“Good point,” Gracie agreed. “Now what were you doing? Listening to music? Watching television? We want to re-create the atmosphere as close as possible.”
Fred closed his eyes as he sipped his drink. Finally the orange juice, although warm, tasted right. His eyes flew open.
“I have a memory of standing over this Eggplant guy and telling him I’m going to kill him.”
“Steady on. Let’s approach this slowly. What do you normally do at night?”
Fred shrugged. “I sing loudly and poorly to my classic rock ‘n roll albums while writing.” He finished his drink and grabbed another. “You see, my last book was not genre specific. It was a little bit psychological thriller, a bit murder mystery, a bit of a cookbook…”
Gracie sat up even straighter with a bemused grin. “Cookbook?”
Fred laughed. “Yup. For some reason, I added an appendix with all the meals that were served at the treatment center.”
Gracie was intrigued. She had heard of the book, but at the time, had a family member with their own addiction crisis and couldn’t handle anyone else’s drama, even if it was fictional.
She also noted, that with each drink, Fred was becoming more animated and oddly enough, more coordinated. He was pacing as he spoke; picking up books, empty pizza boxes and pens and putting them in their proper places. He also picked up quite a few articles of clothing.
Fred was talking excitedly about his new book as he held the bundle of clothes.
“So I’m going to stay in one lane; psychological thriller all the way. This one is about a serial killer who actually interviews other serial killers because…” He paused. “The little twerp actually came to my door to interview me!”
Fred dropped the clothes on the couch and grabbed the bloody wallet off the coffee table and quickly found a piece of photo id.
“This is the guy. This is a genuine memory Gracie. I was belting out a song with Bob Seger, when this guy came to my front door.”
Gracie was starting to unpack the lunch she had brought but motioned for him to continue.
“I took an immediate dislike to him.” Fred had one hand on his hip while he pinched the bridge of his nose with the other.
“Not only was he wearing a head band, he was wearing a full-on seventies jazzercize outfit. It was hideous.”
“I can well imagine,” said Gracie as she munched her radishes. She was surprised and delighted that this crazy theory was working in practice.
“Needless to say, I intended to shut down the discussion forthwith, but the little idiot began flattering me. Yes, he quoted lengthy passages from my book and asked me all about the motivation of my characters.” Fred hung his head. “I invited him in.”
This was too good, Gracie thought, better than a movie. She kept crunching, absolutely fascinated as Fred drank more and more and remembered more and more. Unfortunately, the raw veggies just weren’t doing it for her. She went to the dining room table and opened the donut box.
“Do you mind?” she asked.
“Go right ahead. Now then, where was I? Oh yes. This Byron Eggplant was and hopefully still is, quite the fanboy. After I signed his copy of “Grandma’s House” and discussed at length the motivations of the main characters, he made the fatal error of asking me what my process was.” Fred put his hands on his hips. “Well, I had no idea and I told him so. He was, shall we say, not amused. He continually pestered me. I think that may be why I killed him.”
“It certainly seems a reasonable justification,” Gracie said, “But let’s not make that determination just yet. He irritated you. You were frustrated. He insisted and you…?”
“Killed him,” Fred said defeated.
Gracie stood up and went to the fridge. “Clearly five is not your number. Start pouring the vodka Fred!”
***
It was several hours later. Fred had taken several trips down memory lane, but they were all the wrong lane. He spoke of pets, long gone, parents and friends, all gone. He took a nap.
Gracie spent the time surfing the web. In an effort to get to know her client better, she read back articles including the glowing reviews of his book and then, the disappointment about the delay of his follow-up novel. The disappointment turned into scathing personal attacks.
Gracie really felt that Fred had gotten a raw deal.
Fred finally awoke with a start insisting that there was a horse and a guy selling clothes for hundreds of dollars.
“I don’t have that kind of money!” Fred cried. He looked at Gracie and slapped his knee. “Maybe if I had taken him up on his offer, I might be on my way to my next million-dollar best seller.” Fred shook his head and chuckled. “Hire a personal assistant? What would I need with a personal assistant?” With a wide swing of his arm he encouraged Gracie to look at his life.
His life was basically condensed into that one room. Fred picked up his donut box, his remote control and one half of a pair of work socks.
“Food, entertainment and comfort! All within arm’s reach. What more do I need?” he asked seriously.
Gracie nodded.
“And yet,” Fred added, “That twerp in his purple and black spandex told me he could get my life back on track, starting with an interview showing ‘the heart and soul of the real Fred Downton and his continued downward spiral into alcoholism and isolation from all human contact.” Fred sniffed. “As if!”
Gracie felt a small sense of excitement. Could she steer the conversation? “And then he flattered you, you invited him in, you talked motivations and then…”
“Well then I wanted proof that my life would be better, artistically better, by hiring him.” Fred stopped and rubbed his right hand. “I hit him at some point and gave him a bloody nose. Not entirely sure why, but it didn’t stop him from trying to get my creative juices flowing.”
Without warning, Fred ran out to the kitchen. Gracie followed and saw Fred grab a step stool and climb up. He ran his hands along the top of the cupboards.
“Ah ha!” Fred yelled and turned around with a gun in his hand.
Gracie’s hand patted her jean jacket pocket. Yes, her cell phone was there. She might have to phone Ted, but not just yet.
“This Byron Eggplant put this in my face. Scared the daylights out of me let me tell you! I think that’s why I punched him. Then he did this.” Fred pointed the gun at Gracie and pulled the trigger.
It was a water pistol.
“Why on earth would he have done that?” Gracie demanded.
Fred climbed down the step stool with a remarkable quickness and went over to his dining room table, covered with his notes.
“It was supposed to impress upon me how fleeting life is, and I really should do something with mine. So I got the point and started to write.”
He searched through and found a large purple spiral notebook and showed it to Gracie.
“What color would you say this is?”
Gracie rolled her eyes. “Eggplant purple would be my first guess, or rather aubergine!”
Fred tapped his nose. “Exactly. Everything that Byron had was purple. Anyhow, he said I should write in this while he went and prepared another motivating exercise for me.” Fred stopped and looked into space remembering. “I really did get in the zone.”
He started to flip through the notebook, but Gracie grabbed it from him.
“And then you went onto the next item, which was?”
“He put all my vintage tins in the garden. I do not know what in the hell his point was, but I was furious!”
Fred started twisting his head back and forth like a pug. He blinked his eyes as he started to really remember.
“This is good,” Gracie said. “You were mad. Your precious tins were stuck in the dirt. Then what?”
“Then I may have killed him.”
Gracie dropped her shoulders. “Ah shoot,” she said.
Fred held up his index finger. “But then, maybe not. He was a nervous fellow, always moving. As we stood in the garde
n, I put my hands on his shoulders and told him to stop. I yelled at him and told him not until hell freezes over would I ever hire him. He was nuts and I would be nuts to accept his offer to be my assistant. I told him I refuse your offer completely.”
Then Fred did something completely out of character. He gave Gracie a full toothy smile. He looked almost saintly.
“Don’t you get it?” he asked Gracie. “I said, I refuse your offer. I know where he is. Follow me.”
As Fred headed out the back door, it was still light enough to see the one swath he had cut with the lawnmower. This time he did not feel compelled to walk on it but tromped ahead into the garden. He picked up a vintage tin, gently wiped off the dirt, then placed it back on the ground.
Gracie followed closely as Fred headed to the compost pile.
“See,” Fred said excitedly, “I figured he belonged in the refuse pile because I refused his offer.”
“Worst play on words ever,” Gracie muttered while holding her breath. Actually, it wasn’t because of the compost pile; it didn’t smell that bad. Gracie was holding her breath because she hoped Mr. Byron Eggplant would be found and would be alive and this job would be over.
She figured she had put in enough hours to justify charging the full one hundred dollars and would head home if the fanboy wasn’t found.
Fred took the cover off the compost pile and he and Gracie peered in.
There was Byron Eggplant’s head. Fred slapped it.
“Well howdy stranger!” Byron said. He started to wriggle in the compost. Fred sighed and helped him out.
***
“Best sleep ever!” Byron enthused as he walked down the hallway to the front room where Gracie and Fred were both drinking coffee. Byron was wearing some of Fred’s clothes after his shower.
“Once you dumped me in the compost pile and I couldn’t get out, I felt overcome by emotion. I realized there I was, in the middle of the night, getting a warm hug by Mother Earth. What else did I need? So I drifted off to sleep with the sounds of the crickets.”
“Oh. My. God.” Fred said as he put down the spiral notebook.
“My thoughts exactly,” Gracie added.
“Well yeah, Byron you’re nuts, but this story. This is a really good outline for a novel!” Fred said happily. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Byron, you’re hired!”
Byron pretended to swoon but looked at the rest of the couch he had sat on and decided against swooning for the time being.
“Do you hear that?” Gracie asked, “I distinctly hear a cracking sound.”
Fred smiled another huge grin. “Like hell freezing over? Sure I hear it too.”
What no one in the room heard, was a grasshopper that hopped in through the open door and hopped into Fred’s neglected drink of vodka and orange juice with a loud plop.
Fred never drank another screwdriver in his life. The grasshopper, regrettably, was screwed.
Canoodling In The Carnations
“I really don’t care what Trudy-Faye says, I’m serving soup!” Gracie informed Pauline.
Her bowling buddy and one of the local police officers, looked up from her computer screen. “Could you serve some sort of cold soup? It’s supposed to be hotter than blazes this week.”
Gracie smirked. “Actually, that was my plan all along. Vichyssoise and Gazpacho. Trudy-Faye just assumed I’d be serving hot soup to the folks on the garden tour. I do enjoy Trudy-Faye’s assumptions though. She gets so angry; it turns her face such a pretty shade of red.”
“More of a magenta, I’d say,” Pauline pondered as she finished her report. “There, the follow-up is done for that missing Nurse, Emma Bartlett. Nothing new to report. No bank activity, no credit card activity, no sightings, no cards, no letters, no nothing.”
“What about her roommate? What has she been doing with her life since Emma disappeared?”
“Interestingly, she’s got herself a new roommate. A man who used to be Emma’s boyfriend,” Pauline raised her eyebrows, shook her shoulders and said, “Hubba-hubba!”
“That is peculiar. One of my friends at the Hospice said that Nurse Emma and her boyfriend made good use of the gazebo on the Hospice grounds. He sure moved on fast; she really hasn’t been missing for that long.”
“Here’s something else that’s peculiar,” Pauline said, “She’s got a healthy, and I mean healthy balance in her bank account.”
“On a Nurse’s salary?” Gracie frowned. “So, we’re thinking she’s dead then?”
“Oh yeah,” Pauline said. “No one decides to run away and leave over thirty grand behind!”
“Thirty grand? I wonder how she saved all that?”
Pauline leaned forward and said in a quieter voice to Gracie, “Well, I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but…”
“So then you really shouldn’t continue that sentence,” said a stern voice behind Gracie.
Gracie rolled her eyes. “Ted, you are such a kill joy. Just when Pauline was getting to the good part.”
Ted smiled. “A very good afternoon to you too, Gracie. What brings you by the station?”
“Pauline and I are just going over the menu for the food stop at my place on the garden tour. She’s going to help me serve, as long as she can have as many pieces of fudge as she wants.”
“And have cuddles with the kitties,” Pauline quickly added. “How are Zoey and Frank?”
Ted answered. “Oh just up to stuff and nonsense. You should have seen Zoey this morning! She was batting my sock around the bedroom like nobody’s business.” The Detective Sergeant suddenly stopped talking, turned red and walked quickly into his office and shut the door.
Pauline snickered and looked at Gracie. “I guess the cat’s out of the bag now,” she said.
***
Gracie was still smiling when she drove home. Among their close friends, the relationship between her and Ted wasn’t a secret, but he still felt uneasy with the whole concept of ‘friends with benefits’. Ted thought they should get married. Gracie thought they should not.
Zoey and Frank didn’t care either way, but they were curious about the large package Gracie brought in the house.
It was from Petra Kennedy, a Hospice patient who had died about two months previous. Inside the cardboard box was a pair of pink runners and a sealed letter.
Gracie fortified herself with a rum and coke and opened the letter. A clipping from the local newspaper fell out. It was Gracie’s advertisement:
“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!”
“Dear Gracie,” the letter read, “I didn’t know you were that Gracie from the newspaper. You just told me you were retired from retail and had a small business that kept life interesting. It wasn’t until I looked up your address that I found out you were a private investigator.
“No wonder you were so interesting to talk to.
“I really enjoyed our visits. Like I said when we first met, my family, although they love me to bits, are all doom and gloom. You and I could talk about my impending death without drama and then have a rum and coke and just plain gossip about everybody.
“You’re probably wondering how you got this letter and the shoes. I had my Mom promise to mail this stuff to you after I died. And promise not to read this letter. I don’t think she did, because she certainly would have freaked out.
“You just dropped off my wonderful pink runners and now I’m returning them. I’ll tell you why later. But remember how I said I was going to sit my family down and spill all the secrets they didn’t know about me and didn’t know about each other?
“I had a change of heart after I revealed my first secret to my Mom. I told her I had started smoking at fourteen not sixteen like she thought. Well, she started crying and blaming herself for not stopping me. She went on and on how it was her fault I ‘caught’ cancer.
“As you know Gracie, I’m not a fan of drama so I just dialed everything back. I didn’t tell Mom it was my younger sister who stole her car and crashed it and then walked home with a broken arm and pretended she hurt it when fell off her bike the next day.
“I didn’t tell my other sister that I had a thing for her boyfriend, now her husband and we hooked up way before they did.
“I didn’t tell my Dad that Mom, one night after my diagnosis when we got drunk together, Mom told me that she wasn’t entirely sure that Dad was my biological father.
“Gracie, what purpose would it all serve if I rake all this stuff up? I’m sitting here in the Hospice because the cancer started eating up my body. But I’m not complaining about that. I’m complaining that no one will let me live while I can. My family cries when I laugh. I just want them to be able to laugh again when I’m gone.
“That’s why I didn’t phone you to come and see the family fireworks, because there weren’t any. Why should I add to their tears?
“Although, I would love to see the look on my Sister’s face when she found out that Dan and I were a thing before I dropped him like a hot potato. She always lords it over me that she’s married and I’m not.
“I guess I won’t be now, will I Gracie? But to the reason why I’m writing this letter-I have a two-part investigation for you and a confession. Here’s the first part of the investigation.
“Remember how we talked about how Nurse Bartlett was stealing meds from the Hospice patients? Okay, she was even worse than that.”
Gracie stopped reading and said to the cats who were curled up in her lap.
“Petra wrote about Nurse Bartlett in the past tense. Did Petra do that because she knew Emma Bartlett was missing at the time, or because she knew Emma was dead? Curiouser and curiouser.”
Gracie began reading again.
“Even though the staff at the Hospice are awesome, they are overworked and get a little task focused at times. They even forget that some of us can still get around and in general, our hearing is pretty good.
Gore in the Garden Page 6
