Black Rose (12 page)

Despite herself, Roz laughed. “For God’s sake, Cissy, her ass looks normal enough to me.”

“Not compared to the new administrative assistant Quill’s said to have his eye on. Twenty-eight years old, and you could set that table quite a bit higher on that one, as long as you don’t mind eating off silicone.”

“I hope that’s not true, about Quill. I’ve always thought he and Jan were good together.”

“Some men just lose all sense around a big pair of tits, no matter if God or man made them. Which brings me around to what I really came by to tell you. I’m just not quite sure how.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

“It’s just that I feel I must, I’m obliged . . . How long have we been friends, Rosalind?”

“I couldn’t say.” Since knowing someone since high school didn’t make you friends, she thought.

“At our age, it’s best not to count the years in any case. But since we’ve known each other longer than either of us cares to admit to, I feel like I have to let you know what’s going around. But first I want to say, since I haven’t had a minute to talk to you since . . . the
incident
, that I’ve never been so shocked or so
dumbfounded
as I was when that horrible Bryce Clerk walked into your house, just like he had a right to, the night of your party.”

“It’s all right, Cissy. He walked right back out again.”

“And a good thing, too, as I don’t know if I could’ve held myself back. I just don’t know. I couldn’t believe that Mandy. Of course, that girl hasn’t got the sense God gave a retarded flea, but that’s no excuse for not taking the time to find out who the man
was
before she came traipsing into your home on his arm.”

She waved a hand. “I just can’t speak of it.”

“Then we won’t. I really have to get back to work.”

“But I haven’t
told
you. My tongue just runs away from me when I’m upset. He was
there
, with that ridiculous, brainless girl again. He was there, Roz, at Jan and Quill’s, big as life, like he didn’t have a care in the world. Drinking champagne and dancing, smoking cigars out on the veranda. Talking about his
consulting
company. Just turned my stomach.”

She held a hand to it, as if even now it threatened to revolt. “I know Jan said you’d sent your regrets, but I lived in horror that you’d change your mind and walk in any minute. I wasn’t the only one, either.”

“I’m sure.” Very sure, Roz thought, that there’d been plenty of excited buzz, and half-hopeful glances toward the door. “Jan’s entitled to have anyone she wants to in her own home.”

“I certainly don’t agree with that. It’s a matter of loyalty, if not good taste. And I had lunch with her today to say just that.”

As she spoke, she opened her purse and took out a compact to blot her nose. “Turns out Quill cleared the way for him. They’re doing some business together, not that Jan seems to know a thing about that, the woman’s just clueless when it comes to money matters. Not like you and me.”

“Mmm” was the most polite response Roz could think of, as Cissy had never worked a day in her life.

“To her credit she was mortified while we talked about it over lunch. Mortified.” Taking out a lipstick, she repainted her mouth to match her suit. “But there are some, and I admit I heard some of this at the party as well as here and there, there are some who feel some sympathy for the man. Who actually believed he was treated poorly, which just beats all, if you ask me. The worst of it is, the version that you physically assaulted him the night of the party, running him out when he attempted to make bygones, so to speak. That you threatened him and that silly girl even when they went out again. Of course, every time I hear it, I do what I can to straighten it out. I was there, after all.”

Roz recognized the avid tone. Give me some fuel for this fire. And that she wouldn’t do, no matter how angry, how vilified she felt. “People will say or think what they want to say or think. There’s no point in me worrying about it.”

“Well, some are saying and thinking that you didn’t come to Jan’s, or other get-togethers, because you knew
he
would be there, and sporting a woman nearly half your age.”

“I’m surprised anyone would spend so much time concerned with speculating on how I might react to someone who is no longer a part of my reality. If you see Jan, be sure to tell her not to worry about it on my account.”

Roz rose. “It was good to see you. I’ve just got to get back to work here.”

“I want you to know I’ll be thinking about you.” Cissy got to her feet, gave Roz another air peck. “We’ve got to have lunch sometime soon, my treat.”

“You and Hank have a good time in the Caymans.”

“We will. I’m going to send you those brochures,” she called over her shoulder as she walked out.

“You do that,” Roz muttered.

She walked out the opposite way, furious with herself for being hurt and insulted. She knew better, knew it wasn’t worth it, but still the score to her pride ached.

She started to turn into the propagation house, but veered off. In this mood she’d do more harm than good. Instead, she skirted around, headed into the woods that separated her private and personal domains, and took the long way home.

She didn’t want to see anyone, speak to anyone, but there was David out in the yard, playing with Stella’s boys and their dog.

The dog spotted her first, and with a few welcoming yips raced over to jump, and scrabble at her knees.

“Not now, Parker.” She bent to scratch his ears. “Not a good time now.”

“We’re hunting buried treasure.” Luke ran over. He wore a silly black beard hooked over his ears and hiding half his freckled face. “We have a map and everything.”

“Treasure?”

“Uh-huh. I’m Blackbeard the pirate, and Gavin’s Long John Silver. David’s Captain Morgan. He says Captain Morgan can put a shine on a bad day. But I don’t get it.”

She smiled, ruffled the boy’s hair as she had the dog’s fur. She could use a belt of Captain Morgan herself, she decided. A double. “What’s the treasure?”

“It’s a surprise, but David—Captain Morgan says if we scallywags don’t find it, we have to walk the plank.”

She looked over at Gavin, who was hobbling around with a broomstick strapped to his leg. And David, sporting a black eyepatch and a big plumed hat he must have dug out of his costume party bag.

“Then you’d better go on back and find it.”

“Don’t you wanna play?”

“Not right now, sugar.”

“Better find my pieces of eight,” David said as he came over, “or I’ll hang you from the highest yardarm.”

With an un-piratelike squeal, Luke scrambled off to count off more paces from the map with his brother.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“Nothing.” Roz shook her head. “Little headache, came home early. I hope to God you didn’t actually bury something. I’d hate to fire you.”

“New PlayStation game, up in the crook of the lowest branch of that sycamore.”

“You’re a treasure, Captain Morgan.”

“One in a million. I know that face.” He lifted a hand to it. “It’d pass most anybody, but not me. What’s upset you, and what the hell are you doing walking all that way without a jacket?”

“I forgot it, and I do have a headache. Brought on by some foolishness Cissy Pratt was obliged to carry over to me.”

“One of these days her flapping tongue’s going to wrap around her own throat.” He flipped up his eye patch. “And when she’s in the funeral home, I’m going in and dressing her in an outdated, off-the-rack outfit from Wal-Mart. Polyester.”

It brought on a half smile. “That’s cruel.”

“Come on inside. I’m going to fix us a batch of my infamous martinis. You can tell me all about it, then we’ll trash the bitch.”

“As entertaining as that sounds, I think what I need is a couple of aspirin and a twenty-minute nap. And we both know you can’t disappoint those boys. Go on now, Captain.” She kissed his cheek. “Shiver some timbers.”

She went inside, directly upstairs. She took the self-prescribed aspirin, then stretched out on her bed.

How long, she wondered, how long was the albatross of
that joke of a marriage going to lay across her neck? How many times would it flap right up and slap her in the face?

So much for her superstitious hope that by letting the fifteen thousand dollars she’d discovered he’d nipped out of her account slide, she would have paid the debt, balanced the scales of the mistake.

Well, the money was gone, and no use regretting that foolish decision. The marriage had happened, and no point punishing herself for it.

Sooner or later he’d slip again, screw the wrong woman, bilk the wrong man, and he’d slither out of Memphis, out of her circle.

Eventually people would find something and someone else to talk about. They always did.

Imagine him being able to convince anyone that she’d attacked him—and in her own home. Then again, he did play the injured party well, and was the most accomplished liar she’d ever known.

She could not, and would not, defend herself on any level. Doing so would just feed the beast. She would do what she had always done. Remove herself, physically and emotionally, from the storm of talk.

She’d indulge in this brief sulk—she wasn’t perfect, after all. Then she’d get back to her life, and live it as she’d always done.

Exactly as she chose.

She closed her eyes. She didn’t expect to sleep, but she drifted a bit in that half-state she often found more soothing.

And while she drifted, she sat on the bench in her own shade garden, basking in the late-spring breeze, breathing in the perfumes it had floating on the air.

She could see the main house, and the colorful pots she’d planted and set herself on the terraces. And the carriage house, with its dance of lilies waiting to open wide.

She smelled the roses that climbed up the arbor in a
strong stream of golden sun. The white roses she’d planted herself, as a private tribute to John.

She rarely went to his grave, but often to the arbor.

She looked over beyond the rose garden, the cutting garden, the paths that gently wound through the flowers and shrubs and trees to the spot where Bryce had wanted to dig a swimming pool.

They’d argued over that, and had a blistering fight when she’d headed off the contractor he’d hired despite her.

The contractor had been told, she recalled, in no uncertain terms that if he so much as dipped a blade into her ground, she’d call the police to scrape up what she left of him.

With Bryce she’d been even less patient while reminding him the house and grounds were hers, the decisions made involving them hers.

He’d stormed out, hadn’t he, after she’d scalded him. Only to slink back a few hours later, sheepish, apologetic, and with a tiny bouquet of wild violets.

Her mistake in accepting the apology, and the flowers.

Alone is better.

She shivered in the shade. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.”

You did this alone. All of this. You made a mistake once, and look what it cost you. Still costs you. Don’t make another.

“I won’t make another. Whatever I do, it won’t be a mistake.”

Alone is better.
The voice was more insistent now, and the cold deeper.
I’m alone.

For an instant, only an instant, Roz thought she saw a woman in a muddy white dress, lying in an open grave. And for that instant, only that instant, she smelled the decay of death under the roses.

Then the woman’s eyes opened, stared into hers, with a kind of mad hunger.

R
OZ CAME INTO
the house out of a nasty, sleeting rain. She peeled out of her jacket, then sat on the bench in the foyer to drag off her boots. David strolled out, sat beside her, and handed her the cup of coffee he’d brought out of the kitchen.

“Dr. Delish is in the library.”

“Yes, I saw his car.” She drank coffee, holding the cup in both hands to warm them.

“Harper’s with him. He snagged our boy for an interview. We had ours over lattes and applesauce cake earlier.”

“Applesauce cake.”

“I saved you a big slice. I know your weaknesses. They’re saying we might get some snow out of this.”

“So I heard.”

“Stella and the boys are at Logan’s. She’s going to fix dinner over there, and the boys are hoping the snow comes through and they can stay the night.”

“That’s nice. I need a shower. A hot one.”

He took the cup she passed back to him. “I thought you
might want to ask our handsome professor to stay to dinner. I’m making some hearty chicken and dumplings to ward off the cold.”

“Sounds good—the chicken—and Mitch is certainly welcome to stay if he likes, and doesn’t have other plans.”

“He doesn’t,” David said confidently. “I’ve already asked.”

She chuckled at his broad grin. “Just who are you matching him up with, David? You or me?”

“Well, being the utterly unselfish person I am—and seeing as the doctor is unfortunately and absolutely straight—I’m going with you.”

“Just a pitiful romantic, aren’t you?”

She started up, and only rolled her eyes when he called out: “Put something sexy on.”

In the library, Harper nursed his after-work beer. It didn’t seem to him that he could tell Mitch much more than he already knew, but he’d answered the questions, filled in little gaps in the stories both his mother and David had already related.

“I’ve got David’s rundown of the night you saw her outside, in the gardens, when you were boys.”

“The night we were camping out, David, my brothers, and me.” Harper nodded in acknowledgment. “Some night.”

“According to David, you saw her first, woke him.”

“Saw, heard, felt.” Harper shrugged. “Hard to pin it down, but yeah, I woke him up. Couldn’t say what time it was. Late. We’d stayed up eating ourselves half sick, and spooking ourselves out with scary stories. Then I heard her, I guess. Don’t know how, exactly, I knew it was her. It wasn’t like the other times.”

“What was different?”

“She wasn’t singing. She was more . . . moaning, I guess, or making these unintelligible sounds. More like what you’d expect from a ghost on a hot, moonlit night
when you’re a kid. So I looked out, and there she was. Only not like before, either.”

Brave boy, Mitch thought, to look out instead of pulling the sleeping bag over his head. “What was it like?”

“She was in this white nightgown sort of thing. The way she was last spring when she was upstairs. Her hair was down, tangled and dirty. And I could see the moonlight going through her. Right through. Jesus.” He took a deeper sip of beer.

“So I got David up, and Austin and Mason woke up, too. I wanted Austin to stay back with Mason, but there was no chance of that, so we all set out to follow her.”

Mitch could imagine it very well. A pack of young boys, moonlight and lightning bugs and heavy summer heat. And a ghostly figure trailing through the gardens.

“She walked right over Mama’s evening primrose, straight through the hollyhocks. Through them. I was too wound up to be scared. She kept making this noise, a kind of humming, or keening, I guess you could say. I think there were words mixed in there somewhere, but I couldn’t make them out. She was going toward the carriage house. Seemed to me she was heading toward the carriage house anyway. And she turned, and she looked back. And her face . . .”

“What?”

“Like last spring again,” he said, and let out a little breath. “She looked insane. Horror-movie insane. Wild and crazy. She was smiling, but it was horrible. And for a minute, when she looked at me and I looked back, it was so cold, I saw my own breath. Then she turned, kept walking, and I started after her.”

“Started after her? An insane ghost? You had to be scared.”

“Not so much, not that I realized anyway. I was caught up, I guess. Really fascinated. I had to
know
. But Mason started screaming. Then I was scared spitless. I thought
somehow she’d gotten him, which was stupid since she was up ahead and he was behind me. Farther behind me, all of them, than I’d realized. So I went running back, and there was Mason on the ground with his foot bleeding. And Austin’s running back to the tent for a T-shirt or something to wrap it ’cause we’re not wearing anything but our jockeys. David and I were trying to carry him back when Mama came running out like the wrath of God.”

He laughed then, eyes twinkling at Mitch. “You should’ve seen her. She’s wearing these little cotton shorts and some skinny little T-shirt. Her hair was longer back then, and it’s flying as she came hauling ass. And I see—the others didn’t, but I see she’s got my granddaddy’s pistol. I tell you what, if it had been some ghost after us, or anything else, she’d have run it off. But when she saw what was what, more or less, she shoved the pistol in the waistband of those little shorts, around the back. She picked Mason up, told us all to get some clothes on. And we all piled into the car to take Mason into the ER for stitches.”

“You never said you’d seen the gun.” Roz stepped into the library.

“I didn’t think you wanted the others to know.”

She walked right to him, bent down, and kissed the top of his head. “Didn’t want you to know, either. You always saw too much.” She turned her cheek, left it on top of Harper’s head as she looked at Mitch. “Am I interrupting?”

“No. You could sit down if you have a minute. I’ve gotten this story from two sources now, and wouldn’t mind having your version.”

“I can’t add much. The boys wanted to sleep out. God knows why as it was hot as hell and buggy with it. But boys do like to pitch a tent. As I wanted to be able to keep an eye on things, and hear them, I closed off my room, and did without the air-conditioning so I could have my doors open to the outside.”

“We were right in the yard,” Harper objected. “How much trouble could we get in?”

“Plenty, and as events proved just that, it was wise of me to sweat through the night. Once they settled down, I drifted off to sleep myself. It was Mason screaming that woke me. I grabbed my daddy’s pistol, which in those days I kept on the top shelf of my bedroom closet. Got the bullets out of my jewelry box and loaded it on the run. When I got there, Harper and David were carting Mason, and his little foot was bleeding. I had to tell them to hush, as they were all talking at once. Took the baby in, cleaned up his foot, and saw it was going to need stitches. I got the story on the way to the hospital.”

Mitch nodded, then looked up from his notes. “When did you go to the carriage house?”

She smiled. “First light. It took me that long to get back, settle them all down.”

“You take the gun?”

“I did, in case what they’d seen was more corporeal than they’d thought.”

“I was old enough to go with you,” Harper objected. “You shouldn’t have gone out there alone.”

She cocked her head at him. “I believe I was in charge. In any case, there was nothing to see, and I can’t tell you if I felt anything, genuinely, or if I was still so worked up I thought I did.”

“What did you think?”

“That it was cold, and it shouldn’t have been. And I felt . . . it sounds melodramatic, but I felt death all around me. I went through the place top to bottom, and there was nothing there.”

“When was the place converted?”

“Oh . . . hmm.” She closed her eyes to think. “Around the turn of the twentieth century. Reginald Harper was known for wanting the latest things, and automobiles were one of them. He housed his car in the carriage house for a
time, then he used the stables for them, and the carriage house became a kind of storage house, with the gardener living on the second floor. But it would’ve been later, more like the twenties, I think, before it was done up as a guest cottage by my grandfather.”

“So it’s unlikely she would have stayed there, or visited the gardener there, as those dates are after first sightings. What would’ve been kept in there while it was an actual carriage house?”

“Buggies, some tack, I suppose. Tools?”

“An odd place for her to go.”

“I always wondered if she died there,” Harper commented, “and figured she’d let me know once I moved in.”

Mitch’s attention sharpened on him. “Have you had any experiences there?”

“Nope. She doesn’t have much to do with guys once they pass a certain age. Hey, it’s snowing.”

He popped up to go to the window. “Maybe it’ll stick. You need me anymore?” he asked Mitch.

“Not right now, thanks for the time.”

“No problem. Later.”

Roz shook her head as he walked out. “He’ll head right outside, try to scrape up enough for a snowball so he can throw it at David. Some things never change. Speaking of David, he’s making chicken and dumplings if you’d like to stay, wait for this snow to peter out again.”

“It’s a foolish man who turns down chicken and dumplings. I’ve made some progress, if elimination is progress, the last week or so. I’m running out of candidates, those who’re documented, in any case, for Amelia.”

She wandered to his work board, studied the photos, the charts, the notes. “And when you run out of candidates who are documented?”

“I start looking outside the box. Off topic, how do you feel about basketball?”

“In what way?”

“In the going to a game sort of way. I scored an extra ticket to my son’s game tomorrow night. They’re playing Ole Miss. I was hoping I could talk you into going with me.”

“To a basketball game?”

“Casual, lots of other people, a specific form of entertainment.” He smiled at her easily, when she turned back. “Seemed like a good place to start. And you might be more inclined toward that sort of socializing than a quiet dinner for two. But if you prefer the latter, I find my calendar free the night after next.”

“A basketball game might be interesting.”

L
ILY SAT ON
the Bokhara in Roz’s bedroom, banging the buttons of a toy phone with a plastic dog. Lily’s mother had her head in the closet.

“Just try the eyeshadow, Roz.” Hayley’s voice was muffled as she pawed through clothing. “I knew it was the wrong color for me when I bought it, but I just couldn’t stop myself. It’ll look awesome on you, won’t it, Stella?”

“It will.”

“I’ve got enough makeup of my own for three women,” Roz objected and tried to concentrate on using it. She wasn’t entirely sure how her personal space had come to be invaded by females. She just wasn’t used to females.

“Oh, my God! You
have
to wear these!”

Hayley pulled out the pants David had talked Roz into buying—and which, to date, had never been on her body again. “I certainly don’t.”

“Roz, are you kidding?” She waved them at Stella. “Look at these.”

Stella did. “I couldn’t get my hips in those with a crowbar.”

“Sure you could, they stretch.” Hayley demonstrated. “Besides, your hips are perfect, seeing as you have breasts. But these are too long for you. You know that sweater I got for Christmas, the red angora David gave me? It’d be fabulous with these pants.”

“Then you take them,” Roz suggested.

“No, you’re wearing them. Watch the baby a minute, okay? I’ll run and get the sweater.”

“I’m not wearing your sweater. I have plenty of my own. And for heaven’s sake, this is just a basketball game.”

“No reason not to go looking like the complete babe you are.”

“I’m wearing jeans.”

Deflated, Hayley dropped onto the bed beside Stella. “She’s a hardcase.”

“Here, I’ll use your eyeshadow. We’ll consider it a compromise.”

“Can I pick out your earrings?”

Roz shifted her gaze in the mirror until her eyes met Hayley’s. “Will you stop nagging the skin off my back?”

“Deal.” Hayley leaped up, and when Lily reached toward her, scooped the baby on the fly. Settling Lily on her hip, she began to go through Roz’s everyday jewelry box one-handed. “What top are you wearing?”

“I don’t know. Some sweater or other.”

“The green cashmere,” Stella told her. “The dark green mock turtle, and that great black leather coat? The knee-length.”

Roz considered as she worked on her eyes. “Fine. That’ll work.”

“All right, then . . . these.” Hayley held up silver spiral dangles. “Shoes?” she asked, turning to Stella.

“Those black leather half boots with the stubby heel.”

“You get those, I’ll get the sweater, and—”

“Girls,” Roz interrupted. “Scoot. I can handle the rest of this myself.” But she leaned over to kiss Lily’s cheek. “Y’all go play somewhere else now.”

“Come on, Hayley, before she decides to wear a sweatshirt and gardening shoes just to spite us. She was right about the eyeshadow,” Stella added as she pulled Hayley out.

Maybe so, Roz decided. It was an interesting shade of brown, with a hint of gold to jazz it up. She knew how to use it to her advantage. God knew she had plenty of practice fixing herself up, and enough vanity to put effort into looking her best when looking her best was called for.

At the same time, there was a certain advantage to having other women,
younger
women in the household, she supposed, and she’d take their advice on the wardrobe.

Except for the pants.

She crossed to her dresser, opened the middle drawer where she kept her good sweaters. She did love those soft fabrics, she thought as she went through the folded garments. The cashmeres and brushed cottons, the silks.

She took out the dark green, unfolded it.

The chill hit with a shock, a punishing little slap, that had her taking a step back. Then freezing as the sweater was ripped out of her hands. She watched with disbelief as it hit the opposite wall, then fell to the floor.

Her knees wanted to buckle, but she kept her feet and walked slowly across the room to pick it up.