“Did you use it in Mackenzie’s garden?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, frowning as I tried to remember. We’d been forced to make several last-minute additions to fill areas where some of the late-blooming perennials had not yet leafed out. But digitalis would not have been my first choice. “No, wait—maybe we did. Mara, didn’t we end up planting some in that shady area behind the tennis court?”
“I don’t know,” she replied.
Erlander closed his notebook and got up. As he started to move toward the door, Ron rose as well.
“Thanks for your time,” Ron said, shaking my hand warmly. “You’ll call us if you think of anything else? You have our cards, right?”
“Yes,” I said. They’d handed them to me when we first sat down.
While Ron and I said good-bye, Erlander waited in front of the screen door, looking out across the peaceful, sunlit morning. Then he turned back to me and asked, “Isn’t digitalis considered toxic?”
“Well . . . yes,” I told him.
“So don’t you think it’s a little dangerous to use it in a garden you know is going to be open to the public?”
“Not at all!” I replied, unable to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “Hundreds of plants are considered toxic. Hollies, lupines, lily of the valley, wisteria . . . The list goes on and on. We wouldn’t have gardens without them.”
“But it is dangerous.”
“For heaven’s sake, yes! But only if you ingest it.”
23
I had a meeting that afternoon with one of the potential clients Mara had lined up at the Open Day. Their place was over in Monterey, so I had to take off right after Ron and Erlander left. The house was a rambling nineteenth-century white clapboard beauty with wide porches and a lovely view of Lake Garfield. The owners, two scientists who seemed oblivious to the news about Mackenzie’s death (thank heavens), wanted me to help them rethink their overgrown long front border which had deteriorated into a wild tangle of rugosa roses and tumbling fieldstones. By the time I left, we’d agreed that I should draw up some designs and an estimate, and that we’d meet again in a week or two. I liked the couple and came away with a good feeling about the project.
I stopped in Great Barrington on the way home to do some shopping and didn’t get back to the office until nearly six. Mara was already gone, so I didn’t have a chance to talk to her about the interview with Erlander until the following morning.
She arrived an hour later than usual, the screen door slamming behind her. She walked over to her desk without so much as a glance in my direction.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Bad night.”
“I hope nothing’s wrong with Danny. You know, you can always call in and ask for a day—”
“Danny’s fine,” she said, cutting me off.
I’d become so used to Mara’s moodiness that I didn’t think twice about her attitude. We worked in silence, both of us busy at our computers. I was scheduled to meet with Brook Bostock that afternoon to show her my AutoCAD plans for the new terrace garden, and I decided to go over the designs again page by page, thinking through how I was going to present them. I’d forgotten all about Mara until she abruptly announced, “That detective called me at home last night.”
“Who—Erlander?”
“Yeah. He said he had some ‘follow-up’ questions for me and wanted to arrange a time to come over. But no way was I going to have that man snooping around my place! I told him I’d just prefer get it the hell over with. So we did it on the phone.”
“Hadn’t we already covered everything here?” I asked her.
“No,” Mara said, getting up and coming around to lean against the side of her desk. She folded her arms over her chest in what seemed to me a defensive posture. I remembered her hostility earlier, and it dawned on me that she was angry about something. “He had me on the phone for over an hour. Thank God I got Danny down before he called.”
“I’m sorry, Mara. What in the world did he want?”
She stared at her feet for a moment or two, though I sensed she wasn’t really seeing the black-painted toenails or the worn leather ankle bracelet.
“He told me I shouldn’t talk to you about any of this,” she said, looking up and meeting my gaze. “I wasn’t supposed to even mention that he called me behind your back.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Like I wouldn’t tell you? Just because he told me not to?” She snorted derisively and shook her head.
“It’s totally up to you,” I said to her, trying to keep my tone nonchalant, though I was dying to know what they’d discussed. “I don’t want to get you into any sort of trouble.”
“Yeah, well, I think I can handle that. He hardly asked me anything about myself. And he really didn’t even ask that much about Mackenzie and the Open Day. It was actually all about you. Like did you ever talk to me about your husband? Did you tell me about him running away with all that money, and some babe? Did you ever get calls from overseas? Any suspicious e-mails? One question after the next—bam, bam, bam—all about you and your marriage.”
“And? What did you tell him?” I asked, trying to figure out what Erlander was up to. It was Mackenzie who had been murdered, so why all this interest in Richard?
“That you didn’t tell me anything!” Mara burst out. “The first time I heard about any of this was yesterday. I mean, what’s that all about? I felt like—I don’t know—like a real idiot. And even worse, I don’t think Erlander believed me. Of course he thought I knew. I mean, we’ve been working together for almost two years now.”
“Oh, Mara,” I said, finally realizing what was wrong. She was hurt. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d heard. Everyone in Woodhaven seems to know. They’re just too polite to say anything.”
“Well, I’m not all that friendly with people in Woodhaven. I come over here to work, and that’s all I have time for. And anyway, I’m not one of those types who sits around gossiping, okay?”
“I know that. I’m—”
“What—like you didn’t trust me?” Mara said. “Like you thought I didn’t know how to keep a secret? Well, you don’t know me very well, that’s for sure.”
“No, you’re wrong!” I said, getting out of my chair. I came around to stand in front of my desk, too, hoping to make the point that we were equals. This was important, I realized. Mara needed and deserved a full explanation. “Of course I trust you. Probably more than almost anyone else I can think of right now. And I count on you so much—more than I can say. I’m sorry if I never told you about Richard. I honestly assumed you’d heard about it elsewhere. It’s something I have a hard time talking about, frankly. It was so horrible! It ruined my life. I had to start all over again after it happened. And I guess more than anything else I just wanted to put it behind me. Haven’t you ever felt that way about anything?”
She looked at me for a moment or two. Then she nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve felt that way.”
“And I thought I was so happily married,” I said as I began to tell the story one more time.
“I’m sorry,” Mara said when I had finished. “That really sucks. But you know what? I think you’re a whole lot better off without him. Look at what you’ve been able to do on your own! I bet you never would have started Green Acres if you were still some suburban housewife.”
“You’re right,” I told her with a smile, confident that things were okay between us again. And I was beginning to realize how much that mattered to me these days. It was true what I’d told Mara about my counting on her. I’d also come to respect her opinion. “So what do you think Erlander was after—asking you about all this?”
“Obviously he thinks there’s some kind of connection between your husband’s disappearance and Mackenzie’s death.”
“I’m the only connection that I
can think of,” I said.
“Yeah,” Mara said, “I’m afraid so.”
“What’s his theory, then? That for some reason I helped my husband and his lover abscond with the funds and then—having developed a taste for crime—turned around and murdered Mackenzie because he stiffed me?”
“You could have murdered your husband and his girlfriend, too,” Mara pointed out. “I mean, didn’t they, like, disappear off the face of the earth? Nobody knows what happened to them or all the money they stole, right?”
“That’s true!” I said, laughing. “And honestly? I probably would have if I’d had any idea where to lay my hands on them!”
“Listen . . . ,” Mara said, hesitating briefly before she continued. “You know, maybe this really isn’t anything you should be joking about. I mean, sometimes things can come out sounding one way when you really mean for them to sound another. And this Erlander guy? I think he’s actually sort of serious about you as—well—as a suspect. He asked me a lot of questions about your whereabouts during the Open Day. And what your reaction was when you heard about the check bouncing.”
I stared at Mara. “And what did you tell him?”
“Only that you seemed kind of upset,” she replied. But I could tell by the look on her face that she recalled just as vividly as I did how I had responded when she told me the news that night.
I’d gotten back late that evening after showing Vera and Lisbeth around Mackenzie’s garden for the first time. Their enthusiasm had really buoyed me, and I was flying pretty high. But when I saw that the lights were still on in the office, I’d felt bad. I’d been awfully heavy-handed with Mara that afternoon about helping with the garden tour the next day, and I decided I needed to tell her I was sorry. But she insisted on apologizing to me first—something about a check we’d written to Nate that hadn’t cleared our account. After some back-and-forth between us, she finally got around to explaining to me why.
“Mackenzie’s check. It bounced,” she told me.
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said,” Mara replied slowly, no doubt aware that I needed some time for the bad news to sink in.
“All of it? The whole thing?”
“Yeah. That’s the way it works.”
“But—it has to be a mistake, right? Some sort of oversight on Mackenzie’s end? He’ll just have to issue us a new one.”
“It was returned for lack of funds over a week ago,” Mara said grimly. “And nothing’s happened yet. I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
“Well, he has to pay us, Mara!” I said. “He’d better pay us! If he doesn’t come through with that money, I’ll kill him!”
It was so hard to tell with Mara, but I sensed some sea change in her attitude toward me after our conversation about Erlander’s questions—and Richard. It might have been my imagination, of course. Occasionally, though, I would catch her looking at me. Weighing something. She’d glance away whenever I caught her at it. But it made me feel uneasy. And sad. Could she really think I had something to do with Mackenzie’s death? Surely she knew me better than that! And yet I realized she felt I hadn’t been forthright with her about my husband. So I suppose she had every reason to wonder what else I might be keeping from her.
And it wasn’t just Mara. When I walked into the post office later in the week, I felt a sudden hush fall over the little lobby, and I guessed they’d been talking about the murder. And me, too, perhaps. I knew from Gwen that Erlander was making the rounds, interviewing everyone who’d been at the Open Day or who knew Mackenzie in some other capacity. According to Gwen, her own interview with the detective had gone just the way she’d wanted. Apparently, she’d laughed off his questions about rumors that Mackenzie and she were more than friends.
“I told him Mackenzie was way too old for me!” she said, batting her eyelashes.
“Oh, God, you flirted with Erlander?”
“Well, it worked, didn’t it? Before he even brought it up, I told him I knew Mackenzie’s pledge was in jeopardy because MKZ is in such a financial mess. He didn’t question me very closely, so I didn’t have to tell him when I found out. He seemed a lot more interested, actually, in asking me about you.”
“About what?”
“Your history. The whole business with he-who-must-not-be-named. I asked him what in the world that had to do with his investigation.”
“Oh, thank God, Gwen!” I told her. “At least I’m not the only one to wonder why he’s pursuing that line of questioning. What did he say?”
“That he makes a policy of looking under every rock. The truth is, I don’t think he has any idea what or who he’s looking for, under rocks or not. And how smart can the man be if he still hasn’t figured out about me and Graham?”
“I wish to hell you’d tell him the truth. It would look so much better coming from you rather than—” But I stopped when I saw Gwen shaking her head. “Damn it!” I said. “And I have been totally honest with him. I have nothing to hide, and look what’s happening! Erlander’s going around town stirring up people’s suspicions about me. I hate this!”
I knew it was irrational, but I really was afraid. I couldn’t shake the sensation that malevolent forces were at work. That somehow it was possible I could be held responsible for Mackenzie’s death. And I was beginning to understand Erlander’s reasoning. The victim had died in a garden that I designed. I’d admitted to being steps away from the scene of the crime. Mackenzie owed me a great deal of money, putting my hard-earned success and independence in jeopardy. Along with all this, I knew that there were too many unanswered questions about my past. Huge sums of money gone missing. The accused parties disappearing into thin air. But what disturbed me more than anything else about the situation was that Richard’s crimes should somehow end up making me—the person he’d most wronged—look guilty.
24
When Tom Deaver called late Friday afternoon he seemed to be making an effort not to appear to be asking me out on a date. He mentioned in passing that he’d been invited to a political fund-raiser for a local state senator at a private home in Richmond the following evening. Then he casually suggested I might want to come along.
“I hear the gardens are pretty incredible. It’s at Hal and Suzy Fremont’s house. Do you know it?”
“Oh, yes! That’s the place with all the amazing stonework, right? I covet that wall every time I drive by.”
“Good. It’s just cocktails and elbow-rubbing. It would be great if you could make it. I usually avoid this kind of thing like the plague. But the senator’s been really supportive of clean air energy projects, and I want to stay in his good graces.”
I took a ridiculous amount of time deciding what to wear. The Berkshires are generally pretty casual, but this was a party at one of the fanciest homes in the area. I needed to avoid overdressing, while at the same time I knew it would be a mistake to look too informal. I eventually settled on a summery silk sheath with a flowy hem that swirled around my calves, and classed it up with high-heeled sandals and a double strand of freshwater pearls.
“You look very nice,” Tom said matter-of-factly as he opened the door to an ancient VW Beetle convertible and helped me in. I thought he did, too. He was wearing a white sports jacket and a blue oxford-cloth shirt, open at the collar. His dark brown hair was tousled from the drive over, making him appear more carefree and relaxed than he usually did.
“I only drive this on special occasions,” he told me as he worked to get the VW into gear. “And when it’s not raining. The ragtop’s pretty much a sieve at this point, and the transmission’s ornery as a mule. But there’s something sort of cool about pulling it up alongside all the Infinitis and BMWs.”
There was something kind of glamorous about it, too, I thought, as we drove through the lush green countryside. Or maybe I was just enjoying the pleasure of being in the company of an attractive man again. Tom le
nt me his comb when we arrived at the Hendersons’ and waited patiently as I did what I could with my windblown hair.
“I give up,” I said finally, putting away my compact.
“I lied before when I said you looked nice,” he told me, his hand closing over mine as he took back his comb. “I promised myself not to press my luck tonight. But I have to tell you—the truth is you look pretty wonderful.”
Tom’s saying so made me feel I actually did. And I found myself walking on air as we made our way across the lower field, where the cars were being parked, through an apple orchard, and then up several flights of beautifully laid blue slate steps before reaching the back of the house with its expansive views westward of open meadows and rolling hills. The terrace was framed with clipped boxwood hedges, roses, and wrought-iron tripod trellises woven with flowering clematis. Waiters moved through the crowd carrying trays of champagne and canapés. A jazz trio played unobtrusively in a corner of the living room, which, like the gardens and the rest of the house, was elegantly and expensively decorated. What looked to me like a David Hockney watercolor hung above the white marble mantelpiece.
I was touched that Tom introduced me to the many people he seemed to know as “Alice Hyatt, the wonderful landscape architect.” And then, if someone seemed to show an interest in pursuing the subject with me, he would wander away to talk to another guest for a few minutes. Though I’d worked rooms before, I’d never had such a willing and discreet accomplice leading the way. By the time we left the party, after a gracious pitch by Suzy Fremont for the senator’s reelection campaign, I’d accumulated a number of excellent leads.
“You’re a terrific front man!” I said, laughing as we walked back down to the car.
“Only if it’s for something I believe in,” he told me. Though we hadn’t discussed it beforehand, when he said he felt that he “owed me a dinner,” I happily acquiesced. I liked the easygoing, spontaneous way things seemed to be developing between us. We ended up at a family-style Italian place in Pittsfield where the proprietor recognized Tom right away and seated us in a quiet back corner.
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