Edna tromped back to the Cactus Garden to take her frustration out on the weeds. The detectives were not interested in her theories. She’d overheard Brumbaugh talking to Miroi about wanting physical evidence, but she didn’t know what they had, if anything. She had to remind herself that her working days were done. When she used to dig up information in the newsroom library for the reporters, it was exciting to be in on the action of a story. Now that she was seeing a first-hand story unfold, she felt she had to know the truth here, too. It was part of her natural curiosity.
After half an hour of a vicious assault on one patch of weeds, Edna needed a rest in the gazebo at the end of the Cactus Garden. She had a good view of the rest of the gardens from the height of the cactus area. The whole garden was a collection of sub-gardens of like plants. Betty worked in the Peace Garden, which had several types of bromeliads and some lilies. Edna had a good view of the pond where Mona worked so hard to keep the pump cleaned out. The rose area was off to the west, the far border of the garden. The garden concept started when two Senior Gardeners, Ed and Sylvie Teal, thought that blind people might enjoy the walk by smelling the blooms. They called it a Fragrance Garden. Everyone enjoyed it; walkers, joggers, and gangs of mothers pushing strollers trying to shed those lingering pregnancy pounds.
She remembered Russ’s obituary was in her pocket. As she unfolded it, she remembered her friend Candy from the newspaper who prided herself on her error-free obit style.
“It’s the last thing anyone will read about the person, so it better be good,’’ she used to say.
“Russ McGovern, 62, born in Akron, Ohio, died Saturday, May 16. His wife, Barbie Jo (Reed) died in February. He graduated from Ellet High School in 1965 before joining the U.S. Army and served two tours in Vietnam. Before he retired and moved to Ft. Myers, he owned Russ’s T’s, a t-shirt printing shop. The Northeastern Ohio Veteran’s Memorial Cemetery in Rittman, Ohio will handle funeral arrangements.
Edna sat thinking about Russ’s obituary. She wished she could understand the reason for his death. She looked at Betty in the Peace Garden on the eastern edge of the garden that stopped at the pond. She was pulling weeds around the allamandas close to the necklace pods.
A light breeze blew something small into Edna’s field of vision. At first, she thought it was a spider near a web taking a trapeze ride on the wind. She reached and touched a thread with a fishing hook tied to the end. She was surprised to see it. An RV park was located on the other side of the pond beyond the north and east sides of the garden. Perhaps a rookie fisherman made a wild cast, and the wind took his line all the way to the gazebo. Russ and Missy used fishing line for the butterfly house to hang signs, but Edna couldn’t think of any reason that fishing line would be used in the Cactus Garden. Some of the cacti were big enough to need chains to hold them in place.
Edna stood on the bench to reach the outside gazebo roof. Someone had tied the line to a shiny nail.
“What are you doing?” Jack asked.
Edna jerked at hearing his voice.
“You’re going to fall on your head if you’re not careful. What’s the matter? Did a black racer corner you?”
Edna thought a moment, unlike her usual blurting.
“No, no snakes. I thought I saw an otter over there behind Betty, but it was just a couple of those black crows pecking around. I need to get some more water.”
After the detectives had scoffed at her earlier, she determined that she was going to keep her mouth shut until she had gathered some facts.
On her way to get water, she saw the detectives talking to Paul. She would have liked to eavesdrop or try to read the detective’s lips as they talked to him in the Rose Garden.
Apparently, they were finished listening to Missy, or maybe she went to find more Kleenex. Edna passed them, got some water from the tool shed, and found Betty still weeding in the Peace Garden.
“Betty, how are you holding up after all this?” Edna asked.
“Well, life goes on. Russ missed his wife, so, hopefully, they are together again.”
Betty kept pulling weeds.
“Did the police talk to you much?” Edna asked.
“Oh, dozens of questions--mostly about the plant sale money. I’m so glad they found it. Now, Jack and I are off the hook.”
“Like you say, now you’re both off the hook,” she said, still puzzled by the fishing line and hook on the gazebo in the Cactus Garden.
Edna walked toward the large white blossoms on a bush by the wedding gazebo. Gardenia therapy might lift her spirits. She stuck her head in the middle of a large bush, but the intoxicating fragrance could not uproot thoughts of Russ.
She was convinced that Russ didn’t die as part of a robbery. The police had been wasting their time looking for clues from across the big pond to the R.V. park. The manager of the R.V. lot reported that some vagrants were using the showers earlier in the year. That report sent the police hunting for clues in the wrong direction. Edna backed out of the gardenia bush into the path with her rear end on a collision course with Detective Brumbaugh.
“Sorry,” they said in unison.
“I wasn’t looking,” said Edna. “Aroma therapy if you want to try it.”
“No, thanks,” he said. “How well do you think you know your husband?”
It took a few seconds for the question to sink in.
“We’ve been married for 22 years, so pretty well, I guess.”
“Did he seem upset earlier in the day that Russ was murdered?” Brumbaugh asked.
“Look, you have it wrong. No way Paul did this. Someone with a deep hatred planned this. I just know it,” Edna said.
“Don’t get upset. These are standard questions. Amateur detectives only hamper our investigations. I’m sure you understand,” said Brumbaugh.
Edna turned abruptly and marched off wishing that her Crocs were noisier. She went to look for Paul. She found Charly weeding some ginger near a pathway.
“I saw the saddest thing on my way back from the restroom,” Charly said.
“What was that?”
“Hazel was helping Missy up from the floor of the butterfly house. Missy was crying like a baby and holding a dead butterfly?”
“She and Russ worked there together. Try not to let it get to you.”
But the atmosphere at the garden had changed. It had been five days since Russ’s murder, and every gardener seemed nervous and grumpy. Hazel Velez, the park manager, came by to say hello to everyone. Her attempts at cheerfulness met little response. The number of park visitors had dropped, especially in the children’s playground. One bride of the two scheduled weddings cancelled her ceremony in the white wedding gazebo. The other bride called and said she would have cancelled, too, if she could have found another place.
Edna found Paul by the Lignum Vitae tree near the garden entrance.
“What’s with you and this tree? I’ve found you here a couple of times.”
“This is a Florida native, you know. The Europeans harvested it almost to extinction. I was hoping that there would be some of the blue blossoms left, but they’re all gone,” Paul said.
All the chatter about the tree was his way of coping with anxiety about the detectives’ questions.
“What did the police say to you?”
“They think I had some grudge against Russ. Someone told them about the weed killer mix-up when he and I had words,” Paul said.
“Honey, we will get through this, so don’t worry.”
Edna was pretending to be brave, but she believed that the police were eager to find someone to blame, someone to arrest. Once they centered their attention on Paul, things might get ugly.
No comments:
Post a Comment