Death in the Garden

by Kathleen Suzette

  She looked away and moved the water hose over to another plant. “No one liked her. Just ask anyone around town. They’ll tell you how much they couldn’t stand her. Anyone could have killed her and been justified in doing it.”

  “I don’t think I’d go so far as to say that they were justified in doing it,” Joanne said. “Sure, plenty of people might have a reason for it, but I don’t think you can say they’d be justified in it.”

  “Did you have problems with her, Susan?” Amelia asked.

  Susan swung around to look at the two of them. “What do you mean did I have problems with her? Why would I have problems with her?”

  Amelia gazed at her. “I was just asking a question. You just said that everyone had problems with her and that anyone would be justified in killing her.”

  She was quiet a moment, then nodded. “Yes, everyone had problems with her. I guess I shouldn’t be so angry, but she was just such an awful person. Honestly, if I had to take a guess as to who might have killed her, you might want to talk to Ruth Shore. You know her?”

  “Ruth has a garden plot here, doesn’t she?” Amelia asked.

  She nodded. “She does. She’s growing flowers in those plots over there,” she said, nodding in the direction of three planters that held different colored flowers. “Can you believe it? All she’s growing are flowers. I can’t imagine paying good money to only plant flowers.”

  “I’m growing marigolds,” Amelia said. “I guess a person has a right to plant whatever they want to plant.”

  “Yes, but you’re also growing vegetables. Vegetables will give you a return on the money you’re putting into it. That’s the sensible thing to do. Not growing flowers. Where’s the return in that?”

  Amelia didn’t care about her reasoning over the vegetables and flowers. What she wanted to know was why Ruth Shore might be a suspect in her mind. “Why do you think Ruth had something to do with Patty’s death?”

  “Because the two argued. Someone stole Ruth’s special fertilizer. She said she paid a lot of money for it, and someone stole it right out of her locker. And you know the only person that had access to all the lockers was Patty. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she did steal the fertilizer.”

  She had a point about who had access to the lockers. Patty probably was the only person that had access to all of the lockers, and it made her think that maybe Patty had been the one that borrowed her hoe from her locker, and someone had killed her with it. Maybe she had come down here to do some work on her garden plots, and someone surprised her and took the hoe from her and killed her with it.

  “So did Ruth confront her about the fertilizer?” Joanne asked.

  She nodded. “She did. She called her all kinds of awful names, and Patty got so angry at her. She threatened Ruth you know, and said she would pay her back for saying such awful things to her.”

  “Then why do you think Ruth killed her? If Patty threatened Ruth?” Amelia asked.

  “I think she killed her to keep her from doing anything to her. Plus, Patty still had Ruth’s fertilizer.”

  “How do you know Patty had Ruth’s fertilizer?” Joanne asked.

  “I saw it in her locker. I told Ruth about it and she confronted her.”

  “So Patty was stealing things here at the gardens?” Amelia asked thoughtfully. “I wonder what else she did around here?”

  “I bet if you got all of the gardeners together, everyone would have a story about what else she did,” Susan said knowingly. “That Patty Manning was a bad apple. She got what she deserved.”

  Amelia thought she might have a point about her being a bad apple, but not that she got what she deserved. No one deserved to be murdered.

  Susan turned off the water and wrapped the hose up around the faucet. “It’s been lovely speaking with you ladies, but I’ve got to get going. I’ve got an early lunch meeting with my daughter.”

  “Nice talking to you, too,” Joanne said pointedly.

  Susan ignored her and gathered up her things and left. Amelia and Joanne watched her go.

  “What do you think?” Joanne asked when she was out of earshot.

  Amelia shrugged. “I think we’re no closer to finding Patty’s murderer than we were when the murder happened.”

  “I think Susan has a real grudge against Patty.”

  Amelia nodded, then headed back to her plots to move the water hose. She agreed with Joanne’s assessment, but that could describe a lot of people at this point.

  “Don’t give up hope yet,” Joanne called after her. “We’ll find the killer.”

  Amelia moved the garden hose over to the other planter. One of the things she was also beginning to regret, along with joining the book club, was starting a garden here at the community gardens. Maybe she should have stayed home and read her books in peace and quiet instead of joining the book club, and she should have planted a garden in her own yard instead of down here. At least if she’d stayed home, she wouldn’t have the trouble that she now had.

  “I’m trying not to give up hope,” Amelia finally said, forcing herself to smile. “I know the police are on the case, and I know they will find the killer sooner or later. Hopefully sooner. I’m just sorry that Patty died, and I can’t imagine someone actually committing murder. Can you?”

  Joanne shook her head. “Nope. I know it happens all the time, but I just can’t imagine what must go through a killer’s mind. To be so devious as to plot and plan somebody’s death and then to carry it out is just beyond my imagination.”

  When Amelia moved the hose to place it near another plant, the zucchini plant stalks and leaves caught on it and something shiny caught the sunlight. She squinted her eyes and then reached in between the plants. Her hand found something hard and metallic. She picked it up and held it up.

  “What’s that?” Joanne asked, leaning in for a closer look.

  “It’s a key fob with a key on it,” Amelia said. “BMW.”

  “Patty drove a BMW,” Joanne pointed out.

  As soon as she said it, Amelia’s heart sank. What was a BMW key doing in her zucchini plants?

  Chapter Eight

  The key fob with the BMW key sat snugly in Amelia’s right hip pocket. She was shaken by the fact that it had been hidden in her zucchini plant. Patty did indeed drive a BMW. Everyone in town knew it. She had been so proud of that car. It was red and flashy, and she drove it like she knew everyone had their eye on her. And when you tear down the middle of a small town in a car like that, everyone does have their eye on you.

  “What are you going to do with the key?” Joanne asked her.

  “I have no idea,” Amelia said as she started her car and drove away from the community gardens. They would come back later so Joanne could drive her car home.

  “Well, don’t worry about it,” Joanne said confidently. “You have an alibi. You were at the book club. You have five witnesses to back you up.”

  “Except that she might have been killed before the book club started. Just like Walter pointed out, that’s one of the things the police are going to think about.”

  Joanne turned to look at her. “Well, you didn’t kill her, right?”

  Amelia glanced at her. “Of course, I didn’t kill her! I wouldn’t kill her. I wouldn’t kill anyone. I’m innocent.” She felt her foot pressing down on the gas and suddenly realized she was doing forty-five in a twenty-five mile zone. She eased her foot back and let the car slow on its own.

  “I know you didn’t kill anybody,” Joanne said mildly. “Let’s go for coffee.”

  “Coffee? Do you think that’s a good idea?” All the things that Amelia should be doing were running through her mind and stopping for a coffee wasn’t one of them. She needed to talk to her husband. She needed to talk to someone that would know what to do.

  “Why not?” She shrugged. “Guilty people don’t do ordinary things like go out for coffee, do they?”

  Amelia shook her head slowly. What did guilty people do? They hid BMW keys in othe
r people’s garden planter. That’s what they did. She wondered if she should have just picked up the key and hidden it in someone else’s gardening plot. But then, she didn’t want the police arresting an innocent person and she had no idea who killed Patty. By that time the key and the fob had her fingerprints on it, anyway. Her husband had told her that the police could get a fingerprint from nearly anything these days. Any surface could hold on to one, the only issue was that many times they were incomplete fingerprints, or they were smudged to such a degree that they couldn’t get enough of the ridges and whorls to match someone in the database.

  She sighed. “All right, let’s go get a coffee.” They had intended to get a coffee the day they found Patty’s body but had gone their separate ways after speaking to the police instead. The shock of finding a dead body, the dead body of someone they knew, had been too much. Amelia had gone home and taken a nap after telling Walter about it.

  She pulled into The Coffee Bean coffee shop and parked.

  “I don’t know about you, but I love the chocolate raspberry mochas here,” Joanne said, sounding calm as could be. She unfastened her seatbelt and got out of the car.

  There was a part of Amelia that was in a panic and Joanne’s calm demeanor was bothersome to her. Why wasn’t Joanne more concerned about having found a key, the key that probably belonged to the victim, hidden in her zucchini?

  She followed Joanne into the coffee shop and was pleased to see there were only a handful of customers inside. They placed their orders, and because Amelia was having difficulty thinking straight, she simply ordered what Joanne ordered. A raspberry mocha with an orange cranberry muffin.

  They found a table in the corner and sat down.

  “I think I should call my husband,” Amelia said, looking at Joanne. Her coffee and muffin sat in front of her and she suddenly had no appetite.

  “Yes, you should talk to your husband, but maybe not in public like this. Wait until you get home.” She reached a hand across the table and laid it on the back of Amelia’s hand. “It’s fine. Everyone knows that you would never do something like that.”

  Amelia nodded and picked up her coffee, taking a sip. “I would hope everyone knows I would never do something like that.”

  She nodded. “Besides that, your husband is a former police officer. It’s not like the police are going to arrest you straight off, right? They would have to have a lot of evidence before they tried something like that.”

  Amelia looked up at her. She hadn’t thought they were going to arrest her at all, but now it sounded like Joanne thought there was a possibility they would. She took another sip of her coffee and shook her head slowly. “No. They would need evidence.”

  When the coffee shop door opened, they both looked in that direction. Ruth Shore walked through the door and up to the counter. Amelia and Joanne looked at one another.

  “Will you look at that?” Joanne whispered.

  “Right?” Amelia said. “I wonder if she would talk to us?” Amelia knew Ruth, but not well and she wanted to ask her a couple of questions. Would she take offense to being asked about Patty?

  “I know Ruth. She’ll talk to me,” Joanne said confidently.

  Amelia was relieved to hear that. They drank their coffee and ate their muffins, waiting for Ruth to place her order. When Ruth had finished placing her order and paid for it, she turned in their direction, and when she recognized them, she smiled.

  “Hi Joanne, hi Amelia," Ruth said, approaching their table. “I didn’t know the two of you knew each other.” She looked from one to the other, still smiling. She had a cup of coffee in one hand and a bag with a baked treat in the other.

  “Book club,” Amelia blurted out. She realized she sounded odd just blurting out the two words and glanced at Joanne.

  “That’s right, Amelia joined the book club a couple of months ago. Honestly, Ruth, you need to join us. It’s a lot of fun, we meet once a month.”

  Ruth had short curly red hair and wore too much makeup. Amelia thought she was in her late fifties. The large tan leather handbag over her shoulder sported large dangling silver beads. She nodded at Joanne. “I don’t think the book club is for me. I don’t read very much anymore. I guess things just get in the way of my doing that. When I was a girl, I read all the time, but somehow I’ve lost interest in it.”

  “Ruth, why don’t you have a seat,” Joanne suggested. “We’re just hanging out talking about our latest book.”

  Ruth smiled and pulled a chair out and sat down. “Well, I don’t mean to interrupt your conversation, but did you hear about Patty Manning?” She looked at Amelia, including her in the comment, still smiling.

  Amelia nodded dumbly. “Yes, we heard that someone killed her.”

  Ruth nearly giggled. “Can you believe it? Right here in Gabardine. A murder!”

  Amelia thought that was an odd reaction to finding out someone she knew had been murdered, and she forced herself not to look in Joanne’s direction. “It’s a shame, isn’t it?”

  Ruth shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it is a shame, I mean somebody had to have loved her, right? I can’t imagine who, but someone.” She giggled again.

  This time Amelia did look at Joanne. Joanne had her eyes on Ruth. “Ruth, do you have any idea what might have happened to Patty?”

  She shrugged again. “I have no idea. Why do you ask?”

  Joanne shrugged this time. “I don’t know, I just wondered. It seems like a terrible thing to have happened to her. Her husband and children, you know, they’re certainly grieving her.”

  “Yes, of course. What am I thinking? She has a family and loved ones and I know they’re grieving her loss. But I can’t imagine who would actually have the nerve to kill her like that.”

  “Tell me, Ruth,” Amelia said suddenly feeling emboldened. “Did you like Patty? I know she managed the community gardens, and you have a couple of plots there. She was awfully nosy, wasn’t she?”

  Ruth took a sip of her coffee and set the cup down, nodding. “Wasn’t she though? I can’t imagine why she thought she owned every square inch of that place. Have you seen all the empty plots out there? She kept a tight hold on them, let me tell you.”

  Amelia nodded. “Yes, it’s a shame more people don’t take advantage of the community gardens. I had such fun planting my vegetables and herbs.”

  “Yes, all those empty plots just going to waste. But let me tell you something,” she said and looked over her shoulder. She turned back to them. “That Patty Manning was sneaky. And a thief. She stole my special fertilizer right out of my locker.”

  “Did you confront her about it?” Joanne asked.

  Ruth rolled her eyes. “Did I confront her? You bet I did. And she lied to my face. She said she had bought the same kind, and it was hers.” She shook her head in disdain. “Can you believe that? My fertilizer goes missing, and she just happened to buy the exact same kind?”

  “Have you gardened at the community gardens long?” Amelia asked.

  “Yes, I’ve had plots for nine years now. I love growing vegetables in the Spring and summer. I get excited every time the snow finally melts away for the season and I can plant all my summer produce. I’ve got tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, and zucchini. I have to say that my very favorite vegetable in the entire world is zucchini. Amelia, do you have any zucchini planted?”

  At the mention of the word zucchini, Amelia’s heart jumped in her chest. She stared at her, and then slowly nodded. “Yes, I have zucchini planted. You really love zucchini?”

  She nodded slowly. “I do. It’s one of my favorite plants. I even enjoy the look of the plant, so nice and green, and the yellow flowers are pretty, too. And they grow so big.”

  Amelia stared at her. Zucchini? Was she hinting at something? She clenched her teeth together forcing herself not to look at Joanne, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see Joanne turning to her.

  “So Ruth, what do you think happened to Patty?” Joanne asked again.
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  “You want to know what I think?” Ruth asked, leaning in toward them. “I think Bert Danvers finished her off.” She nodded knowingly. “He had a thing for her, you know.”

  “What do you mean he had a thing for her?” Amelia asked.

  “He was her secret admirer. He sent her cards and flowers and letters telling her how much he loved her and asking her to leave her husband.”

  Amelia stared at her. “Are you sure about that?” She couldn’t imagine anybody being Patty Manning’s secret admirer. But even if he was, why on earth would he send her cards and letters asking her to leave her husband without revealing who he was?

  She nodded. “I am positive. I was at the flower shop when he placed an order to be delivered anonymously to her house last winter. He didn’t realize I was standing close enough behind him to overhear his conversation with the florist.”

  “And why do you think he might have killed her?” Joanne asked.

  She shrugged. “She was still with her husband. She clearly didn’t care to even find out that it was Bert who was her secret admirer. But I think he finally told her, and she rejected him. I think the rejection sent him over the edge and he killed her.”

  Amelia wondered if this was true. It was certainly something to look into.

  Joanne glanced at Amelia. “I guess it’s possible.”

  “Does Bert know that you know he’s her secret admirer? And how do you know there was more than just the one bouquet of flowers sent?” Amelia asked. She needed to get to the bottom of this. If Bert Danvers killed Patty because she rejected him, then it might be an open and shut case if she could find some evidence to turn over to the police.

  “I don’t think Bert knows that I saw him order the flowers. But Patty mentioned that she was getting cards, letters, and flowers. I guess she was trying to make me jealous, but I knew who the secret admirer was and believe me, Bert Danvers isn’t anybody to get jealous over.” She chuckled and took a sip of her coffee. “Well ladies, it’s been nice getting to chat with you, but I’ve got to run. My husband wanted me to pick up a few things from the grocery store. I’ll talk to you both later.”