Heart vs. Humbug

by MJ Rodgers

  “Where were you from eight to eight-thirty?” he asked, his previously solicitous tone becoming a little frayed around the edges in the face of Mab’s continual denials.

  “As I told you before, I arrived at the radio station at eight and made the announcement to inform the members of the Silver Power League about the trouble at the center and to ask for volunteers to help out. Then I went over to the paint supply store to see the owner about getting the paint.”

  “What time did you leave for the paint store?”

  “Right after I made the announcement and then put the tape of Christmas music back on to play.”

  “How long did it take you to do those things?”

  “As I explained before, I wasn’t looking at the clock.”

  “Can you estimate it for me? Five minutes? Ten minutes?”

  “Sergeant Patterson, we’ve been over this at least a dozen times.”

  “And my grandmother’s answers aren’t going to change,” Octavia said.

  “Humor me,” the sergeant said with an insincere smile directed at them both. “Tell me again, Mrs. Osborne.”

  “Closer to five minutes than ten.”

  “How long does it take to drive to the paint supply shop?”

  “About ten minutes.”

  “Well, then I’m confused, Mrs. Osborne. If you left at five after eight and it only takes ten minutes to drive there, why did the owner of the paint supply store say that you didn’t speak to him until eight-thirty?”

  “Because that’s when he arrived to open up his store.”

  “So where were you between the time you made the announcement to the radio audience and the time you met with the paint store owner?”

  “In his parking lot, waiting in my car.”

  “Why did you drive over so early, just to wait in the parking lot?”

  “I thought he opened at seven-thirty. I forgot that during the winter he doesn’t open until eight-thirty.”

  “How long did you sit in your car waiting?”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “But no one saw you waiting in this parking lot for fifteen minutes, did they?”

  “My grandmother already told you the store wasn’t open yet,” Octavia said. “No one was around, remember?”

  “Please, Ms. Osborne. Let your grandmother answer the questions. Now, Mrs. Osborne, why didn’t you just call this paint store owner?”

  “I needed to ask a favor. Courtesy demanded that I ask it in person.”

  “What was this favor?”

  “I asked that he extend us credit on the paint we needed for our center. He agreed. Then over the next hour or so, I looked through his swatches. The original color he sold us for the center had been discontinued by the manufacturer. That’s why we got it below cost. I had to make sure he had a color in stock that would match.”

  “Mrs. Osborne, I sent a uniformed officer out to time how long it takes for someone to drive from your radio station to the back parking lot of Mr. Scroogen’s offices and then to the paint store. What would you say if I told you that the officer made it in exactly twenty-two minutes?”

  “I’d say you were wasting the officer’s time and the taxpayer’s money on useless trips.”

  Frustration now openly rode in on the sergeant’s tone. “You have no alibi. But you do have a motive. And, as my officer proved, you also had enough time to drive to Mr. Scroogen’s office, strike him down, and then drive to the paint store in time to meet with its owner.”

  “I’m sure there are quite a few other people who also had such an opportunity.”

  “Ma’am, don’t you understand? No one is going to make a big deal about your hitting the guy. We can make this all go away if you’ll just cooperate.”

  “You mean if I just plead guilty to something I didn’t do.”

  A knock came at the door. Patterson looked almost relieved at the interruption. He opened the door, stepped outside the room, and closed the door behind him.

  “Octavia, I’m getting tired of going over the same ground with the same questions,” Mab said when he had left. “Maybe I shouldn’t have been so willing to cooperate.” She picked up her glass of water and took a good, long drink.

  Octavia gave her arm a reassuring pat. “I’m sure Sergeant Patterson has had hardened criminals who were easier to intimidate. I’m proud of you, Mab.”

  Her grandmother’s lips extended into a small smile. “I’ve watched enough episodes of ‘Murder She Wrote’ to know how to handle a policeman who pretends to be on the suspect’s side so she’ll confess. I would almost be enjoying this if it weren’t taking so much time. There’s so much I need to be attending to at the community center.”

  “Don’t worry. John, Constance and Douglas seemed to have everything pretty well in hand when we left.”

  “Did you notice that when they heard about the Scrooge being dead, they all looked kind of numbed?”

  “It’s numbing news.”

  “I can’t seem to get used to it, either, Octavia. I keep telling myself I should feel something like sadness or relief, but I can’t seem to feel anything but a sense of acute disorientation.”

  “Yes, the unexpectedness of it makes it seem unreal, doesn’t it?”

  Mab sighed. “I know he left a wife and a couple of kids. I do feel sad for them. I suppose I should be worried about whether they’re going to go ahead with the condominium complex, but I just can’t seem to focus on that now.”

  Patterson opened the door and came back into the room. He wore a different look on his face, a far-too-satisfied look that made Octavia immediately sit up and take careful notice.

  What had happened in his out-of-room conference?

  Patterson was holding something in his hand, something that swung against his pant leg as he walked toward the table where Mab and Octavia sat. He kept it out of sight until he reached the table. Then he suddenly shoved it right into Mab’s face.

  “Do you recognize these, ma’am?”

  While Mab was pulling her glasses out of her purse, Octavia was quickly studying the objects resting inside the cellophane bag that was swinging from Sergeant Patterson’s hand.

  The bag contained a pair of soiled brown gardening gloves. It also contained a gardening tool of some sort with three sharp, forklike steel prongs feeding out of a wooden handle.

  When Octavia saw the initials M.O. on that handle and the telltale red stains between the dried dirt on the sharp fork edges, a sliver of unease shot through her chest. She grabbed Mab’s arm, rushing into speech before her grandmother could.

  “Sergeant Patterson, I’m advising my client not to answer any more questions.”

  The sergeant smiled. “These are your gloves and gardening tool, aren’t they, Mrs. Osborne?”

  Octavia’s fingers retained their firm, cautionary grasp on Mab’s arm. “As I said before, Sergeant. On advice of her counsel, my grandmother is evoking her right to remain silent.”

  “She can still listen,” Patterson said, his smile spreading to show every one of his back teeth. “A couple of detectives just found these items thrown into the trash Dumpster behind Dole Scroogen’s office. This gardening tool is called a cultivator, I’m told. Is that right, Mrs. Osborne?”

  Mab obediently remained silent.

  Patterson leaned closer. “Did you throw them away so you wouldn’t be caught with them?”

  Octavia could feel the pressure mounting in her grandmother. Mab was not normally the quiet type, and remaining silent in the face of this accusation had to be more than difficult.

  Patterson dropped the items in the cellophane bag onto the table with a loud thud—for effect, Octavia was certain. Then he leaned his stocky body across the table until he was almost nose-to-nose with Mab.

  “When the experts have a look at the bloodstain on this cultivator, we both know whose blood they will find, don’t we?”

  Octavia continued to hold firmly on to her grandmother’s arm. Mab, bless her, continued to remain
silent.

  “All right,” Patterson said, straightening up after a couple of very long and uncomfortable minutes for them all.

  “Now, you’re a smart lady, Mrs. Osborne, and your granddaughter here is a smart lawyer, so I don’t see any need for us to play games with one another.”

  Patterson spread his feet, crossed his arms over his barrel chest and looked down his long nose at them.

  “So this is how it plays. The medics who examined Mr. Scroogen’s body said there are three gashes on the back of his shoulder—gashes that exactly match the steel prongs on this cultivator. Now, we all know you hit him.”

  Neither Octavia nor Mab said a word.

  Patterson uncrossed his arms. “Come on, ladies. It’s no big deal. The wounds were superficial, barely broke the skin. I know that in view of Mr. Scroogen’s provoking acts and Mrs. Osborne’s advanced years the prosecuting attorney will recommend a suspended sentence.”

  Again Octavia and Mab remained silent.

  Patterson was clearly annoyed now. His hands flew into the air. “All the court will do is slap you on the wrist. For God’s sake, make it easy on yourself and just admit it. Then we can forget all about it and get on with the rest of our lives.”

  Octavia stood, bringing Mab with her.

  “My grandmother has nothing to say. We’re leaving.”

  “Your grandmother is going nowhere.”

  “Are you arresting her?”

  “If I have to.”

  “Based on what evidence?”

  “What evidence? Haven’t you been listening? She has a very strong motive, a history of previous violence against the victim, opportunity, and we found her gloves and gardening tool with the victim’s blood on it literally at the scene of the crime.”

  “Where is your proof that these gloves or this gardening tool belong to my grandmother or that this red coloration is even blood, much less the blood of the victim?”

  “Ms. Osborne, you know that’s what the forensic experts are going to find. Why are you wasting our time this way?”

  “Sergeant Patterson, you know you don’t have any evidence with which to hold my grandmother, much less charge her with any crime. So how about you stop wasting our time. Excuse us.”

  As Octavia turned herself and Mab toward the door, Sergeant Patterson’s voice rose.

  “This deal I just offered your grandmother for a suspended sentence is null and void the second you take her out that door without her confession. I mean that. Now, play it smart, and let’s close the book on this one. Have her plead guilty to simple assault.”

  Octavia stopped at the door and swung around.

  “Sergeant Patterson, this is not a case of simple assault. This is a very serious case of someone deliberately attempting to implicate my grandmother in the attack on Dole Scroogen this morning. Don’t allow yourself to be duped into becoming a party to this malicious act.”

  And with that, Octavia swept her arm around Mab and both of them walked out of the interrogation room.

  Brett had been closely watching and listening to Sergeant Patterson’s interrogation of Mab Osborne through the two-way mirror in the adjacent observation room. Patterson joined him there a few moments after Octavia and Mab left.

  “I told you you wouldn’t be able to bully that lawyer into having her grandmother confess.”

  Patterson shook his head. “She’s a fool, Merlin. And so is the old woman. We’re going to have all the proof we need soon. They’re just prolonging the inevitable.”

  “I don’t know, Sergeant. The image of Mab Osborne creeping up behind Scroogen, striking him with a gardening tool and then knocking him to the ground yelling ‘Silver Power’ just refuses to materialize in my mind.”

  “You say that? After being present last night when she smacked Scroogen right in the face with her purse.”

  “She’s a gutsy gal, Sergeant. But she doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would attack when a man’s back is turned.”

  “You make her sound like Wyatt Earp upholding the code of the Old West. I thought you’d be happy to see I’m not letting her get away with attacking your uncle just because he’s dead.”

  “I do appreciate your diligence, Sergeant. The whole family does. I just want to see that the right person is prosecuted.”

  Patterson frowned as he crossed his arms over his chest.

  “The only reason I let you watch the woman’s interrogation is because Judge Gatton called over and asked me to keep you apprised of our progress on Scroogen’s case. Don’t make me regret my decision to interpret that request so generously.”

  “I’m not trying to give you a hard time, Sergeant.”

  “After all the animosity that existed between your uncle and that Osborne woman, I’m surprised you’re defending her.”

  “I tell you, Sergeant, the act is just not in keeping with Mab Osborne’s character.”

  The door to the observation room opened and a plainclothes detective stepped inside.

  “Sergeant, I thought you’d want to know. Our local fingerprint guru just compared Mab Osborne’s fingerprints off the drinking glass in the interrogation room with the fingerprints on the gardening tool. They’re a match. A perfect match. And hers are the only fingerprints on that gardening tool.”

  Patterson turned to face Brett. His upper lip curled into his mustache.

  “Now what do you say about her character, Merlin?”

  Chapter Eight

  “Like I told you, Octavia, my gardening tool and gloves are locked in our storeroom. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Octavia followed her grandmother down the mossy path dividing the lush and lovely plants of the Silver Power League’s greenhouse. Everywhere she looked was a feast for the eyes as glossy green leaves and healthy shoots shot toward the light. Many of the plants had been adorned with Christmas decorations in keeping with the season. The perfume of the flowers and the freshness of the air combined in a special fragrance.

  “Who is raising and looking after all these plants?”

  “Our members. So many live in apartments now and don’t have room for the gardens they once had. They miss them. So they come here and the league gives them a full bed to plant and tend. The only rule is that they care for what they bring into the greenhouse so that it can remain lovely for us all.”

  “Mab, you don’t have time to tend your garden at home.”

  “I’m not trying to grow any plants here in our greenhouse. It’s for those who have no gardens.”

  “Then why did you bring in your gloves and gardening tool?”

  “One of our members had to have hip replacement surgery a couple of weeks ago. She called me, worried the weeds would overrun her plants while she was recuperating over the next several weeks. I grabbed my cultivator and gardening gloves off the back porch and brought them with me so I could keep her bed tended until she got back.”

  They reached the door to the storeroom and Mab pulled a distinctive silver-plated key out of fanny-pack purse. She unlocked the door and Octavia followed her inside.

  The storeroom was small and compact. On the left wall were the blinking lights of a computerized panel connected to a monitor and keyboard sitting on a small, postmaster-type desk.

  Mounted on the middle wall were neat pale shelves, still giving off the smell of new wood. Light silver envelopes and paper rested on them. On the right side was a large metal cabinet. A black strip with white lettering identified it as containing supplies. When Mab opened the cabinet, she immediately let out a small exclamation.

  “My gloves and cultivator are gone. I distinctly remember putting them right there. What happened to them?”

  “They’re on their way to the forensic lab in Seattle,” Brett’s voice said from behind them.

  Octavia swung around. She had felt him there just the instant before he spoke. Her heart quickened its beat and her fingertips began to tingle, just as they always did when she came face-to-face with those arresting eyes.
<
br />   “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “To tell you that Sergeant Patterson identified Mab’s fingerprints on that gardening tool his men dug out of the Dumpster.”

  “Where did he get my fingerprints?” Mab asked.

  “The water glass,” Octavia said, in instant understanding. “I thought it odd that he brought you water in a glass instead of a plastic cup.”

  Brett nodded in confirmation. “Patterson messengered the gloves and gardening tool to the Seattle forensic lab to check on the blood. The coroner’s office has agreed to send a sample of Scroogen’s blood along to see if there’s a match.”

  Octavia had anticipated bad news ever since she had seen Sergeant Patterson dangling those gloves and cultivator in that plastic bag. She was not at all pleased to hear Brett’s confirmation of it, however.

  “So Sergeant Patterson sent you over with this good news?”

  She watched the silver in Brett’s eyes solidify and was a little surprised to see this signal of anger in him.

  “I’m not Sergeant Patterson’s messenger,” he informed her with that ultra-polite, distant tone of his.

  He turned then to address her grandmother. “Mrs. Osborne, I don’t believe you attacked my uncle.”

  Octavia was completely nonplussed by Brett’s words. She stared at him mutely.

  “Why don’t you?” Mab challenged. “Because I’m a sweet little old lady?”

  Brett smiled. It was the first time Octavia had seen him smile. The rigid features of his face relaxed, the dark, forbidding angles and planes seeming to just dissolve. The silver in his eyes melted into a warm liquid pool.

  Octavia caught her breath at the sudden transformation—and the sudden wild beat of her heart. The formidable legal Magician had just metamorphosed right before her eyes into an incredibly attractive man.

  And all it had taken was a smile.

  “No, I don’t think you’re a sweet little old lady, Mab,” he said. “I think you’re a hell-bent-for-leather rabble-rouser. And I also think you’re too straight to attack someone from behind and too smart to throw your own gardening gloves and a weapon with your fingerprints all over it into a trash Dumpster where it’s bound to be found.”