Larkspur (10 page)

"Hey," I interrupted. "I bet you know the name of Llewellyn's lawyer."

"Well, yes."

"Jay needs to know. To ask about the terms of the will." I waved Jay to me. "Here he
is."

"Hello." He listened. "Yeah. I'm doomed to meet Lark's family under inauspicious
circumstances."

"You could have come home with me at Christmas. That was auspicious," I said, but
quietly because he was listening to Mother.

"Paper."

I rummaged in the bedside table and produced a pad and pencil.

"Okay. Davis and Wong." He scribbled. "Do you have a phone number? I know the area
code. Thanks. I'll talk to D'Angelo again, probably today." Mother said something. "Yes. Me, too.
Nice to talk to you." He handed me the phone.

Ma said, worried, "Do you think I ought to fly out? Maybe I have to be there for the
reading of the will."

"I dunno, Ma. You should talk to the lawyer."

"Surely not, if D'Angelo will be there. I'm supposed to spend next week in West
Virginia."

"The Mountain Poets' Workshop?"

Mother sighed. "I wish I could learn to say no. Keep us posted, darling. I'm sorry you
didn't have a chance to know Dai."

I swallowed. "I'm sorry, too. I liked him."

Jay was dressing.

I set the receiver on its cradle. "Sorry about that. We always overlook the time
difference. Are you going to cook breakfast?"

"Cream of wheat?"

"Aargh."

"I'll think of something."

He made not bad omelets and even brewed me a pot of coffee, which was pure altruism
since he can't drink it himself.

I said pensively, "Can't we go out to your house and have a day to ourselves?"

"You're joking."

I sighed. "More like wishful thinking. I have to track down the book supplier and feed
yesterday's sales into the inventory control. And I suppose you're going to grill suspects."

"I'm going to have another talk with D'Angelo."

"Didn't he tell you he was literary executor? He and Ma."

Jay dolloped marmalade on a slice of bread. "The question didn't come up. What's a
literary executor?"

"I think they see to it that unpublished material is brought out in a decent edition, and
that nobody does anything rotten to the works already in print. If there's anything to sell, they're
supposed to do that in the interests of the heirs. Ma said Llewellyn kept a journal, and there are
bound to be letters. They might find a biographer who'd be interested in working on the personal
stuff. Choosing a good one could take a lot of time. They're supposed to protect Llewellyn's
literary reputation, basically."

"Doesn't sound very rewarding."

I finished off a bite of toast. "If you mean did D'Angelo--or Ma--have a motive for doing
Llewellyn in, no. They don't profit." Not directly. I brooded over my coffee cup. "Of course, if
D'Angelo does a good job, it will enhance his reputation in academic circles. He might even get
hired by a good school."

"He's head of the English Department at Monte, isn't he?"

I took a bite of omelet. "A dead end, believe me. Nobody's reputation is enhanced by
teaching at a community college."

"Sounds like snobbery."

"Sounds like? Is. My mother would never be rude enough to say so directly, but as far as
she's concerned, community colleges are a few millimeters above the kind of school you enroll in
on matchbook covers."

"That's dumb," Jay said reasonably. "Long Beach J.C. salvaged my brains. I slept
through high school. If it hadn't been for junior college I'd be driving a pizza wagon."

"Believe me, that doesn't matter."

He blotted his mustache. "Your mother sounded downright human."

"She is, on a personal level. But she scaled the heights of the prestige pyramid before I
was twelve, and she doesn't question its validity."

"You're depressing me." He stood up. "I've got to go. Where are the keys to the
Blazer?"

I pointed at my purse, which was lying where I'd left it on the kitchen counter. "You and
Win D'Angelo got along like a house afire. That surprised me. What's the big attraction?"

"We'd met before. That job at the college," he said vaguely, slapping his pants pockets.
"Left my wallet in the bedroom." He disappeared.

"Job?" I asked when he came back.

"I interviewed for the vacancy they had in Police Science. D'Angelo was on the selection
committee."

"Oh, yeah, the director's job." The job had been advertised about the time of my big
basketball tournament. Jay had told me he was applying. "Who did they give it to?"

"Me."

I think I gasped.

Jay grinned. "I have until the fifteenth to refuse it."

"Are you going to?"

He grabbed his keys, relented, and returned to give me a kiss. "When I screw up this
investigation they'll probably withdraw the offer. Go order books, Lark. Stay away from the
press, and I'll see you tonight."

I decided to take advantage of the early hour and sneak off to the store to do my
bookkeeping. It turned out that we had made more money that one day than in the month of June.
At that rate the shelves would be empty by Friday.

I rearranged stock, putting the benefit calendars up front and moving every paperback in
the place onto the empty mystery rack. I rang the book distributor five times, and was finally
promised a delivery on Wednesday. Then I scurried to a supermarket across town to lay in a
supply of Jay-style bland groceries and went home.

Nothing much happened the rest of the day. Jay reported that he had interrogated
D'Angelo and Miguel. The Peltzes had informed him they were flying to San Francisco for the
reading of the will. They had seemed taken aback when he said, "Ah, yes, Davis and Wong," but
that was a minor triumph in a day of frustration.

I didn't open the store until ten Mondays, so I had a leisurely hour after Jay left. I washed
clothes. As I was about to go to the store my mother called.

"They're holding a memorial service for Dai Thursday at the Episcopal cathedral in San
Francisco. I'm flying out for it."

"What about West Virginia?"

"I traded a week with Jordis Pembroke." Pembroke was another poet who did the
workshop circuit. "I want you to be there, Lark, and I'm going back to Monte with you."

That knocked the wind out. "Uh, what about the store? It's a one bedroom apartment! I
haven't cleaned the refrigerator!"

"If I were a sensitive person I'd say you didn't want me to come."

"Now, Ma..."

"I'll take a room at that place your father stayed in last year--what's it called?"

"The Eagle Cap Lodge," I said gloomily. "Shall I make a reservation for you? You could
sleep on my bed, I suppose, and Jay and I could sleep on the couch."

"I thought Jay had a house of his own."

"He does, but it's a fifty minute drive from the courthouse. He'll be on this case all hours
of the day and night, and I don't see why he should have to waste his time driving back and
forth." Besides, I liked having him around.

"Eagle Cap for me," Ma said. "You might as well rent me a car. An automatic. I have to
confer with this D'Angelo person."

We hung up. I leapt down the back stairs, into my non-automatic Toyota and onto the
streets, gears grinding. I was ten minutes late opening, and the first "customer" was a tabloid
reporter.

Ginger showed up, red-eyed, at twelve fifteen.

"Are you okay?"

"Dennis took his mother to San Francisco for a whole week. He got leave, and they
caught the morning plane at Weed."

"That's too bad, Ginge. Awful for Dennis."

She gave me a watery grin. "You said it."

The place was aswarm with browsers, one or two of them looking at books instead of at
the freak who had bumped off a poet with puree of larkspur to publicize her bookstore. Ginger
and I worked. Hard.

At three Janey Huff burst in, pop-eyed with excitement. "Have you heard the
news?"

Every browser in the place leaned our direction.

I pointed to the back room. "I'll be with you in a minute."

She blushed and scooted around the counter and into my sanctum. It was ten minutes
before I could join her.

"What news?"

She laid down my copy of
The Collected Poems of E. David
Llewellyn
.
"He was pretty good, wasn't he?"

"Janey!"

"Okay, okay. Lydia heard it on the radio. Miguel took off this morning in the Mercedes
and hasn't returned to the lodge. That's pretty conclusive, isn't it?"

My impulse was to call Jay. "Are you sure?"

"Turn on the local station. It's almost time for a newsbreak."

After a heartrending Loretta Lynn ballad and three ads, the d.j. confirmed that "a major
suspect in the murder of poet David Llewellyn has disappeared. An All Points Bulletin has been
issued for the arrest of Miguel Montez. Montez, Llewellyn's chauffeur, was last seen wearing
jeans and a white, short-sleeved shirt. He is Hispanic, of medium height, slender, and
twenty-three years old. The missing vehicle is a pearl-gray Mercedes 580 SL, California license
number..." The d.j. read the number and instructed his listeners to contact the sheriff's office if
they had seen Miguel or the car. His voice modulated. "And now for Conway Twitty..."

I turned the radio off, feeling sick. Jay had trusted Miguel against his better judgment.
He had to be catching all kinds of flack from the sheriff and the press.

"That means the rest of us are off the hook," Janey was saying. "Doesn't it?"

"Not necessarily. Maybe Miguel thought they'd take away his green card and
panicked."

Janey snorted. "I'll bet he panicked. He killed Dai and decided he'd better head back to
Mexico before he was arrested. It's as plain as the nose on your face."

"It's not plain. He didn't have a motive."

"Come on, Lark. Lover's quarrel?"

I wasn't liking Janey very much. "The Peltzes..."

"Pooh. Even Ted Peltz wouldn't be stupid enough to kill Dai while he was waiting trial
on another charge. Dad says it's an open and shut case."

"But the larkspur--where did Miguel get the poison?"

Janey shrugged. "It's a common plant. He could have swiped a stalk of it from the
Peltzes' garden."

"And stewed it in Domingo's kitchen while Domingo was preparing a banquet? I don't
buy it."

"If Miguel's not guilty why did he run?"

"Maybe he saw the killer in the act and got scared."

"Lark, I'm swamped out here!" Ginger, near tears.

"I've got to go back to work. Nice seeing you, Janey."

"I thought you'd be relieved." Janey got up and preceded me into chaos. She was
pouting.

At some point in the melee I called Avis and the Eagle Cap Lodge. I also called Annie,
who promised to work half-time the next two days, full-time Thursday and Friday. Ginger and I
got rid of the last customer at nine-fifteen and were out the back at nine-thirty. An enterprising
reporter caught me as I was sneaking into my car, and I gave him no-comment until the engine
turned over. Surprisingly, I made it into my apartment without being trapped a second time.

Jay showed up at ten looking frazzled but wired.

I eyed him sympathetically. "Beer or food?"

"Beer. I got in touch with the lawyer, Lark."

I poured. "Good. What's with the will?"

"You're not going to believe this." He took his glass into the living room and stood near
the window, scowling down at the street. "Jesus, I still don't believe it."

I sat on the couch. "Believe what? He left it all to the Symphony?"

"Llewellyn left the bulk of his estate to his natural son."

"Not to Angharad?" I started to laugh. "I'll bet Ted is fit to be tied."

"Aren't you curious about the son?"

"Who?"

"Dennis Fromm."

"What!" I slopped beer on my hand and set the glass down. "You've got to be kidding!
Dennis?"

"That's what the man said."

"Oh, gosh, Ginger will wig out." I suppose I babbled for awhile, repeating myself. I was
shocked. Pleasantly at first. Dennis was a sweet guy. "He probably feels as if he's won the
lottery."

"Do you think so?"

I tried to do a total recall for Jay of the conversation I'd had with Dennis at the lodge. I
came close. "Surely he didn't know Llewellyn was his father."

Jay had set his beer down on the wide Victorian windowsill and was rubbing his
forehead. "You think not? How sure are you?"

I considered. "Darned sure. He was worried about Denise, but I could swear all he felt
about Llewellyn was mild annoyance."

Jay said somberly, "Write it down. Your impressions could be important."

"Why...oh, God, the will gives Dennis a motive for killing his father."

"About fourteen million bucks worth of motive. Llewellyn owned half a block of
downtown San Francisco."

"My God."

"If you think Dennis was in the dark about his paternity, that shoves the suspicion onto
Denise."

"She did collapse when she heard Llewellyn was dead." I ran my hand through my hair.
"But I thought you said she was an unlikely suspect." I told him about Janey's visit to the
store.

"I wish," he said savagely, "that the fourth estate was not so damned quick to make
judgments. They've tried, condemned, and hanged the kid already."

"And strung you up by the thumbs."

"That, too."

"Was it bad?"

"My ass is grass. Even Kev gave me a hard time." His nose wrinkled. "And the sheriff
trotted me out to make a statement to the press."

"The bastard! He's quick enough to take credit...all those press conferences he gave last
year...you won the election for him!" I was spluttering.

Jay shrugged. "He's a politician. I goofed, Lark. I just hope I didn't goof as badly as I
think I did."

"What do you mean?"

"Miguel was keeping something back, something that was eating at him." He shrugged
again. "Time will tell, as they say."