The Windsor Knot (12 page)

“Come in, Josh.”

“Actually, that’s my last name,” he said, strolling into the newly waxed front hall. “Some of the members of our New Age community decided to adopt Indian names a few years back to show solidarity with the people of Bhopal, and I changed mine to Rogan Josh, because I’d seen it written somewhere. After I found out what it meant, I was going to change it, but everybody said that that would be an act of unspiritual arrogance, so I kept it. You can call me R.J.”

“What does it mean?”

He frowned. “It’s a menu item in Indian restaurants. Spiced lamb.”

Elizabeth nodded with what she hoped was polite interest. “I have this list,” she said.

“List?” He was looking around the living room.

“Yes, of some things I thought we’d have at the reception. Won’t you sit down?” She motioned him to the velvet love seat, and retrieved her notepad of scribbles and crossed-out items. “I’m afraid it’s hard to decipher. I changed my mind several times. Maybe I’d better read it to you.”

R.J. leaned back in a pose of studied meditation: eyes closed, head thrown back. He signaled for her to begin.

“Carrot sticks,” said Elizabeth. “I mean, I thought we ought to have a relish tray so that people could nibble fresh vegetables, perhaps with a dip alongside it. You know—celery, bell-pepper strips, broccoli …”

R.J. opened his eyes. “No broccoli.”

Elizabeth hesitated. “Why? Isn’t it in season?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he told her, sitting up again and peering at her list. “Broccoli is imported—” He paused for effect. “From
Guatemala.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sure we can afford—”

“Guatemala has one of the most repressive and brutal military regimes in the world. By buying their agricultural products—”

“Okay! Forget the broccoli,” said Elizabeth quickly. She consulted her list. “Little sandwiches, cheese puffs, mints, coffee …”

R.J. looked grim. “Coffee,” he announced, “is sprayed with a number of pesticides that are considered too dangerous for use in the United States.”

Elizabeth glared at him. “We’ll take our chances.”

“That’s not the point. The workers who
grow
the coffee are endangered by the use of these compounds, and so are the animal species which make their homes—”

“
I
want coffee!”

“I guess we could buy Nicaraguan coffee,” R.J. conceded. “They have the strictest pesticide laws in Central America. Fruit juice is healthier, though.”

“Fine. We’ll have an orange-juice punch.”

“Florida orange juice, of course. The South American stuff comes from land that was previously either rain forest or was being used by small farmers to grow subsistence crops to feed their families.”

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Look,” she said, “do you do much business in catering?”

R.J. shrugged. “Sure. We did the Summer Solstice Meditation Retreat and the Crystal Channeling Workshop, and we always do the beans-and-rice fundraisers for the Central American Prayer and Protest Group. You want references?”

“No, thank you,” said Elizabeth, standing up to indicate that the interview was over. “I’ll be in touch.”

“We also have a minister,” R.J. offered. “In case
you want to be married for more than one incarnation.”

“Thanks,” said Elizabeth. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

   Wesley Rountree left his deputy in charge of the office while he went out to talk to Clarine Mason. He wasn’t sure what sort of crime was involved here, but whatever it was seemed to be going on in California, and Wesley was sure that he could manage Clarine, hysterics and all.

When he got to the old white house on Mason Cove Road, he found Clarine waiting for him at the gate, but the hysterics were not in evidence.

“Stupidest damned thing I ever heard of!” she fumed, when he was within hailing distance.

“Well, it does seem strange,” said Wesley in the mild, amiable tone he used for domestic-violence cases, mental patients, and local politicians. “Why don’t we go in, and you tell me about it right from the beginning, and I’ll make notes.”

Clarine did not budge from the gate. “Wesley, if I’d wanted to be interviewed, I’d have called the
National Enquirer
. What I want is some
action.”

The sheriff sighed. “I’ll do everything I can, Clarine, but first I have to get it to make sense to me.”

She pushed open the gate and motioned for Wesley to follow. “I can fix you some iced tea,” she said in a belated attempt at hospitality. “And I made some zucchini bread.”

Wesley accepted both offers, telling himself that fixing the food would help to calm the witness. Besides, with his job you never knew when you were going to miss a meal. When he was settled in the green velvet armchair, balancing a dessert plate of cake on his knee, Clarine sat down on the sofa facing him and began her story.

“It looks like I am Emmet Mason’s wife twice removed,” she remarked.

“Now, I know Emmet was killed on a trip to California. Was it five years ago?”

His widow nodded. “That’s when he went out there, anyhow. And I got this call from the highway patrol, saying that Emmet had been killed in a car wreck in Los Angeles, which I did not find difficult to believe, considering what I’ve heard about the way they drive out there.”

Wesley set down his iced tea and scribbled a few notes. “Okay. Do you remember the officer’s name?”

Clarine sighed at the stupidity of the question. “The content of the phone call—him telling me that my husband was dead—registered considerably more than the details of the caller.”

“Had to ask,” said Wesley, waving for her to continue.

“Well, the officer—whoever he was—said that Emmet had been burned beyond recognition, that he’d have to be cremated, and that they would send him back.”

“What about insurance?”

“They said they’d send a death certificate, and they did. That’s all Bob Barclay down at Georgia Colonial Health wanted to see. And, of course, the newspaper here did a nice write-up about Emmet, with a photo of him from
Our Town
, and I enclosed that, too.”

“All I know is what I read in the papers,” muttered Wesley, scribbling again. “So they sent the death certificate—and Emmet—back to you in the mail?”

“UPS,” said Clarine. “Of course, my first impulse was to go to California, and I said so to the officer on the phone, but he said, ‘What for?’ And I
had to admit he had me there. It wasn’t like I could do anything out there. Emmet was already dead, and we didn’t know a soul west of Oklahoma. So when he offered to ship the remains back to Georgia, I said fine.”

“So by and by this package arrives, containing an urn and a death certificate.”

“Right. Now, Wesley, I just know that the next thing out of your mouth is going to be to ask me did I keep the wrapping off the package, and the answer is no. But the vase is right up there on the mantel.”

Wesley Rountree looked up at the urn in the center of the mantle. It was dark blue cloisonné, in the shape of a ginger jar, and it was about eight inches high.
Exhibit A
, thought Wesley. “And he’s in there?”

“Something’s
in there,” snapped Clarine. “I never opened the lid to examine the contents.”

“I reckon I will.” The sheriff sighed, starting to get up.

“Not here.”

“Oh, no. I understand about your feelings toward the deceased and all—”

“I just vacuumed,” said Clarine.

The Foxcroft Inn in Milton’s Forge had been Elizabeth’s choice of a restaurant for lunch with Jenny. Although she had never been there, she remembered newspaper ads, showing the old half-timbered building with its inn sign reminiscent of a British pub, and mentioning its Olde Worlde cuisine. It had once been a frontier tavern, back in the days when the hills of Georgia were considered The West. Elizabeth thought that this blend of style and tradition would make a suitable setting
for an occasion so momentous as a luncheon with one’s maid of honor.

She parked in the gravel lot that had been laid between the inn and the old stables, then went around to the iron-hinged front door in search of Jenny.
I wish I had watched the eleven o’clock news last night
, thought Elizabeth.
What if I don’t recognize her?

As it happened, recognizing Jenny Ramsay was not a problem, once Elizabeth was able to catch a glimpse of her within the knot of people surrounding her. The smiling blonde in a confection of pink resembled Elizabeth’s high-school friend in the same way that the picture of a rose in a plant catalogue resembles the actual flower in your ill-tended garden. Elizabeth looked at the pink linen suit and then at her own khaki skirt and scoop-neck T-shirt and then back at the vision of loveliness who was now signing an autograph for a man in a three-piece suit. It was going to be a long lunch.

“Reservation for two for lunch,” she said when the hostess finally noticed her. “MacPherson.”

“Okay,” said the hostess, consulting her list. “It could be a few minutes. We’re pretty busy. Is the other party here yet?”

Solemnly Elizabeth pointed to the crowd. “I’m having lunch with Jenny Ramsay.”

“Oh! Well, I’ll show you to your table whenever she’s ready, ma’am.”

   Since Clay was no longer reading
Sergeant Luger: Crack Shot
when the sheriff returned, he assumed that it had been a slow afternoon at the office. “I’m back,” he announced, checking his desk for notes. Not finding any, he cleared off a spot near the pencil mug and set down a blue cloisonné urn.

“No messages?”

“Not a thing. Hill-Bear came in a little while ago. He’s out on patrol now.”

Hill-Bear Melkerson, the other deputy, was a human St. Bernard who made up in enthusiasm what he lacked in intellect. His name was actually Hubert, but he had changed it permanently to Hill-Bear after his high-school French teacher informed him that this was its correct pronunciation. Hill-Bear was excellent at crowd control, good at breaking up fights, and passable as a traffic patrolman, but he could never be an investigator. Wesley planned to assign Clay to assist him on the Mason case while Hill-Bear attended to the normal routine.

“Finished the book, did you?” asked Wesley.

Clay shrugged. “I just skim ’em. Nice vase. You decorating the office now?”

“No. This is evidence. I want it photographed, fingerprinted, and anything else you can think of to do to it, short of opening it.”

“Is that from the Mason place? What’s going on out there?”

Wesley shook his head. “It’s a new one on me, that’s for sure. You remember when Emmet died, out there in California?”

“Vaguely.”

“About five years ago. Clarine gets a phone call telling her about the wreck. Then she gets a package containing this urn and a death certificate. I brought it along, too.”

“Fingerprints and photos, too? Okay. So, as far as Chandler Grove is concerned, Emmet is history, right? And then today Mrs. Mason gets
another
call from California telling her that her husband is dead?”

“Right. But this time she has more presence of mind. She writes down the officer’s name and the
phone number. L.A. area code: 213. I got it here. Gene Vega. And she gets details about the accident.”

“Was it the same as before? Burned beyond recognition?”

“No. I called them back while I was out at Clarine’s place. She insisted. Wanted to get it straight as soon as possible. I got Sergeant Vega and, sure enough, he’s a real California police officer. Seemed kind of put out that we doubted him, but then I explained that we’d been through this before. He grumped a bit about clerical irregularities, but said he’d check.”

“Everything’s on computer out there,” said Clay.

Wesley made a face. “Thank
you
, Sergeant Luger. I know that. Anyway, he hit a few keys and told me that they had no record of an earlier demise of Emmet Mason of Chandler Grove, Georgia, in a wreck or any other way, but he was here to tell me that the present Emmet Mason was deader’n a mackerel in the L.A. morgue. I thought I might have to go out and see about it, but what do you reckon he said then?”

“Fax, of course,” said Clay, looking bored.

The sheriff sighed. “I hate a know-it-all. But, yes, he said that in view of our limited technology hereon account of the county commissioners’ views on budget deficits—that he couldn’t use the machine they normally use to transmit data from one police department to another. But he said that they would take a picture of the corpse and fax it to us here in Georgia, and we’d see if it was all a big mistake.”

“We don’t have a fax machine, either,” Clay pointed out.

“No,” said Wesley. “But we will have when I tell the commissioners that they are laughing at us in
California. Meanwhile, I scouted up a machine on my second try, and he’s sending it there.”

The deputy thought hard. “Newspaper office?”

“And let Marshall get wind of this? He was my last resort. I was going for confidentiality.”

“The florist shop!” cried Clay. “No,” he said, thinking better of it. “You said
confidentiality
, and there’s no way that Lucy—”

Wesley scowled. “I swore her to secrecy.”

Clay kept a straight face. “Uh-huh.” He nodded toward the blue urn on the sheriff’s desk. “And when are you going to open that?”

“I hope I don’t have to,” said Wesley.

“It’s so good to see you again!” said Jenny Ramsay, still with a hint of italics in her voice. “And just think! You’re getting
married
. Isn’t that exciting!”

Elizabeth smiled. “You seem to be having a pretty exciting time of it yourself, Jen.”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it
silly?”
She giggled. “It’s just part of the job, though.”

“It seems very strange for someone who’s supposed to be responsible for weather.”

“The station feels that the news team should serve as community leaders,” said Jenny. “So I do a lot of charity work and public appearances, and people seem to think they know me—because they watch me on TV every day.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, I think a lot of people are very lonely,” Jenny said, lapsing into her broadcaster-sincere tone. “When I attend one of these public events, I try to be as kind and gracious as I can, and to—you know—say something
meaningful
, because I know that some of those people will treasure what I have to say for the rest of their lives.”