With a newfound and healthy concern about what hornet’s nest I might poke by asking Nick questions, I headed out to my Jeep, picked up Emily at her house, and drove out to the nursery. As I drove down the Bog Road, under a blanket of gray rain clouds, I told her I was skeptical of the nursery’s miracle recovery six years ago, right about the time Alana had been murdered, though I didn’t say what—or who—had spurred my skepticism.
“If Nick suddenly came into enough money to save his nursery,” Emily said, “then he’s involved in something dangerous. Imagine what the overhead is with a place like that. Thousands of dollars a month. The water, the electricity, the employees’ pay. So what illegal activity can earn you that kind of money?”
“A large nursery is a handy place to hide all kinds of things,” I replied, “from illegal plants to stolen jewelry to drugs. A place to hide things or to transfer things from one person to another.”
“What kind of illegal plants?”
“Maybe invasive species. Maine recently made selling a lot of popular trees and shrubs illegal.” But immediately I discounted that theory. Bringing in Norway maples and other plants now deemed invasive was too risky, too easily discovered, and as far as I could see, wouldn’t bring a substantial reward. No, I leaned toward drugs, stolen jewelry, or some other small, pricey, and illicit commodity.
I pulled into Foley’s parking lot, casting my eyes about for Nick. “He must be inside,” I said. “Let me talk to him alone, so he doesn’t feel like he’s being ganged up on. It’s possible he’s completely innocent of any wrongdoing.”
“All right, I’ll keep my distance. But I’m keeping an eye on you.”
“I’m counting on it.”
Just inside the front door, Emily and I separated. Wandering around the tables and winding my way through the hanging flower baskets, I searched for Nick but couldn’t find him. Distracted by the fairy gardens display, I headed there for another look at the alpine plants and tiny houses, most of them too small for a real fairy. If all fairies were like Minette, they needed ample room to fly. I wasn’t sure that even my house was sufficiently large.
I was reaching for a plastic pot of baby’s tears when I heard the crunch of pea gravel behind me.
“Fairy gardens, Kate?”
I felt the muscles in my neck tighten. I hesitated and then willed my body to turn, bringing the plastic pot of baby’s tears to my chest and clinging to it with both hands.
“Nick. Hi. Why not fairy gardens?” I attempted to smile and felt my mouth twitch. Goodness knows what I looked like.
“I didn’t think it was your style. Now, Ray Landry was interested in fairy gardens for some freaky reason, but I think he was reverting to his childhood. You haven’t hit that stage yet.”
“Maybe I never left that stage.”
Nick jammed his hands into his soil-covered jeans. “Maybe we’re all still there, huh? Just trying to get by, day by day. Trying to grab hold of something to keep us going, get us out of bed in the morning. It’s the way of the world.”
“You’re getting philosophical, Nick.”
“I blame old age,” he said. His lips were pinched in a strained smile. “Not Ray’s kind of old age, but old enough.”
“What’s Ray’s kind of old age?”
“Dotty. Seeing things. Imagining things.”
“What did he imagine?”
He flung his hands in the air, startling me. “That the world is a bright and shining place, full of misery but full of enough wonder to compensate for that. Full of gifts from an invisible and silent god. A place where trees clap their hands and rocks sing, as he used to tell me.”
Nick was talking like a man on the edge. What had brought about this change in him? The guilty flee when no man pursues.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“I must be psychic. I knew you were going to say that.”
I was about to burn any friendship bridge I had with Nick. I knew that, and at first I was reluctant to light the match, but Nick’s bizarre attitude and his disdain for Ray were making it easier.
“Sheila Abbottson told me you were going to sell your nursery six years ago but you changed your mind. Can I ask why?”
Nick looked as though I’d slapped him. “She told you that? That’s confidential by anyone’s definition.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. Sheila was explaining why she argued with Alana Williams the night she was killed.”
“Wow. Man. Wow.” Nick scratched his head, his growing indignation overtaking his verbal skills. “Unbelievable. You and Ray.”
“Ray? Did he ask you that too? Nick, if you’re in trouble, you need to talk to someone.”
“What kind of trouble do you think I’m in? You know so much—tell me.”
“I don’t know, but you seem unusually upset.”
He snorted. “Shut up, Kate. Don’t psychoanalyze me.”
I sucked in my breath. I’d never seen this hard, nasty side of Nick Foley. And I was only getting started. I took firmer hold of the baby’s tears. “Did you give Alana Williams a heart-shaped necklace?”
Expecting denial, I was surprised when Nick folded his arms over his chest in a defiant posture and said, “Yeah, I did. What about it? I gave her a necklace. And before that I gave her a crystal bird. I even gave her a few books. Big deal. You don’t think the cops know I was seeing her? Get real. The way lips flap in this town, half of Smithwell knew.”
“When we talked about her, you pretended that she was just a customer.”
He leaned toward me, his voice a whisper. “Because it’s not your business. It’s not this town’s business. We kept things private because tongues wag.”
“I know it’s not my business, Nick, but I’m trying to find out who killed Ray.”
“Alana died six stinking years ago. She’s got nothing to do with Ray Landry.”
“You saw Alana the morning of the day she died.”
“I told you that yesterday. She was here buying a fern.”
“Before classes instead of after. Right. Was she wearing the necklace at the time?”
“Yes. I gave it to her that morning and put it on her. Satisfied?”
“Did the police ask you about the necklace?”
“No, they’re weren’t as captivated by it as you seem to be. It’s a piece of jewelry.” He brushed his hands together, wiping off the dirt and, I was sure, figuratively wiping me out of his life. “If you’re done grilling me, I have work to do. Buy something or don’t. Whatever you want. But then leave.” He stomped off, walking as far from me as the dimensions of the building would allow.
I set down my pot of baby’s tears. So on the last morning of her life, Alana had left Foley’s Nursery wearing her new necklace. She was then lured into the woods—or followed someone in—she was murdered, and her necklace disappeared. If Nick had killed her and then taken the necklace to hide his relationship with her, why would he subsequently admit that relationship to the police? And why was he now admitting that he’d given Alana the necklace the morning she died? It didn’t make sense. Unless . . .
Oh, I didn’t like what I was thinking. It made me feel unsafe, without a place to turn.
Emily came striding up to me, her feet slapping the pea gravel, her eyes as big as saucers. “Veins were popping in Nick’s neck. I could see them bulging all the way back at the cash registers. What did you say to him?”
“I struck a nerve.”
“Did you learn anything?”
“Yes, but I don’t know what to do with it.”
“I learned something too. One of the employees thinks Nick Foley is up to no good.” Wearing a satisfied grin, Emily nodded in a vigorous yup-you-got-it kind of way. “I’ll tell you something else. She was working here six years ago, the day Alana bought the fern. Apparently, Alana wanted another plant from a fresh shipment and Nick wouldn’t let her have it. He said the new plants were in quarantine, but this employee doesn’t know if that was true.”
&
nbsp; “Out to my car. I don’t feel safe here.”
“Do you think Nick had—”
“Don’t say another word.” I grabbed Emily by the arm and towed her out the door and toward my car.
We strapped our seatbelts on and I started the engine, not intending to let the Jeep warm up.
“Slow down, it’s Marie St. Peter,” Emily said, jerking her chin at the windshield. “I recognize her from the police website.”
“Where?” By the time I saw Sergeant St. Peter, she was heading inside the nursery. “What do you think she’s doing here?”
“Maybe the police want to question Nick again. It could be they’re not as blind as we think they are.”
I backed out of my parking spot, my mind reeling. “It’s not their blindness I’m worried about, Emily.”
CHAPTER 18
Emily and I returned to my house for tea, lunch, and a good talk about what we had learned at Foley’s—and what we were going to do with that information. Again I made a ruckus when I entered, knocking the mud from my already-clean shoes as I stood outside the door, letting the door creak as I opened it—alerting Minette to our arrival, though she’d probably heard me coming up the driveway. I wanted so much to tell Emily that one of Ray’s mythical creatures was in my house at that very moment. But I didn’t need her thinking I’d gone around the bend. She already thought I was, well, different.
Emily hooked her purse and jacket on the back of a kitchen chair and sat. “First things first. Make me some tea and tell me who your suspects are now. I want to know if you’ve whittled down the list.”
As I filled the kettle with water, I thought about Emily’s question. Why was Irene Carrick still on my suspect list? Really, what had she done or said? I didn’t like her thinking that Ray had been suffering from dementia, but from her perspective, that was a reasonable conclusion.
“If we agree that the person who killed Ray also killed Alana—” I began.
“We do.”
“—then not Irene Carrick,” I said, setting the kettle on the stove.
“You said that before.”
“I’m confirming it. She was too old six years ago and she’s too old now. Besides, she loved Ray in her own way. I think she’s heartbroken he’s gone. She said he was healthy enough to live another ten years, and I agree. Plus, she had no motive to kill Alana. She even volunteered information to the police so her friend Norma wouldn’t have to speak to them.”
“Okay, agreed. Check.”
I took a Wedgwood teapot and two matching cups from the hutch. Irene, the old Mainer, would have deemed them extravagant. “And I’m ruling out Sheila Abbottson. You should have heard her when I asked if she’d had an affair with Nick. She genuinely thought I was off my rocker. Six years ago all she was thinking about was the money she’d get from selling the nursery, and the only reason she got angry with Alana was because she believed Alana talked Nick out of the sale.”
“Sheila might have killed Alana for that. With Alana out of the way, Nick maybe decides to sell.”
“Do you really think Alana was the reason Nick decided not to sell his nursery? It’s what Sheila thought, but I don’t see it. If Nick was near bankruptcy, he needed a better reason than Alana’s love of plants to hold on to a money pit.”
“‘Your loving don’t pay my bills,’ as the song goes.”
I sat down, waiting for the kettle to boil, wishing I could fill some of the giant information holes in our mystery tapestry. There was so much we either didn’t know or were only guessing at. “Is there a way to find out what kind of money Nick’s nursery was pulling in six years ago? Can you drop Laurence’s name?”
“If his nursery business sells stock—”
“Which it doesn’t.”
She held up a finger. “If Nick started bankruptcy proceedings—”
“Which he may have.”
“Laurence has a friend or two at the Town Office. Our information could be sitting in a file there, waiting to be discovered.”
“What exactly does your husband do for a living? I mean, when he’s not in Afghanistan or Hungary. Remind me.”
“You know, hotels, construction. He makes friends in far-flung places,” she said with a wry smile. “It’s what he did before hotels that I wonder about. I know the official line—he traveled to American embassies around the world—but what he actually did is beyond my pay grade and I don’t ask him too many questions about it. All I know is I can drop his name and doors open, even in little Smithwell. I’ll bet Detective Rancourt knows him.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Is there someone you can call now?”
“Give me five minutes.”
While Emily made the call from the living room, I put leftover pizza in the oven to reheat, poured hot water into my teapot, and took the pot to the table to let the leaves steep. What did someone who traveled to embassies around the world do? I wondered, fingering the teapot Michael had purchased for me in Portland. “Government work” had been Emily’s standard reply when anyone asked, but that could mean anything from filling out paperwork to contacting other countries’ ambassadors to being a spy. Whatever the case, Laurence’s name opened a myriad of doors.
Two minutes later Emily returned, looking like the cat that ate half a dozen canaries.
“According to Frank Pelletier—”
“A friend of Laurence’s?”
“Naturally. He says Nick Foley started bankruptcy proceedings but pulled out six years and one month ago.”
“One month before Alana was killed.”
“Precisely. Nick was in a terrible bind. He filed because he was days away from catastrophe, as Frank put it. When he found out Nick stopped proceedings, he assumed he’d been able to secure a private loan. He said the bank wouldn’t have loaned him a cent, though. They would’ve advised him to sell—and at a reduced price so he could make a quick sale and pay them back.”
“So Sheila was telling the truth about Nick’s situation. Hold that sieve over our cups,” I said as I poured the tea.
“Nick’s father started that nursery,” Emily went on. “Did you know that?”
“It’s a family inheritance. Giving it up would be devastating.”
“But there’s no way Nick got a private loan.” Emily blew across her tea and then sipped it.
“I agree. That would be throwing good money after bad, and that means the money that saved the nursery was not legit. Do you think the police looked into that?”
“If they did, it didn’t lead them anywhere. Barney Fifes.”
“I trust Ray’s instincts on this. He thought there were suspicious activities going on in that nursery.”
Emily raised an eyebrow. “Did he? When did he say that?”
I wanted to smack my own forehead. What could I say? Ray told a fairy and a fairy told me? “He didn’t say it. I saw it. He wrote it down.” How I hated lying to her. “It was in that pamphlet somewhere.”
“But nothing specific?”
“No.”
“Wow. Ray was on top of things.”
“Much more than most people think.”
“But Kate, that’s what got him killed.”
The stove timer sounded and I rose to take the pizza out of the oven. “Whatever Nick is up to at his nursery, he’s not doing it alone. He’s in cahoots with at least one other person.”
“Cahoots, agreed. Check.”
“We still don’t know if he killed Alana,” I said, bringing the pizza to the table. “Why would he kill her and then steal back the necklace? He must have known that would look bad for him. He gave it to her at the nursery, put it on her, and she walked out of the nursery wearing it. How many employees saw it on her? How many people at Smithwell Middle School saw it on her that morning?”
“Why would Nick kill her at all?” Emily asked, grabbing a slice. “Why would anyone? She was a harmless schoolteacher.”
“She was a threat to someone, and my money is on Nick. That whole plant-quarantine
thing? He was hiding something. Literally.”
“You mean hiding something in the new plant shipment. So you’re also crossing Conner Welch off your list?”
“He didn’t have a motive.” And judging by what Minette had told me about his exchange with Sheila in Ray’s house, he was as bewildered by Alana’s murder as I was. He hadn’t talked like a guilty man, he’d talked like a confused and somewhat frightened one. “What do you think about Rancourt and St. Peter? Are they still on our list?”
As Emily chewed, she pondered my question, and as she pondered, I could see that she had never fully considered that someone on the police force might have killed Alana, or that the police might have been involved in a cover-up after her death. It shook her as it shook me. “If the police are a part of this, we’re in serious trouble.”
“With nowhere to turn,” I said. Suddenly starving, I dug into my pizza.
“We’re back to why,” Emily said. “Why kill a schoolteacher? Let’s say she found out what Nick was up to.”
“Mmm,” I mumbled with a nod of agreement.
“And she threatened to go to the police. Would he kill her for that? Is he that kind of man?”
“Is he the kind of man to get involved in something illegal in order to save his nursery?” I asked rhetorically. “If our theory is right, Nick did get involved in something illegal, and maybe something very serious. He thought he could get away with it for however long it took to clear his debts, but Alana found out. A young schoolteacher at her first job, starting fresh in life—she would have been appalled by the whole seedy matter. Even if she didn’t threaten to go to the police, she would’ve made it clear that she didn’t approve. Nick couldn’t take a chance that she’d turn on him. It’s not hard to imagine him killing her to avoid prison time.”
“So why give her a necklace on the day he killed her?”
“Could be it was a last-ditch attempt to win her over. He was saying, ‘Look what I can buy for you now. And there’s more where that came from.’” I shrugged. “Just a guess.”
“We need answers.” Emily slapped her knees and stood. “And I need to go home to wait for the electrician. He’s coming to take a look at my dodgy dining-room can lights. Thankfully, they’re the least useful lights in the house. In the meantime, I’m going to make more calls to Frank Pelletier. I think he enjoys the intrigue.”
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