Death in the Garden

by Kathleen Suzette

  Amelia sat back in her chair and wondered if Walter knew whether there had ever been any trouble at the Manning house. If Gary was as violent as Martha was making him out to be, the police had to have been called out at one time or another.

  “I’m sure the police will find the killer as soon as possible,” Amelia said quietly and took another sip of her tea. “The sooner the better.”

  Martha nodded and dipped a biscuit into her cup of tea. “The sooner the better is right. But what we need to do is have a chat with Gary Manning. We should drive over to his house right now.”

  Amelia looked at her wide-eyed. “What do you mean go to his house and have a chat with him?”

  She looked at Amelia, her teacup in her hands. “We need to confront him. Tell him that he’s not going to get away with murder and demand that he make a confession to the police.”

  Amelia looked at her with alarm. “No, we can’t do that. You can’t say that to someone.”

  “Why not? The best thing to do is to put pressure on the perp. Don’t you ever watch crime dramas? Doesn’t your husband ever talk to you about those kinds of things?”

  “Yes, he talks to me about that kind of thing, but we aren’t the police. We don’t have any right to go to someone and accuse them of anything. And besides, if he is the killer, accusing him might make him panic and he might kill one of us.” Amelia hoped they wouldn’t do something as foolish as accuse anyone of murder.

  “I have pepper spray,” Martha announced and pulled it out of her purse. “I can defend myself. I can defend you, too, if you need me to.”

  She stared at the pepper spray, imagining a ninety-year-old woman brandishing the canister and spraying Gary Manning in the eyes with it. She blinked the image away. “Yes, well, the killer might have a gun,” Amelia pointed out. “And if he gets a shot off first, there’s not much you’re going to be able to do with that pepper spray.”

  Martha thought about this. “Yes, I suppose you’re right,” she relented. “But I’m faster than I look.”

  “I say we go and confront him,” Nora said. “Martha is right. We need to put pressure on him.”

  “No, please tell me you won’t do anything like that. We need to be careful, and we need to stay out of trouble. If the police find out we’re asking questions, they might arrest us for obstructing justice.” Amelia again wished she had never joined the book club. As much as she appreciated what the ladies were trying to do, she would have had a lot less trouble without them interfering.

  “We’re not obstructing justice,” Martha pointed out. “We’re helping. Certainly the police would enjoy the help, wouldn’t they?”

  Amelia shook her head. “No, they would not. Please, don’t do anything like that.”

  They both were quiet a moment, and they looked at each other. “Okay, we’ll wait before we do anything like that to see if the police make an arrest. But I’m telling you, Gary Manning is the murderer,” Martha insisted.

  Amelia didn’t know that she wasn’t correct, but she didn’t want anybody to put themselves in harm’s way. She would have to have another talk with her husband and see if he could find out more about the case.

  Chapter Eleven

  When Amelia had finally convinced Martha and Nora not to make any accusations of anyone, they left.

  “Well, you were having a tea party, and I wasn’t invited?” Walter asked, coming into the kitchen. There was a golf club over his shoulder, and he was walking with a limp.

  Amelia set the cups into the sink and turned to look at him. “Yes, we were having a tea party, and you weren’t invited. It’s a shame that you missed it, we had a gay old time.”

  He chuckled. “I don’t doubt it. What was going on?”

  “My, aren’t you nosy? Why are you limping?”

  “I might have had a run-in with a sand trap. Might not have. You never know. And I am nosy. For some reason, I feel like there was something up with that little visit.”

  She chuckled. “Okay, yes. There was something up. They suspect that Patty’s husband Gary is her killer. Martha claimed that Patty went to the hospital emergency room with a black eye a few years ago and she claims that he gave it to her. Were there any complaints while you were on the force about the two of them fighting?”

  He paused a moment. “Yes. There was, but don’t tell anybody that I told you that. I went to their house three times over the course of seven or eight years. It wasn’t often, so I don’t know if the arguing just got out of hand at those times, or if it was something that went on all the time and the police weren’t called out often. Maybe they’d done some drinking on the nights we were called out and they got loud.”

  She looked at him, surprised. “Really?” She leaned against the sink and took this in. “Do you think it ever became physical?”

  He shrugged. “I never saw any evidence of that. Honestly, just because she was at the hospital with a black eye doesn’t really mean a lot. It could, but not necessarily. I wish they weren’t going around spreading rumors like that.”

  She nodded. “I told them to be careful. I don’t want them saying anything to the wrong person.”

  “What about you? You’re not saying anything to the wrong person, are you?” He looked at her, tilting his head.

  She smiled. “Of course not. I’m careful. But there’s something I didn’t tell you.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that. What is it?”

  She nodded and went to their bedroom and got her purse. He followed behind her and stood in the bedroom doorway. She turned around and held up the key for him to see.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “It’s a BMW key.”

  He came closer to look at it. “A BMW key? Where did you get that from?”

  “It was in my garden planter at the community gardens,” she said, handing him the key. “Stuck in the middle of my zucchini plants.”

  He looked it over. “Is it Patty’s?”

  “I have no idea. It could be, but obviously I don’t know where it came from.”

  “When did you find it?” he asked, looking at her.

  “Yesterday. When I went to water my plants down at the community gardens, the sunlight hit the key and it was laying there between my zucchini plants.”

  He looked at her. “Zucchini plants?”

  She nodded and suppressed a smile. “Yes, zucchini plants. It was hidden from sight until I moved the leaves around.”

  “I never did trust zucchini,” he said thoughtfully. “We need to get it to the police.”

  “I’m kind of worried about that,” she confessed. “I mean, the murder weapon has my name on it and now the victim’s car key is in my zucchini. It doesn’t look good.”

  He nodded. “I’d be worried if I were you, too.” He looked at her with a teasing smile on his face. “Honestly, we need to turn it over to them. It might be nothing. Clearly, the key wasn’t in there when you planted the zucchini, right?”

  “I would have seen it right off,” she said.

  As they stood there talking about the key, the doorbell rang. “I wonder who that could be?” Walter asked. He handed her the key, and she slipped it back into her purse and they went to answer the door together.

  Amelia’s heart caught in her chest when she opened the door and saw two men in suits standing on her doorstep. Walter was quiet a moment, then he nodded. “Don, Ralph. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  “Walt,” the taller one said with a nod. “We need to speak to your wife for a moment.” He glanced at Amelia.

  Walter hesitated, then he looked at Amelia standing next to him. “Amelia, this is Detective Jackson and Detective Strong. Apparently, they need to talk to you a moment,” he said dryly.

  Amelia swallowed and felt for a moment like she couldn’t breathe. When she finally got her breath back, she nodded. “Of course, won’t you two come in?”

  She led the way into the living room and sat down on the loveseat while the detectives sat on th
e couch across from her. Walter sat next to her. She considered offering them something to drink, but she didn’t want them hanging around any longer than necessary.

  “We were wondering about something, Amelia, you know Patty Manning was murdered with your garden hoe. What was your relationship with her like?” Detective Jackson asked.

  Amelia stared at him a moment. “My relationship with her was fine. But it’s not like we really had a relationship. I mean, we knew one another, of course, this being a small town. But it’s not like we were friends.” As soon as she said it, she regretted it. Of course they weren’t friends. The murderer wouldn’t have been friends with their victim, would they?

  “I understand you have a garden plot down at the community gardens, is that correct?” Detective Strong asked, taking a small notebook from inside his coat.

  She nodded. “Yes, I’ve got two raised beds down at the community gardens and a plot that’s in the ground.”

  “You say you weren’t friends. So, would you say that your relationship with Patty was friendly or not?” Detective Jackson asked.

  She licked her lips. “You know, you’ve probably already heard this, but Patty was kind of a difficult person for people to get along with. She seemed to have issues with almost everyone that knew her.”

  He looked at her blankly. “Oh? I hadn’t heard that. Would you like to go into more depth about that?”

  Amelia’s heart skipped a beat. How could he not have heard that Patty had issues with almost everyone in town? Whenever Patty’s name would come up, people always had something to say about her and it was rarely kind.

  “Well, what I mean is, um, I mean that she was just kind of a cantankerous personality. It’s not that people didn’t like her, it’s just that she was kind of abrupt with people at times.” She was lying now, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want these detectives looking at her as a murder suspect.

  Detective Strong looked at her, nodded slowly, and then glanced down at his notepad and made a quick note. “So I guess it’s safe to say that you didn’t have a friendly relationship with her.”

  “Well, it wasn’t unfriendly. I mean, it wasn’t a hostile relationship,” Amelia said, glancing at her husband helplessly. “It’s just that she could be rude. That’s it, she was rude.”

  “I don’t think it would be a surprise to anyone in this town that Patty was rude and unkind. She was just that way,” Walter spoke up. “Listen, if you’re looking for murder suspects, my wife is not one of them. She couldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Detective Strong looked up at him and nodded. “Of course. We understand that, but we still have to ask questions.” He turned to Amelia. “Amelia, do you have any idea who might have killed Patty?”

  Amelia shook her head. “No, I mean, there are rumors that she had problems with her husband, but sometimes that happens, doesn’t it?”

  He considered her for a moment and then nodded. “Sure, that can happen in marriages. And we are aware that the police were called out to their home several times, but had you heard anything else?”

  Amelia shook her head slowly and thought about the key sitting in her purse. It had to be Patty’s, didn’t it? Why else would it be in her planter? Someone was setting her up. And that someone was the murderer. But why her? Why would they choose her to set up?

  “Just your average local gossip,” she said shrugging. “Honestly, I think her husband is probably our best suspect.”

  “Our best suspect?” Detective Jackson asked, raising an eyebrow.

  She felt her cheeks turn pink. “I mean, your best suspect.”

  “When I was on the force, I talked to Amelia a lot about what goes on in an investigation,” Walter said calmly. “She understands a little more about police procedure than maybe the average person does.”

  He nodded. “Of course.” He turned to Amelia. “Can you tell me where you were the morning Patty died?”

  “Yes, I was at my book club. There are five other members of the book club and we meet down at the county library in the reading room.” Finally, Amelia felt confident about what she was saying. This was the truth. She had an ironclad alibi.

  “What time does the book club meet?” he asked.

  “Nine o’clock.”

  “What about earlier in the morning? Where were you earlier in the morning?” He didn’t look up from his notebook when he asked it.

  “Why, I was here, of course,” she said. “I didn’t get out of bed until seven o’clock, and after that, I got ready and went straight to the library.”

  “Where were you at five o’clock in the morning?” he asked, looking at her now.

  “I just told you. I was in bed.”

  Detective Jackson looked at Walter. “Can you vouch for her?”

  Walter hesitated. “Yes, I can vouch her.”

  “Why did you hesitate?” he asked.

  Walter sat back on the loveseat. “I got up early that morning and went golfing. I left the house at about four forty-five am and met one of my friends for breakfast. After we ate, we went golfing. But it’s not like you can narrow down a murder to the exact time.”

  He nodded. “That’s true. But we feel fairly confident that she was killed between four and six that morning.”

  “4:00 a.m. is awfully early to be down at the community gardens,” Walter pointed out. “It’s dark then. Are you sure about the time?”

  But Amelia knew that Patty was in the habit of getting there early. She said she liked being out in the outdoors and she would go down there early in the morning before everyone got there and tend to her garden beds. There were streetlights and lights strung across the property, and they would provide plenty of light.

  “It is early,” he admitted. “But her husband said that she frequently goes down there early. She left her house at 4:30.”

  Walter nodded, but didn’t say anything else. The detectives asked a few more questions and Amelia forced herself to look happy and calm, but she wasn’t sure she succeeded. When the detectives left and Walter closed the door behind them, he turned to her.

  “Please tell me I don’t have anything to worry about.”

  He nodded. “You don’t have a thing to worry about.” But he didn’t sound convincing.

  “How come you didn’t tell them about the key?”

  “It might be something that we need to keep to ourselves for now.” Their eyes met and Amelia saw something that looked like concern, and if Walter was concerned, then she was worried.

  Chapter Twelve

  Amelia spent two sleepless nights tossing and turning, worried over what the detectives had said to her. They hadn’t come right out and said that she was a suspect of course, but she knew the truth. She was a suspect. Just because they hadn’t hauled her downtown and shined a bright light in her face and drilled her with questions didn’t mean they didn’t consider her to be a suspect. The key also worried her. If Walter was so sure she wasn’t a suspect, he wouldn’t have hesitated to hand over that key. And now she regretted that they hadn’t done just that. She didn’t want her husband involved in this at all. She was the one who had found the key and held onto it for a day before telling him about it. If the police found out they had kept this from them, it would make them believe she really was the killer.

  After the detectives left, Walter had called down to the police station and talked to some of his friends that still worked there. They told him they didn’t think there was nearly enough evidence for them to make an arrest yet. While this information should have made her feel better, her nerves were still jangled from the visit.

  She called Joanne to see if she wanted to get coffee two days later. But the coffee was just a ruse to get out of the house and search for more information on Patty’s death. She had to know if Gary Manning was capable of murdering his wife. And not only if he might be capable, but had he really done it?

  It was Joanne’s idea to drop by the florist shop first to find out if Bert Danvers had in fact sent Patty flowers
anonymously. From there they would head over to Gary Manning’s house to see if they could scout out any more information.

  Joanne parked the car in front of the flower shop, and they got out.

  “Do you think it’s possible?” Amelia asked her.

  “Not only do I think it’s possible, I think it’s true. That Bert Danvers is something else. I find him a bit creepy, if you want to know the truth. Doesn’t it bother you that you live so close to him?”

  Amelia glanced at her. “What do you mean creepy? And what do you mean doesn’t it bother me to live so close to him? Should it bother me?”

  Joanne chuckled. “Okay, maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. But there’s just something about him that bothers me. Always has. His wife was all right, but he always made me feel like he was looking at me far too intently.”

  Amelia wasn’t sure what she meant, but maybe Bert had a type. Joanne, Patty, and his late wife, Karen, had similar facial features. She hadn’t realized this before now, but it was true. All three of them had high cheekbones, dark hair, and were thin. She hoped they could gather enough evidence about Bert Danvers that they could turn it over to the police.

  When Amelia pushed open the flower shop door, she was surprised to see Gary Manning standing at the front counter.

  “I want to see the owner,” Gary demanded. “Right now.”

  Amelia and Joanne glanced at each other.

  “Yes sir,” the young woman at the front counter said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She went into the back and Amelia and Joanne stepped closer.

  “Hello, Gary,” Amelia said. “How are you today?”

  Gary turned and looked at the two women. “I’m not doing at all well. As you might have ascertained from what I just said.”

  “What’s going on?” Joanne asked.

  “Can you believe that Bert Danvers was sending my wife flowers before she died? It’s unbelievable! He was sending her flowers!” His face was red, and his eyes bulged.

  “What do you mean? How do you know this?” Amelia asked, crossing her arms in front of herself. Now she thought they would get some information that might be of some use.