening breeze. A sparrow landed to sample the feast as she folded the material and carried it into the house, only to return with a cup of mixed nuts, seeds, and raisins for a waiting trio of squirrels.
The sun was setting behind her neighbor’s garage, the reddish hue of the sky signaling that tomorrow would be a sailor’s delight. She poured her offering into the hollow of an oak tree stump located behind the birdbath. The squirrels advanced on timid paws, but tonight Helen didn’t feel like coaxing them to eat from her hand.
This morning a strange depression had settled over her spirits and, as she did every year, Helen wondered if perhaps this leaden feeling of despair was linked to the sultry days of August. The sound of the phone ringing quickened her steps, and she hurried into the immaculate kitchen with its old-fashioned wood-burning stove and hand-braided rugs.
She picked up the receiver, and used her other hand to tear the page for July 31st off her wall calendar. “Hello?”
“Mother, this is Darlene.” The response was pitched too loud for the listener’s still-sensitive ears.
Helen cr
umpled the paper in her hand and stifled a sigh. “Please, Darlene. You needn’t shout—I’m neither deaf nor dead.”
“Don’t start by being sarcastic, Mother.” Preliminaries over, Darlene struck the first blow of the bout. “The bank informed me you withdrew five hundred dollars. In cash. What did you do with the money this time?”
“I’m losing confidence in that bank, Darlene. They had no business telling you about my transactions.”
Darlene snatched away the pathetic veil of dignity with the ruthlessness of a bully robbing a younger child of a candied apple. “I’ve instructed the bank to notify me whenever you withdraw more than a hundred dollars. But you gave that money away, didn’t you? Who was the lucky recipient? A bag lady, an itinerent peddler, or a woman with sixteen starving children?”
Count to ten before answering, Helen reminded herself. “A young man needed the fare to attend an audition at a music conservatory and I added the money for clothes. He plays the violin beautifully, but his appearance is rather unprepossessing. Not that it’s any of your business, dear.”
“You must be the softest touch in the world.” Darlene’s tone would have withered the blossoms on a vine.
Helen drew a deep breath. “Don’t speak to your mother with such disrespect.”
The angry woman overrode the softer voice. “The rest of the family is tired of the way you waste the money Dad left, giving it out to every beggar who comes to the door. We’re at the end of our patience. I’ve warned you before, Mother—you’re forcing me to take legal action. The court will declare you incompetent and give us control of the money.
“Besides, that house is too much for you—you might fall, or someone could break in and steal the cash you’re always handing out like candy. My lawyer told me the court is very concerned with keeping con artists from taking advantage of old people—”
“Good-bye, Darlene.” Helen hung up the phone on her daughter’s tirade, the final threat sticking like a tormenting burr in her mind.
The darkness of depression engulfed her once more and she sagged against the wall. Now she had a reason to be frightened; the pleasant, busy routine of her days was about to be challenged by a mysterious and unknown factor, an omniscient body with absolute, unmerciful power—the court. Darlene never made idle threats; Helen trembled at the thought of losing her independence.
Groping her way to the antique maple rocker in the parlor, she seated herself and tried to regain the composure lost during the telephone call. Lately, sudden stress could trigger a dizzy spell, but this time vivid images pressed in around her to cut off light and reality, impeding her ability to draw a breath. The pounding in Helen’s temples grew worse—the pain closed in…
Helen found herself on horseback, her muscles once more supple and strong. The night air brushed her face; the saddle creaked beneath her. She must have had trouble sleeping—when insomnia threatened, she often spent an hour on the back of Quill, her dappled mare, allowing the wind to blow away her troubled thoughts.
Len. The fight at the dance. His choosing Sally for a slow number. Helen remembered why she’d left the dance early and relaxed as Quill’s steady gait ate up the miles, the thud of hooves a rhythmic accompaniment to her inner dialogue.
Sally was a hussy—the neckline of that dress had been cut almost to her navel. Not to mention all that pancake makeup! Helen grimaced. Len was a fool. Never again would she yield to his pleas to walk out for a soda or watch the moonrise—nor could she stand his lips on hers after what he was probably doing to Sally right now in the backseat of his rattletrap of a car.
Cicadas sang their buzzing song in the trees; an owl hooted an inquiry. Helen clapped booted heels to Quill’s sleek sides to urge the mare into a faster gait. Len would be around to apologize tomorrow; she knew he’d be at the door when her father went out to milk the cows. Unless he was too hung over to find the house!
Quill nickered. The moon ducked behind the clouds, a white-faced maiden hiding coyly behind a lacy fan, plunging horse and rider into darkness. The relative coolness after the heat of the day was welcome.
Helen realized the horse was climbing a steep incline and rose in the stirrups to peer ahead. Only a few more minutes and she’d have to start for home. The rooster would be crowing his head off within hours; the routine of the farm began whether you were rested or not. Mother was planning to pickle beets tomorrow and it would be an unpleasant, sticky job. Helen flexed her toes in the stirrups. At least she would sleep well after this excursion.
A rumbling noise up ahead, in stark contrast to the gentle night sounds, startled Helen and her hands clenched on the reins, slowing the mare. The sound was familiar. Cold sweat broke out on the forehead of the woman held captive in the rocking chair.
Horse and rider were poised at the edge of a steep cliff that dropped away into blackness. Somehow the dreaming Helen knew what lay below was so monstrously evil, so terribly wrong, that she screamed a warning as the young Helen urged the horse forward. “No! Turn back!”
The vision came as clearly as though viewed on a black-and-white television set, with the heroine equally deaf to her entreaties. The earth crumbled beneath the mare’s hooves and horse and rider began to slide down into the black pit that rumbled and hissed with an unknown evil presence…
For Helen, the nightmare was a rerun, one in which she was unable to escape reliving the terror. She bit her lip in anguish; her tortured mind refused to advance the film any further. Helen rocked faster.
Chapter 16
Connie smoothed the much-washed fabric of the pillowcase with arthritic fingers, her thoughts spiraling back into the past. The dusty boards of the porch were once again under her feet as she watched Rosemary walk away into the afternoon sunshine but almost instantly she was transported to a polished wooden floor where girls’ dresses swirled by like blossoms in a whirlpool.
Slipping out her bedroom window into the arms of an elm tree and walking ten blocks had not been the act of an obedient daughter who’d been forbidden to attend the dance, she thought. She remembered the sting as a twig scraped her cheek, and the fear of her father’s wrath if he discovered her flight made her jump at shadows and the mewling of a stray cat.
But the desire to see Rosemary and set things right had compelled her forward until she saw her friend emerge from a car almost half a block from the town-hall building.
“Thanks, Cajun, for the ride and the use of the prisoner’s holding room at the jail.”
Almost close enough to touch Rosemary’s arm, Connie ducked behind a tree and watched as a man in a khaki uniform leaned out of the driver’s window. “Anytime, doll face. But I feel bad about you having to dress in that crummy, stinking sweatbox—just remember I offered to take you to my place.”
“And you’d have ripped off my gown instead of helping me put it on. Don’t you think I did a good job? Some trick getting it zipped, though. Flora’s skinnier than I am.” Rosemary’s laugh rang out as she raised one foot. “Her feet are the size of a baby’s—my toes hurt already.”
Cajun Smith whistled. “You’re one hunk of gorgeous womanhood, Rosemary. Forget the dance—I’ll show you some of my moves.”
The gown was gorgeous. Connie sucked in her breath, painfully conscious of the burning scratch on her cheek and the limp material of last year’s party dress.
Rosemary opened a beaded silk purse and lifted out a necklace that glowed in the moonlight. “Help me with the crowning touch, Cajun. With this necklace, I’m going to send a message to a few folks—Rosemary Dickison is not trash.”
She bent backward until he was able to reach the clasp and fasten it around her neck.
Stroking the pearls, Rosemary attempted to straighten up, but with a chuckle, the man’s arms went around her and pinned her against the car as he whispered, “I was always a good boy—I took out the trash.”
Rosemary twisted, her elbow came back and connected with a mushy thump. With a howl, Cajun released her. “Don’t touch me without perm
ission and don’t call me trash—even in fun, Mr. Smith.”
A muffled curse came from inside the car, the engine restarted with a roar, and the vehicle pulled away with a squeal of tires. Rosemary arranged the pearls around her neck and brushed off the back of her skirt. Looking down at the gown that hugged her curves with the tight embrace of a lover, a shadow passed over her face, like a cloud scudding across the sun.
“Poor Flora. I had to do it.” The words came clearly to the ears of the listener behind the tree.
Lifting her chin, Rosemary had walked—no, glided like a royal personage—toward the hall, toward the light spilling out an open door and the boom, boom of a distant band while Connie clung to the tree and wept into the harshness of its bark.
Connie rolled over and Harold snored, reminding her that she was trapped in the present beside a man who liked things to be smooth on the surface—a weedless vegetable garden was his idea of perfection. Dinner on the table, the evening newspaper to pore over at his leisure, a nap with the dogs at his feet.
Since the lawyer’s visit, Harold had watched his wife with the fascination of a man witnessing an auto accident, unable to either halt the inevitable carnage or look away. Tears, a shattered vase—no wonder the man was bewildered by the change in his placid Connie.
Rosemary, Spider, Matt…the names were as unfamiliar to him as the kings of England. The last thing he’d done before falling asleep was to urge her to make a doctor’s appointment. She could read his thoughts—Connie’s getting older, reaching that time in a woman’s life when a hangnail is a cause for hysteria. Must be more understanding with the poor dear.
But Connie knew that medical science was helpless to lift the burden of guilt, to do anything more than temporarily banish memories behind a curtain of sedation. Rosemary had craved an audience, an admirer. Connie had married a man who shied away from words that bit deeper than a discussion of the weather. All of the bottled-up emotions of a lifetime cried out for release.
Rosemary for Remembrance Page 9
