Digging Up the Dead (11 page)

“Tell me more about the beautiful tourmaline and its twin,” said Tosca, “if you can bear to utter more than a few words.” She punched him playfully on the shoulder.

“I can talk your ear off about rocks and stones, and I know a little about mineral mining,” he said, “which I learned from Jeff.”

Thatch told her he’d first met Stanger at a gem show where booths were laden with dazzling minerals and natural gemstones of every hue. The Oceanview booth had as its centerpiece a framed poster-sized, full-color photo of the blazing pink tourmaline crystal that came to be called the Chandelier. One of the largest and its most renowned find since the mine opened in 1907, the tourmaline was famous for its three pipes that resemble holders for tiny candles, although that is equally true of the Candelabra.

“The Chandelier’s various shades of pink, lavender and mauve are magnificent,” said Thatch. “I was instantly smitten and began going to the local mineral mines for digs. It’s great fun, and a day up in these mountains is a pleasure. It’s an active mine and one of the few that allows the public to spend a day digging.”

“Did you ever find any wonderful gems?” said Tosca.

“Nope. Some chips of black tourmaline, a chunk of aquamarine, and a few pieces of kunzite, but nothing that was worth much in terms of money. To me, it’s the anticipation, the discovery, not the end result that counts. Plenty of amateurs come here, some regularly, hoping for a big payday. Did I tell you about the Empress of China?”

“Is that another great find? A piece of tourmaline like the Chandelier?”

Thatch let out a hearty bellow and shook his head. He took his right hand off the steering wheel and patted Tosca’s thigh.

“Sorry,” he said, “but I can see why you would think so. No, she was a real person.”

He told her of a legend, that the last Empress of China, Tzu Hsi, had a passion for pink and red gems. In the early 1900s tourmalines in various colors were being found in the Big Kahuna Zone around Pala mines. Tiffany and other American jewelers sold the crystals for carving to local Chinese jewelers. When the Empress saw the bracelets and necklaces brought to her in China, she fell in love with them and sent her people to the Pala mines to buy up vast quantities of the gemstones. She loved every variation of the color pink and had it fashioned into jewelry, embedded into custom-made ceramic dishes and even into a stone pillow she was said to sleep on.

“What a fascinating story,” said Tosca. “Do the Chinese still buy from the mines?

“I doubt it after China became Communist, and luxury was prohibited.”

“Yes, of course, I forgot, although these days the rich Chinese are buying tons of American real estate. Oh, we’re almost home. What a splendid day we’ve had. Wait till I show these gems to J.J.,” she said, rattling the small plastic bag Thatch had given her.

They crossed the narrow bridge onto Isabel Island, and Thatch stopped his truck in front of Tosca’s house. As she alighted, prepared to invite Thatch in for a nightcap, she paused and held up her hand.

“Listen. Do you hear that?”

“Music.” Thatch shrugged.

“Not just music,
keresik
. It’s ‘Greensleeves’ and being played on a spinet, no less, the instrument it was originally written for.”

She looked up and down the street.

“Is that significant?” said Thatch, following her as she began to walk toward the sound. “It’s a beautiful composition, by the way, but not one of your operas, I’d bet.”

“Then you’d be wrong,” she retorted. “It’s from Ferrucio Busoni’s short opera
Turandot.
He incorporated into it a ballad called ‘Greensleeves.’ The piece was originally a medieval folk song in England, and the rumor is that Henry VIII composed it, but it was written several years after he died, so it’s Elizabethan, not Tudor. Even so, can’t you just see the king in his velvet doublet and breeches and the women in their sumptuous embroidered gowns, dancing on the green at Hampton Court?”

“Nope. But I’d forgotten your family were opera singers, honey. I’m impressed with the depth of your knowledge, but I’m going to catch you out sometime, mark my words.”

They both laughed and held hands as they rounded the corner that led to the seafront walkway. The tinny notes became louder. Thatch and Tosca followed the music to its source and stopped in front of a dock where a large sport fishing boat was tied up. A ladder led up to an open fly bridge, and the rear deck was equipped with a large fish box and padded bench seating.

“Very nice,” said Thatch.

“Ah, so you are beginning to appreciate classical music.”

“No, I mean the boat. It’s a Riviera. Built in Australia. Looks to be a forty-three footer. Luxury everywhere. Bet this boat cost close to three-quarters of a million.”

The sliding glass door leading into the salon was open, and they could hear the lilting music coming from inside.

“Sounds like a piano but kind of brassy. How could anyone fit it into a boat, even one of this size?” said Thatch.

“Actually, it’s a spinet. It has keys like a piano, but you can tell by its tone that the one we’re hearing now is really small. It could even be a portable one, which means it’s basically just a short piano keyboard in a box. They’re perfect for cramped spaces like a boat.”

“Last thing I’d want on a boat,” said Thatch.

They sat on the seawall to listen to the pianist play the final notes of the melody in a slow, drawn-out riff. When they heard no more, the couple walked back to the house, where Thatch kissed Tosca goodnight, quoting, “‘To music and the drowsy chimes.’”

“Keats’ poetry sounds a lot better,” she said, “than ‘dug with love.’ I appreciate the thought. Sleep well,
keresik
.”

The following morning Tosca lowered herself gently into the vintage Austin-Healey that had been her husband’s car as if into a bathtub of boiling oil, trying to avoid the part of the split leather seat that pinched her bottom if she sat on it. She started the car and drove erratically and noisily to Karma’s Garden Center. I really must get something else to drive, she told herself. Aside from being such a small car I can’t stand these old, dry leather seats, although I do love the drop-top. It’s so California.

Before Tosca had left England everyone in London had told her that as soon as she got to the sunshine state, she must drive a convertible.

Struggling to fold down the Healey’s worn canvas fabric top, torn in several places, was more than Tosca wanted to handle. J.J. never garaged the Healey without first raising its top, which meant that it had to be rolled back down each time the car was driven. Even though her friends in the UK would have no way of seeing her driving around with the top up, she felt she owed it to them to drive with it down.

“You see,” she explained later to Thatch, “I can’t send photos home if I’m not in a convertible. Everyone is supposed to drive one here, right?”

Thatch had chuckled. “Only tourists and surfers who need one for their boards. Otherwise we find it too hot to drive around with the top down.”

Tosca parked in front of the garden center’s office and went in. No one. She went outside and scanned the tables that held ceramic pots and planters, then looked across to the wood structure where hanging baskets swung in the slight breeze and farther out where the fields began. Strange way to run a business, she thought. What if a customer came in to place a huge order? I could easily help myself to a pot of flowers, too.

She saw Sam walking toward her. Of course. She’d forgotten there was a handyman.

“Hello. I wonder if you’d be so kind as to tell me if Karma is around.”

“Nope. Doin’ the bushes at City Hall. Can I help you?” He scratched at the bandage on his arm.

“Will she be back soon?” said Tosca.

“Cain’t never tell with her,” said Sam. He scratched harder at his arm. “Damn plants really got me this time. Gotta rash big as a billbug.”

Tosca decided she didn’t really need to know what a billbug was. Instead, she offered a few soothing words and suggested he use chamomile lotion on his arms.

‘”Nah, useless stuff, that. Good for baby skin, maybe, but not for the white stuff on those plants that Karma tole me about. She said the sap bleeds out when you cut the stems or the leaves. Said they’re real toxic. I nicked one by mistake when I was cutting the weeds. Them Monarch cadeepillers and ayphids we get here are supposed to be the enemies of giant milkweeds, but they don’t do nothin’.”

“Goodness. Maybe you should burn the plants.”

“No, they’re okay unless you drink that stuff.” He cackled loudly. “Who’d do that? I’m betting Karma tole those people whose gardens she put ‘em in all about it and said not to mix it in their fresh orange juice!”

“Why would she buy the milkweeds in the first place?” said Tosca.

“Cheap, that’s why. They was a real bargain. In some countries they’re considered weeds. ‘Course, they have a high drought tolerance so they work well here with this bone dry weather we suffer from, damn drought.”

“Yes, the drought. I sympathize more than you can possibly know. Would you mind showing me what a giant milkweed looks like?”

“Sure.”

Sam led the way past several wooden tables holding plastic pots of seedlings in the gazebo area. He stopped at a small, untidy plot of land that held two shrubs. Both had whitish, cork-like stems, thick branches, leathery pale green leaves and small, five-star flowers.

“There they are,” Sam said, pointing. “They bear pods with seeds inside along with silk-like fibers. These two are not for sale, and a damn good thing, too, after that there woman died, and we learned about the poisonous sap that bleeds out.”

“These look like they’re going to grow into trees,” said Tosca.

“That’s ‘cause we’ve had them quite a while. Karma ordered these two to see if they’d be suitable for her customers, since they were such a bargain. She liked ‘em, but I bet she didn’t tell them people they could grow this big.”

“They’re kind of ugly. Are they evergreens?”

“Yep, and they need hardly any maintenance. Guess Karma liked that, too. Less work for her.”

Tosca left the garden center in deep thought. It appeared as though Karma had unintentionally sold poisonous giant milkweed to her clients. Did that mean any of those six people, and Karma made it seven, could have poisoned Sally at the party? Had all of them attended that evening? And what motive could they have anyway? The answer had to be closer to Karma’s inner circle, certainly anyone with a Fuller Sanderson connection, and yet there must have been plenty of party guests who lived on Isabel Island and knew her family.

Back on the island Tosca parked in the garage without raising the convertible top, the devil with J.J., and ran upstairs. She was anxious to start her investigation of the six homeowners and their plants before that copper beat her to the punch.

Now that she had a description of the plants, she could begin a hunt for them in the neighbors’ gardens. All I have to do, she figured, is find the yards where Karma placed the giant milkweed and see if their stems have been cut.

Sam said there wasn’t much sap on the ones at the garden center because Kama had sold the best ones to her customers, and the sap on the plants he touched was only enough to cause a rash on one arm, not both. Had Karma already collected enough sap to put in Sally’s cocktail and murder her? Who else would want the publisher dead?

Making sure she had her iPhone with her, she began walking down the street, peering into each front yard to look for the plants Sam had shown her.

“Hi, there, Tosca, checking up on our hollyhocks?” said a woman coming out of her front door and locking it. She chuckled and added, “I don’t have any, as you can see, but the weeds could use your help.”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Latham, just admiring your beautiful lobelia border, one of my favorites. I was wondering if your gardener has added any giant milkweed to your flower beds, but I don’t see any.”

“I’m not sure exactly what has been planted,” the woman replied. “I leave that up to the landscaper. Got to run, I’m off to the mall. See you later.”

Tosca continued on the other side of the street, then up and down other streets, not bothering to stop at houses where the yards were paved over or those whose planters and flower beds held only cactus. At one of the houses that bordered the canal, she found a giant milkweed with a deep gash on its stem. She took a photo of it with her phone, then knocked on the door.

An old man, stooped, gaunt and dressed in a plaid shirt and khaki pants that hung loosely on his thin frame, opened the door.

“Yes?”

“Terribly sorry to bother you. I do hope you weren’t taking a nap, but I wondered if you knew that your giant milkweed has been damaged.”

“It has?” The man hobbled out. Tosca preceded him to the side fence where they both regarded the plant.

“Well, it doesn’t look dead,” the man said, “but that’s a large cut. Wonder how that happened? Who’d do such a thing?”

“Your wife or grandchildren, perhaps?”

“No, ma’am, I live alone, and my grandkids are in Florida. Hmm. Nothing to be done, I suppose, until the gardener comes tomorrow.”

“You mean Karma?” said Tosca.

“Yes. She’ll know what to do. She sure has a green thumb.”

And maybe a white one, thought Tosca.

“I took a photo of your plant, and I’d like to take a few more. Is that all right?” she asked.

“Sure, it’s fine.”

Tosca used her cell phone camera to take several additional pictures of the long, vertical cut on the giant milkweed stem before bidding the man goodbye and continuing on her way. After three hours of walking up and down every street on the island, she’d found five more of the plants, all with gouges to their stems. One yard contained two pots of giant milkweed. Such deadly beauty, she thought, touching the dainty purple flowers gently at the last yard she stopped at.

None of the other homeowners answered her knock or bell ring. Realizing it was the middle of the afternoon, she assumed they were at work. She took photos of all the slashed plants and wrote down the addresses. Deciding she had located all of the murderous, albeit innocent, weapons, Tosca walked to Main Street and bought a cup of strawberry ice cream topped with hot chocolate sauce. Before leaving the store she also bought a carton to take home.