Murder by Arrangement (Edna Davies mysteries Book 5) (9 page)

BOOK: Murder by Arrangement (Edna Davies mysteries Book 5)
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Chapter 13

 

 

When Edna
reached Peppa’s house, all was quiet. The driveway was no longer cordoned off
with crime scene tape, so she was able to pull up and park in front of the
garage. There had obviously been activity in the yard. What remained of the
snow had been churned into mud with bits of grass mixed in. Many boots had been
tramping around the yard, littering dirt up and down the driveway, but all
emergency vehicles were gone now. She was relieved also to find no reporters or
TV vans crowding the narrow, residential street.

Peppa’s Mercedes
was nowhere in sight, but Edna couldn’t see into the garage. She wondered if
the car were there or if it had been towed away for forensic examination. At
the front door, she rang the bell, waited, knocked and waited another half
minute before pressing the button again. More forcefully this time, as if
additional strength could somehow prompt her friend to answer. 

As she waited on
the stoop, Edna wondered if Peppa might be back at the police station for more
questioning. Or had she gone to visit Tuck? Edna was about to give up and head
back to her car when she became aware of barking coming from the backyard and
decided to investigate. She brightened somewhat at the sound. Peppa must have
been home at some point if Rufus was there, Edna thought, rounding the corner
of the house. Or maybe Tuck had brought the dog back and left him in the yard,
once she’d learned that Peppa wouldn’t be spending the night in jail. As Edna
reached the wooden gate, she couldn’t see over the six-foot fence, but she
heard the Rottweiler on the other side of the cedar slats.

“Hey, Rufus,”
she called over the racket, reaching for the latch. “It’s me, fella.” When his
barking changed to a whine of expectation, she pushed through the gate, nudging
the canine backwards. Rubbing his head and scratching his ears as his tail
wagged his entire back end, she spoke gently to him. “There’s a good dog.
Where’s your mistress?” Edna chatted and petted and made her way slowly along
the side of the house to the back deck, intending to look through the window
into the kitchen. She never made it that far.

Passing the
corner of the house and moving alongside the railing, she saw what looked like
a quilt draped over a pile of blankets and clothing on a lawn chair in the
middle of the redwood deck. Mounting the steps, she was startled by a slight
motion beneath the mound which drew her attention to a red stocking cap.
Between the blanket and hat, only eyes, nose and mouth could be seen. Her first
instinct was to apologize and turn around to leave the way she came when the
eyes flicked again in her direction. Peppa’s gray-blue eyes.

She took a
steadying breath, trying to still her hammering heart. “Hey, Peppa. What’re you
doing out here?”

“Walkin’ the
dog” came the curt reply from the chair. Only Peppa’s lips moved.

“Are you cold?”
The morning air was crisp and cool. The temperature was probably in the low to
mid forties, Edna estimated. Not cold enough to warrant the heavy wrappings
with which Peppa had bundled herself.

The old librarian’s
head slowly moved from side to side, but she kept her eyes fixed on the
backyard. 

“How long have
you been sitting here?”

Peppa shrugged,
or at least that’s how it looked to Edna who noticed only a slight shifting of
the quilt.

“When you didn’t
answer the door, I thought something might have happened to you,” Edna said,
explaining why she had invaded the woman’s privacy. Peppa remained silent and
motionless, almost as if she hadn’t heard.

Edna tried
another tack. She held up the tote bag. “I brought a casserole and some of my
world-famous chowda,” she said, trying to get a laugh out of Peppa, or a smile,
at least. When that didn’t work, she gave in to an intuition. “Have you had
anything to eat since yesterday morning?”

After a brief
pause, Peppa once again swiveled her head from side to side, but kept her eyes
straight ahead. “Not hungry,” she muttered.

“Have you spoken
to anyone?” Edna asked, adding “besides Rufus?” as the dog went to stand beside
his owner. She, in turn, slid a hand from beneath the quilt to stroke his head.

Either the dog
or the motion seemed to bring Peppa out of her catatonic state, and she finally
turned her gaze on Edna who, by now, was sitting on a low, white metal table.

Deciding to take
the action as a positive sign, Edna stood and held out a hand. “Come inside,
Peppa,” she encouraged. “Let me make you a nice hot cup of tea and maybe some
toast. When you’ve had something to eat, we should talk.”

Peppa stared up
at Edna for nearly half a minute before she spread wide the blankets and raised
a hand for Edna to help her up. Under the bedding, she wore a woolen coat, the
red of which matched her cap. Her feet were clad in gray Mukluks.

Following her
friend into the house, Edna realized Peppa was suffering from emotional shock.
One thing she must do is talk about her experience and feelings, whether to
Edna or better yet, to her best friend in the world. Edna decided to call Tuck
and get the two friends speaking again as soon as possible.

After shedding
coats and hats and leaving them on the coat tree inside the back door, the two
women moved to the kitchen where Edna gently guided Peppa to a chair at the
table while she herself set the kettle on to boil. She put the clam chowder and
the chicken casserole into the fridge before opening the milk carton to smell
that it was fresh. Eyeing a partial carton of eggs next to a wedge of cheddar,
she decided to make a cheese omelet. Peppa might eat if food were placed in
front of her.

Having prepared
and set the small meal before Peppa, Edna took the chair on the opposite side
of the table with her own mug of tea. She sat quietly while Peppa broke off a
bit of buttered toast and fed it to Rufus. She then commanded the dog to lie
down, before picking up her fork and slowly beginning to eat. After the first
few bites, she glanced up at Edna and nodded. “Thank you. Guess I needed this.”

“Do you want to
talk?” Edna asked, resting her forearms on the table as she held the warm mug
between her hands.

Peppa chewed,
swallowed and shrugged. “Don’t know what to say.”

Edna thought
about the lean, weathered man she’d met and how kind he’d been. “I met Clem
recently,” she said, hoping to spark some sort of conversation. She didn’t know
what she expected to learn, but knew Peppa needed a sounding board. Edna
suspected, if not pushed, her friend would bottle her emotions inside where
they would fester.

Peppa stopped
eating with the fork halfway to her mouth. Lowering the utensil, she frowned at
Edna. “Where?”

“Lily Beck’s
place. Last Friday afternoon. Did you know he was working for her, living above
the garage?”

“Didn’t know.
Tuck knew, though.”

Edna hadn’t
meant to get drawn in to their quarrel but she had, first by Tuck and now by
Peppa. “Tuck told me that she promised Clem to keep his secret. She said he was
meaning to contact you, but in his own time, when he was ready.”

After a moment’s
hesitation, Peppa nodded as if that made sense. “Sounds like something he’d do
… she, too, I suppose,” Peppa said and resumed eating.

When she made no
further attempt to talk and merely concentrated on the food, Edna explained how
she’d driven her granddaughter and a friend down from Warwick for a visit.
Mainly to fill the silence, she mentioned the coincidence that Amanda’s friend
was Lily’s granddaughter and how, when Edna had arrived at the Beck house, Clem
had been in the driveway, polishing a car. Edna also relayed how rude Lily had
seemed to him, but how tolerant and unruffled he had remained. Edna didn’t know
how Peppa felt about her ex-husband, especially now that he was dead, so other
than the one observation of Lily’s behavior, she refrained from giving any
other opinion. She ended her tale with Clem’s patching the tire.

Peppa nodded
again, put down her fork, and pushed the empty plate aside. Picking up the tea
mug, she took a slow sip of her drink. “He was always good at fixin’ things.”

“If you don’t
mind my asking, what happened between you two?” Edna still hoped she could get
Peppa to talk and shake her out of a lethargy that was not at all like the gregarious
woman Edna had come to know.

“Booze.” Peppa
nearly spat the word. “More’n thirty years married when my husband decides to
become an alcoholic.”

“Certainly, you
don’t think it was a
decision
on his part?” Edna couldn’t keep the
surprise or disbelief from her tone. The ignorance in Peppa’s condemnation
disturbed Edna.

“Of course it
wasn’t a decision to become addicted to alcohol, but it
was
his decision
to let it ruin himself, his job and our marriage.” Peppa spoke harshly. “And
don’t expect me to change my mind or apologize for hanging onto my anger. For
five years, I watched that man transform himself from a popular professor,
adored by every one of his botany students, into a pathetic street bum. I put
him to bed most nights when he could hardly stand, never mind speak. When he
could talk, I listened to his lies and empty promises. The day after he nearly
killed an entire family, totaling his car in the process, I told him to get out
and called a divorce lawyer.”

Edna didn’t know
what to say. How do you respond to such memories or the anger, she wondered,
and didn’t even try. Instead, she changed the subject. “What happened Saturday
night? Can you tell me about it?”

Peppa seemed to
be caught off balance by the questions. Mentally, she was probably still back
in the past and steaming with renewed resentment. It took several seconds for
her to say, “Don’t know.” She squinted at Edna over the mug in her hands before
setting it aside next to her empty plate. With a suddenness that made Edna jump
and Rufus leap up, Peppa banged the flat of her hand on the table. “What was
that fool doing lying across my driveway?” Her face was red with rage, and she
hardly seemed to notice Rufus push his muzzle into her lap, but as she began to
stroke the massive head, she also began to calm down. “I thought he’d done his
worst to me years ago, but it seems he had one more card to play.” Tears had
sprung to the old librarian’s eyes and she hung her head for a minute.

Edna remained
silent, too, not knowing what to say to Peppa’s outburst or how to assuage her
… what? What were the woman’s emotions? They seemed a mix of fury, guilt,
remorse. Perhaps a long-lost love was in there, too, somewhere.

After a few
minutes of petting the Rottweiler, Peppa looked up and seemed to shake herself
out of her blue funk, at least partially. “What have you heard? What’re people
saying?”

“I don’t know.
You should ask Tuck, if you want the local gossip. Her ear’s closer to the
ground than mine.” Pausing briefly to consider if her question would upset
Peppa again, Edna decided the woman needed to get her emotions out. “Speaking
of Tuck, when she told me that she ran into Clem last fall at Lily’s, I assumed
he came back to town in order to see you again. Do you know why he hadn’t
contacted you up to now?”

“Haven’t a
clue,” Peppa responded more quietly than Edna expected. “I can only guess that
he wanted to establish himself, set himself up so I wouldn’t think he expected
to walk right back into my life. He never was one to rush. Always took his time
thinkin’ things over, plannin’ out each and every step.”

“Do you know why
he was bringing you the Christmas Rose?”

Peppa shook her
head. “He wasn’t exactly bringing me flowers. I understand he had the blossom
crushed in a tight fist.”

“Does the plant
have special significance for you?”

Again, Peppa
shook her head. “Can’t think of what it would be. The only thing ‘Christmas’
means to us is that it was the day he put a father, mother and baby in the
hospital. I told him I was filing for divorce and kicked him out that day. I
doubt he’d want to commemorate
that
.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 14

 

 

Peppa seemed to
sink back into herself after telling the story of her last battle with Clem. Shortly
thereafter, she excused herself, saying she wanted to change her clothes and wash
up a bit. “Stay if you want, but I don’t know why you would,” she said before
leaving the room. She was beginning to sound like her old self.

As soon as she
was out of earshot, Edna went to the back door where she pulled the cell phone
out of her coat pocket and dialed Tuck’s number. Her friend must have been
waiting for a call because she picked up on the first ring.

“You need to get
over here,” Edna said, after briefly explaining how she’d discovered Peppa on
the back deck. “I think the dam has started to crack, but you must press her to
keep talking. She can’t keep all this hurt and hatred bottled up on top of the
guilt she’s probably feeling.”

Tuck rang the
bell twenty minutes later. Edna opened the door at the same time Peppa came
downstairs and stopped on the bottom step. She frowned at Tuck who looked
anxiously back. After half a minute of silence that seemed like half an hour to
Edna, Peppa moved off the staircase and opened her arms. Tuck rushed to accept
the hug, and Edna released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Her intuition was reaffirmed. The friendship between Peppa and Tuck was too
strong not to survive small bumps in the road.

Once the ice
broke and the two women began to talk, Edna didn’t stay much longer. She’d done
enough and was happy with the outcome. Before she’d even left the neighborhood,
her thoughts turned to two young girls. She smiled at memories of the past few
days spent with Amanda. The youngster was so full of energy and enthusiasm.
Edna thought with a pang of nostalgia that all too soon the little girl would
be a young woman, and Edna wouldn’t see as much of her as other interests and
activities occupied more of her granddaughter’s time. Edna had already
experienced this coming-of-age with her older grandchildren, but the
natural-enough phenomenon still tugged at her heart.

She pushed
thoughts of Amanda aside and replaced them with images of Lettie. The girl had
seemed to enjoy their outing around the South County coast. She’d even laughed
and chattered away happily with Amanda. According to Lettie’s mother, that
wasn’t normal behavior for the girl.
But it should be
, Edna thought,
feeling anger roil her insides. She’d felt the sting of suspicion and gossip
herself, and it had bothered her as a mature adult. What must a nine-year-old
child be feeling when she senses the contempt or sees suspicion in the eyes of
strangers, let alone her classmates? 

Stopped at a
traffic light, Edna’s attention was drawn to a man stepping out of a nearby
florist’s shop with a bouquet of red roses in his hand and a broad grin on his
face.
Valentine’s Day present
, she thought and slowly began to feel her
fury dissipate. The sight of the flowers, however, caused her thoughts to
switch to Rosie and her friend-turned-traitor Farren McCree.

Edna glanced at
the time on her dashboard. According to the web site she’d found as she’d dug
around the Haverstrum case, the nursery where Farren McCree worked at the time
of Gregory’s death opened at ten during winter months. It was also not far away.
Edna put on her turn signal as the light changed to green, made a left-hand
turn and headed for the garden center. If she could find Farren, the woman
might provide insights into her relationships--both with Rosie and with
Gregory--that the news reports didn’t provide … that is, if Edna could get her
to talk at all about what happened two years ago.

The nursery was
located in a rural neighborhood with off-road parking for about a dozen cars.
Immediately inside double sliding doors was an area holding shopping carts and
trolleys. Beyond that, another set of automatic doors opened into a temperate,
humid area with a service desk to the right and check-out registers on the
left. Ahead were free-standing displays holding a variety of gardening
implements, gloves, books, pots and assorted other tools of the trade. Edna
could tell by the high ceiling of translucent plastic that, behind the racks,
the building stretched back for a considerable distance.

A
pleasant-looking, sixty-something woman sat behind the low service counter
which appeared to double as her work space with a computer, phone and stacks of
paper. At Edna’s inquiry, she said, “Yes. Miz McCree is one of our landscape
designers. Would you like to speak with her? I can see if she’s available.”

Edna assented,
and the woman promptly picked up the receiver, pressed a button and paged
Farren McCree to reception for customer assistance.

While she
waited, Edna wandered over to look behind the displays. The nursery was long
but not wide. Four rows of narrow tables running perpendicular to the entrance
were filled with plants. The rear of the area looked to be a closed-off
greenhouse, while off to her right was an open space filled with bags of soil,
peat, mulch and shelves of planters and pots, decorative and utilitarian.

“Did you want to
see me?” came a low-pitched, sultry voice from behind her.

Edna spun to
look into the deep blue eyes of a strawberry-blonde beauty of medium height.
Dressed in navy slacks and pink blouse with frills at the collar and cuffs,
Farren McCree looked more like an office worker than a garden-center employee.
She held out a business card and, as Edna took it, Farren introduced herself,
adding. “How may I help you?”

Having been
surprised by the sudden appearance of the woman, Edna had to think fast,
wondering if she should come straight to the point or pretend to be a customer
who needed professional advice. She decided if Farren made the slightest
inquiry, she would soon find out that Edna was a member of the locally
prestigious Greenthumbs garden society. Remembering the occasional flyers she
received in the mail, Edna guessed the nursery had a list of club members. She
decided honesty would get her into the least amount of trouble.

“To be truthful,
I’m here to ask about Rosie Beck. I guess you knew her by her married name.
Rosie Haverstrum?” She spoke the name as a question.

Farren looked
startled for an instant before her eyes took on a hard glint that almost
immediately turned neutral. “Who are you?”

“A friend. Rosie
recently moved to my son’s neighborhood. Her daughter and my granddaughter are
school chums.”

When Edna didn’t
offer more explanation, Farren shook her head as if confused. “I haven’t spoken
to Rosie for almost two years.” Her face softened slightly as she said, “And Lettie.
She must be, what, about ten now.”

“Nine,” Edna
corrected and wondered if Farren had befriended her lover’s daughter. She
tucked the thought to the back of her mind for a later discussion.

Farren frowned.
“Why would you ask me about them? Obviously, you’ve seen them more recently
than I have.”

A young couple
pushing a cart came toward them, behind Farren. Edna took the woman by the
forearm to move her out of the path, then looked around. “Is there a place
where we can sit and talk?”

“I don’t know
what we have to talk about.”

“Rosie’s
daughter is having trouble in school because of the uncertainty surrounding her
father’s death and her mother’s notoriety. One of the reasons they moved to my
son’s neighborhood from where they’d been living is because people still
suspect Rosie as having played a part in her husband’s death. The children of
these cynics seem to be taking it out on Lettie, as well.”

“Sorry to hear
that, but I don’t see what it has to do with me.” Farren shrugged but her eyes
were no longer fixed on Edna’s. She gazed around the room as if she were on an
inspection tour.

“I’m trying to
get a more complete picture of what went on at the time Gregory Haverstrum
died, so I might be able to find a way to help Lettie.” She took a step to her
left, purposely placing herself in Farren’s line of sight. If the woman worked
in a nursery, she must have something of a nurturing personality, Edna guessed.
She wasn’t about to explain to this stranger that Edna’s own experience, plus
concern for a granddaughter, also played a large part in motivating her to hunt
for the truth.

Farren’s gaze
returned to Edna’s face and a frown creased her forehead. “Lettie? She was a
sweet child. Why would anyone want to pick on her?”

The question
seemed redundant, but Edna thought Farren just might be sympathetic toward the
girl. “I’ll be happy to tell you, but not in the middle of this store. Isn’t
there somewhere quieter where we can talk?”

Farren shrugged
again, hesitated, then looked at her watch. “There’s a little diner in the next
block where we can get a cup of coffee. Why don’t you meet me there? I can
spare about thirty minutes, but then I’m meeting a client.”

“Half an hour
should be fine,” Edna said, hoping it would be and, within that amount of time,
Farren McCree could shed more light on what happened two years ago.

When they had
settled into a booth at the Harborside Café and given their waitress an order
for two coffees, Farren sat sullenly. She stared around the nearly empty room
and appeared to regret her decision to meet with Edna. Hoping to put the woman
at ease and get her to talk, Edna decided to ask Farren about herself. “How
long have you worked at the garden center? You’re a landscape architect, is
that correct?”

“Designer.
Architect. Pretty much the same thing,” Farren said, concentrating on spreading
a paper napkin across her lap.

Edna knew that
an architect was licensed, and typically had more education and experience than
a designer. She’d thrown out the title as a test of Farren’s integrity. The
woman had failed, which meant that Edna had just learned that she’d need to
take the conversation with a grain of salt where the woman’s ego was concerned.

“How long have
you worked for the nursery?” Edna repeated her previous question.

“Six years this
coming June.”

“Was Rosie
employed there at the time, or was she hired after you?”

Farren shook her
head, finally looking directly at Edna. “She’d been employed almost two years
when her husband died. After his body was found, she never did come back to
work.” Farren then sighed deeply, as if resigned to explaining the past. “I met
the Haverstrums when Gregory hired me to plan their yard.” Edna thought Farren
would stop there, but she continued after only a brief pause. “They’d lived in
the house for a few years, but had never sought professional advice. When
Gregory’s business began to take off, he decided to treat his top clients to a
catered lawn party. For that reason, he wanted the yard designed by an expert.
I understand, prior to that, his mother-in-law advised Rosie on what to do with
the backyard.”

Edna winced in
mock horror. “Knowing the pride Lily Beck took in her own gardens, I doubt that
hiring you would have gone over well with her.”

“You’re right on
that count.” Farren chuckled and rolled her eyes. “Fortunately, I don’t think
she resented me half as much as she did Gregory, though. He told me that she
criticized the landscaping every time she came to the house. Which,” Farren
added with a grin, “was considerably more often than before the work began. I
guess she made his life miserable. He paid dearly for stepping on her toes.”

Farren seemed to
realize the double meaning in her remark and immediately fell silent, but the
exchange apparently broke the ice that had formed around her attitude. After
grimacing a silent apology, she seemed to relax.

Conversation
stopped when the waitress approached, depositing two mugs of coffee and a small
pitcher of milk on the table. When she’d gone after the usual, “Anything else I
can get for you ladies?” Edna said, “What made Rosie seek employment at the
greenhouse?”

Farren shrugged
and her smile seemed slightly malicious. “Don’t know. Maybe she found out her
mama wasn’t quite as knowledgeable as she thought and wanted to learn some
things for herself, or maybe she wanted to annoy Lily. They didn’t get along,
you know.”

Edna ignored the
last remark and asked instead, “You say Rosie was at the nursery nearly two
years before her husband died?”

Farren tilted
her head and frowned at the ceiling as if in thought. “Let’s see, I finished
their yard in the fall. That’d be a little over four years ago now.” She
dropped her gaze again. “Rosie applied for work late the following spring when
we take on seasonal workers for the summer.”

As Edna mentally
calculated that Rosie must have been employed for a year before Farren’s affair
with Gregory Haverstrum began, his former mistress continued to explain. “I
told the owners, they shouldn’t hire her. I knew she wasn’t serious about
working, not with a rich husband and a young daughter at home, but Rosie’s
mother was president of Greenthumbs that year. Mel and Inez--they’re the
owners--they figured Lily Beck would bring in business, so they didn’t listen
to me. Not only that, but even after I warned them about hiring her, they
assigned Rosie to my team.” Farren gave a short laugh, devoid of humor. “All
she did was bring scandal to the place when the news reports speculated on
whether or not she murdered her husband. Of course, she quit as soon as word
got out about her possible guilt. Showed Mel and Inez I was right after all.”

Ignoring the
pettiness of Farren’s comment and the fact she seemed to forget the part she
herself had played in the affair, Edna said, “Was Rosie also a designer?”

“Are you
kidding?” Farren scoffed. “She didn’t have the skills or the experience,
regardless of her mother’s reputation. I was the boss. She and the others did
the grunt work. I did the thinking.”

BOOK: Murder by Arrangement (Edna Davies mysteries Book 5)
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