The Diva Digs up the Dirt (3 page)

“Sounds like someone nabbed her,” said Nina.

I flashed her a warning look. We were
not
getting involved!

Mona placed her fists on the table. “Wouldn’t you think someone would have noticed something?”

Uh-oh.
I could tell where this was going. “No you don’t.” I spoke firmly, because Mona struck me as the kind of person who kept at you until she achieved her goal. “I see what you’re doing. I am truly sorry about your daughter, and I hope you find her. However, I am not in the business of locating missing persons.” No matter how sorry I felt for her, I knew nothing about finding people. It would be wrong, wrong, wrong to mislead this poor woman. She needed a professional criminal investigator, not an event planner.

Mona drained her latte. “Is she always this stubborn?” she asked Nina.

Nina had the nerve,
the gall
, to wink at her. “Sophie balks at first, but she usually does the right thing.” She looked at me, fighting a grin. “She’ll come around.”

“Not this time. So sorry.”

“I’ll walk you out,” said Nina. To me she said, “I’ll see you at Roscoe’s around four.”

Mona picked up her purse and returned to the table to pluck two more chocolate croissants from the platter and wrap them in a handkerchief she pulled from her handbag. “For the road. But don’t think I’m through with you yet, young lady. How would your mother feel if you disappeared, and she didn’t know what had happened to you?”

Ouch
. Her question hit home. My family would be frantic if any of us were missing. I felt like a crumb when I watched them walk away.

My phone was ringing when I returned to my kitchen. I answered only to hear an agitated voice yelling, “Stop that. I said stop that! Oh no! How could this have happened?” The connection went dead.

“Hello?” I checked the caller ID—Mindy Greene, Roscoe’s new wife. I hit the button that redialed the number.

Busy. Due to the wedding, Roscoe had given me a free hand in setting up his picnic. Mindy had been busy in Ireland, so I hadn’t spent much time with her yet.

It was going to be a long day. I walked Daisy and tried calling Roscoe. When he didn’t answer, I left a message.

Hurrying, since I didn’t know what was up over at Roscoe’s house, and I figured I should get over there, I showered and slipped into a loose-fitting, coral-colored sundress. I pinned my hair up with a clip and skipped makeup altogether. If I was out in the heat most of the day, it would only slide down my face and give me dreadful raccoon eyes. But that reminded me to wear a hat. A coral hat with an extra broad brim matched my dress nicely. I skipped sandals and went for turquoise Keds, not elegant, but practical for someone who would be on the run all day. I clipped on heart-shaped earrings that had been a gift from my ex-husband, and I was out the door.

Just then, Wolf’s car eased into a parking spot in front
of Nina’s house. We had met almost four years ago, on Thanksgiving weekend. It had taken us a while to date, but we had been an item for about three years. Wolf’s irregular hours as a homicide investigator with the Alexandria Police Department and my late hours as an event planner hadn’t made it easy to get together. Much of the time our dates consisted of late-night dinners relaxing at my house after work.

He stepped out and whistled at me appreciatively.

I whistled back, jealous that silver hair looked so handsome on men. It gleamed in the sunlight, accenting his temples in the perfect places, as though a beautician had done it. Our efforts to eat healthy from the vegetable garden we had planted were paying off, too. He’d definitely shed some pounds.

“Where are you off to?” he asked.

“Roscoe Greene’s picnic. Want to come?”

“Is that today?” He planted a delicious kiss on me.

“You’d enjoy it. He always has a fabulous ice cream bar, and I believe we’re allowed one scoop today, aren’t we?” I hoped so.

“Ice cream—yes!” Wolf closed an eye and squinched up one side of his face like Popeye. “Roscoe—not so much. I used to go to his picnics. Not interested.”

Nina appeared at her front door. Dressed in turquoise cropped pants and a matching top, she looked ready for the beach.

“Actually,” said Wolf, “I’m here to see Nina.”

She sashayed over to us. “You’ve finally come to your senses, and it’s me you want?”

“Shh. Not in front of Sophie!” he teased.

I left them to their business and walked four blocks to my parked car, wishing, as I did in the winter, that I had a garage. Off-street parking was a precious commodity in Old Town Alexandria. The sun beat on my shoulders, and the pavement reflected the heat. Bake and broil, I thought, glad that I had opted for a light dress and a hat.

Roscoe’s Colonial Revival house was quintessential Americana. Three stories high, with dormer windows in the third floor attic, it was perfectly symmetrical. Gleaming black shutters accented windows in white walls of wood siding. A perfect lawn of lush grass sprawled in the front, not a single dandelion in sight. An old oak tree offered relief from the sun. A walk of herringbone-patterned bricks led to a porch that ran along the entire front of the house and around to the sides. Black rocking chairs beckoned. I felt as though lemonade might magically appear if I sat in one of them. An American flag fluttered gently by the steps to the porch.

Leaving room for vendors in the driveway, I parked on the street. A powerful smell hit me the second I stepped out of my car.

I had grown up in a small town in the Virginia countryside, and I knew that stench well—manure. More specifically, cow manure.

I rang the bell at the front door. It swung open. The housekeeper, Violet, scowled at me. Then again, I’d never seen her with any other expression. As usual, she didn’t say a word. I’d been arranging the picnic for years and she had yet to utter anything to me. She shut the door behind me and walked away. On the left, oak stairs led to a second floor. A simple pine chest of three drawers stood against the right wall. A large painting of dogs hunting quail hung over top of it. Huge purple gladiolas stole the show in a majestic bunch on top of the chest. Was I supposed to follow Violet or wait there? I hurried after her, through a family room. She opened a door to the back garden and stared at me with cold black eyes. Was she just putting me outside?

I stepped out onto the flagstone terrace, where I found Roscoe and Mindy, wrapped in matching fluffy white bathrobes. Mindy’s thin lips formed an angry slash in her pasty face. Bone thin, she wasn’t as young as everyone described her. In her forties, probably. Her platinum hair flipped up at the ends, reminiscent of a popular 1960s style. Pale skin suggested she avoided the sun at all costs. Not a single wrinkle marred her face. Either avoiding the sun helped more than I thought or she’d been Botoxed.

There had been no lack of scandalous gossip about Mindy’s dogged pursuit of Roscoe. The classic case of an employee who set her sights on her married boss. Stealthy as a thief in the night, Mindy had spent a few years working her way into the coveted position of Roscoe’s assistant. Her next promotion came with a wedding ring.

Roscoe sported an ample girth that led me to suspect he liked the fried chicken he served at his picnics. His hair had thinned, exposing the top of his head, but the additional pounds filled out the wrinkles on his pleasantly round face. For the first time since I’d known him, his normally ruddy complexion looked sallow and unhealthy.

“This is a fine mess!” he said, gesturing at his garden.

The garden was remarkable. Beds of colorful flowers surrounded a plush green lawn almost big enough for a baseball game. Towering trees lined both sides of the
property, blocking any view of neighbors. At the opposite end, the grass gave way to a stone path that meandered to a pond. Tall trees clustered behind it like a magical forest. But the stench was awful.

“What happened?”

“We were still fast asleep when Violet came upstairs and told us the gardeners were here. Didn’t think a thing about it.” He held out a sheet of paper.

I glanced at it. A bill for manure, ordered by none other than Mindy Greene.

“I am horrified,” she spat. “My first party as your loving wife and”—she stopped her rant and pointed at me—“this is your fault.”

My fault?
Okay…
I
didn’t order the manure, and I wasn’t present when it was delivered. She needed someone to blame, and I happened to be handy.

“Now, honeybunch, don’t blame Sophie. By the time we got up and realized what they were doing, they’d spread it all through the garden,” said Roscoe. “But Mindy called a mulch company, and they’re coming right out. I figure dumping mulch on top of the manure will help tamp down the smell.”

“You managed to get a mulch company to deliver and spread on a Sunday?” I asked.

For a moment, I thought Mindy had stopped breathing. “They had better show up. That’s all I can say. And by the way, I did
not
order that manure. Roscoe! Why don’t you believe me? It had to be Violet or Olive. They’d love to spoil this party to make me look bad.”

I sought to soothe her. “The mulch seems like a good idea. Which way does the breeze blow in the afternoon? Maybe we could set up big fans.”

Mindy stared daggers at me.

What did she expect me to do? Dig it all up?

“We could move the party over near the guest house.”

“Ugh! Absolutely not! That place is unusable as it is.”

“That was my ex-wife’s retreat,” said Roscoe. “I told
Mindy it’s all hers now, but she refuses to go in there. She says she can’t use it unless it’s completely redecorated.”

“You have two choices. Cancel the party, or move the party. It’s late to do either, but we could try. It’s your decision.”

“We’ll have the party here. The smell’s not that bad. It reminds me of my grandparents’ farm.” Roscoe wrapped one arm around Mindy and hugged her to him.

“Should I follow up with the mulch company?” I asked.

“No!” Mindy cried out, appalled at my offer. “I’ll handle that.”

The door to the house opened, and Harry Jenkins, always on time with event equipment like tents and chairs, vaulted out onto the terrace. I could only imagine that Violet had given him the same heartwarming treatment I had received on arrival.

“Sophie! Thank goodness. Who is that witch who answered the door?”

“You see, Roscoe,” said Mindy, “I am not the only one who finds her creepy.”

I walked around the house to the front with Harry, glad he’d brought the tables and chairs so we could get set up. After a great deal of huffing and pouting from Mindy, Harry’s men unloaded the picnic tables along the side of the house, underneath a gorgeous row of arching trees. I hoped we wouldn’t be moving the tables.

The day wore on, and with each passing hour, the heat and the stench grew. One of my suppliers offered to send over five huge outdoor fans, but Roscoe declined them, saying he would rather smell something real than have the view of his gorgeous gardens blocked by big blue boxes. It was his party.

At two thirty, the tables had been draped with traditional blue and white checked picnic tablecloths. The caterers had taken over the kitchen, and they yammered at me about Violet presiding over their every move, threatening them silently with her scowl.

Matt Godadski, also known as the Barbecue Prince among event-planning circles, leaned toward me to kiss me on the cheek and whispered, “The new wife is a nightmare. You should have seen the fight over the ice cream bar. The princess wanted a crepe station. At a picnic? Not to mention that the ice cream bar is a tradition.”