The Rosemary Caper 4

A Secret Dark Side

Previously: The president of the Merryweather Herb Guild has asked China Bayles and Ruby Wilcox (the Crystal Cave) to investigate the theft of a rare cookbook from the Guild House. China and Ruby begin with a visit to Cora Demming, who has a definite suspect in mind: Jane Clark and her brother, a dealer in rare books. Jane evades answers and suggests that China and Ruby interview Delia Murphy, a relative of the cookbook’s author, Mrs. Merryweather.

Premium extras for supporting subscribers include recipes, craft ideas, gardening tips, herb lore.

Delia, a sturdy-looking woman with gray hair and snappy blue eyes, owns a popular bead shop in the Emporium, the craft and boutique mall that occupies the large Victorian house next door to Thyme and Seasons and the Crystal Cave. She looks concerned when Ruby tells her that the cookbook has been stolen and that we wonder if she has any information that might help us find it.

“I really don’t have anything to tell you,” she says. “There’s already been enough unhappiness about that dreadful old book. Frankly, I’m glad it’s gone. If you ask me, there wasn’t anything very original in it.”

I blink. That dreadful book?

“What sort of unhappiness?” Ruby asks.

“Do we have to talk about it?” Delia sets a box on the counter and takes out a plastic bag containing a bead necklace—large black beads strung with blue-and-rose enamel teardrops and smaller blue beads. She spills them into her hand and holds them close enough for us to catch a whiff of the scent.

“Rose beads. Aren’t they fragrant? I made them for Mrs. Perkins. They’re to be a wedding gift for her daughter. Isn’t that lovely? She hopes they’ll become a family treasure—worn by generations of brides.”

I occasionally teach a workshop on herbal bead craft and I’m interested in learning how Delia makes her rose beads. But that that will have to wait for another time. I want to hear about the cookbook. I repeat Ruby’s question.

“What sort of unhappiness, Delia?”

“I suppose I shouldn’t have mentioned it.” Delia says carelessly, putting the beads back in the bag. “It’s just one of those old family things. Doesn’t mean anything to anybody but me.”

“We understand that your mother was Myra Merryweather’s niece.” Ruby is sympathetic. “I was wondering how that cookbook got out of the family. You’d think it would be like those rose beads—something Mrs. Merryweather would want her children and grandchildren to have. Not for its value, perhaps, but for the memories. Dishes she cooked on special family occasions, for instance.”

“She didn’t have any children.” Delia says. “Only nieces and nephews.” She pauses uncomfortably. “I’m sorry to disillusion you, Ruby, but Aunt Myra wasn’t the kind of person who cooks for her family on special occasions. She fancied herself a matriarch, like her mother.”  She looks from one of us to the other, her smile slightly askew. “I suppose I shouldn’t say this outside the family, but Aunt Myra was . . . well, she could be a bit of a bully. Nobody could do anything to please her. And she was stingy. But that was just her way. We learned to live with it.”

I stare at her for a moment, surprised. A bully? Stingy? This isn’t the picture that Guild members have of their club’s founder. Mrs. Merryweather had been very generous to us, bequeathing us that wonderful old house, which was much more valuable than a book.

“Still,” I say, “it must have been a disappointment when she gave the cookbook to the Herb Guild.”

“If any of her nieces and nephews cared, they didn’t say so when I was around.” Delia squares her shoulders. “Really, China, my family’s ancient quarrels are history. Aunt Myra is dead and all that old unpleasantness is over and done with. I’d really rather not think about it.”

“Do you have any idea who might have wanted that book enough to steal it?” I feel sorry for Delia and don’t want to upset her, but the question needs an answer.

She sighs. “Not a clue, I’m afraid. I wish I could help, but I can’t. And if you don’t mind—”

A customer comes in at that moment. Clearly relieved, Delia turns away with a bright “How may I help you?”

“Well, that was a surprise,” Ruby says, as we head next door to our shops. “So Myra Merryweather’s family thought she was a bully. Who knew?”

I agree. But I learned long ago that everyone has a dark side, sometimes carefully hidden. Often, the only people who see it are family members. And they have their own private reasons for keeping the secret.

“Well, Delia’s right about one thing,” Ruby says matter-of-factly. “Myra may have been a bully, and her family didn’t like her very much. But that’s ancient history. Interesting, but it doesn’t take us any closer to finding the cookbook.”

“And when you come right down to it,” I reply, “we haven’t learned anything from anybody. Everybody has pointed a finger at somebody else. Cora suspects Vickie and Jane. Jane suspects Cora and Delia. Delia doesn’t want to think about it.”

“Can’t say I blame her,” Ruby remarks as we reach the shops. “Old family disagreements can fester for generations.”

“You’re right about that,” I say ruefully. Ruby’s mother forced her to give up her first child for adoption. And while my mother and I have settled our differences and moved on, it’s hard to forget how painful my childhood was.

Ruby opens the door. “What about Jerry Weber? We haven’t talked to him yet.”

“He’s next,” I say. “How about after work? It’s past nine now, and I’ve got to call Donna Fletcher, out at Mistletoe Creek Farm. I sold the last of that wonderful lavender-rosemary soap she makes. I want to order some more.”

A retired widower in his late sixties and a long-time member of the Guild, Jerry Weber is charming, trim, and athletic. He has a special interest in chile peppers and spices and a reputation for the best barbequed ribs in town. He’s won first prize in the annual Lions Club Cook-off so often that the head Lion finally had to tell him to stop entering. If you ask him for his prizewinning secret, he just shakes his head.

“It’s the rub,” he says. “And it’s gonna stay secret.”

Jerry invites us to sit on his porch and brings us iced tea and a plate of cookies. “Hot Lips Cookie Crisps,” he said proudly. “And yes, Ruby, they’re those famous cookies of yours—with a little variation of my own.”

“They’re . . . safe?” I asked doubtfully. Jerry has a reputation for hot pepper pranks.

He gives me a look of wide-eyed innocence. “Would I hurt you, China?”

“Only if you thought you could get away with it,” I say. I nibble at the edge of a cookie and then decide I’d better not go any further. McQuaid is the chile head in our family, not me.

Jerry is as charming and funny as ever. But our questions produce nothing more than a firm denial, a few toothy smiles, and the joking remark that if the Guild would pay him a little more money, he’d be glad to fix that goldarned kitchen door so folks wouldn’t have to worry about bad guys walking in off the street and stealing valuable books. He adds that he was over at Fredericksburg on the night of the theft, winning the Elks Summer Barbeque Contest. He knows nothing about the cookbook and scoffs at the idea that he might have been interested in it.

“What would I want with that stodgy old Merryweather cookbook? Nothing in it but those dull nineteen-thirties ladies’ club recipes,” he says. “I doubt if our prim and proper Miss Myra ever cooked up a pot of Texas Firehouse Chile or a batch of halfway decent hot sauce.”  He gets up. “Speaking of hot sauce, you girls sit right there. I’ve got something for you.”

When he reappears, he is carrying two pint jars. “Habanero and mango hot sauce,” he announces proudly, handing one to Ruby and the other to me. “You’re not going to find a more flavorful hot sauce anywhere. But be careful when you open them. Incendiary.” He stands a little taller. “I like to tell folks I’m setting the world on fire, one jar at a time.”

Ruby laughs. “We’re not going to argue about that, Jerry.”

I take my jar with a half-smile. I was remembering that Jerry, like Mrs. Merryweather, had his secret dark side. I’d heard that he’d once pranked some friends by putting a slice of ghost pepper under the pepperoni on their pizza and laughed at their distress. What was in this jar?

And behind my half-smile, I am more than halfway glum. Ruby and I had gone through our entire interview list and had gotten exactly nowhere.

But I brightened a little as we walked back to the car. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. It was time for a different strategy. We weren’t going to pry the information out of anybody.

But maybe we could buy it.

That’s it for Episode Four, everybody. China and Ruby will be back next week with Episode Five, “Thumbscrews.” If you haven’t read my brief (two-minute) history of serial fiction, you’ll find it here.

For supporting subscribers: your bonus extras in this episode include Delia’s instructions for making rose beads and Donna Fletcher’s formula for her lavender-rosemary soap, plus recipes for Jerry’s “secret” spice rub, his tweaks to Ruby’s famous cookies, and some information about the the heat in hot peppers.

You might even find out what was in those jars he handed to China and Ruby.