Death Come Quickly Read Free

European folk medicine, Geranium robertianum (also known as Herb Robert, death come quickly, stinky Bob, and cranesbill) was used as a remedy for nosebleeds and toothache. The odor of freshly picked, crushed leaves resembles burning rubber and is said to repel mosquitoes. The flower buds were thought to resemble a stork’s bill, and this analogical association suggested that the plant might enhance fertility. It was said to bring good luck, but only if it was not carried indoors. To do so invited death.
    China Bayles
“Herbs of Good and Ill Omen”
Pecan Springs Enterprise

    â€œKaren Prior was
mugged
?” Startled, I turned away from the front door of my herb shop, where I had just hung up the Closed sign. “Oh, Ruby, that’s awful, just awful! When did it happen? Where?”
    Ruby stood in the open doorway between our two shops, a deeply troubled look on her freckled face. “Last night, a few minutes after ten, in the parking lot at the mall. She was getting into her car when somebody hit her on the head with something heavy and hard—a tire iron, maybe, or a crowbar. I just heard it from Felicity. She called to tell me why she wouldn’t be at our class this evening. She’s with her mother at the hospital.”
    â€œSounds like very bad luck,” I said. “Wrong place, wrong time. What do the doctors say?” I went around the counter and began closing out the cash register. “Karen will be all right, won’t she?”
    Karen Prior is a faculty member in the radio-television-film department at Central Texas State University. We met through my husband, Mike McQuaid, who is also on the CTSU faculty, and we’ve been good friends for several years. Karen is a dedicated teacher and a talented documentary filmmaker whose recent film,
Fakery: The Truth about Art Fraud
, was part of a PBS series. She is an active supporter of the art community in Pecan Springs and served with me on the planning committee for last year’s Children’s Art-in-the-Park Festival. Her twenty-something daughter, Felicity, is a student in one of Ruby’s classes at the Crystal Cave and a part-time garden helper at Thyme and Seasons, my herb shop.
    I looked up at Ruby, who hadn’t answered. “Karen
will
be all right, won’t she?” I repeated. Karen wasn’t just a friend. She had volunteered to help Ruby and me build the video-recording setup we now use for our workshops and classes, and she showed us how to create DVDs from the video files so our workshop attendees can view them at home—for which I will be forever grateful. It’s not something I could ever do by myself.
    â€œFelicity says she will.” Ruby bit her lip. “But you know Felicity, always looking on the bright side. If you ask me, China, the situation sounds pretty grim. There’s a brain hemorrhage, apparently. They’ve done surgery to stop the bleeding, but Karen is in a coma. What makes it so hard is that Felicity offered to go shopping with her last night—it was late, and raining. But Karen said no. She was getting Felicity’s birthday present.” She shook her head. “Instead, she got attacked.”
    â€œI hope the cops get that son of a—” I muttered angrily, pulling the checks and currency out of the register.
    If we haven’t met already, I suppose I’d better tell you that I’m China Bayles and that Ruby is Ruby Wilcox, the owner of the Crystal Cave, which occupies the other half of my building on Crockett Street in Pecan Springs. In another life (that is, before I cashed in my retirement and bought Thyme and Seasons Herb Shop) I was a criminal defense attorney, white-collar crime, mostly. The large Houston firm I worked with defended big bad guys with lots of money and political connections. We didn’t often sully ourselves with common criminals. But when the public defender’s office got hit with a budget whammy, some of