by Ellen Riggs
“I’m good.” I swivelled in the seat to try to get my feet into the well of the passenger seat before he could notice that—
“Excuse me? Are you seriously driving without footwear, Ivy?”
I tried hoisting myself over the stick but it was awkward and risky. Eventually I reversed course, clambered onto my knees and crawled over, with my socks—and my butt—practically in Kellan’s face. Some clumsy contortions helped me land my plane safely in the passenger seat. By then I was puffing from exertion and humiliation.
Staring straight ahead into the field that was plowed under for winter, I said, “I left my house in boots.”
He shook his head. I barely caught the movement but I felt the disapproving breeze. “And where did you lose those boots?”
“In Edna Evans’ front hall,” I said. “She shoved me out without them and vanished before I could catch up with her on the driveway. I can only assume she left by broom or teleportation. She was running late for a bridge game.”
He slid behind the wheel and started the truck. “We really need to talk.”
“I’ve been doing so much better with my driving.”
“If that’s better, I’d hate to see worse.” He backed out of the gravel road and onto the highway with ease. I had no doubt that he could pilot the big old red tractor behind the barn with equal panache. Or a bulldozer, if the need arose. He didn’t even have to think about it. I knew this because he kept turning to give me serious glances with his dark blue eyes, yet the truck hummed along like it recognized its new master.
If he decided I couldn’t drive at all right now, I’d really be stuck. I spent half my time running errands for the farm and inn. On top of that, I’d be facing the same shame as my mother at being taken off the road by a cop for public safety. Suddenly, I had more compassion for her.
“I’m a little rattled by the murder,” I said. “I mean, the second one. As any normal person would be.”
“True. But those people wouldn’t be driving a big farm truck with a manual transmission. They’d be home meditating or something.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Like that’s possible with the Flordale vipers crawling all over.”
He passed the lane for Runaway Farm and kept going. “Don’t vipers slither?”
“I stand corrected. These people are all legs and on the run. Even Keats has a hard time rounding them up.”
“You’d better improve your herding skills or I’ll confine them to the property until the murder is solved.”
“Don’t say that. Or at least say you’re close to figuring it out.”
He laughed. “Ivy, it’s been less than two days. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
Keats gave a yip from the back seat that sounded so much like agreement that Kellan turned quickly to the dog and added, “No one asked you.”
“He doesn’t wait to be asked.” I stared around as we headed for town. “Where are we going? To find a nice, safe sedan?”
“Not today. I have a more peaceful destination in mind.”
Just before we reached the town limits, he turned right and headed toward the hills. I sat a little straighter and I didn’t have to see Keats to know he was doing the same. A walk in the hills would do wonders for my nerves, and Keats could afford to blow off steam, too. Besides, it would be nice to spend a little time with Kellan alone—even if it was grossly unfair to Jilly to leave her one hour longer than necessary babysitting our guests alone. I told myself she’d be happy that Chief Hottie wanted to spend a little quality time with me.
Finally, Kellan rolled onto another gravel road and down a long lane. The arching sign seemed to be of similar vintage and style to the iron sign at Runaway Farm. This one said Clover Grove Gardens.
“I totally forgot about this place,” I said. “I haven’t seen it since…”
I trailed off. Kellan and I used to ride our bikes over here a lot when we were dating. With an overprotective sister like Daisy, a meddlesome brother like Asher, and three other sisters hanging around, the opportunities to be alone were few and far between. Only on summer evenings when Daisy worked at the grocery store could we steal away to watch the sun go down from this small, quaint County-owned property. More than once we had to climb the fence to get back out after old Mr. Burnside locked the iron gates early.
“You always loved it here.” His voice was still clinical—all Chief Harper—but the fact he was taking me down memory lane had to mean something. Keats must have thought so, too, because his white paw landed on my shoulder, perhaps cautioning me not to get my hopes up. Well, I wouldn’t. I wasn’t that naïve girl anymore. I was a seasoned executive with 10 years experience firing people and breaking their hearts. More recently, I’d seen ugliness and violence. I wasn’t likely to fall prey to schoolgirl fantasies anymore. The paw lifted, as if Keats felt his work was done. I knew that if I turned, he’d be giving me a dose of the kinder, warmer brown eye.
“I did,” I said, hopping out the minute he stopped the truck. “And it looks like it’s been kept up. More or less.” Staring around, I realized it looked quite different now. Some of the beds were overgrown with aggressive tiger lilies or various types of chrysanthemums, whereas others were completely barren. But it was autumn, so I couldn’t expect the sweet blooms of spring and summer. At least the old stone benches were exactly where they should be.
Kellan got out and came around the front of the truck. “It had gone completely to seed, I’m afraid, but the town struck a committee two years ago to dig the place out. Being next door to Dorset Hills means we have to keep up or die trying.”
“It’ll take a few years to bring it back to its former glory, I suppose,” I said, reaching for the back door.
He pointed to a sign featuring a dog with a big X through it. “No dogs allowed.”
“Oh, please,” I said. “Keats is not a dog.”
“He’s a smart dog, no question, but he’s definitely in the canine family.”
“No one else is here anyway. If someone joins us, I’ll put him back in the truck.”
“See, the problem with the law is that you have to abide by it even when no one’s around,” he said. “It’s inconvenient, but it does help maintain order.”
“I understand you have to take a hard line because you’re in uniform. So I’ll accept a ticket from you if the need arises.” I let the dog out of the truck and he raced around the paths as if he’d been locked up for days. Yet he didn’t touch a single plant. “See, he’s impeccable.”
Keats looked directly at Kellan before cocking his leg on a sundial.
“A perfect gentleman,” Kellan said, laughing.
“When a dog’s gotta go, he’s gotta go. At least he didn’t wither the mums.”
Kellan led me around the garden, and the grand tour didn’t take long. There were small cards sticking out of the soil to indicate where the plants had been earlier in the season. The days were so short now that the sun was already low in the sky.
“Poppy,” he said. “There were lots of them this year, just as unruly as your sister.” He pointed to another card. “Iris. Quiet, elegant and totally overshadowed by the poppies. And here, we had the sweet yet hardy violet, loved by all for heralding spring.” He made a sweeping gesture to tall, multicolored flowers still in bloom. “Outlasting them all, we have the resilient and persistent dahlias, which pretty much dominate everything else. Isn’t that something?”
“Very clever, Kellan,” I said, laughing. “Very clever indeed.” I peered around. “Is there some ivy lurking in a corner cowering under an ash tree?”
“That’s exactly what you’d expect of ivy, isn’t it? Quiet lurking,” he said. “But nowadays, ivy is far less subtle than it used to be. Sometimes it even upstages the dahlias of the garden. It’s the new age ivy.”
I shook my head, still grinning. “I don’t remember you having such a way with words when we were in school.”
“People change, I guess.” He led me on another la
p around the garden, seeming to forget I was only in socks. I didn’t complain about the sharp pebbles stinging my feet, either. “We couldn’t have imagined then what we’d witness in life. Together and apart.”
“No.” I sat down abruptly on the stone bench. We used to sit there as teens, our fingers laced together, watching dusk fall and the fireflies magically ignite. “It’s shocking, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Clover Grove hadn’t seen a murder in years, which is one of the reasons I wanted to come home. And now there have been two, back to back.”
“Coincidence or conspiracy?” I was joking, but he turned quickly to stare at me. “Oh, come on, Kellan. You can’t think I’m bringing trouble on Clover Grove. The only witch that’s cursed me is Edna Evans, who’s holding my boots hostage until I deliver gourmet cooking.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Food delivery now?”
“It was the only way she’d tell me about—” I stopped abruptly but it was too late.
“I knew it! You were snooping again. Edna’s on my list to question but you got to her first.”
“Well, she wanted to talk, Kellan. She complained you hadn’t been over sooner.”
He rubbed his forehead and then ran his hand through his dark hair. “Oh, Ivy, you are a dangerous vine. Tell me what she said and don’t spare a word.”
Shifting into lotus position, I rubbed my sore feet and shared everything Edna had witnessed on the night of Wilf’s murder. “If she’s right,” I concluded, “Ben lied to me earlier. He said he slept like a rock the entire night.”
“Do you believe Edna?” he asked. “Or is she just trying to get free meals out of you?”
“It fit with what we already knew, about Wilf doing donuts in his Corvette. She guessed correctly that his bathrobe must be ripped from getting stuck in the car door. But that doesn’t mean Ben killed him, even if he lied about being up with Wilf.”
“What can you tell me about Ben? Did he have a beef with Wilf Darby?”
I told him about Wilf’s management style, and how Ben had been feeling lately. “Honestly, Kellan, they all had beefs with Wilf, some bigger, some smaller. But if you bully and diminish people enough, someone could eventually blow.” I traced a pattern on the stone bench. “I suppose that’s what happened to me, in a way. The day I discovered Keats.”
The dog came out from under the bench and jumped up beside me, resting his long muzzle on my lap.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Kellan said. “Just leave the questioning to me.”
“But I know them better than you do. I know the hot buttons. Whoever did this must be unhinged, and if you go poking around, the inn could explode from the tension. People already suspect each other, including me.”
“I didn’t become one of the youngest chiefs of police in the state by blundering around and blowing things up, Ivy. Give me some credit.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” After a few quiet moments of stroking Keats’ ears, I glanced at him. “I’m not really a suspect, am I? I was sound asleep. What kind of alibi can I have?”
He looked like he might string me along but finally shook his head. “You’d have nothing to gain and a lot to lose. And while you’re impulsive, you’re not unhinged.”
“Why thank you. I guess.” After a moment, I pressed my luck. “And my mom? Obviously she wasn’t wrestling with Ben in the night. Edna would love to implicate her if she could.”
Kellan stared over at the flower bed full of dahlias. “I’m afraid I can’t rule her out just yet, Ivy. She wasn’t exactly truthful about where she was last night when we spoke earlier.”
“Where did she say she was?”
He turned to glare at me. “I know you guys coached her, and it must have taken a Herculean effort. I’ve never seen her so subdued. It was like she was medicated.” After a pause, he added, “She wasn’t, was she?”
“No, we didn’t medicate our mother, Kellan, although I kind of wish I’d thought of that.” I grinned at him. “Mom says and does some very silly things, as you well know, but she’s quirky, not unhinged. You know she can’t be corralled, so whatever statement she gave you is all on her.”
“Well, it was quite a story. Full of intrigue.”
“I know she’s dating Charlie, if that’s what you’re alluding to. And that they met for drinks at The Tipsy Grape last night before she went home to attend to her chores.”
“She may well have attended to her chores… after her second date.”
“What?” Mom had clearly ended things earlier with Charlie than she’d let on and then squeezed in another meet-up. Where did she get the energy? “My mother is a floozy.”
He laughed out loud at my reaction.
“She’s rotational dating,” he said. “It’s all the rage.”
Now my face was flaming. “I want to throw myself into the thistles right now. But regardless of her wanton ways, you know my mom’s not a murderer.”
“I know she has a record.”
“She does not. Asher would have told us.”
“Okay, it’s an unofficial record. We’ve never formally booked her. But that’s only because she’s lucky and very charming when she wants to be. Her unofficial record is not insignificant, and there are some rather peculiar incidents I promised Asher I’d never mention.”
“You had better mention them, Kellan Harper. This is my mother we’re talking about.”
“All I’m saying is that your mother is capable of extremely impulsive behavior when she’s fired up. And Jilly said she was fired up about Wilf Darby firing you.”
“You spoke to Jilly? When?” Normally we shared everything, and I didn’t know about this. For a second it was like the bench shifted under me.
“Probably when you were interrogating Edna. I went to the farm to see you and since you weren’t there, I took Jilly’s statement instead.” He smiled at my expression. “I think you’ll find a text or three. She was trying to do it discreetly while making some very strong coffee.”
“Well, fired up or not, Mom didn’t cab it out to the farm to take out Wilf Darby. She still hopes I’ll go back to Flordale one day, so she wouldn’t destroy my chances.”
“Time will tell,” he said, getting up. “Let’s get going. It’s nearly dark, and one of us has police work to do.”
“Kellan, I have a right to know about my mom’s involvement with the police.”
He started walking back to the truck and I hopped behind him trying to avoid sharp pebbles.
“No, you don’t,” he said. “You get to know what she tells you. And I get to find out why she’s not telling you everything.”
“This isn’t fair. Ow. Ow. Ow!”
Keats circled me anxiously and then raced out ahead of Kellan and closed in gently to slow him down. The move was so subtle Kellan barely noticed. In fact, he turned and came back for me as I picked my way along the path.
“See how you’re walking?” he said. “That’s what investigating a murder is like: a minefield. Yet today you were off again, tiptoeing around without protection.”
“But I shared good information from Edna today.”
“I would have gotten the same information, and without promising her free meals,” he said. “As for the Flordale staff, all we know is that Ben and likely Neal tried to stop Wilf from driving into town drunk. This afternoon, I’ll be at the farm talking to everyone, one by one. I’m sure I’ll hear enough about corporate politics to make me grateful to be on the frontlines of police work.”
“Guaranteed,” I said.
He opened the passenger door of the truck for me, and Keats jumped through to the back. “Stand down, new age Ivy, or I’ll take whatever recourse necessary to halt your creeping.”
“A threat is still a threat when it’s couched in flowery metaphors, Kellan.”
He helped me into the truck and I tried to ignore the fireworks detonating from head to foot simply from feeling his hand on my back. I wondered if he felt the same. His eyes met mine and
for a second I thought—hoped—he might kiss me.
Instead, he smirked. “I’ve got another metaphor. Clover Grove is my garden and it’s my job to yank out weeds by the roots.”
He closed the door and I rolled down the window. “Well, I’ve got a load of fertilizer I can sell you cheap.”
“You’re full of it all right,” he said, grinning as he walked around the truck.
Chapter Thirteen
Jilly was covered in flour up to her hairline and surrounded by all the Flordale guests when I walked into the kitchen. The whites of her eyes didn’t make the usual impact when she rolled them at me and mouthed, “Where were you?”
“Chief Hottie,” I mouthed back, knowing that might be the only get out of jail free card I held. Out loud, I asked, “What are we cooking today, aspiring chefs?”
“Jilly’s teaching us to make tourtière,” Paulette said, dusting off her apron. “I voted for quiche but Ben and Neal refused to join us if there was no red meat involved.” She gave them a disapproving look. “They’re as bad as Wilf.”
“Hey now,” Ben said, giving her a rare frown. “Those are fighting words, Paulette. No one here is as bad as Wilf.”
Except Wilf’s killer, I thought. That might very well be Ben if what Edna saw was correct. She may not be good-hearted, but I couldn’t see any reason she’d lie about it, and Ben was unmistakable given his size.
Paulette flushed and put a floury hand on Ben’s arm. “I only meant about being a carnivore. Real men do eat quiche, you know.”
Jilly rapped the granite counter lightly with her rolling pin. “The tough part is mastering pastry,” she said. “Once we’ve done that, we can easily toss a quiche together and everyone will be happy.”
“We’re all happy as it is,” Paulette said. “You’ve been so kind and fun, Jilly.”
“What I really crave is some exercise,” Ben said. “I’d love to go for a run.”
“No runs today, Ben, I’m sorry,” I said. “The police chief is spending the afternoon here taking statements. But if you don’t mind some hard labor, Charlie’s down in the barn and would love some help. I’ve been slacking off on my chores since you guys got here.”
