I looked up her number in the phone book and dialed. Another voice mail, another message. Seriously, even Mrs. Gherkin had voice mail? Didn’t anyone in this country answer the phone anymore? As if on cue, the shop’s phone rang. Well, I wouldn’t let my caller have to deal with a recording.
I snatched up the handset on the third ring. “Thank you for calling The Garden Gate,” I answered with extra jubilance, as if to prove answering a phone was the proper and polite thing to do.
“Paige, oh, good. I’m glad you answered.”
“Weed Whacker?” I glanced around. Had my worlds somehow collided? Radio world and Garden Gate world merging? Was this the end of the universe?
She cleared her throat. “I just wanted to check in and see how things were going. You haven’t had any nutsos bother you since I last checked, have you?”
None, other than you. “Really, Weed Whacker, I think you’re overreacting.”
“Overreacting? We’re talking about murder here.” Her tone shot high. “People do odd things when they think someone is a killer.”
“Well, I appreciate your concern, but you needn’t bother.” Translated, stop bugging me.
“No bother at all, Paige. It’s the least I can do for all the advice you’ve given me. I’ll check back later. Just to make sure everything is all right.”
She disconnected and I sizzled. At least I’d discovered an answer to one of my questions. This was precisely why no one answered the phone.
Chapter Fifteen
“And now, enjoy the best of Through the Garden Gate with your beloved host, Paige Turner.”
“Hi, Paige, this is Hank Wilkins from El Paso, Texas. I’m visitin’ my daughter here in Oreeeegon and caught your show. Really enjoyed it, but I’m confused about one thang.”
“Well, thank you for calling, Hank. Gardening in different regions of the country can lead to confusion.”
“Right. Well, my problem is about those slugs you kept mentionin’. You said that you had to bait for slugs on a regular basis up here in Oreeeegon. When we go huntin’ in Texas, we don’t have to bait for our slugs. We just go down to the hardware store and buy us a box of whatever size fits the gun we’re using. If it’s such a big deal to get slugs up here, I could send you a box ever’ now and then.”
Once my fog of frustration cleared, I remembered that I hadn’t asked Hazel about her visit with Mitch. By the time I returned to the front, Mr. T was happily playing with a rope toy strung from the top of his cage, and Hazel had already begun the dirty process of filling a decorative container. Three others sat at her feet, but these were from our regular stock, not the delivery.
I approached, and the earthy smell of the potting mixture riled up my desire to garden. “You call Kurt?”
Hazel continued to scoop rich soil into the bronzed urn. “Now he says he’ll be here by noon.”
I smiled at her efficiency. “Then it’s a good thing Teri’s coming in this afternoon. We’ll need every available hand to finish on time.”
Hazel turned the container, punching down the soil as she moved it. “Teri’s a good worker. You planning to switch her to full-time when your landscaping business takes off?”
“If my business takes off, yes, Teri is my first choice. Of course, we’ll have to bump you up to manager status and hike up your pay.”
Hazel’s head shot up. “Honestly, manager?”
I looked at her and laughed. “Well, sure. You didn’t think I could handle all of this by myself, did you?”
“No. But I figured you might look for someone with that kind of experience.”
“You already have the experience. You’ve basically been running the place this week while I’ve been tracking down Bud’s killer.”
She slowly stood upright, stretching as she moved. “Do you really think we can figure out who killed Bud?”
I wanted to tell her the truth—that I’d about given up on clearing my name then boohoo on her shoulder, but she’d already seen me dejected. I didn’t want to take her down with me. “Don’t worry about that. Of course we will. Maybe if you tell me about your appointment with Mitch, it’ll trigger something that will help.”
She waved a hand. “Not much to tell. He kept badgering me about where you were on Monday morning. Asked the same question over and over again. Guess he was trying to trip me up or something.” She shook her head. “Sure glad I live in the country and don’t pay his salary with my taxes. S’pose he might be good at what he does, but I don’t like it much when it’s aimed at my friend.”
“Well, thanks for sticking up for me. I need—” The door chimed, and my name was screamed at a pitch so high only a dog should hear it.
“Paige.” Lacy Winkle and her twin, Lori, launched their little bodies in my direction.
I braced my legs and waited. Three, two, one, impact. I staggered back at their combined force. They left me tottering for a moment until I regained my footing. Two sets of miniature arms clamped around my waist and squeezed like they never intended to let go.
Mr. T broke into an anxious dance and then climbed to the top of his cage. “Quit your jibba, jabba, quit your jibba, jabba.” The poor bird didn’t much like children since an unfortunate incident involving his tail when he was young. I had no such incident, but my comfort level had been breached.
Lisa meandered behind the girls. Unlike her deliriously excited daughters, her face held the same tight and troubled look from earlier. Normally after this length of time, she would have instructed the girls to let me go, but she leaned against the counter and watched as if having an out-of-body experience.
I needed an out-of-body experience, too. Out of the clutches of these little bodies. I squirmed free and stepped behind a tall plant in a defensive move. The girls grabbed hands and circled like wagons in the old west.
“So,” I said to the twins, “to what do I owe this unexpected visit?”
Lori stopped and looked up at me. Her usual plate-sized eyes were narrowed below her yellow bangs. “Huh?”
“Right.” I laughed. “Three-year-old speak. Why are you guys here?”
“We need new flowers.” She took on a grown-up and very self-important look. “Mommy’s disappeared.”
I tapped my chin. “Hmmm, disappearing flowers. That’s quite a mystery.”
“Mommy planted them. Now they’re gone.” Lacy lifted her tiny hands in the air, and her face screwed up.
I looked at Lisa. “Are we talking about the primroses you bought last week?”
Lisa, eyes sheepish, she held out the pinkie nail she’d picked at earlier and removed the last speck of polish.
I crossed over to her and put my face in her path. “Let me guess. You planted the flowers and forgot to take care of the slugs like I told you?”
She jerked back and crossed her arms. “I didn’t think it was that important.”
“Didn’t I mention that slugs like primroses as much as these girls like cheesy macs?”
“We love cheesy macs,” Lacy said, nodding and sending her delicate curls bouncing.
“That’s our favoritest food in the whole world,” Lori ended with a serious nod of her own.
I looked at the pair that I thought of as Stachys byzantina, the plant that was nicknamed lamb’s ears for the fuzzy soft leaves that felt a lot like the girls’ soft curls. “Slugs like to eat primrose leaves just as much as you like cheesy macs.”
“Ewwww,” Lacy said, and Lori chimed in, adding a silly dance to the mix. Within moments, they were whooping and hollering at top volume.
“Now, girls,” Lisa said in a soft tone and without any real effort to still her twins.
Enough. If Lisa didn’t even expend the energy to try to make the girls behave, something was terribly wrong. Time to get her to willingly spill, or I’d force it out of her.
“Hazel,” I shouted above the clamor, “could you take the girls outside to find half a dozen primroses while I talk to Lisa?”
Hazel laughed and brushed the dir
t from her hands. “C’mon, girls. We’ll get the flowers, and then I’ll make you some hot chocolate.”
“Yay,” they screamed and trailed after Hazel.
Cali shot through Hazel’s feet, as the furry feline often did when someone opened the door first thing in the morning. She rushed past the girls’ outstretched hands and ran under a plant display.
I turned back to Lisa. “Let’s go to the office.”
She gave an absent nod and trudged beside me.
Cali bolted from her hiding space and trotted just in front of my feet, pausing every so often to be sure I followed. This sneaky little one wanted to get into my office. One of her favorite spots to sleep was on my expensive desk chair. After a few punctures of the buttery soft leather when she was in the room with Mr. T, she was now only allowed in the office when I was present and Mr. T was up front. That didn’t stop her from trying to sneak in.
I took my chair, and Cali hopped onto my lap. She exposed her belly and immediately rumbled into a purr.
With a tsk, Lisa cleaned the mound of gardening brochures off the side chair and sat. “Why didn’t you tell me about your date last night?”
“First of all, you were so distracted this morning you wouldn’t have heard me even if I did tell you. And secondly, it wasn’t a date. Just a working dinner.” I grabbed an envelope in hopes of sorting through piles of mail on the desk while we talked.
She shrugged. “Same dif. Especially when Adam told Perry he wanted it to be a date.”
He did want to date me. Score!
Not wanting to burst out in joy when Lisa was so troubled, I stifled a smile and tossed a junk flyer for pest control into the trash. Hmmm, pest control. Maybe I should reconsider and use the service on pest Lisa.
For now I’d settle for outing her part in this supposed admission from Adam. “Guys do not talk to each other like that. Are you sure you didn’t get in on the conversation?”
“Maybe just the tail end.” Her eyes turned impish, and she giggled.
I couldn’t help but smile over how much her face had brightened from when she’d arrived. Leave it to Lisa to giggle when she’d done something underhanded like talk to Adam behind my back. Normally I’d call her on it, but I didn’t want to risk returning her to her crabby state.
She leaned closer. “Did you have a good time, too?”
I mocked offense at her interference with a pout. “I’m not going to tell you. This is just like grade school. You’ll go running back to Adam with whatever I say.”
“Oh, puh-lease. Admit it. You’re interested in him.”
I looked up and thought about it. Was I really interested in Adam? Was this the kind of guy I could build a relationship and future with? He seemed like a good candidate from what I had seen so far, but that’s the way most relationships started. Then the guy wanted to step in and take over. Wrestle away control.
“Earth to Paige,” Lisa said.
“Sorry, I was just thinking. Honestly I’m not sure about Adam. He’s not really my type.”
Lisa snorted. “That’s a good thing. You usually pick the bad boys.”
I chucked two bills onto the “to be paid” pile already threatening a landslide. “I’ll admit it. I do go for the troubled sort. Perhaps I’m only interested in Adam because I’m projecting my troubles onto him. Maybe once this is all resolved, I won’t find him attractive at all. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
She sighed. “Fine, I’ll be patient. As long as you admit that Adam is a keeper like Perry.”
Perfect opportunity to change the subject. “Speaking of Perry, he owes me a call.” I told her about Mrs. Gherkin’s news, the blackmail theory, and how I’d asked him to follow up on the cash.
“I can ask him about it. We’re having lunch.”
“Ooh-la-la. A date with the hubby.”
Lisa’s face returned to her angst-filled scowl, and she sat back in silence.
What’d I do now? Everything was going along fine until we got onto the subject of Perry. The severity of this look was foreign to Lisa, at least since she’d gotten over Ben’s death. Alarm bells clanged in my head.
I sat forward. “Lisa, what’s wrong?”
She said nothing for a few uncomfortable seconds then blurted out, “Have you noticed that Perry’s been kind of unhappy lately?”
I dropped the rest of the mail onto the desk. If Lisa and Perry were having troubles, I needed to give her my full attention. “Unhappy? Not that I noticed. Why?”
“I don’t know.” More silence. “He’s been acting odd for a while. Like he’s bored with his job, or me and the girls.”
I never felt more out of my league than now. I had nothing to base any advice on, and I really didn’t know what to say. “Are you sure you’re not imagining this?”
“I thought so, for a while. Then Perry reconnected with Adam. It seems to have gotten worse. Like Perry wishes he was doing criminal law. Or maybe he wants to be single like Adam.”
I wanted to blurt out that I’d go ahead and marry Adam if that would solve my best friend’s issue, but I knew better than to be flip when she was pouring out her heart. “Have you talked to him about it?”
“Nah, I can’t seem to bring it up. What if I do and he says, ‘yeah, sorry babe. I want my freedom. See you later.’ ” Her pain distorted her voice, sending a fresh wave of worry over me.
She was way off base on this, though. Perry wasn’t that kind of a guy. At least, I hoped he wasn’t. “You know Perry would never do that. You just said he was a keeper, and he is. Talk to him. Find out what’s going on.”
She sighed again, this one long and drawn out like a leaking tire. A commotion in the background drew my attention, but barely fazed her.
“Lori, it’s not a good idea to dump that on the floor,” Hazel shouted.
A crash split the silence, followed by the sound of breaking pottery, jolting Lisa out of her stupor.
She slowly pushed to her feet. “I better go before the girls tear your store apart.”
Unable to come up with a way to relieve her concern, I let her go and sat back. Cali, who’d curled into a tight ball in my lap and purred even through all my mail-sorting maneuvers, shifted. I scratched her head and stared at the door. Lisa’s news was almost as bad as being accused of murder. She could be overreacting and maybe nothing was wrong, but I couldn’t help worrying about her and Perry. And I had no idea how to help her resolve things. The same feelings of helplessness surged through me like they had when Ben died.
Cali meowed and looked up at me. I rubbed my thumb down her nose. “Life is much easier with you than a real family, isn’t it?”
Maybe I didn’t ever want to get married. Maybe life with a cat and a bird was just fine.
Chapter Sixteen
“And now, enjoy the best of Through the Garden Gate with your beloved host, Paige Turner.”
“Hi, this is Perplexed. I wanted to add a caution to your advice about hedge trimmers.”
“Hello, Perplexed, I’m so glad you caught the show when I suggested to our listeners who find themselves surrounded by hedges to invest in a hedge trimmer. They’re inexpensive, do the work in no time at all, and they’re right there in your shed or garage whenever you need them so you don’t have to run out and rent one.”
“I agree with you on your first two points. It’s the last one I want to caution others on, or they might just lose their hedge trimmer like I did.”
“Oh, goodness, this sounds serious.”
“Well, it is. My hedges were perfect until I heard your show and asked my hedge trimmer if he minded living in my garage so he’d be available whenever I needed him. Hector gave me a crazy look and stormed off the job. I haven’t seen him since.”
Lisa, Lacy, and Lori had departed, and since the containers hadn’t arrived yet, I decided to go to the library. With a promise to Hazel to return shortly, I left the shop and schlepped into the now overcast day. Springtime weather in the Willamette Valley was unpredicta
ble. Once we hit the Fourth of July, the sun shone almost every day, and little rain fell until October, when it consistently drizzled until May. Then we had a mixed bag of sun and rain, rarely experiencing thunder and lightning. At least not outside my head.
The musty aromas permeating the old library brought back my past and helped me force a warm approach. Stacey doused it with another cool reception. While she retrieved the newspapers, I looked around her personal space for any clue as to why she might have something against Bud or me. What I found were hints to her personality. A designer purse like Lisa’s peeked out the top drawer of her desk, the latest smartphone sat on the desk, and today a quality leather jacket hung over the white sweater. Common items you might find in a work space. Nothing that would tell me if she killed Bud, or why she didn’t like me.
Unless, of course, she had something against all women who wore little makeup, dressed practically, and often had dirt on their clothes and under their nails. Still, it took a lot of money to support the trendy items I’d found, and a librarian in Serendipity was not likely well paid. I made a mental note to add this piece of news to my suspect list and pulled back my shoulders as the subject of my thoughts approached.
“I could only carry two boxes. You can start on these.” She dropped the boxes on the counter. “When I’m free I’ll get the last one.”
Free? Free? I was the only one in the place. Not a silent person by nature, I literally had to clamp down on my tongue. No way I’d alienate the woman who stood between me and the last box of papers I needed to review. I took my boxes and went back to the same corner as yesterday.
I flipped through older papers and worked my way forward through the month Nancy claimed she spoke to the council. After several stacks, one thing became clear. The name Fulcrum came up often, but not in relationship to Bud. And conspicuously absent was Nancy’s attendance at any meeting. I did confirm that Gus Reinke was the council chairman at that time, and I made a note of the other council members’ names. Still, I plodded on, occasionally glancing at the “About Town” column and shaking my head when I spotted personal snippets that described dinner or lunch guests and the menu served.
Nipped in the Bud Page 14
