I considered. I was sure that Ruby would be willing to watch the shop if I left for an hour or so. “How about right after lunch?” I suggested. “But I’d better call first and make sure that Maggie’s there today. There’s been a death in her family, and she might not have come in this morning.”

  “A death?” Karen’s brow furrowed. “Oh, that’s too bad. Somebody close?”

  If I had thought about it, I might have the question a little odd. But I was caught up in the conversation, so I simply answered. “Yes. Her ex-husband. Dr. Fairlee taught botany courses at the university. I audited his graduate seminar on vanilla. Those photographs I showed at the workshop yesterday were taken on our field trip to Veracruz a few years ago.”

  “I was going to ask you if I could take another look at those photos. I’ve traveled in that region recently, and I’m interested.” She gave me a curious look. “But you’re saying that your professor has died?”

  I nodded, feeling no need to go further. But she persisted.

  “How did he die?” She tilted her head. “Sorry. Occupational habit, I guess. Nurses always want to know the details.”

  I hesitated. But there was no need for reluctance, surely. The police were already interviewing persons of interest, so the story would likely be all over the news tonight. In fact, I’d bet that my friend Jessica Nelson, the Enterprise’s top crime reporter (more accurately, its only crime reporter), was already pursuing the story. So there was no good reason not to answer Karen’s question.

  “I’m afraid he was murdered,” I said regretfully. “Shot to death, in fact. In his greenhouse at the university.”

  She blinked, taken aback. “Mur . . . murdered!” Her hand went to her mouth and her eyes grew large. “But that’s—” She drew in a breath. “I mean, really? Murdered?”

  I was a little startled by her reaction, since she didn’t know the man. “Shocking, I know,” I said, wanting to soothe her. “Pecan Springs is a great place to live, but it has its fair share of crime. And bad people can do bad things anywhere.”

  She opened her mouth to ask another question, but Ruby interrupted her. “Ms. Taylor?” she called from the door of the tea room. “Your table is ready.”

  While Karen was being seated, I telephoned Sonora. Ruben answered the phone and when I gave him my name and asked for Maggie, he said that she had come in that morning but had left after a couple of hours and wasn’t expected back.

  He dropped his voice. “Actually, Ms. Bayles, she was planning to stay for the rest of the day. But she changed her mind after the police chief came to see her this morning. She went straight home after that. She said she had to talk to her kids.”

  “The police chief? Sheila Dawson?”

  I wasn’t exactly surprised to hear this. Since the cops had decided that Dr. Fairlee’s death was a homicide dressed up like a suicide, interviewing the victim’s ex-wife would be at the top of their to-do list.

  “That’s her,” Ruben said. “Chief Dawson, preggie as all get-out. The boss was closeted with her for nearly an hour.” He sucked in a breath, and I guessed what was coming next. “I just happened to be working not far from her open office window, and I heard something pretty shocking. It turns out that Dr. Fairlee didn’t kill himself. He was . . . murdered.” The pause before murdered was almost long enough to insert wait for it.

  I didn’t want to spoil his performance by letting on that I already knew this. “Oh, my stars,” I breathed, with appropriate dismay. “You’ve got to be kidding, Ruben!”

  “No! It’s true, I swear it! Just like CSI! The chief said that whoever killed him wanted to make it look like suicide, which they didn’t know until they saw the autopsy report this morning. And on top of that, Chief Dawson seems to think that the boss might have been involved somehow or another. She’s told her to go to the station and get fingerprinted, and not to leave Pecan Springs. Like she’s a suspect.” Another breath. “Actually, I’m thinking Ms. Maggie needs a lawyer. Do you suppose you could—”

  “No, I couldn’t, Ruben,” I said sternly. “And I hope you won’t go around telling everybody about this. That would not be helpful to your boss. Let’s just leave it between the two of us. Okay?”

  He backpedaled hastily. “Oh, absolutely,” he said. “Sorry. I know you’re a special friend, or I wouldn’t have—”

  “And I’m grateful,” I cut in. “I’ll give her a call.” I added, “Oh, and if a woman named Karen Taylor shows up this afternoon, she’ll be looking for my vanilla plant. Please point her in the right direction. And you might be able to sell her a baby vanilla.”

  “I’ll be glad to do that.” Ruben sounded chastised. “If you talk to the boss, tell her we’ve got everything under control. I don’t want her worrying about the garden center, on top of everything else.”

  A moment later, I had Maggie on the phone. “What are you doing for lunch today?” I asked. I knew she would be distressed, so I made my voice as cheerful and upbeat as I could.

  “You’ve heard the news about Carl?” Without waiting for an answer, she said, “Sheila Dawson came to see me at the garden center this morning, China. Carl didn’t kill himself. He was murdered.” There was a moment’s silence. “I don’t want any lunch. And I don’t want to see anybody.”

  “Uh-uh,” I said. “You need to eat, Mags. I’m coming over and bringing lunch from the tea room. It’s quiche today—do you prefer seafood or vegan?” I added, “Are the kids there? I’d be glad to bring some for them.”

  There was another silence. Then, finally, “Lyle’s gone out, but you can bring vegan for Chelsea, if you want. She didn’t want to go to school today, and I couldn’t bring myself to force her.” A pause. “And vegan for me, too, I guess.” Her voice was uncharacteristically meek. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” I said. “Go lie on the sofa. I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

  On my computer, I brought up Sonora’s website and printed the map and directions. I went to the tea room door and told Ruby that something important had come up and I needed to take a break. “I’ll be back in an hour,” I promised. “Two at the outside. I’m not going far.”

  “Sure.” She gave me a concerned look. “Is everything okay?”

  “It’s Maggie Walker,” I said. “She’s just heard that her husband was murdered.”

  “Murdered!” Ruby breathed. Her eyes widened. “Oh, my God, China. That’s terrible!”

  I nodded. “Apparently, it was made to look like a suicide, but the police now say otherwise. I’m sure the news has come as a shock. She needs to have somebody with her. I thought I’d take her some lunch.”

  “Don’t worry about us,” Ruby said. “Laurel can cover for you if I’m busy.” In her characteristically Ruby way, she added, “You just do what you have to do. We’ll manage here.”

  “Thank you,” I said gratefully.

  In the tea room, I stopped at Karen Taylor’s table. “I’m afraid my after-lunch plans have changed.” I handed her the page I’d just printed from Sonora’s website. “Here’s a map and directions to the garden center, so you can go on your own. When you get there, ask for Ruben. He’ll show you where to find what you’re looking for.”

  “I’m sorry we can’t go together,” Karen said. She started to say something else, stopped, and gave me a small smile. “Another time, perhaps.”

  “Another time,” I agreed, and headed for the kitchen to fix three takeout lunches.

  Chapter Eight

  Breakfast was a century ago, maybe two, and Sheila is hungry enough to eat a wolf. So she picks up a green chili bagel with cheese and sausage and snarfs it down as she heads to Sonora for her interview with Maggie Walker. It is ten-thirty by the time she parks her squad car in the garden center lot and arrives at Walker’s office. She breaks the news—that Fairlee’s death is now officially a homicide—with a calculated abruptness meant to catch Walker off guard. It does. For a moment, the woman seems stunned.

  “My God,” she whispers in a dazed voice, shaking her head. “Suicide was bad enough—but this? I mean, Carl wasn’t always a nice man, but who on earth would have killed him?” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “How am I going to tell the kids?”

  Walker’s concern about the children seems natural enough to Sheila and genuine, as far as she can tell. The boy—a college freshman—is old enough to deal with the news, but Sheila shudders when she imagines telling a thirteen-year-old girl. When a parent is murdered, the children are victims, too.

  To complicate matters, it turns out that the daughter is Walker’s (hardly watertight) alibi for the night of the murder. Their home is no more than a ten-minute drive from the Plant Sciences building where Fairlee was killed. It would be easy enough for Walker to get in the car, drive to the campus, shoot the ex-husband, and drive home—all while the child was asleep. There and done and back in less than thirty minutes and no one the wiser. Sheila reminds herself that a wife murdering a hated ex-husband is hardly news.

  On the other important question, the break-in at the greenhouse, Walker blinks, claims she knows nothing about it, and asks for details. She doesn’t seem surprised, however, when Sheila tells her that the only thing that was taken was a rare orchid from Colombia.

  “Carl had connections in the orchid trade,” the woman says, “and they weren’t all on the level, if you know what I mean.” She runs a hand through her spiky, green-tipped hair—an odd look, Sheila thinks, for a businesswoman. But maybe horticulturalists like to look funky. Or the green is meant to convey a message. Or something.

  “No, I don’t know what you mean.” She takes out her notebook, hoping for something that might turn into a lead.

  “Orchid smuggling,” Walker says. She shakes her head energetically. “It’s a big business these days. But I’m a reputable seller. I make it a rule not to buy wild orchids from anybody.” The window in the small office is open. Voices can be heard outside, and the sound of music. Gershwin? Somebody laughs.

  “Orchid smuggling?” Sheila asks, writing it down. “What’s that?”

  “There’s a huge demand for rare orchids,” Walker says. “And a global black market for new orchids found in the wild. Everybody in the horticulture business knows which airports to fly from with hand-carried plants—Taiwan, for instance, which doesn’t belong to CITES. Smugglers hide them in suitcases and unmarked packages, or they put them in secret compartments in shipping containers. Or sometimes, they’re right in plain sight. Customs inspectors can’t tell one plant from another, so a smuggler can put almost anything down on a permit and get by with it. If it isn’t flowering, it’s impossible to tell that it’s a rare species. And once plants have been smuggled in, they can be laundered through orchid shows or crooked nurseries. There are plenty of greedy and dishonest buyers out there.” Her voice takes on an edge. “It’s the collector’s compulsion, you know. All they want is an orchid that nobody else has. They don’t care how they get it.”

  This is all new information to Sheila and she’s scribbling fast. “Dr. Fairlee was involved in this black market?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Walker frowns. “I just know that he wasn’t always careful about how he got plants or who he got them from.” She pauses and her mouth tightens. “His girlfriend might know. You should ask her.”

  “His girlfriend?” Sheila prompts. She has the name she got from Charlaine Rudolph, but there is always the possibility of turning up somebody else.

  “Jennifer Haley seems to be his current love interest.” Walker adds, with revealing bitterness, “She’s a grad student—he liked them young, you know.” Her voice becomes sharper. “The younger the better.”

  “You make it sound as if there have been other women in his life. Were there?”

  “As in women-who-might-have-a-motive-to-kill-him?” Walker rolls her eyes in a comic mockery that suggests dozens. “Well, you might start with Charlaine Rudolph.”

  “The departmental secretary?” Sheila asks, as if this is news to her. “You’re saying that she was involved with Dr. Fairlee?”

  “For a few months,” Walker replies. “Charlaine never got over it when he dropped her for young Jennie. But there were students, as well—even while we were married.”

  “Students? While you were married?” Sheila wonders if Walker realizes that she is revealing a possible motive for herself.

  “Yes, students.” Walker’s voice is caustic. “Which of course gave Dan Selms heartburn. He had a couple of man-to-man talks with Carl about his unrestrained libidinous tendencies. Dan was afraid that the department might get a bad name. Or the university might get hit with a lawsuit for sexual misconduct.”

  “I see,” Sheila murmurs, adding maybe #MeToo? to the note she has just made. She wonders if Selms will volunteer this information to Miller or if they will have to dig for it. It opens up a whole new avenue of investigation. “Do you know who these students are? Might one of them have killed him?”

  “My gut reaction, no. But you might talk to Beth Craig, who was a friend of one of the girls. Dan Selms probably has other names.” Walker considers for a moment. “And if I were making a list of potential suspects, I wouldn’t put Charlaine at the top. She’s kind of a cold fish. She might have felt betrayed when Carl dropped her for Jennie, but I doubt that she could have whipped up enough passion to kill him.”

  Sheila frowns. She understands what Walker is saying. But she has the feeling that Charlaine is a repressed woman who conceals depths of passion that aren’t apparent to casual acquaintances. What’s more, she had to see Fairlee every day. For a scorned lover who is years older than the young woman who replaced her, this must have been agonizingly, perhaps unbearably painful. Sheila draws a circle around Charlaine’s name.

  Walker is smiling crookedly. “I don’t see sweet little Jennifer doing it, either. She’s too wimpy. I was surprised to hear that she’d got up the nerve to move out of her parents’ house.”

  But you’re neither a cold fish nor a wimp, Sheila thinks, watching Walker’s face as she speaks. Her police work has taught her that people keep secrets, sometimes related to the crime they are being questioned about and sometimes completely unrelated. But secrets all the same. Old angers, corrosive passions, festering wounds—any of these, all of these, can bleed into someone’s response to even the simplest questions. Sheila can’t guess what it is or whether it’s significant, but there is something in Walker’s replies that catches her attention. Secrets related to the long-dead marriage? To the divorce or to Fairlee’s lovers? To his murder? What is Walker keeping to herself?

  But there are no immediate answers to these questions, and anyway, Noah is telling her that it’s time to pee. She pushes herself to her feet and tells Walker to come to the station that afternoon to be fingerprinted.

  “And I must ask you not to leave Pecan Springs,” she adds. “We may want to interview you again.” In fact, she knows that they will interview her again, to try to pry her open and find out what she’s concealing.

  Walker’s eyes widen. “You’re saying that I’m a suspect?”

  “Everybody is a suspect,” Sheila says, “until we find your ex-husband’s killer. I’m sure you want that as much as we do.”

  “Oh, yes,” Walker says hurriedly. “Yes, of course I do. I just . . .” She swallows. “Fingerprints. Yes.”

  Sheila hesitates at the door. “Restroom?”

  Walker gets up. “It’s a little hard to find. Let me show you.” She glances down at Sheila’s belly. “When I was as far along as you, I could never hold out for more than an hour at a stretch.” They both laugh.

  Ten minutes later, greatly relieved, Sheila is easing her bulk behind the steering wheel of her car and thinking that she is hungry. That bagel didn’t come close to filling her up, and even though it’s just eleven-thirty, she’s ready for lunch.

  She reaches for her cell and calls Dylan Miller. “Where are you on your interview list?”

  “I finished with Selms and Haley and had a quick conversation with Gardner,” Miller replies. “Told all three to report for fingerprinting this afternoon, and be prepared to talk to us again.” He pauses. “What about you?”

  “Walker done, Jennifer Haley yet to do, and I want another go at Rudolph. But I could eat a horse, saddle and all, so I’m thinking of someplace where we can get lunch while we compare notes and see where we are.” She is also thinking of a large cabrito fajita smothered in red sauce, with extra onions. Her stomach rumbles in anticipation. “What would you say to a back-corner table at Bean’s?”

  “Meet you there in ten,” Miller replies and clicks off.

  As Sheila drops her phone into her bag she is considering whether to run her bubble light and siren so she can get to Bean’s a little faster.

  USED TO BE, THERE WERE only a couple of places to eat in Pecan Springs, which was fine if you were in the mood for a bowl of red or a plate of fried catfish, not so great if you wanted something a little more varied.

  But times have changed, Pecan Springers are getting more eclectic, and international cuisine is almost as easy to find as a bacon cheeseburger. Within a fifteen-minute drive, you can sit down to masala dosa, som tam, chicken rice with garlic and pounded ginger, pho, or a plate of bratwurst and spaetzle. Heading north on I-35? There’s a smorgasbord of upscale eateries in Austin, where at least one swanky new restaurant is launched every week. Southbound, you’ll find the same thing in San Antonio, especially along the Riverwalk.

  But if what you want is a real down-home Texas place that puts fine Tex-Mex food on the table and plenty of it, you can’t beat Bean’s Bar and Grill. It is named for Judge Roy Bean, who called himself “The law west of the Pecos.” Bean had a reputation as a hanging judge, although he sentenced only two men to hang and one of them got away before they knotted the rope.

  You’ll find Bean’s just a couple of blocks off the square, next door to Purley’s Tire Company and across the street from the Old Fire House Dance Hall. Definitely, defiantly downscale, the place features an old-fashioned saloon bar along the right side of the dining room, a couple of pool tables in the back room, and TV sets tuned to ESPN and Fox. The ceiling is stained with the tobacco smoke of generations, and the tables and chairs are green, red, yellow, blue—whatever color was on sale at Banger’s Hardware the week somebody got around to painting them. A carved wooden Indian stands in the corner with a sign around his neck that instructs his politically correct friends to refer to him as a Native American, and wagon wheels hang from the ceiling, wound with rusty barbed wire laced with strings of lights in the shape of red and green jalapeño peppers. Signed photographs of Texas news-makers line the walls: Willie Nelson, LBJ, Buddy Holly, Ann Richards, Dubya, Janis Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughn, the Apollo 13, Selena, Beto, Bevo (the UT longhorn mascot) and Reveille (the A&M collie mascot, who has a Twitter account), and so on and so forth. There is a never-ending parade of Texans seeking fame and glory.

 

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