kept her head up and her eyes on his. “If you can’t,” she said, “then I will.”
“WE MADE IT THROUGH the salad course, and one drink. Maxwell ordered a glass of bourbon, and I had iced tea. He went to the men’s room while we were eating. Maybe he made a phone call then, but he didn’t call anyone from the table. He made me uncomfortable with the things he said. He swore a lot, and he had a loud voice, so everyone around us heard him. The cruder he got, the more I wanted to leave. I guess he knew that, because he laughed at me. Finally I was so embarrassed, I put my money on the table and left. He must have paid his part of the bill, too, because I’m told he came out right after me. Maybe people thought we were together, but we weren’t, Eden. I came straight home. He went on to Concordia, the plantation where the auction was going to be held…”
Eden recognized the name. She’d dated a boy in high school whose grandfather had worked there.
“It had a lopsided roof,” she said out loud in her office.
Her dental assistant, Phoebe, smiled. “You’re thinking about Concordia, am I right?”
Eden examined an X ray. “Made the morning paper, huh?”
“The whole gruesome tale. Murder at Concordia. Witness on-scene. No charges made. Police have spoken to the last person known to have seen the victim alive, one Elizabeth Jocelyn Mayne of Lanyon-Mayne fame. You okay there, Henry?” She patted the arm of their eleven-year-old patient whose eyes were glued to the overhead television. Spider-Man had him all the way.
Eden smiled. “If his eyes get any bigger, they’ll pop right out of his skull.” She returned to her work. “I didn’t read the article, Phoebe. How detailed was it?”
“Not so much. It mostly described the guy who died. Don’t get offended, okay, but I thought it was kind of cool in a morbid sort of way. I’ve never known anyone who was associated with anyone who was associated with a dead man. And a dead man with clout to boot.”
“So you’ve heard of Maxwell Burgoyne?”
“Not specifically, but they listed several of his holdings. I recognized about six of them. MamaDees Molasses and MamaDees Golden, Brown and Demerara Sugar, the LoBo record label, the FM radio station and the Pro-Max line of tools. They also mentioned a factory that makes hand-painted tiles, but I think it’s out of state. The guy had major bucks.”
“He also had a heart condition,” Roland, their receptionist, called through the open door. “He took pills for it.”
“His heart didn’t kill him, Roland,” Eden pointed out.
“No, something metal did that.” He shook a folded newspaper. “It says there were flecks of rust found in the head wound.”
“Are you hearing any of this, Henry?” Eden asked.
The boy’s eyes remained on the screen. He wore headphones in any case, but she wanted to be sure. The topic of murder wasn’t likely to rate high on his parents’ list of suitable dental office conversations.
Never one to linger on a topic, Phoebe began talking about her daughters, and Eden was able to finish her work in silence.
She’d been toying with an idea all day, but she didn’t know if it was a good one or not. What she wanted to do was drive out to Concordia where Maxwell had died. What she should do, however, was drive over to Lisa and Mary’s place and coax Lisa into going through the story again. She’d gone over it on the phone earlier today, but Lisa had been preoccupied. She’d been using her trowel as they’d talked.
“Mary talked about doing a photo shoot tonight, north of here,” Lisa had remarked. “It involves the last rays of light. Some magazine in Massachusetts that wants to do a spread on vampires and witches. She says they’ve got the witch part covered, but they’re looking for ruins where vampires might live, or unlive, or whatever it is vampires do.”
“You sound down, Lisa. Do you want to go out to Dolores’s for dinner?”
“No.” Lisa had been firm. “I’m not ready for Dolores yet. She’s the second closest person I know to a witch, and she’ll make me relive the whole nightmare again. The police have already asked me a million questions. I can’t tell them anything, and it’s frustrating. I mean, I didn’t like the man, Eden, but I swear I didn’t hit him. How many ways can I say it so they’ll understand?”
Eden understood. After all, she’d had a cop waiting outside her apartment last night with questions. True, he hadn’t been able to ask them, but only because he’d been sidetracked by an addict looking for painkillers. And then she’d been tied up at work today and she’d told Roland not to disturb her with anything except emergency calls.
Her conversation with Lisa played on while she finished Henry’s fillings, gave him the lollipop her young patients expected and stretched her cramped arm and back muscles.
“I wanted to talk to Lucille, Eden, I really did. But when we got there last night, suddenly I couldn’t face her. Mary thinks I’m flipping out, but I’m not. It’s just easier for me when I’m in a garden. Mine mostly, but any garden will do. I love the elements. They’re magical. You mix earth, water and light, a little seed, and suddenly, there’s life. Plants don’t ask questions, they simply exist and, with the proper care, thrive. I can’t imagine my life without them.”
That much Eden had realized the day she’d met Lisa. “Can I ask one more question?” she’d pressed.
“Why did I go looking for our natural father ten years after Lucille told us he was dead?”
“Right.”
“I heard her talking one night out at Dolores’s. I’d walked in from the road. They didn’t know I was there. I was passing under the window when Dolores up and asked Lucille what she would do if we ever learned the truth. Lucille wanted to know what truth, and Dolores said about our biological father being alive. I was stunned, Eden, so stunned I couldn’t go in. I turned around, drove home and went straight to my garden to think. The next day, I hired a private investigator. It took him eleven weeks. He started with Lucille and worked backward until he came up with a name.”
“Maxwell Burgoyne.” Eden thought for a minute. She’d never understood Lisa’s need to discover her birth relatives. “Maybe you should have left it alone, Lisa,” she’d said, “for all our sakes…”
Lisa hadn’t, however, and the rest couldn’t be undone with a wish.
Wishing also wouldn’t help Eden avoid Armand LaMorte for much longer. Roland said he’d called an hour ago. He’d tried again while she’d been ushering Henry out the door. There would be no more reprieves, she thought, glancing at the wall clock. Avoidance was in her hands now. If she was fast and lucky, she could make it home unobserved. Then she’d be free to do—well, whatever seemed most appropriate.
Her cell phone rang as she was unlocking her car. The display read Mary so she answered.
Her sister sounded testy. “Lisa said you wanted to talk to me, Eden.”
With her free hand, Eden unfastened her hair. “Don’t start with me, Mary. I got less than four hours of sleep last night, and I had to pull a mouthful of teeth this morning. Do you know how difficult that is?”
“I
