“Who are you—uh—processing?”
Sid mumbled, “All that trash from the fast food in the bedroom and almost nothing to eat in the kitchen. If Abner Garrett delivered the groceries, and if Avery Wheeler paid for them—then where’s the food?” His lips turned up in a sly smile. “I let it be known to a couple of blabby Hawthorn Street store owners that I was reprocessing the house tomorrow, concentrating on the inside of the kitchen cabinets, where I hoped I’d find new evidence.” Sid swayed on his feet, then jerked upright. “Feel kind of woozy.”
I touched his arm and felt the radiating heat. “You’re sick, Sid. I think you’re running a fever.”
He dashed a hand across his forehead. “I’m sweating like a porcupine in a balloon factory, but it’s cold out here.” He tried to stand up straight but couldn’t quite make it. “Don’t have time to be sick. Pain in my gut, but I’ve been able to ignore it. Garrett used Toby to make money. Scammed him out of the groceries. Damnedest motive for murder I’ve ever seen.”
“Scammed him out of the groceries?” I looked back at the car. “Is that Abner?”
“That’s right. What a jerk. He crept back to the house tonight to have a look around, and we nabbed him. When we read him his rights and snapped the handcuffs on him, he broke down.” Sid licked his lips and closed his eyes. “Admitted that he’d taken advantage of Toby. Abner had followed Agnes’s instructions. He received full payment from Avery Wheeler for the food, but then he bought back the groceries from Toby at a ridiculously low price.” He opened his eyes and blinked at me. “Don’t give me that look, Bretta. I don’t like it.”
I wasn’t surprised that my dubious expression didn’t please him. “Sid, has Abner confessed to putting the hornets in Toby’s bedroom?”
“Not yet, but he will.”
“Sid, you’re too sick to see—”
“I don’t want to hear it. Get her out of here,” he said in a hoarse tone. Two officers stepped forward. One was reaching for my arm when Sid doubled over in pain. Through clenched teeth, he muttered, “Fire in my gut.”
“Call an ambulance,” I said. “The sheriff is sick.” When neither man moved, I took Sid’s arm. “You need to go to the hospital, Sid. Let a doctor check you out. You might have food poisoning from that chili dog.”
He gasped. “Hurt before I ate that piece of—oh God.” He rode out the pain with his arms folded across his belly. After a few minutes, he looked around. “Deputy Hawkins, you’re in charge of getting the prisoner to the jail and processed. Sam, take me to the emergency room.” Another pain bent him almost double.
Sam grabbed one arm. I took the other, and we helped Sid into a patrol car. They took off with the siren blaring and the lights flashing. I watched the car disappear down Hawthorn before I turned to the car that Deputy Hawkins was entering.
I crossed to the driver’s window and leaned down. “Get back, ma’am,” said Hawkins. “I won’t put up with your meddling.” He jerked the gearshift into drive and pressed on the gas. In the backseat, I had a glimpse of Abner Garrett. Tears streaked his face, but his eyes met mine. Sadly, he shook his head.
I found out the next morning that Sid had undergone an emergency appendectomy. The surgery had gone well, but as a precautionary measure, he’d been placed in intensive care for observation. Deputy Hawkins was running the sheriff’s office—which meant I couldn’t get an ounce of information about Abner Garrett’s arrest.
It was Sunday afternoon. I was out in my garden, taking a stroll, enjoying the peace and quiet. The garden’s progress was coming along nicely under the guidance of Eddie’s capable hands. A stretch of soil appeared devoid of life, but labels stated that spring bulbs nestled beneath the surface. I tipped my head to look above me. The hard maple trees were just starting their fall parade of colors. In sharp contrast, the green of the cedars, pines, and junipers made a crisp backdrop to the perennial plantings.
I hadn’t been sure how Eddie was going to blend one plant group into another. He’d suggested that we let nature be our guide. He had pointed to the sky, using the shape of the clouds as inspiration, arranging the first group of plants in a pear shape, then reversing the next bed so that it ran along behind the other. The results were flowing and not too fussy. From the bottom bed he’d used a “drift” of flowers. This was a thin, longish line of plants that carried the eye to one of the focal points of the garden. In this instance it was a swing.
I’d had an old tire swing hung from a stout tree branch, but then I’d complained to Eddie that the rubber stained my clothes. His alternative was an elegant glider set under an arbor. Given time, the wood would be covered by a clematis vine. The variety Henryi had been settled on.
Earlier this summer I’d enjoyed the star-shaped white blossoms. I love white flowers in the garden. At night they have an unearthly quality in the moonlight. But I also want to be surrounded by lots of color. Purple makes peace, while red shrinks the beds and blue makes them appear larger. Yellow borrows a ray of sunlight from the skies, while green adds tranquility to the soul. I’d learned all of this by listening to Eddie, who in turn had inherited his wisdom from his father.
I went to the glider and sat down. As I leaned back I saw a huge garden spider hanging from a web that was anchored to the wooden crosspieces that formed the swing’s frame. Spiders don’t bother me, and this one was a beautiful specimen with an oval abdomen patterned in yellow and black. She was sitting head down at the web’s hub. I assumed she was waiting for her next meal, though she looked as if she’d been eating regularly. She was a portly creature, but when I set the glider in motion, she moved with grace along the gossamer strands of her home.
The spider reminded me of the main character in the book, Charlotte’s Web. That indomitable creature had immortalized her friend, a pig named Wilbur, by weaving words of praise into her web.
“Well, Charlotte,” I said aloud. “I could use some insight. I don’t suppose you could draw on your shrewd lineage and weave the name of Toby’s murderer into your web?” I peered at the spider and saw a leg quiver. “Go ahead,” I encouraged. “Don’t be shy. I won’t tell a soul.”
I chuckled softly and reached into my pocket for the papers Melba, Yvonne, and Leona had given me. While I’d waited for lunch to finish cooking, I’d read over their notes but hadn’t found anything that was helpful. I’d hoped that in a different setting, I’d find some informative nugget that would push me in the direction of a solution.
I started with Melba’s notes first, but I was shaking my head by the time I’d finished reading. She made it abundantly clear that she didn’t like Abner Garrett. I wasn’t crazy about him either, but in a murder investigation it paid to be open-minded and without prejudice. Melba hadn’t been able to do that. Everything she’d written directed suspicion to the grocer. In view of his arrest, Melba might be right. I didn’t have any trouble believing Abner capable of scamming Toby with the groceries, but I just couldn’t see him prying open a window and rigging the hornet’s nest.
I laid Melba’s notes on the seat next to me and picked up Leona’s. The tone of this writing made me uneasy. From the first line, she hinted that Toby’s death had sexual undertones. For some reason she knew the length of time Toby spent in several of the shops. She equated that time with fooling around. She stated three different instances when she’d witnessed Diana touching Toby’s arm, patting his shoulder, or smoothing his shirt collar even though no adjusting was necessary.
Leona went on to say that Diana wasn’t happy in her marriage and had used Toby to pass away the time until she’d reached a decision on whether to stay with her husband or move on. Down at the bottom of the page, Leona had written, “I called a neighbor of Diana’s and asked how ‘things’ were progressing in that part of River City. My friend knew exactly what I meant. It seems that Diana and her husband have reconciled, and they’re acting like newlyweds. I think this only proves my point further. Diana led Toby on. When she reconciled with her husband, she became c
oncerned that Toby might have taken her attention seriously. Afraid that Toby might tell someone, Diana decided Toby needed to be stopped, so she found a hornet’s nest and—”
I rolled my eyes. “What a crock,” I muttered aloud. It sounded to me as if Leona was a sexually frustrated woman with a galloping imagination. Folding the papers together, I laid them on top of Melba’s and picked up Yvonne’s. I’d saved hers for last because her notes were more interesting and had more details that involved Toby.
She had lived closer to him than the rest of us on Hawthorn Street, and she felt she knew him very well. To reinforce that statement, she’d included several anecdotes. A couple had caught my eye. The first had to do with Toby going duck hunting with Phillip and Harmon. Phillip had been against the idea, but Harmon had argued that Toby needed a man’s influence in his life. The outing had been disastrous.
Yvonne wrote, “Toby left the house in high spirits. I wasn’t sure if he understood what was going to happen, but the guns intrigued him. Once the hunters were situated behind the duck blind, Phillip said it was difficult to keep Toby quiet. All was fine until the first flock of ducks appeared. Harmon took aim and fired. Toby was horrified when one of the ducks nose-dived into the water. When the men brought Toby home, he was an emotional mess. I couldn’t leave him alone at his house, so he stayed with me that night. Toby was too tenderhearted to take hunting, and I’d told the men that would be the case.”
I stared somberly into the distance. It wasn’t Toby’s reaction to the death of a duck that interested me. It was the fact that it had been Harmon’s idea to take Toby hunting. He had to know that Toby would be upset by the killing of an animal. Why allow him to come along? Was Harmon being malicious? Or was he merely thoughtless?
Glancing up at Charlotte, I saw she’d crept closer to the edge of the web. It seemed as if she was peering directly at me. “See what you think,” I said to her. “I’ll read this last bit aloud.”
I scanned the sheet until I found the right passage. “Agnes and I were good friends,” wrote Yvonne. “After my divorce, I often got lonely. Agnes was a widow. Her husband had worked for the railroad and was killed while switching cars on the railway. The accident happened only a month before Toby was born. I was the one who took Agnes to the hospital and stayed with her through the delivery. I watched Toby grow in stature and mourned with Agnes when he didn’t develop mentally.
“Harmon was wrong to assume none of us knew Toby had a heart problem. I knew. Agnes tried to protect Toby from everything. He wanted a pet desperately—a cat, a dog, a rabbit, a bird—but Agnes said they carried germs and disease. Agnes didn’t have to work when Toby was young. The railroad paid her a substantial sum of money, but even scrimping as she did, the money ran out about the time Toby turned eighteen. That’s when Agnes went to work for Harmon.
“Agnes had a host of regulations that she expected Toby to abide by. In my opinion, he went astray from Hawthorn Street. Someone influenced him in a bad way, and our beloved Toby has paid the price.”
I stared down at the paper. Perhaps the reason I liked Yvonne’s writing best was because she didn’t point fingers. She simply laid out the facts as she knew them, and all could easily be verified by asking around. I didn’t think that would be necessary because I couldn’t see any reason for Yvonne to lie. I also found it interesting that she thought someone outside of Hawthorn Street had influenced him.
“Bretta? Am I interrupting you?”
Since I thought Charlotte and I were the only ones in the garden, I jumped at the sound of the voice. I looked around and saw Abigail standing off to my left.
She said, “I heard you speaking and followed the sound. I hope you don’t think I was eavesdropping.”
I picked up the notes and folded them together before I stuffed them back into my pocket. I didn’t feel particularly welcoming, but I wasn’t going to be out-and-out rude. However, I wanted to make a point. Raising an eyebrow in feigned bewilderment, I said, “I’m amazed. I could have sworn this was Sunday, but here you are. It must be the first of the week.”
My sarcasm would have made a weaker woman cower. Abigail only shrugged. “It’s still Sunday,” she said, “and I’m not here for your decision about hiring me. As it happens, I love gardens, and I hate my apartment. I thought about going to the park, but didn’t want to be surrounded by people chasing balls or Frisbees. I decided to take a drive, and my car brought me here. I didn’t even ring the front doorbell. I slipped around the house, like the trespasser I am, hoping to find a bench where I could soak up a few rays.”
I moved over. “It’s not very sunny under this arbor, but the view is restful.”
Abigail sat down next to me. We didn’t talk, but stared at the garden. After a while, she put out a foot and pushed against the ground. The glider moved gently. Glancing at me, she pushed again and again. The peaceful rocking accelerated to a faster pace. I grabbed the armrest and added my own foot action. Soon we were swinging so high the chains that attached the glider to the crosspiece overhead squeaked in protest.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh!
I laughed out loud, delighted by the wild rush of air in my face. We kept up this madcap pace until we were both breathless. We stopped pushing and gradually the swing slowed to a more gentle rhythm. Abigail leaned back and caught sight of the spider.
“Wow!” she said. “That’s one beautiful orb weaver.”
I followed her gaze and smiled. “That’s Charlotte. She and I met for the first time this afternoon. What did you call her?”
“She’s an orb weaver. Better known as a common yellow garden spider. They like to build their webs in grassy areas near houses. She’s harmless except for the insects that get too close to her web. When that happens, she shrouds them in a silk-wrapped cocoon.”
“What else do you know about her?”
Abigail’s smooth brow wrinkled. “Gosh, Bretta, you’re asking me about things I learned back in high school.”
“You’re closer in age to that source of information than me. It’s been way too long since I studied anything in school.”
Abigail pursed her lips thoughtfully. “If I remember right, she has eight legs, two body parts, an outside skeleton, and eight eyes. She’s very patient. She will wait all day for her next meal.”
“That’s when it becomes tangled in her web?”
“Not so much tangled as stuck.” She turned sidewise so she could stare at me. “Are you really interested in this stuff? Or are you trying to keep me from discussing my decorating ideas?”
I smiled. “Probably a little of both, but Charlotte does intrigue me. What do you mean ‘stuck’? Like glue?”
“I don’t remember all the technical terms, but normally a spider has three pairs of spinners. The small tubes inside the spinnerets, as they’re called, are connected to glands that are located at the back end of their abdomens. From these tubes the spider spins a watery fluid into a thread that we can’t see unless sunlight is reflected on it.”
I looked up at Charlotte. “She’s even more impressive than I thought.” I turned and contemplated Abigail. “So are you,” I said, paying the compliment easily.
She seemed pleased. Today she’d twisted her long hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. It was a sedate style, but with her adolescent features, she looked like a teenager playing at being an adult. While this fountain-of-youth attribute would serve her well when she hit fifty, I wondered if she had a hard time convincing clients that she was capable of the job. She had mature ideas regarding the redecorating of my home. My father had recommended her, but what did I really know about Ms. Abigail Dupree?
I didn’t realize I’d been staring until Abigail asked, “Is something wrong?”
I shook my head, then started my interrogation into her personal life with what I considered to be the gentle approach. I’d learned that if I wanted information, I had to give before I received. So I said, “I don’t know how much my father has told you about our history. I
’ve had a difficult time accepting him back into my life. I understand why he left all those years ago, but those same years have changed him. He’s more aggressive, more outspoken, and more opinionated. He’s different from what I remember.”
Abigail clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “But your memories are those of a child.”
“That’s true. But the father I knew led, he never pushed. He patiently taught me to swim, to ride a bike, to make a whistle from the hollow stem of a squash plant.” I smiled up at Charlotte. “He even taught me the itsy, bitsy spider song.” I turned to Abigail. “What are your parents like?”
Abigail tried to pass off my question with an indifferent shrug, but I kept quiet, waiting for an answer. Finally, she said rather lamely, “Average, I guess.”
After my personal disclosure, her reply was sadly lacking. I persisted, “Are they both still alive?”
“Yes, but they’re divorced.”
Common ground. I jumped on it, putting a sympathetic note in my voice. “Were you very old when they split up?”
“I was twenty.”
I waited for her to elaborate, but she pressed her lips together. It was obvious that she was perturbed. She sat woodenly at my side, staring down at her hands. Seeing no need to upset her further by pursuing the issue, I switched topics, talking instead about the work Eddie had done on the garden.
A few minutes later my father appeared on the path. When Abigail saw him she leaped up from the glider like she’d been waiting for an excuse to get away. I followed more slowly, wondering about this woman I was about to hire.
I’d looked over Abigail’s prospectus for the bedrooms. I liked everything she’d outlined concerning the decorating, but the businesswoman in me was uneasy. Abigail hadn’t included any professional information. No references or referrals that would confirm the fact that she was capable of completing the job. And yet I was going to give Abigail this chance, if for no other reason than to get to know her better. I was curious—a trait of mine that usually got me into trouble.
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