“I’m another noncombatant,” I said. “Here to provide transportation.” That inspired a round of sympathy for my mother. None, however, for me.
Fran was lean and sour-faced. She ignored us all in favor of her plate, eating as though she’d be punished if she didn’t. Arlene said something about lilacs and she and Bunny were soon in the thick of it. Or thicket, I suppose, since the topic was new shrub introductions. I wasn’t sure what “introductions” meant in this context, and I didn’t care. The wine was decent, and that I did care about. Did I dare to overindulge? As a single mother, I didn’t often get the chance.
My phone peeped. Ken had texted
To bed now. Luv u.
What did I expect—a sonnet? When she wasn’t looking, I finished off my mother’s wine. She didn’t need any more and it might get me through this dinner.
I noticed with a start that the chair to my right was now occupied and our table was full-up. “I’m Iris,” I said, “Gloria Oakley’s daughter.”
He put down his fork to shake my hand. “Ralph Hernandez. I work for Lionel.” He was a pleasant-faced man about my own age, maybe thirty, in a nice shirt and jeans.
“Well, he calls it ‘working,’” said his employer. “I keep reminding him to get to it, or I’ll have him shipped back to Mexico.”
“We’ve lived in the States for four generations,” Ralph said quietly.
“Oh, yeah? I hear one of your family is still pretty damp, if you get my drift. Heh heh heh. Ralph gets to join us because he’s speaking about greenhouse management tomorrow.”
Why didn’t anyone paste Lionel in the mouth for his jokey sneers? The people I hang with would cure him of the habit in a hummingbird’s heartbeat.
I was losing my battle with plant coma and grateful that Ralph was willing to tackle other topics. We talked about his kids and mine until he mentioned he’d once worked for a guy who kept exotic pheasants—Lady Amhersts and Reeves, among others. I hadn’t any experience with pheasants, aside from peacocks, and mined him for all I could learn, which was lots. Fired up, I decided to talk the zoo’s curator into acquiring a few species for the aviary now under construction. After ten hours of pistils and stamens, I was ready to kiss Ralph.
We were engrossed in treatments for feather lice when Lionel suddenly burst out with more of his heh heh hehing. “Got you going! You believe anything I say about Chinese corydalises. Arlene, you guys are just too easy.”
Arlene shot him a blood-freezing look. Ralph chewed on his lower lip. “Great boss,” I muttered. He looked at me sidelong and said nothing. What a docile bunch.
“You, too, Gloria. Right? You bought it, I know you did! Heh heh heh. You gals are something else.”
My mother forced a little smile.
Enough.
I said—sweetly—“The next time you make fun of my mother, you’ll wish you hadn’t. Just to be clear, you obnoxious blister, I am absolutely not kidding.”
Arlene said, “Actually…” and stopped. No one else said anything, although my mother’s nails dug into my arm.
I showed Lionel my teeth in what could be mistaken for a smile. “And you need to get your laugh fixed. It’s running rough.”
The Cutteralls departed in a flurry, or possibly a huff, and I got up to get us dessert.
***
Morning found my mother and me and six of the conference participants on a sidewalk outside a ranch house set on maybe an acre: the Cutterall kingdom. The other attendees were on wildflower hikes and walking tours, not options for my mother. We’d been deposited by a tour bus that waited to return us to the hotel. My mother wasn’t speaking to me, which was fine since I had a nasty headache. I tried to spot a goldfinch that had flitted into the garden.
Fran and Harold Johnston showed up on foot. Her dour face cracked into a grin when she spotted me. “Here’s the Lionel tamer! Maybe we’ll get lucky and you’ll take him on again.”
“Don’t simper,” my mother muttered in my ear.
The Cutteralls’ house was set toward the front of the property, with a Japanese garden—rocks and conifers—leading to the front door. The back was terraformed into humps of raised beds amid gravel paths and islands of lawn, all swooping down toward a creek. Beyond the creek stood two sizeable greenhouses. Behind them, the land rose in a steep hill. Half the hill was denuded, the other half was covered in blackberry vines. To the right—south—a cul-de-sac led to three more houses. Harold and Fran had come from that direction.
My mother crutched toward the front door, narrowly avoiding a pile of smooshed dog poop, and rang the bell. No response. She hitched herself around to face the group. “Did they forget we were coming? Maybe Lionel’s waiting in back.” She swung along a gravel path into the backyard and we trailed after. No Lionel, no Bunny, no Ralph. We wandered about looking at plants. My mother inspected the place as if she’d lost a pill bug.
Then wailing vehicles began arriving. I hustled back to the front and watched police cars pull up. And an ambulance, then a TV van. My son would have been thrilled. Uniformed personages strode into the house. Gradually the hort-heads caught on and gathered alongside me, staring. A police officer noticed and confronted us. “What are you people doing here?” she asked.
My mother hobbled a step forward. “We’re here for a garden tour. What’s happening? Is Lionel hurt? Or Bunny? We’re friends.” She hesitated. “Some of us.”
“I’ll need your names and contact information, and then you’ll have to leave.”
“Is this a crime scene?” I asked.
***
On the return bus ride, the group, now including the Johnstons, speculated about the Cutteralls with both sincere concern and avid curiosity. The bus smelled nasty and my head still hurt.
We were back at the hotel early since the garden tour hadn’t happened. My mother and I sat on the queen bed, and I flicked through TV stations looking for news. The commentators on three channels agreed that Lionel Cutterell had been murdered, stabbed with a gardening implement. “A dibble,” my mother said, upon seeing a drawing of the weapon. It was a wicked-looking thing—a wood handle on a pointed metal tip. Designed to poke holes in the dirt to plant small bulbs, per my mother. Robbery was the motive, per the commentator, since some three thousand dollars in cash was missing. “This is awful,” my mother said. “It’s going to ruin the rest of the conference.”
During lunch, Harold announced what everyone already knew. A moment of silence, please, for a talented gardener. Sympathy cards for Bunny were in the lobby for us to sign. His acerbic wit would be missed.
No one contradicted him.
We sat with mini-fashionista Arlene for lunch. She shared that she had nearly fallen to her death on the wildflower hike. I looked at her cute shoes with slick soles and was unsurprised. When the conversation turned to hybrid something-folia, I checked for news updates on my phone. “Hey, Ralph Hernandez has been arrested for Lionel’s murder.”
My mother frowned. “That’s absurd.”
Well, I’d liked him, too, but that didn’t make him innocent.
I read, “Apparently Hernandez broke into the Cutterall home at about eight this morning and ransacked Lionel Cutterall’s office for cash. Cutterall is believed to have interrupted him. When Mrs. Cutterall returned home from the gym, the attacker ran out the back door and through the extensive gardens. The police found Hernandez’ pickup truck at his house with the murder weapon in the bed.”
“Ran through the garden? And left the murder weapon in his truck?” my mother said. “Ralph’s not that dumb.”
“Actually, people do stupid things when they’re excited,” Arlene said. “Stabbing your boss to death might leave you unsettled.”
My mother was uncharacteristically silent during the rest of lunch.
The first afternoon session was about plants that attract birds and butterflies. At last
, a presentation I cared about. I was mentally redesigning my yard for swallowtails and hummingbirds, but my mother sat frowning and oblivious. At the break, she sent me to fetch Arlene.
“Arlene,” she said, “you’re friends with Bunny Cutterall. We need to support her. I want to go out to the house with you. Now.”
“Why? What’s up?” I asked.
She scowled at me. “A threat to a valued compatriot. Injustice perpetrated by the uninformed.”
Arlene said the next session was canceled, since it was supposed to be Ralph talking about greenhouses. Nonetheless, she didn’t want to go without Fran and Harold. Fran came quietly, while Harold fretted that he was needed to help the next presenter. My mother urged, his wife commanded, and he complied. The five of us crammed into my car and headed back to the Cutterall house.
The new widow’s sister let us in and disappeared to make tea. We sat stiffly on facing sofas with Bunny in an armchair. Botanical drawings cluttered the walls and the carpet was patterned in vines. The room smelled of cleaning products, perfumed ones. Claustrophobia nibbled around my consciousness.
To no one’s surprise, Bunny looked shaken and pale. Arlene said, “We’re so sorry, dear. Actually we’re all pretty upset. Horrible thing. What can we do to help?”
“Nothing, nothing. We had a good marriage. Really we did. I don’t know what I’ll do without him. The gardens…the nursery…without Ralph…I can’t think about it now.”
The sister served tea as we murmured sympathetically, then she disappeared to the rear of the house. The group fell silent as we sipped from flowered china cups.
With the exception of my mother. “Bunny, did you see who killed Lionel? Do the police have any real reason to think it was Ralph?”
“Now, Gloria,” Harold said, “we shouldn’t interfere in a police matter, and this is not fair to Bunny.”
My mother set down her teacup. “Listen,” she snapped, “it’s no secret that Lionel didn’t grow those gorgeous plants he sold us. Ralph did. If he’s in prison, this entire garden and nursery is likely to perish.” An aside—“Sorry, Bunny. Don’t mean to be disrespectful.” She turned back to Harold and Arlene and Fran. “Ralph is a decent family man who tolerated Lionel for three years, which indicates he is a saint. And we know more about this situation than the police ever will. We owe it to Ralph and, ah, to Lionel’s memory, to sort this out and not send the wrong man to prison.”
Harold subsided and the others seemed willing to try. It wasn’t clear which argument carried more weight—save Ralph so the cool plants kept coming, or save Ralph because he might not have done it.
“Bunny?” asked my mother. “What can you tell us?”
Bunny, her thoughts elsewhere, started a little and said, hesitantly, “About Ralph…his grandmother lives with his family. She’s illegal. Lionel found out by accident—Ralph’s son came over and I gave him cookies. The conversation came around to her and the boy said something about it. You know Lionel liked to tease. He wouldn’t have done anything, but maybe Ralph thought he’d get her deported.” Her eyes filled. “I can’t believe Lionel died because he liked to joke with people.”
I could easily believe it.
The friends roosting on the sofas nodded in resignation. Ralph had a fine motive. More sympathetic murmuring.
Except, again, for my mother. “Why was all that money in the house? Who knew about it?”
Bunny explained that Lionel was hiring day-laborers to clear out the blackberries on the slope in back. He paid them in cash. He was careless with it—the money just sat out on his desk. “He liked seeing it. Silly, of course…I have no idea who might have seen it. Certainly Ralph did.”
My mother sat quietly for a moment. “Nonetheless, I don’t think Ralph did it.”
She’d lost her audience. “Actually…” Arlene began, “the police are better…”
My mother flapped a hand at her. “Somebody—we assume the intruder—ran across the garden, all right, but it wasn’t Ralph. Whoever it was stepped on that raised bed near the daphnes. I saw the tracks this morning. That person crushed a clump of double Trillium grandiflorum, the pink form, just smashed it to bits. Ralph wouldn’t do that. Not in a million years. Irreplaceable.”
Arlene and Bunny each raised a hand to their mouth, identical gestures. Harold looked concerned. Fran, of course, looked dour.
Fran said, “Actually, I noticed it this morning. I forgot in all the excitement. Terrible. It may survive, it may not.”
My mother nodded. “It’s light outside at seven a.m. these days. That clump was big and beautiful and easy to see. Whoever killed Lionel wasn’t a gardener.”
“But the murder weapon was in Ralph’s truck!” Harold protested.
Heads cocked as they pondered this.
“Did Ralph come by before the tour this morning?” I asked.
Bunny explained he would drop by to check the greenhouses.
I considered the layout of the area. “Does he park on the street to the south?”
“Yes, that’s closest to the greenhouses.”
My mother’s eyes narrowed. “The murderer fled that way and dropped the weapon into the truck bed as he passed.”
“Or she,” I said, but no one heard me.
Fran said, “Ralph would never notice the dibble. The bed of his truck is a mess.”
My mother raised her eyebrows and she added, “He parks across the street from our house. I see that truck every day.”
“So,” my mother concluded, “if Ralph didn’t kill Lionel, who did? Someone who broke in before Bunny got back from the gym at eight a.m.”
“Water aerobics,” said Bunny. “He didn’t break in. The door was unlocked. He just walked in. Anyone could have done it…” Her voice trailed off and her eyes filled.
My mother’s gaze swept the group. “I’m not buying the random stranger. Robbery could be the motive, but why this morning—when Lionel was home? Who besides Ralph had reason to murder Lionel?”
Fran seemed dourly thoughtful. Arlene looked peevish. Bunny drifted off.
Harold fidgeted. He crossed his legs and uncrossed them. “I suppose Arlene did. Does. Might have.”
We stared.
Arlene sat up straighter. “I beg your pardon?”
Harold said, “Um, that situation. You worked at the same investment company. You said, at the Christmas party…”
Arlene’s delicate features formed a snarl. “You mean he actually got me fired. Told a stupid joke about me and a new manager grabbed onto it, and I actually ended up ‘released to the community.’ Yes, I should have killed him for that.”
Bunny waved her hands. “But Lionel said it wasn’t his fault. He said it had to do with commission calculations and that—”
Arlene cut her off. “No need to go into all that.”
I said, “You were on the wildflower hike this morning.”
“The bus didn’t leave until nine. I could have run over here and stabbed him with his fancy dibble and actually made it back in time.”
“You’re kind of…small…” I said, “to be stabbing a grown man.”
Arlene snorted. “Lionel was a lard bucket. Sorry, Bunny. I do Pilates and kickboxing three times a week. I could tie him into knots.”
“Um, are you confessing?” my mother asked.
“Oh, hell no. I wouldn’t step on that trillium, and I wouldn’t implicate Ralph. If I’d killed Lionel, I’d actually be bragging about it. Sorry, Bunny. I didn’t really mean that.”
Clearly, she did.
“Well, then,” said my mother, “where does this leave us? Assuming you didn’t kill him.” She smiled uncertainly at Arlene.
The room fell silent, investigative energy oozing away. My mother’s face shifted toward defeat.
We’d tried the horticultural approach. Maybe a zoological slant wo
uld shed some light. “Bunny,” I said, “this room smells like some kind of cleaner. Why would you or your sister be cleaning in the living room today? It’s not where the…incident…happened.”
Bunny looked confused, but she frowned and focused. “Oh. Somebody tracked something on the carpet. My sister—Jeannie—she cleaned it up. She’s taking care of everything.”
“Dog poop?” I asked.
Bunny nodded. “I thought it must be from Lionel’s shoes. But he would have noticed. He is—was—always on the lookout for neighbors who don’t clean up after their dogs.”
I plowed on. “When we got here for the tour this morning, a pile of dog poop by the front entrance had been stepped in.” Little-known fact: zookeepers notice poop.
“Maybe the robber,” Arlene said. “The murderer.”
I nodded. “When the cops sent us away, we all took the bus back to the hotel. The bus smelled like dog poop.”
They looked at me in baffled silence. “And?” Arlene said. Patiently.
“It didn’t smell like that on the way here. The return trip included two people who weren’t on the trip out. Harold and Fran walked from their house and joined us here for the tour.” I let that sink in. “Harold’s got dog poop on his shoe. You can still smell it.” I couldn’t smell anything but pine oil, but it was him or his wife, and he was the non-gardener.
Harold glanced at his sole. “Must have stepped in it when we were here for the tour. Or else just now.”
I shook my head. “I watched this morning to be sure no one did. You never went near it. And it’s gone now—someone cleaned it up before we came back. You came here before the tour, you stepped in it, came into the house, and tracked it on the carpet. What else did you do while you were here? Before you ran out the back and stomped on the trilliums?”
The others were riveted, teacups suspended.
Harold stood up. “What are you implying? I had nothing to do with this. No reason to kill him. At all.” His face had a sweaty sheen.
“Sit down.” Fran spoke in the coldest voice I’d heard in some time.
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