A Genuine Fix

by J. C. Kenney

Nowadays, Parke Landscaping was one of the most important businesses in the county. If you were a homeowner who wanted someone to mow your lawn in the summer, Parke could do it. Needed leaves removed and gutters cleaned in the fall? Roger was who you called. It didn’t matter if the work was for a residential, commercial, or even industrial customer. Parke Landscaping was your answer.

  I’d had a passing acquaintance with Roger through my parents, which changed when the steering committee was formed. Parke Landscaping was doing a lot of work for us beyond mulch delivery, like planting trees and shrubs and starting the wildflower garden. Because of that, I’d gotten to know him on a professional level.

  The man was old-school in every sense of the word. He went to work in blue jeans and a collared work shirt. If you couldn’t find him in his office, odds were good he was either supervising a project somewhere or working on a piece of equipment in one of the company’s barns.

  His gray hair was short and his leather work boots clean. There was no smoking or cursing in Roger’s presence, but he was known to enjoy a scotch on the rocks from time to time. He and his wife, Claire, were high school sweethearts and were happily married over forty years later. The oldest of their four children, Maggie, was Roger’s heir apparent and handled the books so he could keep working in the field.

  Roger was a straight shooter who had little time for idle chitchat and even less time for fools. I’d have to tread carefully around him.

  It was after five as I pedaled my bike the three miles to Parke Landscaping. The early-September sun combined with the exertion from the pedaling to produce a bead of sweat on my brow. The effort, while mild, felt good. I loved walking, but cycling was fun, and its low-impact nature was a nice change of pace after all the steps the previous day.

  I turned from the road onto a gravel driveway that was as smooth as an airport runway. It ran a quarter of a mile between rows of white pines and ended in a small parking area in front of a two-story log cabin. A steel farm gate, which was currently open, had been installed where the driveway ended and a paved parking area began.

  An overhang ran along the front of the building and provided shade for the three wooden rocking chairs spaced evenly along the front porch. The structure reminded me of the Rushing Creek Community Center in style, all the way down to the green metal roof and polished brass Parke Landscaping sign that hung by the front door.

  The thought of the community center took me back to the last time I’d visited that building—the day of my father’s funeral. The fact that I was thinking of how both buildings intersected with death wasn’t lost on me.

  I set the unsettling thought aside as I turned the handle on the front door and stepped inside. A shiver went down my spine, thanks to the office’s arctic-like thermostat setting. Roger was known to like his office cold in the summer and hot in the winter, so he could get comfortable quickly when coming in from the field.

  “Hello. Anybody here?” Despite the overhead lights being on, the office appeared deserted. I had a mission to accomplish, so I wasn’t leaving until I talked to someone.

  Light came from under an office door near the back of the building. I knocked on the hardwood surface and waited. A moment later, heavy footfalls confirmed someone was on the other side.

  The door swung open. “Is it a deal or not?” With a cell phone clamped between his shoulder and his ear, Roger made eye contact with me. “I’ll call you back.” He shoved the phone into his pocket.

  “Sorry for coming to see you without an appointment. Do you have a few minutes?” I gave him my sweetest smile, the kind I gave Diane when I wanted extra whipped cream with my hot chocolate.

  He crossed his arms. “If it’s about the alleged screwed-up mulch delivery, talk to the police. That wasn’t our fault.”

  “I know it wasn’t. I’m sorry your truck was stolen. And I’m sorry your company’s been dragged into this mess.”

  “Yes, well, thank you. A phone call would have been sufficient, though.” He leaned on the door frame, as if he was relaxing, but still had his arms crossed.

  “I was hoping I could talk to you about Georgie. I understand he used to work for you.”

  With a snort, Roger went to his desk and motioned me into a chair across from him. He put his feet on the corner of the desk while he laced his hands behind his head. His work boots were spotless, though the treads were worn from use.

  “The mayor warned me you’d be paying me a visit.” He cracked a half-smile. “I believe he referred to you as playing amateur Nancy Drew.”

  “I’d like to think of myself more along the lines of Veronica Mars.” A chuckle escaped me. “I just want to find out what happened to Georgie, and—”

  “And in the process, clear your name. I know. He told me.” He put his feet down and placed his tanned forearms on the desk. “I don’t know if I should talk to you about this. When Officer Wilkerson took my statement about the truck, she told me to talk to her if I thought of anything.”

  I sensed he was stalling, that he wanted to get rid of me without revealing what he knew about Georgie. I could appreciate his dilemma. I wasn’t leaving without that information, though.

  “Please, Roger. I know you don’t know me well, but I’ve always been straight with you, right?”

  “I guess that’s true.” He picked up a pen and doodled on his desk calendar. “How do I know you didn’t do it? Do you have an alibi?”

  I didn’t, and thanks to the mayor, he probably knew that. Still, I needed him to come around. It was time to play the only card in my deck.

  “Nope. Such is my life, the only one who can vouch for me is a cat. I have a question about the truck that was stolen. Does it have a manual or an automatic transmission?”

  “You were there. You should know.”

  “I’m not much of a truck person.” I forced a smile, even though I was almost at the point that I wanted to pop the uncooperative jerk on the head.

  “It’s a two thousand seven model with a six-speed, manual transmission. It’s easy to drive. Even you could do it.”

  I spread my arms wide. “I haven’t owned a car in over a decade. I get around on a bike. I have to use a step stool to reach the top shelves in my apartment. Do I look big enough to drive one of those behemoths?”

  It was a bluff. My parents insisted that my siblings and I learn to drive a manual transmission. The skill had come in handy on a European vacation a few years ago. On top of that, my ability to operate a stick allowed me to drive the Porsche 911 Sloane had inherited from Thornwell.

  Roger didn’t need to know any of that, though.

  After a second of dead silence, he burst out laughing. “You’ve got me there.” Roger shook his head. “All right, you win. What do you want to know?”

  “Tell me about Georgie’s time as your employee.”

  “The man had a silver tongue. I knew about his checkered past, the drinking, the way he treated women, including you. Standing you up on the night of your senior prom.” He shook his head. “What kind of knucklehead does that?”

  I looked away as the curse of small-town life raised its ugly head again. In a matter of days, news of your personal business could spread from one end of town to the other like wildfire, especially if it involved heartache and scandal. Shoot, even Roger knew Georgie had asked me to senior prom and then blew me off the night of the dance. If he knew, there probably wasn’t a person alive in Rushing Creek who didn’t know.

  “I’m sorry I brought that up. It’s a night you want to forget, I’d imagine.”

  “It’s in the past.” I took a deep breath and tried to tell myself that memories of that utterly humiliating incident didn’t hurt anymore. I couldn’t do it. “You were telling me about Georgie as your employee.”

  “Right. He convinced me that if I hired him, he’d toe the line. He did, for a few months. After that, he was the definition
of mediocrity. He did just enough to not get fired. Then he got Lori pregnant, and I couldn’t fire him. I couldn’t do that to her. Until…”

  He grimaced, got up, and went to a window that overlooked the work area of Parke Landscaping. I didn’t want to overplay my hand, so I stayed seated and kept my mouth shut.

  From my vantage point, massive piles of mulch in colors from black to red to tan formed a wooden mountain range. The equally impressive mounds of stone, from pea gravel to road stone, were out of sight, as was the garage that housed the company’s vehicles. I needed to get a look at that area to see if I could puzzle out how the murderer stole the truck.

  “Until what?”

  “I keep forgetting you lived out of town for so long.” He picked up a dart and threw it at a dartboard hanging on the wall behind me. “Until Georgie wrecked one of my trucks making a delivery. God, what a mess.”

  He unlocked a filing cabinet and pulled out a manila folder as thick as a hardbound copy of War and Peace. “This is my Georgie Alonso accident file.”

  I jumped when the file landed on the desk with a deafening thunk.

  “He takes up the rest of that drawer, by the way.” He flipped open the folder as he sat back down. “Long story short, Georgie normally didn’t drive the big trucks. I didn’t trust him. Then one day I had a guy call in, so I assigned Georgie to take a load of fill dirt to a customer. He took a bend in the road too fast, mowed down a guardrail, and wrapped the thing around a tree. I could have forgiven him, until the drug test came back.”

  “It was positive, I take it.” I knew the story but wanted to hear Roger’s version of it.

  He gave a quick nod. “The truck was totaled. Even after insurance, I still had a ten-thousand-dollar gap I had to cover for a new rig. The towing company billed me for the accident cleanup, and I ended up losing the customer.”

  “That must have cost you quite a lot.”

  “That’s just the start of it. Then he filed a worker’s compensation retaliation lawsuit. Said I fired him because he hurt his back in the accident. I’ve lost track of how much money that punk cost me over the years. And now this.”

  “This?” I assumed he meant Georgie’s murder, but I wanted to be sure.

  “The truck hasn’t been released by the police yet. Roberson said it’s evidence.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying, you don’t seem broken up about Georgie losing his life.” I made a mental note to move Roger up on my suspect list when I got home.

  “This community, and Lori especially, is better off without him. He caused enough damage around here. I’m sorry someone died but not sorry that person was Georgie.”

  Make that the top of my suspect list.

  Chapter Eight

  The chat with Roger left me unsettled as I pedaled home. On the one hand, the man had the ideal profile to be a prime suspect. There was no doubt Georgie had cost Roger tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. Then there was the question of whether Georgie received anything from his lawsuit. If so, that could be thousands more. I’d have to look into that.

  On the other hand, if he had something to hide, why would he have been so open with me? Georgie couldn’t harm him now. It didn’t fit.

  Unless there was another piece to the puzzle.

  I waved to Maybelle Schuman, a retired schoolteacher who now served as the unofficial town gossip, as I rolled through the downtown area. She was the key cog in the Rushing Creek rumor mill, even if her information was sometimes less than reliable. If anybody had unsavory intel on Georgie, it was Maybelle.

  That was for another day, though. I picked up the pace so I could get home and update my notes as soon as possible. Roger had given me a lot of information, and I didn’t want to forget anything.

  A little while later, while I was cooking some stir fry, there was a knock at my front door. It was Luke.

  “Asian. Excellent.” He rubbed his hands and strode toward the kitchen.

  “Hey. Don’t you have a fiancée to go home to?” Despite my admonishment, I set out two plates while he moved the wok from the stove to the dining table.

  “Sloane’s out for a run. She had a personal best during her race Monday, so she wants to keep the momentum going by increasing her training.” He poured us a couple of glasses of water and took a seat.

  We chatted about the Labor Day Festival while we ate. As director of Rushing Creek’s Parks Department, Luke had worked all day, making sure the downtown area and the town’s parks stayed clean and picked up. He’d heard about my fleece going missing and wanted to know if it had turned up.

  “No. My guess is some kid stole it. Hopefully someone who needs it will put it to good use.”

  He wiped his chin with a napkin. “You’re a better person than me. And it’s not like you’re rolling in dough right now.”

  Ah, yes. The Money issue. Or, to be accurate, Luke’s Concern That Allie Didn’t Have Enough Money to Get By issue. Since practically the day I returned to Rushing Creek, he’d tried to talk me into taking a part-time job so I’d have a steady source of income until the agency started to make money.

  I told him back then I’d taken care of myself for over a decade and hadn’t lost that ability just because I’d moved home. As I let him take the last chunk of chicken from the stir fry, I rebuffed him again.

  “Have it your way. In other news, I’ve got some intel on Georgie. You should get your notebook.” Intrigued, I fetched it while Luke cleared the kitchen table.

  He held his tongue until we were both seated and I had opened the notebook to a new page.

  “I was talking about Georgie with my crew today. While we were talking, one of the guys mentioned a rumor that Georgie had a life insurance policy. Supposedly, it’s worth half a million, maybe a million bucks. If it exists, that is.”

  I sucked in a breath. One million dollars. Questions raced through my mind all at once, jockeying for position, like traffic streaming into the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour.

  “That’s some serious cash. Any idea who the beneficiary is?”

  He shook his head. “Like I said, it’s only a rumor. There’s nothing in his employee file about life insurance other than a simple ten-thousand-dollar death benefit the city gives each of us employees. His little girl’s the beneficiary of that one.”

  While Luke talked, I jotted down the names of people in Georgie’s family. Any recipient of a windfall of that magnitude would join Roger Parke at the top of my suspect list.

  Revenge and money. Two of the classic motivating factors when it came to committing murder. God, I was getting way too knowledgeable on the subject.

  “If we assume it’s true, my first thought is that Brittany would be the beneficiary. Next, Lori, even though they never got married. Last would be his parents.” I tapped my pen on the page. “I think it’s safe to rule Brittany out. God, the poor kid.”

  “Yeah. At five, she’s probably just old enough that she’ll remember this all her life.”

  I closed my eyes. To be five and lose a parent was something I couldn’t imagine. I was twenty-nine when Dad passed away, and that had been hard enough. At that moment, it didn’t matter that Georgie was a lazy schemer. What mattered was that a little girl would grow up without her father. It was heartbreaking.

  And more motivation to make sure Georgie, Brittany, and Lori received justice.

  “Looks like I need to pay Lori a visit. Think she’ll talk to me?”

  “Depends on if she has anything to hide.” He drained the last of his water. “We haven’t talked very often, but she always asks about you. She thought it was cool you were living in New York.”

  “I can’t deny it had its moments.”

  Luke accepted my offer to stick around for a beer, and we adjourned to the patio for a drink.

  The patio was really just my landing for the fire-escape stairway, but it
was big enough for two chairs and a small group of vegetable plants. The view wasn’t anything to write home about, but the vibe reminded me of New York and brought back good memories.

  I could have spent all evening kicking back with my bro, but after an hour, he took off to spend the rest of the evening with Sloane. Back inside, I was a ball of nervous energy, so I rooted the toy onion ring out from behind the couch and batted it back and forth with Ursi.

  The toy had just slid under the coffee table when there were two sharp knocks on the front door. This time Matt was my visitor. He was in his indigo Rushing Creek Police Department uniform and was chomping on a piece of gum.

  This wasn’t a social call.

  To lighten the mood, I peeked into the hall after I welcomed him into the apartment. “You’re by yourself. I’ll take that as a good sign.”

  “Thought I’d save you the embarrassment of a perp walk.” His stone-faced expression morphed into a grin when I sucked in a breath. “Sorry. Couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

  I closed the door, then slapped him on the arm. “Very funny. Since you’re not here to arrest me, what brings you by?”

  “I’ve got news on the case I thought I’d share with you.” He wandered around the apartment for a few moments, at one point getting down on one knee to scratch Ursi between the ears. “Your place looks great. I like what you’ve done with it.”

  “Thanks.” My cheeks warmed at the compliment. The apartment was in a dismal condition when I rented it. That made the rent dirt cheap, so I didn’t have to live at Mom’s house until the agency started generating enough income to pay the bills.

  To put it mildly, the place had been a wreck.

  Renee Gomez, the woman who ran the bookstore on the floor below me, owned the building. For years, she’d used my apartment to store overflow used-book inventory. When I asked if she’d be interested in renting the space, she initially said no, claiming she had no place to store the boxes upon boxes of paperbacks and hardbacks.

  I might be small in stature, but when I really want something, I can be as relentless as Javert in Les Misérables and as impossible to stop as the winds of change in A Tale of Two Cities.