Mulch Ado About Nothing (17 page)

This room obviously had few reminders of the wife. It was probably the only part of the house that was really Arnie's own turf. There were a couple of awards of some kind on a shelf, several blurred news clippings with pictures of firefighters in action on the bulletin board, and the same kind of paintings on the walls. A pile of paperwork with colored folders sticking out here and there was next to the computer. There was an old-fashioned brass stand ashtray by a butt-sprung leather chair with a reading light behind it. One cigar butt was in it. This was probably the only place Arnie smoked.

It's none of your business,
she told herself fiercely as she headed back down the steps.

At least she was cheered by the fact that one room was strictly Arnie's and apparently well used. It seemed he actually had a few interests of his own. The computer, the memories of his life as a firefighter. Maybe he went out from time to time to visit old comrades or drop by the fire station itself and tell stories to the young men and women about the "good old times." Or cook some of their meals from his wife's recipes.

She glanced in the living room as she passed. An old television, a rocking chair with a pink sweater still hanging over one arm, a half-finished afghan spilling from a bright yellow bag of yarn by the side.
Oh, Arnie,
she thought.
Let her go, please let her go.

She passed through the kitchen to the back door without even looking at what treasures of Darlene's were still there, except to accidentally notice a row of little ceramic pots on the windowsill with struggling, leggy violets with yellowing leaves.

Arnie was standing outside the kitchen door when she opened it. "Did you make it okay up and down the stairs?”

Jane was determined to be cheerful. "I only bashed out three of the banister rails with my crutch. Just kidding. I didn't break anything.”

She joined the rest of the group, hoping to prove to herself and the others that she could get around perfectly well. Arnie's garden was truly pathetic, even though there were signs of hard work going into it. A wheelbarrow sat at the edge of the patio with garden tools. A large sturdy wastebasket was bulging with weeds. But the poor plants were a mess. The gardens had probably been wonderful five or six years ago, but were as dusty and preserved as almost everything she'd seen in his home.

“You must divide the perennials, Arnie," Miss Winstead was saying. "Start with those Japanese irises. I'm astonished they've survived without division. They grow the first year out of one bunch of tubers and put next year's growth outside the circle of the plant. That's why all the clumps have holes in the middle. Take them up, cut the tubers in pie-shaped pieces, take out the dead middle, and start them over in well-turned soil."

“But that's where my wife wanted them," he objected.

“Of course," Miss Winstead said as authoritatively as always. "But take them out, cut them up, work in some compost and peat, and put a few of them back in and give the rest to friends. Do that every third year and they'll thrive.”

Arnie looked questioningly at the irises. Jane assumed he was wondering if this plan could possibly fit in with his plans to honor his wife's garden. Jane hoped so.

She wandered around a bit, trying to keep up with the others as they moved around the perimeter of the yard where all the gardens were. Darlene had obviously loved bachelor buttons, and Arnie had let them self-seed for years. Poor things were leggy and the colors had cross-bred into murky light purples and blues, unlike fresh seeds with their vivid colors.

A huge peony bush that was finished blooming was falling away from its center, though Arnie had tried to prop up the desperate yellowing foliage with little green sticks. She mentally repeated Miss Winstead's advice to dig it up and divide it. Even Jane knew that was what you did with a peony that had run amok.

Piles of old bark mulch lined a cement path and looked as if they'd crumble to dust if stepped on or even touched. Some unidentifiable straggle of plants with stingy foliage and pitiful little faded coral pom-pomlike flowers were struggling along in the ancient bark.

Miss Winstead was lecturing Arnie again toward the back of the yard. "Those would be beautiful white lilies if you divided them as well. They've crowded themselves almost to death and you've let a tree grow here that shades them. They like lots of sun. See that one over there that managed to self-seed itself into a patch of light? That one's perfection."

“That's the same kind of lily I sent Dr. Jackson," Stefan said, strolling up to Arnie and Miss Winstead. "I'd almost forgotten I did that. I wonder if her sister got the arrangement.”

Shelley and Jane suddenly locked gazes of astonishment.

Stefan seemed to be admitting that he sent the flowers with the threatening note that was accidentally delivered to Jane's house the morning Julie was attacked. Shelley slipped away casually to the front of the house with her tiny cell phone in her hand, glancing back only once and nodding at Jane.

Jane had the urge to question Stefan, but knew Mel would have a stroke if he learned of her interference. She frantically asked Miss Winstead if the lily in question had a name.

“I imagine it's Casa Blanca. Just smell it. It has a divine fragrance. Watch your step, Jane. You nearly fell into the hostas. Aren't the stamens spectacular. Such a good yellow-orange.”

Jane remembered trying to get that color off her face when she and Shelley were taking the flowers to Dr. Julie Jackson's house.

Stefan suggested that maybe they could fit Mrs. Nowack and Mrs. Jeffry in today since theystarted so early in the day. Shelly and Jane were appalled. "Oh, no!" Shelley exclaimed. "I have to take a bunch of teenage girls to their cooking lessons. And Jane has an appointment. That's why we were so glad to be able to do the tours early.”

Jane was nodding and feeling a bit as if she looked like Dr. Eastman's housekeeper, bobbing in agreement. But she was thinking frantically that Mike hadn't even mowed the yard yet and Willard had been out there since the last poop scooping.

Sensing that this was adjournment, everyone thanked Arnie and Stefan for letting them come see their gardens and moved in a disordered clump to the front of the house — just as a police car and a little red sports car stopped in front of Arnie's house. Mel got out of the car and a large uniformed officer lumbered out of the police vehicle.

Arnie was standing on the porch, waving good-bye to everyone, when he spotted the two interlopers and grabbed the porch rail to steady himself.

“Are you Arnold Waring?" Mel asked.

“Yes."

“And is one of your guests Stefan Eckert?”

Arnie pointed a shaking finger toward Stefan, who realized they were looking for him. He strolled over and said, "Have I parked in a place I shouldn't?"

“No, we would just like to ask you some questions. Would you mind coming with us?”

Stefan only looked slightly alarmed. He was more confused than scared. "May I ask what this is about?" But even as he spoke, he was moving obediently toward the cars in front.

“Not here, I think.”

Stefan was invited to sit in the back of the police car, and both it and Mel's moved off.

Jane turned around and saw Arnie sitting on the porch with his head in his hands. "Arnie looks ill," she said, and they all rushed forward to give aid and comfort.

“Leave me alone," Arnie said when Miss Winstead asked him to raise his head so she could look at his pupils. Jane didn't quite understand this order. Did Miss Winstead suspect a stroke and were pupils a sign?

“You're as white as a ghost. You aren't well," Miss Winstead insisted.

“I'm not sick," Arnie insisted. "Just sick at heart. Imagine how upset poor Darlene would have been if the police had come to her garden and taken someone away.”

Jane put her hand on his shoulder and spoke softly but firmly. "Darlene didn't see it, Arnie. She's not here. She's not upset. Nor should you be. It had nothing to do with you or your late wife.”

Color started coming back to his face and he struggled to his feet shakily. "You're right, Miss Jeffry. I was thinking of Darlene more than usual because it's really her garden I invited all of you to see."

“We know how you feel, Arnie," Jane said, though she really didn't understand him. "But you would honor Darlene best if you brought her garden back to what it once was by taking all the good advice you got today. You need to get out with a sharp shovel and some knives to divide plants, and I'll bet you'll have her garden back just like it once was by next spring.”

Arnie stared at Jane for a long moment. "You may be right," he said before opening his front door. Slowly he went into the house and closed the door very gently.

“
I shouldn't
have
said that to him, about Dar- lene being gone," Jane lamented on the way home. "I think I hurt his feelings and all I meant to do was calm him down. He looked so terrible."

“I don't see why. For one thing, what you said was true. And the poor old guy could have had a heart attack or stroke thinking about what his wife would have felt if the police came into her yard. He doesn't even know if that's accurate. She might have gotten a kick out of it," Shelley said. "Keep in mind that we didn't know her.”

Jane said, "While I was upstairs at Arnie's, I peeked in the two bedrooms."

“Of course you did," Shelley said. "Anybody would."

“But only from the open doorways," Jane amended, as if this counted toward a reputation for good manners. She described the bedroom, the ice water and carafe on Darlene's side of the bed, the pillowcase that had never been washed. The rouge tin on the vanity. The half-done afghan and sweater on Darlene's chair in the living room.

“I guess I'm not as softhearted as you. I think that's ridiculous," Shelley said.

“But very, very sad, too. I simply can't imagine wanting to live with a dead person, no matter how much I might have loved them when they were alive. My grandmother once had a friend who did that with her son's room. He died as a child and the room stayed exactly as it was the last time he left it for about forty years. It upset the mother every time she looked in, but she kept it that way anyhow. And the ou r children resented it enormously. They were all younger and had never even known the dead older brother. Even when they were adults and came to visit, nobody was allowed to set foot in that room, let alone sleep there. My mother's friend was unhappy all her life."

“I've heard stories like this before. I can't grasp why people would do that. Have you ever seen that commercial where the parents are bidding a tearful farewell to their college-graduate son, and the moment he's out of sight, Mom is measuring his room for where the new hot tub can go?"

“I laugh every time I see it," Jane replied. "And keep thinking about Mike's room. I want to turn it into my office the minute he graduates so I don't ever have to go back in the basement. I'll make the extra bathroom upstairs the laundry room when all three kids are gone. Speaking of Mike being gone, he hasn't mowed the lawn yet."

“Don't look at me," Shelley said. "I've made my life's work not knowing a thing about the way a lawn mower works. And I'm also too stupid to understand the fuse box."

“Nobody believes that."

“True. But it's my story and I'm sticking to it.”

When they got home, Shelley's lawn service was tearing around her yard, using a wide variety of noisy machines. "Want me to loan them to you? Just this one time?"

“I can't afford it if we're going to buy me a television."

“I forgot about the television. How could I? Let's do that now, shall we? We'll drop the girls off at their cooking lesson first. When Mike gets home, he and a couple friends can haul it upstairs for you. And I warn you I won't let you be stingy about it. You need a nice big one with all the bells and whistles. Don't look at me that way, Jane. I know what I'm talking about. The first television we got for the bedroom was tiny and we had to sprawl in bed on our stomachs with our heads at the wrong end to see the picture.”

Shelley was true to her word. Jane came home with a box that nearly filled half the back of Shelley's van. The van also contained a new VCR and a cabinet to put everything on.

“I wish we could haul it out now," Jane said.

“We couldn't do that if we had six women friends to help. It's one of those manly things to move televisions and furniture.”

They went first to look over Shelley's yard. Freshly mowed, it looked and smelled wonderful. "What's that vine with the trellis in the big pot?" Jane asked.

Shelley walked over and pulled out a tag stuck in the soil. "Brugmansia, it says. Look at the picture."

“Good Lord! Those yellow flowers are gorgeous. The size of a child's head."

“And it's wonderfully fragrant. I saw them once in a Southern California hotel courtyard. They grew clear up to the second-story balcony and smelled divine."

“Southern California? That must mean you have to take it inside in the winter."

“I'll make Paul do that," Shelley said smugly.

“I wonder how Stefan's doing," Jane said, gesturing for Shelley to come along inside Jane's house. "I need a snack."

“Stefan probably isn't a happy camper, I'd guess. And he's going to be angry that somebody tipped off the police that he was the one who sent the flower arrangement to Julie. He's sure to make the connection to one of us."

“But he won't know which one of us, will he?" Jane hadn't thought of this before and it made her feel like a busy-mouthed tattletale even though Shelley actually made the call.

“Not unless Mel tells him."

“He wouldn't, I'm sure. He tells us things he probably shouldn't because he knows we'll honor his confidence. I'm positive he'll do the samething for us. Stefan will probably blame the cops themselves for finding out. Or the florist. Or Miss Winstead."