The Malice Plant

THE MALICE PLANT

by

Ainy Rainwater

Copyright Idiolith, Idiolith Books, 2010

Smashwords Edition

E-ISBN: 978-0-9829597-2-5

Cover Art: Ainy Rainwater

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead, real places, or events is coincidental. Names of people, places and things are fictional and wholly imaginary, and should not be construed as having any relationship to people, places or things with similar names that may exist. As this is a work of fiction, some facts presented are entirely fictional, eg: things exist in this story that do not exist in real life. The views expressed in this work of fiction serve the purpose of character and story and are not necessarily those of the publisher or the author.

Acknowledgments

This book is dedicated to Lillian Stewart Carl. It's a modest repayment for all the good books she's written which I enjoy so much, and for her friendship and encouragement over the years. (She survived an early draft of the manuscript.)

I would also like to thank: Dale Denton, a good writer and gardener who has accepted both manuscripts and orphan plants from me without suffering any ill effects (so far). Also, Diane Sullivan, who answered a couple of medical questions, and Mary Ann Marrinan who checked the manuscript for legal errors. Any remaining errors in these areas are strictly mine.

At the time this book was written cell phones and the internet were less ubiquitous than they are now. Smartphones and social networks didn't exist. After giving it some consideration I decided not to rewrite the book for ebook publication in order to reflect these changes in the way we live. The fictional rural community of Cedar Lake will be a somewhat more wired in any sequels.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Disclaimer

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Author's Note

About The Author

Idiolith

Idiolith Books by Ainy Rainwater

Albums by Gymshoes (aka Ainy Rainwater)

Chapter 1

Rosemary, a slightly breathless voice said, Ivy Willowby's dead. Jackie Perkins found her this morning in the garden, dead. They've ordered an autopsy. The police think she may have been murdered.

Oh, God, what happened?

I don't know. She was just dead, that's all. Dead...Hold on a minute... The voice on the other end of the line became fainter. No, no, sweetie, you can only have one. This pronouncement was underlined by a high whine. Why don't you go help daddy grub out that hackberry tree by the fence? The whine receded.

Where was I? Nancy returned, her voice less breathless, but distracted.

Dead in the garden, Rosemary replied, her throat tightening. She couldn't imagine Ivy, of all people, dying a violent death. What makes anyone think it wasn't just a heart attack or old age? Ivy must have been at least ninety.

Jackie told Sue Shumacher that when she found her she looked just awful and she was clutching some kind of hideous plant in her hand, Nancy babbled. I bet that plant was poisonous. That's what they think anyway.

They? Who's they? Nancy Nicholson's rapid-fire scattershot way with pronouns had left Rosemary with an image of Sue Shumacher clutching a plant and collapsing melodramatically as a crowd looked on applauding.

Everyone. The police...everyone.

Ivy was supposed to give the program next week, Rosemary interjected in an effort to reestablish Nancy's tenuous hold on reality.

Oh, that's right, she was! What should we do? Cancel the meeting? Nancy went off on a tangent, dropping into her fussy voice. While she rattled off possible replacement speakers and the pros and cons of changing the date, Rosemary Wilde held on to the phone and sank down to one of the wooden dining room chairs. Fortunately it was not the one with the uneven legs; at that moment her nerves could not have stood the annoying rocking motion.

Ivy Willowby wasn't the only member of the Cedar Lake Garden Club---besides herself---who had a botanical name, but Rosemary felt a certain kinship to her. She reminded Rosemary of her own grandmother, the one who practically raised her, the one she had trailed after from childhood nearly to adulthood, the one she was named for. Grandma Rosemary had instilled in her a love of not just plants, but everything. Rosemary was lost when she died and didn't even realize how lost until years later when she met Ivy and joined the Cedar Lake Garden Club.

Ivy had been a tiny old woman: she grew tomato plants taller than she was. Four feet tall, with a humped back and a waist that was no doubt still eighteen inches, 'petite' didn't even begin to cover it. But, as the saying goes, dynamite comes in small packages. In addition to an enormous yard brimming with plants, she had a greenhouse with plants hung from ceiling to floor and there wasn't much she didn't know about them. Did all her own yard work. Grew her own herbal teas, organically. Never sick a day in her life.

I think that's a good idea, Rosemary found herself saying to Nancy. She was a bit surprised that some part of her brain had taken it upon itself to follow the winding thread of the monologue emanating from the receiver. Postpone it until the twenty-first and you can probably get Helena Clever to give that talk on healthy soil again. Helena was the county agriculture agent. One old retired farmer Rosemary had met up with at Ivy's said to her, Helena knows dirt. The members of the Cedar Lake Garden Club knew a lot of dirt, too, but not the kind Helena knew.

And now Ivy is going to know dirt better than any of us, Rosemary thought. She winced and said hasty good-byes to Nancy. Dreading relaying the news, she called Betty Brown at the greenhouse. Mercifully, Betty had already been told. No moss grows on the members of the Cedar Lake Garden Club.

Look, I'm going to hide out here, unless you really need me, Rosemary said, combing her fine brown hair back behind her ears with her fingers. There were a few silver threads mixed in with the brown, but she had been ignoring them. I've got a sinus headache and the distinct feeling that it will get worse.

No problem, Betty replied. I can watch for customers while I'm potting this stuff up, easy. Betty was Rosemary's right hand in the nursery business, Wilde's Plant Emporium. She was in her mid-forties, a little overweight, with a healthy sheen of dirt like an aura around her. Undoubtedly she was speaking to Rosemary on the mud-encrusted portable phone that nested in one of the pockets of her canvas apron. I'm really going to miss her, Betty said quietly.

Me, too. Rosemary hung up the phone, turned off the ringer, turned on the answering machine, and turned off the speaker. It was a comforting ritual, each movement very deliberate and satisfying. Now all she had to do was lie down and wait for the aspirin to kick in.

***

Rosemary Wilde was not allergic to everything, but it was impossible for her to say this without sounding defensive. That the owner of a nursery business should have allergies was a source of amusement and pity to the garden club. They did not have allergies: they had suspiciously seasonal colds. I must have caught that bug that's going around, they would say froggily, sneezing and wheezing their way through hay fever season.

Rosemary was regarded as something of a hothouse flower, even though in all other respects she didn't fit the delicate southern belle stereotype. She was in pretty good shape for a thirty-six year old, even though (unlike Nancy) she didn't have a child to keep her in perpetual motion. And if she tended toward hyperactivity---lifting things at the nursery that were too heavy to be lifted and digging things at home far more vigorously than they needed to be dug---it was because she was desperately afraid that she would have Betty's declining physique when she was forty-six.

So, whenever Rosemary Wilde would drag herself to the garden club meeting in the spring, having been shredded by the forty-some-odd rose bushes she had crammed onto the tiny lot her house sat on---negligently late pruning them because the business came before pleasure---and was completely crapped out from spreading one million tons of compost, she knew that she could count on them all to look at her with red, itchy eyes and sniffle, Allergies. You poor thing!

But the morning Nancy called with the news about Ivy, Rosemary was quite willing to be that poor thing. Betty could hold down the fort at the greenhouse and Nancy, the program chairman, could wring her hands and make phone calls enough for all of them, she decided. She planned on reviving herself from the antihistamine fog in time for the funeral.

***

Rosemary looked like death warmed over when she opened the front door, but she felt more like death on a piece of cold toast. Her normally tan face had the washed out puffy appearance that usually accompanied allergy attacks, framed by her dull disheveled shoulder-length brown hair. The policeman standing on her porch was dressed in civvies, but carried a very official looking badge. He went through the usual formal introductions; Rosemary mumbled like a nit-wit and ushered him into the living room. The police must think I'm an idiot, Rosemary thought. After a few minutes of wholly ineffectual conversation, she began apologizing and explaining about her allergies.

I was really out cold when the doorbell rang, she smiled feebly. Would you mind terribly if I made myself a pot of tea? I think I really need the caffeine to wake me up. Officer Breau trailed reluctantly behind her into the dimly lit dining room. Would you like some scones? The plastic bag of day old scones was dropped with an unceremonious thunk on the table before Rosemary stepped back into the kitchen to fill the kettle. The kitchen and dining room were barely separated by a double wide doorway.

You're not from around here, are you? he asked, eying the bag skeptically.

I was born and raised in Ft. Worth, she offered helpfully. I've lived in Cedar Lake, oh, I don't know...six, seven years? Seven years? That sounded right but she was still too foggy to do higher math. Three teabags in the pot. Until she had both caffeine and sugar in high quantities in her blood stream, that was as high as she could be reasonably be expected to count. She felt a twinge of guilt, as if she had just lied to a policeman, so she began to wonder if maybe it was eight years.

I just need to ask you a couple of simple questions, the tall brown-haired hazel-eyed unmarried policeman said. Rosemary was waking up enough to notice these details. She also just then noticed that he hadn't sat down.

The kettle, which had been muttering under its breath, shrieked. Sloshing boiling hot water into the pot and all over the counter---which she usually did even when not under the influence of antihistamines---Rosemary managed to fix a proper pot of tea and grab the unlabeled jar of strawberry jam from the fridge while watching his patience visibly sink. Nancy had made the jam in a fit of industry that had given out before she had managed to do calligraphy for the labels.

I want to know if you can identify this plant, Officer Breau said holding out a baggy toward her. One look at the contents and her desire for strawberry jam went right out the window. She hastily gulped the hot tea. We asked your associate, Ms. Elizabeth Brown, if she recognized it, but she did not. Rosemary had a déjà vu impression that he had said that sometime earlier. At the door? In the living room? She didn't even try to remember.

At first glance it looked like he was proffering her a baggy with some dark freshly hacked-out body organ. Too dark for liver, she almost said. Taking the baggy between thumb and forefinger, Rosemary examined it closely, feeling more and more as if she was dropping into a fever dream rather than coming out of one. The baggy contained a piece of a large leaved, fleshy plant, partially crushed. The leaves were shiny and appeared almost black with a reddish tinge. The sides of the baggy and the remains of the plant were smeared with blood-red plant juice. From the broken stem, it appeared the plant was still bleeding.

I have no idea, she said shaking her head slowly. I've never seen a plant quite like this before. The quarter cup of sugar she had dumped into her tea was finding its way into her blood stream---either that or the shock had woken her up. Rosemary felt suddenly alert, if still unwell. Studying her face, the nice policeman sat down after he had taken the baggy back, solicitously suggesting that she have some of the scones. The nasty looking baggy was tucked out of sight somewhere, but Rosemary didn't have much of an appetite. So he took a scone, broke it apart and began eating one himself. After a moment she did the same. Policemen, apparently, were given rather sophisticated training.

I can try to find out about the plant for you, she offered between bites, I'm sure it's in one of my books around here.

No, that's okay, we'll send it off for identification anyway. We just thought it might save some time if you could identify it right off the bat. I'm sorry you're not feeling well, he added sympathetically. Another convert to the idea of my frailty, Rosemary thought exasperated. I know a couple of judo throws, but if I fling him onto the dining room floor, I doubt he would understand why. At that instant she thought of dog training. They have to know 'why' they're being punished, Aunt Sissy used to say over and over. Thus, her cousins' dogs not only got slapped across the nose with a newspaper, they got lectured.

Right on cue, the dog door flapped and Rosemary's ill-trained mongrel slunk into the room. About the only thing she'd managed to reliably teach Soda to do was to look at her for a warning glare before biting someone. Rosemary glared at the dog, the dog glared at the interloper, and the very perceptive policeman said his good-byes.

Soda Jerk was the dog's full name, but he was rarely ever called that; whether he was called Soda or Jerk depended on the situation. He was a medium-sized mutt with short red brown hair and a whip of a tail. He had a beautifully shaped head, a devious brain, and a pointed nose with an acute sense of smell.

As Rosemary escorted Officer Breau to the door, Soda trailed him at a discreet distance, nose to the floor. If he could've spoken he probably would've asked for one of the policeman's shoes to chew on. It was then she noticed the fresh dirt caked on Jerk's front paws and wondered what he had managed to transplant from the garden this time.

Faithful dog that he was, Jerk stuck close to her, head guiltily hung as Rosemary tracked down her shoes and headed toward the back door. The answering machine clicked and whirred and clicked. She smiled. Well-trained. Completely housebroken. Good machine.

***

But answering machines do not have some of the advantages of a good guard dog. While a watch dog can keep an unwanted person at bay indefinitely, an answering machine sometimes only deflects their trajectory. There are some people, Rosemary conceded, who simply cannot believe that you don't wish to talk to them at that moment and upon also finding that you are not at work, will simply present themselves on your front steps. I tried to call, but I got your machine, they will say, annoyed. The machine is on for a reason, Rosemary thought to herself, while glaring at Soda. The scent of expensive perfume tended to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Sometimes it had the same effect on her.

Did you hear about poor Ivy? Shirley Pittman was saying. "Isn't it terrible? I knew this would happen, Shirley blared, her voice echoing trumpet-like off the houses on Rosemary's street. She was a tall, broad shouldered woman, hair frosted and dyed various shades of brown. Ivy just worked herself to death in that yard. She had far more than a woman her age could take care of. Why, it's all I can do to keep up my yard. Shirley Pittman's yard was immaculately kept. She had a sprinkler system on a timer, a perfectly weed free lawn, neatly trimmed evergreen shrubs around the foundation, one small pecan tree (which never seemed to grow) in the front yard and a small circular bed of bedding plants---petunias in the summer, pansies in the winter---around the tree. All of it planted and maintained until recently by a landscaping company on the other side of the lake. Currently she had a yard boy", as she called him, doing her dirty work.

Shirley talked about herself for ten full minutes before mentioning Ivy again. The funeral isn't going to be until next week. She lowered her voice. The autopsy, you know. Returning to her normal, boisterous tone, she added, I'm sure everyone will understand if you don't make it. You just haven't been very well this year. After that Rosemary got a five minute recapitulation of her alleged illnesses with an additional five minutes of Shirley's alleged illnesses. By the time Shirley left, Soda had given up and laid down at Rosemary's feet.

It was after four when they managed to escape to the back yard again. Rosemary had only gone to the front to look for a trowel in the hope of easing some of the not-too-badly mangled and wilted pepper plants back into the ground. She finally ended up using her hands in a sort of reversal of Jerk's efforts. By then she had concluded that Jerk had probably buried the trowel, but she was too tired and headachy to look for any more fresh damage.

***

The demographics of Cedar Lake were a bit unusual. There were a few old-timers like Ivy who had lived there all their lives and who remembered a time when the center of town was, both literally and figuratively, the feed store. But those folks were slowly dying off and leaving the town to the next wave. These were people who had been wealthy enough to have a weekend house at the lake when they were younger. Now they were retired and lived there permanently. Shirley fell into this category. Then there was the last, most recent, wave: young prosperous professionals who didn't want to raise their children in Dallas. To these people a bustling suburban community like Cedar Lake was rural. Nancy and Greg, her husband, fell into that category.

Thus, the town of Cedar Lake had a lot of fairly old folks and a lot of young couples. That left an age gap. Betty Brown, Rosemary's assistant at