"I know. I'm sorry. People can be terrible, can't they?"
"That's why I mostly prefer plants." He looked at Abe affectionately. "I was really disappointed when I thought you were straight. And not just because it meant I'd misread you."
"Oh?" said Abe, his heart fluttering. He gave Gregory a shy little smile. "Maybe you'd better tell me more about that over supper."
"Which you'll cook?"
"Which I'll cook."
Gregory sighed. It sounded very much like a sigh of contentment. "I'd like that. Very much."
"Me too."
They stopped chatting then and headed over to Winnie's place.
It was a large stone house, very imposing-looking. It had probably once been the most expensive house in the neighborhood, and now it was the oldest, if not the biggest, and still pretty expensive.
"I bet it costs the earth to heat in the winter," observed Gregory.
"Oh, I'm certain it does."
They rounded the stone path to the backdoor...and found Rick standing there, looking uneasy. He was raising his hand as if trying to decide whether to knock or not.
"Rick?" called Abe. "What's going on?"
Rick Radford turned to look at them, a strange expression flitting across his face. "She was going to meet me. We were going to the farmer's market together," he said at last, with a kind of embarrassed defensiveness. "She's not just a game to me, you know. I really love her. Like, we're talkin' monogamy levels here."
It was quite the pronouncement, and for a moment, Abe could only stare. The Lothario of the suburbs, placing his heart gingerly at Winnie's feet? Who would have guessed?
Maybe he really would kill out of jealousy over her.
"And she isn't answering her door?" said Gregory, his voice intent as he pushed his way forward. "Is her car here? Maybe she went somewhere."
"Her car's here. She wouldn't break up with me this way, would she? She's gotta know—" Rick looked thoroughly miserable.
Gregory glanced at Abe. "I think we should check on her. Just to be sure she's okay."
"Why wouldn't she be?" said Rick, becoming alarmed. "What d'you mean?"
"I mean, has she seemed preoccupied and depressed lately? I just think it's a good idea to check on her, that's all."
Abe knew she took an antidepressant and anti-anxiety medication, which she'd been prescribed after her husband's death. Were they the sort of pills one could overdose on? Most are, if you take enough, he thought miserably.
Rick jogged around the corner of the house, a tight set to his shoulders.
Abe looked at Gregory with alarm. "Do you really think...?"
"I don't want to think it, but do you want to take the risk?"
If she was the murderer, and felt the police were closing in, she might decide to end her own life, seeing it as the only way of escape.
Rick came back at a run, holding a hoe. With it, he smashed in one of the front windows without an instant's hesitation. Glass shattered, making an awful racket.
Too bad she didn't give him a key. Would have saved the window, thought Abe. But the window would only be an issue if she wasn't lying inside dead or dying.
Rick reached up through the broken window gingerly and unlocked it. Then he pushed the window open, scraped some of the glass off the sill, and sprang through.
"Open the front door for us," called Abe, not wanting to scramble through broken glass.
"Winnie!"
He was off and running inside. Abe and Gregory looked at one another, then Gregory offered his hands as a step to let Abe go inside first. It was an awkward scramble, and he was glad he was wearing long sleeves so he could pull the cuffs down over his hands and be careful where he grabbed. Even so, he felt his trousers snag on a bit of jagged glass and bit back a curse.
Inside, he looked around the dark, cavernous mudroom. How could Winnie stand to live in this big, dark house? Shouldn't she at least open the curtains or turn on some lights?
Gregory followed him with much more dexterous coordination and looked around, dusting his hands off. "Let's find her," he said, his voice grim.
Abe hurried after him, flicking on some lights as he passed them. Her bedroom was the most reasonable place to look. They headed there.
Ahead of them, Rick's shout was one of grief and horror.
Oh, no. Winnie. Poor Winnie!
They reached the bedroom at a run and found her on the bed, slumped and unconscious, while Rick shook her, then slapped her, tears running down his face. "Winnie. Don't leave me! Come back."
Empty pill bottles were clustered on her reading table beside the bed. And a single piece of pink note paper, folded in half.
Gregory pushed his way forward and felt for a pulse. "She's still alive. Call the ambulance."
Chapter eight
Some time later, feeling as if he was grubby right down to his bones and would remain so no matter how many showers he took, Abe said, "She won't thank us for saving her life, you know."
"Rick will. And she may not get sentenced to life. It may not have been premeditated. Perhaps she really did just mean to talk with Clarence, but they fought and she hit him in anger as he turned away from her. That would work in her favor, if they could prove it."
It was really hard to think of her as premeditating murder. She barely premeditated her grocery shopping.
They hadn't looked at her note, as desperately as they'd wanted to. It didn't seem right. Saving her life was important, and not getting fingerprints on the note might end up mattering, too.
The EMTs said her pulse was weak but she had a good chance of pulling through, with speedy treatment. The police arrived nearly as quickly, and it became a crime scene of sorts.
Abe was certain it was a note of confession, but he still unreasonably held out hope that it hadn't been her. Why, though? Obviously, she'd felt bad enough about everything to try to kill herself, and there was no reason to feel that dreadful unless she'd done it.
If she'd planned to go to the farmer's market with Rick—a proper date, not just a secretive fling—then you'd think she'd have felt there was a reason to live. Or, at least, that she might have waited till after their date, to end on a high note. Abe wasn't certain that having a real date would be a high note, but he thought it would be better than taking too many pills in the middle of the night, all alone, with only her thoughts for company.
Had she killed her husband as well as Clarence? Would they ever find out? He wondered what the note said.
Maybe she'd simply told Rick she'd date him to get him off her back. But that seemed cruel, if she'd known she was going to kill herself that night. The Winnie Abe had gotten to know had never been cruel. Even in her triumph over winning the coveted gardener, she'd been smug but not nasty. She could easily have made him feel like dirt for ever thinking he, an aging gay man, had a chance with the handsome young gardener. Instead, she'd bragged in the mildest manner imaginable. She'd been proud to have him, happy—and seemed more like the age she really was, rather than a faded widow. Rick had been good for her. And now, to risk it all by killing, and then trying to off herself as well...
He wondered what the truth of it was.
It was so difficult to think of Winnie as a murderer. Perhaps Gregory was right: you never could tell about people. But really. It sounded awfully premeditated, to invite Clarence into her car, take him back home, and then when his back was turned...bam. Abe shuddered.
Of course she must have dragged the body into his backyard, and later, sent him a threatening note and hidden the murder weapon in Gregory's shed. It was so hard to imagine Winnie of all people doing any of those things. Even the very first—driving out to a hotel at night to meet a man, much less planning to kill him. Winnie was a pretty young thing, and could have had any number of men fawning at her feet if she'd been as bold as all that.
Instead, she'd made friends with her gay neighbor and started shyly gardening when she got a crush on Rick. It had given her an excuse to talk to
him. Abe was certain she never would have gotten up the courage to, otherwise.
Perhaps Henrietta was wrong about Winnie and Clarence having an affair. She might have had a crush on him, but she'd definitely have been too shy to do anything unless he made the first move. The crush could have been embarrassingly obvious, and everyone might have guessed how she felt, but that didn't mean anything had actually happened. Clarence might have enjoyed the attention without necessarily taking her up on anything. He clearly liked attention.
But, no. If they hadn't even had an affair, why kill him, and after so long, too?
Perhaps she'd harbored anger about him not having an affair with her? But that was just silly. It had been so long ago. She was more likely to be embarrassed than angry, especially since she'd caught such a cute guy now.
And she had; Rick was clearly hers for whatever she wanted. That came as a surprise to Abe, but he'd have been happy for her (he supposed) if this hadn't happened. He might be wrong, but it seemed like having that in your life, someone who really loved you, was rare and precious enough not to risk throwing it away by getting hung up on the past and killing somebody. It couldn't possibly be worth it.
If only I could talk to her, ask her what she was thinking!
Then he wished he'd spoken with her sooner. Perhaps talking to someone would have helped? Not that she'd given any indication of having something heavy on her mind the last time they had spoken.
He hadn't seen her out and about much lately, which was unusual for her. At the time, he'd assumed she was taken up with Rick, her focus on him. He hadn't imagined her consumed with guilt. It was so difficult to think of the person he cared about, who'd almost died, as the murderer, who'd tried to incriminate him and Gregory. He kept going over and over it, and in some part of himself, perhaps a foolish and naïve part, he simply couldn't believe Winnie would do such a thing.
Winnie might be a merry widow. She might have won the man everyone else seemed to want. But she was kind. It was so difficult to imagine a kind person killing anyone at all, for any reason at all. And while the scuttlebutt had condemned her as a murderer, it has also told the truth about something else: she had been married to an abusive man. In Abe's experience, people who had been abused didn't usually go on to hurt others, whether that be simply being unkind, or straight-up murder. No matter how much they deserved it.
Of course it clearly wasn't true. People who'd been abused sometimes killed their abusers, or went on to become worse people themselves. He'd simply never met anyone like that, never known of anyone who turned out that way. The people who ran roughshod over others were generally spoiled and thought only of themselves. They didn't think of other people as real, as suffering. People who'd suffered themselves usually weren't like that. They knew what it felt like. They understood.
I suppose one meets all sorts in life, and you're eventually bound to run across someone like that, he decided. He couldn't reconcile it in his mind; it was too disturbing. She'd been such a good fake, too! Really...just nice. Herself. She'd seemed freer lately. Was it because she'd tuned in to her murdering side?
And here I thought it was because of Rick!
It was all too confusing. He was thinking these things as he pulled out his zinnias. It was a painful chore, but it had to be done. He couldn't have his backyard known as The Death Garden or something equally horrific. And even if nobody else called it that, he'd still think of it that way. No, best to let grass grow here, and start a little herb garden somewhere else in the yard. No need to wonder if blood had fertilized this soil.
"Here, what are you doing? Don't trash those! That's what compost is for!" Gregory popped up across the fence, brandishing a small trowel at him. He was dirty and sweaty and handsome as ever.
Abe gave him a sad smile. "I know, but they may have his blood on them, you know? I just couldn't."
"Oh." Gregory subsided. "Yeah. I get that." He watched as Abe threw the last of the plants in the garbage.
It felt like a terrible thing to do; it felt like he was killing something precious. He found he was nearly tearing up.
"We'll plant you some more, okay? Or something even nicer." Gregory's voice was low, obviously trying to comfort him.
"I think I'll do an herb garden instead. Somewhere else in the yard. Useful, pretty, nice-smelling..." He stopped because he was getting choked up.
"I can only approve," said Gregory very gently. "But perhaps some zinnias as well. Don't let him ruin them for you. That chapter of your life is over now."
"I just can't believe..." Abe swept off his gardening gloves and wiped at his face quickly. "I can't believe Winnie would do that to me. It's like I've never known her at all."
"People can have a dark side. I'm sure she didn't do it to hurt you. It was just the most logical place to put his dead body."
"And then to almost kill herself! I don't know why I think that's almost worse. Perhaps because of Rick."
"He seems really taken with her, doesn't he? I'm think he'll stick with her through the court case and whatever happens. Maybe she'll decide it's worth it to keep living, eventually."
Abe blew his nose on a pocket handkerchief, then quickly folded it away again. "I'm sorry. Getting emotional over a murderer. Or should that be murderess?"
"That sounds wrong."
"Yes." Not as deadly as a straight-up murderer, but vampy and old-fashioned, like a femme fatale with rouge—more sexy than dangerous. He thought about the words for a minute, then shook his head. "I wonder when we'll find out what she wrote in the note? Do you think they'll let the papers print that, or is it the sort of sensational thing they're not allowed to quote?"
"Might be needed for the trial. Perhaps we'll never know. I almost wish we'd snuck a glance at it, even though that would've been tampering with evidence."
Abe sighed. "It's so dreadfully boring to follow the rules."
Gregory smiled at him. "I respect you more for it, though."
Abe stood a little taller and smiled just a little.
They headed over to visit Mary, to ask her advice about herbs and start digging up part of her yard for a garden if she was ready for it. Abe said it was a good idea not to wait too long when you'd volunteered to do something, and it would get their mind off the events of the day. It wasn't yet time for supper, and clearly, being alone with his thoughts wasn't doing Abe any good. He doubted it was for Gregory, either.
"I'm game if you are," said Abe.
Gregory looked at him and arched one eyebrow. It was just this side of teasing, and into flirting.
And it made Abe blush very hard. "That's not quite what I meant," he murmured, looking down, smoothing the front of his shirt. He had the absurd feeling Gregory could hear how fast his heart was beating.
Gregory bumped his shoulder gently with his own. "I'm not trying to rush you. I'd like to date. Properly date. With all of this over, we don't have as much of an excuse to hang around one another, but I'd like to do it without an excuse. For real."
That sounded like a dream come true. Maybe he was dreaming.
"That sounds lovely. I'm...a bit skittish. After the divorce. I've pretty much been a hermit. I would have to take things slowly, dating or not."
"Of course," said Gregory. The tanned skin around his eyes crinkled into laugh lines as he smiled at Abe. "That sounds perfect. And you can still teach me to cook, if you will."
They walked on, more slowly. It felt lovely to have Gregory so close: steady, and strong, and kind. He was a passionate man, but also, Abe thought, a trustworthy one.
He thought of the last time he'd seen Mary, and how flustered and unlike herself she'd seemed. More urgent matters had shoved it out of his mind, but now he wondered how she would seem this time.
"Oh, come in, boys, come in," said Mary, holding the door for them and smoothing down her gray hair.
She had a pleasant smile on, and didn't seem particularly nervous or flustered. She looked happier than Abe had seen her in a while, and she was ge
nerally a pretty happy person. Now, she was almost glowing from within. There was something contented and joyful about her.
"I made a cake the other day. Would you like some?"
"I'm not sure I should," said Abe, thinking of how he'd really like to lose a couple of pounds, as it seemed he might not be the only one to see himself undressed in future, should all go well.
She tsked at the calorie-consciousness—she, a woman who clearly had never gained weight easily. The nerve.
"I'll have some," said Gregory. He'd take food from anyone, wouldn't he?
"We were here to work on your garden," said Abe, emphasizing the word just slightly as he stared at Gregory reproachfully. The man was eating the cake rather too quickly. He should at least savor it. "And herbs. Oh, very well. Cut me a piece. A small piece." Not too small, he added inwardly.
"It's very good," said Gregory in a muffled voice.
"Have some manners. You're not a barbarian," chided Abe.
Gregory gave him a disgusting grin. "Aren't I?"
Abe rolled his eyes. "Oh, yes, I'm sure barbarians lived very sustainable lives, didn't they?"
"No clue." Gregory eyed the rest of the cake hungrily.
Mary laughed, a soft, sweet sound. "Have more. I really don't mind. I find I like them best the first day, when they're freshest, so if I don't share, they go to waste, and then I have to cut back on the baking. And Fiona..." Here, she paused, her cheeks growing pinker. "And Fi doesn't really care for cake. She likes my meatloaf, though."
"I'm sure you make excellent meatloaf," agreed Abe.
Gregory, meanwhile, was hacking away at the cake with intent. He was slaughtering the poor thing!
Mary cleared her throat softly. "I must thank you, Abe, for your excellent advice the other day. It's lovely to realize I'm not too old for...the things I wanted."
The Body in the Backyard Page 13
