Rosemary Remembered (28 page)

Chapter Nineteen

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. .
..

William Shakespeare
Hamlet

"El rio abajo?" McQuaid asked, turning away from the barbecue with a fork in his hand. "What the hell is that?"

"It means underground river," I explained, setting the tray of foil-wrapped sweet corn ears on the table next to the barbecue. I surveyed the red-gingham-covered table, set for six with my Aunt Tullie's colorful Fiesta Ware. The weather had turned blessedly cooler, it was Sunday night, and Blackie, Sheila, and Ruby were joining us for a picnic.

"I know what it means," McQuaid said. He turned a piece of chicken. "What does it
mean?"

Sheila lifted her glass to Blackie for a refill of before-dinner white wine. "The Edwards Aquifer," she said. "You know, where we get our water. The fountain that Jeff had put in just before he was killed—the water is tapped from an artesian spring. The pipe for the fountain runs in a trench. The dirt was already loose there and it was easier digging, so that's where Matt put the body. Alongside the pipe.
El ri
o abajo.
Where La Que Sabe said to look."

"You don't really believe that stuff, do you?" Blackie asked, setting down the wine bottle.

Sheila reached down to fondle Howard Cosell's ears. He sighed and sank to the ground in a paroxysm of utter bliss.

"Of course she doesn't. She's too intelligent." McQuaid flipped one of the chicken halves. "Now's the time to put the corn on," he said to me. "The chicken will be ready in about twenty minutes."

"If she doesn't, she should," Ruby said emphatically, tripping across the grass with the veggie plate. "La Que Sabe knew where the body was buried, and Ouija told us where to find Brian—playing Gurps."

"Not so fast, Ruby," Blackie said. "As I understand it, China and Sheila located Brian without giving a thought to that Ouija thing. They didn't have a clue where he was."

Ruby gave him a knowing smile and tossed her carroty head. She was all in green this evening: oversized green checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up, green and white striped leggings, green sandals, even green paint on her toenails and fingernails. She had spent all afternoon, she told me, cleaning up the mess the storm had made of her garage and talking to the insurance adjuster. In the end, she'd get a new garage. A bonus, as it were, for hosting La Que Sabe.

"They didn't
need
a clue," she said. "Ouija predicted where they'd find Brian, and when they got there, there he was. It's the same with
el
ri
o abajo."
With that indisputable logic, she picked up her glass. "Might I have a refill, please?" she asked sweetly.

Sheila chuckled, I grinned, and Blackie poured.

McQuaid sat down on the picnic bench. "Let's take it from the top," he said. "There are a few things I don't have straight yet. Matt killed Rosemary to keep her from marrying Jeff. Right?"

I sat down beside McQuaid and leaned against his arm. He ruffled my hair affectionately and pulled me closer. We hadn't discussed our differences since he got back because we'd been so glad to see one another. The other China had wanted to slug it out, lay down the law about curfews, and make a clear statement about personal freedom, but a good opportunity hadn't presented itself. That might be just as well, actually. Maybe the best thing is to just sort of muddle along, telling the truth as much as possible, lying only when we have to, and trying to be smart
enough
to learn from our
mistakes.

"Actually, he had two reasons for killing Rosemary," I said. "The first reason was her discovery that he'd been skimming the accounts."

"Wait a minute." McQuaid frowned. "Matt said
be
hired Rosemary."

"Matt lied," I said. "It was one of his many lies. Jeff hired Rosemary because he thought something was wrong with the accounts. Carol mentioned that fact the first time I talked to her, and Sheila and I even talked about it. But it didn't make sense until some of the other pieces began to fall into place. Rosemary uncovered Mart's theft and reported it to Jeff. That was one motive for her murder."

McQuaid grunted. "The other, I suppose, was the hotel itself."

"Yes. Matt was the beneficiary of Jeff s will. If Jeff married Rosemary, that would change. In the event of his death, his half of the hotel would go to her, not to Matt. Taken together, it was a powerful combination of motives for a
double
murder."

"But that's the puzzling part," Ruby said. She took the lawn chair next to Sheila, kicked off her sandals, and propped her bare feet on Howard Cosell. He rolled over to expose his belly, all four paws in the air, a foolish, cloggy grin on his face. "Matt went to a lot of trouble to make everybody believe that Jeff was still alive, somewhere in Mexico. But somebody has to be
dead
before you can inherit their money. If Matt wanted the hotel, why did he do all that?"

"Because his plan got screwed up," I said. "He intended to make Jeff s murder look like a suicide. Man goes berserk, kills fiancee with father's famous gun, then shoots self."

"Not a bad plan, actually," McQuaid reflected. "The gun was exactly the kind of weapon somebody might use for a ritual murder-suicide."

I nodded. "But Jeff did not go gentle into that good night, as the poet says. Matt and Jeff struggled for the gun. Three shots were fired, two of them in places where you couldn't or wouldn't shoot yourself."

"I'm surprised the gunshots weren't heard," Sheila said, slapping at a mosquito. "The fight happened at the hotel, in Jeff s
office.
When Bubba used Luminol on Jeff s desk and on the floor, he found the bloodstains Matt thought he'd wiped up."

"It was the Fourth of July," Blackie reminded her. "If anybody heard shooting, they'd think it was firecrackers."

Flames flared up in the barbecue and McQuaid got up to squirt some water on the coals. He sat back down again. "So Matt took Jeff out and buried him under the rosemary bush?"

"Not that night," I said. "Of course, if he'd been successful in making the death appear to be a suicide, he would simply have left Jeff slumped over the desk, where Lily would find him on Thursday morning, along with the gun. Rosemary would have been found at about the same time, shot by the same gun. With both Rosemary and Jeff

dead, Matt would be home clear, with the hotel in the bag."

"I guess that's where he had to improvise," Blackie said.

I nodded. "Until he came up with a better idea, he wrapped Jeff in garbage bags and stashed him in the back of the hotel's walk-in freezer. It's one of those old-fashioned coolers, about as big as a boxcar, and there's a lot of stuff in there. He could be reasonably certain that nobody'd find the body before he'd figured out what to do with it, and with the gun."

"How do you know that?" Ruby asked curiously. "Did he tell you?"

Blackie shook his head. "He's not talking," he said. "It's only on TV that the accused spills the beans when he's caught." He gave a short laugh. "In real life, the lawyer shows up and tells the criminal to keep his damn mouth shut and let the prosecution build its own case."

"So how
do
we know about the freezer?" Ruby demanded.

"There was a commotion about it when I was at the hotel on Thursday. Matt insisted on keeping it locked, even though that meant a lot of extra work. And when Harold came out to repair the freezer on Friday evening, he saw something big wrapped in black plastic."

"Bubba found bloodstains in the cooler, too," Sheila put in. "They're being checked for a match with Jeffs blood."

I went on. "After the body was temporarily dispo
sed of, Matt must've stuck Jeff’
s car someplace — his garage, maybe—and then worked out an alternate plan. Nobody was looking for Jeff, of course, because he'd told everybody he was going fishing at South Padre. The trip was a cover to conceal his and Rosemary's wedding trip to
Mexico. That part of it is in Jeff s journal, which turned up after a more thorough search of his house."

"That journal's going to be a big help to Chick Burton," Blackie said. "It pretty much nails the prosecution's case."

"What does it say?" Ruby asked.

"That Jeff hired Rosemary to confirm his suspicions that Matt was stealing money out of the accounts," I said. "That he loved Rosemary and had been pleased about the baby and disappointed by the miscarriage. That they planned to marry, take a short honeymoon, and come back and blow the whistle on Matt. If they had lived to do what they intended, Matt would have been finished."

Ruby sat up in her chair and tucked her feet under her. Howard Cosell looked up at her sadly, then struggled to his feet and went to lie down under the picnic table. "So how did Jeff s body get into the herb garden?"

"The freezer broke down on Friday afternoon," I said. "Matt was in a panic. He hauled the air-conditioning repairman away from his supper." I grinned wryly, remembering what Harold had said about Matt having something in the freezer he didn't want thawed out. "Harold didn't stock the parts to fix the freezer, and Matt couldn't even be sure that the thing could be repaired. So he had to bury the body. The trench for the fountain piping had been dug and the pipe installed. All he had to do was widen the trench, put Jeff s frozen body into it, and cover it up. Then, because the rosemary hadn't yet been planted and he didn't want anybody else digging in the area, he stuck it into the hole. The trouble was, he didn't take the time to unwrap the burlap around the roots and he put the bush in crooked. I doubt if he even realized what a botched-up job he'd made of it."

"He really
did
botch it up," Sheila said. "His plan, I mean. Without a body, Jeff wasn't dead. And unless Jeff
was dead, Matt couldn't inherit the hotel."

"I guess that's where I came in," McQuaid said. "Matt phonied up a quit claim giving himself Jeff s share of the hotel. Then, very late on Friday night, he drove Jeff s Fiat to Brownsville. Before he left town, he slung the gun out the window, at a spot where he knew it would be found."

"How do you know that?" Ruby asked.

"The part about the gun? I'm guessing. But we do know that he drove the car to Brownsville, because the Brownsville PD turned up somebody who saw him park it—a panhandler, looking for loose change. Matt gave him a ten, which impressed the hell out of the guy. It was good for a weekend drunk."

"And the Mexico gig?" Sheila asked.

"Piece of cake," McQuaid said. "All he had to do was hire somebody to use Jeff s plane ticket to Mexico City, spend a night in the hotel, and run through a couple of hundred dollars on Jeffs credit cards."

"Was the money actually spent," I asked, "or did Matt lie about the calls from the bank?"

"Bubba's still checking on that," McQuaid said. "What we do know is that when he'd made all the arrangements, Matt took the bus back here. We know that because Bubba turned up a bus driver who remembered him. Matt told everybody he'd gone to San Antonio for the day."

"Which totally pissed Lily off," I put in. "She hadn't planned to work that weekend."

McQuaid nodded. "Then he sent me down there to find the Fiat and the quit claim, which was just as good as a dead body."

"Hiring you to look for Jeff made, his flight seem a lot more real," Blackie said. "Not only that, but it deflected suspicion from him. It was clever sleight of hand."

"Yes," Ruby remarked wisely, "but La Que Sabe knew. She told China that you were following the wrong man. She said to look for the man who wears a snake. That was Matt Monroe, of course. His boots were made of snakeskin."

McQuaid gave me a quizzical look.

"I'll tell you later," I murmured. "If you really want to know."

"I'm still not quite clear about Carol Connally," Blackie said. "Where does she come into the picture?"

"She was hired about ten years ago by Jeff*s sister Rachel," I said. "Carol had never done any bookkeeping and had no idea of the significance of some of the procedures Rachel taught her. You see, Rachel had her own private account and was siphoning money into it."

"Stealing from her brother, in effect," Sheila put in. "It wasn't hard, because Jeff only looked at the year-end summaries she prepared, not at the account books themselves."

"That's right," I said. "After she died, Matt carried on his wife's scheme. But Carol's no dummy, and she caught on. To insure her continued cooperation, he opened an account in her name at the bank and every now and again he'd drop some cash into it. You know, a bonus."

"He bought her," McQuaid said.

"And
set her up to take the fall," I added. "In case his moonlight requisition ever came out." Khat walked off the porch and came over to the picnic table. He jumped up onto my lap and began to knead my leg with his claws, not very carefully.

"Poor Carol," Ruby mused. "She must have been really torn up after she and Jeff got close. On the one hand, she was taking money from the hotel, from
him,
and on the other, they were lovers."

"I'm not sure how close they actually were," I said, stroking Khat's warm fur. He purred throatily. "Carol admits that her hopes for marriage were mostly wishful thinking. But however he felt about her, she certainly loved
him
very much. She was distraught when she found out about him and Rosemary."

"But back to the night of the murder," McQuaid said. "Carol Connally saw Matt with Jeff
’
s body?"

"Not the night of the murder," I corrected him. "It was Friday night, the night the freezer broke down. Carol was planning to take a couple of days off to be with Nancy and the new baby, and she was working late. She quit about eleven. She got as far as the parking lot when she realized that she'd left her checkbook on her desk. When she went back to get it, she glanced out the window and saw Matt wheeling a room service cart into the herb garden, where he'd already dug a hole. The cart was covered, but Carol said she had an intuition about what was under the tablecloth. By Monday morning, she was certain she'd witnessed Jeffs burial. She was sick with grief, afraid she'd be charged with embezzlement, and absolutely petrified of what Matt might do if he found out what she knew."

Blackie wore a speculative look. "If Jeff s body had never turned up, Matt might have gotten away with murder. With two murders, in fact."

I put Khat on the ground and got up to check on the corn. "The verdict isn't in yet, though," I said. "Chick Burton's got plenty to do before he's ready to go on trial. A sharp, aggressive defense attorney could poke a dozen holes in — "

"China!" Three voices spoke in reproachful unison. I assumed an innocent look. "The corn's done. Are these chickens ready?"

McQuaid got up to check. "They look done to me," he said. "Where's the plate?"

I brushed off a bug and handed it to him. "Better call Brian. He's playing by the creek."

McQuaid raised his voice. "Get up here, Brian. On the double."

Sheila got up and stretched. "Well, at least you don't have to worry about Jacoby." The cayenne had put him out of action long enough for the police to arrive and cart him off. Bubba hadn't even thanked me for corralling Adams County's most-wanted fugitive.

"Are you kidding?" McQuaid barked a short laugh and began forking chickens onto the plate. "How long before Pardons and Paroles turns that psycho loose again? And where do you think hell show up the minute he gets out?"

It wasn't something I wanted to think about. One problem at a time.

Brian came up the path from the creek. He was mud from head to toe, and grinning.

Ruby wrinkled her nose and shrank back. "Ugh," she said. "What's that?"

Brian was holding a small, wet turtle, head and feet tucked reclusively into its shell. "His name is Simon," he said. "I saw Garfunkel down there, too, but he got away." He tucked the turtle casually under his arm and fished in his pocket, pulling out a fistful of snails. "I found these under a rock. Simon might want them for a snack. I'll put them in the refrigerator."

With the snails in one hand and a cloistered Simon under his arm, Brian started in the direction of the kitchen. Howard Cosell got to his feet and blundered after him. Under the mistaken belief that a gourmet treat was in the offing, Khat flicked his tail and stalked after Howard Cosell.