What she really needed was the comfort of her familiar schedule. Work was soothing. She wished that it was possible for her to return to Georgia and her own modest home, but of course, with the investigation into Isaac’s death still going on, she couldn’t leave Riverview.
Anyway, MacGregor, and maybe Rory—a little—needed her here. If for no other reason than to finish the job she had been hired to do. Now, more than ever, she needed to get that database done. Discovery of the family cemetery was still quite possible, and they wanted a defense against that awful day when Riverview might be made known to the grave-robbing world.
A course of action decidedly on, Chloe threw back the covers and went to get dressed. Surprisingly, the thought of going to work in the family cemetery didn’t disturb her at all.
Rory was waiting for her when she came down the stairs and silently shouldered his usual half of her equipment. She didn’t ask how he had known that she would finally return to work that morning. It was enough that he was there to help distract her as she walked past the slave cemetery. Not that she would embarrass either of them by expressing her gratitude for his thoughtfulness. There was still too much strain between them.
“I thought I’d photograph two-twenty-nine today,” she said as a conversation opener. With all the ugly things that were on her mind, idle conversation with Rory about the ancient dead was the only thing that didn’t seem awkward.
“Chloe?” he asked gently. “Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe you would rather just take a walk and perhaps visit the nursery.”
Yes, she would prefer that. They could take a long stroll and talk things over while they listened to Puccini. Rory was usually reasonable as long as MacGregor wasn’t around. . . . For one insane moment, she actually thought about confiding in him and telling him of the photographs she had taken. But the first clear look at Rory’s closed expression put the thought out of mind. In spite of his words, the man who was with her today was some close kin to the suspicious soul who had been so hostile the day of her arrival.
She was fairly certain what he would want her to do with the photos anyway. He would not want to risk exposure of the family cemetery, and he might actually be arrogant enough to take steps to see that the film, cameras, and even computer disappeared before it could go to the police. If he told MacGregor about it, the older man would certainly insist that they be destroyed—with or without her consent, though they would likely try to make it look accidental.
It irritated her to think that both men would make the blanket assumption that she wouldn’t simply guide the police to the other cemetery if they took her film from her. But she had obviously been sincere in her reassurances of privacy at the start of the job, and they had her properly categorized as one of the loyal ones who didn’t break faith on a promise.
And she couldn’t fault them for placing privacy above assisting the sheriff to locate their own murdering kin. After all, she was doing the same thing and she wasn’t even related to the Patricks.
“Well, if you want to work, that tomb is a good choice,” Rory said at last, when the silence had gone on too long. He peered at her face and then took another of her camera bags in a show of rare consideration. Chloe wondered if she were still sporting a ghastly pale complexion. She knew there were dark circles beneath her eyes that even a full day’s rest had not taken away.
“Yes? Why?”
“It’s the alchemist’s tomb. It’s another one with touches of gold. Very whimsical. You’ll like it.” His voice and face began to animate.
Chloe raised a brow.
“Are you kidding? More gold just standing in the graveyard? I’ve never heard of such an ostentatious family—well, not outside of some of the more insane Caesars who were gods incarnate, and a few medieval pontiffs. Come to think of it, they were related to God too, weren’t they?”
“Yes, or so they claimed. Unbelievable, isn’t it, that we Patricks should be so blessed? And we haven’t a Caesar or Pope among us.”
Oddly, though she spent more time being annoyed with Rory than not, she still enjoyed watching his face when he spoke about the things that interested him.
“But you have your very own family alchemist. That’s still an achievement of tall order.”
“If you say so.”
“Of course it is. Not just every family has one, you know. Mine certainly doesn’t.” They just had a witch or two.
“I know.” His tone was dry and ironic. “I mean, I know that it’s uncommon. Nothing would surprise me about your family though. You have the eyes of the mystic.”
Chloe managed not to flinch.
“I thought you said they were like blueberries. Anyway, we are all wholesome baseball and apple pie types.” Except Granny Claire. “Not like your kin. So, be honest. Is that how the Patricks managed their rise to wealth and power?” she asked, trying for a lighter note. “They discovered the secret of making gold and raised the family fortunes through alchemy?”
“Not hardly.”
“That’s a relief. How mundane that would be, making gold out of straw or something,” she said with mock disdain. “I’d kind of been hoping for a leprechaun and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That is a much better story.”
“Sorry, but there are no leprechauns either. We make our own gold,” Rory answered, with a slight smile for her lighthearted conversational efforts. “But not through chemistry. That particular experiment never panned out. Nor the one for the elixir of eternal youth.”
“How about an elixir of love? That would be popular. Probably if it was bottled as an old family recipe, it would sell well at county fairs.” Not that Patrick men needed any extra help; they were already possessed of ample charisma. The murderous Claude being the exception, of course. Yet even he had been handsome in his own way.
“No, not that either.” Rory looked back and smiled. “My ancestors apparently lacked scientific discipline. We were more given to acting than thinking and careful research. I am the closest this family has ever come to using science for profit, and I am not all that close.”
“You don’t consider botany a science?” They stepped into the prickly hedge tunnel, Rory leading the way and taking down most of the spiders’ new webs with his broad shoulders.
“No. Botany isn’t cold and analytical, and I am not controlled in most of my research either.” He shrugged, swatting at a lazy bee that hovered near his nose. “Anyhow, I’m not using much of my formal training at Botanics. It’s instinct. My mother had a green thumb and love of plants. I simply had the good fortune to inherit her gift.”
“Well then, how did your family make its millions? Rum trade? Tobacco? Ugh!” Chloe spat out a stray tendril of light green creeper what had wrapped itself about her mouth and was doing its best to gag her. “These darn things just won’t quit growing!”
“They’re plants,” Rory explained kindly. “They do that when it’s warm and rainy.”
“Don’t change the subject! I’m not done gossiping about your family finances.”
“My apologies. You were wrong about rum and tobacco. We didn’t trade in slaves either. What’s your next wild guess as to the source of our wealth?”
“I was thinking piracy. There is the river, and there was lots of that going on in the Tidewater area. And that seems like a sufficiently dramatic sort of occupation, one that would appeal to your kin. Or they could have lit bonfires and lured passing ships onto the rocks.”
Rory snorted. “Wrong again—you really do have lurid tastes. Anyway, though I am no expert on this matter, I believe that the bonfire trick only works with ocean vessels on certain stretches of rocky coastline.”
“So, no pirates?”
“No. We did some shipping though, and grew some hemp in the eighteenth century,” Rory said kindly.
“Hemp! Don’t be ridiculous. No one got rich on hemp. . . . I think maybe your forefathers routinely looted the museums of Europe,” Chloe went on, rejecting the other story as boring and t
herefore spurious. “Do you have any great thieves back there in the old family tree? A seventeenth century cat burglar? Or maybe one of your ancestresses was a mistress to Charles the Second and made off with the royal jewels!”
Chloe made certain not to look to her right as they headed for the family necropolis. Instead, she focused on the stands of wild rosy columbine that were beginning to bloom and kept her back to the slave cemetery where the yellow police tape fluttered in the timid breeze.
“Almost certainly we do have thieves in the family—and I believe there was one lady who had a connection with the Stuart lecher. But I wouldn’t know the details. I’m just the gardener. Ask MacGregor about our history. I’m sure that he’d be only too happy to entertain you with family yarns. He would probably give you a leprechaun and a cat burglar, even a pirate or two, if you really want them.”
Chloe couldn’t see Rory’s face but she could hear the lingering smile in his voice as he fit the key into the lock and pushed the gate wide.
“So, who did the alchemist’s tomb? I only saw the back of it but it looked Roman, if I am thinking of the right one. Was it done by Gaspari? Or Sammartino?” she asked casually, pushing through the remaining creepers, which Rory had not pulled aside. They were in close enough proximity as she passed through the portal that Chloe could smell the soap Rory had bathed in. It was an appealing herbal concoction that reminded her of a florist’s shop.
“No, that one is a Massari. The Gaspari is closer to the outer wall,” he said, letting down the green curtain behind them.
“Hm . . . Massari, is it? That rolled easily off the tongue. You are a fraud, you know,” she told Rory. “And I’m on to you now.”
Rory froze in the act of shutting the gate behind them. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice suddenly neutral.
“I mean that ‘I’m just the gardener’ routine. Give it up. You have nothing in common with Joe Six-pack who pushes a lawnmower for a living. The average man on the street wouldn’t know a Mas-sari from fettuccini alfredo. And you like opera as well as the blues. That’s hardly the music of the modern masses.”
Rory relaxed. “I just have a good memory for Greek and Latin names. Goes with the territory.” He turned his head and smiled at her.
It wasn’t his best smile, being slightly forced, but Chloe found herself answering it anyway. They were both still very tense and had to make allowances for moments of awkwardness. At least he was warming up again.
“So how come there are no ossuaries here? You seem to have every other sort of burial option covered.” For one instant her mind flashed on the horror in the slave cemetery, but she immediately pushed the thought away. She could not afford to get spooky now that she was again among the dead. They were friendly enough spirits here in the Patrick family boneyard, but it was most unwise to call ghosts—even kind ones—when you might be left alone with them. It was doubtful that Rory could stay all day. They were bound to quarrel again eventually and then he would abandon her.
The thought made her a little sad.
“Why bother? We have plenty of space for everyone in the family. And outsiders are not welcome.” Rory started down an east-running path. “Can you actually imagine the Patrick patriarchs spending eternity in some crowded, common grave like the regular hoi-polloi? We put up the occasional cenotaph to our famous or patriotic neighbors in town to appease the tourists. That’s democratic enough.”
“You have a point. An ossuary would be far too common an end for any Patrick.”
“Far, far too common.”
“So, I guess this attitude toward the hoi-polloi means you never had any socialists in your family? No friends to the common man?”
“Not a one. We all enjoyed our luxuries too much to embrace any fashionable—and certainly not any unfashionable—political causes. We looked after our own, servants or family, but that was it.”
Chloe wondered if that wasn’t the literal truth. She hadn’t found a single reference to a Patrick dying while serving as a soldier in a war. She would have thought that the usual pride and a thirst for valor would have infected some of the younger, more romantic males of the tribe, especially during the War between the States, but apparently in their civic pride they were as different from the average man as it was possible to be.
However, she had a feeling that whatever the differences to the common man, Patricks did have their full share of familial pride and that it could be damaged. Having Claude on the run from the police had to be weighing heavily on MacGregor’s spirits, and possibly making him speechless with fury. He certainly had not spoken to her much in the last few days. She hadn’t seen him except for the minutes she was questioned by Sheriff Bell.
The picture of MacGregor with an axe flashed across her brain and she wondered uneasily what he would do if Claude were eventually found and arrested for Isaac Runyon’s death. It seemed possible that his reaction to the indignity would be so strong that he might actually die of shame.
Chloe caught an unexpected glimpse of tomb forty-six’s crocketed roof showing through the thinning trees, and suddenly recalled the strange moss that she had intended to show Rory on their next visit to the cemetery.
“Wait!” she called, glad for the distraction. “There was something over here that I wanted to show you.”
“What?” Rory returned immediately to her side. He seemed unusually alert and his voice a bit sharp as he questioned her. “What is it?”
“Just some moss. It isn’t anything important,” Chloe began. “It looked a lot like your Borneo moss, the one you showed us in the hothouse where the break-in hap—”
“Where is it? Which tomb? Or is it in a tree?” he asked hopefully.
Chloe smiled at the abrupt questions.
“Over on Calvin and Edana’s place, number forty-six. It sprouted right after the rainstorm and was growing like a house afire. Every hour it spread another couple inches. I took some pho—” But she was talking to air. Rory’s passion for moss was apparently alive and well, for he had reversed course as soon as she mentioned Calvin and Edana, and was walking rapidly toward tomb forty-six.
It was probably just as well that she hadn’t mentioned her extracurricular photography. She had forgotten for a moment that she had taken those photos the same day as finding the body, and there was no point in starting his mind down that particular path.
Chloe shrugged off her renewed unease and followed after Rory. She was rather curious to see how the moss was faring now that warmer, drier weather had returned.
“Moss growing at this time of year?” Rory muttered. “Perhaps some spruce fir or filamentous fungi . . . but even if a lycopodiam lucidulum—”
“Your conversation sometimes leaves a little to be desired,” Chloe complained. “And it is too hot for racing about with this equipment if all you are going to do is speak Latin and grumble to yourself. Anyway, it isn’t spruce fir moss. I’ve seen lots of that. This looked just like that hairy Borneo stuff. I was even wondering if Roger might have gotten into the greenhouse after the break-in and brought some spores out here in his coat. You know how he likes tomb forty-six, and all the moss is growing down low.”
“It’s possible,” Rory said shortly. “But very unlikely. Roger never comes out to Botanics unless MacGregor brings him. And MacGregor rarely comes around anymore. I’ve seen him more this last week then in the entirety of last year.”
Thinking back to the small jagged hole punched in the hothouse glass, Chloe was inclined to agree with Rory’s assessment. The cat would have been cut to ribbons trying to fit in that small space. It was also a long distance from the house for the bowlegged cat to travel on foot.
Though, he might have followed if Claude ever went to visit. The cat surely adored that ratfink.
They rounded the corner of tomb forty-six and Rory stopped. In the two days since she had been there, the honeysuckle had made great inroads on the granite sepulcher. But the path to the door was still sufficiently clear that they could b
oth see the long strands of moss that were turning a sickly yellow on the stone sill and dark wood panel.
“Oh! It’s dying,” Chloe said with disappointment. “I thought for sure that it would make it. It looked so healthy two days ago—just like those pots in your greenhouse.”
Rory grunted and kneeled by the narrow sill. He gently fingered the sickly strands that had laced over the lower door. He soon abandoned the moss and ran a finger over the dark wood of the door itself. He leaned in and sniffed it. After another long moment, he pulled away from the tomb and wiped his hands on his handkerchief.
“It is weberi, isn’t it?” Chloe asked, confident of her identification now that the moss was filled in.
“No. It’s . . . a lucidulam.” Rory turned to stare at her. His lips twisted into a smile, and he held her eyes as he said steadily: “It is not the Borneo moss. It couldn’t be. There is no way for that moss to get here. Anyway, weberi doesn’t like granite. I told you that. It wouldn’t grow there even if Roger carried the spore out here.”
Chloe’s breath stopped, and for a moment she was unable to look away from Rory’s face. Something inside her twisted at his overly sincere gaze. She prayed that her complexion neither flushed nor paled, and that Rory didn’t notice the sudden trembling in her legs.
Weberi didn’t like clay pots either. He had said that. It grew on wood and had to be deliberately cultured in a manmade growing medium if it was to thrive on terra-cotta pots. That’s what Rory had told them the day she and MacGregor went to Bontanics. Weberi might grow on its own on the ancient panel door of the mausoleum, but it would never have started accidentally on the stone sill. Not unless someone had smeared it with yogurt or some other medium. Rory was lying to her.
And that, she thought grimly, pretty much answered her question about whether to confide in Rory about her photos.
“Oh, really?” She swallowed to ease the dryness in her mouth and willed her lungs to work. She added lamely, “Well, it was pretty a couple of days ago. I thought you would want to see it.”
Writ on Water Page 16
