Gore in the Garden

by Shelley Dawn Siddall

  “Yes, I know who she is,” said Anderson tersely.

  “Do you know that she adopted two sphynx cats a few years ago and every time new cats or kittens come in, she works hard to find homes for them?”

  Anderson frowned. “What are Sphynx cats?”

  The worker called up a photo and showed Anderson. “They’re hairless cats. Gracie breaks out in hives if she touches animals with hair.”

  Anderson wanted to crawl in a hole and die. He cringed when he thought of how he had yelled at Gracie that day. Twice.

  At that moment, Gracie caught sight of him and waved. She walked up to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

  “My friend Ted Bailey, a Detective Sergeant on the HPD, told me all about the trouble at your home today. I’m so sorry to hear that your fish were endangered. How are they now?”

  Anderson blushed at her kindness and mumbled something about returning to normal. He drove home with his empty cage and began making his vows. When he reached the third vow, he spoke aloud.

  “Three. No dating ever, no matter how much they say they love fish.” He relented a little, amending the last vow. “Not unless they have their own Koi pond and are independently wealthy.”

  Once the police returned his videos, Anderson watched in morbid fascination the events that happened while he was sleeping.

  From time to time, when the loneliness threatened to overtake him, he would watch the videos again.

  He especially liked the view from the underwater camera.

  How To Refuse An Offer

  Fred Downton carefully moved the curtain on his kitchen door and peeked into his garage.

  Damn. His car hadn’t made it home last night. He had no idea where it might be because he normally didn’t drive anywhere. Clearly, the car had run away from home.

  Fred was a confirmed homebody; some, like his cop buddy Mark, even called him a hermit. He had his groceries delivered along with his cases of vodka.

  Needless to say his recollection of last night was a little fuzzy. His recollection of most of his nights was fuzzy.

  But last night was different, he could just feel it. There was something important he was forgetting. Something he had done or had to do; his killer hangover was preventing him from getting a handle on things.

  He could hear his neighbor dutifully mowing his lawn.

  Fred thought hard. I better go mow my lawn, he thought, I mean, what would the neighbor’s think of me if I let my place go to rack and ruin? He found his wrap-around sunglasses and headed out to the back yard where his electric mower waited in the half that was covered with grass. A garden comprised the other half, with a large compost pile in the corner.

  He looked over at the compost pile for a while. Something, something was niggling at him.

  Nope. He couldn’t remember. His neighbor waved at him, and Fred carefully waved back and attempted a smile. Even his face hurt. He stopped trying to smile, took a deep breath and turned on his lawnmower.

  The sound and vibration was worse than he had anticipated. He closed his eyes and pushed. It was important to Fred to keep up appearances even if he died trying.

  Fred was stuck with the electric mower because the smell of gas made him nauseous. He had no desire to drive to the gas station and fill up a container. Plus, he could never remember to charge the battery for his other mower that had sat in his shed for years.

  Suddenly it occurred to Fred that he might run over the cord if he didn’t open his eyes.

  He had opened his eyes just in time. He idled the mower and flipped the cord out of the way. The motion seemed to replay several times, so he stood until his equilibrium was reestablished. A large grasshopper lay in the direct path of the machine.

  “Move,” Fred whispered hoarsely.

  The grasshopper declined to give up his patch of grass. Unwisely, Fred decided to flick the grasshopper out of the way with the cord. Again Fred remained motionless for a few seconds. He kicked at the insect with his sockless lace-less sneaker.

  There was a direct correlation between the intensity of Fred’s hangover to his degree of frustration. Fred flew into a murderous rage, ramped up his lawnmower and ran over the grasshopper.

  He also ran over the cord.

  He kicked the lawn mower and for some reason, felt impelled to walk back to his house on the only strip of grass he had just cut. It looped gently to his back stairs. He climbed up and walked into the screen door that was plastered with warning plastic butterflies.

  As Fred gingerly touched his nose, he decided he needed a drink. His tongue kept sticking to the roof of his mouth. A good wholesome drink of orange juice would help.

  He nearly walked into the screen door again, but at the last minute opened the glass door and walked to the fridge and retrieved a carton of orange juice and poured himself a drink. It didn’t taste how it normally did. Maybe it had gone off he wondered. He checked the date. Nope, it was fine.

  As he attempted to drink the juice, his gaze landed upon his kitchen cupboards. Fred frowned and carefully tilted his head to look at the top of the cupboards where his vintage tin containers usually sat. They weren’t there now.

  Fred still clinging to the half empty glass, carefully shut the screen door and walked out of the kitchen leaving the fridge door open and the carton on the counter.

  Did he ever have vintage tins gracing the top of his cupboards?

  A piercing siren sounded. Fred flung out his arms, threw the glass down and covered his ears.

  “Make it stop!” he pleaded.

  It was his phone playing a custom ring tone.

  “I gotta tell you, you were pretty convincing last night Freddy old pal, old buckaroo. We tromped all over your hell’s half acre searching for your latest victim.”

  It was his cop buddy Mark LeClair checking in on him.

  “Heah Mark,” Fred managed to say. He picked up the now empty glass and a bunch of papers from the floor. They were all covered with Fred’s elegant long hand. Bits and pieces of stories he had started and never finished.

  Orange juice was still flowing over his notes. Fred was able to read a line ‘it looked like murder to me’ before he blotted it with the backs of even more notes.

  Mark had been talking to him the whole time.

  “Last night, my work computer warned me that I had a mandatory password reset but I couldn’t do it early. So I had to come in and change my password this morning. Apparently the police computer system doesn’t care if it’s your day off or not. If I didn’t change it today, I would be locked out.” He was concerned by the continued silence on Fred’s end of the phone. “Say buddy, have you eaten today?”

  Fred was still picking paperwork off the floor. A juice covered manuscript caught his attention and he gingerly bent down and picked it up.

  “Did I write this?” he muttered.

  “Oh good, you’re writing again. Way to go buddy!”

  The hungover grasshopper murderer flipped to the last page and read the Author’s name and winced.

  “Byron Eggplant? Please tell me I did not chose that as my new pen name!”

  Mark did some quick typing.

  “No worries Fred, it’s the name of a guy who has recently published one eBook on Kindle. The book is called “How to stand out from the crowd by choosing a unique pen name like Byron Eggplant.” Mark clicked on a link. “Okay, it’s not you. I’m on his Author Central page and this guy is very slight and looks like he’s fourteen. Not you in the least.”

  “Thanks Mark. In one fell swoop, you have reminded me that I haven’t been able to publish in years, I’m overweight and middle-aged.”

  Mark did some more typing on his computer.

  “You’re still way above him in rankings. Don’t worry, you’ll write your next best seller yet. I have faith in you. I’ll be by with donuts soon.”

  The middle-aged author went over to his couch. He thought it might be best if he just curled up and died. He began to remove the blanket from the cou
ch when he felt resistance. He tugged a little harder and heard a ripping sound.

  With the blanket removed, a stain the length of the couch was revealed. It was very dark, almost brownish.

  “Please tell me I did not kill someone!” Fred said.

  But the evidence was there. Large blood stain on the couch, and after a quick search, pools of blood congealed on the hardwood floor.

  The rocking chair was far too dangerous with the current state of his equilibrium, so he chose the recliner. He dozed there until Mark used his key and came in with donuts.

  “Basic glazed for you and apple fritters for me,” Mark said as he searched for a place to sit. He looked at the couch and then followed the pools of blood to the back door.

  “Well these have all dried. We offered to clean this up last night you know, but you said you would do it. Now you’ve really got a mess. Getting dried blood out of a couch; I don’t think steam cleaning is going to do it. You might have to throw that one away.”

  The pistons in Fred’s brain were barely firing, but he knew enough to realize he should say as little as possible.

  “Thanks for the donuts Mark.”

  Mark was in the kitchen looking at the top of the cupboards.

  “Yup,” he said, “That must have been one doozy of a nosebleed. Why, you even have some blood up here. Dave and I couldn’t figure out what you were doing, but at least we put the ladder away so you wouldn’t fall off it again. How’s the leg?”

  “Nosebleed,” said Fred relieved. Nothing was in the old memory bank, so he ate his donut and kept his mouth shut.

  After Mark put on the coffee, he sat on the rocker and ate a couple of apple fritters in quick succession.

  “You gave Dave and I a real run for our money last night. While we all appreciate your calls to the police station each night; you do get effusive with your praise, last night you were particularly desperate. Absolutely convinced you killed somebody.”

  “Do. Not. Rock,” Fred croaked.

  “Oh right. Sorry buddy. Let me get you a coffee.”

  The pain above Fred’s left eye started to disappear with each gulp of coffee. Unfortunately, the mists refused to clear as Mark kept talking.

  “It was a quiet night anyhow, so we thought we may as well pay you a visit. After we got you up from the floor, you insisted we walk out to the garden because you had buried a body there. You know what we found?”

  Fred shook his head and immediately regretted it.

  “Your vintage tins! For some reason, you buried them in amongst your potatoes.” Mark started to laugh. “Do you know Fred; you literally have half your potatoes hoed?”

  “Again, thank you for the age reminder.”

  “It was the silliest thing I had ever seen. I mean, I know you’re a famous author and you have a creative mind, but to see old candy tins and what not sticking up out of the dirt! And the thing was, you spaced them so nice and evenly. Dave was amazed at that, because you could barely put one foot in front of the other. Man, you were plastered!”

  The hungover author started to say, “It was for…” but his cop buddy interrupted him.

  “I know, I know, it was for a story you’re working on. Yup. You say that every night.” Mark’s face grew serious. “Now Fred, we don’t mind you phoning us and bouncing murder ideas off us but calling us out is another matter. This time, we could indicate on our report that you had fallen and couldn’t get up…”

  Fred groaned at that line as the image of the old commercial came to mind. Am I really that decrepit?

  “Sorry Mark. I’ll try to contain my creativity like I have for the past eight years.”

  Fred Downton had exploded on the literary scene over eight years ago with his first novel, “Grandma’s House”. Those that picked it up thinking it was going to be a sweet memoir about apple pie and an apple-cheeked grannie, were initially horrified at the contents. Then fascinated.

  It was a work of fiction written as a depiction of the inner workings of an all-female drug and alcohol treatment center. The book opened with a court room scene. A sixtyish woman was on the stand and a group of young women in the gallery were yelling “We love you Grandma!” Flashback scenes reveal that they are all current patients of the treatment center and that there is no love lost between them. The young women are being paid and or blackmailed to support the ‘Grandma’, who is charged with vehicular manslaughter of a child and has no recollection of the event. Nor does she have any empathy for the parents.

  The book went on to detail the financial and political machinations of the Director and Counsellors of the treatment center, along with the sordid life stories of each of the women and their twisted interactions.

  It was an immediate best seller. Fred still lived on the royalties; albeit dwindling royalties.

  He had not been able to write anything since. Sure, he wrote bits and pieces of scenes but the major impediment to writing another best seller was that he didn’t know how he wrote the first one.

  He just couldn’t remember.

  In his more lucid moments he knew the blackouts from his drinking quite likely had something to do with his writer’s block. Then he’d start to chuckle. The guy who had never stepped inside a drug and alcohol treatment center and who really needed to, had imagined a realistic pressure cooker. He knew it was somewhat realistic by the number of people who tried to sue him for exposing their stories.

  They were unsuccessful but the publicity surrounding the libel suits brought against him and his publisher made the book even more notorious and thus more popular.

  Which added even more pressure on Fred to write another book.

  He couldn’t.

  Mark gently patted him on the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry Fred. You’ll get there. You’ll find the words; I mean look at all this writing you’ve done! There’s got to be something you can use in there.” Mark walked to the front door, but then picked up a newspaper off the stair.

  “I forgot; got this for you.”

  He threw it at Fred. It hit Fred full in the face. Belatedly, Fred’s right hand went up and closed in the air.

  After Mark left, Fred drank another cup of coffee, read the paper and then decided to go through his bits and pieces of stories. Maybe Mark was right. Maybe there was something that would spark his imagination and he would go on a writing frenzy and be so immersed in the story; he wouldn’t stop until it was done!

  When he found a wallet belonging to Byron Eggplant underneath his notes, he started to worry. Especially since said wallet was covered in blood.

  Fred picked up the newspaper. He had seen an advertisement he wanted to read again.

  ***

  Gracie Noseworthy re-read the ad she had run for months in the local newspaper:

  “Did you do something bad, but can’t quite remember? Did your neighbor do something bad and you want to get the goods on them? Contact Gracie Noseworthy Investigations at 555-2368. I sniff out trouble!”

  She pursed her lips and showed the ad to her cats.

  “What do you think, does it need sprucing up?”

  Zoey and Frank stopped playing in the laundry basket and sat down on the clean towels they had been ‘helping’ to unfold. In their opinion, towels should never be folded, clean or not.

  They stared at their human. If she wanted them to come in as consultants, clearly treats needed to be involved.

  Gracie walked to the cat treat cupboard and was just about to remove the cat proof locking system, when her phone rang.

  “Gracie Noseworthy speaking.”

  “This is Fred Downton at 3517 Springer Lane. I just read your ad and it seems to fit me. Can you help me?”

  Gracie grinned at her cats who looked pointedly at the treat cupboard then back at her.

  “Certainly. Has your neighbor done something bad, or is it you?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s me. I think I killed somebody last night.”

  Gracie had to assess the degree of danger and so ask
ed, “Are you looking at the body now? If so, how were they killed?”

  She heard Fred sigh.

  “I drink. I don’t remember things. I found a bloody wallet and a headband. No matter how drunk I was, I don’t think I would ever wear a headband.”

  Gracie shuddered. Who would? Even in the seventies, she loathed the things. She did a quick search on her phone and then returned to the call.

  “I can come over now if that suits. Do not attempt to clean up. I want to see everything exactly as it was last night.”

  ***

  “Well I have heard of a technique that may access your memories,” Gracie said as she perched on the edge of a rocker.

  “Oh I’m not into hypnosis,” Fred stated, “I’m pretty much a master of altering my conscious state. I’ve been known to be in a trance for days.” He smiled for the first time that day.

  The woman sitting opposite smiled back. She was older, but quite striking looking. Tall and slim, with long silver hair pulled back into a ponytail, she exuded confidence.

  He liked her. She had come right over, looked at the blood evidence and wallet and expressed her concerns honestly.

  “If the police didn’t find anything, I’m sure I won’t. I think I should give you back your check.”

  Fred begged her to try. He had been having little memory flashes. They weren’t good.

  She went on to explain. “It’s not really a technique, more of a crazy theory that posits the memories acquired while you were, ahem, in your altered state, are locked away when you’re sober.”

  He was disappointed and said sarcastically, “This I know.”

  Gracie ignored the sarcasm and continued.

  “In order to access the memories, you must return to the former altered state. More simply put, let’s get you as loaded as you were last night and see what you remember!”

  Fred looked at the donut box Mark had brought. “Well, I’ve already had my breakfast. I could use a drink or two.”

  “No,” insisted Gracie, “Not two. How many would you say you had last night?”

  He walked over to his china cabinet and pulled out five cut crystal glasses. As he filled each with two shots of vodka and a lesser measure of orange juice he noted, “Yeah. They’re lead crystal, but If I’m a murderer, that’s the least of my problems.”