Larkspur (18 page)

"Afraid?"

"Dai was not always scrupulous."

"He sure wasn't--seducing undergraduates while they were enrolled in his classes! These
days he'd find himself in a sexual harassment suit so fast he wouldn't know which way was
up."

"I suppose so."

"For Godsake, Ma. That's gross abuse of power."

"It used to be fairly common, at least between male professors and female students."

"That's a justification?"

"Students have always had crushes on their professors."

"But most professors show a little restraint. Llewellyn used his position to create a
harem."

Ma cut a bite of grilled chicken breast.
Pollo asado
. "I said he could be
unscrupulous."

"It does cast light on the problem of literary influence."

"Whereas the wonderful world of sports is pure and free of corruption."

I had to concede the point, though seduction was less common among athletes than
bribery.

Mother poked at her rice. "Granted Dai used D'Angelo, didn't that give D'Angelo a
motive to murder him?"

"A fairly strong one. But everyone who was at the lodge, except Janey Huff and Jay, had
a motive to murder Llewellyn, though I wasn't sure Domingo had until today."

"The restaurant?"

I nodded. "The media folks suggested
I
did it to publicize my bookstore. Or
didn't you notice?"

Mother looked depressed. "You know I don't watch TV."

"Are you going to be able to work with D'Angelo?"

"Yes, but I'm worried about the Foundation. He has the directorship sewed up for ten
years. He could wreck Siskiyou Summit permanently."

"I think he wants to make it work."

"Probably, but can he?"

"He's been running the English Department at Monte for a long time."

"It is not the same thing."

"No, it's a lot more difficult. The governor just sliced the education budget again, the
federal administration cut student loan funds, displaced homemakers and unemployed loggers are
beating at the doors, and professors are moving east to greener pastures as fast as they can. In
spite of that, the department has a reputation for being tough but fair, and D'Angelo has managed
to keep some good faculty. Running a fat private Foundation that will pamper a dozen
hand-picked poets will be duck soup, after that."

"You're mixing your metaphors."

"That's what comes of a public education."

"I have never understood your defensiveness."

"Nope," I said, cheering up, "you never have." Bennington, Ma's alma mater, is now the
most expensive college in the nation including Harvard.

"Ohio State was your choice, and we let you make it."

Under protest.

Standoff. We declared an unspoken truce, and Ma changed the subject. "How's the
bookstore?"

I polished off the last prawn. "Ginger gave notice."

That made her sit up. "That's unfortunate. Did she say why?"

"She's going to marry Dennis Fromm."

Ma stared. "I must say she lost no time."

"
He
lost no time," I corrected. "Which is to his credit, because Ginger is the
best thing that ever happened to Dennis, including the inheritance. They're going to spend their
honeymoon at Humboldt State."

Ma blinked.

"As far as Ginger is concerned, going to school full time represents the height of
decadent luxury. By this time next year she'll know better, of course. Dennis is going to take
classes, too. He wants to learn how to read stock reports and hire slick tax lawyers."

Ma took a swallow of beer. "Doesn't his mother object to the marriage?"

That reminded me of my promise to go out to Denise's house with Ginger the next day. I
told Mother about Ginger's plea.

Ma's eyes gleamed. "Take me with you."

"Ma," I said patiently, "I'm fond of Ginger. I want to help her."

"I do, too." Mother looked bland and benignant.

"You don't give one small damn about Ginger. You just want to see the fireworks."

"I'll have a moderating influence on
la belle
Denise."

"Don't count on it." The waitress removed our plates.

We declined the deep fried ice cream. While we waited for our coffee, I thought
Mother's proposition over. Her presence would provoke Denise to a bravura performance, but it
would also give Ginger status. A little exercise in class warfare.

"All right." I stirred my coffee. "You can come if you promise to sit there and look
poetic."

Ma beamed at me.

"One o'clock. Have you driven your rental yet?"

"No, but it's an automatic. I won't have any trouble." She sipped. "Do we rendezvous at
the bookstore?"

"Yes. Annie comes on at one."

"Excellent. Now," Mother said demurely, "I want you to take me out to Jay's
house."

I protested, but she had made up her mind, so we piled into the Toyota. Jay lives a fifty
minute drive from the courthouse but only twenty minutes from Eagle Cap Lodge.

I was hoping he wouldn't be home yet, but the Blazer sat on its gravel patch by the back
entry. I gave a toot on the horn by way of warning. He might have been in the hot-tub we
installed just before the snows came, though it wasn't hot-tub weather.

Ma was frankly gawking. "Some log cabin."

I knocked. As I was about to knock again Jay opened the door.

"What the hell, Lark...oh."

"Sorry to intrude. My mother wanted to meet you."

"Hello, Jay. Thanks for the daisies," Ma chirped, sticking out her hand.

He shook it, wincing, and showed us in without visible enthusiasm. He was wearing
cut-offs and an unbuttoned shirt, which would have been sexy except for the Velcro corset.

Jay's house is a log cabin. Each timber is squared and notched to fit with the others so
tightly that no insulation is necessary even at that altitude. It has skylights and double-paned
thermal windows all over the place, and there's a gleaming Franklin stove in the living room. The
effect of diffused sunlight on all that exposed red cedar is friendly rather than rustic, and the
whole layout is very modern.

The house was a kit. Jay and his brother put it together themselves. Jay is secretly proud
of it, so I thought he'd get over his snit faster if he gave Ma the grand tour. I told him I'd finish
his laundry.

While I tossed underwear in the washer and hung shirts fresh from the dryer I could hear
their voices. Ma is always interested in how things are made. I thought she'd like the crisp, tiled
kitchen, and I knew she'd get a kick out of Freddy's room, which is a loft over the kitchen reached
by a cleverly hung ladder. It's Freddy's to use whenever he visits. He takes his computer up there
and plays games.

When I heard Ma's voice ten feet above me I knew I'd guessed right. I paired socks then
sneaked into the bedroom in case it needed tidying. Except for the stacks of paperbacks on the
headboard, it was neat, but everything was covered with a week's worth of dust. I plumped a
pillow on the futon and decided to let the dust lie.

Jay stuck his head in the door. "You want a glass of wine?"

"Sure." I was too relieved that my strategy had worked to gloat. He sounded twenty
degrees warmer.

By then it was sunset, and the sea-breeze stirred the air enough to make sitting on the
deck pleasant. Ma was leaning back in a lawn chair, drinking in the view of the lake. It is not a
lake in the Llewellyn sense. It's a glacial tarn, small, deep, and dotted with boulders, one large
enough to be called an island. The light that bathed it was pink-gold, and the air was full of
birdsong. A riffle of wind moved over the water.

Jay came out with two glasses of white wine and a beer on a myrtle wood tray.

Ma smiled up at him as she took her wine. "It's a lovely place, Jay."

"Hell to get in and out of in winter." He served me, set the tray down, and took his beer
to the rail. I think it hurt him less to stand than to squat on one of the lawn chairs, which were
K-Mart specials and inclined to collapse. He leaned against the rail. He had buttoned his shirt.

Ma said, "I thought we ought to meet before I leave."

Jay nodded.

I sat up and the plastic webbing creaked. "Leave? When?"

"Tuesday morning."

Three more days. I sipped my wine and leaned back. The end was in sight.

"I had to see the lodge and get to know D'Angelo," Ma said earnestly. "I owed it to
Dai."

"Yes, ma'am."

Ma made a face. "Good heavens, do people out here really say that?"

"Yes, ma'am." Jay smiled a split lip smile. "Especially cops."

"Well, try Mary next time. Do you have any idea when you're likely to find the
murderer?"

The smile went. "We have a warrant out for the chauffeur's arrest. No leads worth a
damn. I was hoping the state lab could give me something on the poison, but they tell me it was
made from a variety of larkspur that grows wild in this area."

"Frustrating."

"I'm up against a wall. Unless something gives soon I'll have to put the case on the back
burner. I have half a dozen others pending."

Ma frowned over her wine. "You mean give up?"

"I'm not likely to give up on a murder I was forced to witness." Jay wiped the
condensation from his beer bottle on his shirt and drank. "I just won't be able to spend a lot of
time on it. We're understaffed."

Mother sipped, still frowning. "Isn't this Ted Peltz a likely suspect?"

"Yeah, though he's not very subtle. He could have planned it, I suppose. He's in custody,
but he'll be out as soon as he can make bail."

"On the wife-beating charge?"

"There won't be a wife-beating charge."

Ma was shocked and said so. I could feel the tension level rising again.

"People like the Joneses don't want their names dragged through the courts." Jay took a
swallow of Henry Weinhardt's.

"But the young woman was almost killed."

Jay took another swallow. "They'll protect her and buy her a divorce."

"Leaving the son-in-law free to prey on other women?"

"They don't give a damn about other women. That's a trend," he said dispassionately.
"You can really see it in Beverly Hills. Private cops. Walled estates. They build themselves a
castle, then pull up the drawbridge, and to hell with the peasants outside."

"They?"

"People like the Joneses who think they can buy justice." He finished his beer and set the
bottle on the tray. "Sometimes they're right."

"You don't like that."

He stared at her. "My liking it or disliking it doesn't change the way things are. The
Joneses will see that their daughter doesn't press charges."

"I'm sorry," Ma said gently.

Jay looked away.

Ma rose. "You'd better drive me home, Lark. It's late."

"Okay." I rummaged for my keys while my mother and Jay exchanged politenesses.

As I rose to go, he said, "Thanks for doing the wash, Lark."

"You betcha." I was still a little steamed. Also worried. However, the meeting with
Mother had gone off smoothly. No casualties. I was glad it was over.

Jay watched us go from the back porch.

Three quarters of the way to the turn-off to Eagle Cap, Ma said, "Are you going to marry
him?"

"The question has not arisen."

"Perhaps not orally." Did I say my mother is shrewd? "Do you want to marry Jay?"

"Yes."

"Good."

I must have driven three miles without registering a thing, so profound was my
astonishment. I almost missed the turn-off.

It was a night for surprises. When I got back to Monte I drove to the bookstore to help
Ginger close up. I told her Mother and I would go with her to beard Denise in her den. Ginger
was pathetically grateful. When Dennis came, she told him, and
he
was pathetically
grateful.

I chugged to the apartment, my mind on Denise, and nearly rammed the back of the
Blazer. Jay had parked in my slot. I took the stairs two at a time, then stood outside my door for a
minute to calm down. It would not do to appear too eager.

Jay was standing by the window eating my last pint of yogurt. He waved a spoon.
"Hi."

"Hi, yourself." I set my handbag down on the coffee table. "Ma approves."

"Did she like the house? That's good."

"Of you, idiot."

He scraped at the last morsels of yogurt. "I thought I was a surly sonofabitch,
myself."

"Maybe she likes Heathcliff types."

He took the empty carton into the kitchen, came back, and gave me a nice
yogurt-flavored kiss.

"Yum. What was that for?"

"Bribery. You're going to have to put me to bed again."

So I did.

We had maybe three hours of harmonic vibrations--sleep, to put it another way--when
the telephone rang. Jay didn't wake immediately, as he usually does. I answered. Kevin
Carey.

"You'd better put Jay on the phone. We found the chauffeur."

"Where is he?"

"Where was he," Kevin corrected.

"Is he dead?"

"Very dead."

Jay muttered something.

"It's Kevin. They've found Miguel's body."

He lay very still. "Shit." He didn't sound surprised.

I handed him the receiver and lay back, listening to a series of glum grunts. Finally he
said, "Okay. Half an hour," and hung up.

The news had begun to register. I was near tears. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah. I can't drive, Lark." He had taken pain pills.

"I can." I slid from bed and gave him my hand. We got him dressed, I jumped into a pair
of jeans and a sweatshirt, and we took off.

"Where?" I revved the Toyota's engine. It's a cold starter.

"South. The road that cuts off toward Weed through the high country."

"Why there?"

He leaned back, eyes closed. "No idea." We rode in silence.

We found the crime scene easily enough. Kevin had already sent the evidence team
out.

The Mercedes had been parked in one of the big sheds the county uses to shelter its
snowplows in winter. Piles of gravel and cinder had hidden the car from the road, and it would
not have been visible to the helicopter searchers either.