A Dawn of Death

by Gin Jones

  * * *

  Helen spent the evening curled up with Vicky, reading the magazines Dale had given her. After breakfast, she read some more while she waited for Tate to show up to use his woodworking studio. He wouldn't answer any legal questions, but she was curious what he'd make of the fact that Sheryl had been an unlikely accident victim since she was an experienced bulldozer operator who took safety precautions seriously.

  Tate usually arrived around 10:00, but shortly before then, he texted to say that something had come up to keep him away from the studio, and he wouldn't be able to have lunch with her. She was disappointed but didn't take it personally. Whatever it was, it had to have been something serious if Tate was willing to give up his woodworking time.

  Now she had her whole day free, at least until her late-afternoon appointment with the visiting nurse. Perhaps she could find out the latest news on the police investigation from someone at the garden. Detective Peterson didn't want her anywhere near the bulldozer, but he didn't have the right to keep her from checking on her pea seedlings.

  It didn't take long for Jack to pick her up and deliver her to the garden. Once again, there were no convenient parking spaces, so Jack stopped near the center of the garden and turned on the hazard blinkers while Helen got out.

  "I won't be long," she told him, shouting to be heard over the sound of a car alarm. It came from the same little black sports car parked in the same spot in front of the Averys' house as the last time, and its owner was just as slow in disarming it as before. "Just checking my peas."

  Except, as Jack left to find a legal parking spot, Helen ignored the center path that would have taken her to her own plot or even to the back corner where Paul Young was working. Instead, she felt drawn toward the bulldozer in the corner of the garden.

  Helen thought it was probably just her imagination, but it looked like the area blocked off by police tape had expanded and now encompassed several more gardening plots. If Peterson really thought Sheryl's death was an accident and he was just going through the motions of ruling out other possibilities, why would he expand the crime scene's boundaries?

  Perhaps it was just to irritate Dale. Except Peterson had never struck Helen as that petty. Sure, he held a mean grudge against her, but she sort of understood that. She had shown him up by catching the real killer when he'd been pursuing the wrong person, after all. And not just once.

  Helen peered at the crime scene from the safety of the sidewalk. She didn't need Tate to tell her that Peterson couldn't arrest her for walking on a public right-of-way.

  One length of the tape ran parallel to the sidewalk and close enough that Helen could have touched it if she'd truly wanted to irritate Peterson. It started about halfway to the center path and ended where the Averys' grass began. That was at least twice as wide as it had been originally. The tape continued in a straight line parallel to the center path on one side and along the Averys' property line, the same as before, but now the tape went back farther. If she remembered correctly, there had been about twenty or thirty feet between the bulldozer and the final side of the crime scene, but at least from this angle, it looked like that distance was more like fifty or sixty feet now.

  Helen made her way along the Averys' grass—trespassing, she supposed, but RJ wasn't likely to threaten her with arrest, and Peterson couldn't do anything if RJ didn't pursue the matter—to get a better look at the far side of the bulldozer and the distance to the back strip of police tape. She peered at the bulldozer, trying not to think of how deadly it could be. It wasn't like it could come chasing after her. It was safely parked, and presumably, the key had been confiscated so no one would steal or tamper with it.

  The car alarm finally stopped, and in the sudden silence came a warning. "Don't get too close."

  For a moment, Helen thought Detective Peterson had caught her snooping. She whirled to her right, in the direction of the voice. No Hank Peterson anywhere in sight. The only people in view were the Averys. Richard Senior was kneeling in an apparently unclaimed-as-yet plot of the garden just past the police tape, poking at the dirt with a wooden spoon. RJ was standing beside him, his arms crossed over his chest. Given his muscular build and camouflage shirt and pants, he looked more like a military guard than a doting son. He probably had to be both, considering his father's condition.

  "Sorry," RJ said. "I didn't mean to startle you. It's just that there's a bit of a slope there and some ruts from the bulldozer. It must have come up our driveway and across the yard to get into the garden instead of damaging the sidewalks by going over them. I wouldn't want you to fall."

  Peterson, on the other hand, would love that, Helen thought. If she tumbled into his crime scene, mucking it up, he could legitimately charge her with some offense or another. Tate wouldn't let her go to jail though. And then she remembered he wasn't her lawyer any longer. His nephew Adam Bancroft was smart and more than competent, but he specialized in real estate and probate law, not the litigation that his uncle had been so good at. It would probably be better if she never had to find out how much—or little—Adam knew about criminal law.

  "I'm the one who should apologize," Helen said. "For trespassing."

  "It's okay. You're not hurting the lawn." He glanced down at his father. "And you're not the only one who's trespassing. Dad used to have a plot in the community garden, and he thinks he still does."

  Helen glanced at the senior Avery, who was humming the children's song "Inchworm" as he dug in the dirt.

  "It is supposed to be a garden for the whole community," she said. "And he's not hurting anything."

  "More often than not, he's actually helpful out here. Last year, there were quite a few surprised gardeners who showed up to find their beds had been weeded for them." RJ smiled at his father fondly. "On the other hand, there were a few times when Dad was out here 'helping,' and he pulled out things that weren't weeds. He didn't mean to, but they were crops he wasn't familiar with. Twenty years ago, gardens tended to be less diverse, and some of the things that people eat today used to be considered weeds."

  "You've got your hands full then, keeping an eye on him."

  "Yeah, especially since I was never much of a gardener. I can't tell when he's pulling out the wrong things. I'm going to have to keep him away from the garden once more of the plots are planted."

  Considering how much the senior Avery seemed to enjoy his digging in the garden, keeping him away was going to upset him like the much lighter restrictions on Helen's activities irritated her. RJ had to know his work with his father was going to become even more difficult, but he didn't show any signs of resenting it. He did, indeed, as Paul Young said, have the patience of a saint.

  "Do you mind if I ask you a question?" Helen said.

  "About my father?" RJ said. "And why I don't put him in a facility? That's what everyone wants to know. I just can't do it. He isn't dangerous or anything. Just confused. I missed a lot of years with him when I was in the army, and this is my chance to make up for it."

  "It's kind of you to take care of him," Helen said.

  "It's not kindness so much as making up for lost time. We kind of lost touch with each other for a lot of years while I was in the army, and then when I was able to come home, he was already starting down this path. Every minute he can be here with me is important."

  It struck Helen that if the father was essentially housebound then so was RJ, and he might have seen or heard something on the morning that Sheryl was killed.

  "So you're home with him all the time?"

  RJ nodded and then tugged on his father's arm. "We have to leave now." He glanced at Helen apologetically. "Time for his noon meds."

  His father shrugged out of RJ's hold.

  "What about this past Saturday morning?" Helen said. "Were you here when the bulldozer arrived?"

  "At home, yes, but sound asleep," he said. "It would take more than a bulldozer to wake me up most of the time. Which can be a problem if I fall asleep when Dad's awake. As you saw th
e other day when he went walkabout in his tighty-whiteys."

  "Doesn't the traffic noise bother you? Or the car alarms?"

  Richard Senior finally looked up from his digging and answered for his son. "I like the quiet. My house is on a quiet street."

  "It used to be anyway, back when Dad first bought the place," RJ said with a chuckle. "I've pretty much gotten used to it. Even construction noise. There's always something being built or rebuilt over at Wharton Meadows, and a new house went in around the corner last year."

  "I'm sure you'd have noticed the bulldozer if you were awake." No one could have ignored the roar of an engine like what she'd heard at Sheryl's work site, not if it had been a hundred or so feet away. She'd barely been able to hear herself speak when she'd been talking to Marty at the construction site, and those vehicles had been several times as far away. "Do you remember when you got up on Saturday?"

  "That's easy," RJ said. "It's the same time every day. Go to bed at midnight, get up at oh-four-hundred and oh-eight-hundred like clockwork. Dad gets meds every four hours, so it's twelve, four, and eight, day and night. I don't even need to set my alarm for the oh-four-hundred dose any longer. I just get up, wake Dad enough to take his pills, and then we're both asleep again as if we never got up. Until it's time to do it all again at eight."

  "That narrows down when Sheryl got here, at least," Helen said. "It must have been between four and eight."

  "I suppose you're right," RJ said. "If I was awake, I'd have noticed the engine running. Probably felt it too. This old house shakes every time a heavy truck travels down Lee Street."

  "But you didn't notice anything unusual after you got up that morning?"

  He shook his head. "Afraid not. Dad running around the yard in his underwear is a little too common to be considered unusual. Beyond that, I don't pay much attention to anything going on outside the house. Watching Dad is a full-time job, and then some."

  Was that what Helen's nieces were worried about? That she would become that much of a burden on them someday? She'd sign herself into a nursing home before she let that happen.

  RJ tugged on his father's arm again, succeeding this time in getting his father to stand.

  Paul Young appeared just in time to ask, "Do you need any help getting him back home?"

  "No, I've got it." RJ reached for the wooden spoon, and Richard Senior lashed out, landing a solid kick on his son's shin.

  Helen winced in sympathy. That had to have hurt.

  RJ sucked in a startled breath and closed his eyes for a moment before slowly emptying his lungs. When he opened them again, his face was a little rueful but free of anger. "I guess I was asking for that by being so cocky. But I really can handle him most of the time." He returned the spoon to his father. "Come on, Dad. It's time to go in now. We've got chores to do."

  "Chores?" Richard Senior said. "Libby doesn't like it when I don't do my chores."

  "Exactly," RJ said, urging his father up the slope toward the house. "Mom needs us to keep the house properly maintained."

  While they drifted off toward the farmhouse, Helen turned to Paul. "I thought RJ was caring for his father alone."

  "He is. Libby died five years ago."

  CHAPTER NINE

  Paul nodded at the other side of the garden. "How are your peas?"

  "I don't know," Helen said. "I wanted to get a closer look at the bulldozer first."

  "Not too close I hope. There's been one tragedy already."

  "I still don't understand how that could have happened," Helen said. "I'm told that Sheryl was highly skilled at operating a bulldozer."

  Paul shrugged. "All vehicles are dangerous weapons. I am always telling my crews that. You have to respect the horsepower and tonnage. Even so, it is easy to get distracted and make a mistake."

  "Is that what you think happened?" Helen said. "She got distracted and made a fatal mistake?"

  "I think it is not my job to find out what happened to her. I told the police what I know, and they will do what is necessary. I can do nothing more."

  "Did you notice anything unusual that morning?" Helen asked. "I think I was the last to arrive for the blessing of the garden, and it looked like you'd been here for a while by then."

  "I was the first person here. Other than Sheryl, of course." He looked away for a moment, an air of sadness replacing his usual cheerfulness. He took a deep breath, and his smile returned as he faced Helen again. "Dawn is the best time to be in a garden. At least for me. I worked outdoor jobs with early starts until I became the head of the Park and Rec Department, and I never got out of the habit of getting up with the sunrise. That morning I was completely focused on the serenity of the garden until you arrived. Everything seemed right with the world."

  "You didn't think the bulldozer's presence was odd?"

  "I did at first, but then I thought someone might have asked for Sheryl's help in removing the stumps." He pointed at the front of the dozer where the blade was touching a partially pulled-out stump. "Sheryl had already pushed another one out of the ground before she died. Might have been what led to her death, in fact. A dozer is not the best choice for removing stumps. I do not know why she brought it instead of an excavator.

  If Sheryl had been invited, it did make it more likely the death had been accidental. "I can't picture the garden club's president asking Sheryl for a favor right now."

  "True," Paul said. "Dale wouldn't call Sheryl, but Annie would. Dale leaves most of the day-to-day operations to her, and Annie's been complaining for years about how messy the stumps look. Personally, I do not mind them. They offer seating for much-needed breaks from kneeling and bending, and the gardeners like to decorate them for the holidays. There are some who believe they are homes to spirits who watch over the garden."

  "But not Annie?"

  "No," he said. "Annie does not believe in spirits or even nature, except as something to subdue. She is a bookkeeper through and through. She craves the orderliness of numbers in neatly lined-up columns even when she is working with nature. She does not tolerate any of her plants growing beyond the rigid boundaries she sets for them."

  Helen wrinkled her nose. "She's going to hate my garden then. I was planning to do a lot of broadcast seeding and then hope for the best."

  "Nature does not care about straight lines." Paul looked in the direction of Helen's plot. "Let us go see how your peas are doing."

  Helen chose the long way around the bulldozer, returning to the sidewalk instead of tromping through the uneven dirt. Even though she felt more herself these days, the habit of avoiding potential tripping hazards was thoroughly ingrained.

  Paul walked with her but reached her plot before she did. He knelt at the far end where her five little pea plants were.

  Helen blinked. Not five, but four. The one closest to her neighbor's plot was missing. She didn't think a bug had gotten this one because the little plastic collar was gone too. "Someone stole my pea plant."

  "Theft is rare in a community garden, but it can happen." Paul bent to get a closer look at the spot where the missing plant had last been seen. "In this case, however, I believe your neighbor stepped on it by mistake and then tried to cover it up." He traced the faint outline of a footprint right where the plant had been.

  If her gardening neighbor would cover up such a petty crime, what else might he be hiding? She'd better keep an eye on him in case he had more serious secrets. "Do you know who was assigned this plot?"

  "You would have to ask Dale or Annie," he said as he stood and brushed his hands against his jeans. "The Park and Rec Department is a cosponsor of the garden, but we leave the plot assignments to the garden club. I am more than happy to let them deal with squabbles over which plots are better and whether the allocation was fair. I already spend too much of my time placating dissatisfied citizens who believe they have been shortchanged in some way."

  "I bet you do." Helen had seen it often enough during her ex-husband's career. Constituents had always been complaini
ng to Frank that someone else had been treated better than they had, although it had frequently turned out that the different treatment was for perfectly legitimate reasons. "Did you ever have to deal with complaints about Sheryl?"

  Paul shrugged. "A few. No more than any other contractor doing jobs for the town, and there were people who praised her too. Even Dale would tell you that Sheryl contributed more than her fair share to the various private initiatives to improve the town's recreational facilities."

  "Was there anyone in particular who complained about her?"

  "Someone who might have killed her, you mean?" Paul shook his head. "No. Nothing like that. It was never anything more than the usual petty jealousies and temporary inconveniences."

  "That's good to hear." Helen turned back toward the sidewalk. Unlike some of the other people she'd talked to, Paul didn't have any reason to make unwarranted assumptions about the circumstances of Sheryl's death. If he didn't think there was anything suspicious about it, then maybe it was time that Helen let go of her own doubts.

  Paul fell into step with her and offered his arm for support as they climbed up the slope. It was only as they reached the sidewalk that he added, "Of course, the tension between Dale and Sheryl increased after Fred Lawson left the land to the town. During the selectmen's meeting, Dale said she'd make sure Sheryl regretted the day she'd made a bid to purchase this land."

  * * *

  After Paul left to return to his office, Helen looked for her car, planning to ask Jack to recommend a place where she could try something new for lunch since she'd be eating alone. Jack must have parked farther away than usual or gotten caught in traffic since her Subaru Forester wasn't anywhere in sight. Helen was starting to think something might have happened to him when she heard her name being called.