The Garden Club Murder

by Amy Patricia Meade

  ‘Whatevs. That’s some serious information to acquire in just a few hours.’

  ‘If you add in the wandering dog and Shackleford’s history of abusing women, I’d say you’ve come up with a motive for practically everyone in this development,’ Schuyler rejoined.

  ‘But if I go to Reade with all that information, he’s going to think I’m on the case,’ Tish disputed.

  ‘You are on the case,’ Schuyler and Jules shouted in unison.

  ‘I’m not. All I want to do this weekend is serve a successful luncheon, get my check from Mr Ainsley, run my café, and console the friend who’s taken up residence in my spare bedroom. But if you both insist I speak with Sheriff Reade, I will.’

  ‘Good,’ Schuyler approved.

  ‘Those sausage rolls take thirty minutes to bake,’ Tish directed. ‘I should be back before they’re done, but if I’m not, could you take them out and put in the next tray?’

  ‘Sure. Anything else?’

  ‘We have lots of lettuce to wash. How are you with a salad spinner?’

  ‘The last time I used a salad spinner was in 1984 in my mother’s kitchen. I put my Star Wars and G.I. Joe action figures in it, gave it a spin, and transported them to an alternate universe.’

  ‘Ah, well, if you could try to keep our salad greens here at Coleton Creek and in the present day, I’d appreciate it.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, but if a time portal happens to open up before I can hit the brake, I can’t be held accountable,’ he grinned.

  ‘Duly noted,’ Tish replied with a smile.

  ‘Y’all need to get a room and geek out in private,’ Jules complained. ‘Seriously. Take some quiet time alone to watch your Doctor Who and Quantum Leap and The Big Boom Theory.’

  ‘Bang,’ Schuyler corrected.

  ‘See?’

  ‘We’ll be sure to sign up for a joint Netflix account first thing in the morning,’ Tish deadpanned before exiting the kitchen and hastening down the corridor toward the main entrance of the lifestyle center. She passed the reception area just as Susannah Hilton was settling in for the day’s work.

  ‘Good morning, Susannah.’

  ‘Morning, Tish. Just the woman I wanted to see.’ Susannah’s voice was breathless.

  ‘Oh?’ Tish stopped in her tracks and leaned her elbows on the tall countertop that served as Susannah’s desk.

  ‘Yes, is everything OK for you this morning? Kitchen functioning all right? Do you have everything you need?’

  ‘Yes, everything’s buzzing right along. Thank you.’

  ‘And you don’t need another set of hands for anything?’

  ‘No, I actually have a set of hands I hadn’t initially counted on, so we’re in good shape.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because I have a light workload today and I’m sure you must be super busy, what with both the luncheon and the whole Shackleford thing.’ At the word ‘thing,’ Susannah’s voice lowered and she visibly cringed.

  ‘Oh, I’m not working on the Shackleford case. All my time is devoted to the luncheon.’

  ‘You’re not on the case?’

  ‘No, the police are perfectly capable of handling things on their own,’ Tish explained.

  ‘Oh.’ Susannah stepped out from behind her desk, her face registering disappointment. ‘Well, may I come back and see what progress you’ve made with the food? In case the garden club members come by to ask, I want to be able to answer them. Some of them can be awfully nosy.’

  ‘Of course, but can it wait a few minutes? I’m just off to meet with Sheriff Reade to discuss a few things. After that I’ll be back to cooking.’

  Susannah’s eyes narrowed. ‘So you are on the case?’

  ‘No, I just have some information to give to the sheriff. That’s all.’ Tish frowned as she realized just how ridiculous her statement sounded.

  Susannah grasped Tish’s upper arm and whispered, in a furtive manner, ‘May I speak with you first?’

  Tish, albeit confused, agreed. ‘Sure. What’s going on?’

  ‘I …’ Susannah nervously smoothed the skirt of her sage-green sundress and cast an eye heavenward as if searching for the right words. ‘I should probably talk to the sheriff directly, but I haven’t told my story to anyone before and I’d feel more comfortable confiding in you first. As a woman.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘The resident who was giving me such a difficult time yesterday, the one who had me completely flustered when you and Julian arrived? It was Sloane Shackleford.’

  Tish feigned surprise. ‘Oh, how terrible. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Not as sorry as I am.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘What always happened when Mr Shackleford came to the lifestyle center.’ Susannah covered her eyes with her hands. ‘I can’t believe I let the whole thing go on for so long. But, then again, what was I to do?’

  Tish patted the woman on the shoulder while urging her to continue. ‘Shh. There’s no sense in looking back. Just tell me what happened.’

  ‘It was my first day working here when Mr Shackleford came in to introduce himself. He brought me a bouquet of flowers – daisies – to welcome me to Coleton Creek and told me if I needed to know anything about the residents or the facilities, I should ask him because he knew everything there was to know about the place. I thought he was sweet, if perhaps a bit too presumptuous for my liking. However, I wrote that off as a generational issue, and still viewed his behavior as being motivated by kindness.’

  ‘And that changed?’ Tish presumed.

  Susannah nodded. ‘Deteriorated is more like it. Deteriorated rapidly.’

  A Coleton Creek resident wearing a swimsuit and flip-flops entered through the glass doors. Susannah pasted on a sunny smile of welcome. ‘Good morning.’

  The female resident gave a wave and continued on her way to the indoor pool. Only when she was safely ensconced behind the insulated door did Susannah continue to recount her tale. ‘Less than a week later, Mr Shackleford stopped by and asked if he could take me out for lunch. I declined, explaining that, as a Coleton Creek employee, I was not supposed to venture off the premises with residents.

  ‘Mr Shackleford backed off for a few days,’ Susannah went on, ‘only to come back with an Indian lunch for two he had had delivered to the lifestyle center. Seeing as the food was already here and I wouldn’t be, technically, breaking policy, I ate the meal with him, but afterward stipulated that the situation could not occur again as the nature of our relationship might be misconstrued by other residents. That’s when he put his hands on my waist and pulled me close to him. He was crazed. He told me that he found me beautiful, sexy, and how he just had to have me. Then he tried to kiss me. I pushed him away and told him, in no uncertain terms, that I did not wish to be alone with him again. To say I was completely repulsed by the incident would be putting it lightly,’ Susannah explained as she blinked back tears.

  ‘He assaulted you. You could have called the police on him.’

  ‘No. I wasn’t sure the Knoblochs would believe me. Plus, I felt too ashamed for having been in that situation in the first place. I’d only been working at Coleton Creek a short time and here I was, allowing a resident to serve me lunch. Stupid.’

  ‘You were trying to be kind,’ Tish excused. ‘You’d only just met Shackleford. You gave him the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘I’m sorry I did. From that day forward, Sloane Shackleford endeavored to make my life here at Coleton Creek a living hell. No matter how petty or trivial, the slightest variance here at the lifestyle center or elsewhere on the grounds became the cause for an onslaught of abusive complaints. A leaf floating in the outdoor pool hours after the pool technicians cleaned it, the Jacuzzi tub motor still running because the last person who used it forgot to switch it off, the television remote in the gym gone missing – most likely because someone had put it in their gym bag by mistake. All of these minor incidents resulted in Sloane Shackleford berating me and threatening to have my job
taken away.’

  ‘Did you tell the Knoblochs about Shackleford’s harassment?’

  ‘No. I wasn’t sure how’d they’d react and I didn’t want to be fired. Aside from Mr Shackleford’s abuse, I love my job. I enjoy helping the residents here to lead a more fulfilling life. And, most of the time, I could even get through Mr Shackleford’s behavior without too much of a meltdown.’

  ‘And yesterday morning?’ Tish prompted.

  Susannah cast a watchful eye over her surroundings before answering. ‘Yesterday morning I called Mr Shackleford to notify him that his appointment with Mr and Mrs Knobloch that afternoon was cancelled. Well, he was livid. Absolutely livid. Typically, he’d wait until I was alone before verbally attacking me. Yesterday, after my call, he marched straight down here and instantly began shouting at me in front of some of the members of the craft club. He called me such vulgar names and was so completely incensed that I nearly called the police. I only hesitated to do so because the garden competition was this weekend and I was afraid it might cast a shadow over the event. Fortunately, two of our male residents were playing bocce on the lawn and overheard Mr Shackleford’s outburst. They came in and talked him into going back home.’

  ‘So you’re saying Shackleford was irate because the Knoblochs cancelled their meeting?’

  Susannah’s hazel eyes grew large. ‘Irate? Oh, he went through the roof. There was absolutely no reasoning with him.’

  ‘Do you know what the meeting was about?’

  ‘No idea. Mr and Mrs Knobloch don’t typically involve me in their business matters. They have an assistant who handles their appointments and paperwork. I was only asked to make the call to Mr Shackleford because the situation involved a Coleton Creek resident. I can, however, tell you that their last meeting didn’t end well.’

  ‘So if the meeting had occurred, would it have been the second one to transpire between Shackleford and the Knoblochs? Or have there been more?’

  ‘No, it would have been the second meeting. The first took place in the conference room two doors down from the kitchen. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but it wasn’t long after the meeting started that I heard raised voices. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes later, Mr Shackleford came storming out of the meeting room. Mr and Mrs Knobloch emerged a few minutes afterward and drove back to their office in Richmond.’

  ‘And there was nothing unusual about the meeting? I mean, apart from the way in which it ended?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’ Susannah was absolute in her appraisal of the event, until moments later when she added, ‘Well, aside from the plastic bag of building rubble Mr Shackleford brought with him.’

  ‘Building rubble?’ Tish repeated.

  ‘Bits of concrete, steel mesh, nails, screws, even some scraps of vinyl siding, all in a clear trash bag – the kind you’d use for collecting leaves or garden clippings.’

  ‘That’s strange. He obviously brought it along to show to the Knoblochs, but why?’

  ‘A complaint of some sort, no doubt,’ Susannah huffed. ‘And one for which I would invariably be blamed. Except …’

  ‘Except what?’

  ‘Except Mr Shackleford didn’t say a word to me as he walked past my desk on his way out of the meeting room. It wasn’t like him to pass on an opportunity to berate or intimidate me, yet he stormed out of the lifestyle center without even a glance in my direction.’

  ‘Do you think Shackleford met with the Knoblochs in order to get you fired?’

  ‘Nothing’s impossible, I suppose, but I highly doubt it. Otherwise, he would have told me, just so he could watch my reaction. Also, I don’t think Mr Shackleford’s aim in harassing me was to have me fired. Asking the Knoblochs to do so would have put the power he possessed into someone else’s hands. No, Mr Shackleford derived pleasure from pushing me closer and closer to the edge, until the day I went to the Knoblochs and quit.’

  ‘Did you ever consider quitting?’

  ‘Only every single morning I’ve come to work,’ Susannah recalled, her upper lip quivering. ‘If I’d been away for a few days or for a long weekend, sometimes I’d lie awake the night before, filled with dread, praying I wouldn’t see him in the morning.’

  ‘All that fear and angst, yet you’re still here,’ Tish noted.

  ‘Because I love my work. I received my degree in geriatric care management and, since then, I’ve either worked or volunteered in nearly every nursing home and assisted-living facility in the Richmond area. Although some of those facilities paid me a far better wage than I’m earning now, I found their treatment of the patients to be less than ideal. But whenever I spoke out against the quality of care we were providing, my complaints got lost in a bureaucratic vacuum. It was, to put it mildly, depressing. That’s when I saw the ad in the paper looking for an administrator for Coleton Creek’ – Susannah’s lip stopped quivering and her face brightened – ‘it was like an answer to an unspoken prayer. Here, I’ve been able to put my management skills to use while assisting our residents on a personal level. It’s been satisfying to watch them try new hobbies and function as a community instead of isolated homeowners. My only wish is that the Knoblochs would allocate more of the development’s operating budget toward hiring teachers, trainers, and motivational speakers. It would be nice to broaden our residents’ horizons even farther than they’re currently being stretched.’

  Tish smiled. Susannah’s vision of Coleton Creek was a bold one. ‘As one who’s recently followed her heart to uncover her true vocation, I’m happy you’ve found your dream job. Still, it must have been difficult having the specter of Shackleford’s harassment looming over your head.’

  ‘It was exceedingly difficult and, as I said, there were times when I was tempted to call in sick and never return, but when I thought about the residents and how they’re like family to me, I knew I had to stay on. No matter what Shackleford said or did to me, he was never going to force me to quit. My place is at Coleton Creek, with the people who need me.’ Susannah’s eyes grew cold and steely. ‘No, if anyone was going anywhere, it was goddamn Sloane Shackleford.’

  TEN

  ‘Thanks for the information, Ms Tarragon,’ Sheriff Reade acknowledged once Tish had summarized her discussions with Orson Baggett, Jim Ainsley, and Susannah Hilton. He was dressed in his law-enforcement-meets-motorcycle-gang uniform of dark T-shirt, blue jeans, boots, spiky hair and several days’ worth of stubble. ‘Have you been distributing baked goods again?’

  At Reade’s allusion to her mode of investigation of Binnie Broderick’s murder, Tish pulled a face. She hadn’t walked to Sloane Shackleford’s garden in ninety-plus-degree heat to be mocked. ‘No, I’ve been at the lifestyle-center kitchen cooking and prepping for tomorrow’s luncheon. I’m far too busy to be roaming the neighborhood in search of clues and motives.’

  ‘And yet, less than twenty-four hours after Shackleford’s murder, you’ve already found both,’ Reade smirked.

  ‘I can’t help it if people swing by the kitchen to chat.’

  ‘Nor, it would seem, can you help but ask them about the murder.’ Reade’s smirk broadened.

  ‘Well, it does come up in conversation. I mean it’s a shocking thing to have happen in a community like this. Everyone is so tightly knit.’

  ‘Perhaps a little too tightly.’

  ‘Why? Did you discover something?’

  ‘No, I was simply going by your report. Shackleford stole one man’s girlfriend, drove another man insane with envy over both his garden and his sexual prowess, while simultaneously harassing, preying upon, hitting on, and manipulating practically every woman within a mile radius. Sounds like a soap opera.’ Reade flashed a toothy grin. ‘Nice try to get me to disclose my findings, though.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to get you to disclose anything.’

  ‘Yes, you were. Perhaps not directly, but you were.’

  Tish heaved an exasperated sigh. ‘I’m far too busy with my catering business and café to even think about Sloane
Shackleford’s murder, let alone investigate it. That’s why I came here to share what I discovered. So that you and your team could follow up as necessary.’

  ‘Thank you for your generosity, Ms Tarragon.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it generosity. I’m simply trying to do the right thing.’

  ‘Still, thanks. And if you hear anything else, please be sure to keep me in the loop,’ Reade instructed, an amused expression on his face.

  ‘Oh, I doubt I’ll hear anything else. I have a flock of chickens to poach and shred for a salad, and a billion other little things to finish before tomorrow morning. I’ll be in the kitchen the rest of the day.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I mean it. I’ll be flat out this afternoon and all day tomorrow.’

  ‘So you’ve told me.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know why I even bother to argue,’ Tish huffed. ‘Have a good day, Sheriff, and if you need me, I’ll be in the lifestyle center. All. Weekend. Long.’

  ‘I’ll keep that in mind. In the meantime …’ Reade pointed over Tish’s shoulder at Wren Harper, who was leaning over the fence that divided her property from Sloane Shackleford’s and gesturing wildly at Tish.

  ‘Ms Tarragon,’ Ms Harper yelled.

  Tish turned around and waved at Wren to indicate she had seen her. ‘I’d better go. See you around Hobson Glen.’

  This time Reade waited until she was outside hearing distance. ‘Sure.’

  Tish approached Wren with a gentle smile. Despite being outfitted in a smart, light-blue floral-printed, cap-sleeve dress with empire waist and full skirt and matching pumps, Wren Harper looked more tired than she had the previous day. ‘Hello, Ms Harper. You wanted to speak with me?’

  ‘Afternoon, Ms Tarragon. Yes, I wanted to apologize to you and your colleague for my emotional outbursts yesterday. I’m not sure what got into me. Must have been the pressure of the competition.’

  Tish was gracious. ‘There’s no need for you to apologize. I’m sure you’ve been under a great deal of stress lately. I can’t even imagine what it takes to plan and raise a garden as breathtaking as yours. Have the judges been by yet?’