Murder Crops Up

by Lora Roberts

  “It’s next Wednesday.” Bridget took a cookie for herself. “I’ll just have one, and really savor it,” she told Melanie, who had glanced pointedly at Bridget’s comfortably rounded figure.

  “On your hips be it.” Melanie sipped her tea, but couldn’t resist glancing at the cookie plate. “Oh, well, if everyone else is going to eat them—” She reached out and broke off a piece. “Next Wednesday? That appears to be free.” She sounded puzzled, as if unable to believe she had a free day.

  “And you’re available, right, Liz?”

  “If I’m not arrested.” It slipped out before I remembered that Melanie had no sense of humor.

  “Arrested? What have you done now?” Surreptitiously she broke off another piece of cookie.

  Bridget shushed me with a glance. “Do you know the Danceys? The family with the big construction business?”

  “The boys were at Paly when I was,” Melanie said guardedly, using the local name for Palo Alto High School. “I don’t really know them that well. They’ve done some work for us.’’

  “Who exactly runs that construction company?”

  “Jack Dancey, the old man, stepped down a couple of years ago,” Melanie said thoughtfully. “I had Dwight over to bid on the bathroom remodel we did, and he told me that he and Tom were running the company, that his dad had pretty much retired. And then he fobbed the job off on his foreman, who didn’t even speak English.” Melanie’s lips tightened. “I soon let him know that wasn’t acceptable.”

  “Are those the only ones, Tom and Dwight? I thought there was a girl.”

  Melanie pursed her lips. “Well, Jack remarried when the boys were in high school. His new wife had a younger daughter, I think.”

  “That’s Rita, the community garden coordinator.”

  Melanie searched her memory. “That’s right. She must have been ten at least when her mom married. She uses the name Dancey, though I don’t think Jack adopted her. Now I remember meeting her at one of the city functions. Tom came with her, and everyone was whispering that Dancey’s had a big housing project up for approval and he was hoping to expedite the process. And I think there was a little juicy gossip about Tom and Rita having a fling, even though they were stepbrother and -sister.”

  “Is that so?” Bridget was listening intently. I didn’t see what this had to do with the garden. But maybe whoever had killed Rita had come from a different area of her life. “And did Tom Dancey get preferential treatment for his project?”

  “Not likely.” Melanie gave in and took the rest of the cookie. “You know how the city bends over backwards to avoid looking like they play favorites. And expedite isn’t in the game plan in this town. I don’t think that housing has been built yet. Still hung up in the permit process.”

  “So Rita might have been using her position to give her stepbrother a competitive edge in finding out about city projects.” Bridget looked at me.

  “Yeah.” It sounded like something Rita would do. “And she did say something about her stepfather being in construction, when she was arguing with Lois about the fence.”

  Melanie pouted. “So what is going on here? Why do we care about the Danceys? What has this got to do with Claudia’s birthday?”

  “Rita was killed today at the garden.”

  Melanie gaped.

  “We don’t know that she was killed, for sure,” I hastened to add to Bridget’s stark announcement. “But she’s dead, all right.”

  “That’s terrible.” Melanie leaned forward, her nose for news twitching. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know,” I said. “She was found dead in a garden plot. Her neck was broken. She might have tripped on a rake and fallen into the trench the gardener had been digging.”

  “Goodness.” Melanie took a moment to absorb it. “The police are staying busy these days.”

  The front door burst open and Emery Montrose charged in, towing the youngest boy, Mick. “Gotta find a hammer,” he gasped, collapsing at the table. Mick, released, grabbed a cookie and went to see what the girls were doing. Emery wiped his arm across his face.

  “Is it an emergency?” Bridget was on her feet.

  “No. But there’s only one hammer and it’s always in demand, so I said I’d get another one. And Mick was bored anyway. He doesn’t want to do the work day anymore.”

  “What about Corky and Sam?”

  “They’re fine.” Emery accepted the glass of sparkling water she poured for him. “It’s far more effort to jog with a three-year-old than to jog alone. Mick’s gotten a lot heavier, hasn’t he?”

  “Anything you carry when you run will get heavy.” Bridget spoke from experience. She jogs, too, when she can get free of her children. Her focus is on time, not distance—she runs for ten minutes, turns around, runs back. I’ve done it with her—it’s not too taxing to go at her speed. But it wouldn’t be fun carrying a squirmy three-year-old at the same time.

  “Guess I’d better take the hammer and get back.” Emery drained his glass, seized two cookies, and stood up. “Nice sitting with you ladies, if only for a moment.” He looked at Bridget. “I’m leaving Mick here, okay?”

  “Fine.” Bridget looked into the living room. Mick and Susanna had commandeered the plastic blocks. Moira was busy sticking bristle blocks into Susanna’s doll’s long blond hair.

  Emery vanished out the back door, toward the garage and his workshop. Melanie pushed back her chair.

  “If we’re through planning Claudia’s birthday party—”

  “We haven’t even started.” Bridget barred the kitchen door. “And, Melanie, this stuff about Rita is confidential. No gossiping.”

  “I don’t gossip.” Melanie drew herself up. “I was merely planning to mention it to a few people who might know more about the Danceys than I do.” She put her calendar back in her bag. “And what’s left to plan? Claudia’s party, Wednesday night.”

  “We’ll have it here.” Bridget scrawled something on her own calendar, a huge one that hung on the back of the swinging kitchen door. “I’ll ask Claudia to dinner. No, I’ll ask her to babysit while Emery and I go out to dinner. Then she won’t suspect anything.”

  “Do you think a surprise party is wise? Some people really hate to be surprised.” Melanie offered this bit of wisdom just before breaking off another piece of cookie.

  “She’ll love it.” Bridget put down the pencil. “I’ll make lasagna and garlic bread.”

  “I’ll order a cake.” Melanie whipped out her planner again. “Gotta run, Bridget. Nice seeing you, Liz.”

  “I’ll do the salad.” I wanted to do something for Claudia, too. I hated it when everyone acted as if I were too poor to contribute.

  “Great,” Bridget said briskly. “Bring a lot. I’m going to let some of the other poets know. They can bring wine.”

  The planning was over. Melanie spent a couple of minutes picking the bristle blocks out of the doll’s hair while Moira used her own battered doll to destroy the fort Mick and Susanna had built.

  “Liz,” Bridget said, after Melanie had left, catching me at the door. “Come over tonight for dinner. We’re not doing anything.”

  “I’ve got to be back at Drake’s by eight.”

  “We’ll be done by then. Come at six.”

  I knew Bridget was indulging in an excess of mothering, but it had its desired effect. I felt comforted, not alone anymore, even though there was no one but Barker waiting for me when I got back to my house.

  Chapter 7

  Barker sniffed around the yard, refreshing his territorial markings everywhere. My yard is pretty good-sized by Palo Alto standards. The two houses I’d inherited, much to Carlotta’s disgust, had been on an extra-long lot. Drake’s house had a small front yard that faced the street and a gravel area for parking directly behind his back door. The rest was mine.

  It felt funny to be missing Drake. At the time he’d bought the house from me, he’d been no more than the police detective who’d had charge of investigating a
murder I’d been suspected of committing.

  Now I kept thinking about him while I cleaned my gardening tools and put them away in the garage. I wanted him to call that evening, wanted to know about his father’s illness, how he and his mother were holding up.

  But I dreaded his call, too. He had his laptop with him, and I knew he got e-mail from Bruno Morales. He’d probably ask me about Rita’s death. Being out of the investigative loop would make him crazy. And he’d give me a lot of grief for getting mixed up in it. As if there were any way I could have avoided it.

  My little cottage may be rickety, but at least I own it free and clear. I fix it up as I have time and money, which is to say, I don’t fix it much. The foundation has settled around the front porch, leaving the steps gently canted to one side. I hoped the porch wouldn’t fall off before I got enough money ahead to take care of the problem.

  I weeded through the flower bed that edged the picket fence separating my front lawn from Drake’s parking area. The roses planted there were attention hogs, always wanting their diseased leaves stripped off and yummy amendments fed to them. I was letting hips form for the winter, but there were still a few buds and blossoms. I raked up the yellow leaves that had fallen to the ground, and attacked some renegade violets. Whoever said violets were shy, shrinking flowers was wrong. They’re aggressive invaders, capable of beating back ivy in a single season. I thought they were pretty when they popped up along the edge of my flower bed, but their relentless advance was changing my mind.

  I was still on my knees in front of the roses when Barker growled. Peering through the foliage toward the street, I saw Lois heading down the driveway again, like some horrid déjà vu. She had nearly reached the fence when Barker went into his ravening-dog routine.

  “Nice doggie,” she quavered. She hadn’t yet seen me. I thought of crouching behind the fence until she went away.

  Barker ran along the gate, growling maniacally. I hoped he remembered that he wasn’t allowed to leap over it. When I’d put it up, while he was a puppy, I’d had no clue that he would one day be so large, with such long legs.

  Lois wouldn’t have been enough to tempt him to jump, if she hadn’t gotten frightened and begun backing stealthily away, in a manner very enticing to a young and enthusiastic dog.

  Reluctantly I got to my feet. “Back,” I said in my sternest voice. “To the porch, Barker.”

  He complied, though glancing at me a couple of times to make sure I really meant it. When he sat on the porch, I turned to Lois.

  “Will he bite?” She was frozen to the driveway, her gaze fixed on Barker as if he were the Antichrist.

  “Maybe. He is protective of his space.” I doubted that he would bite; he’s more interested in playing. But I wasn’t about to reveal his pussycat nature to someone who might not have my best interests at heart. “Why are you here, Lois?”

  She came a step nearer. “As long as questions have been raised, I have a duty to investigate.”

  “Questions?”

  “About you selling the things you grow in the community garden. That’s absolutely forbidden.” Since Barker stayed on the porch, she came right up to the gate. “I want to check out your claim that you only sell what you grow here.” She looked around, taking in the raised beds that marched along the back of the yard. “You have a fair amount of space, I’ll say that. I didn’t notice yesterday.” She sounded disappointed.

  “Check me out, by all means.” I opened the gate, and Barker leapt to his feet.

  Lois hesitated. “Can’t you put the dog inside?”

  “No.” I was angry all over again. And in the face of her rudeness, there didn’t seem to be much reason for polite pretense. “Just don’t yell at me and he won’t attack you.”

  I shut the gate behind Lois. Once she was in, she seemed reluctant to start her inspection. “Oh, what lovely roses. Do you sell flowers, too?”

  “No. I like to have flowers to give to my friends.” I had been thinking while I weeded that the buds on Margaret Merrill and Oklahoma would make a nice centerpiece for Claudia’s birthday party. She, too, was fond of roses.

  “The veggies are over here,” I said, and led the way to the raised beds.

  Barker followed us, his nose extremely interested in Lois’s pant legs. She winced away, but he couldn’t be discouraged. “You must have cats,” I said, finally snapping my fingers to make him leave her alone. “He loves cats.”

  Lois shivered. “I can imagine.”

  We stopped beside the beds of salad mix and root vegetables. A few cherry tomato plants still produced in one bed, next to the brilliant ruby ribs of kale.

  Lois inspected, her knife-blade nose twitching. “What’s this?” She was looking at one bed full of stubby, chopped-off plants.

  “That’s where I harvested salad mix for the farmers’ market last week. It takes a couple of weeks to come back, so I have several beds in rotation.” I showed her the setup. “I cut this one the week before, and this one a month ago. You see it’s ready to cut again.”

  “That’s not a very big crop.” She looked at the bed, full of bronze and green foliage, with feathery, pastel frisée and dark red radicchio providing highlights, and sniffed disdainfully.

  “Right.” I wanted her out of my yard. From her point of view, the raised beds I had built with lumber scavenged from construction sites were slipshod and mismatched. My house was shabby, not comfortably worn. My cold frames were patched together, not an ingenious use of old storm windows.

  “Carlotta said you were probably growing something illegal here as well.” Lois peered into the backyard as if I might have a nice raised bed full of marijuana plants. “She said, how can you live in a place like Palo Alto if this is all the money you earn?”

  I took her arm, not gently, and marched her toward the gate. “You and Carlotta can jump in the lake. You’ve seen what you came for. Now get out.”

  She pulled her arm free and faced me. “I’m not done yet,” she protested. “What’s got you so mad, anyway?”

  “Lois, you come here, you insult me, you imply I’m a criminal—”

  “Aren’t you?” Her face showed genuine puzzlement. “Carlotta said—”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what Carlotta said.” Barker came and stood beside me, his hackles raised. Lois glanced at him, uncomfortable. “She knows nothing about me. Her tiny brain has only one thought in it—that I should have done what she wanted. Maybe she never learned that people don’t have to do what she wants. Of course, with you licking her lying boots, it seems she doesn’t have to learn.”

  Lois gasped. I felt ashamed of myself briefly, as if my mother’s astral body stood at my elbow and pinched my arm with disapproval.

  “I wanted to say,” Lois began after a moment, “that I didn’t believe what Carlotta said about you shooting your ex-husband.”

  “Well, believe it.”

  “And you went to jail and everything?” Lois was avid for details. “I can’t believe it. You seem so quiet.”

  “I’ll try to be noisier.” I stepped forward to usher her through the gate. She didn’t move.

  “Nevertheless, Carlotta shouldn’t say you killed Rita to keep her from telling that you sell what you grow in the community garden. I came to see for myself, and I see she’s wrong.” She spoke with a huffy dignity.

  “Oh.” Some of my anger drained away. “Well, thanks, I guess.”

  “You’re welcome.” Lois inclined her head graciously. “It didn’t make any sense for her to say that. You weren’t the one who thought Rita—” She stopped.

  “Thought Rita what?”

  Lois veered away from that topic. “I have been—very upset,” she announced, and I could see by the watery shine of her faded eyes that she was close to tears. “My sainted Sidney! It was more than I could take. And then Carlotta said—” She took a hankie out of the large, tan handbag that hung from her bony arm, and burst into sobs.

  I began to think I’d have her on my hands
for the rest of the afternoon. “Maybe,” I said in desperation, “you should come in and have a glass of water or something. Did you eat any lunch?”

  She let me guide her up onto the porch and into the living room. “I don’t remember,” she sniffed finally. “It’s all been just horrible. Horrible.” She wiped her eyes and put away the handkerchief, resting her skinny hand on my arm. “If I said something that offended you, I’m sorry. I’m just not myself right now.”

  I thought she’d seemed very much like herself. It was this nicer Lois I didn’t recognize. “I’ll get you a drink.”

  She followed me into the kitchen, gazing around in frank curiosity. There’s not much to see—old linoleum on the floor, old white-painted wood cabinets around the walls. “That’s Vivien’s kitchen table, isn’t it?” She pointed at the dinette set with its red Formica top. I polished it every so often, and the chrome legs gleamed. I’d even been able to repair the rips in the vinyl chair seats. “You’ve kept it very nice.”

  “I think of Vivien every day.” This was true. I just hadn’t meant to let it slip out to an unsympathetic person like Lois. She nodded her head in agreement, though.

  “She was a lovely person. We were in the same bridge club for a couple of years. I always thought Carlotta was off-base to pressure her to sell her home. And she was well within her rights to leave it to you, I suppose.” Big of her to concede that. “Certainly it’s better to have people living in houses than parking around in their cars.” The disapproval was back in her voice. She accepted the glass of water I gave her and sipped it slowly, checking out the curtains I’d made from a cheerful red and yellow thrift-store tablecloth.

  “So, about Rita—” I began.

  “You have a lot of papers in there.” Carlotta looked through the kitchen door. Manuscripts in various stages of completion were piled around my elderly computer. “Are you a typist or something?”