by Ward Parker
Missy hadn’t noticed when she was here earlier, but the woman’s yard was teeming with garden gnomes.
“Hi,” Missy said. “My gnome ran away, and I was here to retrieve it.”
It was a crazy thing to say, but the woman was unperturbed, as if Missy was talking about a pet.
“What does it look like?” the woman asked. “Male or female? I ask that because they’re usually male, but you see female ones sometimes.”
“Male. Pointy red hat with a sharp curve, blue coat, wide belt, brown pants, boots with pointy tips. He has its hands on his hips and a grumpy expression,” Missy recited, her memory of the gnome refreshed after having seen it beside the swimming pool. “I saw it back here today, but the police chased me away.”
“I might have seen your gnome, but what you’re describing is pretty much standard-issue gnome. Something’s been going on with gnomes lately. All of mine got moved around somehow last night. Why would your gnome run away?”
“Um, I don’t know exactly. It just has a habit of doing that.”
The woman nodded with understanding.
“Did you remove the gnomes next to the pool?” Missy asked.
“No. There weren’t any by the pool. Alison didn’t own any gnomes. I don’t understand why she didn’t. She could have used some personality around this place.”
“What happened to Alison?” Missy asked hesitantly.
“She passed on. And she was young, too, though not friendly. Heard she fell down the stairs.”
Or was she pushed? Missy wondered.
“I don’t want to be a pain, but do you mind checking in your yard to see if my gnome is there now?”
“Come around to the front, then, and we’ll look around. My name is Freddie.”
“Missy. Pleased to meet you and thank you for your help.”
The first gnome they encountered was next to the mailbox, sheltering beneath a large stone toadstool. It wasn’t her gnome. Freddie then led the way to a large oak tree. At the base of its trunk was a gnome-sized door and fake window. A chubby blacksmith gnome and a rare female gnome stood beside the door.
Nearby, at the edge of an island of ferns, a gnome with a tiny ax posed next to a miniature woodpile. A walkway of paving stones led to Freddie’s front door. Running parallel to this was a walkway of miniature paving stones. Two gnomes in single file appeared to be trudging toward Freddie’s home.
On the small concrete front porch was a gnome freak show. A stone bench held three gnomes of varying heights, each with a vertical pointy hat and white beard. On both sides of the door were gnomes brandishing garden hoes as if they were pikes. Behind those guardian gnomes were fake gnome doors, kind of like pet doors but, hopefully, these gnomes weren’t allowed inside.
Freddie took Missy around the side of the house where gnomes popped up everywhere along the paver walkway, pushing wheelbarrows and sitting on tiny toilets. In the backyard where fewer neighbors could see, things got truly out of control.
Freddie had a smaller, more conservative pool compared to Alison’s next door. But it was as good as useless with all the gnomes ringing the edge. Beneath taxidermy fish mounted on the outside wall of the house were gnomes holding fishing poles, fighting imaginary fish. And Missy hadn’t realized that there were so many bathing-suit-wearing gnomes one could buy. It freaked her out to realize there were enough people willing to buy them to make the products worth making.
Halfway down where the lawn sloped to the shimmering lake was what Freddie called her “gnome village.” Gnome cottages, tiny pathways, faux stone bridges, Tudor-style shops and taverns were laid out in a veritable gnome paradise. The size of its population of gnome figurines would put some small human towns to shame.
“Oh, my,” Missy said.
“Boats passing by love to stop and take photos,” Freddie said.
This woman needed to be involuntarily hospitalized, Missy thought. But she smiled and nodded in appreciation of the world Freddie had created on a third of an acre of land.
“I haven’t seen my gnome anywhere,” Missy said. “Not that we were all that intimate. But I think I would have recognized it.”
“You call him ‘it’ and not ‘he’?”
“Yes. Like I said, I never had the chance to get to know my gnome. And now I’m afraid he’s become dangerous. You said that someone moved your gnomes to different locations overnight?”
“Yes,” Freddie said. “It was quite odd.”
“How do you think it happened?”
“Well, I assumed a bunch of teenagers arrived by boat and played a prank on me.”
“And your neighbor fell down the stairs the same night. Was that a coincidence?”
“You mean, did the teenagers kill her?”
“I’m just postulating,” Missy said. “What about the gnomes?”
“What about the gnomes?”
“Do you think they could move about on their own?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There does seem to be something magical about them,” Freddie said. “Maybe it’s just their cuteness.”
Missy remained silent.
“Well, gnomes are like elves and dwarves,” Freddie said. “They’re fantasy creatures. Of course they’re magical.”
Missy still was quiet, hoping to allow Freddie to let it all out.
“They have those mischievous grins and twinkles in their eyes. They make you want to escape real life and be in their world, a world of the fairy tales we read as children. A land of forests and pretty villages, of princesses and knights and blacksmiths. A land of magic. Right?”
They’re made of plastic, Missy wanted to say, but she only smiled and nodded.
“I do sense something special in them sometimes,” Freddie said. “Even though I bought them on the internet and at craft stores and garden centers. It’s kind of like this cross I wear on my necklace. It’s only sterling silver. It’s just metal. But it represents something so much greater than itself. It has a kind of power that way. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Missy said. “I believe in magic.”
“Good!” Freddie said with excitement. “So you see what I mean? These little poly-resin figurines represent the magic of fairyland and so, in that way, they carry a little spark of it in them. That’s what I mean about them being magical.”
Missy actually took her seriously. Because somehow her sentinel spell had gone wrong and her gnome was now possessed with something evil. And it appeared to be spreading this perverted magick to other garden gnomes. Which, in turn, turned against their human owners.
Freddie’s belief that there was something inherently magical in the gnomes she collected was probably only a human projecting her imagination upon inanimate objects.
But what if it was actually more than that? What if gnomes truly did have a magical essence? That would make it easier for whatever malevolent force her own gnome had to spread to these inanimate objects.
Magic was the art of manifesting the unbelievable. That’s what made it so wonderful and worthy of dedicating her life to it.
But it was also what made this world potentially so dangerous.
If silly little garden gnomes from craft stores could come to life and murder human beings, we were in a lot of trouble.
Somehow, she had to find a way to solve this problem.
6
Hard Sell
Josie drove by the Unger Tract the next day with no particular goal in mind other than to see if anything was going on. Two workmen were nailing a large no-trespassing sign onto wooden posts beside the dirt lot where the shuttle van had parked the night before.
“I wonder if one of them did it,” Tanya said from the passenger seat of Josie’s giant, beloved, white 1977 Lincoln Continental, nicknamed “The Boat.”
Josie hadn’t wanted Tanya to come with her. Tanya was her biggest critic and was, as Josie put it, a little too “rough around the edges.” But Tanya had been a close friend of Mary Beth and had insisted on being part of the ama
teur sleuthing—an endeavor that Josie now realized, in the cold light of day, wasn’t likely to succeed.
On a whim, Josie braked suddenly and pulled into the dirt lot.
“What are you doing?” Tanya asked.
“Testing their defenses.”
The two workmen in their yellow safety vests glanced at the car, but kept drilling screws into the sign.
Josie stepped out of the car and swiveled her head as if studying the setting for the first time. She then leisurely strolled toward the abandoned storage shed.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” a worker called out. “Ma’am? You’re not supposed to be here.”
She stopped and looked at the men as if seeing them for the first time. She waved at them. And then continued walking toward the shed.
“Hey!” The man shouted. Josie ignored him.
He jogged over to her. “Ma’am, didn’t you hear me?”
“Oh, good morning,” Josie said. “No, I didn’t hear you. I’m not wearing my hearing aids.”
“This is private property. No trespassing,” the man said. He was young, dark-haired, handsome. And gave off the air of low IQ. “Didn’t you see the sign we’re installing.”
“Yes, that’s a very lovely sign, and you installed it so nicely. I’m just here to check out the land.”
“But this is private property. It’s a construction site.”
“I don’t see any construction,” Josie said. “I might be interested in buying a home here, so I wanted to check it out.”
“They have a sales office for that.”
“So what happens if I don’t leave here?”
The worker showed his frustration. “We’ll call the sheriff to arrest you.”
“That seems excessive. Do you have security guards here?”
“Um, not at the moment, but we will.”
“With guns?”
“Heck, I don’t know. Probably. Are you going to leave now?”
“Yes, I think I will.”
Josie got back in her car.
“That was quite a hunk of young manhood,” Tanya said.
“Not very bright, though.”
When Josie pulled out of the dirt lot onto the main road, she noticed a lone protester standing in front of a gated community across the street. The man held a hand-lettered sign that said, “Greed kills the earth.” Josie stopped on the shoulder nearby.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to talk to that nutcase,” Tanya said.
“You bet your booty I’m talking to him. We need leads. Don’t you know anything about sleuthing?”
“I read mystery books.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re literate,” Josie said as she stepped out of The Boat. “Excuse me,” she said to the protester. “Are you here all the time?”
“Yeah, basically,” the man said in a sad voice. “It’s futile, though, now that the commission approved the development. But I’ll stay. Maybe I’ll make potential homebuyers feel guilty.”
“Good luck with that,” Josie muttered. “You ever see hunters on that land, or anyone with guns?”
“You didn’t hear about the shooting last night?” he asked.
“The victim was our friend.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry.”
He sounded sincere to Josie. He was probably in his late fifties with a graying, bushy beard and a potbelly. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and a T-shirt that said, “Save the Everglades.” Aside from willingly standing in the sun holding a sign all day, every day, he seemed fairly normal.
“Are you ever here at night?” Josie asked.
“No, I’m not that fanatical.”
A car going by honked its horn, and the man brightened. He waved at the car.
“I was wondering if the developer had goons with guns patrolling the property,” Josie said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. George Loopi is ruthless as far as I can tell. I’ve been fighting his developments for years, but he always wins. He has a lot of politicians in his pocket. Do you think someone working for Loopi killed your friend?”
“It’s a strong possibility,” Josie said.
“Why was your friend on the property at night?”
“Worshipping the moon.”
“Well, I got roughed up once when I was protesting one of his developments. He destroyed some fragile wetlands with endangered species to build a golf course community. Some friends and I marched at the opening of the first model home and I got beat up pretty bad.”
“By his goons?”
“By a seventy-year-old realtor named Susie. Don’t ask.”
“Where’s the sales center for this development?” she asked.
“Go east about a mile and there’s a shopping center at the corner of Avocado Road. It’s in there.”
“What’s your name? I’m Josie.”
“Frank.”
“Can I have your number in case I need to reach you?”
He handed her a business card. It had a logo of a panther and said, “Frank’s Friends of Florida. A non-profit.” At the bottom was his name, Frank Fitzwhizzle, and his phone number.
She wrote her number on an old receipt from her purse and gave it to him. “Nice meeting you, Frank. Call me if you see anything suspicious going on.”
The sales center was in the corner of a new-looking shopping center, in between a supermarket and a sandwich shop. Josie parked nearby and watched the office. No one came in or out.
“Is it even open?” Tanya asked.
“I think so,” Josie said. “They probably get most of their business on weekends, though. The people at this shopping center this morning are probably locals who aren’t looking for a new home.”
“So, Ms. Master Sleuth, what’s your plan of attack?”
“I don’t know. I’m making it up as I go.”
“How is some salesperson going to know who killed Mary Beth?”
“They won’t. We just need to learn more about the company, Loopi Communities. Hm, if we were younger, we could apply for a job with them.”
“I’m only seventy-one,” Tanya said, “and, like everyone tells me, I look much younger. I could easily get hired by this company as an accountant or even as a sales rep. But I have no need or desire to work. When Pete passed, we were set up nicely for retirement. I prefer spending my energies on philanthropic work.”
What a crock, Josie thought. Tanya spent her energies gossiping and flirting with single men like Kevin.
“I have an idea,” Josie said. “Come inside with me and follow my lead. You’re going to be my financial manager.”
“Wait, what?”
Josie got out of The Boat and strode across the asphalt to the storefront, Tanya scurrying to keep up with her. The door of the sales center beeped when Josie opened it. The place was not large. There was a desk with chairs facing it, a seating area with a coffee table piled with brochures, and large architectural renderings of the community and its home models covering the walls.
Josie noted a sign that said pre-construction prices started at just over a million bucks. That dwarfed the prices at Seaweed Manor which, although it was on the beach, was built in the 1960s and showed its age. Why would anyone live in a cookie-cutter community for prices like these?
A young man in a blue suit appeared from out of a back room. His skin had an unnatural tanning-salon hue. He had a short hairstyle laden with gel and an expensive smart watch that he glanced at.
“Good morning! Welcome to the future Fox Landing. My name is Chad,” he said as he sized up Josie and Tanya. The two ladies wore outfits designed to impress other women like themselves, not a young social-climber like this fellow appeared to be. By his expression, Josie and Tanya did not impress him.
“I saw you pull up in your, um, vintage Lincoln. Are you two ladies thinking of buying at Fox Landing for yourselves?”
“I am,” Josie said. “I’m Josie and this is Tanya, my financial manager.”
“A pleasure,” Tanya said with a dazzling smile, u
sing all her charms to beguile Chad.
He wasn’t interested and seemed skeptical that Josie would have a financial manager.
“Good. Please have a seat. Can I get you a beverage?”
Josie and Tanya sat on a leather couch and shook their heads in the negative to the drink offer. Chad sat in a chair opposite with the coffee table in between. He straightened his jacket.
“Fox Landing is the perfect place to spend your golden years,” he said, “but there will be families with little children there, as well. Wealthy little children.”
“Good. So my grandchildren will feel at home there when they visit.”
Josie had three grandchildren in their twenties in Dallas. They rarely visited her. And they were not wealthy.
“Fox Landing will have an eighty-thousand-square-foot clubhouse with a media room, game rooms, performance spaces, and more,” the sales guy said. “Olympic-size swimming pool. Putting greens. Gym. Jogging trails—”
“What about foxes?”
“Huh?”
“Foxes. It’s called Fox Landing. Will any foxes live there? I believe there are some in the area.”
“Of course not. Fox Landing will be meticulously landscaped and safe for all pets.”
“Tell me about the homes,” Josie said. She enjoyed making this pretentious monkey dance.
“Of course. The entry-level model—”
“I want to see all of them.”
“Certainly.” He opened a presentation folder and spread five sheets across the top of the coffee table. “This is the Magnolia. Two bedrooms plus den. Now, this next one—”
“I’ll take them all,” Josie said.
“Take the brochure with you? Of course.”
“No, the homes. I’m buying not just for myself, but as an investment. I’ll have two of each, please.”
Tanya’s sudden intake of breath was loud.
“What? You’re always harping on me to diversify my portfolio,” Josie said to her.
The man’s brown eyes looked confused, then opened wide as he calculated what his commission could be.
“Would you need financing? We have a partnership with a mortgage company.”
