Rosemary Remembered - China Bayles 04

by Susan Wittig Albert

  I left Laurel watering the plants out front, and Sheila and I drove to Rosemary's house. The cicadas were still droning like a flock of buzz saws, the cuckoo was still mildly sardonic, and the neon-yellow crime scene tape was still strung across Rosemary's drive.

  "When's Bubba going to release the house?" I asked as we got out.

  "The cousin's coming in next week," Sheila said. "Normally, he wouldn't hold onto it this long, but nobody was pressing for access. Anyway, the tape discourages vandals." We walked to the front door of the stone-and-cedar house and used the key to open it and go in. Legally.

  I had been inside Rosemary's office at the back of the house, but not the house itself. From the expensive and well-kept exterior, I could guess what it would be like: plush carpets, high ceilings, chandeliers, lovely (and expensive) furniture. I was right. The house was all that, and more.

  But as Sheila and I walked from room to room, I became more and more uneasy—an uneasiness threaded through with a strong sense of deja vu. Rosemary's house took me back to the upscale condo where I'd lived when I practiced law in Houston, working eighty-hour weeks, too busy to do more than sleep and change clothes and take a bath in the house where I was supposed to live. Looking around, I sensed that her life was as empty as mine was then, and as lonely. I couldn't help hoping that her relationship with Jeff had lightened that loneliness.

  But if it had, there were no signs of it. There were, in fact, few signs of Rosemary herself. There was nothing in this lovely house that whispered her name, nothing that suggested that she had been a unique person, a real person. Oh, there was furniture: sofas and tables and chairs and lamps and so on, all in harmonious and stylish colors and sizes and fabrics, as if they had recently come out of a furniture showroom, decorator-designed, color-matched. But the rooms were as bland and generic as a

  suite at the Hilton. There wasn't a family photograph to show that she'd belonged to someone, or a piece of craft-work to show that she'd enjoyed making something, or even a cheap souvenir to show that she'd been somewhere. The signature of an individual, the unique touches that say "This is China's house, this is where her soul lives" or "Sheila went to the Cayman Islands once on vacation" or "Ruby absolutely adores Southwestern art" — these were absent. The house suggested that Rosemary used her home the way travelers use hotels, leaving nothing but accidental traces behind. There wasn't even enough of Rosemary to haunt the place.

  The impersonal quality of the house was intensified by the oppresive silence and the stale, stuffy air. The thermostat in the hall showed the temperature to be ninety, but I shivered. Sheila and I might be here with the permission of the police, but in a deeper sense we were trespassers, violators of a private space that belonged to the dead, searchers for secrets that the living might have no right to find.

  Sheila caught my glance. "Sobering, isn't it?" she said quietly. "What do you suppose she did in her spare time?"

  "Maybe she didn't have any," I said. In front of me was a living room sofa that bore no indication that Rosemary had ever sat on it. Even the fireplace looked as if it had never been used. "Her ex-husband said she worked fourteen hours a day. That doesn't leave much time to get a life."

  Sheila shuddered. "Let's make it snappy, huh? This is depressing."

  The house offered luxury living for one: kitchen, living room, spacious master bedroom, small guest bedroom, office, garage. Sheila took Rosemary's bedroom, the living room, and the kitchen. I took the rest.

  The guest bedroom at the end of the hall was obviously used for storage. Pieces of extra furniture, suitcases full of out-of-date clothing, boxes of college textbooks, winter coats—things that would go into the basement if Texas houses had basements, which they generally don't. I checked the dresser drawers, the closet shelves, under the bed. There were no financial records, no journals, no personal papers, nothing related to her death or to her real, unique life. Everything in this room could have been owned by anybody.

  After ten minutes, I closed the door and went through the kitchen and into the office. Of the whole house, this room seemed to remember Rosemary most clearly, and all because of one simple, playful thing: a balloon. In one corner was a conference grouping of floral-print loveseat, beige chairs, and a table. In another corner was a workstation of desk, computer, file cabinets, and shelves. Everything was orderly, everything was ordinary, except for the balloon that made this room special and unique: a large, silver, heart-shaped balloon on a long string, with curliques of red paper ribbon dangling from it. Handprinted on one side of the heart, in big red letters, was the name Rosemary. On the other side was the name Jeff. The whole room seemed to organize itself around that balloon. It made me smile.

  I began with the desk. On it was a telephone and answering machine, an appointment calendar, a neat stack of papers. I replayed the messages on the answering machine. There were a half-dozen calls from people who apparently hadn't heard of her death. Several were from clients, one was from the Enterprise, reminding her to renew her subscription, two were from Snider's Jewelry, reminding her to pick up the ring she'd had engraved. I jotted down the names and numbers of the callers, disappointed that there were no personal messages.

  While the answering machine was playing, I went through the desk drawers. From a Bills to Pay file in the top drawer, I learned that Rosemary hadn't yet made the July mortgage payment of $977.17, and that she still owed the Pecan Springs Electrical Co-Op $112.42 for June electricity. The Pecan Springs National Bank statements in the second drawer showed that she had a balance of just over $3,200 in her personal account, something less than $4,700 in her business account, and $4,300 in savings. If she was stashing money in another account in a different bank, the evidence for it wasn't here.

  But something else was. Behind the bank statements was a Paid Invoices folder. In it was insurance paperwork and a bill, stapled together. The bill was from Dr. Gina Steuben, OB-GYN, for a D and C, performed on June 11. A dilation and curettage—not an abortion, but a surgical procedure that would finish what nature had started: a miscarriage. I glanced at the appointment calendar on the desk and turned back a page to June. Yes, there it was. Friday June 11 was marked with a small penciled "dr," and a light line had been drawn through Saturday and Sunday — days she probably wanted to take it easy.

  I stared at the notation for a moment, wondering how Rosemary had felt when she wrote it. Had she been relieved, or full of sad emptiness when she learned that there wouldn't be a baby? How had Jeff felt? I glanced up at the balloon, wondering whether he had given it to her when she told him that she was pregnant with his baby— or when he learned there wouldn't be a baby. Was it a celebration, or a reassurance that whatever happened, the two of them would go on together? But the balloon was fully inflated, which suggested that she hadn't had it more than a few days before she died.

  Going back to the calendar, I could see how carefully Rosemary had parceled out her time. She spent ten working hours a week at the hotel, the rest with other clients. When I turned to July, I noticed something else: beginning with last Saturday, July 7, the nine days through Sunday the 15th were marked through in a straight line, and the little letter J was neatly penciled at the beginning of the line.

  I looked at it thoughtfully. If this were my calendar, my life, that marked-off time would mean a vacation, and J was the person I planned to be with. Had Rosemary and Jeff intended to go away somewhere together? But if that was what they'd meant to do, something had gone dreadfully wrong. She had died on the eve of their going, and he had fled alone. I was filled with a sense of sad futility. What had happened to bring them to this end? Was Jeff responsible, as everybody thought? Or had someone else intervened? The image of Carol Connally rose up in my mind, and I found myself questioning my intuition of her innocence. Had she learned that they planned to go away together and killed Rosemary to keep that from happening?

  Still feeling the weight of Rosemary's unfulfilled plan, I turned to the file cabinet to the right of the d
esk. The alphabetized manila folders in the drawers contained copies of clients' tax forms, working notes, calculator tapes, computer printouts. I found one marked Bayles, another Dawson, a third McQuaid, and pulled them out. Sheila could get Bubba's permission to take them — no point in leaving them for the executor to handle. The files were the only interesting items in the cabinet. There was nothing pertaining to the hotel accounts and nothing in any way personal. No letters, no diary.

  On the left side of the desk was a Macintosh, a printer, and a small copier. I considered the Mac for a minute. I had an old Apple lie at the shop, but it was primitive in comparison. I couldn't even find the power switch on this one. I'd seen a Mac in Sheila's office, though; I'd ask her to have a look at Rosemary's computer files.

  That was it for the desk. I got up. I was about to check out the closet when Sheila came in.

  "Find anything?" I asked, not hopefully.

  She shook her head. "A two-year-old card from the cousin in Tulsa. A Steven King thriller. Clothes in the closet, makeup in the bathroom, a grocery fist on the refrigerator door, TV dinners in the freezer. No diary, no photographs, no love letters. This place has about as much personality as a nun's cell." She paused. "What did you find?"

  I pointed to the balloon.

  "Ah," she said thoughtfully, and her mouth relaxed into a half-smile. "So it wasn't all work and no play. She took a vacation from numbers every now and then."

  "Speaking of vacations," I said, and showed her the markings on the July page of the calendar. "What do you think? A fishing trip a deux?" I paused strategically. "Does it make sense to you that a man would murder a woman he's planning to spend nine days with?"

  She made an indelicate noise. "Oh, come on, China. Men murder women they spend their lived with. And vice versa."

  "Well, sure. But if I planned to kill somebody, I wouldn't do it before we were supposed to leave on a fishing trip. I'd do it during. I'd push her off the boat and claim she fell overboard or something like that. I sure as hell wouldn't kill her in her driveway and leave the body and my father's famous gun for the cops to find." I flipped the calendar back to June. "Here's when she ended the pregnancy. There's a medical bill in the drawer. She had a D and C."

  Sheila's "Oh" was thoughtful. "So it was a miscarriage."

  "That's what it looks like. I wonder if she was terribly upset about it. I would have been."

  As I heard myself saying the words, I felt it: Rosemary's loss, the emptiness, the sadness when she realized that there wouldn't be a baby after all. And Rosemary and I were about the same age, which meant that the clock was running out for her, just as it was for me, just as it was for so many of us who had been single-minded about our careers. There wouldn't be many more fertile months. I'd been on the pill for years, but if by some accident I'd gotten pregnant with McQuaid's child and miscarried. .. Yes, I could feel Rosemary's loss. But whose grief? Mine or hers?

  Sheila asked me something that didn't register. "What?" I asked.

  "Who was the OB-GYN?" she repeated.

  "Oh. Somebody named Steuben."

  "That's a coincidence. Gina's my doctor, too." She paused. "I'm overdue for a Pap. Maybe she won't mind talking about Rosemary. I'd like to know why she had to have that D and C."

  "She's not supposed to tell you."

  "Sure. But women do chat. And there's a certain vulnerability about lying on your back with your legs spread, with her peering into your insides. I doubt if she's likely to feel threatened by my questions."

  I gave her a grin. "I wonder how a male investigator would handle that one. Would you take a look at the Mac?"

  While Sheila sat down at the computer, I went through the closet, which turned out to hold nothing but supplies. There was only one more place to check. I walked through the searing afternoon heat to the curb and took a handful of mail, most of it junk, out of the mailbox.

  But it wasn't all junk.

  Among the litter of Wal-Mart flyers and Publishers' Clearinghouse Sweepstakes announcements, I found a thick envelope that bore the return address of a San Antonio travel agency. In it was an American Airlines plane ticket in Rosemary's name, from San Antonio to Mexico City on July 7, to Acapulco on Tuesday July 10, and back to San Antonio on July 15. With the plane ticket was a confirmation from the Mexico City Hilton for the nights of July 7-9 and the Acapulco Hilton for July 10-14. The rooms were reserved in the names of Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Clark.

  I stared at the confirmation form for a moment, the fuzzy picture in my mind becoming clearer. Then I went back to Rosemary's office, dialed Snider's Jewelry, and asked for Delia Snider, the owner. What Delia told me brought the picture into even sharper focus.

  The ring that Rosemary had bought was a man's wedding ring. The engraving she had ordered said, "For my husband, Jeff, my heart and my life."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Saturn Incense

  2 parts Sandalwood 2 parts Myrrh 1 part Dittany of Crete a few drops Cypress oil a few drops Patchouly oil

  Mix thoroughly and store in a tightly capped jar. To burn, light a charcoal tablet (available where incense is sold) and place it in a censor. Once the block is glowing, sprinkle a half-teaspoon or so of the incense on the block. It will immediately begin to burn and in doing so, release fragrant smoke. Scott Cunningham

  The Complete Book of Incense, Oils & Brews

  An hour later, Bubba was once more in possession of Rosemary's house key and I had retrieved Brian from the custody of the sheriff, who reported that there was still no sign of Jacoby anywhere in the county, and that Brian had been a model of deportment.

  The fact that Brian had enjoyed the sheriff s office didn't seem to change his attitude toward me, however. He was communicating only in grunts and head shakes.

  "Did you have a good day?" I asked cheerily. "What did you do?"

  A sullen nod and a shrug, nothing else.

  I tried again. "The sheriff says you helped the dispatcher. Was it fun, working with the radio?"

  Another nod, then a turn to the window that said, as loudly as words, that he didn't want to talk to me.

  I was frustrated and more than a little irritated. And saddened, too. This was McQuaid's child. If I loved McQuaid, I ought to at least manage to stay on speaking terms with his son. The sadness was exacerbated by the memory of Rosemary's loss. Like Rosemary, I had very little time left to have a child. But even if I could get pregnant, I didn't want to. My hands were full with the shop, with my life. If I stayed with McQuaid, Brian was the only child we'd ever have. The knowledge made the silence between us more dispiriting.

  Sheila arrived a few minutes after we did. I changed into shorts and a tee, and we adjourned to the kitchen to do something about supper. We settled on ham sandwiches, salad, and cold cucumber soup, from a favorite recipe collected by Fannie Couch, who writes the recipe column for my newsletter and does a live call-in show called Fannie's Back Fence on KPST-FM.

  While we worked, we talked. It was clear to me from what we had discovered at Rosemary's house that she and Jeff had planned to be married and take a nine-day Mexican honeymoon, and that Jeff had concealed their intentions with the cover story of a fishing trip to South Padre.

  Sheila acknowledged that my explanation made a certain sense, but she put a different spin on what we found.

  "The evidence that they planned to get married is Rosemary's evidence," she said, slicing the last cucumber lengthwise. "She bought the ring and made the hotel reservations. Maybe the whole scheme was her idea. Maybe when she discovered that Jeff was fiddling the books, she offered him a deal: her silence in return for a wedding ring and a community property share of everything he had. She had the leverage to get it, too." She seeded the cucumber and popped it into the blender. "So he shot her, hopped in the car, and drove to Brownsville, then simply followed the itinerary they'd worked out." She turned the blender on.

  "What about the balloon?" I asked.

  "What about it? Anybody can buy a balloon and write nam
es on it with Magic Marker. Maybe she was engaging in some wishful thinking."

  "It still doesn't make any sense to me," I said. "Jeff would have to be crazy to kill her in her driveway and toss his father's gun where it was sure to be found."

  "Lots of killers are crazy." She turned off the blender. "Anyway, who's got a better motive? You eliminated Curtis Robbins and that Rhodes woman over in San Marcos, and you said yourself that you don't think the bookkeeper did it. Who's left?"

  "How about Matt Monroe?"

  "I suppose it's possible." Sheila went to the refrigerator for buttermilk. "But if Matt killed Rosemary because she had the goods on him, why would Jeff run? More to the point, why would he turn over his half of the hotel to Matt? That makes about as much sense as hip pockets on a hog."

  "Hip pockets on a hog?"

  "Sure." She poured buttermilk into the blender. "Haven't you ever heard that one? It was my granddaddy's favorite put-down. That, and' It does about as much good as pushing a wheelbarrow with rope handles.' "

  I finished slicing the ham and began to layer it onto the

  bread. "Too bad you didn't find anything in the computer files," I said.

  "Yeah." She flipped the blender on for a few seconds, then off again. "There could be something there, but if it is, it's in the numbers, and I'm no accountant." She glanced up. "Do you have any mint? Cucumber soup isn't the same without it."

  "There's some growing down by the creek," I said. "I'll send Brian." I went to the foot of the stairs and yelled. No answer. I yelled again. Nothing.'

  "Little twit," I muttered under my breath, and took the stairs two at a time. "Brian!" I banged on his door. No answer. "Hey, Brian, I need you!" I shoved the door open. The room was empty. Einstein clung to the drape, eyeing me malevolently. Ivan the Hairible sat stoically in his terrarium. There was no sign of Brian.