A Dawn of Death

by Gin Jones

  Now she knew what Paul had been thinking about—Sheryl's death. It still didn't explain why he'd had that guilty expression, unless it was just that he'd been caught inside the police line.

  "Sorry. That wasn't what I meant," Helen said, pointing at the seedlings in front of him. "What killed the third pea plant?"

  He brushed the dirt off his hands and stood. "I am afraid I do not know that either. I heard that someone spotted rabbits on the edge of the garden at dusk last night. They like pea sprouts."

  She was sure Paul was lying. He wasn't very good at it. But why would he bother? It wasn't like he'd killed the plant himself. Even if he had, there was no reason for him to hide it. He'd given them to her in the first place, after all, so she couldn't be angry if he'd inadvertently killed one of them.

  She must have let her skepticism show because he added, "Also, the rain was heavy at times this morning, and you can see that the dirt has been disturbed."

  Maybe he could see it, but to Helen, it looked pretty much the same as yesterday. A little wetter perhaps, but that was all.

  No, wait. Something did look different. Except, it was the plants themselves as opposed to the dirt. She couldn't pinpoint what it was. Something to do with the number of leaves. And they were taller, although one seemed to be growing at a funny angle. She'd read that peas were fast growers, but she hadn't thought they could change noticeably in just one day. Of course, it was only a matter of a fraction of an inch. It wasn't like they'd done a "Jack and the Beanstalk" type of transformation, growing all the way to the skies overnight.

  Paul joined her on the sidewalk, stepping over the police line and pulling the cart underneath it.

  "I've always wished I had longer legs," Helen said. "Probably just as well I can't get over or under the line too easily though. It's best if I don't push Detective Peterson too far. But I may have to if the police don't clear the scene soon. Do you know why they expanded it to include the whole garden now?"

  He shook his head. "All I know is that as soon as the rain ended, the police came out and ran the tape around the perimeter. They said I could finish what I was doing, but then I had to leave. I do not believe the officers knew exactly why the scene had been expanded. Just said Detective Peterson told them to do it. They all left as soon as the last strip was in place, and a few minutes later, he showed up." Paul nodded toward the Averys' driveway. "He said I needed to finish up whatever I was working on before his boss got here."

  Helen turned to look in that direction. She wasn't sure how she'd missed it, but a cruiser was parked there, blocking the driveway. A uniformed officer leaned against the passenger side door, more or less facing the garden. He was sipping from a foam cup and didn't seem bothered by either Paul's or Richard Avery Sr.'s trespasses.

  "The officer doesn't seem to be much better at keeping people out of the garden than the police tape is."

  "My guess is that the police are looking for something concrete within that perimeter. The officer watching the garden knows what it is and believes that neither my presence nor the Averys' would present any risk to their search. Wharton is a small town, after all. Everyone knows everyone and makes assumptions about who might be trouble and who would not."

  "So he's assuming that no one here might have killed Sheryl," Helen said. "I suppose that makes sense. I'd never heard of her before I found her body—the Averys are in their own little worlds, and you…well, I can't imagine you hurting anyone. You're much too kind." Of course, none of that was proof of innocence, as she had good reason to know. She wasn't discounting any possible suspect ever again.

  "That is the problem with small-town thinking," Paul said. "Objectively speaking, I did have a motive to wish Sheryl dead."

  "You?" Despite her surprise, she had to admit she should have considered him a suspect. He probably did have experience operating construction equipment, especially bulldozers, since they were used in landscaping too. His height would have been an advantage in any physical encounter, and she suspected that both his gardening and the hands-on help he gave his employees kept him strong.

  "I would never have hurt her," he said. "I am a man of peace, after all. But Sheryl and I…let me just say that we have a long history, and she wasn't the easiest person to live with."

  "You and Sheryl were a couple?"

  "Not exactly. When I say 'live with,' it is a bit of an exaggeration. What we had was more a series of hookups." Paul looked in the direction of the cruiser, but the officer there didn't seem to be paying attention to anything except his beverage. "We tried to be discreet, but I am sure Dale knew. A few other people too. And they also knew that Sheryl and I recently decided to end the intimate aspect of our relationship. We were still friends, and the decision was mutual, but I am certain that if the gossips hear about it, they will be evenly divided on who did the dumping and who was dumped. Either way, you can infer a motive. Either I dumped her because she threatened my garden, or she dumped me because I opposed her purchase of the land."

  For the first time since meeting Detective Peterson last year, Helen felt a bit of sympathy for him. As a relative newcomer to town, she didn't know Paul very well, nowhere near as well as the detective probably did, and she was already predisposed to think he would never have killed anyone. It had to be harder for someone who'd grown up here in Wharton to consider that his lifelong friends, neighbors, and colleagues might be killers. But Paul was right. He belonged on the suspect list.

  "I really hope the police figure out what happened to Sheryl before you're implicated."

  "They will," Paul said, sounding far more confident than Helen did. He looked up at the overcast sky. "I have been here longer than I intended. I need to get back to the office now, or the gossips will be talking about dereliction of duty rather than more intimate indiscretions."

  * * *

  As Paul left, Helen wondered what the police could possibly be looking for in the expanded crime scene. She doubted it was footprints. Surely they'd been obliterated by the rain, just as the evidence of what had happened to her pea plants had been. Probably not trace evidence either since it would have suffered the same fate. No, it had to be something visible to the naked eye. Something they'd missed in the initial collection of evidence when the assumption had been that the death was nothing more than a tragic accident. Something the officer didn't think would be damaged by either Richard Avery's obsessive digging or Paul Young's routine gardening chores.

  Helen glanced at the officer, who'd finished his coffee and disposed of the cup. He was crouched down with a paper napkin, removing some of the garden's mud from his shoes. She doubted he would tell her anything about the planned search, so she'd have to find out some other way. Perhaps she could enlist RJ to keep an eye on what was happening and then call her if the police found anything.

  Helen looked at the back of the garden, but RJ and his father were gone. Probably getting ready for the 4:00 p.m. medicines. The routine was rigid, RJ had said. It was a little after 3:30 now, and before doing anything else, they'd both have to clean up after getting caked in mud. RJ had enough to do without acting as her spy.

  She herself didn't need to take any meds again until bedtime, she didn't need to be anywhere else for the next few hours, and she'd run out of ideas for turning up useful information about Sheryl's death. Perhaps if she loitered near the garden while the police did their search, she'd learn something. Detective Peterson wouldn't intentionally share any information, but his ego often led him to reveal more than he intended.

  Helen hadn't paced the sidewalk for more than five minutes before a flatbed truck carrying twenty or thirty Jersey barriers pulled onto the street and double-parked outside the garden. A moment later, a dark SUV stopped behind it, and Detectives Peterson and Almeida climbed out.

  Peterson jerked a thumb in Helen's direction, telling Almeida, "Get her out of my crime scene. And talk to her about that other thing."

  While Peterson went over to the truck, Almeida ambled over to whe
re Helen stood well outside the police tape that she wasn't anywhere close to touching. The passersby gathering to watch the unloading of the Jersey barriers weren't as careful, and some of them pushed the tape back in places. Peterson didn't seem to care that they were in his crime scene, Helen thought irritably, but he'd arrest her if he could, simply for being within fifty feet of the place.

  "I'm not in the crime scene," Helen said.

  "Don't snap at me just because Peterson annoys you."

  "I'm sorry," Helen said. She did usually try to save her irritation for the ones who deserved it and not for those who were simply doing their job. "What's the 'other thing' he wants you to talk to me about?"

  Almeida looked like she'd rather be somewhere else, which was surprising since she didn't shy away from uncomfortable conversations. Otherwise, she'd never have been appointed the domestic violence officer even if no one else had wanted the job. "I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding."

  "That sounds like a politician's spin." If Almeida was trying to break the news to Helen gently, something had to be seriously wrong. "Just tell me what it is. I don't need it candy coated."

  "Marty Drumm complained you've been harassing him, accusing him of killing his boss," Almeida said. "Now, he was pretty drunk when he said it, and normally we don't pay much attention to alcoholic ravings, but his timing was really bad. We'd just gotten word from the industrial accident expert that Sheryl's death was suspicious."

  "I didn't accuse Marty of anything, but if it was murder, he's an obvious suspect. Sheryl wasn't easy to work for, and he did get a promotion of sorts when she died."

  "You could be right," Almeida said. "But that's not the point. You know how Peterson feels about an amateur getting involved in his investigations. He didn't stop to consider whether Marty was a good suspect. He was too busy getting defensive about the possibility that you might have solved the case before he could."

  Again, Helen silently added to herself. "He ought to be grateful for any help he can get."

  Almeida snorted. "Like that's ever going to happen. You could catch the worst serial killer in history and even let Peterson take all the credit for it, complete with national media attention, commendations, and bonuses, and he still wouldn't be grateful. For him, it's the principle, not the results."

  "I hate it when people stand on principles." During her years in the Governor's Mansion, she'd known far too many politicians who'd at least claimed to be acting strictly on some high moral principle. What it really meant was that they were too pigheaded to agree to any reasonable compromise that would have actually accomplished most of what they'd wanted. Instead, by sticking to their supposed principles, they'd gotten nothing done at all. She might be stubborn herself sometimes, but she knew when to strike a deal. "If it'll make Peterson feel better and your job will be easier, I'll stay away from Marty Drumm until Sheryl's case is resolved. I should warn you though that I ran into him a little while ago—or actually, it was more like he ran into me, almost hit me with his truck."

  Almeida patted the jacket pocket where she kept a small notebook. "Do you want to file a report?"

  "No. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. Marty was just distracted by his new responsibilities. Nothing intentional. He didn't seem particularly upset with me either. More afraid that I'd be mad at him. We had a perfectly pleasant conversation."

  "Not about Sheryl's death, I hope."

  Helen wouldn't have minded telling a little white lie or even a fairly dark whopper to Peterson, but she respected Almeida too much for that. "It's hard to avoid the subject completely. Not with Marty taking over the management of her business. But we didn't get into any specifics."

  "That's a start," Almeida said. "I'll handle Peterson."

  "He won't believe it if you say I gave up too easily."

  "Trust me, I know how to deal with him," Almeida said. "He's annoying, but nowhere near as bad as some of the people I run into in domestic abuse cases."

  Helen felt a bit guilty about increasing Almeida's burdens. Her job was hard enough already. "If it helps, I'll be discreet. I wasn't even here about Sheryl's death anyway. Well, not directly. I was just checking on my garden, and you can't blame me for being curious about the beefed-up police line."

  "I can't blame you, but Peterson can."

  There was some shouting over where the Jersey barriers were being unloaded, ordering the onlookers to get back. The first three concrete forms had already been lined up between the sidewalk and the garden, starting at the fence that separated the garden from the ballpark.

  Helen nodded in the direction of the work. "What's up with the Jersey barriers?"

  "Peterson's idea," Almeida said. "With both you and Dale Meeke-Mason having an interest in the case, he's gone from his usual state of mild irrationality to being totally paranoid. Decided that mere tape wasn't enough because it can blow away or be removed too easily, and you two could claim you didn't know you were supposed to keep out. There's no way to miss the Jersey barriers. He originally wanted to have an officer here on watch around the clock, but he couldn't get the overtime approved, so he came up with this idea. Personally, I think he's hoping you or Dale will climb over the barriers so he can catch you in the act and arrest you. I wouldn't put it past him to stake out the place from the ballpark."

  "I'll consider myself warned." Helen glanced at her assigned plot. "What about my plants? I've got seedlings that depend on me." Not that she'd been all that good at protecting them so far, and she had only a tiny fraction of the plantings some of the other gardeners had completed. They were the ones who would truly be inconvenienced.

  "The garden will be okay without human intervention for a few days."

  "Is that all it will be before the barriers are removed?" Helen said.

  "I'd like to think so," Almeida said. "The OSHA expert suggested that we look for the bulldozer's key. It wasn't in the ignition or on the body, and he thought that was odd."

  It was good to know what all the fuss was about, but it didn't give Helen any useful leads. "What good will that do?"

  "There might be prints on it. Even just pinpointing where the key ended up might be an important bit of evidence. A team will be out later today with all their equipment, and they're good at what they do. They can cover this parcel in a day, two at most. There's no legitimate reason not to release the scene after that."

  "Are you sure that will satisfy Peterson?" Helen said.

  "Probably not as long as you and Dale are in the picture. I think he's planning to keep the barriers up until an arrest is made. Possibly even until the conviction. If Hank could get away with it, he'd really like to control the scene until the exhaustion of all appeals."

  That could take years, Helen thought. Thanks to Peterson, it might become a moot point whether the selectmen voted to sell the garden. It looked like no one—gardener or developer—was going to be using the land anytime soon unless Sheryl's killer confessed to the crime.

  She couldn't let the garden be shut down indefinitely. It was time to get some legal advice. Just not from Tate. Even if he'd been willing to talk about legal matters, she didn't think he'd had enough time to get over his foolish reaction to her spending time with Cory.

  Fortunately for Helen, answering questions about real estate and probate were Tate's nephew's specialty.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  For once, Jack hadn't been prepared for Helen to open the car door and climb into the passenger seat. She'd have liked to think it was because she'd become much spryer and faster and had managed to sneak up on him, but it was more likely he'd been distracted by the phone call he'd just ended.

  "Sorry, Ms. Binney," Jack said, pocketing his phone. "Zee called to let me know they're coming home tomorrow evening."

  Zee was Jack's niece. She and her brother Jay had been in California all winter, looking unsuccessfully for jobs in the entertainment industry.

  Jack continued. "They need a ride from the airport. I told them I'd pick them up if you don'
t need me tomorrow evening."

  "I'd like to spend some time in the garden if the weather's nice, but that's all I've got planned. I'm not sure even that will be possible unless we can get rid of those stupid Jersey barriers," Helen said. "I need to talk to a lawyer ASAP."

  "Home, then?"

  Apparently Tate hadn't explained to anyone except her that their personal relationship precluded a lawyer-client relationship. If she were inclined to be as foolish as he'd been at lunchtime today, she might have thought it was because he didn't want anyone to know they were dating. She didn't actually believe that, but she wasn't entirely sure where their relationship stood at the moment. And since she didn't understand it, she couldn't explain it to Jack.

  She offered a partial truth. "Tate's been keeping irregular hours, so I'm not sure he'll be in the garage. I know Adam's in his office, though. I just called to check. He's expecting us."

  Jack put the car in gear. "Zee said they're bringing you something for your garden. Wouldn't tell me what it was. Apparently they got it in a shop that sells old movie props. They both thought of you as soon as they saw it."

  "That should be interesting." With only a few exceptions, Helen had found that most people had a completely wrong impression of who she was. Like Jack's cousin the car dealer who'd assumed she wanted a luxury vehicle or at least something that had a bit of prestige to it rather than basic, reliable transportation. Before that, when she'd been the state's first lady, many people had underestimated her influence because she maintained a low profile. Later, once she'd started carrying a cane, people had tended to think she was both feeble and feebleminded.

  Jay and Zee weren't as shallow as their obsession with Hollywood celebrities might indicate, but they hadn't had much opportunity to really get to know Helen. They'd been her substitute drivers for just a few days, back when she'd gotten tangled up in the investigation of a professional poker player's murder.

  "Whatever they got for you," Jack said, "it won't be as interesting as a murder investigation. I'm guessing from the Jersey barriers that the police have decided Sheryl's death might not have been an accident."