The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery (15 page)

“Nice piece of equipment,” she said, noting the Nikon with telephoto lens slung around his neck. “That camera makes you a …”

“Photojournalist,” Carrigan finished with a smile, pinching his glasses up from where they had slid down on his nose. “It suits the budget of a small paper to have reporters take their own pictures.”

“I should have guessed that.” As they walked, they talked about how her program’s popularity had spread to several hundred PBS stations throughout the country. He jotted down everything she said. Suddenly she plucked his sleeve. “Let’s sit here for a minute,” she said, directing him to an aged teakwood bench at the edge of the path.

She called out to Doug, “I’m stopping here, just for a moment or two.”

Doug nodded. “No problem. I’ll give you a heads-up when we’re ready for you.”

Once seated, she got right to it: “I have information that might make a story—a big story.” Big for a paper the size of
The Litchfield Hills Sentinel
, anyway. Then she told Carrigan about Barbara Seymour’s desire to turn the Litchfield Falls Inn over to the Connecticut Trust. “With its thirty acres and that waterfall, it has to be one of the prize properties around here.”

“The prize property. There are millionaires who would give a good chunk of their fortune for that site. Tell me all about it.”

Louise felt only a few brief pricks of guilt at babbling someone else’s business to a reporter, but her great desire to make Barbara Seymour safe soon overcame these twinges.

“Does her family go for this?” asked the reporter. “I’d heard that the family wanted a bigtime development there— especially her niece’s husband, who’s a builder from down-state. Word here is he’s a little overextended, needs a bailout.”

Neil Landry: He was known even at this tiny, but growing, county newspaper. But then, Louise reflected, the size of the newspaper has nothing to do with a given reporter’s capacity to amass knowledge—or suspicions—about the larger world. Carrigan, for instance, wearing a dress shirt and tie on a steamy day in the face of all the other men’s casual sports shirts, and choosing a Nikon as his camera, looked like an overachiever in the category of Woodward and Bernstein. At any moment he would surely be driving down to Manhattan to knock on the editorial doors of
The New York Times
or
Newsday
, seeking a job. He needed a big break. Probably much bigger than the story she was giving him, Louise thought wryly, but what the hell.

“The only way to get this story is to call Barbara Seymour herself,” she told him. “She’s the owner, and she’s the one who will make the decision. I hear she wants the property to stay undeveloped.”

“Well, that’s what the town wants, but she’s owned it for so many years that none of the local covenants could stop her if she wanted to build four or five hundred homes on the place.”

“Ah,” said Louise, “five hundred homes. Definitely talk to Miss Seymour. I think you’ll find that’s as far from her thoughts as traveling to the moon.”

Louise and Bill arrived back from the long day’s shoot two hours after the rest of the crowd. That left little time to find Barbara Seymour. Louise had wanted to prepare the inn’s proprietress for Tom Carrigan’s phone call before she became busy with afternoon tea.

While Bill joined the group lounging on the veranda, Louise detoured into the kitchen annex. It was a recent add-on to the inn, its counters, sinks, ovens, and refrigerators gleaming steel, its huge Aga stoves deep blue enamel. On one counter were steel pans with majestic racks of lamb
resting on them, waiting to be roasted. Teddy Horton bustled about, assembling tea things, his cowlick visible even from a distance; its unruly aspect seemed to be the last thing he was concerned about. Completely focused on cutting lemons into narrow wedges, he still took a moment to give Louise a cheery greeting. Barbara was standing near the big ovens, looking weary. A trail of whitish-yellow hair had escaped from her sumptuous bun and was lying, sweaty, on her wrinkled cheek. She was examining a tray the pastry chef had just removed from the oven: miniature tarts with English custard and raspberries.

“Yum,” said Louise. “I can hardly wait to try one of those.” From their expressions, she could tell she was intruding at a busy time, but she had no choice. “Um, Barbara, can I talk to you for a second? It’s important.”

Trying to disguise any minor exasperation she might have felt, Barbara led Louise to a kitchen garden tucked behind a four-foot-high Connecticut rock wall. Here, raised beds held herbs of many kinds, while others contained squashes, broccoli, beans, and kohlrabi. Barbara sank gratefully into a cushioned lawn chair and beckoned Louise to the one by its side.

“How delightful,” Louise said, looking around. But Barbara seemed truly exhausted, so she hurried to deliver her message about her meeting with Tom Carrigan.

“You discussed the disposition of the inn?” she repeated incredulously. The woman’s proud shoulders seemed to droop visibly.

“I—I was scared for you, Miss Seymour.”

“I know why you did it, Louise,” the older woman said in a wan voice. “It must be as plain as the nose on your face. Anyone could see that stair rod had been loosened, for the whole world knows how well we maintain this place.”

“I don’t think everyone thought that,” said Louise.

Barbara made no attempt to straighten herself in the chair. Instead, she closed her eyes, and for a moment Louise thought she might be falling asleep. But then she spoke.
“Louise, you are keen of eye and of mind. And I like you. It appalls me that someone might have wished me harm. But I suspected immediately that Neil Landry had given way to his darker nature—for I always knew he had one. And you figured it out soon after.”

The blue eyes opened and suddenly crinkled in a smile. “You’re a very practical problem solver, and I think this Tom Carrigan might be just the solution to the problem at hand.”

“The story could go in Sunday’s paper if you’re willing to talk to him. Oh, I’m so glad you can forgive me for being nosy.”

“I’ll do it, Louise. I’m not ready to go out just yet.” And then little frown lines formed in the noble forehead, like cirrus clouds passing overhead and putting the weather’s future in doubt. “The only problem that remains is darling Stephanie. You don’t know her yet, but she is a worthy young woman—too worthy to be linked with a man who would attempt to harm someone.”

Louise didn’t know what to say. Barbara stretched out a hand and touched Louise’s arm, her eyes half closed. “Now leave me, my dear. I’m finding it very comfortable here: just the place to rest my legs and take forty winks.”

“Should I—tell the staff that you’re here?”

“If you don’t mind terribly, just tell Teddy. Then everything will be all right.” She opened her eyes. “You see, I can trust Teddy with everything, Louise. He’s proved himself. He’s become like one of my own.”

Louise’s pulse quickened. “But your heirs are—”

“My heirs are Stephanie and Jim. But I’ve provided for Teddy, too, although they don’t need to know that—that’s just between the two of us.” The tired eyes closed again, and Louise went to tell Teddy where Barbara was.

When she found the young man, the staff had completed tea preparations, and he was on the phone. “Tom Carrigan?” he said. “Hi, Tom—yeah, I remember you. Just a minute, I’ll get Miss Seymour for you.” He gave Louise a
curious glance as he rested the phone on the counter, and she felt a little like an intruder. Had he guessed that Barbara Seymour spilled her business to Louise?

But true to form, he gave her a disarming smile and said, “Mrs. Eldridge, I have a feeling
you
know where Miss Seymour is—don’t you?”

Louise had barely joined the group on the veranda when the hikers filed in, their faces strangely taut. They discarded their backpacks on the wide-board floor, slumping into available seats or leaning against pillars.

Janie came straight over to her mother and her slim body melted against Louise’s, almost as it had when she was a tiny baby. “Ma,” she murmured against Louise’s shoulder, “you won’t believe it.” She said no more, deferring to someone older to speak for the group.

The group included Mark and Sandy Post, Janie and Chris, Rod and Dorothy Gasparra, Jim Cooley. But no Jeffrey Freeling.

“What’s the matter?” asked Bill curtly. “And where’s Jeffrey?”

Jim Cooley was the one to speak. Always the leader. “Bad news, Bill. Dr. Freeling had a fall from the summit of Bear Mountain. He’s dead.”

“My God, man, when?”

“About three hours ago. We were climbing up the north face—I was pretty close behind him. It was misty when it happened, so no one could see exactly what went wrong. He reached the summit first, and then he seemed to lose his footing. He fell, oh, I’d guess a hundred feet or more. After that, we all scrambled down. Someone on the trail had a cell phone and called the State Police. They questioned all of us, then drove us out to the trailhead.” He heaved a big sigh and let his head sag in his hands.

Chris approached Cooley, as if he wanted to help the man
in some way. “Mr. Cooley’s pretty bad off, Mr. Eldridge. He was the one who nearly saved Dr. Freeling.”

Cooley maintained his bent posture and shook his head sadly. Louise thought he looked like a collapsed version of Rodin’s statue,
The Thinker
.

Chris continued, “As soon as we found him, Jim—I mean Mr. Cooley—gave him mouth-to-mouth, and pounded his chest.”

“He started breathing,” said Janie, “and then he stopped again.” Her eyes filled with tears and she couldn’t continue. Louise tightened her grip around the girl’s waist.

“Jim did his best,” said Rod Gasparra diffidently, his eyes tormented.

“He did—he tried and tried,” added Mark Post. “They both did: first Jim, then Sandy … they’re both CPR experts.” Sandy sat limply in one of the chairs, her eyes closed. She appeared to be on the verge of total collapse. As Mark spoke, Jim looked at Sandy closely, a crease in his brow showing his concern about the effects of all this on the young woman.

Barbara Seymour, Teddy, Elizabeth, and the other members of the inn staff had gathered on the veranda, and the story had to be told again.

“I am so very sorry for all of us,” said Barbara, with a worried look in her eyes. “By the way, where’s Stephanie, and where’s Neil? Were they hiking, too?”

Teddy bent his cowlicked head comfortingly over his employer and said, “Don’t worry, Miss Seymour, it’s all right—
they’re
all right. Remember: They went antiquing out in the country. They’re really all right.”

Barbara seemed to feel better after hearing that, and clasped Teddy’s hand in hers. “A horrible accident, but not the first life those mountains have claimed …” Then, recovering herself, she disengaged her hand, drew herself up tall, and said firmly, “We will still serve tea in half an hour, for those who feel up to it. That will give you a chance to
freshen up. Tea will help all of us cope. Then we will delay dinner for an hour.” She turned away, and then had another thought. “And dinner—you must feel no obligation to dress for dinner, of course.”

Louise was listening intently to the story told by the shocked hikers. Only gradually did she see how debilitating the news was to each one of them, in very different ways. Mark hauled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit up nervously, but remembered to put a supportive hand on his wife’s shoulder, for Sandy was letting the tears fall now. The Gasparras, not much for conversation at the best of times, tried to make suitable small talk about Jeffrey. But Louise thought such sociability seemed unnatural, coming from them. Grace hid behind her dark glasses, and then disappeared like a nervous fawn down a stairway to the lawn. Bebe had to be helped to her feet by Bill, and was grateful to be escorted to her room. “What a nice man he was,” the widow kept mumbling. “All the nice men seem to die.”

The Storms stood to one side. They were like figures carved of stone. These were people who had obviously experienced death before. Frank Storm moved to where Jim Cooley was sitting, huddled and exhausted, and put a sympathetic hand on his friend’s shoulder. Jim looked up and the two men exchanged a long glance that to Louise seemed to say, “I feel what you feel.”