by Mary Feliz
Most of the hundred-square-foot plots within sight were filled with winter vegetables and well-pruned fruit trees or bushes. A few rangy squash plants held the last of the pumpkins, acorns, and butternuts.
Boots could be using the garden for an illegal activity, but as I wandered the paths that hypothesis seemed unlikely. It was all so peaceful. I passed the trickling fountain and a hummingbird buzzed me–warning me to stay away from his feeder. I looked up to see a woman with a bright pink outfit disappearing into a shed near the official entrance and parking area that I’d earlier failed to locate.
I hurried toward her and nearly tripped on an errant root. Most of the pathways were tidier than a formal French garden and were covered with pea gravel that crunched when I walked. The root seemed to come out of nowhere and I looked around to see if I could figure out which plot it originated in. But then I snorted and shook my head. I had enough to do rooting out clues to Sarah’s death without tracking down delinquent vegetation.
“Boots,” I called as I approached the shed, not wanting to startle her. I squinted through the door trying to make out shapes within the darkness, which was dramatic given the brightness of the fall day outside.
“Boots isn’t here,” said a voice. “Can I help? Let me come outside where it’s warmer.”
A young woman emerged from the dark interior of the shed and held out her hand to shake mine, “I’m Ketifa Hanif,” she said. “Boots is working at Legal Aid this morning, but she should be around later this afternoon. Are you looking for a plot to work? There’s a four- to five-year waiting list, I’m afraid, but we always need volunteers. And volunteers get first crack at any surplus from the gardens.”
I smiled and shook Ketifa’s hand.
“Maggie McDonald.”
Ketifa looked like a scoop of rainbow sherbet, wearing a long-sleeved pale yellow T-shirt that spread over her obviously pregnant belly. An ankle-length orange skirt and a head scarf in a pattern of shocking pink with flecks of green completed her outfit. Brown eyes looked up at me through long lashes. She shielded her eyes from the sun.
“How can I help, Ms. McDonald?”
It occurred to me that I should have prepared a statement or at least a plan of how to approach someone with my inquiries. There was a reason the police asked amateurs to leave the detecting to them.
“I’ve been working with Professor Sinclair in his house on the other side of the hedge,” I said, pointing toward Linc’s property. “I met Claire yesterday, the day we found my friend Sarah Palmer dead in the house. I’m wondering if Claire knew Sarah? Or if she saw anything or anyone that struck her as odd or out of place—if not on that day, the day before, or in recent weeks. Since she’s not here, maybe you could help me?”
That was probably too many questions to ask all at once, but I was winging it and hoping I might stumble on information that would help Linc.
“She actually prefers to be called Boots,” Ketifa said. “But let me think for a minute. Would you like to walk with me? I need to fill the bird feeders and do some planting.”
Ketifa looked very young to be a mother, but she might be older than she appeared. Her age didn’t have anything to do with my investigation, though, and was none of my business. I followed her back through the plots.
“I’m very sorry about your friend,” she said. “Do they know what happened to her?”
“Thank you. The police are looking into it. I haven’t heard anything for sure, yet.”
“I’m usually here every day, but something came up on Monday and I didn’t make it. We all read about your friend Sarah in the paper.” She put down the bucket she was carrying and unhooked a feeder from a hanging bracket. “We like to encourage the birds because they help our organic farming efforts,” she said. “Any bugs and insects they eat can’t harm the plants. That’s what the bat houses are for too.”
“Bat houses?” I conjured images of Bat caves and Bat mobiles.
Ketifa pointed back to the garden shed, to what I’d originally thought were birdhouses mounted on the side of the building. “They eat like, a thousand mosquitos an hour. Good guys to have around.”
“I hate spiders. Please tell me they eat spiders too.”
“Some do. Some don’t,” said a voice that seemed to come out of nowhere. A second young woman stood up from behind an overgrown rosemary bush. She held a sheaf of weeds in one hand and a trowel in the other.
“New volunteer?” she asked, putting down the trowel and reaching out her hand. “I’m Santana Marimba.”
“Pretty name,” I said and shook her hand.
“Don’t ask her about it,” Ketifa said. “She makes up a different story every time and I don’t think anyone knows the truth.”
Santana smiled and shrugged. “The truth is overrated. Are you going to get those primed spinach seeds in this afternoon, Keef? Do you want me to help? If we wait much longer it will be too cold for them to get established.”
“I’m planting twenty every day,” Ketifa explained to me. “Taking notes. The climate is changing. If we don’t think about adapting our planting schedules, we’ll never learn anything. I’m varying the schedules on the kale, spinach, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts in Boots’s plot—all to see if I can figure out an optimum schedule.”
“Wow,” I said. “That sounds like a university research project. Are you a biologist?”
“An avid amateur,” Ketifa said. “But you didn’t come here to learn about spinach. Ask Santana your questions.”
She turned toward Santana and explained. “Ms. McDonald was hoping to ask Boots about the professor’s house. She knew the lady who died and wanted to find out if we’d seen anything out of the ordinary.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Although I’m really more interested in whether you’ve seen anything unusual over the past few weeks. Anyone strange hanging around?”
“There’s been a lot of activity over there this fall,” Santana said, pointing toward Linc’s house. “Lots of repairs and someone clearing stuff out. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about? Is Professor Sinclair moving?”
“I’m not really sure,” I said. “Everything is up in the air since Sarah Palmer died.”
Ketifa looked at Santana and frowned. “Didn’t you hear Boots talking the other day with the committee members? She told them the property would be changing hands and that the people on the waiting list for plots of their own—folks like you and me—were going to be happy.”
Santana looked like a younger, smaller version of Boots, though she wore green overalls and bright yellow rubber boots. Her face, which earlier had seemed open and friendly, now looked secretive. But she volunteered more information without my prompting.
“Boots said she would have killed to get that land,” Santana said, “but that now she wouldn’t have to. She claimed old Mrs. Sinclair’s will stated that Professor Sinclair could live in the house as long as he wanted, but that when he moved out, the land would go to the Master Gardeners, the Orchard View Community Gardens, and the Plotters.”
I made a mental note to tell Paolo Bianchi to check Mrs. Sinclair’s will.
“Three groups?” I asked. “Would they fight over the land?”
Ketifa shook her head and the wind caught one of the hanging ends of her head scarf, waving it like a flag. “I don’t think so. Those groups all kind of overlap. I think they’d contribute money toward improvements that would benefit them all, like putting in more paths and more plots, expanding or rebuilding the garden shed, redoing the irrigation pipes, and installing another toilet.”
I considered Ketifa’s pregnant profile. “I’d think the toilets would be a high priority, particularly if the membership is going to grow. I guess the professor’s bathroom is a lifesaver for those of you who are here all day and work at the other end of the lot.”
Santana and Ketifa looked at each other, and I thought I detected a hint of alarm in their expressions. My forehead wrinkled in confusion. I’d obvious
ly stepped into a delicate subject. The girls had been forthcoming about everything else. I lifted my eyebrows in question.
Ketifa responded. “It’s nothing, really, but we try to avoid the professor’s house. Boots says he doesn’t need all of us tromping through his kitchen when he’s trying to work or relax.”
Ketifa turned and brushed her hands on her skirt. “Santana, what about the Jinn? Tell her about the Jinn.”
Santana sniffed and threw up her hands. “Again? Seriously?” She turned to me. “We’ve had some problems with sketchy electricity, particularly at night. The power goes on and off, and the lights may flicker. Ancient wiring explains it all, in my opinion, but Ketifa says it’s ghosts.”
“Where are the ghosts?” I asked.
Ketifa shook her head. “Not ghosts, Jinn. I don’t think they mean to hurt us. And it’s probably just silly superstition on my part. It’s just creepy, you know?”
“I imagine it would be scary,” I said. “Especially if you were here alone.”
Ketifa hugged herself and shivered. I could hear Santana making tsk-tsk noises behind me, so I changed the subject.
“But all this talk of renovations would assume a new source of income, right? And would occur after Linc moves and his land passes to the gardening groups?”
Santana nodded, looking at Ketifa for confirmation.
“But I don’t think that’s actually true,” I said as gently as possible, trying not to imply that the girls were misinformed or lying. “The story I heard was that the land belongs to Professor Sinclair, who inherited it from his mother.” I made a mental note to tell Tess about the confusion and suggest she verify the land’s status before she put the house on the market.
Ketifa gasped and I turned toward her. Her eyes were wide and staring beyond me. I half expected to see a ghost when my gaze shifted back toward Santana.
Boots loomed behind Santana, fuming.
“Enough with the ghost stories, Ketifa,” Boots said in a booming voice the whole neighborhood must have been able to hear. “I’ve told you there is no such thing. And Mrs. McDonald, you are equally mistaken if you think there is any question about the contents of Mrs. Sinclair’s will. She showed it to me herself. I’ve waited years to take over the land. I’ve got plans drawn up for expanding our organic-gardening education programs and enhancing pest abatement, hybridization, and drought-tolerant plantings. The whole committee is in agreement.”
Boots plunged past me into the shed, grabbing my arm along the way and pulling me in to join her. She reached the counter and picked up one of two surge protectors, each of which was filled with electric plugs that made them look like giant mutant insects.
She thrust the surge protector in my face. “Can you see what we’re dealing with? This is a fire hazard. The whole place could go up. We’ve been waiting to go after more grants until we get more land. We need to rebuild, adding toilets, an emergency phone, solar power, a water-reclamation system, and drought-friendly irrigation. The ancient pipes are brittle. Every time we try to fix the old sprinklers, they break somewhere new. We need toilet facilities here and at the other end of the garden. Most of the people who work here are seniors or pregnant or moms with young children. Reliable plumbing is essential.”
She reached into a dark corner shelf above the counter and pulled out a binder. Flipping through it, she said, “Look at this. Our waiting list is four or five years long. Moms who want to garden with their kids sign up for a plot, but by the time it’s available, they’ve got teenagers.”
She tossed the binder on the counter. “The council has approved all these new apartments without a scrap of green land, and they don’t require the builders to add parks. We’re raising a generation of kids who may never learn where vegetables come from and may never know what a fresh spring pea tastes like. We need new plots and we need funds to develop a program designed specifically for apartment dwellers. Before anyone ever heard of Silicon Valley, Santa Clara Valley was known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight, with orchards as far as anyone could see in every direction. Our residents need to retain at least a tiny piece of their own history.”
Boots turned and glared at me, her face as purple as the plums that were once a primary local crop.
“We’ve requested permits on all of these items and been turned down for one reason or another each time—local residents say more bathrooms will attract the homeless or increase traffic, and more electricity will mean we’ll have searchlights on all night destroying the rural atmosphere.” Boots lifted her arms and made air quotes with her fingers as she said rural atmosphere. I’d learned it was a hot-button issue in Orchard View politics, a term bandied about by those opposed to any and all development, even of parks and recreation facilities.
“But Boots . . .” I began, wanting to suggest they make up smaller plots to take the pressure off the waiting list or work with the planning department to create permit requests that could be rubber-stamped. But Boots’s red face and clenched fists made me shift gears.
“Boots,” I said, holding up my hands in surrender. “I’m not the enemy. I’m in favor of community gardens and bathrooms and all the things you talked about. I’m just saying that my understanding of the terms of Mrs. Sinclair’s will is different from yours.”
“I don’t care what you understood. I know what I saw.”
We were at an impasse. I spoke quickly before Boots could order me to leave.
“Did anyone around here have a grudge against Sarah or Linc? Have the folks from the school-site committee had their eye on the land?”
Boots half-turned away from me, looking like she was ready to sprint to her car to avoid more questions. But instead she scowled and pointed her finger at me.
“Watch what you imply about my volunteers,” she growled. “They’ve all overcome troubled backgrounds and are working very hard to get on stable, adult footing. They don’t need you or anyone else stirring up gossip about them. Donations, we’ll take, but we’ve no need of snarky comments.”
I opened my mouth to protest her assumption that I was disparaging Santana and Ketifa, but she continued before I could say anything.
“Of course the school-site committee has been drooling over this property. There is no plot of land, public or private, built-up or vacant, that hasn’t been scrutinized by them. Our four acres combined with the Sinclair land would make a perfect location for a new elementary school. But they’ll have a fight on their hands if they try to take it from us. We’ve got more than a hundred current gardeners, another hundred on the waiting list, and more who grew up gardening here but no longer hold plots. All of this was once part of the Sinclairs’ land and it’s time the properties were reunited.” She took a breath and smoothed the long sleeves of her T-shirt over her arms. “You need to leave now. You’re stirring up trouble. You need to leave or I will call our lawyer immediately.” She must have been used to having people obey her every command, because she stomped off to her car and jumped into the driver’s seat without waiting to be sure I followed instructions.
From where I stood, I could see her hold up her phone and point to the watch on her wrist. The message was clear: If I didn’t take off soon, she would call out the cavalry. I didn’t expect the police or her lawyer would be able to keep me from walking in the garden, but I didn’t want to antagonize Boots, either.
Santana’s mouth dropped open and she stared at me. “I just realized. You’re the woman who’s been working at the house. What were you trying to find out?” Santana looked hurt and confused.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to be sneaky.”
Santana still looked suspicious. “You fired question after question at us,” she said.
“Again, I’m sorry if it seemed like I was interrogating you,” I said. “It wasn’t my intention at all. I just wondered if any of the garden members had seen anything unusual going on either here or at the professor’s house over the past few weeks.”
“Of cours
e we haven’t seen anything suspicious,” Santana said. “We already told you that. Not unless you think my friend Ketifa is suspicious. Some truly ignorant people think she dresses like a terrorist.” Santana gave Ketifa’s head scarf a gentle tug and went on. “You’re as bad as that horrible detective Gordon Apfel. This garden is full of people who do organic gardening, for God’s sake, and who are trying to save the bees.” She waved at a corner of the garden that held four grayish cubes that I assumed were beehives. “We literally wouldn’t kill a fly because flies are also good pollinators. Why on earth would we kill Sarah? We hardly knew her.” Santana turned, stomped into the shed, and slammed the door behind her.
“Santana,” I said to the closed door. “I’m not accusing anyone of anything.”
Ketifa looked at me, shrugged, and concentrated on coiling up a loose hose.
I walked back through the garden and across the professor’s yard to my car. I was insulted to the core by Santana’s effort to link my behavior with that of Detective Awful, but I also wondered why Santana had referred to Sarah by her first name, yet claimed to have barely known her. This suspect-interviewing process was more complicated than I’d thought.
Ketifa had said that she was an avid amateur gardener and that she volunteered every day. But she also said she hadn’t been there on Sunday or Monday. The two statements were mutually exclusive. And why on earth did Boots believe that Linc’s property would pass to the gardeners as soon as he vacated the premises? Could that be true? If so, who knew about it? Boots, obviously, and maybe all of the other gardeners and volunteers.
I’d hoped to break the case wide open with my interviews, so Detective Awful would stop pestering Linc and so the rest of us could pick up the pieces of our lives, honor Sarah, and at least try to move on.
My efforts at the garden had fallen short of the mark. I hoped my interview with Sarah’s hairdresser would go more smoothly.