Free Rosemary Remembered by Susan Wittig Albert Page A

about being abused?" I asked Sheila.
    She shook her head. "No, but I did get the impression that she was afraid of him. The husband, I mean. Rob-bins. That was before they were divorced, which I think happened pretty recently." She started to say something else, but changed her mind.
    "The cops aren't tough enough on abusers." Ruby was halfway down the walk, sweeping violently. "Neither are the courts. A slap on the wrist—that's all those fuckers get. Pardon my French."
    "Ruby," I said gently, "you are destroying my broom."
    "Oh," she said, and stopped sweeping. "Sorry."
    "What about leads?" Sheila repeated.
    "You probably know as much as I do," I said, picking yellow leaves off a curly-leaf parsley. Hot weather is hard on potted plants. If these didn't sell pretty soon, I'd give them away. There's nothing worse for a shop's reputation than selling tired, root-bound plants. "They recovered the spent bullet from the floor of the truck —a .38. The only prints were Rosemary's, McQuaid's, and mine. A neighbor heard a gunshot about nine-thirty, although it might have been a firecracker. And Robbins has an alibi — his sister. That about covers it, as far as I know."
    "Well, I'll keep my eyes and ears open," Sheila said. "Sometimes Bubba tells me things." I had to smile at that. When I first met Sheila, I nicknamed her Smart Cookie because of her ability to get people to do what she wants. She'd known Bubba Harris for a total of two minutes when she had him eating out of her beautifully manicured hand. Talk about the politics of pretty. She looked at me. "I hear McQuaid has a different theory."
    "When did you hear about that?" News travels in nanoseconds around Pecan Springs. Sometimes I think the grapevine's gone on-line on Internet.
    "We're both on the Traffic Committee," Sheila said. "We had a meeting late yesterday and he gave me an earful. Mistaken identity, huh?"
    "Yeah." I was skeptical.
    "An ex-con?"
    Ruby looked at me. "McQuaid thinks somebody else did it?"
    I nodded. "Jake Jacoby. Somebody McQuaid sent up. He got out last week on early release." I laughed. "McQuaid thinks he's out to get Brian and me."
    Sheila gave me a glance. "It happens, you know."
    "Yeah, sure." I pulled several dried leaves off a rose geranium, which is a pelargonium, actually, discovered in mountains of South Africa by English and Dutch explorers in the 1630s. The dried leaves are wonderful in potpourri. Yellowed parsley isn't good for anything but compost.
    Sheila was taking it seriously. "McQuaid says you and Rosemary could pass for sisters, and that she had his truck. He seems pretty well convinced it was Jacoby."
    "He's also convinced that I need protection," I said. I picked up the hose and turned it on the plant rack. "I had work to do here last night, and he insisted on coming along. He brought Brian, too, so he could protect both of us at the same time. Between the two of them, I didn't get done half of what I needed to do."
    "I sympathize with McQuaid," Sheila said thoughtfully, "but he's got to learn to let go. Dan had the same problem." Dan was Sheila's former fiance\ She broke their engagement a couple of months ago because she wanted to live her life her own way, and he couldn't give her enough room. "He wanted me to change careers because law enforcement's too dangerous. I kept telling him that I'm only a campus cop. My most dangerous assignment is convening Student Traffic Court."
    I grinned, thinking that Sheila wasn't telling the whole story. "You did bag a real criminal a few months ago, as I recall." My friend Dottie Riddle had been accused of murdering one of her colleagues, and Sheila and I had collaborated to get the matter straightened out.
    Ruby was leaning on the broom. "All men are into this protection thing," she said. "When they were kids, they watched all those big strong TV cowboys with six-guns protecting the frail, helpless women. Now that they're grown up, they get a testosterone rush from taking care of