Witches' Bane (17 page)

I turned on the ignition. Yeah, rattlesnakes. But now I was curious. Maybe it was time I met the merry widower.

C.W.’s office was in me central Lake Winds Resort complex, a cluster of buildings housing a gym, indoor tennis courts, a restaurant, and several shops. All the buildings were upscale rustic, native limestone, with lush landscaping and mass autumn plantings of yellow and rust chrysanthemums and pansies.

As I parked the car and got out, I saw the aerobics teacher, Jerri Greene, coming down the walk, wearing a cowboy shirt, calf-length denim skirt, slim and split to the thigh, and high-heeled cowboy boots. She smiled and waved in my direction and got into her red Mustang convertible, looking pleased with herself. She backed out with a spray of gravel.

I stood for a minute, watching Jerri drive away and wondering whether she had been visiting her sister or C.W. Then I went inside. The office was plushly carpeted, paneled in red cedar, and decorated with photographs of Lake Winds properties and the notables who had entertained or been entertained there—Arnold Palmer, Ronald Reagan, the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. Against a wall was a brown cowhide sofa, flanked by two chrome chairs and an inlaid wood coffee table on which was displayed a spikey cactus and a bleached cow’s skull, together with several copies of the University of Texas alumni journal and other Texas magazines. There were two desks. One, a receptionist’s desk, was empty. I walked toward the other, where Rita, Jerri’s sister, was sitting. She was holding her head in her hands. She hadn’t heard me come in.

I cleared my throat. Rita looked up. Her mascara was smeared under her eyes and her eyelashes were gummed together in little clumps. Papers littered the floor, as if they’d been swept off the desk, and a cup of pencils had been overturned. It was a safe bet that Rita and her sister had had words.

“Uh, hello.” She gave me a half-hearted smile and turned away to dab at her eyes. “Is there something I can do for you?” She spotted the papers and got up to retrieve them. In her pink-and-blue floral ruffled print dress and matching hair ribbon, she had the look of a homely high-school girl who’d tried to make herself pretty for her first date and hadn’t quite got it right. There was something almost pathetic about her, and I thought again of the contrast between her and Jerri— according to Judith, the Other Woman in Sybil Rand’s marriage.

I gestured toward a door that bore a gold plaque with the words “C.W. Rand.” “I wonder if Mr. Rand is in. I know this is a very difficult time, so I won’t keep him long.”

“He should be back within the next few minutes.” She went on picking up papers, trying to pretend that nothing was wrong. “It’s a terrible thing to’ve happened. Mrs. Rand, I mean.”

“It is,” I agreed sympathetically. “While I’m waiting, Rita, I wonder if you could answer a question for me.”

She clambered to her feet, arms full. “I’ll try. What do you want to know?”

Sometimes, when you’re questioning witnesses, you’ve got a good idea what you’re looking for and you go for it. Other times, you go fishing. I hadn’t planned to ask Rita about Jerri and C.W., but it suddenly felt right. “I’ve been told by one of Sybil’s friends that her husband and your sister have been having an affair. Is that true?”

Rita’s face turned ashen. “No, it isn’t. Where did you hear that?”

“I can’t tell you,” I said. “But the person who made the statement felt sure it was true.”

“Well, it’s a lie.” Rita’s voice sounded frayed with the effort of maintaining control. “Mr. Rand isn’t that kind of ... he wouldn’t do a thing like—” Her chin trembled and she turned away.

“I see,” I said to her back. “Well, I’m sure you know him better than the person who told me. And you know Jerri, too. If she were involved in something like that—”

She turned around again, clutching the papers as if they were a life vest. “Well, she’s not!” The color was crawling back into her face, spreading upward in a dull red flush.

‘Thanks,” I said. “I’m really grateful to you for clearing this up, Rita. You know how rumors are—if they’re not stopped in the beginning, they just go on and on.” I gave her a sympathetic look. “How are vow? Mrs. Rand’s murder must have come as a terrible shock to you.”

“Yes,” she said. “It was just
awful.
And that poor Mr. Drake—” She stopped, searching for the rest of the sentence.

“You don’t think he did it?”

She shook her head mutely.

‘Then who did?”

The question momentarily stumped her. Then her eyes fired, and her voice caught the passion. “Those horrible Santeros, the ones who’ve been killing all the animals. It was Halloween. And there was that tip Chief Harris got— I mean, it
has
to have been them.” Her voice rose, shaking. “They could kill anybody. Any one of us. Even you. Even me.”

The
Enterprise’s
coverage of Sybil’s murder hadn’t spared the details. I was willing to bet that half the citizens in Pecan Springs were going to bed with a poker handy. “Really, Rita, there’s no danger. I’m sure that the police—”

She wasn’t finished. “And she ... she could even have been part of it, too. With all those poisonous plants, and those spooky books, and the fortune-telling cards—”

“Rita, honey, you shouldn’t be talkin’ like that. Sybil had nothin’ whatsoever to do with a cult. Not on purpose, anyway.”

Rita’s papers fluttered to the floor again. I turned.

The man who spoke had a rich voice and an appearance to match. Prematurely gray hair carefully styled, hazel eyes, teeth so brilliant they had to have been whitened, full lips, fleshy jaw. He could have just walked off the set of a TV soap. He wore a gray silk shirt with a western-style yoke and pearl buttons, red string necktie, dark slacks, an eel skin belt with a gold initial buckle, matching eel skin boots.

“I’m sorry.” He bent over to help Rita pick up the papers. “I didn’t mean to startle you, Rita honey. And I didn’t mean to sound harsh, either. It’s just that—”

“Oh, please, Mr. Rand,” Rita said, scrambling papers together. “Let me get these. You really don’t need to—” Flushed, eyes fastened on him, she stood up and put the papers on the desk. She’d forgotten all about me. “Can I get you some coffee? I’ve made some, fresh. And I bought raspberry jelly doughnuts at the grocery. I thought maybe you wouldn’t have had the heart for breakfast.”

“That’s my brave girl,” he said, patting her hand. “Sure, coffee and a doughnut’ll do fine. Bring a cup for our visitor, too.” Rita opened a door behind her desk and disappeared into a small kitchen. C.W. turned to me with an appraising look, one eyebrow raised. He extended his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met. C. W. Rand.”

“China Bayles.” His hand was soft and warm and held mine a fraction of a second longer than it had to. “I won’t keep you, Mr. Rand. A friend of Andrew Drake’s has asked me to look into the situation, and I thought perhaps you might answer a question or two.”

He folded his arms across his chest and checked me out, head to toe. “You a lawyer?”

“I’m assisting with the preliminary investigation.” It wasn’t a lie, just an evasion.

The hazel eyes were clear, candid. “Well, ask whatever you’ve a mind to. I’ve got nothin’ to hide. Matter of fact, I’ll be glad to help.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. He put one in his mouth, took out a lighter, and lit it. “Ask me, the sheriff’s takin’ the wrong road, goin’ after Drake.”

“Who do you think killed your wife?”

The answer came without hesitation. “One of those Mex’can witch cults, like the ones that killed that tourist down in Matamoros.” He inhaled and blew out a stream of smoke. “I told Sybil and
told
her to stop messin’ around with those stupid plants, all that tarot and astrology mumbo jumbo. Stuff like that, she was a perfect target for any crazy come over the border.”

“Had you heard any rumors about your wife and Drake?”

He sat heavily on the edge of Rita’s desk, shaking his head. “The husband’s the last to know, I guess. But I wasn’t totally surprised when the sheriff told me.” He sighed, shoulders slumped, swinging one eel skin boot. ‘“Spose you heard she was gettin’ a divorce.”

“She told you about it, I understand.”

“After she went to see her lawyer.” A gold ring flashed as he flicked his cigarette ash into an ashtray. “Would you believe she even wrote it all down? Like she wanted to be sure I got the message. As if I’d miss it,” he added with acid irony. “After all, I was bein’ cut off. It’s not somethin’ I’d let get past without noticin’.”

“But you’d have to say it was lucky, wouldn’t you? That she wrote the note, I mean.”

“I oughtta be glad to trade my cut for a clean bill of health from the sheriff?” He laughed shortly. “Maybe I’d rather have the money. Especially since I was in Atlanta when it happened. No way could anybody figure me for the killer.”

“May I see the note?”

“Sheriff’s got it.” He rubbed his jaw wearily. “I tell you, it was a blow. I mean a
real
blow. Oh, sure, Sybil and I had our problems. I’m no saint, and she was your ail-time superbitch. But it was good once, and she sure as hell didn’t deserve to get her throat cut.” He shook his head. “Believe me, this thing has messed up my life, no lie. I can’t even get into my house. The police have it sealed up. I’m stayin’ in one of the lease units.”

“I’m sure it’s rough.” I looked at my watch. ‘Tell Rita I’m sorry I couldn’t stay for coffee. And thanks for your cooperation.”

I gave you what I gave the sheriff.” he said. “Drake’s entitled to any help he can get. I just wish the sheriffd stop screwin’ around with him and go clean out that shantytown over by the freeway. That’s where the cult’s holed up, you ask me.”

I drove back into town, chewing over what I’d learned. Despite Rita’s denial, I guessed that she had already known there was something going on between her boss and her sister. I also guessed that she had a crush on him herself, the kind of hero worship that women sometimes lavish on a boss. He didn’t even have to be handsome. Miss Texas might feel that way about Charlie Lipman.

But it looked like C.W. was off the hook. The typed note proved that Sybil had told him about the divorce. I shook my head. Something about that note rang a bell. I wished I could remember what it was.

CHAPTER 13

It was one by the time I got back to the store. Leatha told me that Joyce Moyers hadn’t called back, gave me an enthusiastic rundown on her busy morning, and then headed for the kitchen to make sandwiches. She had the radio on, and when I went to turn it off I realized that the program was Fannie Couch’s “Back Fence.” I paused to listen.

“I know everybody’s on edge over what’s goin’ on,” Fannie was saying, “but I’m bettin’ you don’t
really
believe in witches.” She paused to give her question greater emphasis. “Do you?”

“Well, I do an’ I don’t.” The caller was a woman with a high-pitched wheezy voice, like a harmonica. “I mean, there’s people who think they’re witches, and then there’s witches.” A cogent summation, I thought.

Fannie was skeptical. “But they wouldn’t actually kill somebody, would they?”

The caller hesitated, cautious. “The ones who are, they wouldn’t have to. It’s the ones who
think
they are that’s dangerous. They might kill somebody just to prove they can.” She lowered her voice, as if they might be overheard. “If you ask me, Fannie, it was that photographer did it. I heard he had a black magic bible in his apartment and he used to dance butt naked in the—”

Fannie cut in hastily. “Sorry, but we’ve got to take a commercial break.” Her voice grew heartier. “All you listeners out there, don’t go ‘way. We got a real treat comin’ up. Pecan Springs Singin’ Sweethearts are with us, just back from their big success in San Antonio. They’re goin’ to favor us with their rendition of ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas.’“

I switched off the radio and began on the mail, sorting the interesting stuff from the bills. My copy of
The Business of Herbs
had come and I pushed the bills aside and opened it. Paula Oliver, the editor, is a friend of mine, and the magazine keeps me going when times get tough. In this issue, for instance, she was featuring an article on a small company named Hillside Herbs, which is owned by two sisters who have developed a unique herbal jewelry collection. It just goes to show how two women can team up to beat the odds. I was deep in the article when the door opened and Angela Sanchez came in, wearing jeans and a maroon CTSU sweatshirt, her dark hair in one thick braid down her back.

She held up a bag. “Maria sent you some dried epazote to trade for fresh hoja santa. Got any, China?”

“Sure.” I took the epazote, handed her a sack, and she headed for the herb garden. Epazote is a native Mexican herb that’s added to beans in the last fifteen minutes of cooking, not just to flavor them but to keep them from doing what beans normally do after you eat them. Hoja santa, holy leaf, smells like root beer, with a hint of sweet anise. Mexican cooks sometimes use the fresh leaves instead of corn shucks to wrap tamales in, and season sauces, beans, and shrimp with the dry herbs. To make sure I have it fresh, I keep a few plants by the cottage where it’s shaded in the afternoon. Once it’s started, you have to be very firm with it. It spreads like bamboo.

Angela was back in a few minutes with a full sack of leaves. “Thanks. Looks like you’ve got a good crop out there.”

I looked at her. “What’s the word in the community about the Santeros and Mrs. Rand’s murder?”

Angela looked dark. “Everybody says that the Santeros had nothing to do with it.”

“Maybe they’re protecting somebody.”

Angela shook her head, her mouth firm. “No, China. This is not Santeros. Not Palo Mayomberos, either. There’d be symbols, bones, coins, an altar. You can’t have a sacrifice without an altar. Anyway, if it was Santeros, word would get around.”

“What about the doll?” The threatening voodoo doll that Sybil had received was another weak link in Blackie’s case against Andrew—unless he’d somehow managed to connect Andrew to the doll. Was that what he meant by rattlesnakes?

“I’m still asking,” Angela said. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything. But I
saw
something you maybe want to know about. I was out at Lake Winds last night, helping Mrs. Maxwell with a dinner party. I was driving past a row of condos—the D section—when I saw Jerri Greene getting out of that Mustang of hers.” She paused. “You know Jerri Greene?”

I nodded.

Angela gave me a crooked grin. “Well, it was late and I was curious, so I stopped where she couldn’t see me and watched. She stood outside this door smoothing this, straightening that.” With suggestive tugs at hips and breasts, Angela pantomimed Jerri’s preparations. “When everything was in the right place, she knocked. It was Mr. Rand who let her in. When I drove off, I saw his Le Baron, parked around the side.” She looked at me. “I’m not saying this was wrong. I just thought you ought to know.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Thanks.” I paused. “Angela, do you know Andrew Drake?”

Angela tilted her head. “He came out to the Rand house a couple times when I was there. He and Mrs. Rand were ... friends.”

I heard the hesitation. “Just friends? Or something else?”

Angela lifted her shoulders in an eloquent Latin shrug that accepted and tolerated all kinds of relationships. “Maybe. The sheriff asked too, and I told him the same thing. Me, I think Drake did it. People are saying he killed a woman in New Orleans.”

I was saved from answering when the door opened and somebody else came in—a six-foot-three-inch redheaded replica of Ruby. She was wearing U.T. orange sweats with “Lady Longhorns” across the front.

“Hello, Shannon,” I said.

Angela lifted her bag of hoja santa.
“Gracias,
China,” she said, going out the door.
“Hasta luego.”

“De nada. Hasta la vista.”

Ruby’s daughter looked around apprehensively, as if she was afraid she might step on something. When you’re six feet three and used to charging up and down a basketball court, small spaces probably make you claustrophobic. She got right to the point. “What’s this shit about Mom being mixed up with a murderer?”

“It’s not clear that he’s a murderer,” I said carefully. “There are other considerations to be explored. The law—”

Shannon snorted. “Gimme a break. The jerk’s in jail, isn’t he?” On the basketball court, she uses her height to intimidate. She leaned forward, using it now to make her point. “China, I am very worried about my dear, sweet, loony mother. Every now and then she totally wigs out over some weird bozo. She’s really gone out of her way to pick a loser this time. What are we gonna do?”

I dumped Maria’s epazote onto a tray and inspected it carefully. It was clean, as usual, and smelled of camphor, with a touch of mint. “We might try locking her in the closet and dropping the key into the river.”

“How about this guy she’s gone bonkers over? Will he get the chair?”

“He hasn’t even been indicted yet.” I put the epazote into a clean jar and put it on the shelf. “Anyway, they don’t use the chair in Texas. They use a needle.”

“A needle? Gross.” She paused for a moment, digesting this information. “Mom says you’re going to be his lawyer.”

“Definitely not.” I brushed epazote leaves off the counter. “Anyway, this isn’t a capital case. The most he could get is life.”

Shannon’s orange chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. “I tell you, China, I am very, very worried about Mom. She’s starting in on her third set of fingernails. But there’s no point in trying to tell her to kiss this jerk off. She won’t listen to a word. So if there’s anything you can do to prove that somebody else did it—”

To that logic, there was nothing else to say except “I’ll do whatever I can.”

She enveloped me in a hug, and the top of my head bumped her chin. “Listen,” she said, releasing me, “about the season tickets, don’t worry about a thing. I put your name on the list. But you’ll have to pay full price. The NCAA watches that stuff like a cross-eyed hawk.” She made a face. “When they should be watching steroids, they watch tickets.”

“How’s the season shaping up?” I asked, glad to be off the subject of Andrew and Ruby.

“Not too bad. We’re gonna stomp LSU.” She shot me the hook-’em-homs sign, an obscene-looking combination of thrusting fingers that I never learned to display without embarrassment. “Fix it so the guy beats the rap,” she ordered, and ducked through the door. On her way out, she narrowly missed charging into Leatha, who was coming in with a tray of sandwiches, salad, and drinks.

After lunch, I told Leatha I needed to leave again and offered to turn the shop over to Laurel Wiley, who was still tending the Cave.

Leatha shook her head. “Let me,” she said. “I love it.” She looked around. “Maybe I’ll tell Sam I’d like to have a little shop like this. Where are you going?”

‘To the gym.”

“That’s good,” Leatha said approvingly, going to sit behind the cash register. “I worry that you don’t get enough exercise.”

Jerri Greene was just finishing a class when I came in. In red leotard and red-striped tights, she stood out like a chorus girl in a crowd of female flabbies, jumping wearily to ear-splitting music. She waved me into the office and closed the door behind us, shutting out everything except for the rhythmic bass, which rumbled in the floor.

“Want to sign up for Early Sunshine Slim and Trim?” She cast a practiced eye over my black bulky sweater, which hides a multitude of sins. She was not deceived. “Three times a week, seven thirty in the morning. A good way to lose a few pounds before the holidays.”

“I probably should,” I said with no intention of actually doing it. “Listen, Jerri, I wonder if you could help me. I’ve been asked to do a little digging into the Rand murder.”

“Oh, yeah?” She took a towel off the back of a chair, nipped up her ponytail and wiped her neck. “Going back to being a lawyer? Lawyers make good money, don’t they?”

“Some do. But I’m just sorting through a few things, that’s all.”

She draped the towel around her shoulders. “Well, if you’re working for Drake, you probably got your work cut out for you. Way I heard it, he and Sybil were getting it on. That’s why he killed her.”

“Does that surprise you?”

She headed for a small refrigerator beside the window. “Why should it?” She shot me a quick glance. “I didn’t know her. Don’t know him, either.”

“Why do you think he did it? Not just because they were lovers, surely.”
If
they were.

She took a bottle of cranberry juice out of the refrigerator and drank deeply. “Heard he owed her a big bunch of money.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked at me as if for confirmation. When she didn’t get it, she went on. “Anyway, they must’ve been into some pretty kinky stuff. This girl who works at the Exxon station, her brother is a deputy. She says Drake had this big book full of evil spells and instructions for weird sex. And I know for a fact Mrs. Rand had poison plants.” She shuddered. “A person could get killed, all those poison plants. God, if I’d been C.W., I’da been freakin’ out.”

I took my cue. “I’ll bet it was hard,” I said sympathetically. “Was he? Freaking out, I mean.”

“C.W.?” She sat down, crossed her red-striped legs, drank again. “Well, he mentioned it a time or two. Wouldn’t you freak out, if
your
wife was growing stuff that could kill you deader’n a doornail? I wouldn’t stick around thirty seconds, somebody threatened me like that. I’d get the hell out.”

“You mean, she actually threatened to
poison
him?” My voice was full of shocked surprise.

“If growing all that poison stuff wasn’t a threat, I don’t know what was,” Jerri said. “Especially after he pleaded with her not to do it. He begged her to knock off that flaky stuff, told her it’d get her ass in trouble. And sure as shootin’, it did.” She sat back with a served-her-right look.

“I understand that you and C.W. are friends.” I smiled warmly, to show I didn’t mean anything by my remark. “Somebody mentioned seeing you drop in on him last night out at Lake Winds,” I added, by way of explanation.

Jerri pulled off the towel and dropped it on the floor. “No kiddin’? Boy, you can’t do
anything
in this town, can you? Yeah, sure, we’re friends. He’s one of my regular massage customers. He calls me whenever he’s super stressed out, and I give him a massage. Usually, I go to his house or his office. But the cops locked him out of his place so last night I went to the place where he’s staying.” She laughed. “I better watch it, I guess. Never can tell who might get the wrong idea.”

I laughed with her. “Yeah, you never can tell.”

Jerri’s assistant, an anorexic in silver leotard and tights, legs and arms like paper clips, opened the door. “I hate to tell you this, Jerri,” she shouted over the music, “but the John’s flooded again. Crap all over the floor. And the switch on the sauna heater quit working. It’s stuck on broil.”

Jerri shook her head wearily. “Thanks, Peaches.” Peaches slammed the door, restoring relative quiet. “God, I’ll be so
glad
to get out of this dump. Damn landlord won’t fix the crapper, hailstorm punched the roof full of holes, and he stuck the insurance money in his jeans. Not to mention wall-to-wall roaches.” She held up two fingers a couple of inches apart. “Big brown ones, about the size of a crocodile. Another two weeks, I’m gone.”

“You’re moving?”

“You got it. There’s some space opening up in the mall, pricey, but worth every penny. Maybe I’ll even get new equipment, too. Excuse me. Gotta call the plumber.” She smiled at me. “Don’t forget about Early Sunshine. Just what you need to trim off that flab.”

The next aerobics class was taking the floor when I left the office. Peaches clapped her hands above her head, a bright smile on her face, her silvery body singing with energy.

“Okay, everybody,” she called, bouncing onto the platform. “Let’s start off with the dirty boogie. How about it, huh?”

A chorus of middle-aged laughter echoed across the floor, including mine. Flab or no flab, I guess you never forget the dirty boogie.

Back at Thyme and Seasons, Leatha was ready for an afternoon break. “I think I’ll just run next door to the Emporium,” she said. “Sara might like one of those candles I saw in the window.”

I had to stop for a minute and think who Sara was. Oh, yes. My mother’s step-daughter-to-be. “Have fun,” I said, leafing through the pink phone messages. She was halfway down the walk when I found the one with Joyce Moyers’ name on it. I opened the door and yelled, “Hey, was there anything special about the call from New Orleans?”