"And set her up to take the fall," I added. "In case his moonlight requisition ever came out." Khat walked off the porch and came over to the picnic table. He jumped up onto my lap and began to knead my leg with his claws, not very carefully.
"Poor Carol," Ruby mused. "She must have been really torn up after she and Jeff got close. On the one hand, she was taking money from the hotel, from him, and on the other, they were lovers."
"I'm not sure how close they actually were," I said, stroking Khat's warm fur. He purred throatily. "Carol admits that her hopes for marriage were mostly wishful thinking. But however he felt about her, she certainly loved him very much. She was distraught when she found out about him and Rosemary."
"But back to the night of the murder," McQuaid said. "Carol Connally saw Matt with Jeff’s body?"
"Not the night of the murder," I corrected him. "It was Friday night, the night the freezer broke down. Carol was planning to take a couple of days off to be with Nancy and the new baby, and she was working late. She quit about eleven. She got as far as the parking lot when she realized that she'd left her checkbook on her desk. When she went back to get it, she glanced out the window and saw Matt wheeling a room service cart into the herb garden, where he'd already dug a hole. The cart was covered, but Carol said she had an intuition about what was under the tablecloth. By Monday morning, she was certain she'd witnessed Jeffs burial. She was sick with grief, afraid she'd be charged with embezzlement, and absolutely petrified of what Matt might do if he found out what she knew."
Blackie wore a speculative look. "If Jeff s body had never turned up, Matt might have gotten away with murder. With two murders, in fact."
I put Khat on the ground and got up to check on the corn. "The verdict isn't in yet, though," I said. "Chick Burton's got plenty to do before he's ready to go on trial. A sharp, aggressive defense attorney could poke a dozen holes in — "
"China!" Three voices spoke in reproachful unison. I assumed an innocent look. "The corn's done. Are these chickens ready?"
McQuaid got up to check. "They look done to me," he said. "Where's the plate?"
I brushed off a bug and handed it to him. "Better call Brian. He's playing by the creek."
McQuaid raised his voice. "Get up here, Brian. On the double."
Sheila got up and stretched. "Well, at least you don't have to worry about Jacoby." The cayenne had put him out of action long enough for the police to arrive and cart him off. Bubba hadn't even thanked me for corralling Adams County's most-wanted fugitive.
"Are you kidding?" McQuaid barked a short laugh and began forking chickens onto the plate. "How long before Pardons and Paroles turns that psycho loose again? And where do you think hell show up the minute he gets out?"
It wasn't something I wanted to think about. One problem at a time.
Brian came up the path from the creek. He was mud from head to toe, and grinning.
Ruby wrinkled her nose and shrank back. "Ugh," she said. "What's that?"
Brian was holding a small, wet turtle, head and feet tucked reclusively into its shell. "His name is Simon," he said. "I saw Garfunkel down there, too, but he got away." He tucked the turtle casually under his arm and fished in his pocket, pulling out a fistful of snails. "I found these under a rock. Simon might want them for a snack. I'll put them in the refrigerator."
With the snails in one hand and a cloistered Simon under his arm, Brian started in the direction of the kitchen. Howard Cosell got to his feet and blundered after him. Under the mistaken belief that a gourmet treat was in the offing, Khat flicked his tail and stalked after Howard Cosell.
"Put a lid on those snails," McQuaid called after him. "I don't want to find them in the salsa."
I closed my eyes briefly. What happened to those days, those halcyon days of solitary bliss, when everything in my refrigerator was docile, edible, and dead?
McQuaid kissed my cheek. "It could be worse," he said gently. "Simon might have been a snake."
I shuddered. It was true. Simon might have been a snake.
Well, that about sums it up.
But it doesn't, of course. Certain parts of this story are inexplicable. They resist summation and explanation. But as Ruby often reminds us, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophies — or explained by our science. She helps me remember that the universe is a vast and puzzling place, and that our corner of it is very small. From the pinpoint of that perspective, who am I to try to explain La. Que Sabe or a storm aimed at one city block or five nonsensical letters on a Ouija board? Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock never had any trouble accepting the fact that the universe is a surprising place. Why should I?
And there's Rosemary. I know more about her now than I did when I found her body sprawled on the seat of The Beast, but not much more. I still don't know whether she did in fact sleep with her clients or blackmail them or both, whether she loved Jeff Clark as much as he loved her, whether the pregnancy was an accident or part of a deliberate scheme. Like all of us, she must have had regrets about the past and hopes and dreams for the future, but she didn't leave enough evidence behind to tell me what they were.
And Jeff. I saw his body, I know he's dead. But the fiction of his flight was so compelling that it's still hard for me to believe what I saw. Like Rosemary, like so many crime victims, he goes into death unmourned, with nothing to mark his passing except for the abruptness, the violence of his death.
And what of the man alleged to have killed them? In a few months, the People will summon Matt Monroe to be judged for the capital murders of Rosemary Robbins and Jeff Clark. The prosecution will establish motive and opportunity, reconstruct the crimes, present the scientific evidence, call the expert witnesses. The defense will move to suppress the evidence, deplore the police handling of the investigation, question the expert witnesses' credentials, attack Carol Connally's credibility, and construct alternate theories of the crime — all in an effort to cast doubt on the prosecution's case. If Matt Monroe is found guilty, his lawyers will appeal, and appeal, and appeal. It may be a decade before he's brought into that grim room at Huntsville, strapped to the gurney, and executed—if the Supreme Court has not once again curtailed the implementation of the death penalty. And in all these months and years, the public's attention will be focused on the accused, on the killer. He will be the star of the courtroom drama, the victims only minor characters who are remembered, when they're remembered at all, in flashback; as pieces of evidence, rather than people.
Perhaps that's why I was so compelled to learn what I could about Rosemary, and why I was so frustrated by how little she left behind. Perhaps that's why Sheila and Ruby and I and a dozen of her other clients will gather briefly next week to replant the rosemary bush in the herb garden at the hotel, and to place a small plaque there with her name on it, and Jeff s.
Remembering isn't much, but it's all we can do.
RESOURCES
For readers who want to explore the many mysteries of herbs, there is a wealth of books, magazines, and newsletters available. For this book, I consulted the following:
Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantment. (Collier Books, 1940.) A classic history of herbs and gardening. Clark-son's pages on rosemary are full of interesting folklore. She points out that it symbolized remembrance at weddings and funerals, that it was used to cure headache and heartache, and that it grew so prolifically in Southern France that it was used for firewood.
Scott Cunningham, The Complete Book of Incense, Odd, and Brews. (Llewellyn Publications, 1989.) This book gave Ruby the idea for her Saturn incense. It is a magical cookbook that brings together many traditional nonculinary uses for herbs.
Madalene Hill and Gwen Barclay, Southern Herb Growing. (Shearer Publishing, 1987.) Another magical book. It has everything China needs to know about growing rosemary (and 130-something other herbs) in Texas, or any of the other hot, humid southern states. Besides propagation, cultivation, and harvesting, the book suggests garden designs, gives tips for usin
g herbs, and offers a treasury of recipes from Hilltop Herb Farm, which Madalene Hill established more than thirty years ago.
Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals. Reprinted by Dover Publications. Written in 1922, it is still the best available history of the development of herbal writing. The author covers all the great herbalists, from the tenth-century Anglo-Saxon manuscripts to the seventeenth-century stillroom books.
Jeanne Rose, Herbs eJ> Things: Jeanne Rose's Herbal (Perigee Books.) A marvelous compendium of herbal lore, interpreted in Jeanne Rose's unique style. Many wonderful formulas, frolicks, and informative tidbits, along with drawings, funny pictures, and quotations like this one from Ivan Petrovich Pavlov: "Life is a constant struggle against oxygen deficiency."
A Book of Thyme and Seasons. Referred to in several of the chapter headnotes, the book exists only in China's mind, at this point. China's Garden, however, is a real newsletter, published four times a year by China Bayles and her friends. In it you'll find sage lore, thymely tips, savory recipes, and a potpourri of information about Pecan Springs and the China Bayles mystery series. For a sample copy, send $2 and your name and address to: China's Garden, PO Drawer M, Bertram, TX 78605. Not coin-cidentally, you may also write to Susan Wittig Albert at that address.
Rosemary Remembered - China Bayles 04 Page 26
