by Ann Ripley
Deciding it was best to ignore these bureaucratic details, she led off with her main concern. “Before I offer you coffee, Mike, I want you to promise me that no one is going to disturb my gardens until I’m out there with them. Can we agree on that?”
The detective went to the patio door, opened it and walked out for a brief conference with the technicians standing on the flagstone. They were leaning over and eyeing the flowers. Louise was reminded of thieves who’d just discovered a precious stash of loot.
Geraghty returned to the living room and said, “It’s taken care of. As for coffee, Louise, no thanks.” He turned to George Morton. “That’s right, isn’t it, George? You don’t need coffee?”
Morton said, “Let’s just sit down and get to it.” He gave Martha a hard look. “Miss Eldridge, do you want to stay or not?”
“I do,” said Martha. “I feel very much a part of this.”
They took seats, Louise on the couch with Geraghty next to her and George Morton on the other side in her grandmother’s antique chair. Martha and Bill occupied chairs across from them. Geraghty cocked his head toward Morton. “So, George, why don’t you start this time?”
Suddenly the room felt close, and she thought she could even smell rancid perspiration on one or other of the detectives, probably Morton. Unlike Mike Geraghty, who had his little worn pad poised on his knee, Morton held only a folded piece of paper in his hand. He raised his big head on his shortened body and addressed her. “Now, Mrs. Eldridge, just a few questions. Here’s what we already have. You admit that you hated Peter Hoffman.”
“I didn’t exactly hate him. I’d say I seriously disliked him.”
“But you acknowledge that you had a nasty fight with him in this house on Saturday night, August fourth, following a party at the home of Ron and Nora Radebaugh. During the time of the fight, you threw a heavy pitcher at him that might have killed him if your aim hadn’t been off.”
“Oh, no. That pitcher wasn’t heavy enough to kill him, not unless I’d hit him directly on his head or something—”
“We’ll leave that for now. It’s thought that you invited him into your house to talk things over.”
“Humph,” said Louise. “I did not invite him. He broke into my house. That’s why we brought charges against him.”
Morton bent his head and looked at his notes. “Okay, that’s what you say, Mrs. Eldridge. Some of your neighbors and friends say otherwise. Let me continue. Then, after filing charges and petitioning for a restraining order, you and your family set off on a vacation. But you, Mrs. Eldridge, returned to your home and backyard around midnight on Sunday, August twelfth.”
“Yes. I told Lieutenant Trace and you and Mike that about six times last night.”
“All right.” The detective leaned forward and took a deep breath, casting a quick glance at the notes. “Here’s what we have. Shortly after midnight on Monday, August thirteenth, someone sighted you, wearing your gardening hat and an old sweatshirt, moving your garden cart from Sam Rosen’s side yard into your yard.”
“No, no,” remonstrated Louise, “I did no such thing.”
Morton said, “Hold on and let me finish, Mrs. Eldridge. This same source claims that after that, he heard little noises, maybe like digging noises, way back in the woods where he couldn’t see you.” He glowered at her. “In other words, in that azalea garden where we found the body.”
“I did not dig; I just bent down and felt the soil in that garden. If that person heard me digging, why didn’t he come out and see why I was digging in the middle of the night?”
The detective cocked his head, looking amused. “Wonder if our source had decided you were a kind of ... obsessive gardener who might just do a thing like that.”
She released a heavy sigh. “And what’s all this about my hat and sweatshirt?”
“The hat was found on a hook in your garden shed. The sweatshirt reads ‘Bullfrog Marina.’ Sound familiar?”
“It’s my old sweatshirt from Lake Powell. I leave it hanging in the toolshed.”
“Huh,” grunted Morton. “Funny that we found it neatly folded, directly under Mr. Hoffman’s body, in the grave you dug for him.”
Louise’s breath caught, and she thought she’d faint. Bill stood up and came over to where she sat on the couch. He looked down at Mike Geraghty and said, “Let’s trade seats.” Geraghty moved to her husband’s chair, and Bill sat down and took Louise’s hand firmly in his.
Morton watched silently. Then he said, “Back to that sweatshirt, Mrs. Eldridge. We’ve picked up a detail about you—that you’re compulsively neat. So this handling of the sweatshirt would be something you’d do, wouldn’t it? Sort of your ‘signature.’ ”
“That’s bullshit,” snapped Bill. “It doesn’t prove a damned thing.”
“Then maybe the stains will.”
Louise’s mouth fell open. “It’s stained? Stained with what?”
In a gentle tone, Mike Geraghty explained. “The sweatshirt has some dark smears on it. Would you know how they came to be there?”
“I have no idea. You know, this is all wrong. I didn’t dig in that garden. I haven’t worn that sweatshirt since spring.”
“Okay,” said Morton, “let’s go back a step. Here’s what I think happened—here’s the big picture. You lured Peter Hoffman into the woods. You hit him on the head a number of times, then wrapped him up in that big plastic tarp. Then you went and got this little garden cart of yours, transported him and buried him under the azaleas.”
“I did not do any of that. How did you ever get that idea?”
Morton’s brown eyes narrowed as he gave her a long look. “Wait, there’s more. In our search of the toolshed early this morning, we found what we think is the weapon. It’s a nasty-looking device, and it has your fingerprints on it. It appears to have residual traces of blood in the crevices. We’ve sent it out for testing, along with the sweatshirt.”
“Where was this tool?” demanded Bill.
“Hanging in this selfsame garden shed, Mr. Eldridge, on a big hook on the pegboard on the north wall.”
Louise shook her head in confusion. “About three feet long, right?”
“Thirty-four inches, to be exact,” said Morton.
“That’s my edging iron. Anyone could have used it and then put it back. But you must realize that.”
He turned his brown-eyed gaze on her again. “But how about the tarp?”
“How about it?” she asked.
“Mrs. Eldridge, we’ve found your fingerprints on the plastic tarp in which Mr. Hoffman’s body was wrapped. Yours and only yours, all over it.”
She was breathing more quickly now. She’d had plastic tarpaulins stored in the shed for years, using them to cover delicate plants from frost. “Well, well, well,” she said, sarcastically. “Look at all this evidence! Why don’t you just arrest me for the crime? With my record of helping the Fairfax police solve crimes, surely I must be the perfect suspect for you, Detective Morton.”
To her relief, Mike Geraghty spoke up. “We know your record, Louise. Some of us can’t believe you did it and think this evidence could have been manufactured. So the Criminal Investigation Bureau will be investigatin’ a number of other folks, too.” He looked carefully at George Morton. “Isn’t that right, George?”
Morton gave Geraghty a sour look. “Naturally, the scope of our investigation will include others, since Mr. Hoffman did not live in a vacuum.”
“No, he was living with his wife, wasn’t he?” said Bill in a bitter voice. “And his lawyer, who got him off a murder rap with only four years in a mental hospital, now lives across the street from us. And there must be others who might like to have seen the man dead. So why don’t you get to it, Detectives?”
Crimson suffused Morton’s face as he carefully got up from the chair. Soon, they all were on their feet. Clearing his throat first, he said, “I know how you hate to hear this stuff, Mr. Eldridge, but your wife is a likely candidate to have killed
Peter Hoffman.” He paused and shrugged his shoulders and turned back to Louise. “I’ll concede that maybe it was a crime of passion, a crime of the moment. That much I’ll concede. Hoffman was a big man, but I understand you play competitive tennis and do yoga. You’re plenty strong enough to have perpetrated the crime, especially with a cart to haul the body.”
“Who’s your tipster?” asked Louise.
Morton didn’t answer her. Instead, he scratched his head, as if his mind were on other things. “By the way, what is it with that little cart?”
“It’s a golf cart decked out for gardening purposes,” answered Bill. “Sam Rosen had it modified with a metal flatbed on the back.”
“We found it parked in your bamboo patch by the side of the house.”
“That’s my Oriental garden, not a bamboo patch,” insisted Louise.
“ ’Fraid that’s where we found it. And we found dirt removed from the hole, too, near the bamboo. We’ve taken it away; it might have evidence in it. It appears to have been transported there in your trash can, apparently set on the back of the flatbed.”
Bill had moved close to Morton now. His hands were on his hips. “Would you please answer my wife’s question? You have a tipster who led you to us. And just who in the hell is it?”
Morton straightened, as if to make himself taller than Bill, a hopeless task. “I’m not at liberty to say, Mr. Eldridge. But in conclusion, this evidence doesn’t paint a very pretty picture about your wife. You’re just lucky we haven’t hauled her down to the station already. As it is, I intend for us to pursue a few other leads first. If they don’t pan out in the next week, we’ll know we have our perpetrator”—he sent Louise a somber look—“right here.”
Martha, who had listened in attentive silence up until now, said, “This is silly, Detective Morton. My mother has gone out of her way more than once to help you people catch criminals.” She flashed a resentful glance at Mike Geraghty. “At least Detective Geraghty has to appreciate that.” She stepped close to Morton. Louise noted the red-faced detective was caught in a pincers movement between her husband, her daughter and herself. “Since you’re through, why don’t you leave?” She put out a hand, as if to take his elbow and escort him out.
For a second, Morton stared at her lithe, tanned figure in tennis costume, then quickly moved across the room. On reaching the front hall, he stopped and turned, studiously avoiding looking at Martha or any of the family. Instead, his gaze was fastened somewhere in middle space. “Mrs. Eldridge,” he said, “don’t think about leaving home. Remember, right now you’re between a rock and a hard place.” As an afterthought, he added, “And please don’t get any ideas that you’re gonna investigate this crime. You’re too involved, believe me. If I were you, I wouldn’t even talk about it with my friends. Now, c’mon, Mike, we have work to do.”
Geraghty silently reached over toward Louise, as if to give her a little comforting pat on her shoulder. But he withdrew his hand before he touched her and followed the lead detective out of the house.
12
Martha was on the patio by herself, slumped in a chair with the cell phone at her ear, her feet propped up on another chair. The woods were loud with birds chirping and insects making a huge racket. She hoped Jim could hear her. When he did, he wouldn’t like what she said.
“I’m glad you’re coming back this afternoon,” he said. “I’ve missed you so much, Martha.”
“I’m not coming, Jim. I’ve had to cancel the flight. We have trouble here.”
“What trouble?”
“You know that big creep, Peter Hoffman, that I told you all about? Well, he was missing for almost a week, and last night my mother found his body in our garden.”
“Bummer. I’m sorry, Martha. I’m really sorry. Who put him there?”
“That’s the bad part. The cops have been busy snooping around Ma’s garden shed, taking fingerprints, et cetera, and they just came over and told her that she’s a suspect. I think she’s their only suspect.”
“I thought she was the police department’s best little helper.”
“She was. She is.”
“Tell me more.”
Martha went down the evidence list, piece by piece.
“That sweatshirt’s not good, Martha,” concluded Jim. “It probably has Hoffman’s blood on it. Someone’s got it in for her.”
“Mike Geraghty probably agrees with you. He’s the detective who used to run things at the Mount Vernon station. It’s mainly this George Morton who acts like she belongs in jail. They say they’ll arrest her by the end of next week if they can’t come up with some evidence that someone else did it.”
“Should I come out there?”
“How are you going to run for public office if you’re in northern Virginia?”
“It’s not a good time, I’ll admit. And someone’s just attacked me for something my great-uncle did thirty-seven years ago. But I’ll come if you need me.”
“I’d like to help out here as much as I can. Usually it’s Janie who has to help Ma get out of her scrapes. I’ll tell you what. Give me a few days. If things don’t get straightened out by then, maybe you’d better fly out here and lend your keen Cook County crime nose to saving her.”
“I can’t believe the police are serious. I sure don’t want my future mother-in-law in jail. You’ll need to call me every night and tell me how things are going.”
“I will, darling.”
“Did you tell them about things?”
“Yeah. Ma and I had a chance to talk this morning before the police came and laid their big trip on her. She’s accepted my conversion to Catholicism okay. The wedding dress thing was a little harder.”
“What did she want, for you to wear a white dress with a train?”
“I think so.”
“Is she going to accept the fact that you’re wearing jeans?” he said, chuckling.
“Jeans,” said Martha, “or a few cuts above that.”
Janie came out of her bedroom in her pajamas, surprised to see it was only eight-thirty. She groaned. Five hours’ sleep wasn’t enough for her. She went into the dining room and stared out into the yard. There was her family in its entirety—father, mother and sister—plus a couple of guys in navy uniforms. More police. But these two looked browbeaten, and she could see why.
Her mother appeared to be scolding the man with a shovel in his hand. The other held what looked like a pole digger. Apparently, they were probing around in other gardens on the theory that her mother was a mass murderer.
In disgust, she went into the kitchen and found the bagels and lox. Though she didn’t drink coffee, she looked at the Chemex pot, shaped like a beaker from her chemistry class, sitting on the warmer. A residue of deep brown liquid was in it. She decided to try it. After all, her mother could never exist for a day without her usual allotment of four or five cups. Janie, who didn’t drink soda, was tired enough to experiment.
She poured half a cup to start, lacing it with cream just as Louise did. When she thought about her mother, she always thought of her as “Louise,” although she still called her “Ma.” One of these days, she’d just grow up and call her by her name.
She sat down and found she thoroughly enjoyed this more mature version of breakfast. Heavens knows she needed a boost, for it was déjà vu all over again with that yellow police tape around the yard. Back when they found those gory objects in the bags of leaves, it had embarrassed her practically to tears and made her the object of teasing at school. If she hadn’t had Chris Radebaugh as a good friend then, she would have been lost. Though she was too old for tears now, it still was embarrassing.
She wished Chris were here and not in Baltimore. Her boyfriend’s summer internship ended soon at Johns Hopkins. It couldn’t be soon enough for Janie.
She paused in eating and took another sip of coffee. No wonder her mother loved it so. It had a real kick and an engaging aftertaste. She chuckled. Now that she herself was a coffee-drinker, she was s
ure she was mature enough to get married.
Her mother was in trouble again, no doubt about it. Janie knew it from sitting around the Mount Vernon substation last night with her sister. Louise was a suspect. Why else would they have questioned her for three hours?
Janie knew her mother was innocent, but she also knew that if she had had the gumption to kill anyone, it would have been Peter Hoffman. She’d hated the man, and for good reasons.
Through a haze of half-sleep, she’d heard the detectives arrive this morning and could make out a few things, mainly her mother’s exclamations of innocence. It seemed as though they were staying for a long time.
Instead of just helping Martha plan a wedding, Janie would have to see what she could do to get Louise out of this mess. Too bad her sister was bailing out and returning to Chicago today. Maybe the two of them could have figured out how that body got into the azalea garden.
She looked out again and saw Martha hanging right there by her mother’s side. Her sister didn’t act like someone heading out for a noon flight to Chicago. Of course, she thought. She’s cancelled her trip. As if telepathic, Martha came to the big plate-glass window and peered in at Janie with a sweat-beaded face.
Janie put her coffee cup down and made a ring with her index finger and thumb. Martha did the same. Okay, it meant, in sisterly code, “let’s get on this.”
It was hot and humid on the patio, and Louise knew her long-suffering husband would have much preferred being in the house, checking out the Washington Post’s take on the disastrous news from the Middle East rather than out here while she kept the evidence technicians in line.
“Bill, go inside. Believe me, I can handle these two.”
“No, darling, I’ll stay.”
She turned her attention back to the technicians. They were on their knees on the hard flagstone now. She’d handed them each a trowel and told them exactly how to proceed. “Now, officers,” she said crisply, “without using those shovels, you can see for yourself that no one has tampered with this garden.”