Bones in the Begonias

by Dale Mayer

  “If you have to, you can always get a secondhand stove.”

  But she must have seen Doreen’s grimace at the mention of buying anything because Nan leaned forward and said, “Are you out of money again?”

  “That’s not fair,” Doreen said. “There’s no again about it. I haven’t made any money since I arrived, remember? But after all that mess last week, I doubt anybody wants to hire me. Instead of blending in, I’ve become infamous,” she said, like it was a joke. The trouble was, there was a lot of truth to that statement. It wasn’t what she had intended. But it was what had happened.

  Nan waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Don’t you worry about those folks. You’ve done the town a huge service. Just look at all the murders you’ve solved.”

  Doreen smiled. “Well, it’s nice to contribute in some way. But I wish there had been a monetary reward for it. And, no, I didn’t do it to get a reward. But the money would have come in handy.”

  “What about the clothing you took to the consignment store? Did you ever talk to Wendy, see what is selling?”

  Doreen shook her head. “It was on my list to do today, and I completely forgot about it. I’ve been working on that old fence at the creek,” she said on a laugh. “I never got around to calling her.”

  Nan stared at her. “You took down the whole fence?”

  Doreen shook her head. “You know the one neighbor has a really nice fence, and there was that old fence on the property on the left side. So I decided I didn’t want the fence along the back blocking the creek because it really was broken and ugly looking. And that one side fence wasn’t necessary, with the neighbor’s nice new fence.”

  Nan laughed at that. “No doubt the place needs some work. But you won’t be able to do it all yourself,” she warned.

  “I know. Mack stopped by. Then he helped me pull up the big iron stakes from the back corner.” She picked up her teacup and took a sip. When silence fell across the table, she glanced at Nan, drawing her eyebrows together. “Are you okay?” She studied the odd look on Nan’s face.

  Then suddenly her grandmother’s face cleared, and she smiled a bright sunny smile. “Of course I’m okay. I think it’s delightful that Mack came to help.”

  “He didn’t come to help,” Doreen said firmly. “I’m to do some gardening at his mother’s place. So he came to talk to me about that job.”

  Nan’s face lit up in delight. “Well, that would be wonderful. That’s something you’ve always loved to do and could be a way to make money.”

  Doreen nodded. “It’s just they need to pay me. I was thinking I could get a job at the gardening center, when it opens up.”

  “And I could put in a good word for you. Isabel runs that place, and her grandpa, Joshua, he’s here with me.”

  Doreen studied Nan for a long moment. “What do you mean, he’s here with you?” she asked delicately.

  Nan looked surprised and then burst out into bright laughter. “Well, he’s not with me, silly.” She laughed again. “I mean, he lives here at this residence with everybody else. He’s much older than I am. I think he’s at least eighty-eight.”

  It was all Doreen could do to hide her smile as she heard that. Nan was going on seventy-five. To think anybody in the retirement-age category was much older, … it was cute.

  “Well, that might be a good thing then. If you get a chance to say something, I’d appreciate it,” Doreen said as she took another sip of her tea and sighed happily. “My life is so much different now.”

  “Good,” Nan said firmly. “It needed to be different. You were just a shell of a woman back then.”

  Nan had said many things like that before. Most of the time Doreen had brushed it off. But she was starting to understand what Nan meant. Back when Doreen was married, she wasn’t allowed to have any of her own thoughts. She couldn’t put forth any suggestions as to what to do or how to solve a problem, and, anything she did say, her ex-husband would toss off as being ludicrous. It had really demoralized her to realize she had nothing of value to contribute.

  He hadn’t wanted her to contribute. That had been part of the problem. He’d been all about being the lord of the house, and everybody else was below him. He also was a sexist, and women were good for very few things. Unfortunately for her, Doreen’s self-confidence had quietly eroded with the constant criticisms over the way she dressed or the fact she hadn’t done her nails properly or that she didn’t look as well presented as somebody else’s wife.

  And, if she opened her mouth about anything business oriented, he’d mock her.

  It had been a struggle to maintain appearances yet be quiet, just the way he wanted her to be. She’d presented this pretty face to the outside world, but inside her had been nothing.

  Nan was right. Doreen had been a walking shell.

  Chapter 10

  It was lovely to have her grandmother so close. Nan had lived here for so long that she knew everyone who lived in the Mission area of Kelowna.

  Doreen studied Nan’s face over her teacup for a long moment and then impulsively asked, “Do you know anything about Betty Miles?”

  Nan was so startled by the question that she almost dropped her teacup. “Oh my. I haven’t heard that name in forever.”

  Doreen leaned closer. “But you have heard it?”

  “Of course I have,” Nan said with a bright smile. “Anybody who lived in Kelowna back then knew the story.”

  “What story?”

  Nan took a moment to collect her thoughts. She sipped her tea quietly while Doreen shuffled impatiently in her seat.

  There was no point in pushing Nan. As she would often say, There were few rights one had at her age, and doing things in her own time, in her own way, well, that was one of them.

  Finally Nan settled back, at the same time she took another sip of tea. She looked up with a twinkle in her eye. “Is there a reason why you’re asking?”

  Surprised, Doreen studied her grandmother and then shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Nan’s laughter pealed out. Mugs lifted his head to see what the disturbance was. Seeing nothing going on, he dropped his head back on his paws. Thaddeus hopped onto the table and walked over to Nan. She smiled and gently stroked his feathers. “Are you keeping an eye on her, Thaddeus?”

  Thaddeus bobbed his head up and down, up and down.

  Nan laughed. “I always thought this bird could understand exactly what we say.”

  “He has the darnedest timing,” Doreen exclaimed.

  “So, before I tell you about Betty Miles, why don’t you tell me what brought this on?”

  Doreen winced. She probably shouldn’t have brought it up. Particularly since Nan wasn’t one to be fooled easily. “I found an ivory box in the creek.” She smiled at the look of confusion on Nan’s face. “It had the name Betty Miles carved into the bottom.”

  Bewildered, Nan looked at her and said, “It’s a far stretch to go from an ivory box in the creek to a murder from thirty years ago.”

  Doreen laughed. “And I wouldn’t have known that name from Eve’s, except for your neighbor.”

  Nan leaned forward. “Left or right?”

  “Left.”

  “The husband or the wife?”

  At that, Doreen was stumped. “I don’t know. I’ve met the husband. I’ve never met the wife. I honestly couldn’t tell if the voice behind the fence was male or female.”

  With a look of satisfaction Nan settled back and smiled. “So it isn’t just me. I’ve never seen her either. Or at least not in many years. And anytime I spoke to one of them on the phone, I never could tell if it was her or her husband.”

  “So do we know for sure she lives there? Or that she’s even still alive?”

  “I have no idea. It’s all I could do to figure out anything about my neighbors without appearing too intrusive. I figured you’d be better at it.”

  Doreen snorted. “I’m not very subtle. My former husband had hoped I’d be good at ferreting out information, but I f
ailed at it miserably. That was something he didn’t understand, as information was his stock in trade—and he felt gossip and information gathering were intrinsically female traits. But apparently, now that I’m free and clear, I don’t really give a damn about being subtle.” Then she slapped a hand over her mouth at the swear word.

  Nan’s laughter rippled through the small patio area again.

  Doreen looked around, wondering how many other people heard her and if people would come out of the old folks’ home to see what Nan was up to. But it was a private patio, so they shouldn’t.

  Nan leaned forward and patted Doreen’s hand. “I’m really proud of you.”

  Doreen shook her head. “I wouldn’t be, if I were you. I still can’t work that stove.”

  “Did Mack get it fixed?”

  “No, there hasn’t been any time.” She stared at Nan suspiciously. “I didn’t tell you Mack was getting it fixed.”

  “No, but Josie—she’s one of the assistants here—her stepbrother works at the police department with Mack. The stepbrother heard Mack had gone to your place.”

  Doreen rolled her eyes. “The gossip in this town is worse than anything I’ve ever seen before.”

  Instead of being upset, Nan nodded her head in agreement. “And this place here is a wonderful source of all gossip,” she said. She leaned forward and, in a conspiratorial whisper, added, “I know you don’t know everybody in town—or even in your neighborhood yet—but plenty of the females hereabouts want to snag a husband. Many have thrown themselves Mack’s way. Yet Mack has no girlfriend, you know?”

  In spite of all her good intentions, Doreen couldn’t stop the color washing up her neck. She shook her head. “Nan, we’re not going there.”

  Nan sat back comfortably. “That’s okay. You don’t have to. All the gossip already has.”

  Astonished, Doreen could feel her jaw dropping. “You’re not discussing Mack and me, are you?” Nan gave her a wide-eyed innocent look that Doreen didn’t trust for one minute. “No, Nan. Don’t do that.”

  “I don’t have to,” Nan said with a bright and cheerful smile. She picked up her teapot and refilled their cups. “Just thought you should know people are thinking about the two of you.”

  “He was over all the time because of the murders last week. And I still have reporters and pestering neighbors gathered on my front lawn. I wish everybody would just forget who I am.”

  “No, my dear.” Again Nan laughed. “That’s so not happening.”

  Doreen glared at her grandmother.

  “Look at you. The first chance you get, you put your nose into another cold case.”

  “That’s not fair,” Doreen protested. But she had to admit that, once she’d had the taste for solving these cases, it did get into her blood. “I just asked you if you knew the name.”

  “You asked me about the case as well.” Nan took a sip, then she set down her teacup.

  Doreen struggled to remember if she had asked Nan about the case. Nan was so very good at twisting words around and adding a slight change to the context that Doreen wasn’t exactly sure anymore if she had asked about the case or not. She was pretty sure she hadn’t, but no way would she argue that point with Nan.

  “Body in the creek. Body in the creek,” Thaddeus cackled.

  Doreen stared at him. “We didn’t find a body in the creek.”

  Immediately Thaddeus turned and pinned her with that gimlet eye.

  “Okay, we didn’t find a body in the creek in the last few days,” she quickly amended. How the hell could that bird know when she was lying? But, in truth, she’d honestly forgotten about that body. She was a little overwhelmed with the thought of another body. Not that she’d found anything like that.

  Nan looked at her with a bright light in her eyes.

  Doreen groaned. “Thaddeus was with me when we found the ivory box, and he was with me when the neighbor was talking about Betty Miles.”

  “I’m loving the fact that Thaddeus and you have bonded so well.” Nan glanced to see Goliath stalking a bird in her garden. “Even Goliath seems to have taken to his new ownership quite well.”

  “That’s because it’s a zoo at my place,” Doreen said in exasperation. “They eat each other’s food. They get into my food. They’re in my bed. The cat and the bird are on my kitchen table. Mugs can’t jump that high, or he would join them too. They are just all over the place.” Nan tried hard to hold back a grin, but Doreen caught sight of it regardless. She glared at her grandmother. “You’re being impossible today.”

  At that, Nan laughed again. “You do bring such joy to my life.”

  Instantly Doreen felt bad. She cupped Nan’s frail papery-thin-skinned hand with her own. “You’ve been a godsend to me.”

  Nan squeezed her fingers. “Likewise.”

  The two women shared a glance of complete understanding. Then Doreen settled back again. “And you still haven’t said anything about Betty Miles.”

  With a chuckle, Nan sat back as well, lifted one foot, and rested it on the side of the garden bed, crossing the other over it at the ankle. “Because it’s a little complicated, and we don’t know a whole lot.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Betty was a difficult teen who got into trouble a lot. She came from a broken home, living in a poor section of town. She went missing, so nobody thought much of it because she was always running away from home. That’s what most thought. And, along with that thought, they said, ‘Good riddance.’” Nan shrugged. “I didn’t know her very well, but I certainly heard all the gossip. I didn’t have the same opinion because I didn’t know her. I just thought it was difficult to understand other people’s actions without knowing more about the person. It’s not something I’d have done, but we’re all different.”

  “What difficulties?” As Doreen well knew, motivation went a long way in determining what somebody did and what somebody would do with their life. “What happened that sent her off the rails like that?”

  “Her parents separated or got divorced or just stopped living together. Thirty years ago, divorce wasn’t terribly common, not like it is today.”

  They both thought about the current state of marriage and the lack of long-lived matrimonial bliss.

  “But regardless of their marital status, it wasn’t an ugly parting of the way,” Nan added slowly. “Or so it appeared on the outside.”

  “Teens do tend to act out when their parents break up. This running away event seems to be a strong reaction though, so maybe it wasn’t as amicable as everyone thought.”

  “Exactly. That’s what I thought at the time too,” Nan exclaimed. “Nothing seemed to justify all that she was doing.”

  “What exactly was she doing?”

  “Well, she was breaking and entering into places. With some small-time thieves. She had multiple boyfriends, so was acting out in that way too. She was always shoplifting in the mall.”

  Doreen frowned. “Sounds like she needed some help.”

  “True, but often, when a teen needs help, they don’t get it. When they take that step down the criminal path, everybody just washes their hands of them. Society should have done something to help Betty before it became that bad.”

  Doreen agreed. “So, what got her killed?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. We never heard from her or anything about her for weeks and weeks. Most of us forgot about her. And then that arm washed up in the creek about a year after Betty disappeared. High floodwaters brought it up. It was after the spring thaw, and you know that creek can get quite a bit higher, don’t you, dear?” Nan leaned forward. “You might want to move some of those garden beds back some because, every springtime, that water seeps in under the fence line. The backyard can get soaked from rising groundwater in the bad years.”

  Doreen shook her head at the quick change in conversation. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She frowned. “You never mentioned that before.”

  “We never talked about bodies floating down
the creek in high water before,” Nan stated.

  “True. When I get back, I’ll take a look at where the high-water lines are.”

  “In order to do that, you should get the fence back up. The water marks are on it.” Nan smiled at her with a twinkle in her eyes. “Just saying …”

  Doreen crossed her arms over her chest. “So what else do you know?”

  “Not much. Nobody knew who the arm belonged to for the longest time. Until they did the xrays and confirmed it was Betty. And, of course, when they finally ran an article in the newspaper, that brought up some information from the locals. And finally led to Betty’s best friend, Hannah, identifying the ring.”

  Nan nodded. “Exactly. Betty was a wild child. She’d been caught shoplifting, given several warnings, and let off. But, after she went on to rob a couple, she was fingerprinted and was waiting for her court case when she disappeared. Everyone thought she had just booked it out of town. So far, after all these years, the rest of her hasn’t shown up either.”

  “Well,” Doreen said, “wherever the rest of her is, she’s likely buried locally. I highly doubt they would have buried the trunk of her body, which is much heavier and more difficult to get rid of, too far away.”

  Nan looked at her granddaughter in surprise. “Now that’s a very interesting thought. You do realize she was very tiny?”

  “How tiny?”

  Nan pursed her lips and looked off in the distance. “As I recall, she was one of those tiny petite girls, not even five feet tall.”

  “Well, the police obviously have all that information.”

  “You should ask Mack about it,” Nan said enthusiastically. When Doreen turned her dark gaze on her, Nan sobered slightly. She held out her hand, palm up. “You can’t expect me not to be happy to hear you might have a relationship in the offing.”

  “No, the last thing I want is a relationship,” Doreen said firmly. “He’s helped me out—that’s all.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you want it … or not. Sometimes it just happens.”