by Dale Mayer
Doreen laughed, then leaned over and kissed her grandmother on the cheek. “Thank you, as always.”
She called the animals and walked over to the flagstones, still feeling odd that Fred wasn’t around, then started her walk back up to the curb. She stopped and looked around, but Nan had already gone inside.
Doreen looked down at the animals.
“Time to go home, guys.”
Chapter 10
Saturday Evening …
Back inside, Doreen carefully put away her fresh veggies and the walnut bread. Now she had an address for Aretha’s home, but, more than that, she also had a brother-in-law from her most recent husband’s family.
She sat down at her laptop and did some research, but she felt restless now. The evening yawned before her, but she couldn’t get rid of the feeling that she should check out where Aretha was living. Doreen mapped out the place and discovered it was only about six blocks from her home.
“If only we’d known that,” she announced, “we could have gone directly from Nan’s place.”
Packing up the animals again, she headed out the front door and took a shortcut that ended up taking her around the block, so only about four blocks were left. She was there in no time. Happy that she’d come this evening so she didn’t have to fuss and worry about it later tonight, she stopped outside the beautiful mansion with the big locking gate.
The place reminded her of the home belonging to Ed Burns. That was the case where the nasty son Jude had his father killed so he could take over the estate. This estate before her wasn’t as grandiose and definitely wasn’t worth the same amount of money, but still it was a lovely home. As Doreen looked at a bit of garden she could see from outside the fence, the gate opened, and a woman who’d been gardening stepped out and smiled at her.
“Hi,” Doreen said, with a beaming smile. “I was just admiring the garden.”
“You’re Doreen, aren’t you?” the woman said.
Doreen was startled. “How did you know?” she asked, but the woman just laughed.
“Because of the menagerie that came along with you, of course.”
Doreen looked down to see Mugs wandering through the beautiful daisies in the garden. “Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “Mugs, come here.” She tugged on the leash. Mugs dropped his butt and looked at her, as if to say he wasn’t interested.
The woman smiled. “Not to worry. He’s more than welcome in my garden. I’m Heidi, by the way.”
“Oh, I’m so grateful you don’t mind,” Doreen said. “Some people definitely do.”
“Not at all,” Heidi said.
“I wish I had some lovely plants like these,” Doreen said. “I’m redoing my nan’s garden. Well, it’s my garden now, I guess I should say. But I don’t have much in the way of perennials.”
“Come on in and take a look,” Heidi said. “I’m weeding out plants right now. Because I have so much, they’ve all become overcrowded.”
Doreen looked at her in surprise. “Have you got any to share?”
“Oh, boy, do I ever,” Heidi said. “Come on inside. I’m not even keeping all these bulbs this year. If they survive the winter, they survive. Otherwise I’ll be pulling them.”
The bulbs she talked about were dahlias. Doreen stood in front of a beautiful purple dinner plate dahlia and gasped. “These are stunning,” she murmured.
“I’m really happy with them. But you know what the tubers are like. They multiply quickly.”
“They do,” Doreen agreed. “Should you ever have any extras, I would love to put some in. I have one section of the garden I could literally do all in dahlias.”
“It’s too early to pull the tubers, as these haven’t even flowered yet,” she said, “but I still have lots left over from last year. I didn’t even bother putting them all out.”
The two women walked the garden, which was amazing. Painted daisies, echinacea, white daisies, and black-eyed Susans, just to name a few. Doreen had a little bit here and there but nothing like this. Some red plants she didn’t recognize crawled along as ground cover.
“Wow,” she said. “This is a superior garden. I would love to have this many plants.”
“You’re more than welcome to come back tomorrow. I’ll be pulling a bunch of each of these,” Heidi said, “because everything is just too thick.” She pointed to some. “See? I’ve already pulled these.”
Doreen walked over to see multiple plants. Perennials from snowball bushes that were small and obviously volunteers, to a small hydrangea, and all the daisy-like flowers she had just looked at. Turning to the lady, she said, “If you don’t want these, I would be more than happy to take them.”
“I would love that,” the woman said. “I do hate to kill a plant.”
Doreen nodded. “Do you happen to have a bag I could put these in?” she asked. “As you can see, I’m out walking. These animals and I walk all over town.”
“So you should. It’s great exercise. Let me have a look inside.” She disappeared into the big house.
All of a sudden yelling came from inside.
Doreen frowned and looked down at the animals. Mugs wasn’t happy at the noise and had been sitting quietly beside the wheelbarrow, but now stared up toward the house, barking.
The woman came out looking a little shaken.
“I’m sorry. Is there a problem?” Doreen asked hesitantly.
The woman looked at her, giving her a slight shake of her head. “No. Just a little resistance I wasn’t expecting.”
“Oh, dear,” Doreen said. “I’m so sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. Here. Let’s see what we can package up for you to carry.” Very quickly, Heidi had everything from the wheelbarrow slipped into two bags. She gave them a light shake to see if they were too heavy. “What about these? Do you think you can carry them okay?”
“Oh, I’m sure I can,” Doreen said, giving the woman a bright smile. “I can’t thank you enough.”
Then she noticed another small bag the woman had brought out and handed it to her.
“These are all dahlias,” she said. “Like I said, I never even had a chance to get them in the ground, but they are a mix. I can’t tell you what they are. I never really cared and always thought of it as the joy of planting.”
“Oh, my word, thank you.”
“I haven’t had a chance to go into my gardening shed yet, so, if you want to come back tomorrow, I do have more bulbs. I would take them down to the local church bazaar, but, if you would like some tulips or hyacinths, I mean, really, I have so many plants here.” She looked around almost helplessly at a garden that had gotten completely overgrown while she wasn’t looking.
“I am overjoyed and very thankful to have anything you want to move out,” Doreen said. “I have at least sixty feet of garden I’ll fill.”
The woman gasped in joy. “Oh my, that will be stunning.”
“Well, it will be,” Doreen said, “but it certainly isn’t yet.”
“If you had a car—” She stopped and looked at Doreen, who was nodding.
“I do.”
With a nod the woman smiled. “And how about a shovel? If you could bring a shovel in your car tomorrow, we could fill bags and buckets and give you some of these.” She walked through, pointing out dozens and dozens of plants she wanted to move out.
“I would be ecstatic.” Doreen was filled with gratitude in her heart. “This would make my garden so full and abundant from the very beginning.”
“They’ll have a little bit of trouble transplanting at this time of year, but, if you cut them back, they’ll grow next year.”
“Absolutely,” Doreen said, and, with that, the two women arranged to meet the next morning. With a happy wave, Doreen turned to head back out again.
As the gate closed behind her, she turned, startled at the unexpected noise. Aretha stood on the front step, her hands on her hips, glaring at Doreen. She lifted a hand and called out, “Nice to see you, Aretha.” Lifting the pl
ants, she said, “Heidi was kind enough to pass these on to me.”
Heidi whispered, “Don’t you worry about her. She can be cranky, but she’s really a good person on the inside.”
Doreen nodded. “Isn’t it sad how sometimes the niceness has to hide on the inside because there’s so much fear of letting anybody see it?”
“Yes,” Heidi said with a bright cheerful smile. “I’m really glad to see you understand. She’s been living with me for a year now. We’ve had some issues, but she’s really a nice person.”
“Lovely,” Doreen said, and she meant it. “I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow morning.”
With that, she set off, heading back home again. The walk was enjoyable, but the plants were heavy. It hadn’t looked like too much when she’d started, but, by the time she made it back to her place, they felt seriously heavy.
Once back home, Doreen walked around to the back and put the plants down in one of the ditches she’d made and took the hose and gently watered them down. She would have to get them into the garden pretty fast, but she wanted to wait until she saw what was being offered tomorrow, so she could plan out her garden a bit better.
The fact that there was a hydrangea, which could easily grow twelve feet, and it was a purple one from the looks of it, confirmed the need to plan. Heidi also had pink and white ones, so, if Doreen could manage to get a little piece of each, she could have all three as centerpieces, with a ton of other plants all around them.
Excited, delighted, and heartened by the kindness shown her by a stranger, while realizing just how much fun this would be, she gave the plants a really good soaking and then left them lightly covered in soil for the night so they wouldn’t dry out, and headed inside. It wasn’t dark, but it was getting dark, and she was happy to call it a day.
Inside she checked her emails. She clicked on one, seeing it was from Mack. He’d sent a file.
Or what appeared to be a screenshot of an old file. Excited, she realized it was a copy of the file from the robbery. As she sat down to read it, she found it incredibly sparse.
There had been an evening break-in. The door locks had been broken, and a window had been smashed. The robbery, it seemed, had been interrupted partway through. They had managed to get a certain amount of jewelry, then had suddenly taken off. Nobody had been caught, so no one had been tried or even charged for the crime.
Some of the jewels had been recovered at the scene. Some were on the ground, and some were dropped in a trail outside. It stopped where a vehicle had pulled up to the curb, and the robber had taken off. Was it just one robber or possibly two, given the amount of damage done and where it was located?
No suspects were ever charged. Also in the file was a note saying some of the items were insured, and some were not.
What she really needed now was a copy of the insurance policy. She emailed Mack back, asking if there was any way to get copies of the insurance files.
Mack responded quickly. No, not unless you contact the company.
That’s what I thought. Thank you, Mack.
She opened up the file in a new search tab and saw Hobart’s Insurance had been bought by West Liner and was still in business today. Together, Aretha and her husband had sold it.
He was now deceased, but she was living off the proceeds of the sale, and West Liner had been taken over by a much bigger insurance company, although they had kept the name. She went to their website and found that, as suspected, it was a fancy modern insurance company.
Already they wanted her to come in to get various quotes. And maybe that was something she should do, even on her own house. Now that all the antiques were gone, perhaps she could get a cheaper policy—if Nan had even insured the antiques in the first place, which was a legitimate question. Of course, that would just give Doreen more nightmares, thinking about the fact that something major could have happened, and all those wonderful antiques might have been lost.
Very quickly, she tired of the fussing and worrying and realized it was close to bedtime, and she began preparing to get there. Going up for a hot shower, it wasn’t long before she crashed in bed and soon was out.
Chapter 11
Sunday Morning …
Dawn broke bright, clear, and sunny. It would be another warm day. Doreen got up feeling sore from all the heavy digging the day before, then realized it was almost nine o’clock. She had to be down at Heidi’s in an hour.
Shocked, she dressed, raced downstairs, then put on her faithful coffee and popped some bread in the toaster. She wondered about taking the animals as she fed them.
“Mugs, should I leave you here, or should I take you along?”
Since she was driving, she could take them all, but keeping track of them might prove to be a handful. She really wanted to get Goliath out in the car more, and a six-block trip wouldn’t be too bad for him. At least she hoped not.
She headed outside, packing up a couple buckets she had and lots of bags. Garbage bags, so they would hold the roots.
She didn’t know just how much she was bringing back but hoped it was a lot. It wasn’t like her garden didn’t need more. In fact, it needed a lot more.
She also needed to get that sod out from the side of the garden too because, if Mack was coming early, they could potentially start on the deck. And, with that, she grinned.
Toast eaten, pets fed, coffee—first cup down, second cup in a travel mug—she loaded everybody up and drove to her destination. As she arrived, the gates opened in front of her. She wasn’t sure what to do, but Heidi was there motioning at her to come in. She drove in and parked off to the side, letting the animals out.
“I’m sorry. I never thought to ask,” Doreen said, with a moment of regret, as the animals tumbled forward. “Is it okay that I brought them?”
Heidi laughed as she crouched to give Mugs a big greeting. Not to be left out, Goliath sauntered toward her too. She gave both a good scratching. “I’m absolutely delighted you brought them,” she said. “Aretha is allergic, so I can’t have pets.”
“I’m sorry,” Doreen said. “That’s got to be really hard.”
“It is,” she said, “because I do like my animals.”
“I don’t know, Heidi. I think, for myself, even if I found I was allergic to just one of them, I don’t know that I could get rid of these guys.” Doreen gently patted Thaddeus, who sat on her shoulder.
“Of course not,” she said. “That would be a travesty.”
“Yep. That’s kind of how I feel.” Doreen shared a bright smile. “So, where are we starting?” Doreen opened the hatch of her car. “I brought some bags and buckets and my shovel.”
“Perfect. I would start over in this bed.” As Doreen walked with her, Heidi spoke of what she’d done that morning. “I’ve already pulled a bunch of plants for you, but feel free not to take something if you don’t want it. I can always toss it into the compost bin.”
“Maybe,” Doreen said. “But, like you, I really hate to not give each plant a chance at a good life.”
“Oh my,” Heidi said with a laugh. “Then you’ll be taking home a lot of plants today.”
They got started with the first bag. Heidi collected a half-dozen smaller plants, and then they got to the gladiolas, which she quickly and decisively split with a hard shovel and a boot, splicing off a great big group of brown, then yellow, then red glads.
“These are beautiful.” Doreen admired them. “And they will grow nicely.”
“That they will,” Heidi said. “I have different colors on the other side, if you want more colors.”
“Absolutely.” Doreen quickly bagged those up and put them off to the side of her car. She popped the back seat down and stood the gladiolas up in the corner.
That’s what they did for the next hour, walking through the garden, splitting off, dividing up, and taking out some of the volunteers crowding the garden. By the time they got one side of the garden done, Doreen’s car was surprisingly full. It wasn’t completely fu
ll yet, and she could certainly get a lot more in. But it was looking amazingly lush.
And the garden behind them was now looking much better as well, with lots more space between the plants as they raked and moved the bark mulch back and forth to leave the garden looking perfect in every spot. They started on the second side.
“This is a lot of plants,” Heidi said with a laugh.
“As long as you’re giving me only what you don’t want,” Doreen said, “then I’m happy to take them all.”
“Not a problem,” Heidi said.
And they kept working away.
By the time they were done, the car was more than full. “Wow,” Doreen said.
“There are still more outside the fence,” Heidi smiled, “if you want some of those.” She looked at the car doubtfully. “I’m not sure you have any room though.”
“I can get more in,” Doreen told her. Then she muttered to herself, “Of course who knows just how many it’ll be?”
Outside the fence, they wandered along the beautiful phlox and another wandering plant, plus a whole pile of dianthus and carnations. Heidi cut and divided, even though the time of year wasn’t necessarily perfect for pruning or transplanting. Doreen would take them home and give them all the love and care she possibly could.
By next year they would have had six months of growing time, depending on frost, and they would be doing so much better. By the time Doreen and Heidi had done the outside garden, her car was beyond stuffed. She sighed happily. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. It would have taken me a long time to buy or otherwise acquire this many plants.”
“It’s not a problem,” Heidi said. “I’m just delighted I didn’t have to kill all those wonderful plants.”
“No,” Doreen said. “I will be more than happy to put all these in my garden.” Turning, she looked up at the house. “It’s too bad Aretha doesn’t like gardening.”
“She doesn’t like anything that gets her hands dirty,” Heidi said. “We’re as different as chalk and cheese.”