Larkspur (22 page)

Jay must have taken Lydia through her story several times. It was a good hour before she
came out, spots of indignation bright on her cheekbones.

She said goodbye to Mother rather formally, ignoring me, got in her car, and backed up
the lane. Jay was slow coming out to us. Maybe he had another phone call to make.

He took us in to the living room together and went through our accounts of the afternoon
almost mechanically. He dredged from my recollections the state of the table in the gazebo and
the fact that the front door had been unlocked. We went over the cat's presence several times. He
got me to narrow down the time of Denise's phone call to Ginger, though he was going to call
Ginger later.

He switched off the recorder. "Okay, I guess you can go."

Ma stood up. "That's it?"

"For now." Jay stood, leaning heavily on the oak table he had appropriated for his
recording gear and notepad. "Thanks. I'm sorry you had to deal with this. Lark..."

I stood up, too. We had been sitting around the table.

"Are you going to be all right?" He rubbed his forehead.

"I'm fine. How much longer?"

"God knows. Kev interrogated Bill Huff and D'Angelo. I want to go through those
reports, and I'll have to get onto the lab again. And Karl will be doing the autopsy on Denise."
His voice trailed as if finishing the sentence would take too much energy.

"When?"

"Maybe eight-thirty, nine. Don't wait dinner."

"All right." I kissed his cheek. "Take care."

When the deputy had waved me past the barricade, and I had turned the car onto the
main road, Ma said, "I think I need a stiff drink. What do you have?"

"Wine and a six pack of beer."

"Stop at a liquor store. I don't want to go to a bar."

I bought a bottle of gin, some tonic, and a lime, and we both collapsed on my sofa over
the drinks.

"The damned rental car is still at your store," Ma murmured into her glass.

"Lord."

"I'd better phone your father. He'll worry."

"Okay. What about dinner?"

"Ugh."

"My sentiments, more or less. Ma..."

"What is it, darling?"

"I'm sorry."

"My dear, so am I sorry. Denise was a remarkable woman, whatever her faults. Your
Ginger is a remarkable woman, too. I think Dennis will be all right."

"I hope so. He's a sweet guy."

"So's Jay."

"What?"

"Don't you worry about him? He looked like hell, not to mince words."

"Yes, I worry, but it doesn't do any good. And, as you said of Dennis, he's not a
boy."

Ma got the phone from the kitchen and settled in to tell my father all about it. I took a
shower.

The stinging hot water woke and soothed me at the same time, but I could have used
another long run. I was tired but restless as Lydia's wandering cat. Lydia had driven off in such
high dudgeon she forgot Ethel White. So did we. I hoped the beast would find her way
home.

Mother finished her drink while she was talking. When she hung up she looked at me.
"Squeaky clean. I envy you."

"Want a shower?"

"Show me the way."

While she showered I found a shortish skirt and a tee shirt for her. She looked ridiculous
in them. The skirt reached her ankles. But she said she felt almost energetic enough to get the car,
so we bundled her suit and pantyhose into a paper bag and drove over to the mall.

Ma got out. "Is that a Chinese place? Now I'm hungry." It was seven.

"It's not great. Strictly Cantonese."

"I could probably eat shredded wheat."

We got takeout stuff, and I bought Jay a bunch of steamed rice and a chicken and pea
pod stir fry I thought he could probably eat. Then I took the food home, Mother following in the
rental, and we ate.

"Who killed Denise?" Ma dipped a spring roll in hot sauce.

I choked on a bite of lemon chicken. "How would I know?"

"Jay has no suspicions?"

"Lots." I was beginning to think. "Maybe Domingo."

"No."

"Why not?"

"He would never have killed Dai. And he's basically a gentle man. Maybe we need one
of those charts."

"Charts?" I was completely at sea.

Ma sighed. "Have you never read an old-fashioned mystery?"

"I read science fiction."

"I refuse to comment. Forget the chart. Start with the obvious premise. If there's only one
murderer, what's the sequence? X kills Dai by poisoning the drink. Miguel sees something and
tries to blackmail X. X meets Miguel, shoots him, and manages to make it look like
suicide."

"That's just the press interpretation." I took a forkful of fried rice. We hadn't bothered
with chopsticks. "Jay never had any doubt it was murder." I explained about the windows of the
Mercedes.

"All right. The blackmail attempt occurred when, Saturday?"

"Probably."

"The murderer must have felt confident at that point. A week elapsed during which the
bombshell of Dai's will exploded. Ted Peltz came back from San Francisco and beat his
wife."

"And Jay."

"So Peltz is in jail and his wife in the hospital. Then this morning, just after the news of
Miguel's suicide is broadcast on the radio, Denise calls Ginger. She has a guest coming to lunch
and postpones the interview with her future daughter-in-law."

"What about Lydia?"

"Yes, somewhere in there Lydia called Denise. If Lydia's telling the truth, it was
probably before Denise called Ginger, because Denise didn't say anything to Lydia about another
guest coming."

"That doesn't mean anything. Maybe Denise just didn't mention the luncheon."

Ma sighed. "We're hypothesizing."

"All right. Denise heard from her 'guest' who was a close enough friend that Denise
invited her--Ginger said it was a woman--to lunch on very short notice. Then Denise called
Ginger. The murder must have occurred right after that. Denise had time to set the table but not
to put the food out. She was strangled in the gazebo. And Lydia's cat witnessed the killing."

"Then we drove up, and you found the body, perhaps an hour or an hour and a half later.
Who?"

I said slowly, "Lydia."

"Why?"

"I think she was lying about the phone call. And she could have faked the faint. The
medic said her pulse was strong."

"If it's Lydia, she has nerves of steel. All that chat with me about the Foundation and the
book of Dai's poems."

"The murderer is a smart ass."

"What?"

"A sick joker. Look at all the little extras. The larkspur. Lydia came into the store almost
as soon as I got the invitation and urged me to come to the lodge. I suspect inviting me was her
idea. So she could have brewed up the poison well in advance. Then in Miguel's case the trick
with the windows and the refrigeration. It wasn't necessary but it did blur the time of death and
create a cute little puzzle."

"But what about the gun?"

"What about it? Bill Huff has a roomful of guns."

"Would Lydia have incriminated her husband?"

"Maybe they were in it together. The bequest to the Huff press was small, relative to the
size of the estate, but Llewellyn forgave two large loans. The book side of the business isn't
profitable."

Ma munched. "I don't like two murderers."

"Ma," I exploded, "I don't like
any
murderers. How can you be so detached? If
you'd seen Denise's face..."

Ma sighed. "I'm sorry, darling. I know it was awful for you. I'm upset, too, and you know
me, when I'm disturbed I verbalize. Bear with me."

"It's okay," I muttered.

"You said cute touches. Jay said embellishment. I suppose the cat is the unnecessary
complication in Denise's killing, but it implicates Lydia. Why would she do that to herself?"

"Maybe the cat was accidental. Maybe it followed her car." That was dumb. Ethel was a
cat, not a dog. "It could have been there for its own reasons." Something tugged at my mind. Two
cats...

"A coincidence?" Ma shook her head. "Well, maybe. The question is why was Denise
killed? I don't see her as a blackmailer, somehow."

"I have a hard time seeing Miguel as a blackmailer. Denise might not have wanted
money, but she liked to bully people, control them." I thought of poor Dennis. And Ginger. "And
she would have relished a dramatic confrontation."

"I suppose so. We're assuming the mysterious guest was the killer. Who, then? Winton
D'Angelo?"

"Ginger said a woman, but if it wasn't the guest..." In one of those flashes of insight that
change the way you see things, like a twisted kaleidoscope, I suddenly saw a new pattern.
Llewellyn and Denise. Both successful artists, full of renown. There was an element of gratuitous
spite in those killings. And Miguel might have been Llewellyn's latest lover. "Ma, you can't go to
D'Angelo's for cocktails tomorrow. I won't let you."

"Let me? We have important things to discuss."

"Look, you're a prominent poet. So was Llewellyn. Denise was a famous dancer. If
D'Angelo's gone off the rails he could be doing in every successful artist within range."

Ma broke open a fortune cookie. "That's not very likely."

"Nothing about these murders is logical."

"I disagree. I think it's a straightforward case of greed, followed by blackmail. I grant
you the fancy touches but it's possible to be greedy and imaginative. My money is on the Huffs. I
don't like Lydia."

We drank green tea and polished off the fortune cookies in silence. Finally Mother stood
up. "I'd better go, darling. Give Jay my love and tell him I'm betting on him."

I saw her off in her rental. When she left, we embraced with unusual energy. We needed
the contact.

Jay came in soon after that. I fed him pea pods and rice. I was tidying the kitchen, and he
was sipping his gunky herb tea when he said, without preamble, "When did your mother
leave?"

"Half an hour ago, maybe forty-five minutes. What's wrong?"

He had gone out to the phone in the living room and was punching in numbers. "Just
checking."

I watched him, bewildered.

"It's okay." He waved me off. "Yeah, can I speak to the manager?"

I went back to the kitchen and ran the garbage grinder. I think I was brain dead by
then.

Jay came back. "Your mother picked up her room key five minutes ago. She's
okay."

I stared at him. Why should she not be? I felt a chill. If Jay's suspicions were anything
like mine, I wanted a twenty-four hour guard on my mother. I almost said so, but the last stirrings
of common sense told me Ma would be all right until morning. She always bolted hotel room
doors. When I considered what might have happened to her on the way out to the lodge--on that
steep winding road--I had to drink a cup of herb gunk to calm down.

By that time Jay and I were somnambulating. We fell into bed within half an hour. No
conversation. I had a nightmare, of course.

When I finally battled my way to consciousness the details had mercifully receded,
except for Denise's gargoyle face. I lay as still as I could so as not to wake Jay, but the vision of
Denise seemed to float in mid-air, bloodshot eyes reproaching me. My stomach rebelled.

I bolted for the bathroom and threw up. No more Cantonese dinner.

I crept back into the darkened bedroom, shivering and half-crying. I did try to be
quiet.

"Nightmare?"

I started. "What else?"

Jay's voice was drowsy. "'Lectric blanket."

"What!"

"'Syour electric blanket still hooked up? Turn it on high."

It was July, but such is my attention to housekeeping detail the blanket was still hooked
up. I fumbled with the controls and slipped back into bed. My teeth were rattling in my head.

Jay took my hand. "You know it's not your fault." He sounded wider awake.

"I should've gone out earlier. Ginger was supposed to be out there at one, originally." I
was quaking like an aspen, but the blanket was starting to warm up.

"Denise told Ginger not to come at one."

"Yes, but what if we'd gone out anyway?" We'd been at Wind Song, pigging out, while
Denise was dying.

Jay ran his thumb in a slow circle over the base of my hand, massaging, unclenching my
fingers. "You couldn't have known she'd be killed, Lark."

"Okay, true, but..."

He was talking softly about by-stander reaction, telling me how none of it was my fault
or Ginger's or Ma's or Denise's--or anybody's but the killer's. His thumb moved in firm circles,
kneading. I suspect he was talking just to talk. He told me how clear and cooperative I'd been, the
ideal witness.

Gradually my shivering eased. I drowsed, conscious only of the soft rumble of his voice,
concentrating on it as noise, because I didn't want to think.

As I inched closer I was vaguely aware of the cracked ribs and the Velcro contraption
that kept us on our own sides of the bed. The electric blanket was helping me, but warm flesh
would have been better. Jay was saying very good things that had nothing to do with Denise's
murder.

I suppose I murmured something.

"...and I think you'd better marry me," he was saying. "Are you going to?"

"Yes, of course." I gave a muffled squawk and sat up. "What!"

He made a noise that started as 'phew' and ended in a grunt of pain.

I fell back on the pillow. "Did you or did you not just propose to me?"

He chuckled. "Yes, and you said 'of course.' I'm damned flattered, and I'll hold you to
it."

"I can't be blamed for anything I say under hypnosis." I was reaching for him, trying to
find his face. I connected with his sandpapery chin.

He nibbled my fingers.

"Hey! Of course I'll marry you, but why ask me now? The time is hardly
auspicious."

Jay took another finger nibble. "You taste good."

"It's not exactly romantic."

Jay sighed. Not deeply. Deep sighing would have been a bad idea. "I wanted to ask you
starting around the middle of last August. But it wasn't the right time. Then you moved into your
own apartment."