24

Rosa turned a hurt face toward me. “Was this it?”

I nodded. A terrible sinking feeling gripped me. Why would someone chop down a perfectly healthy rosebush? Aphids aside, the Our Lady rose had been a beautiful plant. Could someone have hated Maria enough to have cut down her rosebush the very day of her funeral?

I knelt to look more closely at the stumps. They were still green, and the sap on the cut ends looked relatively fresh. My guess was that the rose had been cut that morning.

I stood up and looked around, wondering if anyone from the Guild was in the garden. I didn’t see anyone I recognized.

“They hated her, didn’t they?” Rosa said.

I looked at her and saw tears streaking her face. I gave her my handkerchief and put an arm around her shoulders.

“No, dear. They didn’t hate her.” Not all of them.

“Then why did they cut down her roses?”

“I don’t know, honey. I don’t know.”

She cried into my shoulder for a couple of minutes. I held her, knowing she probably needed the release.

I suspected Lucy Kingston had cut down the rose, though I had trouble imagining her doing something so vicious. Lucy was a follower, Joan had said. This act of hatred seemed more like the act of an instigator.

As we stood there, I noticed an older Hispanic woman looking at us from a yard across the street. She came out through a gate in the picket fence and crossed the street toward us.

“You looking for Maria’s rosebush?” she said in a challenging voice. “It’s in the dumpster.” She waved an arm toward a trash dumpster over by the Guild’s storage shed, her face in an expression of contempt.

Rosa was pulling herself together, but was in no shape to answer yet. She sniffled into my handkerchief.

“Did you see who cut it?” I asked the woman.

She nodded. She wore a striped top and beige slacks, and a well-worn wedding ring. Her dark hair was piled on her head in an old-lady salon do. She seemed a nice neighborly type, except that at the moment she was scowling.

“One of those Rose Club people,” she said. “I don’t know her name, but she always wears a floppy hat.”

That could describe half the Rose Guild, I thought.

“She was here earrrrly in the morning,” said the neighbor lady, relishing her recital. “I saw her through the window when I was making my coffee. She had some of those big clippers—” she gestured as if using long-handled shears “—and she just chopped it, snip, snip! Then she rolled it up in a tarp and threw it in the trash.”

I looked at the dumpster, frowning. I was beginning to have a nasty suspicion.

“You friends of Maria’s?” the neighbor asked.

“Yes,” I answered for both of us. “This is her granddaughter. Did you know Maria?”

“I knew who she was. She didn’t know me, but I saw her come to the garden to take care of that rose.”

“When was the last time you saw her here?” I asked.

“A week ago Sunday. She came and pruned that rosebush, even though she was in a walker!”

My pulse started to accelerate. The timing was right, if I recalled correctly. Tony had said that botulism could take several days to build up in the system.

“You didn’t see her get down on the ground, did you?” I asked.

The neighbor shook her head. “No. She had a little bucket hanging on the walker, and she put the clippings in there, then she threw them away when she was done.”

“Was she wearing gloves?”

“No. She didn’t used to wear gloves, not that I ever saw.”

“Nana never wore gloves,” Rosa said in a thick voice.

A choice that might have cost her life, I thought. Keeping that to myself, I turned to the neighbor.

“Thank you. May I ask your name? I’m Ellen Rosings.”

“Alma Chacón.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Chacón. You’ve been very helpful.”

She smiled then, transforming from angry old lady to sweet old lady in an instant. “Maria was a saint,” she declared with a firm nod, then turned to go back to her own garden.

I looked at Rosa. “Do you mind waiting here for a couple of minutes?”

Rosa shook her head, still staring at the severed cane stumps. I squeezed her shoulders and let go.

“I’ll be right back.”

I hurried to the dumpster and threw the lid open. A ripe smell of rotting junk food and dog poop arose. Frowning, I held my breath and tried to look over the edge, but the dumpster was too tall for me to see inside.

I was not dressed for dumpster diving. Looking around, I spotted an empty milk crate by the Guild’s storage shed. I hauled it over to the dumpster and carefully stood on top of it to look in.

There, beneath a day’s accumulation of miscellaneous garbage, was a blue tarp. I could see the ends of rose canes sticking out of one end, and a few faded pink petals.

I stepped down from the crate and closed the lid, then put the crate back by the shed and walked away, anxious to escape the smell. Taking out my cell phone, I looked up Tony’s number and called it. He answered on the second ring.

“Yeah?”

“Tony, it’s Ellen. You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I need your help.”

“What’s the matter?”

I kept my eye on Rosa, who was still standing by the place the Our Lady rose had been. “I think I’ve found the source of the botulism that caused Maria Garcia’s death. Can you bring some of your evidence people to the City Rose Garden?”

“The Rose Garden?”

“Yes. I’m in the northeast corner. Tell them to wear gloves—heavy gloves.”

“Ah ... okay. It may take a while.”

“How long?”

“Half an hour at least, probably.”

I wasn’t willing to leave, even to run Rosa home. I didn’t want to risk the garbage collectors coming by and taking away the rosebush.

“Well, I’ll be here waiting,” I said. “Please come as quickly as you can.”

“You all right?”

“Worried, but yes, I’m all right.”

“I’ll be there soon.”

He disconnected. I put away my phone and rejoined Rosa.

“Let’s walk a little,” I said, pulling her arm through mine.

I felt protective of her, and didn’t want to take the chance, small though I suspected it was, of our being observed by whoever had cut down the rose. I grimaced as I realized I was echoing Maria’s behavior. Keeping Rosa away from the danger of the rose garden. The danger of the Rose Guild.

We strolled among the flowering bushes. I stayed fairly close to the dumpster, keeping a jealous eye on it. Rosa meekly came where I led her. I suspected her thoughts were far away.

My phone rang. Worried that it was Tony with some delay, I pulled it out, but the number it showed was Willow's.

“Please excuse me, Rosa. I need to take this.” I stepped away from her. “Hello?”

“Ellen. I'm at the museum. Are you coming?”

I hissed and bit back a curse. “Willow, I'm so sorry. I'm afraid I got distracted.”

“That's all right. It wasn't a meeting, I just told Bennett we might be dropping by. Should we reschedule?”

“Yes, please. I'll call you this evening, if that's all right.”

“Sure.”

I said goodbye, then found a bench beneath an arched arbor of climbing roses, shaded from the westering sun by a dense-leaved tree, and urged Rosa to sit down. I sat beside her and kept watch over the dumpster.

“I want to go to a Rose Guild meeting,” Rosa announced suddenly.

“Why?”

“I want to ask them why they hated Nana!”

“They didn’t, dear. Maybe one or two didn’t get along with her—”

“Then those one or two should answer! They must have been the ones who cut down the rose!”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because who else would want to? The ones who didn’t want it there in the first place, because Nana wasn’t Anglo!”

I closed my eyes briefly. I had thought of another reason for cutting the rose, but I didn’t want to discuss it with Rosa at the moment.

The sound of a motorcycle engine made me look up. Tony was circling the garden, looking for a place to park his bike. I stood and watched until he found a space, then turned to Rosa.

“Do you mind waiting here for a few minutes? Then I’ll take you home.”

Rosa nodded assent, so I left her beneath the arbor and hurried across the garden to meet Tony. The sun was hot and I was glad I was wearing a hat, even if it was a dark, solar-collecting navy.

Tony had changed out of his suit and was back in his usual t-shirt and jeans. He gave me a quick down-and-up glance as he joined me.

“Still in your funereal splendor?”

“I’ve been visiting with the Garcias. That’s not why I called you.”

He nodded. “So where’s this source?”

“This way.” I led him to the dumpster, briefly explaining how Maria’s pet rosebush had been cut as described by the neighbor.

“Little act of hate, eh?” he said. “Well, it’s vandalism, maybe, but I’m not even sure that would stick.”

“I think it may be more than that. I know Maria was pruning that bush a little over a week ago. Rosa said she’d poked herself on a rose. It was probably this rose. What if the botulism was on the thorns?”

Tony frowned at me. “How could it be on the thorns?”

“I’m not sure. Only if someone put it there, I think.”

He stared at me, looking unhappy. Turning to the dumpster, he flipped back the lid and made a face. “Phew.”

“The rosebush is wrapped in a blue tarp.”

“Yeah, I see it. Think I’ll wait for the techs. You couldn’t have thought of this before the bush landed in the dumpster, could you?”

I gave a helpless shrug. “I was about to give up on the whole thing, but then Rosa mentioned that the wound that became infected was a rose prick. Maria had complained to her that it wasn’t healing.”

Tony’s face hardened as he gazed at me. He muttered a curse under his breath, then pulled out his phone.

I glanced over toward Rosa. She was still sitting beneath the arbor, looking dejected. I waited while Tony harried his evidence techs along, then when he disconnected and started dialing another number, I interrupted.

“Excuse me, but if you don’t mind I think I’ll take Rosa home.” I gestured toward where she was sitting.

“I’m going to need to talk to her, confirm the thing about the rose prick.”

“Does it have to be now? She’s a little worn down by the funeral and all, I think.”

He followed my gaze, looking at Rosa. “No, it doesn’t have to be now.”

“Thanks. I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

“You don’t have to come back. All they’re going to do is fish that stuff out of there and take it straight over to the lab.”

“Well, all right. Be sure to tell them to be careful not to be scratched by those thorns.”

“Yeah, no shit.” He glanced at the dumpster. “Or rather, too much shit down in there. Even if there isn’t any botulism on those branches, I wouldn’t want to pick up a scratch.”

I smiled. “Thank you for coming so quickly, and for not dismissing me out of hand.”

“I know better than that.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Why, Detective Aragón! I believe that was a compliment!”

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“No danger of that,” I said wryly. I started to turn away, then felt the prick of conscience. I faced him again, my heart beating rather fast.

“Tony—I’m going to a lecture on Wednesday night with some friends. Would you like to join us?”

“A lecture?” he said, looking incredulous.

“Yes. Microbiology.”

“That sounds ... really boring.”

“It’s the Santa Fe Institute. Their speakers make even the most boring subjects interesting.”

His eyes narrowed. “And if I suffer through this lecture, what do I get?”

“Dinner afterwards. We usually wind up at Pranzo or India Palace.”

“Uh-huh. Who’re the friends?”

“My best friend Gina—you’ve met her—and her current boyfriend.”

“So you’re talking double date.”

“Well, yes.”

I stood waiting, feeling nervous all out of proportion to the situation. I was an adult, after all, not the anxious teenager I seemed to be channeling.

Tony gazed at me for a long moment. “Yeah, okay. Do I have to dress up?”

“A little nicer than jeans would be good.”

“It’s a sacrifice, but you’re worth it.”

I gave a cough of laughter, this time disproportionally pleased. “The lecture’s at seven. Come to my house at six-fifteen and we’ll all go over in Gina’s car.”

“Okay.”

I stood gazing at him foolishly, reluctant to leave. “Um, you’ll call when you hear from the lab?”

“Yeah, but it could be a while. They’re probably closed for the day.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any way to expedite things?”

“That’s what I was about to do,” he said, gesturing with his phone.

I nodded. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

He smiled briefly, though his face had gone back to cop mode. I took a couple of steps backward, then tore my gaze away and turned. Heading toward where I’d left Rosa, I saw that she was no longer alone.

A woman was standing by the bench where Rosa sat. She was facing away from me so I couldn’t tell who it was, but she was wearing a floppy hat.