Summer Garden Murder

by Ann Ripley

  The thunder and rain masked the sound of the door opening, but suddenly she saw Hilde standing in the studio entrance. She glanced quickly at Louise and then at the atmospheric marvel occurring above them on the rim of the roof.

  “Hurry! Come in!” Hilde cried.

  Louise was happy to get away from this alarming display of nature. She hurried into the studio, but immediately was on guard, knowing that it could be as perilous inside as it was outside in the storm. Suddenly, her protective rain poncho became like a prison, and she felt the sweat forming in her armpits.

  Looking over at Hilde, she saw that the young woman appeared off-balance, and Louise knew why. The time was right to knock her further off her composed center.

  “Servus, Hilde.”

  “Servus,” repeated the young woman reflexively. She gave Louise a startled look. “What are you doing, practicing your German?”

  “No, my Swiss-German. Except you don’t necessarily know the difference, do you, not being Swiss, or you would have been more apt to respond with ‘Tschau.’ ”

  Hilde stood near to her, looking strong and unyielding. Only her eyes betrayed her nerves. “How clever you must think you are.”

  “Elsebeth assured me you were definitely not Swiss,” said Louise. “Your accent and your usage indicate you’re Austrian.”

  Hilde sighed in aggravation. “It’s what I would expect of a woman like that.”

  “How did you manage this change in identification?” asked Louise, meanwhile looking furtively about for avenues of escape.

  “It was so easy,” exclaimed Hilde. “A kind friend who asked few questions lent me her passport and identification. That is why only the annoying Charlie Hurd found out. He searched through all the records of the trial and didn’t find anything. But when he talked to a court employee, he discovered that Margit Hilde Weeren represented Kristina Weeren’s family at Hoffman’s trial. To make sure, he ransacked my purse and saw the passport photo. He realized it wasn’t me. And then you—you and your trifling concerns about how I was using the language.”

  “You’re Kristina’s sister. That’s what I finally guessed. I didn’t know Charlie suspected you, too.” Louise wished Charlie was with her right now. As she spoke, she continued to measure her situation. She wanted to put some distance between herself and Hilde, but she didn’t want to be trapped in this big room. Hilde blocked the nearby exit door. Louise sauntered a few steps down the studio aisle, noting tables full of eight-inch-high clay cat figures. She tried to remember how many exits there were in this workshop. She could see only two—the one she’d entered through, and a connecting door to the main house thirty feet from where she stood.

  But she was safe, wasn’t she, with her cell phone and her secateurs in her pocket?

  Louise turned back and confronted the young woman. “So what’s to be done now, Hilde? Did you suspect I was coming over here tonight?”

  Hilde smiled and looked down at something in the aisle behind her. Louise’s breath caught in her throat when she heard a long moan of pain. “Charlie came before you,” she said.

  The reporter sounded awful, as if he were dying. Louise said to Hilde, “It would be best for you if we could help Charlie. I’ve told people I was coming here, and they’ll be looking for me.” She could have kicked herself for not doing exactly that.

  “Why would I help Charlie?” said the Austrian woman, her voice calm and cold. “As you said, I’m out for vengeance. Peter Hoffman killed and dismembered my sister. Since then, both of my parents have died, my father by his own hand, my mother from grief and depression. And nothing much was done to that Ungeheuer, Hoffman. So I came to the States to set things right. Once I was here, it was easy to arrange a job and to meet him, almost the minute he was freed from the mental hospital.”

  “Why did you bury him in my garden?”

  “I wanted to get revenge on everyone who caused or benefited from my sister’s suffering.” Tears flowed down the young woman’s cheeks. Louise now knew Kristina’s pain was as fresh to Hilde as when she’d first heard of it. “I was outraged at the way you testified at Peter’s trial. Everything you said helped the lawyers justify that he was crazy.”

  “No,” cried Louise, “you couldn’t think that.”

  Hilde’s face reddened with anger. “But I do think that. I remember your words. You told how he broke into your writing place and attacked you: ‘He was wearing a white parka. He was totally out of control, and looked like a huge enraged animal as he came after me.’ What did you think the jury would do once you’d said that?”

  “But Peter Hoffman was acting quite mad when he attacked me in my own house. Oh, God, Hilde, I only tried to tell the truth.”

  “You told it too well,” said Hilde. “And you profited from Kristina’s death. You wouldn’t be a TV personality today if you hadn’t been involved with Peter Hoffman.”

  Louise realized that Hilde was right. She’d endured her share of guilt feelings over that matter in the past. The brief celebrity she’d experienced at the time of Kristina’s murder was the primary reason a TV producer had plucked her out of her housewifely anonymity and made her into a garden show host. “But you should also remember that I’m the one who identified Peter Hoffman as the killer.”

  “But you profited. I was going to get you one way or another, with the pickax”—she smiled coldly—“or the planted clues. If I didn’t succeed in getting you arrested as the killer, I was going to make you my next victim.”

  “Kill me, too?” This bald admission somehow made Louise feel calmer. Now she knew just how cold-blooded this young woman was.

  “Yes. It was annoying when the police didn’t charge you. I smeared Peter’s blood on that sweatshirt and that garden tool for nothing. Then I was sure they would act once they found Mike’s gold ring in your house. But they didn’t even do it then. What is the matter with those police?”

  Louise fleetingly pictured Mike Geraghty. Had he pleaded with Dan Trace to delay action on Louise? “If they’d jailed me, you’d have been home free. How did you get in the house?”

  “So easy,” mocked Hilde. “A woman who is so childish that she keeps her spare door keys in an artificial rock shouldn’t feel secure from burglars. It was so enjoyable to see the effect my little tricks had on you.”

  “The sympathetic, helpful young neighbor.”

  “Indeed. The observant young neighbor. I knew your family’s every move.”

  “But there’s no way you could have gotten away with a third killing.” Hilde tossed her head in an arrogant gesture. Louise realized the young woman still felt she had control over the situation and wondered how she could use this overconfidence to her own advantage.

  “Don’t be so sure. I’d planned for you to commit suicide.” She gave Louise a malicious smile. “Everybody agrees you’re a ‘wreck,’ so why wouldn’t they believe you’d take your own life? I even have the pills for it. It’s an assortment of codeine products that you left in your medicine cabinet. I would have combined them with others I had on hand, and that would have been the perfect ending. But your unexpected arrival has ruined that plan. Now I will have to leave both you and Charlie behind.”

  Louise looked around in desperation, knowing this woman meant what she said. Without batting an eye, she would kill them both. Louise needed to buy time. Maybe the Swansons would arrive back home and interrupt this grim standoff, though she hated the thought of drawing friends into the web of this killer.

  A little flattery was in order. “You’re very clever, Hilde. Tell me more about how you did all this.”

  “When I was told by authorities that Peter Hoffman had concluded his hospital stay after four short years, I applied through the Foreign Artists’ Association for an internship as Sarah’s apprentice. I spent my leisure time learning about the neighborhood and watching your frenzied gardening habits. Finding out from Sam about your electric ‘cartita’ to carry plants around. Discovering from him that you never locked your toolsh
ed. While the Eldridge family was away, I had no trouble tempting Peter into the common woods in back of your house. I placed your edging tool conveniently near where I wanted to attack him. When I’d hit him once, he fell down but was not unconscious, and I told him how good it felt to attack him the way he’d attacked my sister. Then I beat his head until he died.”

  “You found the cart at Sam’s house.”

  “I knew it was there. Nothing was by chance. I brought his body onto your property and buried it. The first body required a great deal of digging.”

  Louise heard another moan. Poor Charlie. He could be dying there on the concrete floor while Hilde went through this recital of her crimes. The young woman turned to the noise, but didn’t move. “I’ll take care of him soon enough.”

  “Why did you kill Mike Cunningham?”

  “Hah! Another Ungeheuer, or what you call ‘monster. ’ That creature also was profiting from my dear sister’s death by millions. Do you realize he bargained with that pig Hoffman for a large part of his fortune?”

  “Was that provided he succeeded in getting Peter into a hospital and not a prison?”

  “And also because he brokered the sale of Hoffman Arms. That was a crooked deal, you know. He told me a little about it, not everything, but enough for me to understand what an advantage it was to him, like an Enron deal. And then of course he wanted to sleep with me.” Her eyes glistened with the excitement of telling the tale. “Most men want to sleep with me as soon as they meet me.”

  “Like Charlie.”

  “Yes, Charlie, too, though Charlie was nicer than Mike. I had great satisfaction burying that crooked lawyer in your vegetable garden. The digging was so much easier there.” She smiled again. “You and Sam did such a good job there.”

  “Thanks,” replied Louise in a sarcastic tone. She was dripping with perspiration under her plastic poncho, and any moment now she looked for the heart palpitations to start. It was something that happened to her in desperate situations, but something she could ill afford right now, with both Charlie’s and her life at stake.

  The fact was that Louise was cornered, and the woman’s story nearly told. But she had her cell phone just inches away, so she should be safe. She didn’t want to take out the phone until she’d heard one last detail of Hilde’s murderous ventures.

  “Tell me about the Yiddish curse.”

  “Oh, that. Mike Cunningham was verflucht—cursed, that is—from the moment I met him. The charming vegetable garden was not done, of course, when I struck down Peter Hoffman. I had to find him another grave. Then I saw you and Sam planting onions. I immediately thought of the beauty of humiliating my enemy by burying him with his ‘head in hell and his feet in the air.’ ”

  “The literal translation. You’re a real student of history, Margit Hilde Weeren, a believer in Old Testament justice. But now you’ll have to come to terms with what you’ve done, because the Fairfax County sheriff’s department doesn’t operate on Old Testament justice.” The time had come to alert the authorities. But when Louise plunged her hand in her pocket for her phone, she heard the horrifying sound of her pants pocket ripping apart.

  34

  Her pants pocket tore asunder and the little phone slid down her leg through the hole and clattered across the floor, halting under a table. She just barely caught the secateurs, which were caught in the pocket’s torn fabric before they, too, slid beyond her reach.

  Hilde rushed toward her, a long metal tool in her hand, something with which to smooth clay. Louise had no time to retrieve the phone from under the drying table. Instead, she clutched her snubby secateurs as if they were a sword and prepared to confront Hilde. As she saw the young woman flying at her, she realized that it was an uneven fight, for her weapon was a fraction of the size of Hilde’s.

  She knew the only answer was flight. Forgetting what she should have known, she rushed down the outside aisle and nearly fell after she tripped over a prone body. She kept herself upright by grabbing onto the drying table, sending cat reproductions flying through the air and crashing onto the floor. Several landed on the body, which reacted with a reassuring groan.

  “Ow!” It was Charlie, and now she was certain he would live, provided she could lure this murderous woman out of the studio.

  “Charlie, hold on!” she cried, and raced onward to the exit door, reaching it only a few feet before Hilde did. She wrenched it open and dashed into the pelting rain. She didn’t have to turn around to know that her young assailant was directly behind her.

  Only one solution came to mind, and it wasn’t a very good one. She must get to the street before Hilde did and hope that someone in this monsoon was willing to stop and help her. She dodged into the front yard and, like a skier doing the slalom, skidded back and forth down the hill through Sarah Swanson’s native plants and shrubs, panting noisily as she went down the steep hillside, stumbling sometimes over the river rocks used to mulch the plants. Hilde followed, making straining sounds like a feral animal. And she is an animal, thought Louise. She’s killed twice and has no reason not to kill again.

  She grazed the big clump of oakleaf hydrangeas, batted down several of the smaller, less tough native grasses and a kerria shrub, and nearly entangled herself in a Sir Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick. She evaded the low pines, for they were dark patches that were easier to see in the rain. She was nearly to the bottom of the hill.

  Ahead of her was the Crataegus crusgalli, a tree that she knew. Hope swelled in Louise’s heart, for this tree could save her. Behind her ran Hilde Brunner, still groaning intermittently from the strain of pursuing an enemy who could destroy her. Between groans, her breathing was noisy and raspy like Louise’s. Louise increased her speed and headed for a collision with the innocent-looking tree. Just as she was going to crash into it she swerved to the left, so hard that she tripped and fell and rolled down onto the sidewalk.

  “Oww!” she cried, as she skidded onto the concrete sidewalk. The entire right side of her body throbbed with pain, and her right leg felt as if it were broken.

  Then she heard Hilde’s scream. With her vision blocked by Louise, Hilde must have continued straight ahead when Louise swerved. She had done what Louise had planned, crashed into the hawthorn, whose inch-long thorns must have pierced her skin. Louise struggled to her knees, then gradually to her feet. After a moment, she found she could stand up. Hilde was writhing on the ground underneath the tree and howling like a resentful baby, yellling out, “Scheise, Scheise, Scheise!”

  She didn’t know what to do. She could try to find a stray tree branch and brain her, or stab her with the secateurs that she still clutched in her hand, but that would be like killing a baby seal. Yet she knew that if this young woman had another chance, she would kill Louise in an instant. Hilde had to be taken out of action.

  Headlights of a car turning the corner off Rebecca Road onto Larch Road penetrated the rain. They were like beacons of hope to Louise, the equivalent of a lighthouse light to a foundering ship in the ocean. She said, “Thank God.” If she’d ever needed help, it was now.

  The big dark Swanson car slowed in the street near her. Sarah Swanson rolled down the passenger side window. “Louise! What on earth are you doing out in this—” She spotted the figure on the ground. “Who is that ... is that Hilde? Is she hurt?”

  “Yes, it’s Hilde, and I must tell you—”

  Mort had now lurched the car into park and swung out of the driver’s seat. He hurried over to Hilde, whose angry cries had turned into pathetic-sounding moans. “Hilde, my little one!” he called. “What has happened to you? You are all bloody!”

  “Ooh, Uncle Mort, help me!”

  With each step a small agony, Louise struggled after him, as he arrived at the prone girl’s side. “No, no, Mort, leave her there! She’ll hurt you!”

  “Nonsense,” he rebuked her and crouched down and took Hilde in his arms and held her like a child. Without warning, the young woman sat up straight and reared back with one arm. Em
itting a loud bellow, she thrust the arm forward and struck Mort Swanson in the head. He slumped over, and Hilde discarded her weapon, a large river rock, onto the ground. She stumbled to her feet and stood there shaking her head, trying to focus on Louise, who was only a dozen feet away. Deep scratches marred her bloody face and rain streamed through her tangled hair. Within seconds, she seemed to collect herself and placed her feet wide apart in the stance of a young warrior ready to strike. Louise knew that it was to be a contest between the two of them.

  “Hilde,” she warned, “you’ve done enough harm.”

  Her young adversary laughed out loud, a harsh, irreverent laugh. “You think you can stop me?” sneered Hilde. “You’re old enough to be my mother!”

  Louise measured the situation. It was hard to tell who was injured more seriously in the race down the hill. It must mean something that Hilde didn’t immediately dash forward to attack and instead stood with her legs unnaturally wide apart. Despite her gimpy leg, Louise felt invincible. Adrenaline was running through her body like a river. Once her opponent came to her, she was ready for hand-to-hand combat. She gripped the secateurs more firmly in her hand. This wretched person had framed her for two murders and had beaten two of her friends, Charlie and Mort, to the ground. Now she thought that she could run over Louise as easily as running over a helpless old lady.

  Louise forgot her gimpy leg and rushed toward Hilde, bringing her down to the ground and landing on top of her, with the secateurs flying out of her grasp. Now it was a tussle, and Louise could barely keep the younger woman from throwing her off.

  “I can help stop her, Louise,” said a strong voice in back of her. It was Sarah Swanson. She was standing over the two of them.

  “Sarah, don’t get into this,” Louise pleaded. All her attention was on keeping the young woman pinned to the ground, knowing it was worth her life. “Hilde is a murderer.”