The Diva Digs Up the Dirt

by Krista Davis

  I was still taking in the details of the kitchen when she screeched. “No!”

  She said good-bye and hung up her phone, breathing hard. Placing her hands on the edge of the sink, she looked out into the yard, her back to us. A full minute ticked by.

  “Is Roscoe…” I was afraid to ask if he’d died.

  “I need a drink!” Olive opened the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher. “Iced tea?”

  After hours in the heat, Nina and I eagerly accepted her offer. She poured it into chunky hand-blown glasses with green rims and tiny bubbles. Mexican, if I had to guess. We sat at her kitchen table, as roughly hewn as her old dining room table at Roscoe’s house.

  Slapping the hat into an empty chair, Olive smoothed her forehead with a trembling hand. “I was planning to make pickles today. Roscoe always loved my three-day crock pickles.”

  Pickles! Either she was rambling or this was how she coped with stress. “Is Roscoe all right?” I couldn’t stand not knowing.

  “Audie says he will be fine. I could hear Roscoe bellowing about going home. But you didn’t tell me about the murder! What is going on over there?”

  “I suppose you heard about the stolen Audubon print,” I offered.

  Olive snorted. “I never like to hear of anything bad happening to an Audubon. I wouldn’t have named my son Audubon if I weren’t a huge fan, but in this case, I am just a teensy bit amused. Schadenfreude they call it. Amusement at someone else’s misfortune. It’s about as low as a person can get to feel happy about another person’s bad luck, but after the way Roscoe replaced me with Mindy, I can’t help being just a tad gleeful about the missing Audubon.”

  “So is Roscoe going home?” asked Nina.

  “They’re keeping him for a bit, for observation and tests. Can you imagine—Audie said that I shouldn’t come to the hospital. He thinks I’ll cause a ruckus and upset the new lady of the manor.” She checked the time on a vintage wall clock featuring a cow’s head. “I’ll clean up and go over there in a couple of hours. Roscoe will need me. By then his hustler will have grown weary and gone home.” She took a deep breath. “So tell me about Wolf. Did the press find him? I gather they still haven’t located Anne’s body? It’s a shame what they’ve done to his yard. It looks like they don’t plan to leave a bit of soil unturned.”

  “Olive,”—Nina rested her elbows on the table and leaned toward her—“we need your help.”

  How very clever of Nina. Poor Olive felt discarded and unwanted. Nina honed right in on that by making her feel needed.

  “As you know, Sophie has been dating Wolf.”

  Ack! Where was Nina going with that?

  “All of Sophie’s friends are worried about her relationship with him. She thinks he’s a nice guy who would never murder anyone, but there seems to be some big secret about him.”

  Olive bent forward toward us, nodding her head. “What can I do to help?”

  Nina gave a little jolt as though surprised. “Tell us the secret!”

  Olive sat up straight. “Well Lord, honey, how would I know? You two are far better acquainted with Wolf than I am.”

  Nina frowned at me when her plan didn’t work.

  I tried not to sound accusatory. “Isn’t there some conflict between Wolf and Roscoe?”

  “They just had a disagreement is all. You know how it is when two stubborn men lock horns.” She made two fists and slammed them together at the knuckles to make her point.

  “May I ask what they argued about?” I said.

  Olive tsked. “I don’t want to hurt you by saying this, Sophie, but I believe Wolf put Anne on a pedestal. I’m not sure that she was the delicate angel he wanted to think she was.”

  “Go on.” Nina crunched on a piece of ice.

  “It wasn’t a big deal. Wolf obviously loved Anne very much and refused to face the truth about her. He got angry when Roscoe didn’t buy it and spoke his mind. Wolf would have defended that girl with his dying breath.” Olive snorted. “I wish Roscoe had felt as protective of me.”

  I never expected to have so many conflicting emotions at one time. I wasn’t hurt. After all, wasn’t it commendable that Wolf had defended his wife? I had to admit that I was a tiny bit jealous, but in the end, wasn’t that what we wanted from a spouse? Someone who would stand by us through thick and thin? “He told me she never had a lover.”

  “That’s a perfect example,” said Olive. “It was so obvious…” Her forehead wrinkled and she twirled her glass on the table.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “It’s just that… It’s rather curious that Anne’s lover would show up right now, just when you’ve discovered her handbag.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Dear Natasha,

  My wife caught your show the other day and said you grew cucumbers that were the shapes of hearts and stars when you sliced them. How did you do that?”

  —Stumped in Cucumber, West Virginia

  Dear Stumped,

  With plastic molds! They’re very popular in Japan. You slip one over the cucumber when it’s tiny, and it grows in the shape of the mold. Japanese gardeners do the same thing to achieve square watermelons.

  —Natasha

  “Show up? Who is he?” I asked.

  “I thought you were there today—at my house. Well, Roscoe’s house now. Didn’t you see him?”

  Who was she talking about? I wracked my brain to remember. “Not Roscoe, surely not Mars or Detective Kenner. Audie?”

  “Heath. He disappeared at the same time she did.”

  “Heath who worked for Roscoe’s company?”

  “That’s the one. I’m afraid your Wolf was in denial about it.”

  The news knocked me for a loop. Wolf could not have been more insistent that Anne had never been involved with another man. Unfortunately, in an odd way, his adamant protests supported exactly what Olive had just said. “That would explain why he always thought she would return. Maybe he didn’t want to admit it, but deep down he thought or hoped she had run off with Heath.”

  Nina jumped to her feet. “Thanks for the tea, Olive. We need to get going so you can check on Roscoe.”

  In a flurry of thanks and good-byes, we were out the door and in Nina’s car in two minutes flat. She backed out of the driveway fast.

  “What’s going on? Why the hasty departure?” I asked.

  “That was fascinating.”

  “Then why were you in such a hurry to leave?”

  “Because she’s in it up to her sweet southern highballs.”

  “You’ve lost me, Nina.”

  “Ah, my dear Sophie, you’re overlooking something important. We have no reason to believe that Roscoe or Olive are related to Wolf or Anne. Correct?”

  “Right.”

  “Olive admitted that we know Wolf better than she does. Wolf is a cop and Anne was an accountant, and we know they didn’t work for Roscoe’s company—which begs the question—why exactly do they know so much about Wolf and Anne? Why would Wolf and Roscoe have ever discussed something as personal as Anne’s infidelity?”

  Her logic took me by surprise, but it made sense. “You think she’s lying to us?”

  “At the very least, she’s not telling us everything.”

  “Mona didn’t know about an affair, either. Of course, she might be the kind of mother whose children don’t confide in her—and for good reason. And honestly, how many people would tell their parents about their affairs anyway? Still, so far Olive is the only one who knows about this alleged affair.”

  “Isn’t it convenient that Anne’s affair happens to have been with a dead man? Now there’s no way to verify it. Unless Cricket knows. They were best friends, right? You would tell me if you were having an affair.” She glanced at me coyly. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m such a dolt that I’ve been seeing a married man right out in the open. I’m not cut out for this, Nina. It was awful yesterday in Anne’s bedroom—seeing her embroidery and decorating taste. S
he was never real to me before. Now I feel incredibly guilty about dating Wolf.”

  “I’m famished. You don’t mind grabbing lunch at Bernie’s do you?”

  “Not a bit. The second I go home, Natasha will try to foist some project on me that I’ll have to accomplish in a hat with a veil.”

  Nina parallel parked her car in a rare opening on King Street.

  We walked into deliciously cooled air at The Laughing Hound, an upscale restaurant located in an old town house with dining areas on many levels. Our friend Bernie happened to be in the foyer with a blonde attached to his lips. Nina and I stopped in our tracks and watched.

  The perky blonde giggled. “I’ll see you tonight.” On her way out, she waved at us. “Hi, Sophie! Hi, Nina!”

  I knew that delicate face and the sophisticated haircut that framed it perfectly. “Was that Jesse’s mom?”

  Bernie blushed. The best man at my wedding, he was still Mars’s best friend and lived in an apartment over top of Natasha and Mars’s garage. A vagabond for years, he’d traveled the world taking odd jobs in exotic places. In an unexpected move, he’d become the manager of The Laughing Hound for an absentee owner. The goofy guy with a kink in his nose and unruly hair had turned it into one of the most successful restaurants in town.

  In his charming British accent, he said, “Dana. You remember her—from the haunted house.”

  Nina spluttered, “Of course we remember her. We just had no idea that you had hooked up with her.”

  “A gentleman doesn’t broadcast these things. I’m about to grab a bite. Care to join me?” He led us through the garden room to a small private dining room one level up. Glass enclosed, it looked out on quaint Old Town houses and the outdoor dining space below.

  “Your regular sandwiches?” Bernie asked. “Sorry—forgot that you and Wolf have been watching your diets, Sophie. How about the vegginini Wolf orders?”

  “Vegginini?”

  “A vegetarian panini. Some of our guests nicknamed it the vegginini.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Nina stuck out the tip of her tongue. “I need meat. Steak sandwich, please, with your delicious fries. Those count as veggies.”

  Bernie left, and I leaned back in my chair. “At this point, I’m so confused and frustrated about Wolf, not to mention stressed from the nightmare in my backyard, and now finding Heath’s corpse, I think I’m entitled to chocolate. A triple hot fudge sundae at the very least.”

  “You and me, both. Part of me wants to defend Wolf and get him out of this mess, and the other part is afraid of what we might find. What if he really killed her?”

  Bernie returned just in time to hear Nina’s question. A waitress followed him to place icy pitchers of water and tea on the table.

  “Would either of you care for a drink?” she asked.

  Nina rolled her head around, loosening her neck muscles. “Yes! A scotch, please, neat.”

  I knew I shouldn’t indulge because of the calories, but the way things were going, I thought I deserved a splurge or two—or three. “I’ll have a lemon slush, please.”

  When the waitress left, Bernie poured water for each of us. “Were you talking about Wolf?”

  “It’s all so muddled,” said Nina.

  Bernie took a seat. “I’d like to help him. I find it hard to believe a decent bloke like Wolf killed his wife.”

  “So you think she’s alive?” I asked.

  Bernie rubbed his eyes as though he’d had a long morning, too. “She’s probably dead, but not at Wolf’s hands.”

  The waitress carried a huge tray into the room and set sandwiches and drinks before us.

  Wolf’s vegginini turned out to be a whole wheat English muffin, spread with a light, savory sauce and loaded with crunchy shredded carrots, creamy avocado slices, sprouts, and julienned cucumber and heated in a panini maker.

  Bernie waited until the waitress closed the door. “What do we know so far?”

  I swallowed a bite and put my sandwich down. “Not much. Wolf told me Anne took a little suitcase with some things of hers. She was gone when he came home. Of course, now we know her handbag and wallet were buried in Wolf’s backyard. The only real lead we have is a claim that Anne was having an affair with a guy named Heath, who most conveniently turned up dead today under a mulch pile at Roscoe Green’s house. And—”

  “Hold it!” Bernie reached a hand toward me. “There’s a dead guy at Roscoe’s house?”

  Nina quickly filled him in on the details.

  Bernie frowned. “Seems highly unlikely that a person would happen to die of natural causes under a pile of mulch. Not unless it fell on him, which doesn’t seem to be the case.”

  “Exactly!” said Nina. “And isn’t it curious that he had a connection to Anne?”

  “Crikey!” Bernie leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair that left it even more tousled. “I’m still gobsmacked that a guy was likely murdered. Surely you don’t think there’s any connection to Wolf?”

  I didn’t want to think there was. “Wolf and Roscoe had some kind of falling out, supposedly over Anne’s character.”

  “Have you asked Wolf about the problem with Roscoe?” Bernie sipped beer from a pilsner glass.

  “He won’t tell me anything. He just says to leave it alone. That he doesn’t want me involved.”

  Nina snarfed a french fry. “You’re his safe haven.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve read about it. Shrinks see it a lot in little kids who have violence in their lives. There’s a person, usually a grandparent, or an aunt, or a neighbor, who becomes a safety zone. Someone who shelters them from the turbulence and makes life bearable and normal when they’re together. Don’t you see? Wolf doesn’t want you involved because you’re the one he goes to when he can’t take it anymore.”

  “Nice theory, but I’m not buying it,” I growled.

  Nina bit into her steak sandwich and groaned with pleasure. She swallowed and said, “I think Olive is lying about Anne having an affair with Heath. She’s covering up for the real person Anne was involved with, like Audie, maybe. What if Anne was having an affair with Audie, and he’s the one who killed her?”

  “Want a taste of my soft-shell crab sandwich, Sophie?” asked Bernie. When I shook my head, he continued. “So you’re thinking Anne met Audie and had an affair but then broke it off or said she wouldn’t leave Wolf, so Audie murdered her, took some of her belongings, and buried her handbag in the backyard to implicate Wolf?”

  “Wow,” said Nina. “When you put it that way, it really sounds plausible.”

  “Who would know more?” I thought out loud. “Audie, Olive, and Roscoe aren’t going to admit anything. Cricket said she was Anne’s best friend, but she’s almost part of Roscoe’s family. She might repeat their standard line.”

  “I seriously doubt that she knows Audie was involved,” said Bernie. “Surely she wouldn’t be engaged to him if she knew he had killed someone. Perhaps they gave her the same song and dance about Heath to protect Audie.”

  “Heath was watching from the woods the day of the party. Do you think Olive brought him? What if Olive brought Heath back on purpose to upset Roscoe’s new marriage? Wait!” I nearly spilled my lemon slush in my excitement. “Is it possible that Heath had something going with Mindy? I saw her being rather cozy with Audie the day of the party. Maybe Audie killed Heath to keep him away from Mindy.”

  “Heath and Mindy?” said Nina. “I don’t see it. He’s good looking, but in that macho I-split-wood-and-wear-flannel-shirts kind of way. Mindy’s such a priss.”

  Bernie laughed. “Don’t be so sure. You’d be amazed by some of the odd matches that come in here.”

  Nina gasped. “What about Mrs. Danvers?”

  “Who’s that?” asked Bernie.

  “Violet, the housekeeper. She tried to cover up Heath’s hand even though we’d already seen it.”

  “And she knocked the phone out of Mars’s hand. She would d
o anything to protect Audie and Roscoe. Evidently, that includes covering up a murder.”

  “Hah! I don’t trust that woman,” said Nina. “She probably killed Anne and Heath.”

  She’d said it in a light tone, joking really, but the sad truth was that her jest wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

  “I wish we knew what kind of connection Wolf had with Roscoe and Olive,” she griped.

  “We do know one person who knows them well and never minces words—Francie!”

  In a rare move, Nina and I skipped dessert in our eagerness to speak to Francie. While Nina parked her car, I bolted into my house, fed and nuzzled Mochie, and snapped a leash on Daisy. Ordinarily, I would have left my purse at home, but I didn’t want to alert Natasha to my presence in the neighborhood. Slinging it over my shoulder, I dashed out before she could know I was home.

  I met up with Nina at Francie’s front door, but before we knocked, I saw Mars helping someone out of his car. “Is that… Roscoe?”

  Without a word, Nina and I hurried along the sidewalk and across the street to Mars and Natasha’s house, on the corner. Mars and Roscoe had already disappeared inside the house.

  We dashed up the stairs. Nina knocked on the door, and Mars opened it so fast that he must have been standing on the other side. He scanned the street. “This isn’t a good time.”

  Roscoe bellowed, “Is that Sophie? Bring her in here.”

  Nina, Daisy, and I stepped inside.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered to Mars.

  He motioned us into the dining room.

  Roscoe sat at the end of the table.

  It seemed only minutes ago that we had been at Olive’s house, talking about Roscoe being in the hospital. In reality, a couple of hours had probably passed. Enough time for him to get here at any rate.

  “How’re you holding up, Roscoe?” asked Mars, taking a seat across from him.

  “I’ve been better.” He gripped the arms of the chair.

  Roscoe’s color had improved, but I had never seen him so angry. The open, friendly face had turned sour. Nina and I hastily slid into chairs next to each other. Mars took off Daisy’s leash, and she settled under the table.