“How about Allegra?” Julia said.
There was telling the truth, which I was in favor of, and then there was telling too much. I turned to Julia. “We don’t know anything for sure.”
“Allegra?” Lucas said. “She’s not fit. None of those people know one genus from another. Or even their perennials from their annuals.”
That Lucas would be threatened by Allegra was understandable, given her age, but his antipathy toward Doyle—and vice versa—was fascinating. From my point of view, they were nearly the same person, the only difference being that Doyle was ten years older and hadn’t yet shaved his head. Both were pompous, spoke in self-important voices, assumed others were ignorant, and were supremely unsuited to television.
“Would they hire Allegra?” Julia said.
I stared at her.
Lucas nodded thoughtfully, pulled an ottoman away from the wall, and rather ungracefully sat on it. For some reason, Allegra’s name didn’t elicit the same hysteria as Doyle’s had. “It’s a possibility. Last week the senior producer told me she’d left her resume with the station.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Valerie said.
“It was a moot point until now,” Lucas said. “Until Caroline brought everything crashing down. I was sure they’d extend my contract for at least another year.” He turned his eyes to me. “Then I thought I’d write a book. You write books, so you understand the ambition.”
“She writes mystery novels,” Valerie said.
“Same thing,” he said. “I have unique ideas on what makes a good garden, and it’s not the same old, same old. Everyone needs to abandon their herbaceous borders, their weeping willows with the daffodils circling them like rubber ducks in a bathtub. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? You know what I mean.”
It was unnerving how he kept staring at me, as if he thought I was the only one in the room who could understand his gardening vision.
“Take roses,” he said.
I jumped in. “They’re my favorite.”
“Say it isn’t so,” he groaned. “Everyone has roses.”
“That’s because they like them,” Julia said. “You should see Rachel’s rose garden.”
“This is exactly my point,” Lucas said. “Don’t you want something different? Unpopular, even? That’s a superior garden. Unpopularity—call it difference—has a wow factor and a lasting heritage.”
I’d never heard anyone talk quite that way about gardens before, and frankly, it was ridiculous. “I like gardens because they’re beautiful.”
“Yes, but are they different?”
“Does it matter?” I said. “Choosing a plant because it’s different isn’t any better than choosing a plant because it’s the same as all the other plants. It’s two sides of the same coin. In both instances difference plays a role it shouldn’t.”
Valerie laughed softly, not unkindly, and said, “I’m with you, Rachel. Pick what you like, that’s what I say. Something that feeds your eyes and your soul. Now you ladies follow me. I have something to show you in the front garden that you missed this afternoon.”
She promptly took off, partly, I supposed, because she sensed a debate coming on and didn’t want to hear it, but also because she needed to tell me something and didn’t want Lucas to hear it.
Julia and I left the house and found Valerie by her roses—a corner of the front yard Lucas must have ceded to his wife’s “same old, same old” taste in flowers.
“I love roses,” she said as we walked up to her. She gently cradled a pink bloom in one hand. “I don’t care what Lucas thinks about them.”
“My front yard is three-quarters roses and the rest peonies,” I said. “He’d hate it.”
Valerie released the rose and tucked a strand of gray hair behind her ear. “Good. He’s forgotten what gardens are for. He doesn’t see them anymore.”
“What’s troubling you?” I asked.
“Do I look troubled?” She attempted a smile.
“Very.”
“What do you do when you can’t look at old friends the way you used to?” she asked me.
“That depends,” I said, rather unhelpfully.
“On the friend?”
“No, I mean people change, and you need to let them if you can. Sometimes it’s worse when they don’t change.”
“I’m not talking about change, Rachel. Caroline didn’t change—she was always Caroline. But I opened my eyes.”
“What did she do?” Julia asked.
“You must have noticed,” Valerie said. “Be truthful with me, Julia.”
“Do you mean how she flirted with Lucas?”
“Thank you.”
I felt my jaw drop, and not for the first time that day.
“If you want my opinion,” Julia said, “she flirted for ambition, not attraction. Not that Lucas isn’t attractive, Valerie, but you know what I’m saying. It wasn’t physical.”
Before I could catch myself, I grimaced at the thought.
“But what could he do for her ambitions?” Valerie said. “He wasn’t about to give up his job.”
“Lucas told me he wants to propose a weekend gardening show to his producers,” Julia said.
“That’s right.”
“Caroline would have known that, and she would have hoped he’d hire her as his assistant. All of those longer gardening shows have a sidekick, don’t they?”
“I think they do, yes.” Valerie brightened a little, it being more palatable that her friend had been using her husband as a means to a professional end than using him as a lover.
Goodness knows the professional angle made more sense. Caroline was about twenty years younger than Lucas and his tics. I couldn’t imagine what she would have seen in him.
“So when Lucas retired,” Julia added, “he’d hand off Front Range Gardening to Caroline. I’m sure that’s what she was thinking.”
“Then why did she apply for his job outright?” Valerie asked.
“To cover her bases. She wanted to be on TV more than anything. So do Doyle and Allegra.”
I heard the Sieglers’ front door open and looked back as Lucas called out to Valerie, reminding her that they had a dinner date at the Porter Grill. “We’re already late,” he said.
“I’m coming,” she called back.
The door shut and Valerie cupped another rose in her hand. Their velvety petals seemed to comfort her. “Except Lucas enjoyed the attention.”
“Well, he’s a man,” Julia said. “I never saw him flirt back.”
Valerie perked up again. The poor woman needed reassurance that her aging and doltish husband still loved her. “You didn’t? Come to think of it, neither did I.”
“Well, that settles it,” Julia said. “And besides, not to be unkind, but you don’t have to worry about Caroline now. Not that you did before. She wasn’t attracted to Lucas, believe me.”
“She told you that?” Valerie asked, releasing the rose.
“No, it’s just obvious. She was in her forties, and Lucas, for goodness’ sakes, isn’t.”
Sensing Julia was about to step broadly into it, I spoke up. “And he obviously adores you and would be lost without you.”
“You’re his anchor,” Julia said.
Really, Julia? A big chunk of metal? “I only just met him, but I can tell he depends on you and trusts your judgment,” I said.
“You’re his fortress.”
“Who else would he let grow roses?”
Glancing at her watch and then gesturing at her door, Valerie said, “Thank you both. I think. I’d better go. Lucas gets cranky when he doesn’t eat on time.”
Julia stopped her from leaving. “Valerie, I was only here during the judging and the party, but I never saw them so much as touch hands.”
“Thank you, Julia. I trust him. I really do.” She moved quickly for her front door, with the air of a woman who had a loving husband to attend to and couldn’t be bothered with foolish doubts about his fidelity.
&nb
sp; Julia and I waited until we were driving down Blue Pond Road before we spoke.
“Do you think she trusts him?” she asked.
“Not on your life.”
“You’re right. She wouldn’t have opened up to us if she did.”
“We’re practically strangers.”
“It’s not fair, Rachel. He should have to worry about her having an affair. Him and that . . . twitching face of his.”
“Caroline was after something. I’m certain of it.”
“And it wasn’t physical,” Julia said.
“Please stop saying that. I’m begging you.”
I made a turn onto Sumac Way, intending to drive home, but I told Julia I needed to take a detour and stop at the police station. “We should tell Gilroy what we know,” I said. “And would you call Holly for me? I know it’s Sunday, but how about a meeting of the Juniper Grove Mystery Gang at my house tonight?”
CHAPTER 6
As I expected, Gilroy was still at the station working hard on Caroline Burkhardt’s case, which was now officially a homicide. He wasn’t surprised to see me, either. Julia and I sat in his office and recounted what we had learned that evening: lots of details, lots of tiny puzzle pieces that didn’t fit yet. He had long since stopped telling me that I was meddling in his cases, so he quietly indulged us and even took notes while I talked.
“Oh, and Jacob Horning doesn’t sell belladonna,” I said, “but you probably already knew that.”
“None of the nurseries or garden centers within fifty miles of here sell it, but you can buy the seeds or bulbs online,” Gilroy said. “A naturalist I spoke to said he’s never seen belladonna in the wild in northern Colorado. There could be a few plants in the foothills, but stumbling on them by accident would be almost impossible.”
“I think belladonna was growing in one of the garden contestants’ yards,” I said.
“Now that I know what it looks like, I still don’t remember seeing it,” Julia said. “For all I know, I looked right at a border chock-full of the stuff. But the others would have known what it was. They know their plants very well.”
Gilroy waved a sheet of paper. “We have a list of the Garden Design Show contestants, and we’re searching their gardens tomorrow. And now that the coroner has released his preliminary finding, we can ask everyone at the party if they saw belladonna. Or if they grow it themselves or have a neighbor who does. Ladies?” He stood and stretched his arms, and I knew it was time to stop asking questions, particularly in front of Julia. If I wanted to know more, I’d have to catch him alone.
“Goodnight, Chief Gilroy,” Julia said. She turned her back to him, leaned my way, and whispered, “I’ll see you in your car. Take your time.” She took my keys and then she shut the office door on her way out. My neighbor was not subtle.
“I do love her,” I said, looking at Gilroy.
He came around his desk and gathered me in his arms. “I’m glad she and Royce are together.”
“Otherwise I’d have to fight her for your attentions.”
He tilted his head back and looked at me strangely.
“Honestly, James, I’ve told you what it means when a woman talks to a man and plays with her hair. How long have you known Julia?”
“About eight years. She introduced herself to me days after I started work. She brought donuts into . . .”
“Right.”
“I don’t think . . .” He made a face. Poor man.
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said with a laugh. “She loves Royce to pieces and she’s never been happier. And she knows I’d go all mountain lion on her if she tried anything with you.”
He cleared his throat. “All right, that’s enough of that. I have work to do.” He kissed me—just a peck. Because not only did he have work to do, but we weren’t married and we didn’t dare get too close for too long, even in his office. Our limit, and it was wise to keep to that limit, was sitting on my couch at night, holding each other, watching a movie. It was frustrating, but he was an old-fashioned guy and, well, I loved him for that. It was part of what made him a good man. And anyway, I was an old-fashioned woman.
I gave him a peck back and then said, “James Gilroy, when are you going to make an honest woman of me?”
A deer in the headlights. The phrase didn’t begin to describe Gilroy’s expression at that moment. Oh Lord, had I so thoroughly misjudged things? We’d been dating more than seven months, but he wasn’t ready.
“Never mind me,” I said. You idiot. “I have to run. I’m meeting Holly and Julia at my house.” Trying to make a quick and somewhat graceful exit, I instead backed up into a trash can and knocked it over. “Sorry,” I said, bending to pick it up.
He lunged forward. “I’ve got it.”
I straightened, sidestepped around the trash can, and strode for his door, leaving him to pick it up. “I’m always dropping things or kicking them over,” I said, trying to shift the course of the conversation. “Good grief, if it’s not blueberry jelly dripping all over me, it’s trash cans.”
“Rachel, I think we need—”
Opening his office door had the desired effect: he had to stop talking. “Don’t think about anything but solving Caroline Burkhardt’s murder,” I told him. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything useful.”
I said hello to Officer Underhill and threw him what was undoubtedly a demented smile before darting out the door.
As I drove Julia home—planting a happy look on my face to disguise my feelings—I began to regret not letting Gilroy finish his sentence. What he had to say, I needed to hear, whether or not I liked it. But his expression—the headlights thing—had shaken me. What had he been about to say? I’ve decided I’m never going to marry again. His first wife had been murdered in a carjacking, so maybe. I think we should date for a full year before getting engaged, if we ever do take that next step. A possibility. But I was forty-three and he was forty-eight, and the unspoken rule that said you had to wait a year before getting engaged or married didn’t apply to us. We weren’t a pair of foolhardy, infatuated kids.
I dropped Julia off in front of her house, parked in my shed, walked in my back door, and made straight for my kitchen, where I immediately searched the refrigerator for a bite to eat. It was sheer nerves and coming-home-at-night habit, because I wasn’t hungry. A few minutes later I was on my couch, nibbling the edges of an egg salad sandwich, hoping Holly would be able to join Julia and me for our meeting. As a baker, she rose at four o’clock in the morning, and it was already seven o’clock, close to her bedtime.
Before I could finish my sandwich, Julia and Holly were at my front door. Holly looked livelier than I’d expected, but then she’d had the day off. She bounced through my living room and into my kitchen, her dark ponytail swinging. “I don’t have to get up until six o’clock tomorrow morning,” she announced. “Hallelujah.”
“Then you can stay awhile?” I said.
“I’m raring to go.” Peter, her husband and business partner, was giving her the early morning off, she said, and she’d been thinking about Caroline’s death since hearing about it that afternoon. “So let’s get going. We have a murder to solve. Can I have some of your lemonade?”
Holly’s enthusiasm reminded me that there was more on my mind than Gilroy, and more to do than worry about what he wanted to tell me. I poured glasses of lemonade, and the three of us headed upstairs to my office. Julia plopped down on my office chair and continued to fill Holly in on what we knew, after giving her the basics at her house. Meanwhile, I wrote our suspects’ names on three-by-five cards and lined them up on my corkboard.
“Valerie Siegler,” I said, tapping her card. “She ordered the fruit tarts from your bakery.”
Holly leaned against my desk, on the far left side so she didn’t block Julia’s view of the board. “With blueberries and strawberries, not belladonna berries,” she said. “I wouldn’t even know where to get belladonna. Not that I make a habit of poisoning my customers.”
“Valerie told me she brought the tarts straight home and put them in her refrigerator.”
“I told her to do that. They were a special order for her party, so I knew they weren’t going to be eaten until today. You can’t leave custard and cream cheese sitting out.”
“So either she or Lucas Siegler exchanged the belladonna berries for the blueberries or one of the Sieglers’ guests brought the berries and put them on Caroline’s tart.”
“Just carried the berries in their pockets?” Julia said.
“Or purse,” I replied. “If they knew Caroline was self-medicating with belladonna, they knew they only needed one or two berries to kill her. Trouble is, if Valerie or Lucas didn’t do it, how did the killer put the berries on Caroline’s tart without being seen?” I looked back to the board. “Doyle Charming, Stella Patmore, and Allegra Jones. I saw all three of them, but only minutes before Caroline died.”
“They were all at the party before we got there,” Julia said.
I turned back to the desk. “There’s a trickier problem. Let’s say one of them took a blueberry off and stuck a belladonna berry on one of the tarts. How did they make sure Caroline ate that particular tart? For all the killer knew, Caroline might have filled herself up with regular fruit tarts and not wanted to eat another.”
“Did she have a plate?” Holly asked.
I thought back to when I had seen Caroline at the Sieglers’ glass back door. “Not when I saw her. She had a tart in her hand, though. Along with a drink. Not everyone had a plate. I was using a napkin, and when I talked to Valerie, she wasn’t eating. Doyle had a blue plastic plate in his hand”—I briefly shut my eyes, reimagining the scene—“with full and partly eaten tarts on it. Lots of them. He wasn’t eating one at a time, he was taking bites out of some and leaving the rest uneaten. Weird. What do you remember, Julia?”
“Stella was using one of those blue plastic plates,” Julia said. “I remember thinking they matched the streaks in her hair. I think Allegra was using a napkin, but I’m sure she was eating tarts too. And there was a tray of tarts on the kitchen table when we first arrived.”
“Right. Valerie laid them out, and during the party, everyone helped themselves.” I left the corkboard, grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen from my desk, and sketched the Sieglers’ backyard garden, patio and door, and kitchen. “People were in and out of that sliding glass door,” I said. “I only noticed Caroline because Doyle drew Valerie’s attention to Lucas. She’d been looking for him but couldn’t find him.”
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