The Bluebonnet Betrayal (18 page)

“Don't miss this month's science article on page five. You Can't Pick Your Relatives: Fabaceae—Meet members of the legume family, including bluebonnets, kudzu, and peanuts. And thanks so much to Rosette for the reprint. (Hey look, Rosette, we changed the title. Surprise!)”

Austin Rocks!
the e-newsletter of the Austin Rock Garden Society

“Ima Jean Finkel?” DS Chalk called again to Sweetie.

“Yes,” she said over her shoulder. “Coming.” She whispered to Pru, “You won't say anything to Skippy, will you?” and Pru knew she wasn't talking about the Twyla incident.

“Not a word. And after all, what's his first name, I'd like to know?”

Sweetie smiled. “He won't tell me—must be a good one. You go on now, Pru, I'm okay.”

“No, I'll wait for you.”

Pru took the opportunity to nip into the ladies' while Sweetie was occupied. When she walked out into the lobby again, it was to see the doors glide open and Rosette walk in, accompanied by Damien.

The police station, the place to be. Pru remembered the lunchtime talk she had scheduled with Rosette. Rosette must've remembered too, because although Damien raised his eyebrows in recognition of Pru, and followed that with a “Good afternoon,” Rosette stopped short when she caught sight of Pru, and remained on the mat, her feet triggering the automatic doors so they attempted to close and promptly jerked open again.

Rosette started at the sound and took the final step into the building. The doors slid closed.

“Damien. Rosette,” Pru said. “I didn't realize you would be coming in. I'm here with Sweetie.”

The desk sergeant looked up and said, “May I help you?”

Damien put a hand on Rosette's elbow. “You go on, I'll wait for you.”

Rosette nodded. She walked to the desk, her path describing a wide arc as she avoided getting too near Pru. Pru turned to Damien as the desk sergeant led Rosette away and said, “She acts like I have cooties.”

Damien almost smiled. “Rosie is right—you do sound like her.”

Pru frowned, a petulant drawing up of her brows in order to keep the sudden tears at bay. To cover, she took a leap of faith. “Why didn't Rosette want me to know that they're sisters?”

Damien nodded to the row of seats along the wall. “Shall we sit?” He unbuttoned his suit jacket before settling next to Pru. “Half,” he said. “They're half sisters. Were.”

Pru rearranged the puzzle in her head to accommodate this information. “Half,” she repeated.

“Twyla and Rosette have the same father,” Damien said. “It was why Twyla and I went back to Texas—the father was ill and it was too much for Rosette to handle.”

“Why doesn't she want me to know?”

Damien shifted inside his suit jacket. “She thinks that when she's compared to Twyla she will always come up short. That isn't true, of course. Rosette is a smart and competent woman. The two of them were close, really, in their own sort of way. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Pru said. “And it was Rosette who came up with the idea of using the hill country—bluebonnets—for the display here?”

He nodded. “And Twyla seized on it—she believed it was a way to show Rosette her worth. Rosie is an amazing advocate for the natural habitat there—not only with the society, but the native plant organizations, and the roadworks division—what do you call that in America?”

“Department of Transportation,” Pru replied. “And Twyla hooked you up with Forde because of his research?”

Damien frowned and sat up. “Where is that boy? I've been trying to run him to ground for weeks now.”

“Aren't you in touch? Because GlobalSynergy is buying out his company?”

“We're doing nothing of the kind if he can't even get his proposal to me. This was Twyla's idea.” Damien shook his head. “Teaching wore her down, but when she happened upon a student who loved the science, she would go to any extreme to offer support.”

“She mentioned how smart he is.”

“About a year ago, Forde had contacted her for a reference, and it gave her the idea to try again for a garden at Chelsea, and she rang me.” A smile appeared, a real one this time. “It was good to hear her voice again.”

“And so you agreed to sponsor the garden and buy out Forde's company?”

“I agreed to sponsor the garden and take a look at Forde's proposal. He's a bit ahead of himself if that's what he's saying.” Damien glanced at his watch—the look of a busy man.

“Did the police call you in, too?”

“No, I came along with Rosette. I didn't want her to go through this alone.”

“Why did the police want to see her?”

“Next of kin.”

Pru glanced back to the door behind the desk and thought about Rosette somewhere in the depths of the station, filling out forms, claiming Twyla's body. Just as she did, Rosette emerged, her face drained of all emotion.

Damien went to her, but Pru held back. How callous it would be to go on the offensive now, demanding to hear Rosette's story. But she did want to hear it.

“Rosette, could I stop in later and see you at the house? You know, if you have the time.”

Rosette nodded, her eyes cast down to the floor. “Sure.”

After Damien and Rosette left, Pru sat in the police station lobby with nothing to do and a year-old copy of
Top Gear
beside her on the table. She wished she'd kept hold of her sandwich. She scanned the walls. You'd think they'd have vending machines here—she could just do with a KitKat.

With nothing to occupy her, her mind drifted back over the conversation with Chiv. He had not told police he'd seen Twyla that evening, and Pru believed it was because he had wanted to protect Iris. But did he know Iris had killed Twyla, or did he only fear it? Christopher, she was certain, would point out that Chiv could be the murderer himself, but Pru couldn't believe it, not seeing the pain and the longing in Chiv's eyes. No guilt, no remorse, only sadness.

When did Twyla die? Pru had seen the CCTV cameras on the grounds put up for the show—the area was a vast, green soccer pitch the rest of the year, with no need of cameras. But now they were positioned at intersections of roadways and lanes on the grounds—the busy arterials during buildup. Had police reviewed the film and seen someone coming or going late that evening or early the next morning? Why wouldn't French tell her anything? And who among this group that Twyla had assembled would want to kill her?

“You never know what that one might do.”

When Twyla spoke, Pru didn't move, only cut her eyes toward the desk sergeant, who attended to his computer screen.
So there you are,
Pru thought. Twyla had been silent too long, and Pru had been expecting to hear from her—but this time, although startled, Pru kept her wits about her. She was even a bit relieved to hear Twyla's voice. It gave her encouragement, it kept her on course. But who was “that one”? Pity Twyla couldn't come out and tell Pru who the murderer was.

Pru drew in a sharp breath, realizing that last thought had gone a bit too far—as if she believed Twyla could provide fresh information to her from beyond the grave. She knew better—these weren't messages. They were echoes of what they'd talked about that evening. Even so, Pru had phoned her sister-in-law, Polly, in Hampshire. Polly often got impressions of things—feelings, images, spiritual stuff. But although Polly was sympathetic and never one to say “It's all in your head,” she was unable to help pinpoint just where these messages from Twyla originated. It seemed, unfortunately, Polly's spiritual antennae got poor reception in London.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Sweetie said, coming out from the back. “I had to sit in a room forever before Inspector French came in.”

“It's all right,” Pru said, standing. “Are you finished? How did it go?”

“He asked me the same questions he asked before. I don't know why I had to come in.”

To see if you stuck to your story?
Pru thought. Perhaps her account contradicted someone else's.

Sweetie held up her phone. “I told Skippy I'd text him when I was finished. You don't mind? He said we'd take the rest of the day off, he'd show me some sights, take my mind off things.”

“No, you go on. I'm going to head back to the show site, see if there's anything left to do today.” Such as build the garden.

On the walk back to the hospital grounds, Pru toyed with her phone. Where were Christopher and Teddy—still on the road? Collecting the lorries? Already loading up plants? Would Christopher be able to ring that evening? Where would he stay—somewhere in Hereford? He and Teddy would return late morning or early afternoon the next day, and by that time, Pru worried that her mind would be so packed with details about Twyla and the others that she might overlook some important item that he would, in an instant, know to be key to solving the case. And besides, she missed him.

Pru kept her ARGS sweatshirt in her bag but drew on her high-vis vest and clipped on the work pass before walking onto the grounds. Many of the Main Avenue gardens neared completion and work had slowed. The Austin garden—obviously not near completion—was just plain empty. Pru could account for Sweetie, Rosette, Kit, and Teddy, but wondered where the rest of the lot had gone.

She reached the garden and walked through, running her hands over the top stones on the wall, which were warm from the sun, until she reached the back of the garden. At least the wall was almost finished. The arbutus at the back, thick with dark, glossy leaves, added weight to their empty landscape. Now that it had its façade of weathered boards in place, the shed truly did look like the front of an old gas station in a Texas ghost town.

A scuffling sound caught Pru's ear, and she saw movement behind the shed, but the arbutus formed a screen and she couldn't see through.

“Hello? Chiv?” She parted a couple of branches and then walked round to the end of the hedge. “Is that you? I thought everyone had left.”

A
thump
followed by more scuffling, and in the same moment that she saw what looked like a heap of clothes on the ground—topped with a flannel shirt—she caught a glimpse off to her left, through the Aussie garden, of bluebonnets disappearing through the tall grasses. Without a thought, she made to run after that flash of blue, to chase it down as she had not done the evening Twyla died, but she'd gone only two steps when a gasping and coughing at her feet stopped her. She dropped to her knees, grabbed the flannel shirt, and turned Roddy MacWeeks over.

“Members in Good Standing may request a hearing in front of the Executive Board to air any grievances concerning their treatment in the Society and the membership benefits afforded to them thereof. Proof of said treatment may be required.”

Article 4, Section 2, bylaws of the Austin Rock Garden Society

“Roddy! What's happened?”

He sat up, coughing. His glasses fell off his nose—one of the temples was missing—a red mark bloomed on his right cheek.

“Is he gone? Did you see him?” Roddy asked in a hoarse voice as he peered round Pru.

“Were you in a fight?”

“I was not,” he said, his voice clear and full of indignation. “I was attacked. I came back here to talk with Chiv—I don't trust him, Pru, I believe he has something up his sleeve, he's not going to produce those
Nigella
as I told him to.”

Up his sleeve?
She'd let that go for the moment. “Who did this to you?” She squinted toward where she'd seen the figure running off. The color of bluebonnets—it had to be one of theirs.

“I don't know, I couldn't see—he sneaked up on me from behind. I had walked round the back looking for Chiv, and then—
wham!
I was on the ground with someone's hands round my throat.”

Hands went round Twyla's throat, too. The same thought must've occurred to Roddy, whose eyes grew wide.

“It was the murderer,” he said in a rasping voice. “You must've scared him off. You saved my life.”

“Someone had to have seen what happened.” Pru stood—Roddy stayed sitting on the ground—but when she scanned the area, although she saw plenty of activity, no one was giving them a second glance. She pulled out her phone. “We'll call the police.”

Roddy grabbed her wrist. “No, Pru, you can't. Please. No police. I'm fine, really.”

“You were attacked. It could've been the same person who murdered Twyla. We can't let that pass.”

“Look,” he said, his hands sweeping out round him, “there's nothing to show for it. Please, Pru, I beg you. If the police come here again and the press gets wind of it—I'll lose the Singapore contract for certain. This is my reputation, my life.” He grabbed her other hand, too, and got up on his knees as if he was about to propose. “They'll make us pull out, Pru—you know they will. That Nottle will tattle and the garden will be history. There'll be nothing left of Twyla's dream.”

“There's very little left of Twyla's dream as it is,” she retorted hotly, “thanks to you.” But she hesitated, biting her bottom lip.

“You know what I mean, Pru,” Roddy said, his voice now silky and smooth. “This is her legacy.”

She sought a compromise. “Yes, all right, we'll go to the station.”

“No, we can't. The police are already harassing me—as if they think I had something to do with Twyla's murder. I won't go there.”

Exasperated, Pru pulled her hands away. “We can't just ring French up and say, ‘Oh, by the way, Roddy was assaulted on-site here, just thought you ought to know.' ” She crossed her arms. “I suppose you're right, we don't need a load of uniforms swarming round here again. But if not here, where?”

Roddy's face brightened, although when he smiled it accentuated the swelling under one eye. “We could meet him at the pub. Quiet, casual—away from all this. What do you say, Pru?”

Pru frowned at the phone in her hand. “Well,” she started slowly, looking about them. “It isn't as if he left any telltale evidence behind—it's only you, you are the evidence.” She drummed her fingers on the phone screen. Roddy didn't speak. At last, Pru said, “I'll ring him and ask if he can meet us at the pub. And
you
—you will explain exactly what happened.”

French asked several sharp questions when Pru requested his presence at the Cadogan Arms, but Pru deflected each one. “I believe this is important, Inspector, and it would be easier to explain in person, but if you don't have the time, we could stop by the station tomorrow.” At those words, Roddy frowned and shook his head. Pru turned away from him.

The subtext must have been clear to the DCI: Is this not an important case for you? French said he would meet them in twenty minutes. Pru gave Roddy her hand and dragged him up. As they left the site and Roddy brushed off his sleeves and attempted to straighten his glasses, Pru saw Arthur Nottle at the entrance to the Grand Pavilion.

“Go, go, go,” Pru muttered, urging Roddy along, ignoring the voice she heard calling her—“Ms. Parke! Ms. Parke!”—until Nottle had almost caught up with them and she could ignore him no longer.

“Why, Mr. Nottle, I didn't see you there,” she said, smiling. She refused to offer anything else, and so the three stood silent except for Nottle, who was breathing hard. Three? Where was Roddy? She found him standing behind her; he had begun to back away, probably hoping for a quick escape. Pru reached out, grabbed his shirttail, and reeled him in.

“Mr. MacWeeks,” Nottle said, “you are certainly an elusive fellow. How fortunate I've come upon the two of you together. I'm beginning to have grave concerns about what's happening—or not happening, should I say—at the Austin Rock Garden Society site.”

“You'll be happy to know,” Pru said, twisting the corner of Roddy's shirttail round a finger to make sure he didn't bolt, “we have two lorries delivering plants tomorrow, and another delivery the day after that. Deliveries all week long, as it turns out. We'll have so many plants we'll be giving them away. And installation will shift into high gear when all this happens, Mr. Nottle. In two days' time, you won't recognize the place.”

Arthur Nottle raised an eyebrow. “Really? Well, I'm delighted to hear that, and I'll look forward to watching the progress. Now, Mr. MacWeeks, I've been trying to catch up with you for days about the late design changes and write-up you turned in for publication. There is a problem.”

“What sort of problem?” Roddy asked. “I followed the instructions for uploading them, I received no error message.”

“Well, be that as it may, Mr. MacWeeks—”

“I'm so sorry,” Pru cut in, “but we've no time at the moment. Roddy and I are off to an extremely important meeting with…about the shed. And the petrol pump that will be installed in front.”

“No, Pru,” Roddy began, “not the petrol pump, remember?”

But Pru yanked on his shirttail, pulling his shirt half off as she dragged him away, saying over her shoulder, “By all means, keep an eye on our progress, Mr. Nottle. You'll be amazed. Sorry to run. Cheers, bye!”

French stood at the curb outside the Cadogan Arms waiting for them. Pru saw him check his watch twice before he noticed them approaching.

“Thanks so much for meeting us here, Inspector French,” Pru said, opening the pub door. “Why don't we go inside and sit down. We won't take much of your time.” She intended this to be short and to the point—surely he would appreciate that?

They walked into the tiny pub and headed for Roddy's favorite settle in the back corner, passing an older couple at one of the front tables with a map of London spread out in front of them, and two men at the bar who followed the trio with their eyes. When they reached the table, French began.

“I'm unclear on the reason for this meeting in a pub. Do you both have something to tell me, some piece of evidence you've withheld?” Impatience—at least that's what it looked like to Pru—emanated from him like a cloying aftershave.

Roddy sat down and didn't speak. Pru threw him a look.

“Something happened to Roddy at the garden site only a few minutes ago—just as I arrived. We don't know if it has to do with the case, but he knew he needed to tell you about it.”

“And so, Ms. Parke, you've escorted Mr. MacWeeks here—to make sure he arrived safely?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Pru said, undaunted by his tone.

“I say,” Roddy protested.

“Well, you've fulfilled your duty. You may go, and I'll have a word with Mr. MacWeeks—especially as I've been trying to get hold of him since yesterday.”

Roddy's eyes widened. “No, I want Pru to stay.”

“Of course I'll stay.”

“You are not a part of this investigation, Ms. Parke,” French reminded her. “I thought I made that clear.”

That's when she saw it—the uncertainty in his eyes despite the officiousness in his voice. He had nothing. He had no ideas and no proof and he didn't want her to know, because that meant that Christopher would learn of it, and French wanted desperately to prove himself to his mentor. She felt sorry for the DCI—but not sorry enough to leave.

“Yes, you made that clear. But I don't see the harm in this—unless you don't want me here because I'm a suspect.” She waited for the “everyone's a suspect” line, but it didn't come. Good, she'd passed that test. “Why don't I get us drinks while Roddy tells you what happened?”

Roddy perked up at that offer. “Yes, Pru, that would be lovely.”

French sighed. “All right, thank you. I'll have soda water, please. With ice.”

“Right, three soda waters,” Pru said. Roddy slumped against the wall.

By the time Pru returned to the table with the free fizzy water and three packets of crisps, just so the woman at the bar wouldn't think they were too cheap, French had a hard look on his face.

“And you saw no one? Ms. Parke—what about you?”

Pru sat next to Roddy and told her tale—the garden looked empty, she walked to the back, heard a noise, called out, and—“I might've seen someone running off, someone wearing the color of our sweatshirts. The hood pulled up.”

No amount of digging on French's part produced any other details. “The person ran up one of the roadways?” he asked at last.

“No, he was off the other side of the Australian garden, perhaps heading toward the exit where the lorries come in—the one at the Chelsea Bridge Road. We don't use it—most people come in either the Bull Ring or the London gate.”

French rubbed his face but couldn't rub off the annoyance.

“We'll ask for camera footage, but CCTV doesn't cover enough of the area,” French was saying. “I'll send uniforms over now to search the grounds. Expect to see them patrolling tomorrow, too.”

Here's a downside to Roddy spilling his story, Pru realized. Uniforms wandering the grounds tomorrow when Kit returns. Would French drop by again as well?

“And now, Mr. MacWeeks,” the DCI continued, “I have a question for you.”

“Hang on a minute.” Roddy took a sip of his soda water, then pushed the glass away. “This could've been one of those Texas women. Now that I think about it, it's quite possible. They are out of control, Inspector, you've got to keep them away from me. All I did was make a few necessary changes to the design, and this is what I get.” He pointed to the red mark on his cheek, his glasses, and the missing temple.

“A few changes?” Pru's voice shot up an octave. “You've ruined what Twyla created and what we should be building. A fruit machine?
Nigella
instead of bluebonnets? You're the one who's mad if you think that's going to happen.” She felt French studying her. She took a deep breath and held it for a moment before exhaling slowly.

“I assure you, Mr. MacWeeks,” the inspector said, turning his gaze away from Pru, “we are looking into everyone's whereabouts. Which brings me to this—we are having difficulty verifying your movements for the evening Ms. Woodford died.”

Pru leapt onto French's statement. “She was killed in the evening—not the
next
morning? Do you have a time?”

French took a moment to draw out his notebook and pen, as if deciding whether or not to let her in on even this much. At last, he gave a single nod before saying, “Sometime between nine o'clock and midnight.”

Roddy grabbed a packet of crisps and tore it open, scattering the contents on the table. “As I've explained more than once, Inspector, I spent the evening at a gallery opening in Hackney.”

“We cannot find any sign of you at this gallery opening—no witness who saw you before ten-thirty that evening.”

“Traffic was dreadful,” Roddy mumbled, his mouth full of crisps.

“Did you drive?”

“I took a cab.”

“Then we will check with London cabs to verify that.”

“A minicab, not a black cab.”

“Minicabs are licensed, Mr. MacWeeks,” French said. “They will have records of their journeys.”

“Do you know,” Roddy said, concentrating on sweeping up the rest of the crisps, forming them into a tiny potato-chip mountain, “I don't believe he had a license. Dreadful business, that—unlicensed minicabs. London is rife with them.”

“You were wearing your Austin Rocks sweatshirt that day, weren't you, Roddy?” Pru smiled at him just to let him know she was on his side. She sensed French cut his eyes at her.

“Yes, you're right, Pru,” Roddy said. “I was wearing it that day. Bit garish, but I do try to be a team player.”

“And so you have no one to substantiate your whereabouts until ten-thirty that evening, is that correct?” French's pen remained poised over his notebook.

“You mean apart from the entire city of London? Track them down, Inspector—the journey from my flat in Maida Vale to Hackney takes me nowhere near Chelsea.”

French got nothing else out of Roddy, and stepped away to the bar to make a call. Roddy leaned toward Pru and said, “You saved my life, Pru—twice. Once from whoever it was that attacked me, and once by letting me keep my reputation. I owe you. I'll remember that.”

“Right, Mr. MacWeeks,” French said. “I've a car waiting and we'll give you a lift home—unless you want to be seen by a doctor?”