Murder in the Secret Garden

“[A] suspenseful and compelling read.”

—Kings River Life Magazine

“[A] delight . . . An idyllic mansion in a quaint village complete with secret passages and books, books, and more books—what could make for a more ideal setting for a cozy murder? . . . Ellery Adams spins a fine tale full of jealously, love, greed, aspirations, and poison . . . Highly recommended.”

—Open Book Society

“Adams . . . combines clever clues, a smart and courageous heroine and an interesting setting in a whodunit that will inspire readers to make further visits to Storyton Hall.”

—
Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Adams makes Storyton Hall come to life . . . Readers will relish the way Ellery Adams weaves together books, mystery, and fantasy.”

—Fresh Fiction

“A mystery that takes place at a book-themed resort—it doesn't get any better. The author has woven in a bunch of suspects that will keep cozy mystery lovers guessing. The story is well paced and keeps you reading until you find out whodunit.”

—MyShelf.com

“Adams has skillfully crafted a fantastical world for bibliophiles, as well as a puzzling cozy mystery . . . [A] fabulous start to a new series.”

—Book of Secrets

Charmed Pie Shoppe Mysteries

PIES AND PREJUDICE

PEACH PIES AND ALIBIS

PECAN PIES AND HOMICIDES

LEMON PIES AND LITTLE WHITE LIES

BREACH OF CRUST

Books by the Bay Mysteries

A KILLER PLOT

A DEADLY CLICHÉ

THE LAST WORD

WRITTEN IN STONE

POISONED PROSE

LETHAL LETTERS

WRITING ALL WRONGS

Book Retreat Mysteries

MURDER IN THE MYSTERY SUITE

MURDER IN THE PAPERBACK PARLOR

MURDER IN THE SECRET GARDEN

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

MURDER IN THE SECRET GARDEN

A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2016 by Ellery Adams.

Excerpt from
Killer Characters
by Ellery Adams copyright © 2016 by Ellery Adams.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

For more information, visit
penguin.com
.

eBook ISBN: 9781101612934

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / August 2016

Interior map: © 2016 CW Designs by Carol Wilmot Sullivan. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To “Captain” Phil and Sandi Hughes.

Thanks to Frank Romero for his expertise and
assistance and thanks to all first responders for
all that you do each and every
day.

Our Staff Is Here To Serve You

Resort Manager—Jane Steward

Butler—Mr. Butterworth

Head Librarian—Mr. Sinclair

Head Chauffeur—Mr. Sterling

Head of Recreation—Mr. Lachlan

Head of Housekeeping—Mrs. Pimpernel

Head Cook—Mrs. Hubbard

Select Merchants of Storyton Village

Run for Cover Bookshop—Eloise Alcott

Daily Bread Café—Edwin Alcott

Cheshire Cat Pub—Bob and Betty Carmichael

The Canvas Creamery—Phoebe Doyle

La Grande Dame Clothing Boutique—Mabel Wimberly

Tresses Hair Salon—Violet Osborne

The Pickled Pig Market—the Hogg brothers

Geppetto's Toy Shop—Barnaby Nicholas

The Potter's Shed—Tom Green

Storyton Outfitters— Phil and Sandi Hughes

The Medieval Herbalists

Vivian Ash

Hannah Billingsley

Kira Grace

Tammy Kota

Claude Mason

Sandi Hughes

Constance Meredith

Nico and Michelle Scannavini

“I don't like killing things,” Hemingway “Hem” Steward told his mother as she handed him a garden trowel.

Jane Steward—single mother to twin boys and manager of Storyton Hall—gave her firstborn a skeptical look.

“I don't,” Hem insisted. “Except for mosquitoes and flies. And everybody hates them. I should get paid to kill them.”

“What about spiders?” Hem's lookalike, Fitzgerald Steward, otherwise known as Fitz, poked his brother with the tines of the hand rake Jane had given him. “You squish them because you're scared of them.”

Hem glared at Fitz. “I am
not
.”

“Are
too
.”

Jane stepped between her sons before their argument turned physical. “You shouldn't hurt spiders, Hem,” she said. “Many species eat the mosquitoes and flies we dislike so much. And since Fitz is so comfortable with spiders, ask
him
to relocate them outside from now on.”

Fitz paled slightly over this suggestion, but with both his mother and brother watching him, he decided to put on a
display of bravado. Puffing out his chest, he said, “Fine. I'm not afraid.”

“Good.” Jane grabbed one of the plastic buckets stacked in the maintenance shed and beckoned for her sons to follow suit. “Let's get going. I'd like to finish this chore while we still have some cloud cover. It's supposed to be really hot today.”

As they walked, the twins grumbled over having to work on a Saturday, especially since school had only let out for the summer yesterday. However, their complaints weren't very impassioned and Jane suspected that both boys were looking forward to digging in the dirt. They enjoyed being outdoors, and though they occasionally complained about their chores, they usually settled into a given task by turning their work into a game. Jane noticed that even the most mundane job could become the equivalent of swabbing the deck of a pirate ship or sweeping out a dungeon prison cell. She put her sons' vivid imaginations down to their constant exposure to books and book lovers. Even at the tender age of seven, they were reading, and understanding, books meant for a much older audience.

The three Stewards lapsed into silence as they walked to their cottage, which was formerly the estate's hunting lodge. Like the behemoth manor house it faced, the lodge had been dismantled in the 1830s and transported from its original seat in the English countryside to a remote valley in western Virginia. These days, the cottage served a dual purpose. The front half was occupied by Sterling, the head chauffeur, and the back, by Jane's little family.

One of the things Jane loved about her home was its walled garden. Because she and her sons lived on the grounds of a resort where the majority of the guests enjoyed long strolls, it was difficult to obtain much privacy. Luckily, both an evergreen hedge and a low-wrought iron fence protected their small yard from prying eyes or nosy parkers.
The only way to gain entry was to pass through their gate, and as Jane now unlatched it and pushed against it with her right hip, it squeaked in protest.

“Ugh.” She winced. “I need to oil those hinges.”

Fitz patted the gate as though it were an obedient dog. “Isn't it kind of like a burglar alarm? When it squeaks, we know that someone's coming in.”

“Yeah, and then we can show them our moves!” Hem dropped his bucket in order to demonstrate several air punches. All three of them had been taking Tae Kwon Do lessons from Sinclair, the head librarian, and the boys were always looking for an excuse to show off their latest punch, kick, or defensive maneuver.

“Save your energy for the weeds,” Jane advised. “I've let them go for too long, and with all the rain we've had, they're threatening to overtake the entire vegetable patch.” She pointed at a dandelion growing next to a potato plant. “Just look at the size of this one! Its roots probably go all the way to China!”

Hem and Fitz exchanged glances of amazement, but then, Hem frowned. “No, Mom, it couldn't do that. Fitz and I read a book about dinosaurs and there was a picture showing what's in the middle of the earth.”

“A giant fireball,” Fitz informed her sagely. “It would burn a plant like that!” He snapped his fingers.

Jane smiled. Over the past winter, the twins had devoured every book they could find on the subject of dinosaurs, but by the end of the school year, their interest in the resplendent reptiles had waned. By May, anything to do with magic spells and wizardry utterly captivated them. Their nightstands were stacked with the books they'd purchased with their allowance, and they were also listening to the Harry Potter series on CD. These were a birthday gift from Aunt Octavia. Jane liked to play them while she was cleaning up after supper. This way, the boys could take their dessert to
the living room sofa and spend an hour with Harry with the lights on and their mother close by in the kitchen. After all, there were some frightening scenes in those stories, and though the twins adored being scared by fantastical tales, Jane deemed it best that they listen to them in her presence.

“You're right, the roots don't go to China, but they do go surprisingly deep. You can't just yank the plant out by its top or the whole weed will just regrow.”

“Like a lizard's tail,” Hem said, studying the dandelion with admiration.

After casting a brief glare at the offending plant, Fitz lunged at it. “I bet I could get it out.”

Before Jane could protest, he gathered the weed in his fist and pulled. The dandelion snapped at the base, leaving a white eye of a root staring up at them.

Seeing the dismayed look on her son's face, Jane squeezed his shoulder. “Don't worry, it happens to the very best of gardeners. What you need is the proper tool.”

Fitz took the item she proffered. “It looks like a stick for s'mores.”

“It does,” Jane agreed and showed her sons how to push the divided head of the weeder into the ground. Grasping the remains of the root with one hand, she worked the tool under the root until it finally released its hold of the soil and slid free. She placed it in the bucket with a triumphant flourish and then, with the boys on their knees beside her, pointed out which plants were weeds and should be removed.

“All this grass has to go, but it's tricky stuff so leave it to me,” she said. “You two focus on the dandelions and chickweed. See which ones I mean?” She pointed at multiple examples. “Bad, bad, bad. Got it?”

“It's not very nice to call them bad,” said an unfamiliar voice.

Jane glanced up to see a woman standing at the edge of
the garden bed. She wore a black dress, black boots, and a black sun hat with a large brim. With the sun behind her, her face was completely cast in shadow. The hair that framed her face was dark and wiry. The stranger had come upon them soundlessly. She now stood, looming over them, as though she had every right to be there.

“Take the dandelion, for example. You can eat the young leaves, make wine out of the flower, and roast the root to produce coffee,” she said in a deep, authoritative voice. She pivoted her head slightly, addressing the boys. “The root can also be turned into very useful medicine. You need a really big one, though. It has to be about this thick around.” She curled her fingers until they formed a circle of approximately an inch in diameter. “It can help people with kidney or liver problems. Those are organs, which are located here and here.” She indicated the areas on her torso. “Pretty handy for a
bad
plant, wouldn't you say?”

Jane, who'd been momentarily entranced by the dandelion trivia, looked over at her sons and saw that they were staring at the woman with a mixture of fascination and alarm. Their expressions forced Jane's maternal protective instincts into high alert, and she swiftly got to her feet, weeder in hand, and took a step toward the intruder.

“May I help you?” Jane asked.

There was something innately sinister about the woman's black garb and the manner in which she'd noiselessly appeared.

“This is a private residence.” Jane struggled to maintain a cordial tone. After all, she was the manager of Storyton Hall. She couldn't allow a stranger—and possible guest—to note her discomfort. “Maybe you didn't notice the sign on the gate.”

“Oh, I saw it,” the woman replied breezily and smiled.

The twins exchanged anxious glances.

Hem pulled on Fitz's sleeve and muttered, “The gate didn't squeak. How did she get in without it squeaking?”

And before Jane could ask another question, Fitz squinted up at the lady in black and whispered, “Are you a witch?”

Jane's eyes widened in horror. Despite the fact that the same word had also crossed her mind, she glowered fiercely at her son and intoned, “Hemingway Steward! Apologize this instant!”

However, the woman startled them all by tossing back her head and laughing heartily. The movement caused her sun hat to slip, revealing molasses brown hair threaded with filaments of gray and a nose sprinkled with freckles. “Young sir, you wouldn't be the first person to call a lady with a keen knowledge of plants a witch. Personally, I prefer the term ‘cunning woman.' These women used herbs to heal people during the Middle Ages. As for me, I'm better at healing gardens.” She smiled at Jane. “That's why I'm here. To help you with your garden.”

“I'm sorry?” Jane was totally confused.

The women held out her hand. “I'm Tammy Kota, a member of The Medieval Herbalists. I came a day early for our gathering because I wanted to read, explore the area, and spend a little time with Mrs. Hubbard before the scheduled activities begin.”

Jane relaxed a little. “You're a friend of Mrs. Hubbard's?”

“A new friend, yes,” Tammy replied. “After our president, Claude, booked this event, he asked me to take charge of our celebratory feast. I gladly agreed, and Mrs. Hubbard and I have been pen pals ever since.”

Tammy shifted position. Sunshine fell on her dress, and Jane realized that it wasn't solid black at all. The cotton fabric was actually dotted with tiny white flowers. The light also washed over Tammy's face, revealing a woman in her late fifties with sun-speckled skin and a generous number of laugh lines.

Something clicked in Jane's memory, and she suddenly
recalled Mrs. Hubbard mentioning how much she'd grown to admire the woman now standing before Jane.

“Forgive me for not recognizing your name right off.” To hide her embarrassment, Jane hastily introduced herself and the boys. “Mrs. Hubbard told me about the line of products you've created using herbs and plants from your garden. I can't wait to see them at this weekend's fair. Mrs. Hubbard also said that you were brought in as a consultant in the restoration project of the gardens at The Mount, Edith Wharton's home. That is so impressive.”

“It was more of a courtesy invitation,” Tammy said. “That project was led by Vivian Ash. She restores historic gardens for a living and is not only a fellow Medieval Herbalist, but also a lovely and generous woman to boot. She knew I was dying to watch The Mount's garden come to life again, so she got me on staff for a few weeks.”

Jane caught the glimmer of excitement in Tammy's eyes. “Was it wonderful?”

“It was.” Tammy sighed nostalgically. “I particularly loved the walled garden. There's nothing like being inside a walled garden at night. Even the most ordinary plants are transformed by moonlight. Their scents, shapes, and the very shadows they cast render them suddenly alien. In the dead of the night, plants can either turn into total mysteries or they can reveal their secret selves.”

Jane didn't know how to respond to this unusual remark. Judging from the way her sons were gaping at Tammy, they still believed she was a witch.

With a rather forced laugh, Jane gestured at her modest vegetable patch and said, “This is hardly comparable to a garden bed at The Mount. I'm sure you have better things to do than—”

“Examine your spinach?” Tammy smiled. “I love diagnosing sick plants. It's a hobby of mine. May I?” She pointed at the row of spinach.

Jane nodded in assent.

Tammy knelt in the dirt and cradled a spinach leaf in her hand. She peered at it intently before gingerly folding it inward and peering at it some more.

“Infected,” she murmured gravely and then waved for the boys to come closer. She tapped the leaf. “Do you see how the veins have turned yellow?”

“Yeah,” said Fitz. Jane nudged his rump with the toe of her shoe and he quickly amended his answer to, “Yes, ma'am.”

“This is caused by a disease spread by leafhoppers,” Tammy explained.

Hem cocked his head quizzically. “Is that like a grasshopper?”

“More like a cicada.” Tammy touched the leaf's paler underside with the tip of her index finger. “When the leafhoppers feed, they inject toxic saliva—their drool—into the plant. They also carry teeny tiny virus bugs around with them that they spread from plant to plant.”

“Gross,” Fitz grimaced, but leaned closer, his eyes gleaming with interest.

Jane, on the other hand, was genuinely repulsed by the idea of insects spreading disease among her vegetables. “What can I do?”

“We'll start by removing the infected plants. It's time to harvest the healthy ones before they bolt. You can plant another lettuce variety in its place.” Tammy looked at the boys. “The leafhoppers can't jump all around the garden like it's a big hopscotch board if we make life tougher for them. To do that, we need to get rid of all the weeds. Are you up for the challenge?”

The twins responded with a unified cry of, “Yes, ma'am!”

She smiled widely at them before fixing her attention on Jane again. “Once we're done with the harvesting and weeding, you can plant marigolds around the perimeter and right
down the center of the vegetable patch. Marigolds deter a host of garden pests. How does that sound?”