Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [55]
“Quite an awesome bush, isn’t it?” Susa Girard asked, sitting down next to me.
“It certainly is,” I agreed, surprised to see her. “Just how old is the Rose Jewel?”
“At least sixty years old,” she said. “It originally was up next to the house in a small rose garden that Great-Grandfather started. When he died, Grandma Rose couldn’t bear to look at them, much less care for them, so they were moved down here, and gradually this garden emerged. Jose, our ranch manager, has been the main caretaker since Great-Grandfather died. And with the winery, they’ve now become quite the attraction. It’s one of the biggest private rose gardens in California.”
“So it says here,” I said, holding up the brochure. We sat for a moment in silence.
“Benni,” she finally said. “I just talked to JJ a little while ago, and she told me about the note she found in Bliss’s possession. I have a confession to make.”
I didn’t say anything, but continued studying the slick brochure in my hands. This family had more secrets than a locker room of teenage girls, and it seemed as if I was destined to be a part of their clique.
“I...” She stopped, hesitated, then started again. “I was the one Giles sent it to. Bliss found it in my room and insisted on taking it.” Her voice faltered, causing me to look up at her. The finely etched lines around her eyes tightened as the sun passed from behind a cloud and brightened the air around us. “She said it would be better if she kept it. That it looked too . . . incriminating for me to have it in my possession.”
Keep it or destroy it, I wondered. It’s true that it implicated Cappy big-time, and Cappy had a good enough motive just with the conflict between the winery and the ranch.
“When did Giles give it to you?” I asked.
“Monday morning.” Her voice stayed low, and I had to move closer to hear her words above the laughing and conversation of other people.
“The day of the party?” Things were looking worse and worse for Cappy.
She nodded, breathing in short, shallow breaths.
“Did you show it to Cappy?’
She gave an ironic laugh. “I was going to wait until after the party so Bliss and Sam’s evening wouldn’t be ruined.” Sitting this close to her, I could see her strong resemblance to Cappy in her firm jaw and proud chin.
“Do you have any idea what he meant by ‘it’? What about the lily of the valley? Do you know the significance of that?”
“No.”
“Why would he give the note to you and not Cappy?” I asked.
“I have no idea. Maybe he thought I’d be able to talk her into doing what he wanted. Maybe he thought he could scare her by getting me involved. My mother is . . . ” She swallowed hard. “. . . very protective of her family. That’s not a secret, I’m sure you know.”
Maybe he’s the one who should have been scared, I thought. “And what he wanted her to do was vote to merge the Seven Sisters winery with Norton Winery.”
“Yes, but she never would have done that. It could possibly harm the breeding operation in a big way because the winery would take—some people would say destroy—all the best grazing land. And more important, we’d be beholden to someone else, to Giles’s father, who Cappy’s hated from the first minute they met. Nothing would convince her to vote to merge our holdings with theirs.”
That’s not what Chase had just told me. I kept that to myself. “Why does Cappy hate Giles’s father?”
Her natural-colored glossy lips formed a wry smile. “Two peas in a pod is what I’d guess, though she’d throttle me if she ever heard that.” She smoothed down her yellow cotton skirt. “Benni, I don’t believe Cappy would ever hurt anyone. Not even to save her horses. Really, my mother does have a very high moral code.”
I didn’t answer. We never want to believe that people we know or care about are capable of terrible and cruel acts. One, it was too frightening to think we wouldn’t know evil even when it sat at the breakfast table with us, and two, it