Meadowlark (17 page)

I identified myself.

"Where are you?"

"At home, of course." Where else at nine-thirty on a week
night?

"Is your husband there?"

"Yes, but he went to bed."

Long breathy pause. I could hear an unfamiliar rock group
thumping in the background. At last she said, "Uh, I need some
advice. I need to, like, talk to you alone."

Girl talk. How sweet. I was losing patience. "If the phone
won't do, I'll be at the bookstore all morning."

"Can I come by around noon? I work at the farm Friday
mornings."

"Okay. We can go get a hamburger or something."

"I don't eat that junk. It's unhealthy," she said with
conscious virtue. "See ya."

Oh, Carol. I sat in the nook for a while speculating about
Carol's problem, but I didn't have a clue. My mind drifted back to
Mary Sadat. Now there was a woman with problems.

So I went to bed early and had a double dose of nightmares,
this time featuring women in peril, not my favorite fantasy pattern. I
wouldn't even watch
Silence of the Lambs
, and here was my
head creating horrors. After the second nightmare, I got up and
drank a cup of warm milk. It tasted awful, but I did fall asleep
again.

Jay's first class was at ten, so he hung around making phone
calls Friday morning. Bonnie came over and showed me a bunch of
brochures and a "French for Travelers" tape. I fled to the bookstore
in self-defense, though I had little left to do before my re-opening. At
eleven, Bianca called to ask if I could pick Trish up at the bus depot at
four. I could, though it was going to be inconvenient to shuttle Trish
to the farm, dash home for Jay, feed us, change clothes, and dash back
out. Bianca wanted me at the farm at half past six.

It was idle to suppose Carol would show up at noon. I didn't
expect her to be on time, and she wasn't. I took out the feather
duster and settled in to a good, thorough dusting. Then I began
rearranging the fiction. Alphabetically by categories is the best way,
but placing a book in the wrong category is embarrassing, and unfair
to the writer. I removed Danielle Steele from Romance and placed
her in Best-Sellers. And Toni Morrison from Best-Sellers to
Literature. And so on. I probably created chaos. Finally, a scratching
at the front door announced Carol's arrival. It was one, and my
stomach snarled at her.

When I let her in, she looked around. "Gosh, have you read
all these books?"

She was in airhead mode. I thought of saying, "I don't read
'em. I just sell 'em," but that was too unkind. I said, "Some. What did
you want, Carol?"

"Well, like I said, to talk." She wriggled. "I'm hungry." I led
her to the back room and began closing the place down.

"That a Mac?" She indicated my computer.

"A PC." I blanked the screen and grabbed my purse and
jacket.

"Cool." She wriggled again. "Do you keep your inventory on
disk?"

I stared at her. Her hair was artfully tangled and her outfit,
including a bright rain-jacket, was color-coded. Teal blue, this time.
She had gone home from the farm and changed clothes.

"Where are we going?" She whipped out her lip gloss.

"Aho's. I want a decent sandwich."

"Is that private?"

I glanced at my watch. "It will be by the time we get
there."

Aho's is the best bakery on the Peninsula. It ought to be
downtown, but the owners opted for a boring mall on the edge of
Kayport. I drove to the mall, and we went in. Carol wanted a cup of
cappuccino. I ordered turkey on whole meal dill and a hazelnut latte.
There were only three booths. As we sat, the four businessmen
occupying the booth nearest the display case rose and crowded
around the cash register. We watched them leave. Apart from Carol
and me, they were the last customers.

Larry Aho, the baker, retreated to make my sandwich and
left us alone with our coffee.

"Okay," I said. "Out with it."

Carol took a sip of cappuccino. "You're married to a cop,
right? I mean, Professor Dodge, he's working with the police."

I explained that Lisa Colman was the detective in charge of
the murder investigation and that Dale Nelson was doing most of the
field work.

"Yeah, but your husband--"

"Jay is a reserve deputy, and the sheriff's department
sometimes hires him as a consultant."

She looked blank, so I went on, searching for short words,
"He's not doing anything official on this case, because the Dean
wants him to keep an eye on you and the other students, in case you
need help."

"Cool." She looked relieved.

"Do you?" I prompted. "Need help, I mean."

"Uh, yeah--"

"Turkey on dill."

I got up and retrieved my sandwich. "Thanks, Larry."

Carol had stuck her perfect nose in her cup.

I sat. When Larry disappeared into the back room once
more, I said, "I ought to warn you, I guess. Jay won't withhold
information from the police, and neither will I. If you tell me
something incriminating--"

"Well, it's not, that is, not exactly." She twiddled a strand of
hair.

I took a bite of sandwich.

"It's about the day Hugo was killed. I mean, you
know..."

I chewed. "A week ago Sunday."

She nodded.

I was a little slow, but I was beginning to understand that
Carol felt embarrassed. "You were out with somebody. A married
man?"

"I was with Angie."

I narrowly avoided choking.

Carol said dreamily, "She's so cool."

I felt a large twinge of disappointment in Angie Martini. She
had been so self-righteous with Del about coming on to students, so
scrupulous. "You had a date?"

Carol blushed. "Gosh, Lark, I'm not gay."

I drew a long breath. "Then why all the secrecy?"

"Well, we figured, I mean, she figured the cops would react
the way you did, so she said she'd just tell them she was out looking
at nurseries, and she was, only I was with her."

"All afternoon?" What with his trip to Seaside by whatever
means, Hugo could hardly have reached the farm before one or two.
Dale now thought the murder had occurred between one and
four.

Carol said, "I want to open a nursery--you know, the kind
with a flower shop--and my Dad's going to finance it, but he said I
should learn the business first."

"And Angie is your mentor?"

"I guess." She eyed me doubtfully.

"She's showing you the ropes."

"Ropes?"

"How to run a greenhouse."

She beamed. "Yeah. She says I don't have to be organic if I'm
careful with pesticides, but I'm not supposed to say that to Bianca. Or
Hugo, only Hugo's dead now."

"And Angie asked you to lie for her?"

"Well, it wasn't a lie, exactly. I just said I was out with
somebody." She wriggled. "I can't help it if the cops thought I meant
with a guy, can I?"

I went back to my sandwich, partly to give myself time to
think. Angie was paranoid--or was she? Dale had called her a dyke.
Her impulse to conceal an innocent meeting with a female student
was understandable, if not very wise. Surely being suspected of
sexual shenanigans was preferable to being suspected of
murder.

I patted the mayo from my lips. "You should ask to speak to
Dale Nelson. Tell him the truth. If you want to warn Angie, go ahead.
Or I'll tell Jay, if you like."

She looked hugely relieved and thanked me several times,
though I had just pointed out the obvious course. When we got back
to the bookstore, I let her use the phone. She called Angie first, then
Dale. Dale came to the store and took her amended statement. He
wasn't happy, but he wasn't hard on Carol, probably because he was
glad to be able to eliminate two suspects from his list.

That blotted up the afternoon. At three forty-five I closed up
and drove to the depot to wait for Trish. I didn't have to wait long.
She waddled down from the bus, and I got out of the car. She seemed
surprised to see me instead of Bianca but not upset. I found her
overnight case and tucked it into the trunk.

She squeezed into the passenger side and wrestled with the
seatbelt while I got in. Seatbelts are mandatory in Washington. When
she finally fastened hers, she gave her huge belly a pat. "One more
week, then thank godalmighty I am free at last."

I laughed.

"If my bladder holds up that long."

I said, "Do you need to use the restroom?"

"Always." She cast a dubious glance at the bus depot.

"Let's make a pit stop at the bookstore. We have time."

She smiled. "Thanks."

She used the loo and declined a cup of tea, and we got back
into the car.

She leaned back against the headrest. "I'll be glad when the
service is over."

I pulled out onto Main Street. It was raining a little.

"But it was nice of Bianca to organize it." She shifted in the
seat. She sounded doubtful.

I stopped at the solitary red light. Bianca had said Trish
needed closure. Maybe Bianca needed closure. The dynamics of the
relationship baffled me.

"Tell me about the commune," I blurted.

"What?"

"The commune. Isn't that where you met Hugo?"

"Oh, no. Hugo and I went to high school together. We met
Bianca and Keith at the commune."

"What was it like?"

She gave as much of a shrug as the seatbelt allowed. "A big
old farm. The house was falling down. So was the barn. There were
about a dozen of us. We lolled around and smoked dope and listened
to Keith's guitar. We were just a bunch of kids trying to put off
growing up."

I reached the highway, stopped, and looked both ways. A log
truck rattled past with the trailer up on the truck bed. Going home. I
said, "Except Hugo."

She nodded. "Except Hugo. He was the only grown-up
around, and he was barely twenty-one."

"So how did you live?"

"As in the clichés. We mooched off Bianca, who had a
generous allowance from her mother. Hugo grew vegetables. As long
as we had brown rice and Hugo we weren't going to starve."

"It sounds kind of boring."

Trish chortled. "It was. I'm a book person. Every time Keith
drove his rattletrap pickup to town I'd hitch a ride with him. I'd pad
into the public library in my earth shoes and granny dress and check
out as many books as the law allowed. Hugo used to tell me I was
rotting my brain."

Silence. The windshield wipers swished.

"Hugo wasn't bored," she added, sad. "Neither was Bianca.
He taught her everything he knew about gardening, which was a lot,
and she worked at it. Really worked. Even when she was pregnant
with Fiona."

"That's impressive, considering her background."

"The hotel?" Trish nodded. "She may be a hothouse plant,
but she's tough. She's a leader, too. Bianca organized the commune.
Otherwise, it would have folded after six weeks. Hugo could have
organized things, but he wasn't about to give anybody orders--or
take them."

"He did what he wanted to do?"

"It was the only way he could function." She cleared her
throat. "One of the best things Bianca did for Hugo when he came to
work for her at Meadowlark Farm was to give him a free hand. On
the commune, Bianca was the leader. She could do that for two
reasons. She had the people skills to get us to work--she bullied and
cajoled and flattered and threatened. Of course she had money, but it
wasn't just that. She was also a believer."

I glanced at her.

She was frowning. "What do you know about utopias?"

"Uh, Sir Thomas More and Amana."

"Right, and Salt Lake City and the Amish and the Hutterites.
After we left the commune, I read up on American utopias. They
succeed when there's a strong central ideal. It's usually religious. In
our case, it was organic farming and environmental purity."

"Kind of vague."

"No. There's a solid body of literature and a surprising
amount of research. Bianca and Hugo read everything, and they were
believers, Hugo for obvious reasons. I never quite understood why
Bianca was so passionate, but she was. Bianca's a leader," she
repeated, as if she couldn't summarize her perception any other
way.

A gust of rain hit the windshield, and the wipers whined.
"How did Hugo learn about plants?"

"He grew up on a dairy farm. He was the youngest of six. His
mother taught him to garden. His dad was an old-fashioned German
Gauleiter, a real tyrant. He bullied those kids something awful,
worked them before and after school. Hugo hates ...hated cows.
Bianca bought one when she found out she was pregnant. Hugo
taught her how to milk it and told her she was on her own."

I smiled.

"He wouldn't even drink the milk. We made really awful
natural yogurt." She shifted in the seat again and loosened the
seatbelt. "He wouldn't eat that, either."

I glanced at her. She had teared up. "What about Keith
McDonald?" I asked by way of distraction.

Trish gave a shaky laugh. "Good old Keith. He never
changes."

"I suppose you mean he's just a kid at heart."

"I suppose so. Keith was our troubador. He looked like
Donovan."

"Who?"

"Such is fame." She sounded amused. "Donovan was a Sixties
singer--fake folk. He was good-looking in a baby-faced way, with big
soulful eyes. Keith looked like Donovan, sounded like him, dressed
like him. All the women buzzed around Keith like flies going for
flypaper."

"I know from flypaper."

She chuckled. "We were all very careful of Keith's hands. He
got out of a lot of work because he didn't want to ruin his hands. I
think he slept with every woman on the place." She added, rueful,
"Including me."

"Good heavens."

"It was a different era."

"Must have been. Wasn't, er, anybody jealous?" I was
thinking of Bianca.

Trish said, "Hugo? You bet. That's why I decided Hugo and I
had better get married, even though it was against my
principles."