Death Come Quickly (12 page)

“Did you have any luck?”

“Not yet. But I talked to a guy who was involved in the deal and came up with a couple of leads. I don't know if they'll pan out, but they're worth following up. I can't do anything more until Monday, when the Williamson County tax assessor's office is open and I can look at the property records.”

I nodded. McQuaid is a top-flight investigator, competent, thorough, and dogged. It's what he liked best about police work—what he likes best about being a PI. If the information was out there, he would find it.

But a bigger question had come to me. “Doesn't all this seem a little . . . um, coincidental? Gretchen and Kitt are currently making a documentary about the Christine Morris case. Karen and Gretchen are attacked, and Gretchen's files are stolen. And here's Charlie, almost two decades after the fact, hiring an investigator to look into Doug Clark's financial holdings.”

“Yeah,” McQuaid said.

“Not to mention that private investigators don't come cheap,” I said. “Even those who are friends of the lawyers who hire them and might be inclined to give them a break.”

“Hey.” McQuaid gave me a wounded look. “I bill Charlie at the same rate I bill every other lawyer.” He finished the cookie and licked his fingers. “Well, maybe a little less. But not much.”

I went on. “I have known Charlie Lipman a long time, and while I wouldn't exactly call him a skinflint, I've never known him to put down so much as a nickel of his own money on a case. So who the heck is picking up the tab? It certainly isn't the possibly defrauded spouse, who has gone on to glory. But who else would have an interest in this matter?”

“I have no clue.” McQuaid sat there, his eyes narrowed, going over the situation in his mind. “But it's something I'd like to know.” He looked at me. “What's on your agenda tomorrow, China?”

“It's Saturday,” I reminded him. “You know what that means.”

He nodded. “Farmers' market. Right? And then you'll be at the shop the rest of the day?”

“That's the plan.” This is the second year for the Pecan Springs Farmers' Market, which has turned into a popular community tradition. “Caitie will be helping, as usual. When we're done, she's going to play with one of her friends. I'm picking her up after I close the shop. I assume that Brian will finish painting the porch. What about you?”

“Not sure yet,” he said. “But if Charlie's available—and sober—I'd like to talk to him.”

“One more thing,” I said. “On the way out of the hospital this evening, I stopped to chat with Helen Berger, the charge nurse. She said that the doctor will likely release Gretchen tomorrow, probably after lunch. I'm thinking it would be good if she stayed here for a few days, instead of going home. Just to be on the safe side. Jake could stay, as well. The guest room has two beds.”

McQuaid cocked his head. “And this is because . . .”

“This is because some unknown assailant killed Karen,” I said patiently, “and conked Gretchen over the head. Because if Gretchen were my daughter, and I was in the jungles of Belize on a research trip, I would want a friend to keep a close eye on her. Because—”

“Probably the smart thing to do,” McQuaid interrupted. He stood up and stretched. “Hey, it's a pretty night out there. How about if we go sit on the porch swing for a little while?” He held out his hand enticingly. “Looks like a thunderstorm might be coming in from the west. We can listen to the tree frogs and watch the lightning flicker, and . . . well, neck.”

Tree frogs, flickers of lightning, maybe even a roll of thunder or two. Around our house, there is never a dull moment.

But necking . . . now, that's another matter entirely. You never know where something like that might lead.

The plant we call Queen Anne's lace (
Daucus carota
) was said to be associated with the devil, perhaps because of its similarity to the deadly poison hemlock. The flower is named for Anne, wife of James I of England and an avid lace maker. The tiny reddish-purple flower in the center was said to represent a drop of the queen's blood, caused when she pricked her finger. Children were warned not to pick it and bring it into the house, because bad luck would certainly follow.

In traditional medicine, a tea made from the root of
Daucus carota
was prescribed as a diuretic to prevent and treat kidney stones. Hippocrates reported that the seeds of the plant were used as a popular contraceptive and abortifacient.

Other folk names for the plant: mother-die, devil's plague.

China Bayles
“Herbs of Good and Ill Omen”
Pecan Springs Enterprise

Friday night's thunderstorm was gone by midnight and the morning sun rose in a brilliant blue sky, on what promised to be a very hot July Saturday. It was a perfect day for loading up the kids and a big picnic cooler and the tubes and heading for the Guadalupe River or driving to Austin to go swimming in Barton Springs, which averages a chilly 68 degrees year-round, even when it's 102 in the shade.

But summer Saturdays are market days. Caitie and I were up early and out in the garden to pick and bundle up bunches of fresh basil, rosemary, dill, parsley, sage, and cilantro (not my favorite herb, but lots of people like it). Usually, I like to do the picking after the morning dew has dried, but we were pushed. By the time the raindrops and dew had dried, our market stall would be set up and the cooler of fresh herbs would be half-empty. By noon, when the market closed, every bunch of herbs would be gone and I'd be wishing we'd picked more.

This is the farmers' market's second summer, and both the vendors and the shoppers are thrilled with its success. The location is especially convenient to Thyme and Seasons: across the street from the shop, in the parking lot of Dos Amigas restaurant. This morning, two of our local farms (CSAs, or community-supported agricultural enterprises) had set up double booths and were displaying an artful arrangement of organically grown summer vegetables. Donna Fletcher's Mistletoe Creek Farm booth was especially attractive, with baskets of tomatoes, tomatillos, green beans, and red and yellow and green bell peppers; stacks of sweet-corn ears; pyramids of cantaloupes and melons; and trays of eggplant, okra, cucumbers, and summer squash. A couple of Fredericksburg peach growers were having trouble keeping up with the traffic at their booths, while other booths featured home-baked artisan breads, as well as cheese from Hill Country goats, honey from hardworking Adams County bees, and even locally brewed beers. The idea, of course, is to encourage people to develop a taste for locally grown vegetables and fruits, instead of lettuce imported from California or cheese from Wisconsin or apples from New Zealand. It's an idea that seems to be catching on.

Caitie and I do this every Saturday morning between May and October, so it doesn't take us long to be ready for the early-bird customers. Leaving Becky in charge of the shop for the morning, I set up the blue plastic canopy (the Texas sun would be brutal without it), put up the shelves at the back of the stall, and covered our two tables with red-checked oilcloth. On the shelves, Caitie arranged packages of dried herbs and potpourri, handcrafted soaps and lotions, homemade herbal jellies, boxes of herbal teas, and books on growing and cooking with herbs. From the canopy, I hung several chili ristras, onions, and rosemary wreaths and swags. On the table: trays of two- and four-inch pots of herb plants: parsley, thyme, sage, bay, lamb's ears, and artemisia—as well as a stack of copies of my own book,
The China Bayles Book of Days
, which always sells well at market, especially since I'm there to autograph it.

As soon as we got set up, I phoned Gretchen at the hospital to find out how she was feeling and ask if she would agree to come and stay with us for a few days. She was better, she said, although she still had a headache.

“And a beautiful green and purple eye,” she added ruefully. She was hesitant to accept my invitation. But when I said that Jake could stay, too, and that McQuaid and I thought her parents would say it was a good idea, she agreed.

“Did you talk to Kitt about the situation?” I asked.

“Yes.” There was a pause, and then she said, “Kitt and I have been thinking about this, Ms. Bayles. We're afraid that our documentary has stirred up trouble. We can't imagine what or why, since both of the people involved are already dead—Christine Morris and the guy who was acquitted—not to mention the prosecutor and the defense attorney. And now Dr. Prior—” Her voice trembled, then broke. “Anyway, Kitt and I have decided to drop it. We feel just terrible, like we're to blame for what happened. And without Dr. Prior, we can't go on.”

“I understand why you feel that way,” I said sympathetically. “But you're
not
to blame, Gretchen.”

“But we must've done
something
.” Gretchen's voice was full of pain. “Otherwise, Dr. Prior would still be alive.” She sniffled. “If we could only figure out what it was that we did that started all this!”

“Maybe we can,” I said. “Let's talk about this tonight and see what we can come up with. I'm working today, but Jake has your mom's car. How about if I call her and ask her to pick you up when the doctor releases you?”

Her answer was unhesitating. “Sure, it would be great if Jake could pick me up. And would it be okay if I ask Kitt to come over for the evening? Her husband had to drive up to Dallas—his mom's in the hospital—so she's all by herself tonight.”

“Of course,” I replied. “We're planning a backyard barbecue this evening. Please invite her to stay for the night if she wants to. We can put a futon mattress on the guest room floor. It'll be an all-girls sleepover.”

“Thanks, Ms. Bayles. I'll tell her.” Gretchen sounded relieved. I thought I knew why.

I was digging out the last bundle of basil for a customer when somebody said, “Good morning, China.” I turned to see Charlie Lipman, looking like Rush Limbaugh after a hard night on the town. His shoulders sagged, the pouches under his eyes sagged onto his mottled cheeks, and his belly sagged over his belt. Charlie is no older than I am, but to look at him, you'd swear he'd already crossed over to the south side of sixty. When he occasionally remembers to smile, you can glimpse the man he used to be, before life's disappointments turned him sour.

I took the money for the basil, thanked the customer, and said, “Hey, Charlie. What's up?”

He took the unlit cigar out of his mouth. “Jes' saw Mike,” he drawled. “He says you mebbe know somethin' 'bout this here doc-u-ment'ry them girls're doin' over at the college.”

Charlie was born to upper-class parents in a Dallas suburb, graduated at the top of his university class, and spent a year at Oxford. He speaks a polished and lawyerly English when he's before the bar. Fishing, hunting, or hanging out at the farmers' market, he likes to talk Texan.

“I know a little,” I said, “but not as much as you'd like. If you want to get the story straight from the horse's mouth, go across the street to the Crystal Cave and ask Ruby Wilcox. She was interviewed for the film.” I paused, then added, “When your client was murdered, Ruby lived down the street.”

Charlie chewed on his cigar for a moment. “Might do that,” he acknowledged.

I should have kept my mouth shut, but my curiosity was getting the better of me. “This hidden assets business you asked McQuaid to look into. Do you think it could have had anything to do with Morris' murder?”

If my question bothered him, he didn't show it. He took the cigar out of his mouth, admired it briefly, and put it back. “Dunno,” he said. “But myself, I never thought Bowen did it. Bubba and his boys did their usual slipshod work with the evidence, or worse. And Ring-a-Ding—” He shrugged and lapsed into pure Texan. “Fella couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the directions was written on the heel.”

“‘Or worse'?” I asked, even more curious and not at all surprised. Defense lawyers, even ex–defense lawyers, are never surprised when they hear of police indiscretions. They've seen their share. And when they don't see it, they pretend to.

Charlie gave me a knowing look. “Warrantless search. That's how they found that broken-off golf club handle in Bowen's backyard, wiped clean of prints. And the rest of the matching golf clubs in the golf bag in Bowen's garage. And the bloody shoes in the garbage can—which, by the way, was
not
in the alley, but on Bowen's property, inside his back gate. One of Bowen's neighbors confirmed the location.”

I hadn't heard about the shoes, but Ruby had mentioned the golf club—the murder weapon. I knew the right question to ask. I knew the answer, too, but I asked it anyway.

“Why didn't Johnnie Carlson get the club and the shoes excluded?”

Warrantless searches—searches and seizures that are conducted without a search warrant—are restricted under the Fourth Amendment, which every defense attorney has by heart. “The right of the people to be secure . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Evidence obtained when the police enter your property without a warrant is supposed to be excluded at trial, and it's the defense's job to make that happen. But there are exceptions. Among them, “exigent circumstances,” which includes “hot pursuit.” That is, a cop can come into your yard if he claims he's chasing a criminal.

“Carlson objected,” Charlie said sourly. “But you know the drill. Barry Rogers was the lead investigating officer. He testified that while he was at the crime scene, he heard a noise like somebody banging a garbage can lid and thought he'd better go look.”

Barry Rogers. He'd left the force when McQuaid was acting chief of the PSPD, under some kind of cloud, although I'd never known the details. I did know that Rogers had carved out a successful second career as a real estate broker, though—successful, that is, judging from the house where he and his wife Janine lived, next door to the eighteenth fairway out at the country club.

Charlie gave a wry chuckle. “On cross, it developed that Detective Rogers only
thought
it was a garbage can lid he heard and he only
thought
he heard it. When he went to look, he found the bloody shoes in Bowen's garbage can, in the alley. Which was a lie, according to a neighbor who testified as a defense witness. Like everybody else on that route, Bowen kept his can inside his yard, because the garbage truck had a bad habit of running over it if it was left in the alley. Rogers further claimed that the gate into Bowen's yard was open and he had reason to believe that the killer was on the premises. He went in hot pursuit, of course, and that's when he spotted the broken-off golf club handle, lying in a flower bed next to the fence. His hot pursuit took him into the garage and lo and behold, there were the rest of the clubs, a matching set, in a golf bag in a corner. And when they were checked for prints, they had Bowen's all over them. Except for the club that was used as a murder weapon. That was wiped clean.”

“A veritable trail of clues,” I remarked ironically. “A cop would have to be an idiot not to follow it. Even without a warrant.”

“Exactly. The other two cops on the scene backed up Rogers' testimony, of course, and the judge—the Honorable Roy Lee Sparks—let it all in.” He made an impolite noise. “The blue wall of silence.”

“The blue wall of silence” is no mystery. It's the unwritten code that keeps police officers from reporting another officer's mistakes, intentional or otherwise. In the judicial system, there's even a word—
testilying
—for the perjured testimony that an officer gives in court when he's covering up for his own or another officer's misconduct during an investigation. Police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges—they all know about this kind of behavior. And every single study of police perjury that's been made has concluded that the practice is widespread and condoned in police departments across the United States, large and small, urban and rural. There was no reason to believe that the Pecan Springs Police Department was exempt.

“I get it,” I said quietly.

“I'll bet you do,” Charlie remarked and patted me on the arm.

“I suppose the jurors got it, too,” I said. The most famous case of a jury that “got it” was the jury that acquitted O.J. Simpson. The jurors believed that some (if not all) of the evidence was corrupted; that Detectives Mark Fuhrman and Philip Vannatter were lying; and that their perjury was supported by the other police officers who testified. The defense was successful in arguing that they couldn't convict a man when there was that much reasonable doubt, which in our legal system translates to “not guilty.”