“Wasn’t it a spade?”
“Yeah, maybe. What’s the difference?”
“A spade is not really curved like a shovel. And it’s shorter.”
“Okay. But my problem is that he was a big guy and shouldn’t have had any problem defending himself. Since the cause of death was clear we didn’t bother doing a coroner’s report. The coroner is all the way down the hill in San Bernardino, and well…he’s backlogged anyway down there, as you can imagine. So that’s all we know.”
He sipped on his beer. “My gut tells me it was your French teacher, Tom. But she’s gonna get away with it. It’s the perfect murder. She left no evidence. She killed him in a place where her fingerprints are on everything already – and about twenty other students’ fingerprints too. And yours, don’t forget,” he laughed.
“What about the fire at Kennedy High School in the garden there?”
“My guess is that was her too. The fire department says it was arson, but she’ll get away with that one also, Tom. Of course it could’ve been pranksters. But with pranksters or troublemakers we usually see multiple crimes. This isn’t some group of crazy kids – they would’ve done other stuff too. Someone targeted that garden.”
Katie’s dad then approached with cigars and Dave left to go with him. That was all I would get out of him.
THE next morning I was a bit fuzzy headed, and we were sitting on the porch with our coffee and the paper when Pauline walked by. We waved her over, and she came up through the yard with a smile.
“So, Sherlock, have you made any progress?”
I offered her a cup of coffee, which she accepted, and we sat around the table on our porch.
I told her what I’d learned from Fawn and Dave Roberts. After fuming about Dave Roberts and his incompetent police department, she said, “I know this woman, the owner of the flower shop. This is where I get my flowers. This is good.”
She sipped her coffee. “You come with me to the shop? I will need your ears.”
“Sure.”
“On the way I tell you what I learn. I have my ear to the ground as well.”
Katie was meeting her mom for lunch and wished us good luck, and I reluctantly put on my shoes to go meet this prickly parent who may have been a murderer.
As we strolled through town I realized that it was shaping up to be a beautiful spring morning – the sun was out and the smell of blossoms was everywhere and there were birds in the trees that I hadn’t seen since last year. The world seemed to be singing as it awoke from months of slumber.
“So,” she said, “I have to tell you. I have a friend who work for a landscaping company, and I ask a few questions and guess what I learn?”
“What?”
“Jim Screbble was a complete phony. He paid a landscaping company to do his garden. Against the rules of the competition.”
“How much did they do?”
“Here is the thing: the kids do some of the work, of course, but he will have the company come in and touch it up and beautiful the campus. Completely illegal for the competition. The student is supposed to do everything, under direction of the teacher. That is why you see me out in the garden with the kids every day! Tell me, do you ever see a professional gardener in there with us? It is about teaching! It is about the kids learning how to garden for themself!”
“So what’s our plan when we get to the flower shop?”
“Okay, listen to me: She is a very suspicious, attentive woman, and I want to ask her some question. But I want you to listen, because my English – is not so good, and I may miss some subtlety of her words, how do you say, between the lines. But she will be extremely on guard if we are together and if we seem to eager to interrogate her. So maybe you go in first and look around, then I come in, and I come in and talk to her about flowers for some time…you see? And then I change my direction slowly, and begin to ask her about Jim Screbble. Because then, with you to listen, we may find out at least who could have the reason to kill him. If it is her, I will not be surprise. She could be a killer, I will tell you. There is a crazy look in her eye.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay, but should I get some flowers? What should I tell her?”
“Look around for awhile, she will not mind. Eventually, maybe ask her to make you an arrangement based on her expertise. She does excellent arrangement. Say it is for your wife, who is pregnant.”
I agreed to the plan. We walked past house after house of yards full of blooming roses, lavender, California poppies, even blackberry bushes sprawling along fences with little barely formed berries that would be ready to pick later in the summer. We walked past City Hall and through City Park and stopped briefly by the creek, which was full and gurgling. Everyone was out on the grass – families with kids and dogs, old guys sitting on the benches with the newspaper, couples strolling with their coffee, college kids lying in the sun, one kid playing a guitar.
We got to the flower shop and I went in early as instructed. It was a large, humid, fragrant place that was overflowing with greenery and flora of all varieties. Classical music was playing through speakers somewhere, and the sound was wafting through the space, as if serving as a kind of fertilizer for the plants. At the front desk, which was just a large workspace, there was a middle-aged woman with black curly hair. This must be Debbie MacNiven. She was busy working on some project involving mountains of flower petals. She looked up at me intently, almost with an air of accusation.
“Can I help you find something?”
“Just looking around, thanks.”
“Let me know if you need help,” she said, and I didn’t believe that she meant it, so I continued to “browse,” and it looked like I wouldn’t need the whole “getting flowers for my pregnant wife” cover story. I walked around, smelled some flowers, tried to look like I was shopping, and wondered where Pauline was, and eventually looked out the window to see her arguing with a man and woman across the street. What was with this woman? Could she walk down the street without getting into an argument? Mrs. MacNiven kept looking up at me as she worked, and I picked up some flowers to buy as Pauline finally made her way across the street and entered the shop. She came to the front and greeted Debbie and they started talking. Pauline asked her what she was working on.
“Oh, they’re opening a Polynesian bar next door and the owner wants me to make a bunch of leis for all the employees. It’s gonna be called the Coconut Room apparently. A guy named Aristotle just came in here about a week ago. He said he was opening a tiki bar and it was going to have a Hawaiian theme. He said, ‘Can you make those Hawaiian leis?’ And I said, ‘I’ll figure it out.’ He wants twenty of them.”
“Very interesting,” Pauline replied. “Do you have time to make me an arrangement? Just something for my class?”
“Sure, Pauline. I’d be happy to – let me just clear some of this stuff away.”
“So did you hear what happen to my garden?”
Debbie looked at her. I studied her face. “I sure did. The whole town’s been talking about it, Pauline. Some of the stuff they’re saying isn’t very nice.”
“Yes, a teacher from Kennedy was apparently trespassing in my garden and was dispatched with a spade. Very strange.”
“Yeah, he taught my daughter over there. He was her bio teacher.” She paused. “Let me tell you, not very strange if you knew the guy. I’m sure you know, don’t you? He was your rival for that Green Campus competition. But you’re the last person who would’ve done it, I don’t care what anyone says.”
“Who else would do this thing?” Pauline asked. “There must be somebody.”
Debbie thought. “Well, the angriest I’ve ever seen anyone is during parent-teacher night. There’s a kid named Conner Gonzalez, he’s friends with my daughter. He failed Screbbles’s class, and I know this kid – he is not a bad student. He apparently said something to Screbbles about how he wasn’t preparing them for the AP exam, and Screbbles flipped out, and kicked him out of class, and told him ‘I’ll f
ail you right now,’ and they had a big screaming match. My daughter told me all about it. So of course, Screbbles fails him, and later at the parent-teacher night his dad Steve got so mad at Screbbles. I don’t know how they resolved it, but it was bad. Steve told me, ‘I’ll bury him. I’ll just effing bury that S.O.B.’”
“Who is this man, Steve? Is he crazy, or what?”
“He’s a nice guy, Pauline. I’ve never seen him like that. He owns a lumber and firewood company over on the main highway – Gonzalez Wood Supplies, I think. I mean, he’s a big man, and if anyone could do it, it’s him. Of course, if I wasn’t so small I’d probably be a suspect too – everyone at that school knows how much I hated Jim Screbbles.”
“What was your reason?”
“Well, you haven’t met Riley, have you? My daughter? Well, she is very serious about her grades and about the AP tests. And I was looking at his assignments, and they were like fifth grade anatomy assignments, okay? And then Riley was telling me how he would talk about himself all day long and tell stories about how he used to be a rancher down in Texas, and he had fifty head of cattle and all this and that. And I’m thinking, this is B.S., so I went in there and talked to him, and he had a big attitude with me. He acted like he owned the damn school. He started talking about the stupid Green Campus Competition, how he put this little school on the map, and how this school would be nowhere without him. And then he started to take off points on Riley’s homework for no reason. A couple points here, a couple points there. Right after that I went in and told him he needs to do his job and prepare those kids for that exam. He pointed his finger at me, right in my face like this, and said ‘Don’t tell me how to do my job, lady. I had fifty head of cattle, I’m from Texas.’ Ooooh, I was furious. You don’t talk to me that way. I had the most successful flower shop in Beverly Hills, I’ve dealt with some big power players, okay? I had to do the Oscars after-party, okay? No one talks to me like that. I delivered flowers to Laura Dern, I delivered flowers to Pauley Shore, I delivered flowers to Jason Alexander. I don’t even need to deal with small-town cowboys like him. I’m not impressed with his little garden or his competition, and he starts acting like he’s a big hot shot, oh no, no, no.”
While she unleashed her diatribe she made a lovely bouquet for Pauline. Pauline thanked her and paid, and the conversation kind of dried up and she left the shop, so I went up to pay for the half dozen white roses I’d been carrying around. When I left the shop and rounded the corner Pauline was waiting on a bench for me. She got up to walk with me.
“So – interesting, eh? I am not the only one who hated this man.”
I repeated what I’d heard and she was grateful I’d been there.
“So what now?”
“You know, I might have a plan, Pauline. I actually wanted to go order a delivery. You know I like to barbecue, right? Well, I’ve been meaning to get some really good wood for the grill. And some firewood for my fire pit, so I can sit outside at night and make a fire and look at the stars.”
“So you long for the lost days of the great American cowboy,” she laughed. “You are like every American man.”
“You’re right, Pauline. I’m trying to reclaim the manhood that we’ve lost in the modern age. Also, I just like building a good fire. But this is the perfect excuse to go visit Gonzalez Wood Supplies and ask a few questions.”
THIS whole time we continued to work in the garden, even though progress was slowed by students’ unpredictable schedules and levels of interest. We built most of the planting boxes, and kept planting and preparing the soil, in addition to constant weeding and fixing the drip lines. It was slow and laborious, but bit by bit I began to learn the pleasures of gardening. You are building something that will hopefully outlast you. You are creating a relationship with the soil, a marriage of seed, water, sun, and earth. With a little care, a garden can provide food for you and for the other animals who share your neighborhood with you, even some you rarely see. There are myriads of bugs, lizards, birds, insects, bats, jackrabbits, and even gophers that have a home in your garden, and they rely on your careful stewardship of the land. They are not visitors, guests, or invaders – Madame Gallard taught me that. They belong there, and they will thrive in a well-made garden. Working with Pauline was an education in not only how to garden, but why to garden. And working with the kids in the garden was a reminder that the kids are going to be okay, despite the anxiety we seem to pass around in the education community like a contagious virus. Education is always in crisis, it seems, and yet when you come out to the garden to work with the kids you realize some of them know more than you do about gardening. Some of them have been gardening with their families for years. Or they have never gardened, and it becomes an obsession that takes them outside and away from the video games, and away from the confines of the classroom. And you see that these kids like working in the dirt, learning a new skill, and working patiently towards a long-term goal – just like kids always have. Because the kids aren’t different. They may have new technology, but they’re still just kids who need to be steered in the right direction.
My student Gabe, who had had trouble at home, was now a full-time member of the Gardening Club and was dating Daisy, whom he’d met in the garden. One day after school he asked Pauline if there was a place that might be good for cactuses, and she hesitated.
“Cactus need full sun, you know. And good drainage. Soil must dry out completely. Let me see…” She walked over to a dry patch of the garden, in the corner where the soil was kind of rocky and sandy by the sage plants.
“If there is any place for cactus, this would be it,” she said in a matter of fact tone. “I do not know how it will do in this elevation, but…you know, actually, I have seen some cactuses at the nursery. It might work.”
“Can I plant some?”
She smiled. “Of course. It is your garden. Do you want me to order it or…”
“I want to go pick it out. I think I saw one that I want to plant here.”
“If it is native, it is better – remember that.”
A few days later he came to the garden with a pot that had a large prickly pear cactus in it.
“My uncle said I could have a cutting. He said you can just plant them and they’ll grow.”
“Ah, your uncle is correct,” Madame Gallard exclaimed. “Now this will grow anywhere. We must make sure it does not get too much water or it will become a monster.”
She helped him plant it in a good place with full sun, where it would be happy. He stood there, looking at it and taking pictures, and then he and his friends were talking about other cactuses they could plant. It shouldn’t have worked in the mountains, but Southern California is a desert, and prickly pears do make it up to these higher elevations.
Another time that day a couple of girls approached Pauline with a big jar of seeds and asked “How do we plant the wildflowers?”
“Shake them all over! A wide spread! But make sure they have full sun. They will spread like fire. Just watch. They will come up in a matter of days.”
Then we all had a big talk about sprinklers. There were several areas that needed them, and Pauline told us that the school had a lot of old and still functioning sprinklers and that Pedro would be installing them, but he would need the kids’ help. In this way the garden came together democratically, for very little money, with kids leading the way under Pauline’s guidance, never telling a student “no.” When students wanted to do something that wouldn’t work, she would tell them why the plant wouldn’t grow, or why that part of the garden wouldn’t support a certain plant, or that a certain plant was bad for surrounding plants or had toxic leaves. Her knowledge seemed endless, and it reminded me constantly that I was a total amateur at this.
THE groundskeeper Pedro was in and out of the garden so much that I realized I hadn’t talked to him in awhile. I remembered having a few conversations with him shortly after being hired, but he kind of lived in the background and did his work without making
much fuss. He’d been at the school for around thirty years and from what he’d told me, he’d grown up in San Bernardino and had served in the Navy for a little while and owned a landscaping company for a while before ending up in the mountains working at our school. I didn’t know him too well because he kind of had his head in the clouds all the time. You could see him gazing at the sky and talking to himself, or listening to music on his headphones. He would nod at you as you passed by, but it was hard to get to know the old man for some reason. I was on a professional quest to get to know everyone at the school, and sometimes it’s hard to do that at a school because teachers are often in their own little worlds, both physically and mentally. Teachers love to say “Let’s get together and workshop and brainstorm,” but when we do it’s usually unhelpful and I end up staring at my phone. Also, teachers tend to digress when they’re telling stories.
But that day I saw Pedro sweeping up trash during lunch and something told me to strike up a conversation.
“So, Pedro,” I said, ambling up to him with my coffee in one hand, “What’s your take on this murder? Who do you think did it?”
“Can’t say, can’t say. I told the cops, I didn’t really see or hear much. Like I said, there was a kind of commotion over in the garden, like it was a person or an animal or something, and I looked over there and stopped what I was doing, and then I could definitely tell it was somebody talking. I figured it was Madame Gallard, just here with one of the students or something. Because sometimes she stays really late tending to the garden, you know. I wandered over there so I could tease her about being here so late, like I usually do. But when I went inside it was empty. The cops told me that if I’d looked closer I probably would’ve seen the guy dead on the ground back there behind the plants. I’m glad I didn’t,” he laughed.
“So he was probably killed while you were here?”
Murder in the French Teacher's Garden Page 6
