Garden of Death
Page 12
Gilroy was standing in his open doorway, leaning on the jamb. “I’m sure Rachel and Julia can fill you in.”
“Did he confess?” I asked. “It sounded like a confession to me.”
“After we found the plant he did,” Underhill said. “It was in a freshly dug hole in his yard. He grew his own belladonna, and he chose Stella Patmore’s greenhouse because—these are his words—she knew ‘squat-all’ about horticulture. And he wanted her to be a judge in the garden show so he could stay close to her and her greenhouse. He told Caroline Burkhardt that if she didn’t agree, he’d tell Valerie Siegler that she was cozying up to her husband. The irony is, Valerie already suspected that.”
“Unbelievable,” Holly said.
“He pretended to teach her and care about her,” Gilroy added.
He looked like he was in pain, and I wanted him to go sit, but he kept standing there, looking at me with those blue eyes of his and barely paying attention to the conversation about Doyle.
“He knew she was lying about having a degree,” Underhill added. “What he didn’t know was that he didn’t have to grow his own plant and crush the berries for juice since Mrs. Burkhardt had liquid belladonna in her home. He could have taken some at any time if he’d known where it was.”
“And then Stella would be alive,” I said.
“If you ask me, Doyle Charming would have knocked off everyone eventually,” Underhill said. “He wanted to host that stupid three-minute TV spot more than anything in the world. He was threatened by all of them, but he especially hated Caroline. And he exploded when he went to Stella Patmore’s greenhouse and found her tearing out the plant.”
I was incredulous. “Had Doyle been planning this for as long as it took to grow the belladonna?”
“He said it was his backup plan in case Caroline took Lucas’s job,” Underhill replied. “Or his job, I should say. He saw it as his. He would’ve killed whoever became host.”
“What a bitter man,” I said. “James, you need to sit down.”
“Yes, you do,” Holly said, “and right now. Rachel, go help him,” she added, propelling me toward Gilroy’s office.
“Have you had too much coffee, too much sugar, or both?” I asked her.
Still, I did want to check on his knee away from the others, especially Turner, so I followed Gilroy inside his office and shut his door.
“Rotten, stinking timing,” he said, dropping into his office chair.
“It’s never a good time to hurt yourself. Your knee is bleeding. How bad is it?”
He looked down at his bloody, torn pants. “Not bad. I landed on my kneecap, but it’ll be fine in a few days.”
“It’s not broken, I hope.”
“No, I’m just getting too old for this job.”
“Forty-eight is not old. I don’t want to hear that talk from you. You need life experience to be a police chief, and you have more energy than two of me. Look . . .” I dragged the wooden office chair from the front of the desk and sat two feet from him. “I love you and I’m sorry I’ve been short-tempered with you, but I need your honesty. I have to have it or we don’t have a relationship. I’m not one of those women who has to carry on deep conversations with her man over how he feels, but when I see you with someone and simply ask who she is, I deserve an honest answer and not evasion.”
“You’re talking about the woman with red hair.”
“Yes, I am. And not just her. I’m also talking about Sunday, when I said what I said, you know, and you looked at me like I was out of my mind.”
“When you said what?”
Oh Lord, he’s going to make me say it again. “You know what I mean, James. When I said, ‘When are you going to make an honest woman of me?’ We’ve been going together eight months, we’re not kids, and it was a normal thing to ask.”
“Oh, that.”
“Oh, that,” I said, mimicking his toneless, emotionless voice.
“I was going to tell you, but—”
“When? The time to tell me is when I ask.”
“I can’t always do that in this job.”
“You have everyone wondering what’s going on with you—do you know that? They’ve noticed how distracted and quiet you are. Turner was afraid you were sick.”
“Turner talks too much.”
“I know he does, and so does Underhill. But at least they communicate. Sometimes I know more about what’s happening in your life by talking to them than I do talking to you.”
“That’s not true.”
I crossed my arms and stared him down. “It absolutely is.”
“Then I’m sorry, Rachel, and I’ll have to do better.”
That caught me off guard. He never caved so easily when we had differences of opinion. Usually, he’d state his position and if I didn’t believe him, well, tough. “Oh.”
“I love you too, and I never want you to think I’m not being honest with you.”
“Usually I don’t. Almost never.”
“But this red-haired woman . . .” He shifted in his chair, leaned to his right, and retrieved a small black velvet box from his desk drawer.
I stared down at it, deer-in-the-headlights fashion.
“Her name is Laura Baker and she makes custom jewelry. I wanted something special, and I couldn’t tell you that without spoiling things. I was waiting for a better time. Only now”—he pointed at his knee—“things are spoiled in a different way. I also wanted to get down on one knee because you deserve that, but I don’t dare try. I hope you don’t mind.”
“James . . .”
“Picture me down on one knee, not sitting in this chair?”
My fingers went to my lips. I nodded.
“And somewhere on Cedar Avenue, looking at the mountains like we did on Christmas Day? Not in this office.”
I nodded again, and I felt tears welling in my eyes.
“I love you, Rachel Stowe. I feel at home with you.”
He opened the box, and there, nestled in folds of black velvet, was a gold ring set with a pale green stone.
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
“Are you kidding me?” I leaped out of my chair. “I mean, yes! Yes!”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him, which wasn’t easy considering he was sitting and at the same time trying to push to his feet and hug me back.
He stood at last, cradled my face in his hands, and kissed me. Then he slipped the ring on my finger.
With one arm wrapped around his neck, I looked down at the ring on my hand. “It’s beautiful, James. Is it green tourmaline?”
His eyes twinkled. “Your favorite. That’s what Holly said.”
“So that’s why she’s been behaving like a lunatic. You told her you were going to ask me.”
“I had to. What do I know about rings? I needed your size too. She thought I was going to ask you on Sunday.”
“Only we got into an argument.”
He shook his head. “There were two murders, and neither one of us had control over that.”
We hugged and kissed again, almost oblivious to the commotion now going on in the lobby outside the door. I didn’t care what was going on out there, I wasn’t going to let him go.
“Julia doesn’t know?”
“No, just Holly and Laura Baker, and I’m glad I didn’t tell anyone else. Laura’s been after me too, wondering when I’d get around to asking you.”
“James, I am an idiot.”
He laughed, took hold of my arms, and stepped back. “What are you talking about?”
“You ran into Laura on the sidewalk yesterday near Grove Coffee. Stella saw you too, and she read your lips. You said, ‘Not yet.’ No wonder. She was wondering if you’d asked me yet.”
He laughed again, the skin around his forty-eight-year-old eyes crinkling. And me—here I was forty-three, at last finding the love of my life. Everyone had been right all along, though I hadn’t believed them. They had told me that when I found my man, he would prov
e to be worth the wait. Gilroy was so much more than worth the wait.
We heard high-pitched laughter and looked toward the door. Turner was saying something about finding a bottle of champagne. I grinned.
More laughter. Then a bang and a clatter.
“Is someone knocking over chairs?” Gilroy asked.
“They’re getting closer to the door.”
Still grinning, he said, “Should I lock it?”
Then Julia’s voice, firm and authoritative, like a grandmother laying down the law, rang out. “Listen to me, all of you, don’t you dare. Don’t you dare knock on that door or you’ll have me to deal with!”
I covered my mouth to muffle my laughter and laid my head on his chest. “No need. I think we’re safe.”
DEATH OF A PROFESSOR
JUNIPER GROVE MYSTERY SERIES BOOK 10
FROM THE AUTHOR
We all need a place to escape to from time to time. A place where neighbors drink cups of coffee around a kitchen table (and some indulge in cream puffs), where friends feel safe sharing their hearts’ deepest yearnings, where neighbors stop to chat with neighbors outside flower shops. True, the occasional murder mars the Juniper Grove landscape, but what would a mystery series be without dead bodies? Juniper Grove is still that place of escape, and I hope you’ll join me there for all the books in the series. I look forward to sharing more of Rachel Stowe and her friends with you.
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