The Diva Digs Up the Dirt

by Krista Davis

  The air felt a little bit cooler as we strolled near the pond.

  Cricket hadn’t mentioned the handbag or arguments about money. “Did she say anything about leaving Wolf?”

  “She had certainly considered it. If you know Wolf, I guess you know he has a temper.”

  Why did people keep saying that? Not the Wolf whom I knew. The only flash of temper I’d seen was about Roscoe.

  “But then, if she left him,” I said, “wouldn’t she have contacted her parents?” If Anne feared Wolf’s big bad temper, she might have gone into hiding from him, but surely not from her parents.

  “Exactly.” Cricket plucked a daisy from the garden. “I’ve never quite been able to wrap my brain around it. If she were alive, she would have called me, texted me, sent me a postcard!”

  “So, the last time you saw her—was she despondent or anything?”

  “A little bit, I guess. She was very upset with Wolf. It was a Friday night. To cheer her up, after work we went shopping and out to dinner. It got a little later than we’d intended because we wound up having drinks in a bar. I remember Anne worrying that Wolf would be angry with her for coming home so late.” Cricket pulled a leaf off the stem.

  “When Mars and I were married—”

  “You were married to Mars? The Mars with whom we just had lunch?”

  “Yes.” We shared a last name. Why was this a surprise to her?

  “He says such nice things about you. You don’t act like a divorced couple.”

  I laughed. “No one ever gave us the manual on how divorced people are supposed to behave. We’re still friends.”

  “I thought all divorced couples fought like crazy. Olive and Roscoe sure do! Did Mars get mad when you came home late?”

  “Are you kidding? Both of us were always out late because of work. Political advisors and event planners have to expect that kind of hours. I can understand Anne’s situation at work, though. I love my job, but sometimes it absorbs every waking minute.”

  Mars shouted to us from the house. Lousy timing. I wanted to pump more information from Cricket. She turned to head back, so I hurried to zing her with two questions.

  “Do you think Anne could have taken her own life?”

  Her forehead wrinkled, and I thought she might tear up. “No way. The cops asked me about that way back when. She wanted to change her life, not end it.”

  “So, I guess you were the last person to see her alive?”

  Cricket bobbed her head. “Except for Wolf.”

  “Wolf? I thought she wasn’t home when he arrived that night.”

  “That’s easy to claim, isn’t it? Only two people know for sure, and one of them isn’t around to tell us.”

  Those ominous words hung in my head, but the sound of a motor drawing closer distracted me.

  The putter of a machine engine grew into full-fledged thunder as a backhoe rolled through the grass toward the impressive gardens. It turned around and aimed its bucket at a colorful bed of delphiniums.

  Cricket gasped and tried to run toward it, waving her hands and stumbling in impractical heels. She shouted to the driver. He let the engine idle, but I couldn’t hear their conversation. Roscoe huffed his way out to the machine, and a little exchange took place between the three of them.

  The driver cut the engine. Roscoe pulled a money clip from his pocket, peeled off bills, and handed them to the man, who tucked the money into his shirt pocket, started the backhoe again, and drove it out the way it came in. The grass was crushed, but I didn’t see any irreparable damage.

  What on earth? It looked as though Roscoe paid the man to leave. I wished I could have heard what had transpired. Not that it was any of my business, but I was curious. I hoped Mars might ask. It had certainly been peculiar. Hadn’t Mindy said that she wanted to dig up the garden and pour concrete?

  Roscoe followed the backhoe, while Cricket stopped at the terrace and chatted with Mars. I scoped out the garden in search of the cat, no doubt extremely alarmed by the noise. Two days had passed, but no one had come to spread the mulch over the stinky manure. Bits of leaves had been scattered in the garden beds, like someone had weed-whacked bushy plants nearby, so someone had worked in the garden.

  Even though I was concerned for the cat, my thoughts came back to Cricket and Wolf. She’d said what I didn’t want to hear—that she, too, could only come to the sad conclusion that Wolf had murdered his wife.

  Neither Mars nor Cricket faced me, but I realized with a start that Mars was rubbing his jaw with his index finger and middle finger. I hadn’t seen him do that in years. It was an old gesture from our married days that meant rescue me. Surely gorgeous Cricket hadn’t managed to intimidate him? I stifled a giggle and returned to the terrace.

  Minutes later, we’d thanked everyone and said our good-byes. Mars and I walked out to our cars.

  “Thanks for getting me this gig,” I said.

  “Hey, if you can deal with Natasha, you can handle Mindy.”

  “Wasn’t that weird with the backhoe?” I asked. “What was that about? Did Cricket tell you?”

  “Mindy and Roscoe are having a little spat. Mindy wants to sell the family homestead, but Roscoe won’t hear of it. She hates the garden, hates gardening, and hates that it represents Olive, so she hired someone to dig it up. Seems she’s planning to pour concrete over the entire thing and make it some kind of fancy architectural thing worthy of Versailles.

  “And what was this about back there with Cricket?” I mimicked the way he’d rubbed his jaw.

  We stopped at Wolf’s car. Mars’s eyes widened. “She was playing footsie with me under the table at lunch!”

  This time I laughed aloud. “Oh please! You flatter yourself.”

  “I’m not joking. She was rubbing my foot with hers.”

  “Yeah, right. I hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but she’s out of your league. Beside, she’s engaged to Audie. You probably hit her with your foot.” I cackled at the thought. “You better hope she doesn’t tell Roscoe. We’ll both lose him as a client.”

  “Hah! This old guy still has it going on. Something you might take note of.”

  I unlocked the door. “You wish.”

  “Did something happen to your car?”

  “I lent it to Wolf.”

  Mars cocked his head at me. “What’s going on?”

  I explained as briefly as possible.

  “Brilliant, Sophie! So your car was Wolf’s getaway car.”

  “He’s not on the lam from anyone but the press.” At least I hoped not. “Stop talking like that.”

  “How do you get into these things? You never had problems like this when we were married.”

  “I had a bigger problem—you!”

  “At least no one ever accused me of murder,” he muttered and walked on to his car.

  It was a teasing exchange, yet it brought me right back to the uppermost issue on my mind—Wolf. During the short drive home, I thought about him and the things Cricket had told me. As usual, there were no empty parking spots near my house, but as I drove by, I saw my car neatly parked in front of it.

  I slammed the brakes. Was Wolf at my house?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Dear Natasha,

  My husband insisted we buy a two-acre property for privacy. Turns out I have more privacy than I expected because he wastes his spare time at the golf course, while I take care of trimming, mowing, seeding, and deadheading two acres of land. How do I convince him to spend more time on the garden with me?

  —Golf Widow in Garden City, New York

  Dear Golf Widow,

  Golf clubs make cute plant stakes. Design a theme garden by creating an adorable planter out of his golf bag. Petunias spilling out of the top and pockets will make a striking focal point.

  —Natasha

  I tore around the corner, parked, and walked back to my house as fast as I could in the heat and sandals.

  Nina dashed across the street looking totally cool and rather ch
ic in a broad-brimmed straw sunhat. I recognized her white sandals as the type that supposedly tighten one’s thighs without special exercise. “I’ve been waiting for you to come home. Do you think Wolf is here? That the whole thing was just subterfuge for the press, and he’s holing up at your place?”

  I hoped so. I stabbed the key into the lock of my front door and rushed inside. Daisy danced happily in circles, and Mochie strolled in to investigate the excitement. I picked him up and petted Daisy. “Wolf?”

  Nina and I checked the kitchen.

  “There’s not even a note,” she said.

  I set Mochie on a chair and raced back to the foyer. He hadn’t left my keys on the console, either. “Wolf?” I shouted up the stairwell.

  I returned to the kitchen. “I don’t think he’s here.”

  The kitchen door opened, and Natasha waltzed in, all smiles. “I’m so glad you’re finally home. I’m supposed to take you shopping for repurp items.”

  “Repurp?”

  “Repurpose! Learn the lingo, Sophie. They’re things that were used for something else and have been discarded. We’re supposed to come up with brilliant new garden uses for them. Put on some decent shoes and let’s go.”

  I smelled Troy trying to get rid of Natasha for the rest of the day.

  “Gee, I’m really sorry,” said Nina, “but Sophie promised to help me set up a trap for a cat.”

  I tried to disguise my surprise. Roscoe must have phoned Nina the second we left.

  “I’m sure that can wait. Troy is on a tight schedule. It’s not as though we can repurp next week.”

  “Someone is trying to poison the cat, and the trap won’t fit in my car, so Sophie is my only hope.”

  When did Nina learn to fib so well?

  Natasha threw her hands in the air in dramatic dismay. Her sunrise-red nails were far too well manicured to repurp anything. I had a bad feeling I knew who would be doing the repurping.

  Happily, Nina’s potential poisoning won the my-need-is-more-pressing-than-yours contest. In truth, all I wanted was to find Wolf and talk to Kenner to find out what had happened since morning. Kenner probably wouldn’t talk to me, though. He’d never been a chatty sort of guy, and he certainly wouldn’t bend the rules and tell me the real scoop.

  “Sophie!” Nina snapped her fingers at me. “We’d better go before it’s too late for that poor kitty.”

  I crumbled leftover turkey burger into Mochie’s bowl and gave a bite to Daisy as a treat. “We should be back soon,” I assured them.

  I brought Wolf’s car around to Nina’s house so she could load the Havahart trap. When we were on our way, I asked, “What are you using for bait?”

  “Canned people tuna.”

  I chuckled. That didn’t sound right, but I knew what she meant. Minutes later, I walked up to the front porch of Roscoe’s house again and rang the bell. No one answered this time. I hoped Violet wasn’t out back poisoning the cat.

  “Roscoe asked me to come over as soon as possible,” said Nina. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we set the trap.”

  I agreed and picked up the trap. “It’s not like we need access to the house anyway.” Nina and I crept around the side of the house to the backyard.

  “Wow. It’s even more beautiful when it’s not full of children trying to push each other into cow pies. No wonder a cat wants to live here.”

  “Where’s the best spot for it?” I asked.

  “Too bad Mrs. Danvers isn’t around to tell us where she sees the cat.”

  “You’re so bad,” I scolded. “Stop calling her that or you’ll have me doing it, too. Violet, her name is Violet.”

  “I see the cat. She’s huge!”

  “Where? And how do you know it’s a she?

  “She’s fishing at the pond. Most calicos are female. It’s a genetic thing. Look at the size of that girl. She must be a Maine coon with all that long fur.”

  How could I have missed her? Nina was right, the cat was easily twice the size of my Mochie. The long fur only served to make her appear even larger.

  “I’m glad to see she likes fish,” whispered Nina.

  We inched toward her. The cat continued to focus on the fish, but as we drew near, one ear rotated in our direction, proving that she was aware of our presence.

  Like a flash, her paw swooped through the water and a red and white koi flipped onto a rock. She seized it in her mouth and scampered for the woods.

  Nina blew air into her cheeks and released it. “This one might be hard to catch. She’s obviously smart.”

  “Now we know why she’s hanging around here. I hope Violet doesn’t have the same attachment to koi that she has to birds.”

  “I’m trying to figure out where to put the trap. If she’s hungry for fish, maybe she’ll go for the easy tuna.”

  “She knows the fish are in the pond, so maybe you should place it on the other side of the pond, close to the woods.”

  Nina carried the trap around the pond and set it on the grass, near the site where the calico had been fishing. She adjusted the door to swing shut when the cat stepped on the trip plate that would hold food. Easing her arm inside, she positioned tuna on the trip plate and dropped tiny bits of it in a trail to lure the calico all the way in. “And for good measure,” she said, “I’ll leave a few teeny tuna chunks right here on the outside so she’ll realize how yummy it is.”

  She paused before laying a burlap type cloth over the trap. “Just in case she knows about traps, we’ll cover it up.”

  “Like that’s enough to change her mind about it?”

  Nina tsked at me. “Haven’t you ever heard that curiosity killed the cat? They love to butt in where they don’t belong, and they like confined spaces, too.”

  “You’re the expert.” Two birds landed on a flat stone the perfect depth for bird bathing. They fluttered their wings, splashing water like crazy. Without party noise, Roscoe’s garden was a beautiful, if odiferous, refuge. Birds twittered happily in the trees, and butterflies chased around bushes and flowers. A little hummingbird zoomed by us on its way to a vivid pink foxglove plant. The trumpet-shaped flowers seemed custom made for the hummingbird’s long beak. The garden reminded me of a nature preserve. “This is a huge property. I can’t even see neighboring houses. Who takes care of it now that Olive has moved out?”

  “Audie said it’s a couple of acres, but Olive left a lot of it natural. She cut paths through the trees for walking, but liked the forest effect. They hired a yard company to keep it up when she left, though Cricket told me at the party that Audie likes to putter around in it. Apparently, it’s his way of relaxing.”

  “Olive must have been sick to leave this place after the enormous effort she put into creating this garden.”

  “According to Francie, Olive and Roscoe’s divorce was all-out war. Very ugly. Olive says it was partly her fault because she never wanted to get involved with the catalog business.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Mindy was Roscoe’s assistant. Olive said if she had realized what was going on, she would have insisted he hire Violet as his assistant. There wouldn’t have been any hanky panky with her.

  “What else did Olive say?” I asked.

  “That Mindy married Roscoe for his money.”

  “She said as much to me. Think she’s right?”

  “I think Mrs. Danvers is watching us.”

  I twisted around and scanned the house. Sure enough, Mrs. Danvers… Violet… observed us through a window on the second floor.

  “Man, but she’s spooky.” Nina shuddered. “We’d better get out of here.”

  We walked through the lush grass, but Nina kept her eyes on Violet. “You don’t think she’ll put poison in the trap, do you?”

  “That beautiful cat! I can’t bear the thought of it.”

  “Maybe Roscoe knows what kind of poison she uses. He could hide it,” said Nina.

  “Hello? She doesn’t even have to go to the store for poison. Look
around this yard. It’s like a pharmacy. Foxglove, hydrangea, yew, delphinium, holly, cardinal flowers—there’s poison everywhere!”

  “I have some of those plants in my backyard, but I don’t have the first notion how to make them into a poisonous stew.”

  “Tea. You steep them like tea.”

  “Then we’re in luck. Cats are carnivorous. I don’t think they drink much tea.”

  “She could mix the tea with tuna.”

  We scooted around the side of the house and out to the front.

  “Are you going to call Roscoe about the poison?” I asked.

  “Absolutely. What are we going to do about Wolf?”

  “Good question. I have this nagging feeling that something happened when Anne left that we don’t know about. Wolf won’t talk.”

  “Maybe I should talk to Wolf.”

  “Good luck finding him.”

  “Are you worried about another woman?”

  “No. Wolf must have tons of friends. Cop friends whom we probably don’t even know. Or maybe he went to a hotel.”

  “Maybe he did kill her.”

  “Nina!”

  “Right, act appalled as though that thought hasn’t crossed your mind. He’s so private. He could keep murder a secret.”

  “I wish we knew who Anne’s friends were. Think we could ask Cricket? She must have known Anne’s other friends.”

  Nina squealed.

  I slammed the brakes, and we lurched forward. “What is it?” I looked frantically for an animal in the road.

  “We’re doing exactly what Mona wanted us to do.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Dear Sophie,

  Every year I plant all kinds of bright, colorful flowering plants, but they never look like much. What am I doing wrong?

  —Pansy in Daisy, Kentucky

  Dear Pansy,

  To make an impact, plant one type of flower in masses. It’s easier than it sounds if you do it with perennials, because they’ll come back every year. Or try massing impatiens. They pack a punch of color!