Gun in the Gardenias (Lovely Lethal Gardens Book 7)

by Dale Mayer

  On the way to Nan, Doreen reveled in the beautiful afternoon, and the walk was beyond enjoyable. She loved watching the creek as it slowly rose. The rocks were almost covered. She also pinpointed a few landmarks so she could gauge how much the water rose and how quickly it rose. She’d heard it could come on very fast, but she had yet to see it.

  Meanwhile, Goliath was more interested in the ducks quacking alongside the creek. She could see his point. As she headed toward the turnoff, another series of ducks, much different in color, black with a little white on them, landed. Then they seemed to dive all the way into the water and come up somewhere else. She was fascinated and wanted to just sit and watch them and their antics but knew she was expected in a timely manner at Nan’s. Finally, Doreen pulled the animals away and trekked onward. But, as she walked forward, she heard Goliath making a weird sound in the back of his throat, his tail twitching. He crouched against a rock.

  When Doreen saw a duck with her babies floating up the creek, she gasped in horror, “Goliath, no!”

  Goliath ignored her, his tail twitching and that weird noise continuing to come from deep in his throat. She didn’t know what hunting cats looked like, but this was exactly what she imagined it would be. Not giving him any chance to argue, she picked him up and threw him over her free shoulder, Thaddeus riding on her other side. Then she scolded Goliath the whole way to Nan’s. He didn’t seem to argue. He just stared back, making more sounds from the back of his throat.

  “We don’t hunt baby ducks,” she said for the last time. When she finally got around the corner, she thought maybe it was safe to place Goliath on the ground. He gave her a look, as if to say, You don’t hunt, but I do. Then he sauntered forward, his tail straight up in the air, the tip flicking from side to side.

  She figured there had to be a whole language of cat mannerisms. And, if there wasn’t, she should start writing one. She laughed at that. She hadn’t even had a cat for very long. The problem was, she was still trying to understand his language, and that was not exactly making life easy for her. She understood dogs much better.

  She was still scolding Goliath as they approached Rosemoor to see Nan standing at the end of her patio, watching them with a big grin on her face. She bent over and called Mugs, who raced toward her, completely ignoring the stepping stones he was supposed to use. Goliath followed him in long leaps and bounces. That left Doreen and Thaddeus to bring up the rear. And, being properly respectful, she walked on the flagstones. As she got to the last one, she noted the gardener, standing there with a glare directed at her. She gave him a happy smile and a little wave. Then she hopped over to Nan’s patio. Nan was cooing something unintelligible to both of the animals, who were lapping it up like they were suffering from a lack of attention for weeks.

  “You know they’re well-loved, right?” Doreen said in exasperation.

  Nan chuckled. “I love to see them like this. You do bring such joy to my life.”

  Nan always said the sweetest things. Doreen reflected on how sad the missing years were when they hadn’t connected like they should have. “I’m so glad I came here,” she said impulsively.

  Nan beamed. “Me too. Tea is already steeped. You took a little longer today, didn’t you?”

  “The ducks,” Doreen exclaimed. “Goliath thought he should have one of the babies!”

  Nan nodded sagely. “An animal is still an animal,” she said, cocking her head and looking down at Goliath. He was stretched out in a patch of sunlight heating up a stone he’d claimed as his.

  “I guess,” Doreen said. “I just don’t want him to be that kind of animal. He has lots to eat, no matter what he says.”

  Nan sliced something that looked delicious.

  Doreen leaned forward and studied it. “Zucchini bread?”

  “Walnut bread,” Nan corrected.

  “Ooh,” Doreen said. “That looks lovely.”

  “It’s from Mitzi.”

  Doreen froze with a fork on its way to her mouth. “Are you two friendly again?” she asked cautiously.

  “Well, we might as well be,” Nan said carelessly. “We’ve both been jilted.”

  It was all Doreen could do to smother her smile. “I’m sorry, Nan. Broken hearts are no small thing.”

  “No, they aren’t,” Nan said. “Of course, mine was never broken. And Mitzi’s trying to be a little bit better.”

  Doreen chuckled. “Well, thank her for me. This is lovely.”

  “She sent it over for when you came by next. I’m not sure what you do, but everybody seems to love you.”

  “I don’t know anybody who loves me,” Doreen exclaimed. “People send me the oddest looks when I’m out and about.”

  “Of course they do. Those with secrets to hide,” she said, wagging her finger at her, “know you’re on the hunt for the next mystery.”

  Doreen rolled her eyes as she popped the walnut cake into her mouth. It was delicious with just a hint of cinnamon and a lovely accent of honey. She scarfed her piece, and Nan cut her a thicker one, then put it on her plate.

  “Did you eat today?” Nan scolded.

  “I had breakfast. A big one. But I didn’t get lunch. I got involved in all that paperwork at home.”

  “Oh, good,” Nan said. “I gather you brought some for me to look at too?”

  “Yes,” Doreen said. On that opening, she picked up the envelope she’d brought and pulled out the two clips full of papers. “A bunch of stuff is here. I didn’t know if it’s still viable or if I could just toss it.” She handed the first bunch to Nan, who unclipped them and went through the documents, muttering away. By the time she was done separating this into two piles, she had identified less than twenty pages for Doreen to keep. All the rest went into Nan’s recycling.

  “Perfect,” Doreen said. “And what’s this about life insurance?”

  “I’ve been paying it,” she said. “It’s one of those automatic withdrawal things. It’s for you, you know.”

  Doreen stared at her. “You know you’ve given me so much, Nan.”

  “Well, you found out about the life insurance a while ago. We’ve just never really discussed the details.”

  “I know it came up,” Doreen said. “But, when I found this, I wasn’t sure if it was the same company or not.”

  Nan took the paper from Doreen’s hand and shrugged. “You know what? I’ll have to look into that. When you get home, send me a copy of it.”

  “Okay,” Doreen said. “I’m not sure I have all the paperwork on any other insurance policies you may have to compare.”

  “Oh, that reminds me,” Nan said. She hopped up and disappeared inside.

  Taking the opportunity, Doreen ate her way through the second thick piece of cake. She wasn’t sure if this classified as a bread or a cake. It was sweet enough to be a cake, but she hoped it had the health benefits of a bread. Not that she was worried about her weight any longer. That had been a constant in her life with her husband, but now that she’d lost so much weight, she was trying to put some meat back on her bones.

  By the time she had eaten her second piece, Nan returned with another folder in her hand. “Would you mind making copies of all this too?”

  Doreen took the folder, pulled out its contents, and saw they were Nan’s personal documents. “Certainly. Do you want them digitized as well?”

  Nan nodded. “That’d be perfect. You need a copy too.”

  Doreen placed it with her docs and said, “Now why don’t you tell me what news you found out?”

  “Hatty Hartley,” she announced. “And Claude Hartley. They should be in the files. Or maybe in the police files. Mack should check.”

  Doreen sat back and looked at her. “What about them?”

  “The sister of Georgia Monroe, Hatty, was killed—no, it was her husband, Claude, who was killed in one of those three arson fires.”

  “And do you—did you know them?”

  Nan shook her head. “No, but Dick does.”

  Trying to ke
ep all the names straight in her head, she asked, “Who’s Dick?”

  “He’s one of the younger members here,” Nan said. “Hatty was related to his niece, so he got the insider information on the fire.”

  “What did he have to say?”

  “That it was murder. This Claude guy was dead, and the wife, Hatty, was given the money to keep quiet.”

  “That’s what we figured,” Doreen said. “But I didn’t hear anything about him having been murdered.”

  “No, you have to go into the police files for that.”

  “Right,” Doreen said. She snagged the pencil Nan had laid down, took out the notepad she had brought, and jotted down the names. “Okay, so we have one murdered husband. House gets burned, and the wife gets a check. Just like the other four cases, including the Helmsman case you told me about earlier.”

  “Yes, and Dick didn’t say much else. It’s just that the check went a long way to helping Hatty feel better.”

  “So do we know if Claude was a member of any gang?”

  “Dick didn’t say so, and I didn’t think to ask.”

  “But did she help her husband to the grave is the question?”

  Nan looked at her, and her jaw dropped. “Wow. I didn’t think of that.”

  “But it’s not like we can’t consider it. She got a payout, and her husband and house disappeared.”

  “Yes, no family either.”

  “Any chance of asking her?”

  “No, according to Dick, she took the money and ran. He figured it was part of the agreement,” Nan said.

  The thing was, the deaths and the lack of witnesses were getting Doreen down. She clarified with Nan about the relationships. “If you can find out any more,” she said, “I’m hoping to find somebody who was close to Hatty and who is still alive to ask about that payout.”

  “That’ll be Dick. His niece is dead too.”

  Doreen sat back. “Wow. If I wasn’t looking into this, and then Dick passed away, who would be left to even bring this up?”

  “Nobody,” Nan said simply. “That’s why you can’t do anything but dedicate your life to solving these issues.”

  “It’s hardly a moneymaking venture though,” Doreen said in exasperation.

  “No, it isn’t,” Nan said brightly. “But once you get those antiques sold …”

  Doreen stared at her in surprise. “I forgot about that.” Nan laughed, while Doreen just sat there. “It doesn’t seem real,” Doreen said. “At least not until I get a check I can take to the bank.”

  “But it will,” Nan said.

  “Speaking of which,” Doreen said, “John, the Christie’s specialist, left four books behind.”

  Nan’s smile turned to a frown. “He what?”

  A little worried at Nan’s complete switch when having her judgment questioned, Doreen pulled out the notepad. “These four.”

  Nan read Doreen’s list and then laughed. “Okay, he’s right. Those can go to charity.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” Doreen said. “What a relief.”

  “I bought them from an old lady who thought they were important, and she was broke.”

  “So they were a goodwill purchase,” Doreen said. She shook her head. “That was very sweet of you, Nan.”

  “I must have been in a generous mood that day,” Nan announced.

  Doreen, returning to the subject of Steve, said, “Steve isn’t all that old, maybe fifty-something, so I don’t know how involved he was in some of that gang-related stuff back then.”

  “Of course, he was younger then,” Nan said. “Steve can’t be more than sixty, and I think this must have happened a good thirty years ago. No, maybe not quite that long ago. Do you have any dates?”

  “I have three, and they were all about twenty-two years ago,” Doreen said, looking at her notes.

  “That would put him in his late thirties, just when he’d be at his most arrogant,” Nan said with a sigh. “But that doesn’t mean he’s guilty of criminal behavior.”

  “No, we need proof,” Doreen said. “And, if the men were killed before the fire, the corpses would have shown trauma.”

  “Dick did say Claude was dead before the fire.”

  “Which means Hatty knew that.” Exasperated, Doreen said, “It would be helpful to have more information from the family.”

  “I’ll ask a couple other people about the other women,” Nan said.

  “Good enough.”

  Now armed with more information and paperwork and things to do, Doreen stood to get home. But, before she could move, Nan told her to wait as she ran inside. Then she came back out with a little ziplock baggie and cut two more slices of the nut bread.

  “You can’t give all of it to me,” Doreen protested. “I’ll get fat.”

  Nan shook her head and said, “You loved it. I saw you enjoy it.”

  Considering that, Doreen gave Nan a big hug and a kiss.

  “Besides, with all the gardening work you’re doing, you’re not in any danger of gaining weight. Which is too bad. You’re too skinny as it is.”

  “There’s no end of gardening at home to do.” Doreen frowned. “I’m so focused on spring-cleaning and organizing the house right now. Just as soon as I think I’ve got everything done, I realize there’s another corner I have yet to turn over.”

  “Have you done anything in the garden?”

  Doreen sat down with a heavy thud. “Not much. And I feel so guilty. I’ve been working so hard on all these cases and then doing Penny’s gardening and Millicent’s that I have neglected our garden. Mack made me take yesterday off and do nothing. Now I feel even guiltier. I should have been working on our garden.”

  “Your garden,” Nan said firmly. “I don’t want anything more to do with that. You’ll have a hard time with parts of that overgrown mess.”

  “I thought, when I get back home, I’d take an hour or two and just work my way through it every day. Get a couple hours in daily. It might take me a few months, but at least that’s progress. And then I could move things around as need be.”

  “I like that idea,” Nan said. “You probably want a bigger deck too.”

  Doreen grinned. “I was just thinking of that this morning. I’ll have to see how difficult it is to build a gate on the current one to keep Mugs in because I’m not spending the money on a contractor.”

  “Solomon’s nephew who brought you all those boxes,” Nan said, “his brother does a lot of that stuff.”

  “But he won’t do it cheap enough for me,” Doreen said.

  “No, but a lot of it you can do yourself. Get his help to set up the structure and to get the foundation down, which he can probably do with big patio block things. But make sure you get it all lined up and leveled. If he helps you with that, you can do all the floorboards yourself.”

  “Oh, what a good idea,” Doreen exclaimed. “I planned to pester Mack with questions on expanding the deck too.”

  “And you know that a lot of cops probably wouldn’t mind helping you out for a day. Put out the word. Who knows? Maybe a few people wouldn’t mind helping with the heavy lifting. Even some of your neighbors.”

  With that lovely thought in mind, Doreen collected her gang and headed home.

  Chapter 24

  Tuesday Late Afternoon …

  Back at home, Doreen filed away the papers Nan had asked her to keep, all in a separate folder with notes from today and such as Nan requested. Then Doreen ran these pages through the scanner and also copied the stack Nan had asked her to do. Finally, she renamed the digital file and emailed one to herself and one to Nan. With that done, she placed the copies she had to return to Nan on the table and filed hers away.

  She was getting good at this. But she also needed a system for all this note-taking. She opened up a Word document on her laptop and typed some notes on Steve’s case. Once that was done, she researched the Hartley family tree. The summary from the journalist on Steve’s information had been a huge help to her, so Doreen wanted to cont
inue with a summary of her own, writing down the information Nan had gleaned from Dick re this new name, the Hartleys. But that was a little more confusing. Still, Doreen did the best she could from her chicken-scratch notes. Didn’t Nan say the husband had been murdered first, then burned in the house fire?

  For that, she needed Mack. She dialed his number, and, when he answered, his voice was distracted.

  “Hey,” she said. “Have you got a moment to talk, or are you busy?”

  He gave her an exasperated sigh. “I work full-time, you know.”

  She winced. “So, does that mean yes or no?”

  “I’ve got a moment,” he said. “Sorry. I just came out of a meeting. That always makes me frustrated.”

  “I can imagine,” Doreen said, commiserating. “Meetings are more about people sitting around in a circle, avoiding the work they really have to do at their desk.”

  At that, Mack let out a bark of laughter. “For somebody who never worked a corporate or government job in her life, you seem to have a good idea of how meetings go.”

  “You can blame my ex for that,” she said bluntly. “He used to always complain about the fact that meetings were useless, and nobody ever did anything they were supposed to do.”

  Mack was still chuckling when he asked, “So, what’s the problem?”

  “The arson cases. There’s a fifth one, but I don’t have a file on that one yet. I just heard in a roundabout way from Hatty Hartley that her husband, Claude, was dead before the fire. Did your records show that?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to pull those cases yet,” he said. “I thought you were leaving those alone.”

  “Dick, at the retirement home, had a niece who was related to Hatty in some way,” Doreen said, confused how that worked herself. “But Dick said Hatty got a payout to keep quiet. Remember how we were trying to figure out why the women would have been given a check? It wasn’t out of the goodness of Steve’s heart. It was to keep quiet. Because the husband had been murdered first, and then the fire was used to cover up the murder.”