Mulch Ado About Nothing jj-12

by Jill Churchill

  “Arnie…" Jane said hesitantly. "We want to ask you about something."

  “Ask away, not that I'll know the answer. I wasn't as well educated as my wife."

  “It's not an educational question, it's an observation thing. I imagine that, living alone, you keep a pretty good eye on what's going on around the neighborhood. Single people living alone really need to look after themselves. At least I feel that way when my kids are in school or away.”

  Jane hoped this was tactful wording and was glad when Arnie nodded agreement.

  “With all the awful things that go on today, everybody must be wary," he said.

  “Well, we were wondering, since you live so close to Dr. Jackson's house, whether you noticed anything odd the morning she was attacked.”

  There it was, out in the open. Jane held her breath, hoping he wasn't going to take offense at her suggesting he was nosy.

  “The police asked me that the day they were around," Arnie said. "I guess they asked everyone on the block. I couldn't think of anything.. then."

  “But you've remembered something?" Shelley asked, trying not to sound too eager.

  “It was just a car I hadn't seen before. An old one. A Ford, I think. Black or dark blue." "Where did you see it?"

  “Right in front of Dr. Jackson's house. I didn't really make anything of it at the time. She often has company."

  “On the street or the driveway?" Jane asked.

  “Oh, on the street. It might have been somebody visiting the house across from her, of course." He thought for a moment. "No, I guess not. Those folks were off on a trip to Disney World with their kids if I remember right. The kids brought back a pillow for me with a Mickey Mouse face last Sunday. Nice kids. Being raised right. They come over and I tell them stories of my days at the firehouse.”

  This warmed Jane's heart. It was lovely that a neighbor paid attention to old Arnie, and the kids liked him as well.

  “So the car probably belonged to someone calling on Dr. Jackson? Don't you think that you should tell the police now that you've remembered it?" She was hesitant about even mentioning the police after Arnie's near fainting spell when they came to his — or rather, Darlene's — home.

  “Maybe, but it wouldn't be much help. I'm not even sure it was a Ford, and it might have been black or dark blue. That wouldn't be of much use to them. There are probably thousands of cars like that.”

  “Still…" Jane urged.

  “I don't want the police here," Arnie said.

  “No, of course not," Shelley said brightly. "It makes talk around the neighborhood. But the detective who came here with the officer is a friend of Jane's, and her neighbors are used to seeing him around her house. Maybe you could drop by Jane's and talk to him there.”

  Arnie said, "I guess that would be okay. Maybe when we're touring your two yards tomorrow."

  “I'll set it up. It'll only take you a minute to tell them about the car you saw. If it's not valuable information, they won't bother you again," Jane assured him.

  “Okay. Now, if you have the time, I'd like you to come look at something.”

  He took them to the backyard and said, "I might take Miss Winstead's advice about dividing these Japanese irises. She said to do it in the fall. But I'd like to put the cuttings somewhere else in the yard.”

  You won't do it, Jane thought, but went along with allowing the visit to last longer. She glanced around the yard again, and once again noticed the pitiful straggly plants with the little coral droopy pom-pom flowers. "Why don't you plant the extra cuttings over here?" she suggested. "The colors would go well together. And these little plants look like they're struggling for light. You could move them into the sunshine.”

  And the irises would kill off the ugly plants, she reflected.

  Arnie nodded. And leaned down to pluck a few flowers off and handed a couple to both Jane and Shelley. "They don't look like much, but they smell nice. Darlene used to put the foliage in vinegar for salad dressing."

  “That went well, I think," Shelley said when they were on their way home.

  “I hope it's useful to Mel to know about this mystery car. Take me home now. I want to put on my jammies and veg out in front of my new television.”

  Twenty-six

  The last clay of the class was anticlimactic. Though the death of Dr. Eastman had been on the local evening news and there was even a mention of the suspicious circumstances, treated almost as a joke on one of the networks Friday morning, the class assembled at the community center dutifully.

  All except Stefan.

  He'd come to the classroom either the evening before or early in the morning. He left a note on the podium saying since one or more of the class attendees had reported an innocent remark he'd made the day before to the police, causing him much humiliation, he wouldn't be present today.

  So he hadn't been as casual and unconcerned as he acted when he was taken away. Jane couldn't blame him a bit.

  Everyone was subdued and feeling awkward in the presence of the others. Miss Winstead looked downright haggard and was the first to bring the subject out in the open. "What a perfectly horrible way to die," she said.

  When no one else replied, she continued, "I had a long, highly unpleasant relationship with the man, but I wouldn't have wished this on anyone."

  “It was a shame," Arnie contributed.

  Geneva Jackson, who had come this morning now that her sister was comfortably settled back in her own home, murmured a vague agreement with Arnie.

  “We're all under suspicion, you realize," Ursula said bluntly. "The police will pick one of us at random to persecute and perhaps even prosecute.”

  A bleak silence fell over the room and it grew darker by the coincidence of a storm front moving in front of the sun just as she spoke. Nobody bothered to turn on the lights.

  “I think we should all just go home," Charles Jones said. "There's no point in finishing our tour or the class.”

  Shelley spoke up. "I disagree. Jane and I would welcome you to see our yards and give us the benefit of all your experience. We've been looking forward to you coming. And nothing will bring Dr. Eastman back. His death was a tragedy, of course, but none of us are quitters, I hope.”

  Remarkably, they were all so cowed by the situation and Shelley's remarks that they went along with what she said.

  Charles Jones grudgingly agreed. "We'll have to make them short visits and put this all behind us."

  “Not entirely put the experience out of our minds," Ursula said rather sensibly given her normally extreme views. "No matter what else happens, I for one have learned a great deal of useful information from the rest of you. And I agree that the last two gardens deserve to be seen.”

  It was turning into a bleak day, with the sky darkening and death discovered yesterday. Jane would have been perfectly content if they didn't come to see her yard, except for the fact that she'd called Mel late the night before and told him about the conversation she and Shelley had with Arnie and how he was willing to tell what little he'd observed, but only if he could meet Mel privately at Jane's house.

  But secretly she was in agreement more with Charles Jones than with Shelley. A fine twist of fate. She'd rather go home and spend a day that threatened to become rainy and dark in her cozy, safe bedroom mindlessly watching her television than have all these people to her house.

  She still wasn't entirely convinced, in spite of the coincidences, that the attack on Dr. Jackson and the murder of Dr. Eastman had been committed by one of the class. She recognized it was a possibility, but so were a lot of other scenarios that nobody but Mel was aware of.

  But she couldn't betray Shelley's wishes and opt out. "Let's go to my house first and Shelley's after mine. Her yard is nicer than mine," she said as Shelley was jingling her car keys meaningfully.

  The rest of them dragged themselves out of their chairs and followed Shelley and Jane to the parking lot. Everyone but Jane had driven their own cars, in anticipation, probably, of bei
ng free to bolt when they wished to.

  When they all reassembled at Jane's house, she did her best to be cheerful and welcoming. She'd noticed Mel's little red MG parked up the street where he was waiting to tactfully pluck Arnie out of the crowd and have a talk with him. She doubted that Arnie's information would be helpful, but was in too deeply to back out.

  Nobody had much to say about Jane's yard, although they all tried to be polite about her clearly recently imported plants around the patio in tubs. Ursula asked about the nice little rocks that covered Willard's damage to the yard. "It's an odd but appealing curve from one side of the yard to the other, but what are you planning to do next?" she asked with abnormal social grace.

  “I thought I'd line both sides of the path with some low-growing ground cover," Jane improvised. "Can you suggest something suitable?"

  “Let me think about it. I'll give some starts of several of my ground covers you could try out. It's a little late in the season to start them, but you might as well give it a try.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mel signaling to Arnie, who moved unobtrusively and unwillingly toward him.

  Miss Winstead caught Jane's attention and said, "I envy the view of the field behind your house. It's rare to find a big open area like that in a well-developed suburb.”

  This gave Jane the chance to explain how it had happened to be there. "It was the last block of houses in this division that were planned. The developer got in trouble with the financing of the building project, and for some reason nobody knows, a multitude of lawsuits have dragged out for years, preventing anyone else coming and building. The homeowners' society has taken over temporary responsibility for keeping it attractive. Part of our dues are spent on mowing it early in the spring and scattering wildflower seeds on it."

  “What an excellent solution," Miss Winstead said.

  “Over the last five years or so the wildflower plants seem to have finally beat out the weeds. Otherwise it would really be a blight," Jane agreed. She was blathering along on autopilot. "Frankly, I hope the lawsuits drag out for the rest of my life. I'd hate to lose this view. And my cats enjoy the field enormously. They'd be heartbroken if houses went up back there, and so would I.”

  Geneva had joined them and had been listening. She said, "Someone ought to write an article about this. It might be very encouraging to other communities that have open land that's left to be a blight.”

  Miss Winstead had been considering the view with head slightly tilted and eyes half-shut. "Jane, you know what would make this even better? If you replace that fence across the back of your yard with something rustic. A simple split-rail fence would fit in better with the wildness and beauty of the field.”

  As they left Jane's yard for Shelley's, Arnie slipped back into the group. Nobody seemed to notice he'd been missing. Jane was dying to speak to Mel, but didn't dare disappear.

  Shelley had gotten their girls to cooperate with her plans. An enormous pitcher of iced tea and a plate of tiny iced cakes were sitting out, lightly covered with plastic wrap. Colorful plates and glasses were ranged around her patio table.

  “You just did this to show me up," Jane hissed.

  “I did it to misdirect their attention from my store-bought garden," Shelley replied in a whisper.

  No one was fooled. It was obvious to the real gardeners that Jane and Shelley's "gardens" had recently been trucked in. "You should keep these things," Ursula said, "instead of sending them back to the nursery."

  “How did you know?" Jane asked with a laugh.

  “They're too perfect and they're all in brand-new pots. But that's okay. You might learn some things by caring for them.”

  The group made serious inroads on the tea and cakes, until there was a flash of lightning and distant thunder. Threatening weather gave the guests a legitimate reason to flee.

  “I've enjoyed meeting all of you," Shelley said hurriedly as everyone headed for their cars. This didn't seem an appropriate way to end a class, everyone running for cover and probably hoping they'd never meet again.

  “That wasn't too bad," Jane said when they were all gone. "At least we showed that we cared about our yards enough to make an effort to spruce them up."

  “They knew we cheated," Shelley said bluntly. "We should have done what Stefan did — let them see it in the raw and make suggestions.”

  When Jane went back to her house, she was surprised to see Mel still sitting at her kitchen table, eating a ham sandwich. "Sorry, but I've missed lunch for three days in a row. Hope you don't mind that I raided your refrigerator."

  “Not in the least," Jane said, sitting down next to him. "Was Arnold Waring helpful?”

  Mel shook his head. "Not at all. It was all so vague. He wasn't sure of the color, make, or age of the car he claims he saw in front of Dr. Jackson's house."

  “Claims?"

  “My instinct tells me he made it up," Mel said. "He's a lonely old man, wanting to look helpful and cooperative, I think. We'd already questioned everyone else on the block about strange vehicles or unfamiliar people on the street during the early morning of the attack on Dr. Jackson. Nobody could think of anything unusual."

  “Maybe they were all just busy with their own lives and didn't notice," Jane said. It was a feeble excuse, but she felt honor-bound to make it.

  “Jane, you know better," Mel said, grinning. "This kind of old neighborhood has people who keep an eye out for anything odd happening. You and Shelley are good examples.”

  Jane started to object to this characterization, but Mel put out his hands to stop her. "It's not a criticism. It's how neighbors are supposed to be. Looking out for each other."

  “So you really think Arnie made up the suspicious car?"

  “I do. But I'll get uniforms to go to every house again. There's about a one percent chance that someone else might have noticed this mystery car and will remember it when asked a second time."

  “Or let their imaginations run away on them," Jane said.

  “Exactly."

  “Mel, you're looking so tired. Can't you get a little time off this case? Maybe we could go to a movie tonight."

  “And let you thrash more innocent people with that crutch?”

  Twenty-seven

  Shelley hauled jane around while taking the girls to their cooking class and they tried a little shopping while the storm passed, but Jane was so dangerous in a mall that they soon gave up the effort. But not before a sales clerk had patted Jane's arm and asked, "How did you do that to yourself?"

  “I fell off the roof while I was cleaning gutters," Jane said.

  “Why would you be cleaning gutters this time of year?" the clerk sensibly asked.

  “Oh, I do it four times a year, rain or shine." "Well, darling, don't do it again. There are people you can hire for that."

  “What's the next one you're going to try?" Shelley asked as they got back to the van.

  “I don't know yet. I haven't tried skiing in the Alps yet, have I? Shelley, people like my fake answers better than the real one. When I say I fell off a curb, they immediately lose interest and think I was just clumsy."

  “Which you were," Shelley said.

  “What now?"

  “I don't know," Shelley said, stopping a bare half inch from the car in front of them. She leaned on the horn. "She had plenty of room to get out if she'd just moved along with traffic. You know, I have a sense of anticlimax. The class is over. Neither the attack nor the murder is solved. Or near being solved. We've struck out, Jane."

  “Not yet. Anybody but us surviving the class might have done the deeds."

  “And a lot of other complete strangers, too," Shelley said, passing the car that had held her up and glaring fiercely at the hapless driver.

  “I don't think so. The class was full of peculiar people."

  “Everybody's peculiar in their own way. Look at Kipsy."

  “You would bring her up."

  “And you're peculiar yourself," Shelley went on.
"Making up those loony stories about how you hurt your foot."

  “But I'm just entertaining myself and others," Jane claimed. "It's a perfectly innocent thing to do. Makes everybody happy."

  “Want to drop in on the cooking class?"

  “Absolutely not. We'll learn soon enough what we're going to be subjected to tonight. I liked the omelettes, though. If Katie would just cook them once a week, I'd be happy to let her. I should probably be getting home. Mike's always stretching out the buttonholes on his knit summer shirts,and I promised I'd get to tightening them up for him this week. That's something I can do with no effort."

  “I'm supposed to be calling everyone to set up the fall car pools this week, too," Shelley said. "Why do I always get stuck with that job?"

  “Because you do it superbly well. And it helps that everybody's afraid to argue with you.”

  They parted in Shelley's driveway and Jane got upstairs to her sewing room quite efficiently and brought down Mike's shirt collection, and threads to match all the buttonholes. She settled in the living room and watched an old, and not top-rate, Katharine Hepburn movie while she sewed. But her mind was still on the events of the week. Why would anyone attack Julie Jackson and then murder her substitute teacher for the gardening class? Was it simply a hideous coincidence? She couldn't accept that it was. And Shelley was right that everyone in the class was rather off the norm.

  Stiff, ultratidy Charles Jones certainly wasn't normal. And he was cranky besides. Who knew what grudges he might have held for one or both of the teachers?

  Neither was Martha Winstead normal. She was one of the toughest old ladies Jane had ever met. Normally, tough old ladies appealed enormously to Jane because she intended to be one someday, but for some reason Miss Winstead made her uneasy and she couldn't quite figure out why.

  Ursula Appledorn was the weirdest of all. Kind but bossy. Smart but nutsy with conspiracy theories.

  Arnold Waring was a nice old gentleman with a terrible obsession for keeping his dead wife's memory alive.