The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery (28 page)

“Psych I—so that’s why you’re so clever about understanding people.” She smiled at him. He crouched down beside her and laid a forearm on the chair where there was a little space next to her leg.

“I never took psych—I just read this stuff. There’re more interesting ones there.” He picked out another. “See,
History of Revolutionary America
. I like that subject—I’d major in history if I ever went to college.”

She cocked her head a little. “Don’t you know the jobs are in technology and science, not the humanities?”

“Yeah,” he said cheerfully, “that’s what they say.
And
the service industry. Don’t forget the service industry. I’ve got a job I like. I have a future here with Miss Seymour, whether it seems like it or not. I’ll probably run this inn someday.”

She shook her head. “You have more self-confidence than anyone I’ve ever met. Where does it come from?”

He shrugged his shoulders, hoping, perhaps, she would notice how broad they were getting. This was the opportunity he had sought: being near Janie, the magical blond girl from another world. Washington was not so far, really, not too distant for him to comprehend. His thoughts had drifted. What had she asked—about self-confidence, was it?

“Don’t know where I got it. Small-town life. Consolidated county high school. Plenty of good teachers who encouraged me. And I help with the business at home.”

“Your folks have a business?” Janie sounded as if the concept were totally foreign to her.

“Sure, lots of people around here survive on little businesses. My dad and mom have a grocery store at the edge of town. Good one, too, super meat, fresh produce. Competes pretty well with the bigger markets around.” Teddy grinned, and he could see her examining, close up, his face with its crooked, orthodontia-free teeth. Her mind registering his heritage: a grocery store. That made him a grocery boy. So be it. He didn’t have money, yet, to get those teeth straightened. And he couldn’t change what his parents were and what he was—not that he had always been the most exemplary kid, either. But Janie didn’t need to know that.

“That makes it a mom-and-pop store—and kid. Mom-and-pop-and-kid store.” He delivered the line with a wholesome smile on his face, and Janie bought it, just as people always bought it. “I love that store,” he said, really getting into it now, “because I like people—I really do. They don’t make millions, but it gives you a good idea of how this country works. You know, they used to call England a country full of small shopkeepers. Well, New England was somewhat like that, too.”

“So you may go to school one of these days?”

“Yeah. Maybe I’ll go to Yale.”
Sure, I’m twenty-one already, wasn’t exactly the valedictorian of my senior class, and I’m going to Yale
, he thought cynically. But he knew how to name-drop, and why not drop the best names? He could never impress
this girl by saying he intended to matriculate at the University of Bridgeport. “So, what is your friend Chris studying at Princeton?”

Janie rearranged herself in the chair, and he couldn’t help staring at the way the long blond hair hit her cheek. “He’s a science major. I don’t know what he’ll specialize in yet—I don’t think he does, either.”

“So, your mom is a TV garden lady, and a junior detective. How about your dad? State Department, huh?”

Janie looked at him quickly. Was he going too far with that “junior detective” stuff, or was it something else?
And what was it with your old man—was he a spy or something?

“Yes, State Department. We’ve lived overseas a lot. My folks may even move there again, but I’ll probably stay and go to college here.”

He leaned in as close to her as he could without having some phony excuse. She was one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen. “I like it that we’re getting better acquainted.” He smiled. “How about planning a date?”

She laughed. “Oh, but I won’t be back here very soon …”

“I can
easily
make it to D.C.”

“Well … I suppose you could come around Thanksgiving. Then Chris would be home from college.” Her enthusiasm wasn’t overwhelming.

“I’d love it,” he said, pinning her down on it before she changed her mind.

She narrowed her eyes. “But I wouldn’t call my mom a
junior
detective again.”

“Gosh, Janie, I didn’t mean—I’m sorry. I was just trying to be funny.”

“I understand.”

“But we’d better go now. I have a feeling Chris is going to be looking for you.”

She reached out her hands and he pulled her out of the low-slung chair, and then she was standing right next to him. Their bodies were almost touching. He wished they
could make love right now on the rug, as he and Ginger, the head waitress, had done a dozen times at least—though somehow he knew this wouldn’t happen with Janie. Teddy reached out for second best, a kiss and hug she’d remember until Thanksgiving. Then they heard Chris calling.

“Okay, you two,” called Chris, “I hear you in there somewhere. Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

Teddy grabbed her elbows, which was about as much as he could grab, considering the situation. He hated when people invaded his lair. “Janie, I sure do want to help you and Chris if you go out and do any investigating.”

She looked up at him. Was she as aware as he was that this was a magical moment? She said, “It has to be soon, because in about an hour we leave for home.”

Be sincere, and not too forward
, he thought.
Don’t blow it now
. “Then we have an hour. There’s nothing I’d like better than to help you, Janie. You’re one of the nicest girls I’ve ever met.”

That much was as true as anything he’d ever said in his life.

A
T NOON
, L
OUISE AWOKE SUDDENLY
and realized she was due at the meeting in the library. She got down off the tall bed, ran a quick brush through her long hair, and hurried out to the hall and down the stairs. As she entered the large room, Janie made a sweeping bow welcoming her, then snapped the door closed behind her. “You’re late, Ma. Let’s get crackin’.”

They took seats on the big leather couches near the fireplace, with Janie sitting next to her mother. As they settled themselves, Hargrave the cat rose
to a sitting position in his basket and observed them solemnly, debating whether or not to give up his territory. Finally, he decided to stay, lying back down and resting his green-eyed gaze on Louise.

Louise gave the cat a conspiratorial wink.

Janie looked at her mother, slightly perplexed. “
I’ve
been petting him while we waited for you to come down from your room. How come he likes you best?”

Louise’s mouth twitched in a smile. “Cats really know people, they say.”

“Hmmh.”

She patted her daughter’s knee. “Just kidding. Actually, it’s because I’ve spent more time with him than you have.”

“If you two would stop discussing the cat,” said Bill mildly, “we can get rolling. I’ll go first. Now, about Jeffrey Freeling’s fall—or push: I corroborated what the kids found out yesterday. Mark Post is roundly hated by his new father-in-law. He appears to be a corner-cutter—which in the computer business means he may have filched someone else’s idea, refined it a little, and then sold it as his own. He has lawsuits against him up the kazoo. Some people think he married Sandy for her money—among them, Sandy’s daddy.”

Louise looked around the group and said, “Let me try a farfetched theory on you. It entered my mind just this morning at breakfast, and it could explain Jeffrey’s death.” She told them all about seeing two men embracing Friday night, and proposed a scenario in which Mark and Jeffrey were secret lovers, with Mark killing Jeffrey to keep this knowledge from the upscale family into which he had just married.

“Whoa,” said Bill. “That’s a real stretch, Louise. And yet, what I have to remember, when I doubt your theories, is that you’re usually right.”

She smiled. “I know. I have a pretty good track record, haven’t I?”

Nora, leaning forward in her chair, said quietly, “I saw them, too, Friday night.”

Louise smiled with satisfaction. “There you are. Nora saw them, too. I think we have to keep that theory in mind.”

Janie sat back, draped her arms along the back of her chair, and clasped her hands behind her head. “Why would a well-known guy like Jeffrey want to spill the beans about a thing like that? Why wouldn’t he just want to keep it a secret?”

Bill scratched his head. “Not a bad point, Janie. I don’t know. I also had the Gasparras checked out. Not much there, but they owe a big tax bill to Uncle Sam—they just haven’t been making it lately. But no criminal record on either Rod or Dorothy.”

“No wonder they were so angry when they thought someone stole their red iris,” reflected Louise. She told them of her encounter with the couple and Fenimore Smith, the owner of Wild Flower Farm. “They could have paid off their debts if they had perfected the reddest iris of them all.”

“So they didn’t?” asked Janie.

“According to Fenimore Smith, their iris is not the Sacred Blood iris, but probably another one that’s similar, just not that red. I suspect the Gasparras convinced themselves that someone had stolen their plants without any concrete evidence. Or it could be an example of people suing big outfits and hoping for an out-of-court settlement. Maybe they thought Smith would pay them off rather than go through the hassle of a lawsuit. At least they didn’t kill anyone over it—or not yet.”

Nora’s eyes were bright with excitement. Louise realized how important it was for her friend to make a contribution here, if only to help her out of her terrible depression. She could hardly wait to take her turn. “I may have found out something terribly important about Grace,” she said. “My poet friend teaches at several schools in the New York area. The class that Grace took from him is at NYU. He saw her
just last week.” She smiled. “What do you think of that? That gives us four people with NYU connections: Mark and Sandy Post, Jeffrey, and Grace.”

“Hmm,” said Louise. “And Grace and Sandy met each other in a poetry class there, too. Could Grace have known the others—”

“Louise, what’s important is what this teacher said about Grace. She was an excellent student. Oh, of course he could tell she had problems—they came out in the things she wrote, as did her delirious love of trees and flowers. But her work was good enough to be accepted for publication in
Poetry Lore
. I can tell you from firsthand experience that any poet would love that. He said Grace was on a creative ‘high’ these days, and didn’t believe she would consider taking her own life.”

“Neither do I,” said Bill. “The woman was a hopeless romantic. But not someone with the courage to throw herself over a waterfall.”

“Good work, Nora,” said Louise. “Bill, how about Bebe?” She wondered if it was time to reveal that Bebe had had her in a death grip last night in the hall.

Bill launched right into it: “I want you to picture a warm, bombastic, loving, belligerent, extroverted woman with twinkly dancing feet—”

“That’s going to be a little difficult,” said Nora dryly, “except for the dancing feet.”

“What I’m telling you is that she’s a woman of contradictory moods; she’s made as many enemies as friends in Mattson. But there’s nothing yet from the police on whether she was responsible for good old Ernie’s death.”

Louise noticed they talked about Ernie now as if they had personally known the wealthy old farmer. Bill had even committed to memory one of Ernie’s favorite phrases, relayed to him by Bebe: “hissy-fit,” as in,
That woman’s having a hissy-fit!
Louise had a secret fear Bill would use it someday to describe
her
.

She sighed. “Then it’s my turn, I guess. I haven’t reached the botanic garden yet, but I did hear from Charlie Hurd. He says Higher Directions schools are going strong, especially with all the national publicity. The irony is that they’ve grown too fast, and they’re terribly in need of money. And then there are the suicides.” She told them about the two unfortunate youths.

“Two suicides?” said Bill. “That must have flashed red lights at Drucker when he checked out Higher Directions.” He frowned. “Do you realize none of this gets us anywhere on Grace’s death? It only implies that Jim Cooley and Frank Storm could have been in league with Neil Landry in trying to disable Barbara Seymour. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the two deaths.”

Janie leaned forward. “Neil Landry loosened that carpet—no one else. He looks guilty as sin. The other relatives don’t.”

Louise stared thoughtfully out the big front windows. “No, Jim and Frank never look guilty. They’re too righteous.”

“Not very charitable, are we, Louise?” noted Bill. “It will be hard to prove anything about Barbara’s accident. I ran a check on Landry. He’s clean. Maybe the stair rod just popped.” He arched an eyebrow. “If it were at our house, Louise, we wouldn’t suspect foul play. We’d just suspect atrophy on the part of all physical things, especially houses with large mortgages.”

Chris spoke up. “Janie and I talked to Teddy, who knows next to nothing. You’d think the guy would be more observant, hanging around here all the time. He said it would be hard for people to tramp over the lawn without someone from the kitchen staff seeing them.”