The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery

by Ann Ripley

  It isn’t that easy, and some predict the fad will evaporate quickly once gardeners experience the labor involved. Think about digging up all those canna, dahlia, begonia, and caladium tubers, and wrestling that enormous banana tree root out of the ground, swathing it in burlap, and shoving it into cold storage! Imagine yourself spending half the year tripping over extra houseplants such as cyperus, giant Mexican tree ferns, delicate bamboos, or brilliant, strappy-leaved cordylines.

  In spite of these drawbacks, the jungle look is definitely in. Sometimes it’s found in crowded urban gardens. While most of us would deck these gardens out with polite plants and vines that hug fences and stay out of the way, a London garden designer has destroyed that convention. In his small city garden, twenty by fifty feet, he has created a tropical forest with Australian tree ferns, huge-leaved Gunnera manicata that grow eight feet wide, bamboos, and several varieties of palms. He simply brushes aside the massive plant leaves as he walks through them. The place is such a hit that he now designs such gardens for others.

  This jungle garden is a world away from your grandmother’s pastiche of pastel garden borders. Again, throw out the conventional advice that plants should match or blend. Think Gauguin: Go ahead and mix hot colors, stripes and speckles, and surprising leaf textures, and let the results speak for themselves. What they will do is excite the eye and lead it deep into the jungle’s interior. If your soul trembles at the sight of bright red next to bright yellow, then separate the two with an arbitrator: a neutral, gray-toned yucca.

  So that you don’t encounter back-breaking labor in the fall, this out-of-place jungle garden should be a combination of both hardy and tender plants. Among the tender ones, none is bolder than the banana tree. Its drooping leaves are the classical emblem of the tropics. Yet it’s an easy-to-grow plant that’s fun for both big and little kids. Just be prepared for that wrestling match with either the root or the plant itself in the fall.

  Fluffy, umbrella-topped cyperus soaring above the level of the flowers will add grace and lightness to this tropical array. And the garden definitely calls for gaudy cannas: Try the variegated-leafed varieties. Fiery-colored dahlias, the castor bean plant, red orach (Atriplex hortensis ‘Rubra’), and the majestic datura are other good choices. This garden probably won’t be complete without the flamboyant, often speckled, green, pink, or red leaves of the annual caladium.

  There are many sturdy perennials that will add brilliance to your jungle. They should be the permanent structure into which you place the more tender varieties. Use hardy bamboos, striped grasses such as Miscanthus, red-hot-poker plant (Kniphofia), spotted ligularia, yucca, fern, and even a low gray beauty not usually thought of when we contemplate the hot tropics: Artemisia ‘Powis Castle.’ Consider another grass that is like an echo of the umbrella-topped cyperus, but hardy to zone five: palm sedge (Carex muskingumensis). It is densely tufted and would make a stunning lower story in a tropical-motif garden. Polygonum bistorta is a useful plant with long-lasting pokerlike flowers in pink or red. And if you let the tall blue annual verbena seed itself within these beds, it will be as useful as a perennial. Its color and rangy form make it a perfect foil for the hot reds, pinks, and oranges.

  Like a traditional garden, your jungle needs trees. The underused golden catalpa is not only winter hardy, it is also exotic, with drooping, bell-shaped white flowers, serpentine seedpods, and big, heart-shaped leaves that shine golden in the fall. Others are the golden black locust, with black trunk and filigree yellow leaves that go orange in autumn, and the katsura tree, with its splendid ovate blue-green foliage.

  These are practical tree choices. But if money is no consideration, “rent” a bit of jungle—namely, the noble palm tree. That’s what some East Coast gardeners do. They lease twenty-foot palms for a seven-month season for $400 to $500. At the end of October, they merely call up the supplier and have the trees redug and put into winter storage. In other words, they put away the trappings of their tropical paradise until the snow melts and spring comes again to turn their thoughts to things equatorial.

  Chapter 22

  LOUISE STOOD IN FRONT OF THE FIREPLACE, trying to ignore her quickening heartbeat and the tightness in her chest. She said simply, “My family and friends and I have been able to uncover some small details.”

  Looking around the room, she instantly met the poisonous gaze of Jim Cooley. It sprang out at her like the fangs of a snake. Frank and Fiona Storm stared at her with equal venom.

  And to think not a minute ago the three of them thought they were home free.

  She was glad she had rattled their cage: Somehow, it made her feel more confident. Now, all she had to do was lay out the evidence in a logical way, so people would believe her.

  Momentarily lost in thought, she put one hand on her chin and paced the length of the hearth. Then she turned toward her audience and gave them her opening shot. “Two hours ago, I began to believe that Grace Cooley was murdered.” She paused to let that sink in, then continued: “I was walking the paths at Wild Flower Farm with Jim Cooley. He asked me if I would be willing to help solve the case if it turned out Grace’s death was foul play. My heart went out to him, because I think he truly is suffering. But eventually I said to myself, Why is a bereaved widower telling me this? If he suspects foul play, why doesn’t he press the police to take action? I realized it must be a smoke screen to allay any suspicions I might have.”

  She looked around nervously. Where were Bill and Janie? She had no choice but to go on without them, so she moved to the next point in her argument: “And we all noticed the affinity of Jim for Frank and Fiona Storm. If they talked to you on the subject of Higher Directions, you know how close they are philosophically. They’d have to be, to make such a success of their schools. The schools are heavy with debt, not unusual for enterprises like theirs. But there was something more insidious: the two student suicides. Certainly this somewhat alters our view of Higher Directions.”

  Realizing they were now facing open warfare, Jim, Frank, and Fiona put their heads together and whispered vehemently, but when Louise resumed talking, they grudgingly stopped.

  She opened her hands. “Strange things happened after the deaths. Guilty people began to act out.” She avoided looking at Bebe when she said this. “And I thought to myself, Jim and Frank never look guilty. Jim is like everyone’s conscience, always stepping forward when there is justice to be done.

  “Then Saturday night, the night Grace died, Frank intercepted the kitchen employee and asked to take her dinner up to her. Frank knew her well, and knew Grace would never eat while feeling so ill, since she ate like a bird at the best of times. One has to ask, Why bring the woman a dinner she couldn’t eat? Was it so the kitchen staff wouldn’t know she was missing from her room?”

  Frank seemed to be examining his hands. Her voice got a little louder. “Nora Radebaugh has a friend in New York City who taught Grace in a poetry class. He told Nora that Grace was not suicidal at all, in fact, just the opposite. The woman was on some sort of creative high, and even going to get some of her poetry published.” Her mouth stretched out in a grin. “What writer kills herself on the eve of publication?”

  She paced back and forth in front of them to work off nervous energy. “Also, Grace had just redone the yard of the Cooleys’ lovely brownstone in Park Slope and put in a romance garden.” She turned her hands palm-up in a gesture of bewilderment. “Now if any of you garden, you know what I’m saying is true: A new garden is a sign of hope and renewal, not death.” She raised two fingers. “Two reasons for Grace not to commit suicide. But the question was still: Why would someone want to kill her?

  “A red flag went up when I learned Grace’s husband didn’t even recognize one of the major flowers in the garden: love-in-a-mist. No, this garden wasn’t a celebration of her romance with Jim Cooley.”

  “What are you saying?” demanded Cooley, leaning forward. “Some damned romance garden shows I’m a murderer?”

  “Easy doe
s it,” said the trooper, stepping forward and standing there until Cooley resumed his seat.

  “Grace was a romantic,” declared Louise. “Jim was not. Bereft of romance in her own marriage, she found it one day at the New York Botanical Garden.”

  “How would you know that?” growled Cooley.

  “Oh, there’s proof. Grace had frequent rendezvous there with a man she grew to admire and love. Just minutes ago I received a faxed photograph of them together.” Out of a shorts pocket she pulled the grainy picture of a man and woman walking. They were leaning into each other as if they were the only two people in the world.

  The assembled guests gasped, and began to talk to each other. The only silent ones were Jim Cooley, the Storms, and the Posts.

  Continuing to hold the photo up for display, Louise said, “This man was so smitten with Grace that he planted a romance garden that is a twin to hers, in his own yard.”

  Jim Cooley sat as if frozen, first examining the photo, then looking resolutely off into space. But it was Sandy Post’s face that held Louise. From beneath her cherubic cap of blond hair, she stared with eyes that seemed permanently set in the wide-open position.

  “Yes, there was the hidden connection: Jeffrey Freeling was the man Grace loved. They embarked on a quiet, innocent friendship that grew into romance. She needed both of those things: friendship and romance.” Louise spoke directly to Jim Cooley: “As someone who knows you well has told me, Grace was living in the shadow of people who destroyed others with their competence.”

  “I said that to you, Louise,” interrupted Barbara Seymour in an angry, shaking voice. “But I didn’t mean that Jim killed Grace …”

  “No,” said Louise. “And Jim didn’t kill Grace, Miss Seymour.” She turned back to Jim Cooley. “You sensed that your wife had a new, secret friendship, because she was suddenly happy, after being unhappy for so long.

  “That’s why you forbade her to visit the botanical garden. But we discovered the couple was followed, at least once, by a man that fits the description of—Mr. Frank Storm.”

  Jim was halfway out of his seat again, all six feet two of him, and his physical presence made Louise’s heart start pounding. Trooper Barnes stood right next to him, with another officer moving close on his left. Cooley maintained his calm. “Just as Aunt Barbara said, this doesn’t prove a thing, except that Grace had a friend she met in a garden. I already knew that. I just didn’t know it was Jeffrey Freeling.”

  “Yes, but you were startled Friday night when your wife left your bedroom in the middle of the night. And you followed her. I was there. I—I was suffering from insomnia.”

  She cast a self-conscious look at the group, and then realized she had no time for embarrassment. In a low voice she added, “I heard those unmistakable sounds of a couple embracing. So did the others who were out in the hall—and who knows how many of us were out there, listening? I also saw two men in silhouette, talking with one another, with their arms around each other. At first, I thought it was a sexual liaison, but now I realize one was consoling the other because of a loss one of them had sustained.”

  She extended a dramatic hand. “That loss, my friends, was the loss of Jim Cooley’s wife to Jeffrey Freeling.”

  Barbara Seymour gasped and stared reproachfully at Louise. But even if she lost the older woman’s friendship, Louise was obliged to continue with the story.

  “Jeffrey and Grace came together that night, made love for the first and last time. In the eyes of Jim Cooley and Frank and Fiona, Grace’s adultery was disloyalty of the worst kind. You can read it in their motivational manual.”

  Fiona sat forward, livid. “You are merely guessing.”

  Louise rushed on, ignoring her. “Your husband Frank was with Jim after Grace disappeared from their room, and when her treachery was confirmed by the sound of the lovers moaning. It was Frank who comforted Jim: He put a friendly arm around his shoulders and embraced him.”

  “No, no, no,” Jim droned, shaking his head.

  “But, Jim,” Louise said, “I’m sure you were in that hall Friday night, because you mentioned hearing the ‘bumps in the night’ at breakfast the next morning.”

  “So what?” demanded Cooley.

  “You couldn’t have heard those bumps, if you hadn’t been out in the hall, spying on your wife. Those rooms are silent as tombs, with their soundproof walls, and doors made by a master carpenter.”

  His eyes blazed, but he remained silent.

  Louise stood to one side of the fireplace, for effect, and to gather her thoughts. “So, let’s chalk up a third reason Grace wouldn’t kill herself: She was in love, for the first time in years.”

  The group was spellbound now. “When the friendship between Grace and Jeffrey was discovered by Grace’s husband—and what a shock to find your wife’s secret lover staying in the same hotel for the weekend—his pride would have it no other way than to kill the happy couple.”

  “Bullshit!” bellowed Cooley, grasping the arms of his chair with either hand. “I’m going to damned well sue you—”

  “What the police needed was the evidence,” explained Louise, keeping her voice from trembling with an effort. “But there was none. As I told Sergeant Drucker, Grace’s notebook would have been a gold mine of evidence—it was a catalogue of her thoughts and emotions. But it’s disappeared. Yet I still found something she left behind.”

  When she continued, her voice was hushed. “I went up to the falls an hour ago, because I sensed that Grace would try to tell us what had happened to her. And I remembered what she said yesterday on the garden tour about picking flowers. Bebe, you remember,” she said, turning to the woman.

  Bebe nodded solemnly. “She never picked flowers,” the widow said.

  “I went up the trail, inside the yellow-taped crime scene, thinking I would be safe, since the troopers were out there, but no one else. The area was sealed. I was looking for something that wouldn’t have looked like evidence to anybody else, and I found it—an obscure little bunch of vegetative matter. Flowers, in fact, that Grace picked as she was being forced or cajoled up that trail to the falls.”

  “But she didn’t pick flowers,” said Bebe. “It was part of her religion, or something, not picking flowers.”

  “Exactly. In fact, she wrote a poem about it.” Louise took a piece of paper out of another pocket and unfolded it:

  “’The pulse of life in the iris red

  Is the passion that makes my blood flow fast.

  Oh pick it not, this perfect flower,

  For, like desire, we must make it last.’

  “But she did pick these flowers. We have to ask ourselves, why? To show us she wasn’t going up the falls of her own free will. She told us Saturday, ‘Over my dead body would I pick flowers.’ Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened!”

  Louise let that sink in for a moment, noting again Frank Storm’s rigid countenance.

  Trooper Barnes handed an item to Louise. It was now protected in a transparent evidence bag. A limp bouquet, an insubstantial little gathering of love-in-a-mist, yarrow, and wild daisies. It was secured with Grace’s tortoiseshell hair clip. She raised it so people could see it.

  “Anyone could have put it there,” snarled Jim Cooley.

  “How did it get attached to Grace’s hair clip, then?” Louise challenged.

  Frank said, “That’s a pretty anonymous-looking hair ornament. It could have been dropped behind that rock weeks ago—years ago.”

  And this was a break she hadn’t counted on.

  “So, Frank,” she said quietly, “you knew she threw her little bouquet behind a rock. You thought it was just a few dead flowers that would look like plant debris. But only the person who took Grace up that path would know it was thrown behind ‘that rock.’”

  If he was ruffled, Frank didn’t show it beyond the faintest tremble in his voice. He said, “I guessed—because the police didn’t find it, and you did, it had to be behind a rock. Now, tell me this, Mrs.
Eldridge.” His tones were clipped and cold as ice. “There was a whole cadre of kitchen employees running around this place Saturday—it was a big dinner night at the inn. How do you think someone could strong-arm Grace across the grounds and up that trail without being seen? From what I understand, neither she nor this phantom assailant was ever seen going across the lawn.”

  Louise felt a flush rising in her cheeks. She had known it would come to this question, and she had no answer for it. How did Grace and her assailant pass through the yard without anyone seeing them? Was it just good luck on the part of the murderer?

  There was a leaden feeling in her stomach as she realized she might have proven adultery, but had certainly not proved murder. What did a silly little faded bouquet mean? If only someone else had found something….

  Just then, as if in answer to her prayer, into the room came Bill, accompanied by Janie, Chris, and Teddy. The young people were panting, as if they had been running. Their eyes, like Bill’s, were filled with excitement.

  The excitement of the chase, thought Louise delightedly. These cohorts of hers had found or done something, she knew, to slice through the jungle of muddled facts and solve this mystery. They stood together at the front of the group, hardly able to wait to tell their story.

  “I stumbled on these three,” Bill explained, nodding his head at the young people. “And Janie, Chris, and Teddy have confirmed some new information. They found out why Grace wasn’t seen on the side or back lawn Saturday afternoon.”

  Jim Cooley glared at them. “You kids know? How the hell would you know?” He looked straight into the cunning face of Teddy Horton.

  Teddy grinned, and shifted nervously from foot to foot, hands clenched by his sides. “We’ve been exploring, Mr. Cooley. Now, I’ve worked here three years, and I knew darn well that the supply tunnel was blocked. But Miss Eldridge here—the lovely Janie Eldridge, that is—was more inquisitive than I was. She’s the one who said we should check the tunnel out good, from both sides. So we did. And it was blocked—’til recently, when someone tampered with the wall. The cops who saw the scene wouldn’t know the difference—although Miss Seymour would have known, since she knows this place like the back of her hand. And, of course, she hasn’t been walking around the grounds much since she took her flyer down the stairs.” Calmer now, he winked companionably at the elderly woman. Barbara beamed back.