Later, the three of them had shared a large pizza and discussed whether the apparition could be, as Zapata had theorized, as fake as the artifacts.
“It’s always looked quite ghostly to me,” Jenny had said, “even though it doesn’t feel uncanny. And it disappeared quickly enough. Every old house has to have a ghost or two. Most of them are harmless.”
“Vicky’s ghost has been here for ages,” Hilary had said. “Why would someone play games for forty years or more?”
Mark had shaken his head. “Even ghosts have motives, supposedly. I’d like to know what Vicky’s is—it’s too late to avenge her death. And as for Arthur’s motive….” He’d suddenly become very intent on his pizza, not looking at Jenny’s somber face.
Much later, in the driveway, Hilary and Mark had shared passionate oregano-flavored kisses that had surprised them both. Something to be said for confrontation. And if not for forgiveness—Mark didn’t deserve to be patronized by forgiveness—at least for forgetfulness.
Setting down the X-acto knife and putting on her gloves, Hilary tested the brooch in its polyurethane nest. Almost there.
By quitting time she’d packed three of the items and felt some satisfaction at a job well done for its own sake. She stored everything away and hurried to her car, which, given its head, carried her to Osborne.
She found Mark and Jenny dealing with an infestation of Coburgs; Vasarian, Kenneth, and Dolores hovered over the carriage house excavation like vultures over a corpse. Even the carpenter stood nearby, his cheek distended with chewing tobacco, saying, “I like to went crazy in that house. I swear to God someone was watching me, even when the place was plumb empty.”
Dolores snapped, “I’ll find a carpenter without such a sorry attitude. You’re fired.”
The carpenter looked at her, perhaps contemplating spitting on her Ultrasuede skirt. But that would probably have been too much effort. Without another word he plodded toward the driveway and joined the students’ exodus. Dolores turned back to Mark and Jenny, planting her Gucci pumps even more securely in the dirt, and began lecturing them about developers, Victoria Square, and supply-side economics.
Well! Hilary thought. Marie Antoinette has shed her skin and revealed Attila the Hun. She stopped at the edge of the third trench, where Preston sat drawing several beer bottles that lay beneath the frame of a meter grid. “That’s great! You’ve got a good eye for proportion.”
“Thanks. Now if I can just get it traced without any ink blots.”
“Mind over matter. Tell the pen to behave itself.”
Laughing, Preston rolled the paper off the drawing board. “Lucia Hernandez came by earlier and invited us all to her house Friday night. She said she’d even invited the detectives but that they were too busy.”
“No chance we’ll disappoint her by not talking about the case,” Hilary said. “She didn’t invite the Coburgs or Vasarian or Bradshaw, did she?”
“The suspects?” Preston asked, blithely articulating everyone’s unspoken theory. “I don’t think she wants an Agatha Christie-type finale in her living room. Of course, someone would have to solve the case for that.”
“Yeah,” Hilary said.
She saw Mark staring toward Osborne House, dissociating himself from the scene. Jenny faced Dolores’s oration with arms crossed, chin raised, and eyes narrowed, no doubt meditating on the order of battle at Waterloo. She did not acknowledge Kenneth’s supercilious gaze. It’s all your fault, Hilary read in his dark, brooding eyes. My father was an honorable man until you came along. That Arthur’s affair with Pamela took place during his marriage to Felicia, and that Jenny had nothing to do with her parents’ choices, made no difference. Guilt and blame were hardly logical.
Today even Vasarian was sketched more darkly than before, the silver of his hair tarnished—either by the sulfur emanating from the Coburgs, thought Hilary, or from his own greedy heart. He eyed Jenny as if expecting her to produce the Eleanor Cross like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
Dolores’s voice rose. “…this area under construction by now!”
“Here,” Jenny protested. “My contract is also with the Historical Society. They hired me to do a proper excavation, even if you didn’t.”
“May I suggest a compromise?” asked Vasarian. “Perhaps Dr. Galliard would work Saturdays. The student volunteers could be paid.”
Dolores’s tight, bright smile was like the crack of a whip. “Tell the students I’ll give them a party when the dig is over if they’ll work the next two Saturdays. And I’ll pay y’all a bonus.”
Neither Mark nor Jenny stepped forward to offer themselves for sale. Kenneth’s eye roved across the dig to where Hilary stood. He offered her an obligatory wink, but his heart wasn’t in it.
“All right,” Jenny said. “I’ll quote you a bargain. A cash bonus for Mark. And for Preston—he’s been a great help. A party for the students, and no pressure to work if they don’t wish to.”
“Nothing for you?” asked Dolores.
“I couldn’t charge a family member, now, could I?”
Mark’s eyes met Hilary’s behind Dolores’s back and glinted with a steel-edged humor. Preston’s brows rose, his pleasure at Jenny’s tribute struggling with bewilderment at her comment about family.
Dolores wasn’t impressed by Jenny’s sarcasm. “I’m counting on you to keep things moving along. We won’t be able to help—we’re starting to plan the Cattle Barons’ Ball.”
“We can manage, thank you.” Jenny turned back to the half-buried ceramic shards. She and Mark began exchanging arcane archaeology-speak about numerical taxonomy and scatter diagrams.
With a calculating look at Mark’s and Jenny’s backs, Dolores took a pad from her handbag and made a note. Then she started toward the driveway. Her high-heeled shoes wouldn’t dare slip in the debris, but even so, Kenneth rushed to her side and offered his arm. Vasarian managed to get to the Cadillac first. Hilary thought the two men would start pushing and shoving like kids playing musical chairs, the winner getting the front seat beside Dolores. But she gestured Kenneth into the back and pulled Vasarian in beside her.
Preston and Hilary strolled across the dirt to the garage excavation. Mark’s half-kneeling figure was poised on its brink like a Greek statue on a pedestal. No doubt about it, he did wonderful things for a pair of blue jeans. Clearing her throat, Hilary asked Preston, “How’re your researches coming?”
“The copies of different documents I ordered will be in tomorrow.”
“So will copies of the alibi photos from the newspaper. Lucia timed it perfectly—we can go over everything tomorrow night at her place.”
“You heard about the invitation, then?” Jenny asked, emerging from the excavation. “Jacob Sikora rang today to say he can’t find Arthur’s notebook. I checked with Detective Zapata, and she doesn’t have it, either. It wasn’t in Nathan’s car or his office. I should’ve read it when I had the opportunity. Now it’s gone walkabout with the Ripper portfolio and Felicia’s letter.”
Preston still looked faintly puzzled, but all he asked was, “So we’re going to work on Saturday?”
“You heard the lady,” Jenny returned. “A command performance.”
“Yeah.” Preston headed for the driveway. “See y’all tomorrow!”
Mark stood up, his eye moving from Hilary to Jenny as warily as a lion-tamer’s moving between two powerful and capricious cats. Jenny swallowed a smile that was almost indulgent. “If I’m to have tamales tomorrow, I’d best spend tonight with the computer data.”
“We’ll see you then.” Mark steered Hilary toward the driveway.
Glancing over her shoulder, Hilary saw Jenny sliding back into the trench, trowel in one hand, collecting bag in the other. “Don’t work too hard,” she called.
Jenny waved, already intent on the scattered shards.
It was a beautiful evening. The landscape could have been painted by Constable, so soft was the sunlight on the grass and trees. Even the
drivers along York seemed mellowed by the melting warmth, and didn’t crowd each other unduly as they sped toward the freeway. “I’ll go clean up,” Mark said, “and pick you up and we’ll go looking for wildflowers. The bluebonnets should just be starting to bloom.”
For a moment Hilary felt guilty; here they were enjoying themselves when Nathan had been cruelly prevented from ever enjoying anything again. Then she remembered Nathan’s benign smile and his taste for the unexpected encounter, and smiled. “Get away for a while? Love it.”
Back at her condo, Hilary gratefully stripped off her pantyhose and wool skirt. A full cotton skirt and ruffled petticoat made her feel cool and rather flirtatious. She added a soft blouse and was slipping sandals onto her bare feet when the phone rang. She flopped down across the bed, skirt billowing, to reach it. “Hello?”
“How’s my baby?” boomed Everett’s voice.
“Oh, hi, Daddy. Are you back home?”
“At the moment. I’m going back to the office on Monday—when the cat’s away the mice will play, you know.”
In the background Olivia’s voice murmured about secretaries and executive assistants, low-fat diets and relaxation exercises.
Ignoring her, Everett went on, “Gary just called to say he clinched a million-dollar deal. Isn’t that great!”
“Great,” Hilary agreed. And I lost several million in art. Downstairs the doorbell rang. “Oops. Mark’s here to pick me up. We’re going to go looking for wildflowers.”
Everett laughed. “Back in my day we called it watching the underwater submarine races. Well, run along, baby. Tell him about that job in Research and Development.”
“Thank you, Daddy. Give my love to Mom.” Hilary hung up and lay sprawled across the bed like a wet tissue. I have to be polite to them, she told herself. But I don’t have to like them, let alone believe them. I’m me, not their baby. Their voices were only static behind Mark’s warm baritone.
The doorbell rang again. She hurried downstairs.
Mark was wearing khaki slacks and the blue-green madras shirt that made his eyes look like opals. His hair was still damp. He bowed Hilary into the van and headed out of town along the interstate. Before long they were free of the city and its frayed outskirts. Tall pecan trees lined the road, and the median was a sea of brilliant blue flowers. “Bluebonnets,” Mark said, and exited onto a farm-to-market road. “Those red ones are Indian paintbrushes, the pink ones wine-cups, and the purple ones are damifinos.”
“What?” Hilary got the joke. “Damn if I know’s. Funny.”
Mark grinned, unrepentant. They crossed a stream, nearby willows waving coyly, and turned into a gravel parking lot beside a pasture. Horses lined the barbed-wire fence, their dark eyes incurious. A sign before a small paneled building read “Ida’s Restaurant.” Delectable odors from inside mingled with the earthy odors of the pasture.
Mark and Hilary found a table in the back. The chairs were mismatched old kitchen chairs, the tablecloth a spotless red check. The prints hanging on the walls ranged from Remington’s Western scenes to French impressionists. Charmed, Hilary reached for the menu propped behind the sugar container. Mark took her hand to stop her. “Don’t bother. This is the place to eat either chicken-fried steak or catfish, and lemon chess pie.”
“Whatever you say, Fearless Leader.”
With a quiet laugh he lifted her hand to his lips, kissed it, and laid it back on the table. She went beyond charmed to thrilled, and hung on his eyes for a long, breathless minute that was interrupted by a teenage waitress in jeans and T-shirt.
The iced tea was brewed, not instant. Mark gave her a bit of his steak; it was much lighter than she’d imagined, with cream gravy as good as bechamel sauce. Her catfish fillet had been fried in a cornmeal crust that dissolved airily on her tongue. Homemade yeast rolls and bowls of crisp-cooked vegetables completed the meal. By the time the waitress removed their plates, Hilary was glowing like ancient ivory. She’d been painfully aware that the frustration, irritation, and tension of the last week had sandpapered her nerves. She hadn’t realized the benefits of that sensitivity.
Just as the waitress brought slices of pie, the front door opened and another couple walked inside. “Well,” whispered Mark. “Look there.”
Frank Yeager was seating Rosalind Zapata at a table in the opposite corner. Hilary had imagined them being switched off and stored in police department lockers when not at work, but there they were, dressed in chinos and casual shirts. Zapata’s hair flowed down her back to below her shoulder blades, reminding Hilary of raven-tressed romantic heroines.
Mark offered Hilary a fork. Her pie was sweet and tart at once, the texture both custardy and grainy, the crust made of cloud. Nathan would have approved. With a sigh of repletion she inhaled the last bite.
Across the room Yeager was leaning across the table, hands open. Zapata sat back in her chair, arms crossed, avoiding the intensity of his eyes. Hilary and Mark exchanged a wary look. “Whatever it is,” she said, and he finished, “It’s none of our business.”
They slipped out unnoticed by the detectives. In the lowering sun the grass of the pasture was so green it was fluorescent. The horses were cross-eyed with contentment. Hilary felt the same; Indianapolis, the Lloyd, and Osborne House all seemed very far away. Surprised by joy, she leaned across the seat of the van to give Mark a kiss. He kissed her back with the leisurely deliberation that was so characteristically his.
Oh, Hilary thought. Oh my, well, maybe…. The evening was an unanticipated grace note in an otherwise discordant melody, its perfection almost painful.
Mark plugged in a Steeleye Span tape, and to its sprightly folk-rock they drove back to the city. Osborne House seemed insignificant against the colors of the evening. The live oak outside Mark’s apartment shimmered green and gold. They walked up the stairs and across the living room toward the kitchen. A floorboard squealed beneath Hilary’s sandal. Mark laughed. “One of these days I’m going to fall right through onto Gilbert’s car. Not that there’s any car down there now—Lucia said something about going mall-crawling tonight. Astrid, Gil’s wife, and the kids are going to visit her family over the weekend, and that means new clothes.”
“Any excuse for new clothes,” Hilary told him. She found a lemon and a lime in the refrigerator and sliced them while Mark opened a bottle of red wine and cracked the ice.
They toasted each other in glasses of sangria and strolled back downstairs into the dusk, letting themselves into Lucia’s garden by a side gate. The neighbors’ wind chimes rang in the cool, sweet-scented breeze. Hilary inhaled deeply. “In the seventeenth-century Culpepper herbal, red roses are said to strengthen the heart.”
“‘My love is like a red, red rose’,” quoted Mark.
“La vie en rose,” Hilary returned.
They walked hand in hand between the rows of pink and white, red and yellow flowers. Some blooms were fully open; some were snugly furled buds, dewy with innocence. Hilary realized Mark was casting sideways glances at her, like a child with his nose pressed to the window of a candy store. She blushed as red as the flowers and squeezed his hand.
“The first rose garden,” he said, “was created by the Empress Josephine at Malmaison. That bush there is a Souvenir de la Malmaison.”
Hilary stopped and buried her face—carefully—in a pink blossom. Its opulence made her head swim. Or maybe that was the effect of the sangria. Or of Mark’s body close beside her, exuding a masculine aura that some hormonal automatic pilot inside her own body was straining toward.
“That’s a Celine Forestier,” he went on, pointing to a tall yellow-blossomed shrub climbing a trellis outside the kitchen door. “That one there, with the pink flowers, is an Old Blush. Lucia found it in a cemetery near Fredericksburg, where Astrid’s family has a plot.”
The dusk thickened, a silken scrim falling across the sky. The colors of the roses dimmed, but their scent didn’t fade. From the top of the garage a mourning dove called and was answered. Mark cl
osed the garden gate and pointed into branches of the oak tree. “I bet that dove has a nest up there.”
Side by side they jockeyed around the gnarled trunk, peering upward. The dove called again. Hilary emptied her glass, savoring the last drop. Her feet and ankles, she realized, were stinging. She looked down to see tiny ants swarming over her sandals and up her legs. “What on earth?”
“Good God, fire ants!” Mark pulled her away from the mound of earth where she stood and started brushing frantically at her ankles. “They sting like the dickens. I should’ve warned you.”
“Fire ants?” But he was already hauling her up the stairs and into his bathroom. Hilary barely had time to lay her glass down before he’d seated her on the edge of the tub and ripped off her sandals, grabbed the nozzle of the hand-held shower and sprayed her legs so liberally with cool water she lunged for her skirts and bundled them up around her thighs.
Hilary’s feet and ankles were breaking out in pinhead-sized clear blisters. The stinging intensified into an itching so fierce it took her breath away. “You’re not allergic to insect bites, are you?” asked Mark.
“No, thank goodness. Those things could kill me otherwise.”
“It’s happened,” Mark said darkly. He turned off the water, grabbed a towel from the rack and a tube of ointment from the medicine cabinet.
Despite her precarious perch on the edge of the tub and the itching on her feet and ankles, Hilary had to admit the scene had its appeal. Mark dried her legs and toes with his patented delicate touch, then applied ointment to each blister. The odor of camphor swelled upward to join that of the roses. Hilary was lightheaded, as though her skull had been scoured clean. Her legs emerged from her gathered skirts and splayed in Mark’s hands. She remembered the night after the reception, on her living room couch.
Mark put the top back on the ointment and set it down. Still he knelt at her side, his fingertips tracing a path from ankle to knee to thigh and the ruffle of fabric and back down again. Hilary smiled at his frown of concentration; he was as stubborn in love as in anything else. If he hadn’t been stubborn, he never would have survived love’s pitfalls.
Garden of Thorns Page 28
