Free Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert

both sides of the river, including the
dump. Then she energized the women of the town (and a few of their husbands)
into months of long, hard cleanup work. When that was done, she browbeat the
downtown merchants into contributing
    major bucks for landscaping,
including an amphitheater and rose garden. Now the thirty-acre park is one of
Pecan Springs’ most widely trumpeted tourist attractions. The Chamber of
Commerce rents inner tubes and canoes for float trips down the river. Arnold
Seidensticker
    has brought in one of the major golf
pros to design a course on the other side of the old dump, adjacent to the
park. And Harley Chadwick is talking about starting an upscale development on
the other side of the golf course. One thing leads to another.
    The park’s rose garden was set up
with metal folding chairs arranged in neat rows, most of them already occupied.
Meredith was sitting in the front row, dressed in a pale beige two-piece dress
with green trim, her face carefully blank. Beside her was a plump middle-aged
woman in a dark blue suit with a fussy lace blouse whom I took to be Lucille,
and on the other side was Mayor Pauline Perkins, brisk and efficient-looking in
spite of her thirty extra pounds. I see the mayor regularly at Jerri’s Health
and Fitness Spa striding determinedly along the treadmill. Reverend Lewis, the
Unitarian minister, sat next to the mayor, solemn and self-impressed in a
slate-gray suit and tie. Reverend Lewis was new to Pecan Springs and scarcely
knew Jo, but no doubt he’d been given a list of appropriate compliments to pay.
    If none of the other mourners was
wearing black, Roz was. She was sitting conspicuously alone in the second row.
I wondered whether she’d just happened to have a black suit, black strappy
heels, and black gloves in her luggage, or whether the outfit was what she’d
gone shopping for. Her mourning garb gave her a look of fragile composure,
which was heightened by her deeply shadowed blue eyes and her blond hair severely
twisted into a knot at her neck.
    I glanced at the other mourners.
Most of the people who counted in the town were there, friends and enemies,
arranged on either side of the center aisle like guests at a wedding. On the
anti-airport side was RuthAnn Landsdowne, square-jawed and capable. RuthAnn was
Jo’s chief co-conspirator and current president of the garden club. She was
sitting with a large group of women whom I recognized as Coalition members and
the half of the City Council that had been brave enough to go on record against
the airport. On the pro-airport side was Arnold Seidensticker, his neatly
parted brown hair, brown horn-rimmed glasses, and brown suit giving him the
look of a tidy brown owl. He was sitting next to his wife Lila, whose platinum
hair had a salmon tint that was set off by her salmon-pink coatdress. She
looked remarkably bony, and her thin hands as she twisted her handkerchief were
like claws. Seated in the same row were Mr. Schwartz, president of Hill Country
Fidelity Bank, Harley Chadwick, and several real estate developers whom I
recognized by sight. Behind them were those members of the City Council who
supported the airport. Bubba Harris, uniformed as usual in tan polyester,
stood at the rear of the crowd, nervously twirling his cowboy hat. For the
first time since I’d known him, he was minus his cigar.
    Ruby nudged me. “Maybe Bubba’s here
to keep an eye on the Seidenstickers,” she whispered. She glanced at them. “Arnold
looks like a big toad gloating over a little puddle.”
    Reverend Lewis was beginning the
service. After a lengthy prayer on behalf of the departed, a psalm and an oration I
couldn’t see the point of, he sat down and Mayor Pauline Perkins got up to
deliver the eulogy. I listened thoughtfully, although the person the mayor was
describing seemed only tangentially related to the Jo Gilbert I had respected
and admired and, yes, loved. Jo’s concern for her friends, her stern sense of
justice and