Larkspur (15 page)

He meditated. "Well, I pulled up, and I could see there was trouble. Peltz and his wife
were on the porch. The door was open, as if she'd run out to get away from him. She was
screaming, and he was smashing at her with his fists."

"Jesus."

"I called for the patrol car. Then I got out and drew my gun. I yelled at him to freeze, but
he didn't stop. It was like he didn't hear me."

I shivered.

"He was whaling away at her, and she was screaming and twisting around, trying to
escape. He threw her against one of the posts that hold the porch up. I couldn't get a clear
shot."

"So you dived in."

He was silent.

"Didn't you?"

He closed his eyes.

"Why didn't you wait for Cowan--it was Cowan?"

"Dan, yeah."

"She should have left him," I gritted. "I can't understand that kind of passivity. It doesn't
make sense. She must have known what he was like."

He said carefully, "My stepfather--my first stepfather, not Alf--was an abusive drunk. I
don't mean he was always drunk or always violent. Ma married him when I was four, and I guess
he didn't get out of control until the second baby came, Karen. He was almost human when he
was sober." Jay had two half-sisters, Judy and Karen, as well as his fifteen year old brother,
Freddy, Alf's son. Jay's father had been killed in Korea when Jay was a couple of months
old.

I waited.

"Richardson didn't want another kid. After Karen was born the...episodes got closer
together. He was getting plowed every weekend, and when he got plowed he'd go after Karen.
Ma would step in, and Richardson would beat on her. That went on for almost three years."

"For Godsake, why didn't your mother leave him?"

"She was a high-school graduate with no job experience. Richardson made a decent
living as a farm-machinery salesman. She was afraid to stay with him and afraid to leave
him."

I couldn't say any thing to that. My own life had been so far removed from the threat of
poverty as to make the dilemma incomprehensible. Almost.

He went on, eyes, closed, "One Saturday he got himself wasted and started in on Karen.
He threw her across the room. He broke her collarbone and knocked her cold, concussed her.
Then he sobered up and started crying. Ma took Karen to the hospital. When they released her,
Ma piled us kids into the Volkswagen and left Richardson."

"How old were you?"

"Ten. It was grim for a while." He drew a breath, wincing. "But not as grim as waiting
around for my stepfather to murder my mother."

I was silent.

After a long moment he said, "I think I was trying to explain to you why I didn't wait for
Dan to show up."

"I understand."

He looked at me. "No, you don't." He shut his eyes again. "I had this theory I would
wade in and administer a choke hold. Mind you, that's a no-no, but I was well-taught, and I
thought I could do it. Theory bumped up against fact."

"It didn't work?" A choke hold is supposed to render a perpetrator unconscious by
cutting off the supply of blood to the brain. It sometimes does that permanently.

Jay said wryly, "It made him mad. Madder."

"Then what?"

"Then we rolled down the steps and across the yard. Tearing into it. He threw me against
the satellite dish. That's when my ribs got it."

My hands were clenched in my lap. I flexed the fingers. "And?"

"He may be heavier, but I'm quicker. Also he was carrying a lot of blubber. I was
bashing his head against the edge of the satellite dish when Dan pulled me off him."

I waited.

"I think Dan must have used the choke hold, but I'll deny it under oath. That fucker was
on something, maybe angel dust, maybe crack. Feeling no pain."

"An animal."

"Whatever. When Dan got the cuffs on Peltz, he radioed for the chopper. This time it
came. They flew Mrs. Peltz to County Hospital, and they think they'll be able to prevent
permanent brain damage. He fractured her skull."

"My God."

"The ambulance came, too. The medics strapped me up and hauled Peltz to the hospital
with Dan riding shotgun."

"Remind me to buy Cowan a six pack."

"Goddamn, Lark, don't patronize Dan," Jay said through clenched teeth. "He's a good
cop."

This was a bone of contention between us. After a moment I said, "Two sixpacks?"

I can count on Jay's sense of humor. His mouth relaxed. "A case of Coors. Don't be
cheap."

I leaned back against the couch. "When did all this happen?"

"Around eleven. The idea of sending flowers out to the hotel came to me around three.
Must've been the hospital ambiance."

When I didn't say anything, he went on, "I knew I'd be stuck at the hospital or the
courthouse until nine at least. I was frustrated. I'd also prefer not to meet your mother looking
like the wrong end of an Ali fight, but it was probably in the stars."

"Ma was flattered by the flowers."

"Good."

"Did you eat anything?"

"Please. Don't mention food."

I sat up. The couch jounced, and Jay groaned. "I'm sorry. Did he hit you in the
stomach?"

"He tried. In defense of my midsection I'm a regular tiger, though. I don't think he jarred
anything loose. Except my ribs. And my professional judgment."

Quit, I started to say. Resign. Take the college job. I was ready to throw myself on the
floor and beg and grovel, but it did occur to me that was not the moment to raise the issue. I
managed to bite back the words. "Tell me what I can do for you."

He sighed. "Help me out of this shirt."

"What?"

"I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to get myself undressed and into bed. It
got to be a very large problem. Like the national debt."

I stood up and grasped his left hand. "Come on, tiger."

"Do I have to move?"

"If you wait it'll get worse."

I put him to bed with another pain pill. Then I went back into the living room and
thought.

I thought about Jay and about my own reaction to the Peltz story. Was I going to be able
to handle that side of Jay's job? Jay was an investigator, at least temporarily a supervisor, and
most of the time he pushed papers. He didn't particularly like pushing papers. I wondered if he
had
to have action and thought miserable Freudian thoughts about the nature of
accidents. Did he just happen to find himself in dangerous situations, or did he seek them out
subconsciously? I got a very bad headache.

My thoughts strayed, as they had done since Friday, to the murder of Dai Llewellyn. Ted
Peltz would surely have been at the top of the list of suspects if Miguel had not disappeared. I
wished Miguel would turn up. Sightings of the Mercedes from as far away as Arizona and
Montana had consumed a lot of Jay's time during the past week.

Ted Peltz. I had been assuming a man out on bail on a serious charge would not be
stupid enough to commit another crime, but my assumption was clearly wrong. He must have
known he was under surveillance, yet he had assaulted his wife with deadly effect under the
influence, if Jay was right, of an illegal drug. Whether stupid or not, Peltz had to be crazy. The
murder of Llewellyn was a bizarre act. Nothing straightforward about stewed larkspur.

Then there was Denise. If Peltz had thought he had a motive for murdering Llewellyn,
Denise must have known she had. Jay believed Llewellyn had supported her--and Dennis. If that
were true, then she must have expected Llewellyn to leave his son something, perhaps not as
much as he had done, but something. Denise had a straightforward motive for killing the old
man, but she was not a straightforward woman, and if she had made up her mind to commit
murder, she would surely have chosen a melodramatic, even bizarre method.

If I had been inclined to regard Denise as a silly woman, my opinion had altered since
the funeral. Denise was as clever as paint and
capable de tout
.

That was a depressing thought, too. I was fond of Dennis. I wanted him to benefit from
his father's death. The headache tightened around my temples. Well, there was always
D'Angelo.

I could not imagine D'Angelo shooting Llewellyn or stabbing him, face to face. Poison
was well within his scope, though, and he had supplied us with the motive. That he had done so
freely was not necessarily a sign of innocence. A clever murderer might well show such
disarming frankness, so long as he believed others to be under heavier suspicion. I had no strong
feelings about D'Angelo, but I did like Martha. I hoped he wasn't guilty.

As for the Huffs, they had a motive of sorts. My brief experience of running a small
business made me understand the importance of the cancelled loans and the seed money--not a
trivial motive but surely not as strong as Denise's. As for other feelings, I had sensed that Bill
was uncomfortable in Llewellyn's company. It was a mere impression, however, hardly evidence.
Lydia seemed the more balanced of the two, but her interest in Llewellyn's work was clearly
stronger than Bill's.

What about Janey? What about Domingo? At that point my headache reached the aspirin
stage, and I went into the bathroom and took two.

Jay slept heavily for about three hours. Then he started to toss and turn. I got him a pill,
too.

"Yeow!"

"Sorry. Turn."

Jay rotated gingerly, and water from the shower splattered out on the bathroom tiles.
Also on me.

"Halt!" I had agreed to help remove the tidy Velcro corset from Jay's cracked ribs so he
could shower, on the condition that he stand very still while I did the scrubbing. I am not into
S&M. The sight of bruises, scrapes, and contusions, far from provoking ecstasy, kicks in my
athletic-trainer persona, and I get bossy. I was also getting very wet.

I lathered. Jay groaned--and yelped and muttered rude words. I was glad he wasn't the
kind to suffer in silence but I wished he'd censor his speech a little. I was trying to help.

The phone rang.

"Shit. I'll get it. Stand still."

Mutter, mutter.

I squished into the bedroom.

"Lark, darling."

"Hello, Ma. Up early?" It was seven.

"Feels like the middle of the morning," she burbled. "Are you busy?"

"I was, er, in the shower."

"I'll make it quick then. I want to see Dai's lodge before I meet D'Angelo this afternoon.
He gave me directions, but I'd rather you drove me. You did say your clerks were covering the
store today."

"Sure, Ma." I
had
said that. Incautious me. "What time?"

"Nine?"

"Okay." I could check on Ginger after lunch. I was worried about Ginger. I wondered if
Denise had eaten her yet. Dennis had brought his mother home on the same flight we had
taken.

When I got back to the shower Jay had turned the water off, strictly against orders, and
was standing on the bathmat, dripping.

I grabbed a towel.

"If you don't mind, Lark, I'll just stand here until the water evaporates."

"I'll pat. Gently."

Eventually we got him into the Velcro contraption and some clothes. I showered,
dressed, and made him drink a glass of ucky instant breakfast drink when he refused cream of
wheat, eggs, and everything else I suggested. His mouth hurt, he said. I believed him. He looked
as if everything hurt.

By the time he left for the courthouse, I was feeling downright cranky. I don't think I'm
cut out to be a nurse.

I drove out to Eagle Cap Lodge rather too fast and pried Mother away from her view of a
mountain stream. She swore it purled. "I could work here, Lark. It's beautiful."

"Tell D'Angelo to bring the papers out to you."

"No, I mean real work--poetry." She was genuinely elated. "And your father would love
it. He could fish the stream..."

"Crick."

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's called Pumpkin Creek, and pronounced Punkin Crick, according to my
sources."

She made a face. "A sadly large number of our pioneer forebears had prosaic souls."

"Maybe it was a very large punkin."

I'll lay odds Ma's next book contains a piece called "Punkin Crick." And it will deal
poetically with prosy pioneers.

Ma ignored my comment, picked up her handbag, checked for her room key, and we
were off.

On the way to the lodge I gave her a summary of Jay's encounter with Ted Peltz and the
consequences.

"The poor woman has a fractured skull?"

"That's right."

"It's fortunate Jay happened along in time to stop him."

"You wouldn't say that if you'd seen Jay's ribs."

"Was he badly injured?"

"Just bunged up. He's sore." But very clean.

I gripped the wheel tighter as the road twisted along a steep ravine. Driving was less
acrophobic for me than riding as a passenger. Mother seemed unaffected. She kept making
appreciative noises as vista after vista of blue fir-clad foothills unrolled below her.

As we entered a kind of tree-tunnel, she said, "You'll have to visit her."

A logging truck laden with three thick cedar boles careened past. "Who,
Angharad?"

"Yes, of course."

"I barely know her--and what I do know I don't much like."

Another truck. Making up for time lost to the forest fire.

"That doesn't matter."

"It does to me."

"There are occasions," said my mother, "when it's a woman's duty to stand by another
woman. This is one of them."

"She's probably still in intensive care."

"Then visit the hospital and leave your name. And take a nice plant."

"Intensive care patients can't have plants."

Ma gave an exasperated sigh. "A symbolic gesture, Lark."

We were climbing along the last stretch of forest before the lake. "I could take a slip of
larkspur."

Ma clucked her tongue.

"Or a bouquet of
Cannabis sativa
."

"I hope your association with a policeman has not coarsened your taste."