Chapter Thirty-Seven
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
We climbed and climbed. Periodically, the path dipped, which weirdly wasn’t any easier than the uphill.
And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because we went sharply up again, with railroad ties dug into the path for ladder-like purchase.
Most of the year these leafed-out plants would make the path a tunnel of green.
I recognized some of the bare bushes as Japanese honeysuckle, an invasive species that leafed out earlier and held its leaves longer, helping it crowd out natives.
Yes, I’ve encountered it in my yard. My neighbors on one side said they like the spring blooms and they didn’t care that the county and state declared the bushes undesirable.
In other words, I have cut down and pulled out a lot of Japanese honeysuckle, especially on that side of my yard.
We came up yet another rise. What was different this time, was we could see sky ahead on the right side between the trunks. There was still some rising ground on the left, but we’d reached the highest point on the right.
“I think this might be it,” Clara said from behind me.
“It goes up a little more,” I protested, slowing but not stopping.
“Yeah, but here’s a bench and there isn’t one up there.”
A sound came from behind me. I turned.
“And it clunks, like Mamie said.” If she’d had more breath, Clara might have sounded triumphant.
I stopped. She was right.
She sat on the bench.
I didn’t. Restarting would be too hard against the drag of inertia.
“Why here?” I muttered.
“Not really a cliff to throw himself off or anything.”
True. He could have tried to roll down the steep hillside in any direction except to our left, but he wouldn’t get far before being caught by the close-ranked trunks.
I turned and green caught my eye where the ground fell away on both sides before the path turned toward the remaining rise.
I looked closer and saw the low rosettes of leaves of another invasive enemy — garlic mustard weed. Green, even in this weather, if a little beat up. It didn’t grow as big as Japanese honeysuckle, but it had several nasty tricks.
First, its roots alter soil chemistry in ways that inhibit other plants, along with messing with fungi that benefit those other plants — a double whammy.
Second, it has a two-year cycle. So, no matter how much you pull one year, that won’t help you the next year.
When warm weather arrived, these rosettes from last summer would bolt — up to waist high in my yard — with perky white flowers and profuse seeds. If you pull them and leave them in a pile, many of the plants will continue to grow, flower, and seed.
Ask me how I know.
Or not so perky white flowers right now in the clump I’d spotted down the slope. More like grubby.
“Wait a second,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Garlic mustard weed doesn’t bloom this time of year. Green, yes. But not white flowers.”
“Are you complaining about weeds again?”
I moved toward the suspect bloom. “Just because you bought a house from someone who’d been a great gardener and you don’t have to deal with them... Some of us weren’t that lucky. We—”
“What are you doing? Be careful. You’ll fall.”
I grasped a trunk as I scooched down for a better look. I stretched my free hand out.
Clara jumped up from the bench and hurried toward me. “Stop. What are you doing?”
I backed up. “You’re right. What was I thinking?”
“Thank heavens. Now, get back here.”
“No need. I have something in my pocket I can use.”
“Use for what? No, don’t tell me, just get back up here.”
“So I don’t get fingerprints on it.” I pulled out the flyer in my jacket pocket about New Year’s Eve at Haines Tavern.
I folded it from one narrow end to the middle, then the other end to the middle.
Then folded in twice from each long end, twisting the ends a bit to create a sort of pouch in the middle.
I positioned it in the hand that would also grasp the sapling.
“Fingerprints? On a weed?”
“It’s not a weed. Clara, will you take pictures of it in place?”
She did, using her phone, while also saying, “But if it’s not a weed—Teague wouldn’t want you to disturb it if it might be evidence.”
She truly was worried to use Teague to try to stop me.
“Can’t be sure it’s evidence unless I look at it. Besides, it could blow away or disintegrate if it snows again. We have to preserve it.” I stretched again.
“I’m more worried about preserving you and—No, Sheila. No.”
“As you said, it’s not a cliff to throw yourself off.”
I slid my right foot down the slope and leaned farther over that leg.
“Do not test that theory, Sheila. If you fall...”
“Almost... have... it.”
Caught between the tips of my gloves, I secured a slip of grubby white paper that had been caught by the outstretched arms of the garlic mustard rosette.
Carefully, I pulled it closer.
Some fading from the snow, but still readable.
Robbie’s sudden switch in mood outside his father’s room. His near-flight from the hospice center, not waiting for Mamie. His side-trip home. His silence and speed as he came here, then tore up the path as if possessed.
I felt my gaze — and my mind — going unfocused.
Words we’d spoken about one person shifting to another...
My perspective shifted and it felt like when you shake a box that’s jammed and suddenly everything sorts out, the logjam’s gone. It all fits.
You see, really see, the crone and the girl in the big hat and more... all together.
The puzzle comes together.
Maybe.
I needed to think this through to be sure.
Robbie didn’t want to leave this at home, where the authorities could find it. Mamie not leaving him alone limited his options. He neither risked throwing it out and having her describe what he’d done, nor involved her by getting her to swear to secrecy, which she probably would have.
He got credit for that.
He also got credit for some decent thinking.
Not many passersby up here in the winter. In another month the earliest spring growth would likely cover it. And that’s if it didn’t deteriorate by then.
He just hadn’t counted on it catching on a garlic mustard weed.
“What is it?” Clara asked in a hushed voice.
“Garlic mustard weed.”
“Not the plant,” she said with asperity and regular volume. “I know that. What’s the piece of paper?”
“It’s a label from a prescription bottle. A prescription for Dova Dorrio from last year.”
“Last year? From when she had her accident? Oh... Oh, no . You think this means Robbie killed his father? Sheila, is that what you think?”
I heard her, but my brain was dealing with other issues.
With the label nestled in my impromptu evidence carrier and tucked carefully into my deep jacket pocket, I said, “Clara, will you call Mamie, get her to get Robbie to Kentucky Manor?”
“Okay, but... You aren’t going to tell me what you’re thinking, are you?”
“Not yet.”
“When?”
“You mean when to call to get them to Kentucky Manor?” I knew she meant when I was going to tell her. But, priorities. “Now. Right now.”
****
Clara couldn’t call right away because of lack of connection. Also lack of breath. Who knew going down would be nearly as oxygen-depleting as going up?
We finally reached the nominally flat parking area.
My car was still the only one there.
I couldn’t decide if that was good news or bad news.
No one attacked us, so good won.
As I drove back toward town and connection returned, Clara left a message for Mamie to call back. Immediately.
Then she looked at me. “At least tell me what the prescription’s for?”
“It says hydromorphone. Sounds sort of like morphine.”
“It’s another opioid, but stronger than morphine. Far, far stronger.”
I looked at her a second before returning my attention to the road. From the corner of my eye, I saw her nod at my unasked question.
Yes, she knew about hydromorphone from caring for her mother-in-law.
She said, “It’s what Linda had that she’d wanted disposed of, what we talked about at lunch.
Remember? I bet Dova had it for her injuries after that car accident Mamie told us about.
It would have been easy for Robbie to take it from his mother’s things — like Linda was worried about her neighbor doing.
And easy to force pills into Derrick. Or mix them into something and get him to drink it.
It all fits.” She stared at me. “It’s so awful—”
“Wait. Don’t reach a conclusion yet. I have to call Teague. You’ll hear at the same time.”
“But you think finding this means Robbie killed—”
“No. I think it means he didn’t .”