Death in the Garden

by Kathleen Suzette

  He chuckled again and crossed his legs, sitting back on the loveseat. “She did. Susan, of course, became irate and denied everything.” He shook his head. “Can you believe it? My wife was pigheaded enough to water that garden plot and wait to see if something came up. She was so angry when Susan dug up all the seedlings before they could sprout above the ground. She said she was going to catch Susan at something yet and kick her out of there.”

  That sounded like Patty, Amelia thought. “Do you think Susan was angry enough about it to kill Patty?”

  He considered it a moment. “I don’t know. I don’t think it would have been premeditated, but I could see her becoming angry, and in a fit of rage, hit her over the head with that hoe. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since the police came and told me what happened.”

  Amelia thought there was a very good possibility that this was what had happened. She didn’t know Susan well, but she had always considered her to be flighty.

  “Did you mention this to the police?” Amelia asked.

  “No, I guess I was in shock when they told me about Patty. It didn’t even occur to me. I was awake all night, and that was when I remembered the argument they had.”

  Joanne and Amelia exchanged glances. “When did this argument occur?” Joanne asked.

  “It was earlier this Spring.”

  Amelia wondered if he knew that the hoe Patty had been killed with belonged to her. She hoped he didn’t, and she didn’t volunteer the information. “I think it’s something that you need to talk to the police about.”

  He nodded. “I’m going to. I’m trying to think of everything that might be pertinent to the murder, and really, this is all I came up with.”

  “Well I hope it helps them in their investigation in some way,” Amelia told him.

  “Tell me, Gary,” Joanne said. “How was your marriage? Were you and Patty happy?”

  Amelia’s eyes went wide. She hadn’t expected her to come right out and ask him that question.

  He looked at her, surprised. “My marriage? My marriage was great. Why do you ask?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, I just wondered. I’m glad your marriage was great.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “It was great. And in case you wanted to know, I didn’t do anything to my wife.”

  She nodded and smiled. “Of course not. I wasn’t thinking that.”

  They talked a few minutes more with Gary casting suspicious glances at Joanne. Then they excused themselves and headed back out to Amelia’s car.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to bring up his marriage,” Amelia told Joanne as soon as they were back inside the car.

  She shrugged. “We needed to get the facts. If he had a great marriage like he said, then he’s in the clear. The thing is, how are we going to know whether that’s true or not?”

  She has a point, Amelia thought. “I don’t know, I’ll ask Walter and see if he has any ideas.”

  She needed to clear her name, if in fact, her name needed clearing. At this point, she wasn’t sure if it did or not.

  Chapter Six

  Three days later Amelia got an urgent text asking her to come to the Marion County Library for an emergency meeting of the book club. She couldn’t imagine what would constitute an emergency for a book club, but she went anyway.

  When she walked into the reading room, everyone was there, waiting expectantly for her. “Good morning, everyone,” she said, her eyes going to each lady in turn. She went to the table and pulled out a chair.

  Joanne looked at her, eyebrows raised. “Emergency meeting.”

  Amelia could see the smile behind her words. She turned to the other ladies. “What are we having an emergency meeting for? Didn’t we already decide on this month’s book?” She had yet to pick up her copy of Twilight and she reminded herself that she needed to do that while she was here.

  Martha Grant was sitting up at the table instead of in her usual corner knitting her baby blanket. “We want to know the scoop.” Her age-gnarled hands were on the table and she was looking at Amelia intently.

  She glanced at Joanne. “The scoop? What do you mean by the scoop?”

  “We heard you killed Patty Manning,” Sue said.

  “Did you do it? Did you kill her? I’m not condemning you if you did, because she deserved it, but if you did, we want the scoop.” Nora leaned over the table, waiting for her answer.

  Amelia stared at her, wide-eyed. “Well if I had killed her, you should condemn me. Shouldn’t you?” She looked around at the other anxious faces gathered around the table.

  “What she means is that anyone would have done it. Patty was rude and unkind, and I would imagine half the people in this town wanted her dead,” Maggie explained to her as if she were talking to a child. “And we want to know if we have a killer in our midst.”

  “How exciting! We’ve got a real-life murderer in our midst!” Martha exclaimed, grinning at Amelia.

  Amelia shook her head and held her hands up in front of herself. “Wait a minute, I didn’t kill anyone. Who’s saying that I killed someone?”

  “It’s all over town,” Sue informed her. “And almost everybody I’ve talked to says that they don’t blame you. So when this goes to court, we’ll talk to the judge for you if you want us to.”

  Amelia stared at the others. Who was putting ideas like this into their heads? “I didn’t kill anyone, and I am not going to court,” Amelia insisted. “There isn’t going to be a trial, at least, not one that involves me because I didn’t do anything. I didn’t kill Patty Manning or anyone else for that matter. I would appreciate it if you all wouldn’t spread that around town. This is a small town, and when things like this get started, it’s hard to get them stopped.”

  “Amelia couldn’t have killed Patty,” Joanne explained. “She was here at the book club with all of us, so there’s no way she could have killed her.”

  “It depends on what the time of death is,” Maggie pointed out. “She could have gone down to the community gardens and killed her, then come here, sitting innocently as you please, as if she didn’t do a thing. In fact, it would be a great alibi, wouldn’t it? A perfect alibi, in fact.” Maggie narrowed her eyes at Amelia and pursed her lips, considering this.

  “I did not kill anyone,” Amelia protested. “You all need to believe me. I am not a killer.”

  “We heard it was your gardening hoe that was used to kill her,” Maggie said.

  She sighed. “I honestly don’t know how the killer got ahold of my hoe.”

  “This is so silly,” Joanne said. “I haven’t known Amelia long, but I can tell you all that I don’t think she’s a killer.”

  Amelia shot her a look. Although she appreciated her support, she thought she could have been a little more insistent that she hadn’t killed Patty. It almost sounded as if she was only reasonably sure that she wouldn’t kill anybody, and not positive about it.

  “I don’t think you did it, either,” Sue relented. “But what we need to do is find out who did. If we can find the killer, just think about the publicity we would get. Maybe more people would join the book club.”

  “Right? Maybe we’d have this room filled with people wanting to rub elbows with the ladies that solved a major crime,” Maggie said thoughtfully. “I vote we change this month’s book to an Agatha Christie mystery. We might be able to pick up pointers on crime solving.”

  “Oh,” Nora said. “We were going to read Twilight. I already started the book.”

  Sue turned to her. “I think it’s more important that we read an Agatha Christie mystery so we can help solve Patty’s murder. Don’t you want to know who did it? Aren’t you curious about who did the town a favor and bumped off nosey old Patty Manning?”

  At this, Nora smiled. “Oh my gosh, you’ve got a point there. All right then, I vote we change our book to an Agatha Christie mystery. But I get to pick the book for next month. Who will bring the food if we're all picking an Agatha Chr
istie mystery?”

  “I’ll bring it,” Sue volunteered. “Now then, which Agatha Christie mystery should we read?”

  “How about Dead Man’s Folly?” Maggie suggested. “I heard that was a good one.”

  “I think all Agatha Christie mysteries are good ones,” Sue said.

  Amelia looked at Joanne helplessly. Joanne shrugged and shook her head.

  Amelia cleared her throat. “I don’t think it’s a good idea that we all try to solve this murder. My husband, Walter, used to be on the police force, and he said that I needed to be careful about the questions I asked people. If you ask the wrong person the wrong thing, they could get angry, and they might kill you.” She hoped the threat of being killed might dissuade them from wanting to solve Patty’s murder.

  “We’re not going to ask the wrong person the wrong question,” Nora insisted. “We’ll ask the right question of the right person. We’ll help catch that killer. Don’t you worry, we’ll clear your name.”

  Amelia was flattered that they were all excited about helping her solve Patty’s murder, but she was worried they might step into a great big mess and get themselves hurt. Or murdered.

  “So what do we know so far?” Martha asked. “Have you found out anything, Amelia?”

  “No, I really haven’t found out anything at all,” she said thinking about what Gary had told her about Susan Potts. She didn’t want to spread around what he had said in case Susan had nothing to do with Patty’s murder.

  “Oh, why don’t you tell them?" Joanne said, laying a hand on hers. “It’s okay. We’re all friends here, right?”

  Amelia stared at her. “I don’t think we should talk about it.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Joanne said, looking at the other ladies. “Patty’s husband Gary said that she and Susan Potts had an argument at the community gardens.”

  Amelia’s mouth dropped open. “Joanne, I don’t think we should talk about that.”

  “What was it about? What did Susan and Patty argue about?” Martha asked. Excitement danced in her eyes and she leaned forward in her seat.

  “Apparently, Susan Potts wanted a free garden plot, and Patty was determined not to give it to her. And then when Patty turned her down, she went and planted seeds anyway. So Patty said she would water the plot and when the seeds sprouted, she was going to kick Susan out of the community gardens.” Joanne nodded for emphasis.

  “Oh,” Nora said slowly. “That Susan Potts is a sneaky one. I’m not at all surprised that she would do something like that.”

  “Right? I bet she’s the killer!” Martha nearly shouted.

  “Wait a minute,” Amelia said. “We don’t know who the killer is. We have no idea who it is, and we can’t point a finger at Susan Potts just because she had an argument with Patty. Who hasn’t had an argument with Patty? She was just that kind of person.”

  “You’ve got a point,” Maggie said. “But she was killed down at the community gardens with a gardening hoe. Your gardening hoe.”

  “Did you have an argument with her?” Nora asked her. “It was your hoe, after all.”

  “No,” Amelia said shaking her head vehemently. “I did not have an argument with Patty. Or at least, not much of an argument. Certainly not one big enough to warrant her death.”

  She was beginning to regret having joined this book club at all. She didn’t want everyone to know everything she knew regarding the murder. It would get spread around town and she didn’t want the police to think she was sticking her nose where it didn’t belong.

  “Now listen,” Joanne said to the others. “We can’t go spreading rumors around town. Amelia is right in that if we ask the wrong person the wrong question, we could end up being the next victim. I want all of you to swear that anything we talk about remains in this room. This has to be a confidential meeting. Swear to it.”

  They all held up their right hands and swore that they wouldn’t repeat anything they found out about the murder to anyone else. Amelia sat back in her chair, still regretting having joined the book club. Things were getting out of hand and she didn’t know how she would explain this to Walter.

  “I think Patty was killed because she was so mean,” Nora offered. “So we need to find the person that she was the meanest to. Because that is the killer.”

  “That’s exactly right,” Sue said. “I bet she was the meanest to her family. What about her husband? I bet he killed her.”

  “I saw on Dateline that the most likely killer is usually a family member,” Maggie added.

  “Oh, that Gary is a sneaky one,” Nora said. “I heard he has a whole pile of parking tickets that he has never paid off. His cousin works down at the courthouse, you know.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Martha said. “His cousin works down at the courthouse and he got off on his parking tickets, so you know he’s going to get off on murder, too.”

  Amelia couldn’t follow that line of reasoning, and yet for some reason, it didn’t surprise her that it was offered. “I don’t know who killed Patty, but maybe we should just let the police handle it,” she said. She didn’t really want to let the police handle it since it had been her hoe that had been used as a murder weapon, but she was afraid getting everyone involved would only get her into trouble.

  She watched as they discussed who the prime suspects were and wished she were anywhere but there. She was going to have to have a talk with her husband and see what he suggested to help settle these ladies down and keep them out of trouble.

  Chapter Seven

  When the book club meeting was over, Amelia got into her car and headed down to the community gardens. Glancing in her rearview mirror, she realized Joanne was following her. She smiled and pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car.

  “Thinking about taking up gardening?” she asked when Joanne got out of her car.

  Joanne chuckled. “No, I don’t think I’d make a good farmer. But I do like to look at what everybody else is doing, so I decided to come along with you. Sorry if I put you on the spot earlier, but maybe it might not be a bad idea for all of us to pitch in together to find Patty’s killer.”

  Amelia frowned and shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. What if someone gets hurt? What if someone really does ask the wrong question of the wrong person? I appreciate everyone wanting to help clear my name, but I don’t think my name has been thrown around as a suspect by the police. At least, not yet.”

  She nodded. “Probably not. I mean, who’s more innocent than the wife of a former police officer, as well as a former loan officer at the Iowa National Bank?”

  Amelia could see the mirth in Joanne’s eyes as she spoke, and she shook her head again. “You are something else. Now, why did you follow me down here?”

  “I didn’t want you to do any investigating without me tagging along. Are you doing some investigating? You are, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question. Joanne knew she was going to investigate.

  “I’ve got to water my plants, and if I happen to walk around and look at things, then I guess maybe you could call it investigating. But honestly, I do need to water my plants.” The police had locked up the community gardens for several days after Patty’s body was found and she knew her plants were in desperate need of being tended to.

  “All right, I’ll come along anyway,” she said.

  Amelia chuckled, and they headed over to her garden plots. She turned the water on slowly so the ground could soak up the water.

  “Where are you going?” she asked as Joanne headed over to the planter that Patty had died near.

  “Just looking,” she said over her shoulder. She stopped in from the planter and looked it over.

  Amelia joined her. “I’m sure the police have found all there is the find,” she said.

  “Probably so,” she said, and then she hesitated. “What is that?” She pointed at something dark on the ground.

  “Oh,” Amelia said slowly. “I think that’s blood.” There was a dark spot on t
he dirt near where Patty’s head had lain. She turned away. “I don’t like to look at things like that.”

  “I’m not crazy about it myself,” she said and walked around the planter. “There has to be something here somewhere. Something that will tell the tale of what happened to Patty Manning.”

  “Do you see who I see?” Amelia asked, looking off into the distance.

  Joanne looked in the direction she was looking in. “Looks like Susan Potts to me.”

  At the opposite end of the garden, Susan Potts was standing in front of a planter, holding a garden hose. “I think we need to go have a talk with her.” Amelia led the way.

  “Hello, Susan,” she said when they got closer.

  Susan turned to look at them and frowned. “Oh, hello.”

  “What are you growing, Susan?” Joanne asked.

  Susan narrowed her eyes at her. “Why are you asking? I didn’t know that you were interested in gardening.”

  Joanne shrugged. “Can’t I just ask a question? I just wondered what you had planted is all.”

  Susan looked at the plot she was watering. “Well, if you must know, I’m growing spinach, cantaloupe, zucchinis, and some herbs.”

  “I’m growing some of the same vegetables,” Amelia said. “Your plants look really nice. Are you feeding then something special?” Susan’s zucchini spread out over the planter and had lots of large yellow blossoms on them.

  Susan looked at her, as if her question might somehow be a trick. “I give them a little Miracle Grow now and then. But not often. I think the manufacturer just wants you to give it to them more frequently, so you’ll have to buy more.”

  “It sure was a shame to hear what happened to Patty, wasn’t it?” Amelia asked, ignoring what she’d said about the Miracle Grow.

  Susan’s eyes went wide. “A shame? I wouldn’t call it a shame. You know how awful Patty was. I think she got what she had coming.”

  Amelia was taken aback that she spoke so openly about Patty like that. “Really? I mean, she was a human being. How can you say she got what she had coming?”