Of Murder and Marigolds
Patricia Doherty

THE BOOK

"The death of those people has nothing to do with me!"

Ellie Madsen longed to believe that, but what else could explain the attempts on her life? She was afraid, and though she knew the fear was separating her from a lost love, she was powerless to break free. It took the searing honesty of a desperately lonely teenager and the good sense of a maddeningly Irish priest to thrust her past her own emotional upheaval and into the cold light of reality. She wouldn't enjoy the fruits of the struggle, however, until she stopped trusting the one she wanted to love. If she faltered in this, she would die: it was as simple as that.

Of Murder and Marigolds - Excerpts

Feeling rather smug, Ellie gently shooed the class onto its various homeward paths, reveling in the fact that nobody had noticed it was ten past the hour. She had just cleared her desk when she heard a tentative step in the doorway. Ellie turned and was pleasantly surprised. "Why Gwyn! Hello again."

"Maybe this isn't a good time?"

"Not at all. Come on in." Ellie glanced at her watch. Brian Mulhaney's weekly post-mortem session with the teachers wouldn't start for ten minutes, so Ellie dragged the only adult-sized chair around her desk for Gwyn and slipped into a student desk herself. "Have a seat." But Gwyn didn't move, just stood there looking uncomfortable. Ellie tried to remember what Brian had told her about the girl: excellent soccer player, dutiful student, not boy-crazy. She hasn't discovered makeup either, noticed Ellie, thinking it was rather refreshing. The girl's thick blonde hair was mostly caught at the nape of her neck by a rubber band, the remainder straggling over her ears and forehead and down her neck. She had lovely brown eyes, though they were a trifle earnest for a girl barely a year out of grammar school.

"Can I shut the door, please?"

"Sure." Gwyn secured the door, then sat down facing her teacher, perching on the barest margin of the chair. Catching the girl's eye, Ellie inquired, "What shall we talk about?"

Those earnest brown eyes winced, floating in a suddenly beet-red face. "What we've been talking about in class."

"Sex? Okay." Ellie smiled at the palpable relief that emanated from the girl once the taboo subject was indeed on the table.

Grasping her own hands as if she feared they might scamper off her lap, Gwyn began to speak in a hushed voice. "What Eric said about us being temples instead of, um - "

"Sewers."

"Uh-huh, and I wanted to know how far you could go before you turned into one."

"A sewer? How far do you think you can go?"

"As long as you didn't actually do anything, it's okay. At least that's what I thought, but after what you said in class, well, I'm not sure."

"Okay, let's talk about how far you've been going. Does everybody keep their clothes on?"

"Mostly."

"Once anyone starts undressing, things have gone way too far."

"But what if you're really in love, what if you're really gonna get married right after college?"

"You're what, fifteen?"

"Last February."

"And your friend?"

"His birthday's three days after mine. But he doesn't mind that I'm an older woman, or that I'm, well, not very sexy."

"What do you do together?"

"Well . . . "

Watching Gwyn's face, Ellie saw mortification warring with what looked like blissful memories. Then the girl seemed to sense she was being accurately analyzed, and back rushed the beets.

"Other than that."

"We talk about what we want to do, what's important, like that. And we really listen to each other. It's neat."

"That's all?"

"What do you mean? I have soccer, and he's into computers. He used to hang around practice, but the jocks started giving him a hard time."

"And your friend doesn't give you a hard time?"

"No. He's proud of me. We're awful different, but we get along great. I don't want to have to give him up. Do I have to?"

"You have to give up the make-out sessions and find something else to do together."

"Like what? We can't hang out at the Library or Piggy's Pizza with the other kids. Dad wants me to rush home and check on mom. It's like I'm her warden, but I'm no good at it. She finds stuff to drink no matter how close I watch her. But Dad drinks, too. Only beer, he says, but his gut is all over the place, and he won't watch what he eats. I think that's as bad as what mom's doing."

---

§ § §

Tall, and on the muscular side of gangly, Ellie's beau had an engaging way of establishing eye contact that communicated not one whit of phoniness. His smile was barely there, but there was an easy warmth about the eyes that stopped just short of a twinkle. Good-looking in a minimalist way, but with the kind of presence that many public figures would kill for. Dismas could see why Ellie had carved a permanent niche in her heart for David Llewellyn.

David shook hands with Dismas, eyeing him as if he were doing some totting up of his own. "I'm glad you could come, both of you. Ellie's told me so much about you, Father Dismas." Now the gray eyes were indeed twinkling. "I imagine we'll have some stimulating talks in the next couple of days."

Dismas limited himself to a few forthright nods. His peripheral vision told him that Ellie had whispered a giggled confidence to Jack, and that both were watching him, grinning broadly. Turning with aplomb to follow his host, Dismas tripped on the first step. So much for a dignified entrance, he thought bitterly. I might as well have worn clown shoes and a scarlet nose that honks! With what equanimity he could muster, he took the steps two at a time, hoping he'd disport himself in a more seemly manner indoors.

§ § §

Dismas slipped his leash and headed for the umbrellas on the deck. He was surprised to see Ellie standing at the railing, staring down the long valley. He joined her, and they stood together, held up by their elbows like a couple of weary barflies.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she finally said. "David says he loves me, wants me to marry him, everything I've been dreaming of for years, yet . . . "

"What's missing from the mix?" Dismas asked. He'd noticed her growing restlessness, and had been dying to ask her that question all morning.

"I wish I knew." She turned to face him. "It's as if I've lost all my moorings - no, I don't mean my spiritual compass. I just don't feel like I belong anywhere."

"When was the last time you felt you did?" When she didn't respond, Dismas suggested, "Rome?"

One nod was all the response Dismas received. He gave her a moment, then continued, "It's hard to give yourself to another person if you're not happy with who and where you are."

"How do you know all this?"

"Been there, didn't do that," he laughed. Ellie's arched eyebrow said "Yeah, right," more clearly than words.

"I was very much in love with a wonderful woman, but had this little yearning ache in my gut that I was determined to ignore."

"No way am I becoming a nun!"

Nearly choking on a swallowed guffaw, Dismas shook his head. "I didn't say you should, but you go off to Seattle feeling this way, and the sense of missing your place in life will eat you alive. And I'm telling it like it is, Ellie.

§ § §

It was delicious to be home, Ellie decided, once she'd locked her door and kicked off her shoes. She laid her bouquets of tulips, baby's breath, jasmine, and freesia on the counter while she rummaged out her two large vases. When she'd filled them to overflowing, she crammed the remaining flowers into water goblets and hoarded jam jars, setting the perfumed bounty on every horizontal surface at hand. Slipping ice cubes into a plastic bucket, Ellie added water and spun the Soave into the frosty nest to chill. When she'd set a pot of hot water to boil over a quick flame, she made a simple salad of romaine and herbs, dressing it with a touch of the shallot olive oil she'd made in the microwave two nights before. Slitting the foil top of the wine bottle with the end of her opener, Ellie poured out a glassful of the golden liquid, closing her eyes as she savored it. The wine was delicious, she decided, crossing the room to open the narrow French doors to the balcony. Not quite the Castelli Romani wines she'd grown to love in Rome, though. That was the color of sunlight, and when she'd served it outdoors on her spacious terrace, the wine seemed to evanesce into the ripely golden air. People swore those lovely wines didn't travel well, hence their dearth on the world market, but Ellie suspected the crafty Romans just contrived that tale to keep the wine in Rome where they could drink their fill. Still, the chilled Soave was a worthy substitute, she decided, and stepped outside holding her glass.

What an evening! Laughter of children eddied up from the neighboring yards, borne on a breeze so gentle, so temperate, that it invited comparison with a caress. And the sky! Streamers of peach and rose were transforming the creamy coloration of the clouds drifting eastward, preparing a charming farewell to a marvelous day. Sipping the wine, Ellie walked to the far side of the balcony, tucking some tendrils of wisteria under the trellis before beginning her ritual goodnight to another day. She leaned out to enjoy the sunset's effect on the darkening ridge of the Contra Costa range, inhaling slowly as she watched with rapt eyes. The peaks were becoming a violet bower fit for Titania, and Ellie went on tiptoe, craning her entire body, to catch the full effect.

The truth came in slow spurts, her right hand swinging up and away from her body as her wine glass spun out of her hand. She hovered, ungrounded while time took a holiday, watching the sun fill the crystal with flame, until, like Phaeton, it plummeted earthwards to shatter on the concrete pavers below. Only dimly aware that her shoulders were following the outward arc of her right arm, Ellie forced her pelvis backward, toward safety, but her bracing hips and thighs were already wobbling in an unequal struggle with gravity. There was no point in grabbing the wrought iron rail that was yawing crazily away from the house, so she swung her shoulders hard to the left, forcing her body into a tight pirouette. She felt her feet scrabble off their footing into unsupported air as she forced her upper body over the remains of the balcony. She hit hard, her upper arm and shoulder taking her entire weight, while her other hand clawed for a purchase on the jaggedly exposed beams. Childish voices below began to wail as Ellie commanded already tiring muscles to hang on. Her legs flailed against the balcony's underpinnings, trying to find a purchase. Then came the blessed sensation of resistance under one instep - it felt like a metal rod - and Ellie used it to push her shoulders and upper body more securely onto the floorboards of the balcony.

It took four tries to kick her left foot onto the boards as well, but she couldn't get more than a toehold. Then the leg fell back, leaving the lower half of her body dangling above the concrete below.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank two members of the Concord, CA, Police Department, Julie Weldon, Forensic Specialist, CSI, and Sharon Snyder, Community Specialist, for invaluable technical information. Mary Joy (Cookie) Gryfakis was my source of wisdom for many things Greek. Lea Perry's imagination and talent are responsible for the glowing, evocative book cover. Thanks as usual to my sister, Mary Elizabeth Beins, for playing devil's advocate with the manuscript, and to my best bud and husband, Tony Doherty, for his steadfast nit-picking. Finally, thanks are also due to the entire Tsakoyias family for granting me license to take their name in vain.

THE AUTHOR

A native of Washington, D.C., Patricia Doherty grew up a myopic bookworm blessed with a love of music. Though she'd been writing sporadically since her childhood, after the birth of her son she confined her bursts of creativity to singing. After studying voice in both Rome and New York, she made forays into local opera and oratorio while raising their son Marc.

In 1966 her husband Tony gave her a copy of James Agee's masterpiece, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which reawakened a desire to write. Eleven years later Pat slammed a mystery story shut in despair, declaring she could write better herself. Her husband challenged her to do it. She's been writing seriously ever since. Some of her best work is a body of interviews and feature articles on opera written for an occasionally-published opera newsletter. She's written compact disc liner notes, a novella, poetry, and children's stories. She's just finished co- authoring A Chance to Dare, the memoirs of Olympic pole vaulting champion Don Bragg, and just completd this book in the Dismas Shaunessey mystery series which includes The Face of Evil and The Sins of Moffet Square.

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