Mourning Gloria (25 page)

Oh, yes. Yes, there it was. The key, which the guy who lived in the trailer with her, the guy with two
fs
in his name—Cliff, maybe? Or was it Jeff? She couldn’t remember—had loaned to a girl in one of his classes.

Yes, that was it! She pressed her lips together harder. Zoe Morris, at the Hort Center, had told Lucy about the key, and Lucy had told her. So she’d gone to the Center to see Zoe, and Zoe had said that the girl’s name was Gloria and that she had been in one of Dr. Laughton’s classes. And Zoe had also known the guy’s name—Wolff, Larry Wolff, with two
fs
. Yes, that was it, not Cliff or Jeff, but Wolff, and he was the one who had given the key to Gloria.

That was all Zoe could tell her, although she’d promised to do some checking and call with anything she found out. But on her way out of the building, Jessica had had the bright idea of checking the bulletin board beside Stu Laughton’s door—although she was crossing her fingers that Stu had already gone home for the day because he was the very last person on earth she wanted to see. She had been ducking him for weeks, ever since she’d broken off their relationship. It was one thing to be involved with a man who was separated from his wife. It was another thing entirely if he and his wife were still trying to keep it together, even if it was only for the kids. And the kids were twins, for pete’s sake, twin girls, like her and Ginger.

She sucked in a breath. Stop, she told herself sternly. Don’t go there. Don’t think of Ginger. It hurts. Go back to the bulletin board, where she’d hit pay dirt, because she’d found a typed list of students’ lab assignments. There was Larry Wolff’s name, along with two other guys, Matt Simmons and Brian Lafferty. And Gloria. Gloria Graham.

She had stared at it for a moment, clutching her notebook. There it was! Gloria Graham. G.G. The initials engraved on the bracelet in the photo. Which meant that the dead girl was probably the one to whom—according to Zoe, anyway—Larry Wolff had given the trailer key. Gloria Graham. She had felt a surge of triumph. If she was right, she was way out front of everybody else, ahead of the police, even!

She had a name, what she needed now was an address. So instead of going home, the way she had intended, she had driven over to the newspaper office, where she could log on to all the up-to-date address and phone directories. From there on, it was a bit of good luck, bad luck.

The good luck was that she had found an address for Gloria Graham, in a rundown, neglected-looking apartment building at the west side of campus, not far from Lucy’s place on Brazos. When she got there, though, it turned out that Gloria had moved. This bad luck was canceled out by some good luck when the girl who was living in the apartment—Vickie Vickers—turned out to be Gloria’s former roommate. Vickie confirmed that the Gloria she was tracking was the same Gloria who was taking classes in horticulture and gave her a new address on the east side of campus.

So that was her next stop. No, next was Taco Bell, because it had been hours since she had eaten (just the salad, not that awful soup) and she was hungry. Then she had driven to Gloria’s apartment complex, which was very different, new and upscale and obviously much more expensive than the other place, with a clubhouse and a great-looking pool and a parking garage for tenants. She had parked in the lot and—

She stopped. The thick, shadowy silence around her had been broken by a sound. A thud, maybe, like the slam of a heavy door.

Instinctively, Jessica closed her eyes against the dark. Better pretend to be asleep or unconscious. Better not let on that she was awake and thinking. And remembering.

The Curry Horticulture Center was only about six blocks away from Lucy’s apartment, but the morning was already hot and I wasn’t going to hoof it. On my way to the car, I phoned Caitie, making sure that everything was okay at home. She asked if she could make lemon icebox cookies, which was fine with me—she could chill the dough in the fridge and we’d bake the cookies when I got home. They’d be a nice welcome-home treat for Uncle Mike. I suggested adding some lemon balm and lemon verbena out of the garden, an idea she liked. I also suggested taking Pumpkin out to the catnip patch to see if he was one of the lucky cats that got turned on by the scent of catnip. That made her giggle. I loved hearing the lightness in her voice and imagining the answering light in her eyes.

Then I called Ruby, to check on things at the shop. It was a slow morning, she said, only a couple of customers so far. But there had been a small problem—small, as in about the size of Baby Grace. Kate was in Austin at an all-day professional meeting, and Amy had left Grace with her Tuesday morning sitter and gone to work at the vet clinic. But the sitter had a family emergency and needed somebody to come and get Grace. Guess who? Ruby had gone to get her granddaughter, and Grace was now happily coloring at a table in the tearoom.

Uh-oh, I thought, but all I said was, “I hope things will be okay.” Ruby had kept Grace at the shop ever since she was a small baby, so that was nothing new. But now that Grace is beginning to walk, it’s more of a challenge. She’s not crazy about staying in her playpen. She loves to get into things.

“We’ll be fine,” Ruby said reassuringly. “Cass is already in the kitchen, getting ready for the lunch bunch, and Lisa is due in before long, to help out in the tearoom. There are plenty of hands on board.” She paused, adding worriedly, “Any sign of Jessica?”

“I wish,” I said. “I’ve been to her house and nobody’s there. But it looks like I may have a line on someone who can give me some more information. With luck, I should be back at the shop in twenty or thirty minutes.”

“No, Grace!” Ruby exclaimed. “Don’t pull on—”

There was a splintering crash and a loud wail.

“Later,” Ruby said, and clicked off.

I pocketed the phone, wishing I’d hung up at the point when Ruby had said they’d be fine. But there wasn’t a thing I could do about whatever small catastrophes were happening at the shop. I had plenty of other things to think about as I made my way through the west campus traffic.

The drugs, for instance. Scott Sheridan had known about the marijuana, but there had been something going on at the trailer that he hadn’t known about. From what Lucy had said, I was pretty sure that she had been cooking LSA—and not for her own personal consumption, either. She was doing it for the street trade.

And she was wrong about the legality of her operation. Morning glory seeds themselves are not prohibited, and there’s nothing illegal about growing all you want and saving the seeds for next year’s garden. There’s nothing illegal about selling them or giving them away to family, friends, or the members of your garden club, either.

But turn those seeds into a drug, and you’re in deep trouble. LSA is federally scheduled as a Class III controlled substance. In Texas, the penalty for manufacturing, delivering, or possessing with intent to deliver can be anything from a state jail felony to a first-degree felony, depending on how much they catch you with. This translates to a sentence that can be as little as 180 days to as much as 99 years, with a fine of somewhere between ten thousand and fifty thousand dollars. Plus, you will get a visit from the IRS, who will want you to tell them why you haven’t paid taxes on whatever you’ve earned from your morning glory cottage kitchen. They won’t take “duh” for an answer, either.

Of course, this was all academic, right? Hypothetical? I didn’t think so, and the thought gave me a deep concern. Jessica Nelson had been down this trail before me, and it was beginning to seem very likely that she had stumbled into something seriously illegal. What was it, exactly? Who was involved? Where had her investigation taken her?

And most urgently, where
was
she?

 

 

CTSU’S Horticulture Center is housed in a new building, only a couple of years old. But the program itself was established more than a halfcentury ago as a complement to the agriculture program, which focuses on large-scale ranching and farming—still a huge industry in Texas, of course. Horticulture has to do with plant science, irrigation technology, greenhouse culture, and the commercial development and management of garden plants, landscaping, greenscaping, and xeriscaping. It is fast becoming one of the biggest, greenest businesses in Texas.

The Hort Center is definitely the greenest building on campus. It features a rainwater recycling system, energy-saving natural ventilation and solar panels, and recycled and renewable products throughout, such as recycled flooring and wall materials and furniture hand-crafted from salvaged urban trees. I attended the opening of the new building when it was dedicated. I was impressed then, and am still impressed. Usually when I go there, I browse through the native plant garden on the hill behind the building, picking up ideas for plantings and landscaping at the shop. But the morning was moving along—it was already nearly ten o’clock, so I went looking for Zoe Morris.

After asking directions, I found the hallway where the teaching assistants’ cubicles were located. Halfway down the hall, I found the room. It was one of those big bull-pen arrangements, with low partitions separating a dozen small carrels. Several of them were occupied by people reading, writing, one with her head down, taking a nap.

A row away, surrounded by stacks of books and student papers, I found Zoe Morris, hunched over her laptop, scrolling through a chart that took up the whole screen. The fact that she had a window in her cubicle designated her as one of the senior TAs. Through it, I could glimpse the outline of the hills behind the campus.

“Got a minute, Zoe?” I asked.

She looked up from the computer blankly, and then her eyes focused and she smiled. “Oh, hey, China. Nice to see you!” Zoe and I had met when I went out to Mistletoe Creek Farm to pick up my subscription baskets of fresh vegetables, and I saw her occasionally at the shop.

“Nice to see you, too. Are you working with Donna this summer?” I came into the carrel and took the straight chair, the one reserved for students. The low partition was papered with charts, photos of plants, and snapshots of people in gardens—friends of Zoe’s, I guessed, or fellow students.

“I’m out there some, but not as much as last year,” Zoe said regretfully. She was petite and wiry, dressed in jeans and a green T-shirt that said “Plant a Garden” on the front. “I’m working on my thesis. With any luck, I’ll finish it by the end of the summer term.” She sat back in her chair, rolling her eyes. “If it doesn’t finish me first. That’s a strong possibility.”

“Who’s your director?”

“Dr. Laughton. I’ve got a good topic—developing markets for sustainable local food production in Texas.” She wrinkled her nose ruefully. “I’m pretty strong where the research is concerned, but I’m not the world’s best writer.”

“You’ll be fine,” I said in a comforting tone. “Listen, I need to ask you about Jessica Nelson. I’m sure you know her from Donna’s farm—she worked there when you did, last summer. She’s also an intern at the
Enterprise
. Has she talked to you in the past couple of days?” I didn’t think it was a good idea to let Zoe know that I had been standing in Jessica’s kitchen when she called that morning, and that I already knew they had connected.

“Jessica? Sure. She stopped in to get some information for a story she was writing.” She paused curiously. “Why are you asking?”

“Because nobody’s heard from her in a while.”

“Really? Like . . . how long? I just saw her on Monday afternoon. She said she was on deadline with the story, so maybe she’s holed up, writing. Have you checked her house? I left a message there this morning.”

“I’ve checked—looks like she hasn’t been home since she saw you. She missed her deadline, and there was a weird message on my answering machine that suggested that she was in some kind of trouble. I’m worried.” I leaned forward. “Look, Zoe. Here’s what I know. Jessica was working on a feature article about the girl who died in the trailer fire on Limekiln Road on Saturday night. I was the one who turned in the alarm, and—”