“Do you want to tell me why I should believe that?”
I was suddenly tired. Tired of him, tired of the whole thing, tired period. “Beats the hell out of me.”
“It’s a tough question, all right.” He scrunched forward in the chair to reach into his front pants pocket. Extracting my
glove, he tossed it on the table. “You’d better put it with the other one.”
“I’ll do that.” I got up and headed for the kitchen drawer. “Meantime, I do have one other little thing for you.”
M
onday morning I uncharacteristically slept in—it was almost eight-thirty when I dragged myself out of bed. Having cooked bacon
and eggs to commemorate something or other, I was in the living room getting ready to hit the road when the kitchen doorbell
sounded—three harsh stabs’ worth. It didn’t sound friendly to Roxy either; she had planted herself three feet back from the
door and was barking authoritatively.
“Kate,” I said, opening up. She was carrying a good-sized cardboard box, with a partially full black plastic garbage bag threatening
to slip off the top. Years ago she had mastered the Etlinger effortless grooming effect. Her straight black hair fell in just
the right slanted line. I couldn’t begin to guess what cosmetic components had gone into her facial presentation, but they
worked well. Motherless from an early age, she’d been a scruffy tomboy child, Willem and Denny both had told me. Wedding pictures
showed an image in the making; it was well made now. Besides running the store, Kate was seriously into parenting, rather
more seriously than Willem, who enjoyed the girls but didn’t do much in the way of directing them. She also belonged to all
the right clubs and was a top local competitor in both golf and tennis. “I’m sure you were in a hurry when you stopped by
the office. You left some things in your cubicle we don’t need or want. If you don’t want them either, fine, but I didn’t
see why we should be stuck with the disposal costs.”
All two or three dollars’ worth? “Just set the stuff down—right there’s fine—and I’ll take a look.”
“I’d also like your keys, since you obviously won’t be needing them again.”
“Of course. Want to come in? I don’t know just where—”
“I’m sure it won’t take you long to put your hands on them. I’ll wait here.”
On form, I made her cool her heels a while. Which of my office visits was this a response to, I wondered—the scene with Rodney,
or the theoretical cat marauder? Unable to think of a way to trick her into telling me, I reluctantly came out and handed
her the keys. Barking a thank-you, she strode off to her car.
Leaving the office detritus where it was, I drove over to Mariah’s to mark off one segment of a path, which took barely half
an hour. She wasn’t up and stirring yet, at least not visibly. Normally, we were on the phone at least once a day, but by
then several had gone by without either of us making contact. The next time Ryan’s murder came up—and how could it not?— we’d
almost have to get into specific people, which meant those around Willem. Apparently neither of us was in a rush to do that.
Before leaving my house I had put the papers I’d lifted for Skip in one of those indestructible white-and-green envelopes.
After the stop at Mariah’s I drove out to his place and left it between the two front doors, with a note. This completed my
shedding of the materials from last night’s raid. Baxter had taken the packet contents with him; I doubted they’d be of any
further use. Even if I’d made a clean getaway from the Garden Center, I’d have found a way to give him that key. It would
be so much easier for him to track it down. Would he share his results? Last night he’d offered neither thanks nor promises,
only a tight-lipped “No more stunts.”
The rest of the day I dedicated to the garden design I’d need the following morning. Thank God the preliminary site plan was
already on my computer. I’d been playing with it on and off since June. It looked adequate for a sure-to-be modified document,
but I did a little retooling anyhow, printed it, and got out my watercolors to add tinting—it’s a nicer effect than going
with the colors the computer shapes come in. Since I religiously keep up my database, the program could also provide lists
of reasonably accurate cost estimates on the materials. So, two-thirds of the package with minimal effort.
The remainder I’d barely started on. Willem is artistically gifted; his sketches of how a planting will look from an upright
human being’s perspective are nice enough to frame. Mine are at best workmanlike, so a couple of years ago I sprang for a
computer imaging program. You take pictures of a property, scan them in, and have the computer add, remove, or change different
elements. It’s fun to play around with and lets people see their actual property in reasonable approximations of how it might
look if various changes are made. I found myself getting fussier about the sizes, shapes, and colors of the added elements
than I would usually be. By late afternoon I felt distinctly enervated but still couldn’t bring myself to say okay, that’s
good enough.
What finally did it was Mariah calling, around a quarter to seven, to invite me over to join her and Willem in the spa. The
pictures were more than adequate, and I really didn’t need to hang around the house till nine to make the call we’d set up
to the camp store at Speculator. I could just as well call the boys from Mariah’s, and what was there to report, anyhow? Surely
I deserved some downtime.
There were no two people I’d rather spend it with. Eleanor had come to regard us, in trio form, as the friendship from hell.
That’s a secondhand direct quote. I doubt Kate or Rodney put it more favorably. For years we’d been fueling speculations in
that social set. Gave them something to slobber over, was Mariah’s dismissal. People are a lot easier to deal with when you
don’t want anything from them.
Which is not to say both Willem and Mariah didn’t value their privileges of association. Correctly, they did not perceive
them as threatened. I, also correctly, perceived mine as nonexistent.
It might be fun, though, to hear what people supposed went on when we got together. Both us gals were rumored to sleep with
Willem every now and then—how about all three of us at once, with exotic variations?
About as far as we got along that line was not wearing bathing suits in the spa. What drew us together initially was the realization
that this tripartite formulation somehow freed us up to say whatever we pleased, try out whatever ideas popped into our heads.
It had become intoxicating, this liberation from self-censorship. I wondered if it would still be in working order, given
Ryan’s murder and Mariah’s and my uneasy speculations about who might have been involved.
Willem was already there when I arrived, glass of merlot in hand. Given the hour, Mariah’s vodka martini was at least her
second. My Molson’s, which she insisted on housing in what looked to me like a large wineglass, was waiting on the table.
Mariah’s spa patio was her equivalent of a drawing room. It was where she received people. Afternoons between four and six
you could count on her being there and expect a warm welcome if you dropped by for a soak and a drink or two. After six, you
waited for an invitation, or at least called first. Friday on through the weekend, she’d probably be off somewhere at a party.
I stripped, picked up my beer, and joined them in the spa. Top of the line in terms of quality, and generously accommodating
four people, it dominated the huge patio, which had, in fact, been built around it. Overhead was a domed roof, paneled with
sun-darkening screens in summer, glass panes in winter. That evening the three sides were open, except for the two fixed end
sections closest to the house, from which huge screens and glass panels could be tracked out as needed.
The patio furniture was oversized and sinfully comfortable. There was an oval teak table for dining and a four-stool bar of
matching wood. Cabinets next to the house wall hid a refrigerator, a complex cooking unit, and an entertainment center. The
lighting could be programmed for any mood and there were backup heating and cooling systems with myriad options. I’d told
Mariah once that all she really needed besides was a less exposed place to sleep. If times ever got tough, she could rent
out her other sixteen rooms.
“Tonight,” she announced as I settled onto one of the spa seats, “I declare a theme party.”
“You’re declaring the theme, or do we get to make suggestions?”
“You do not. This, my dears, is a celebration of the four years of your lovely and rewarding professional relationship.”
“Ah, my farewell party,” I said.
“Who’s moving away? I shan’t name names, but what we’re saying goodbye to is all those irritations and limitations and false
expectations that came to be imposed from without. A celebration, definitely.” She raised her martini glass.
Willem smiled at me. “Provided you’re still available for consultation.”
“I don’t figure on changing my phone number.”
“Very well, I agree it is appropriate to celebrate four-year highlights; there have been many. I can accept, though hardly
celebrate, that our Valerie is ready to be her own boss. And Mariah, dear as you are to me, I shall not for one moment mind
explaining that no, Mariah Hansen’s garden is not an example of Etlingers’ style. From oddity to oddity it’s been entirely
her idea, aided and abetted by a former colleague who usually knows better. Cheers.”
“I may deduct something from my final payment for that.”
“Double it,” I told her.
“Have mercy. Mother’s already spitting tacks about your notion of how to settle accounts. And then there was this weird thing
that happened last night. Oops. Maybe we’d better make another type of deduction, in the interest of not dampening our festive
spirit.”
“Such as prohibiting all discussion of current local happenings?” Mariah asked.
“That sounds marvelous to me,” he concurred.
“Let’s also throw in a ban on unkind comments about people some of us like and some of us don’t,” I suggested.
“That’ll only apply to you ladies: I like everybody.”
“One of your problems: a galloping lack of discernment.” He splashed me. “So. This clears us to contemplate love, beauty,
and the meaning of the universe.”
“Balls,” Mariah protested. “What we are contemplating is four-year highlights. This is a theme party, remember? There was,
for starters, that afternoon you brought Val over here for the first time. And as we walked the grounds the two of us kept
up this steady stream of biting insults: my execrable tastes, your disgusting fixation on oversized, overripe flowers. She’s
looking from the one to the other of us, wondering if we’re actually going to come to blows.”
“I came to suspect you guys staged that.”
“We may have enhanced a trifle.”
“We wanted you to develop a sense of mission. It wasn’t a deception, really.”
“There’s nothing wrong with deception,” I declared, “when the cause is noble. Remember Mrs. Ballantine?”
Willem grinned. “How could one forget? Mariah, this is a woman who’d lived in a paved world much too long. Her husband got
transferred to Albany and they bought the Beckers’ place on Mile Hill Road. Decent yard, but overgrown—it needed work. Val
got the assignment, one of her first for us.”
“Lucky Val?”
“Hey, I enjoy challenges. Mrs. Ballantine would’ve been happier pouring concrete over the whole yard than having to contend
with all those messy living things growing out there. Or God forbid crawling or flying through the air.”
Willem took a long sip from his merlot. “It was hilarious. You know how Val always tries to make a garden the extension of
its owner.”
“We were managing to communicate, sort of, until we got to this area where there was a huge, marvelous red oak, must’ve been
around for a hundred and fifty years at least, fantastic branch lines. She wanted to cut it down and make a goddamn kiddy
playground for her grandchildren. Paved, of course.”
“Well, Val dug in. No way was she going to murder this tree. She suggested other sites for a play area. No, they wanted to
be able to watch it from the kitchen and the living room both, and when you did the triangulation, there you were.”
“I said how about some old-fashioned wood swings and a rustic-looking sandbox? Mrs. Ballantine was thinking plastic and primary
colors. So I muttered something about drawing up plans and split.”
“She comes storming into my office: as long as she was in charge, the tree stayed, and if Mrs. Ballantine didn’t like it she
could take her money elsewhere.”
I grinned, remembering. “I made a couple of suggestions as to location. Willem decided what was called for was a consultant:
him. So we drive on over, and he’s looking around and listening with his patented sweetly supportive expression. Finally we
get to the tree and she springs the playground idea. He paces around the tree a couple of times and then he stops and points
down. ‘See this, Val?’ he asks, and I say, ‘Uh-huh,’ All he’s showing me, now, is bare ground with a few surface roots. But
he puts on this ‘eureka!’ look and practically shouts, ‘You were right!’”
“With which I turned to Mrs. Ballantine and explained in my most sensitively sincere voice, ‘We do hate to disappoint a client,
but I’m afraid we can’t let you put a playground here.’”
“He looked so damn sorry about it I was half surprised she even asked why. She did sound kind of apologetic.”
“And the reason?” Mariah demanded.
“It seems that old oak was growing right out of a wetland. Which meant that underneath was soggy, extremely unstable ground.
If we cut the tree down, paved the area over, those big old underground roots would start to decay, and the way that concrete
was going to buckle and heave, it would be downright dangerous to have children playing there.”
“None of this was true, I assume?” Mariah asked tartly.
“Not that we know of. It wouldn’t have been very likely—red oaks prefer their feet dry. Still, most people who tell you what’s
ten, twenty feet under the surface without looking are overconfident at best.”