Executive Dirt: A Sedona O'Hala Mystery

by Maria Schneider

  Even though spring wasn’t blossoming yet, Dave had a good head start. Snap peas, tomatoes, lettuce and a whole host of flowers were growing in the outdoor greenhouse. The place smelled of water and dirt and good things growing.

  I asked first thing about the blueberry plants. Dave didn’t have the right variety, but could order them for me.

  “If you spot any computer scammers this time, could you quietly alert me?” Dave spared a desperate glance around the two of us. “Or, if I’m already lecturing, tell my new assistant, Rohit.” He pointed to a young guy working at the information stand. Even though it was still quite cool out, the guy was wearing sandals and shorts. Perhaps as a concession to the weather, his shorts did extend past his knees.

  Rohit saw Dave pointing and raised a hand to wave in our direction.

  “Rohit has a good head on his shoulders,” Dave said. “I was lucky to hire him this winter after he was laid off from his old job. We don’t need any incidents in my shop like happened the last time you helped out, so alert him or me if anything seems amiss.”

  I had been hoping Dave wouldn’t remember the past incident. “I doubt any scammers would come here.” For a six-foot guy in coveralls and hefty work boots, Dave sure was turning out to be the nervous type. He had a few gray hairs, but he was younger than my dad and in good shape. You’d think a guy his size would exhibit more confidence.

  “Just don’t go setting a mob on anyone. I’m trying to expand my business and some of these gardening types get carried away.”

  They had done more of a tackle than a carry away when I pointed out there was a scammer in their midst. “Okay, I’ll be sure and tell you or security on the sly if I notice anything.”

  He leaned in close. “I don’t have official security. That’s why I said to tell me or the new guy. He’s been fantastic. Most people a year or two out of college don’t have much gardening experience, but he’s got real know-how. He’s even convinced me to grow hops this spring.” He stepped over to a box near the greenhouse. “Lookee here. I’ve got some rhizomes if you’re interested. Easy to grow, and I’ll be packaging the hops right here and selling them with other organic grains for beer brewing.”

  I grinned and put my hands behind my back so that he couldn’t hand me the gnarly brown root he was waving around with enthusiasm. “Thanks, but I think the blueberries will keep me plenty busy.”

  “You never know when you’ll want to try something new.” He smiled and gazed around proudly at his kingdom.

  “And I’ll come straight here if I need more supplies.” I nodded. “I’ll be sure to tell you first if I see anything suspicious.” I did a quick check to see if there were any geek-wannabes with tattoos trying to sell unnecessary computer services. There were a few hippies, but I think they worked for Dave. During my scan, to my surprise, I spotted Monique in the crowd that was gathering for today’s lecture.

  Dave noticed my eyes widen. “Who? What?”

  “Just someone I know from work. Nothing to fret about.” My voice trailed off at the end. She worked at Borgot. There were two dead bodies to account for. Maybe she was a scammer in cahoots with Joe. Now that he was dead, was she his replacement at the garden meetings? Or had she been his partner?

  I glanced around at the plants, pots, chair, benches, hoses and rows of supplies along the outside of the main building. What nefarious deeds could possibly take place in a garden store???

  I gave Dave a good-bye nod and casually sauntered over to Monique.

  Dave headed for his assistant, no doubt with dire warnings.

  I ignored him. I wasn’t here to cause anyone any trouble. Monique turned as I approached. “Monique! I didn’t know you were a gardener!” She wore clothes that for me were work clothes—jeans, a nice sweater and sneakers.

  She grinned and flicked perfectly manicured fingernails at me in a finger wave. “Hi Sedona! I didn’t know I was into gardening either. Not until Lawrence suggested,” she stopped and put a hand to her heart, “that maybe I could help him with landscaping this spring!” Her voice was a hushed squeal. “I think he’s finally planning to ask me to move in with him. He owns a great house over in Alpine Hills.” She waved one hand. “Oh, you probably don’t know the area. But it’s gorgeous.”

  She was right about Alpine Hills being way outside my normal social circle, but I’d helped with a case there. From behind me, I could hear Dave start the meeting. “I’m here for the free class. Are you attending it as well?”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t need a class. What do you think of this piece?”

  I hadn’t noticed we were standing near the garden sculpture area. She ran her hand down the side of a copper can.

  “What is it?” I asked. The thing was just taller than me, a mass of metal with bits of wire decorations.

  “Isn’t it gorgeous?”

  The base was some kind of twine stuff that would probably grow moss or grass once permanently installed. There was a long tin can opposite the copper one, and some sort of ceramic blue octopus with holes all along each appendage. Maybe you could plant strawberries in that part. An ugly metal flower sprang from the middle of it. What might have been a snake looped in and around various pieces. Then again, maybe the snake was just random metal. “Uh...”

  “I know, it’s kind of expensive. But Lawrence can afford it and really, a thousand dollars for something this unique? He’ll be the talk of the neighborhood!”

  I blinked and stared harder, but with focus. Maybe I should abandon sewing and gardening and become a sculptor. I’d only have to sell one piece a month. “It’s unique,” I agreed.

  “He’ll love it.”

  “You know, if he does love it, I think you should marry the guy because you two were made for each other.” I found it hard to believe there was one person who could love this thing, never mind two.

  Monique giggled with delight. “I already know we are perfect together, but you’re so sweet to say so. That reminds me—this week I’m going to announce a team building project. I was telling Lawrence about how this phone will be super late unless we pull out all the stops. We’ve got to do something even if it means spending our entire training budget. Luckily, Lawrence knows a guy. After this guy did a team building exercise at Lawrence’s old company, everyone was totally on board and completely motivated. I know it will work for us!”

  My dismay must have shown on my face because she frowned back at me. “I am counting on you.”

  “Uh-hmm. I hope Lawrence likes his gift.”

  Thankfully, Dave’s assistant walked over to see if we needed help. Sure, his appearance was probably because Dave had told him to keep an eye on me, but in this case it worked out in my favor.

  “Can I help you ladies with anything?” From the rich tones to his skin and his accent, he was probably originally from India. His dark, nicely trimmed goatee and polite smile rounded out to make him a handsome fellow. He pushed dark sunglasses on top of his head, making his hair stick up all around the frames, but a good salesman always made eye contact.

  I stepped back, grateful for the interruption. “My friend here is interested in this sculpture. I need to get to the gardening meeting myself.”

  Monique pressed her hands together with excitement and turned back to the looming object of art. “Do you deliver?” she asked. “Lawrence is never going to expect this. What a great surprise!”

  “Yeah, it’ll surprise him. For sure. See you.” Maybe the new assistant would get a nice commission on the piece. Lucky him.

  I scurried to the back row of seats. Not only was this location far from Dave’s suspicious gaze, it allowed me to search the crowd for Joe’s mother. Given the death of her son, I couldn’t count on her being here. I also didn’t know what she looked like, but I spent the entire lecture eliminating possibilities.

  Sitting in the back, I received the sign-in sheet last. I scanned it for her name, Wanda Black, but as suspected, her name was not on the list. Thankfully I had a few extra
minutes to study the old sign-up sheets behind the current one. Pretending to pay attention, I flipped the top page over the clipboard, and when Dave was looking elsewhere, I skimmed across the names.

  An older lady asked Dave what plants would attract young people to gardening. Someone shouted, “Pot!”

  Another voice in the crowd yelled, “Hell, we don’t need pot. We need Viagra plants!”

  The mind boggled.

  I used the distraction to flip more pages. The meetings had only been held monthly over the winter. There were less names than on today’s showing, too. On page three, I hit paydirt. Very carefully, I extracted the page and then found two more containing the name Black. The real surprise was that the first name attached to Black wasn’t Wanda. It was Joe.

  Chapter 18

  I hadn’t been home an hour when the doorbell rang.

  The second I opened the door, I recognized Mark’s mother even though we had never met. Her eyes were the same confident brown as Mark’s, but hers were larger and touched up with mascara. She carried a giant cloth bag, much as Mary Poppins might if she were part of our modern world.

  “Hi, I’m LeAnn—”

  “Mark’s mother,” I chimed in with a huge smile. “Come on in.” I held the door wide.

  She matched my smile, only hers had dimples. Light brown hair nearly touched her shoulders, a tucked under look with a few rogue curls that didn’t stay in place. “I know it’s rude to invite myself over, but truth to tell, I wanted to meet the woman who had Mark so interested and Steve so annoyed.”

  “Huntington is annoyed with me?” I sniffed. “His annoyance is nothing compared to mine. It was his idea that I learn to sew. He could have asked if I had any inclination, but—” I stopped myself before the full rant mode could spin out of control. She didn’t need to know right off what I thought of her eldest child.

  She laughed. “Mark mentioned Steve hired you for the case without checking on whether you could sew or not.” She held up a large blue and yellow canvas bag decorated with ribbons and a handle that could withstand the lugging of a sewing machine if necessary. “Steve isn’t just irritated about the sewing. He’s stewing because you never gave him a second look after meeting Mark. I do believe he thought it should be his choice.”

  My face clouded, and my eyebrows gave me an instant headache when they smashed into each other with the force of my scowl. It’s possible horns popped out the top of my skull. I pressed my lips tight to keep from making any more unkind remarks about Huntington.

  “Hmm. You are suddenly very quiet. I do hope you aren’t thinking you can date them both. It’s been tried and failed before.”

  I stared at her, quite unable to keep the gurgle of surprised sputtering from exploding. There was no taking it back, but stuffing it down was almost manageable. On a gasp I said, “No, you don’t have to worry about that. I don’t even like Huntington—Steve—most of the time.” I immediately apologized when her eyebrow raised, a female imitation of Huntington’s sneer. “Sorry. I know he’s your son, and I’m sure he’s quite beloved. But the man is overbearing, obstinate, and has more dumb ideas than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “For example?”

  I sighed. “For example, the sewing thing. Some nonsense about every woman being able to infiltrate a sewing circle simply because of the proper chromosome. I’m an engineer. I test computers. The last case he hired me for? To infiltrate a hospital. More nonsense thinking that all women wish to aid ill people.” Well, there went first impressions. My shoulders drooped. “Sorry. I’m sure he has better qualities.”

  “Such as?” Her voice had dropped a degree or two.

  I blinked. “Uhm. He, uhm.” My brain raced frantically. He was good looking, but that wasn’t really an asset at the moment. Even if he was ugly, his mother wouldn’t think so. “He hired Marilyn!”

  “His maid?”

  I nodded. “She needed a job and self-confidence. And he’s been very kind to her. Although he adopted that cat, the one from a previous case, which probably made her job harder, but I suppose that shouldn’t be held against him. Well, not very much.”

  She held up her hand to stop my flow of words. “Wouldn’t adopting a homeless cat be a positive?”

  My eyebrows locked again. I hadn’t really liked that cat much, not after it left me bleeding from several scratches. “Not if you’re the maid,” I muttered.

  She laughed.

  I desperately tried to think of something else. “He seems to be able to obtain information on people. Although that isn’t really a great thing depending which end you’re on.”

  “Enough. You don’t seem to be the least bit enamored of him.”

  My retort came out a half swallowed, “Hmph.”

  I led the way into the living room and invited her to sit down.

  She headed instead for the kitchen table and the sewing machines. She checked the threads, giving me an approving glance when she found them properly threaded.

  I shook my head and confessed before she could be too impressed. “I could take the whole machine apart and put it back together. I can probably even improve the design. The one thing I can’t do with it is sew.” I held up the “baby bib” which, upon closer inspection, looked a lot like a rag that had been used as a chew toy by a rabid dog.

  “Ah, but I can teach you,” she declared. She pulled two chairs together and beckoned me over. “Come on. It won’t be so bad.”

  I lacked her easy confidence by a large margin, but I accepted the chair.

  She was very well organized and knew her subject. After a couple of demonstrations, she scooted over and let me take the wheel.

  There was more than one false start on my part, but with her careful instructions, I soon managed a seam that only partially looked like I was trying to design a Jewish skullcap for Frankenstein.

  “See?” she said. “And once you have the material sewn together so that it doesn’t shift, you sew that exact same line on the serger. The seam on the regular sewing machine is like drawing the line in pencil. You then ink it permanently on the serger.”

  I gave it a try and was ridiculously proud of my first perfect seam off the finishing machine. It was so neat and had so many stitches. “It almost looks like I know what I’m doing!”

  “Let the machine do its job. Everyone is happy.”

  I eyed the enemy. “Until it does a seam too small and my pants suddenly fit a four-year-old.”

  “Then you have gifts! You won’t be the first person to instantly decide to make things for people smaller than you, bigger than you, or when that fails, you’ll make enough pot holders to open a store.”

  “Your faith in me is amazing.”

  She laughed. “Hey, you should see the pot holders I have! I wasn’t putting your skills down. We all do it.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant. I meant I wasn’t certain I could manage to make the potholders.”

  She laughed again. “The sewing group we’ve joined is making pillowcases for a charity. As long as you know how to do that, no one will guess you are working undercover to obtain information.” She pointed at the seam. “Pillowcases are an easy place to start.”

  “Yeah. This is easier than what I was working on.”

  “What was that you had started on?” she asked.

  “It’s a baby bib.” I left it buried under our practice fabric. “Maybe you can help me make a proper bib. That is, if you’ll come by again. Let me finish a couple of these pillowcases. All I have to do is repeat this seam you just taught me, right?”

  She nodded. “Two sides and a bottom. Nothing fancy.”

  “I hope it’s enough to keep my cover. If I have to sew in front of anyone, it will be touch and go.”

  She patted my shoulders. “Don’t worry. We can make this work.”

  I wasn’t so certain, but at least I wouldn’t fail the undercover sewing job right out of the gate.

  Chapter 19

  Mark showed up shortly after his mother l
eft. I was still sewing, gaining confidence with my third pillowcase.

  I ushered him in and said, “Let me finish this, and we can have dinner.” I sat back down at the machine, certain that it would betray me now that I had an important audience. “This had better turn out or else,” I muttered.

  “Or else, what?” Mark asked.

  I raised my eyebrows and then frowned. “You don’t want to know. Never mess with a woman who is sewing who says ‘or else’.”

  He nodded sagely. “Something tells me that I don’t want to mess with you when it’s ‘or else’ on any subject.” He was not interested in letting me finish my project. He pulled me up for a kiss, taking his time and being thorough.

  Well. That kind of kiss could put a lot of ‘or elsing’ to rest.

  He stepped back. “I’m hungry. You can sew later.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, a bit breathless. “Let me get my jacket.”

  After a very nice dinner, I wasn’t about to return to the sewing, but as I went in the kitchen to make coffee for Mark, the pile of material reminded me of his mother’s protectiveness and third-degree concerning my intentions with Mark. Mark wasn’t really in Steve’s shadow, not so far as I was concerned, but her questions did leave me wondering a few things. “Why does Steve get to be CEO of your investigation company?” I asked.

  Mark shrugged. “Because he was a CEO before, and in the world in which he travels it’s all about rubbing shoulders with people at the same level. It’s okay for companies to hire him because he is one of them. A board of directors is too busy to talk to a private investigator—but a CEO of an investigation company puts him at their level.”