Arsenic in the Azaleas

by Dale Mayer

  And speaking of doable and work, she needed to phone Mack.

  She pulled out his card, dialed his home number and waited until he answered. “I drove past your mom’s house today. Are you interested in having the front yard and backyard done? Or just one of them?”

  “How bad are they?”

  “The front isn’t too bad. It’ll take a day at the most, I’d think. And it’ll take a couple hours a week to maintain it,” she said. “The backyard, however, that’s a much bigger job. Doesn’t look like it’s been mowed in quite a while. The front needs to be mowed too. But the back is much worse. The gardens are overgrown and need pruning, etc.”

  “I honestly haven’t been in the backyard in quite a while,” he said. “I’ll do the mowing. It’s my mower anyway. I usually bring it over. I’ll take a look this weekend.”

  “So I’d estimate the front would take six hours initially. And that would mean trimming the bushes, pulling out the deadwood, pruning back the perennials that are more like weeds and giving it a general clean-over. The weeds should be pulled on a regular basis. You already know that. If you want, we could arrange for me to spend a couple hours every week just to keep on top of it. The backyard, well, I’d have to go in and take a closer look before I can give you a better idea on the time needed.”

  “When can you start work on the front?”

  “This weekend?” It’s not like she had anything else to do. Except find out who murdered a man in Nan’s garden.

  “Okay, we can do that. I’ll come over with the mower at the same time.”

  They decided to meet on Saturday morning at nine. Just before she rang off, she said, “Did you know that the backyard of this property ends at a creek?”

  “I took a quick glance over there when I was walking the property,” he said. “But it’s sealed off.”

  “No, there is a gate in the fence,” she said. “It was a little hard to open, as it’s broken, yet I slipped out earlier and found a footbridge that crossed the creek.”

  “So your backyard is fairly accessible. Is that what you’re saying? I’m tied up at the moment, but I’ll come by this afternoon to take a quick look. I thought the fence was sealed, so somebody would have to climb over it, in which case the whole thing would likely fall down and leave an obvious trail.”

  With the call done, she went back upstairs to Nan’s—now her—room. She wanted to unpack, but had no idea where to put away Nan’s things, currently taking up the closet.

  She walked into the spare bedroom and opened its closet. It was stuffed. No surprise there. She grabbed what looked like old winter coats. None of these were her style, and surely Nan didn’t need all these. Honestly the coats looked like clothing from the 1940s. She studied the labels, and a couple of them were real fur.

  She frowned. Why did Nan have fur coats? Especially at this stage of her life? They looked like they were well cared for. Or had critters gotten into them? Fur was notoriously difficult to look after.

  She continued studying the labels, realizing the coats were of seriously good quality. She pulled out her phone to call Nan.

  “Nan, you have fur coats in your spare bedroom closet. What do you want me to do with them?” She turned to look at the dozen hanging coats. “Do you have someone I could give them too?”

  “Oh, those old things? Why don’t you take them to the consignment store and see if you get anything for them.”

  “Consignment store?” She wasn’t sure people did that with clothing. She’d heard of it being done with art and furniture, not so much for clothing.

  “Yes. If they accept them to sell, they’ll give you a percentage of the money.”

  “You mean, give you a percentage of the money,” Doreen corrected. “This is all your stuff here. If you didn’t want any of it, why didn’t you sell it or give away some of the clothes?”

  “Because I knew you needed the money, dear. You go ahead and get what you can for the stuff. In fact,” Nan said, “When you’re ready to move out some of the clutter, feel free. I was going to, then thought you might enjoy the process. Besides you might be able to get a few dollars from selling some of it. I have everything I want with me right here.”

  Doreen straightened. She looked around at the roomful of stuff—exactly the same as what the rest of the house looked like—and her eyebrows shot up. “Nan, are you sure?”

  Even if Nan said she was sure now that didn’t mean she wouldn’t change her mind down the road. Better to take it slow and make sure Nan really was ready to let go of her memories. As she opened her mouth to say so, Nan laughed. “I’m serious. Except for you, Mugs, Goliath, and Thaddeus, everything I cherish is in my apartment with me every day.”

  At that, Doreen’s eyes clouded with tears. “I don’t know what your finances are like, and I don’t want to pry, but neither do I want to take any money that you need for yourself.” Then she remembered. “And speaking of money, you never mentioned you were paying on a life insurance policy that has me as the beneficiary. Are you sure you should be doing that?”

  “Oh, dear, you’re so sweet. I’m fine for money. That policy has been around for decades. I bought it when you were still in school from a nice insurance man here in town. He sold the business years ago, but I did confirm with the new owner that everything was still in place. When I’m gone, you’ll be fine. In the meantime, you go ahead and sell anything you want in that house. And check the pockets first. I was really bad about leaving money in pockets.” Nan hung up without so much as a goodbye.

  Instantly Doreen shoved her hands into the nearest pockets and retrieved several crumpled-up twenty-dollar bills. And, for her right now, that was a gold mine. Excited beyond belief, she systematically went through the pockets of the fur coats, checking both the inside and outside pockets. In each coat she found money. Then she put them on the hangers, giving them a good shake out before rehanging them in the closet in the spare room.

  Deciding to be systematic, she took a picture of the fur coat against the closet door. It gave a good idea what condition it was in, then she proceeded to document all the others. She shook her head. “Dear Nan, how the heck did you manage to get away with this all these years?”

  But Doreen didn’t mind. It was like treasure hunting. And, if there was one thing she could use right now, it was a bit of treasure.

  Chapter 17

  That afternoon Doreen loaded up her car with Nan’s fur coats, several of Doreen’s suits and designer shoes she would never likely wear again and other bits and pieces from Nan’s spare bedroom closet and drove to the consignment store. She’d already called them and had a conversation about the items she was bringing. The owner was interested but hesitant to say that she’d accept them until she’d seen them. Fair enough.

  Doreen parked out front and carried in the items. She didn’t quite understand how this worked, but, as the store was empty, she didn’t feel quite so bad if she made a blunder in the process.

  The shopkeeper’s name was Wendy Markham. A robust buxom lady with a brilliant smile. She took one look at the fur coats and exclaimed, “Oh my, those are real.”

  “Exactly.”

  Doreen appreciated the woman’s reaction. She was afraid Nan’s things would be discarded as junk. And that wasn’t what Doreen wanted. At the same time, there was no point in keeping these things, cluttering up closet space she could use herself. And, if Nan didn’t want them, it was better to put them to good use. Maybe somebody could still appreciate them. Besides, money was money.

  “I’ll get a few more things from the car.” It took her three trips to bring it all in.

  By the time she was done, Wendy had sorted through the clothes, placing them into Accepted and Not Accepted piles. Thankfully eighty percent of it went into the Accepted pile. Yet, she worked fast and efficiently as she made her decisions almost instantly.

  Wendy said, “It’ll take a little bit to figure out prices for the fur coats, but I can tell you right now what kind of prices th
e suits will bring.”

  She named off a price that had Doreen’s eyebrows rising. That was way less than half of what the suits had cost but still was a tremendous amount of money for her right now. Just to be sure she asked, “And how much of that is commission?”

  “I take 30 percent, and you’ll get 70.”

  “That’s more than fair. Now, is this too much stuff for you? I have more closets of clothing to go through still.”

  “I’ve had a couple really big sales which cleared out my stock,” she said. “So why don’t you bring me another load, and we’ll see how quickly the items move. I have a decent number of return clientele here. With any luck, some of these pieces could go right away. After a piece has been here in the store for sixty days, I discount it. You have the option to take it back if you don’t like the discount option.”

  Doreen smiled. “Discount if you need to. Hopefully not too much will be left by the end of sixty days.”

  In a much happier frame of mind, she got back in her car and headed home. As an afterthought, she took a left turn toward Mack’s mother’s house. Doreen considered the amount of money she could earn in return for her hours estimated to do the job at the agreed-upon hourly rate, and it was probably a fair deal. But gardening always entailed more than first envisioned. Tomorrow was only Friday. Her fingers itched to get at Mack’s mom’s gardens now but would have to wait until Saturday. For now, she must keep working on Nan’s closets. She had promised another load for the consignment store today, which was more money in her pocket potentially.

  Doreen drove home, headed back upstairs and went through another huge stack of Nan’s well-kept clothing, creating a Goodwill pile, a consignment store pile and a Keep pile of a few items she thought maybe she would wear, as they were quite funky and cute and fit her.

  By the time the lunch hour had arrived, she was tired. But the car was full with yet another load for Wendy at the consignment store. Doreen decided to drop that off first, then maybe pick up something to eat. She’d take Mugs with her this time.

  After the consignment store and dropping off the Goodwill stuff, Doreen headed to a park. With Mugs on a leash, Doreen spied the huge food truck. Such an odd icon, but they served hot coffee during the summer here. She bought a coffee and took Mugs for a long walk. On the way back, she picked up fish and chips to-go, returned to her car, and drove home. As soon as she entered the house, Goliath was all over her.

  “Did I forget to feed you this morning?”

  But, as she walked into the kitchen, she glanced to the left corner where the broom closet was and could still see food in his bowl. The fish smell in her to-go bag had attracted him. She grabbed a plate, opened the back door, and sat down on the rear veranda with her fish and chips. Thaddeus immediately flew to the nearby railing. She probably shouldn’t give him anything fried or too salty. Luckily her fish and chips had been served up on a bed of lettuce. She gave him a wilted leaf. He put it on the railing and pecked at it. Goliath, on the other hand, wasn’t interested in the french fry she offered him. He hopped up on the table and batted at her fish.

  “I didn’t buy enough to share with you guys,” she complained but good-naturedly broke off a piece of the white flesh his paw had touched and gave it to the cat. Mugs didn’t appear to be bothered that she had fed the other two animals first. He just stared at her. She gave him a french fry, which he sniffed, then grabbed and walked over to the far end of the veranda and lay down. But he ate the fry.

  She shook her head. “Who knew all the animals would eat vegetables like that?”

  After cleaning up after her meal, she headed back upstairs. She was determined to at least get the spare bedroom sorted out. She had an assortment of money and collectibles from Nan’s pockets, which had made this a fun treasure hunt, amassing over $260 so far. And a bundle of change she hadn’t even counted. She had brought a kitchen bowl to the bedroom to hold the various little bits—the paper money and the coins, a ring, and a chain. She continued checking the pockets of the rest of the coats, finding another $38.42. A small fortune in itself.

  But she had another load to sort through. She sorted the clothes into various boxes, marked Consignment, Goodwill, and Dry Cleaning for the things Doreen would keep. After boxing everything up and making several trips to move the boxes downstairs near the front door, she finally had the spare room closet completely empty. But only the spare room. And only the closet. Still, it was later than she’d planned. So she’d deliver the goods tomorrow.

  She focused her attention on the dresser next. The bottom three drawers were full of sweaters. She bagged up several for the consignment store and kept one that appealed to her. In the top drawer she found a novel. Stuck inside, like a bookmark, was a Lifelong Insurance business card. Slowly she set the open book on top of the dresser.

  “Is this important?” It showed that the dead man and Nan had connected at some point in time. Then she’d mentioned having checked with the new owner of the insurance company and confirming all was well with her original policy. Doreen flipped through the rest of the book but didn’t find anything else inside it. On the back of the card was a time, as if Nan had set up a meeting with the dead man. Doreen set it off to the side.

  Letting herself be distracted for a few moments, she finished going through the top drawer, finding scarves, several belts and another $12.00. At this point, she wouldn’t be happy until she completely gutted Nan’s house, finding all the hidden money. Leaving the book where it was, she sorted and boxed up the rest of the clothes from the dresser, whether to sell at the consignment shop or to donate to Goodwill. She added these boxes to those already near the front door.

  She didn’t want to load up her car this late in the evening.

  Not to mention she had no idea what the crime rate was here but where she used to live, leaving a vehicle full of boxes was asking for someone to break in and steal them.

  She’d load up her car tomorrow, right before leaving to make her deliveries.

  As she returned to the spare bedroom, only the night table and the bed were left to inspect. She quickly stripped the linens off the bed, checking out the pillowcases and under the mattress, ensuring Nan had no money stashed underneath. The mattress and box spring were in good shape, intact and didn’t have any holes where something could be stuffed inside.

  She stared at the box spring on the frame, knowing it would be heavy and awkward to move. But then she decided, if she was going to do this job, she would do it right and proper. She took the top mattress off, leaning it against one wall. With both hands, she grabbed the box spring, lifting it a bit. Finding nothing underneath, she dropped it. But she noticed something was caught underneath. She flipped the box spring on its side this time and found an envelope taped underneath. What on earth had Nan been up to that she’d felt compelled to hide so much stuff?

  Doreen rearranged the angle of the box spring so she could reach the envelope, pulling it free to place it atop the dresser before quickly putting the bed back together again. Although she was curious about the envelope, she wanted to finish this room before she went to bed tonight. So she went through the night table and found another $42.00. Glancing at the night table lamp, she picked it up, making sure nothing was underneath the base.

  Now with the room back to normal, she picked up her bowl of money and trinkets she had found in the room, the open book with the business card and the envelope. She headed back downstairs.

  She picked up her phone and called Mack. “I’ve been cleaning up Nan’s spare room,” she told him. “In the top dresser drawer was a book.” She looked down at it. “It’s a copy of Moby Dick. Inside is a Lifelong Insurance business card.”

  “Interesting,” he said. “That means Nan did meet him.”

  “I don’t know that she met him.” She then explained what Nan had said to her, adding, “But somehow the business card is in her house, and ten o’clock is written on the back. So it could be from her meeting with him way back when.”


  “I’ll be over there in a few minutes,” he said. “And we have to postpone our Saturday clean-up session at Mom’s. I’ve got too much else going on to squeeze that in. I’ll reschedule something with you later.”

  She ended the call, reached for the brown legal envelope taped shut on the back flap. She ripped off the tape and flipped up the flap. She went to pull out all the contents but slowly placed it on the table, suddenly unnerved.

  What could possibly be in this envelope that Nan would’ve taped it underneath a spare bed?

  Then Doreen frowned and thought, What if Nan hadn’t taped it there? What if somebody else had? Doreen stood and paced the kitchen. She had no reason not to see what was in the envelope, but for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to. Realizing Mack would be here any minute, she washed her hands and set up a pot of coffee. It was the least she could do.

  “I hope it’s a decent cup,” she muttered to Mugs, now sitting at her feet. She bent down and gave him a hug. “Tell me what’s wrong with the envelope.”

  He barked.

  She nodded. “Yeah, that’s about how I feel too.” She lifted the envelope and held it for him to sniff. He backed away instantly.

  She frowned at his reaction, then held it out for Goliath.

  Goliath hissed, and his tail poofed.

  “Wow. Okay. So that’s a really serious reaction. What about you, Thaddeus?”

  Curious to see what the bird would do, she held up the brown envelope to Thaddeus, who immediately took flight, screeching, “Murder in the house. Murder in the house.”

  Chapter 18

  A little unnerved at the animals’ reactions, she dropped the envelope on the table and refused to inspect it further. Mack was on his way. He could dang well deal with it. She wasn’t superstitious by nature, but something about the reaction from all her animals had her nerves on edge. Of course Thaddeus storming around the house, saying, “Murder in the house. Murder in the house,” wasn’t making her feel any better.