Mulch (14 page)

After a little pause, Geraghty said, “Then let’s talk about your gardening a little more.”

“What about it?”

He cleared his throat. “You have a nice, interesting-looking yard, that’s for sure, and you obviously are, uh, caught up in gardening. Since I don’t do that stuff myself, can you make one thing clear?”

“I’ll try.”

“Do all gardeners, um, go around collecting other people’s leaves—or is that just you?”

She slumped a little in the seat. She would never lose the tag “gardening nut” with these detectives. “I suppose that not a lot of people do that. It was just expediency, Detective Geraghty. It’s very simple: Leaves are mulch. I needed mulch. And free mulch can’t be sneezed at.” Instantly, the power of suggestion took over and she gave out a huge sneeze, her olfactory system barraged again with the car’s used air and evil fumes. She smiled. “But this police car can be sneezed at. Do you mind opening the window again?” She rubbed the dirty glass with her fingertips. “And better slow down: We’re coming to the first place we picked up bags … beyond this long hill.”

They were on Foxhall Road, passing estates set back behind iron fences and coming to smaller houses standing closer to the road. “Just a few more houses … this brown one. I think we must have picked up four bags here. That’s what Janie and Bill and I all remember.”

Then they traced their way through the crowded streets to
Bradley Boulevard in Bethesda, where Louise remembered another pickup. Wistfully, she thought of her friends living here, and wished she could visit them and tell them what had happened. They would take her in their arms and comfort her. But Geraghty wouldn’t stop: He was like a bird dog searching out quail. Their friends would know soon enough, anyway. The story probably was already on TV.

After Bethesda they turned south again, snaking through the middle of the diamond that represented the District of Columbia, on Rock Creek Parkway; they emerged near the highflying Watergate and the Kennedy Center, sped past an indifferent Lincoln and Jefferson in their respective memorials, then south on Route 1 through Alexandria and to Geraghty’s headquarters, the Fairfax County police substation.

He parked in front of the building, which featured abbreviated large white columns of the sort found in public buildings throughout Virginia. Louise had been inside to obtain car stickers and had been amused to see that the faux colonial style stopped at the door. Inside was an array of grimy ivory walls and Formica counters. “Have to dash in here a minute, Mrs. Eldridge. Want to come, or will you wait in the car?”

“I’ll wait here.” She snuggled into her coat and closed her eyes, then opened them almost immediately, sensing people near. They were walking by to enter the police station. They stared at her, trying to figure out why she was in an unmarked police car. Louise felt like putting her wrists on the dashboard as if to illustrate, “Look, no handcuffs! I’ve merely been detained for questioning.” Instead she put one hand up and casually rubbed her face, as if she were totally used to hanging around police stations.

Geraghty lumbered out and down the stairs; like a large bear on the move. “I wasn’t too long, was I?” he said with a big grin. Louise bet he said things like that to his wife: a man who wanted the favor of women.

“No. Not too long. Now, the next place is east of here, near the parkway.” They drove there, Geraghty again noting the address of the house, a large colonial.

“Now we come to Sylvan Valley,” said Louise. She directed him to two homes on Ransom Road where she and Janie had picked up as many as twelve bags of leaves.

“And then the last bunch: They came from Martha’s Lane.” They drove up there, to the highest point in the neighborhood, where the houses had a wide view of the valley to the west.

“It’s the house on the bend … right here,” said Louise. It was one-story, at least in front, and shrouded with bushes and low trees. “We took six bags from here; they were the only ones that were out so early before trash day on this particular street.”

“Oh? How so?” said Geraghty.

“I don’t know why. Some people here are very, well, fastidious. They only put their trash out at the last minute, so as not to make the neighborhood unsightly.” She smiled and looked at him. “Sylvan Valley is full of liberals, but they’re fussy about appearances.”

Geraghty left the car running and went up to the house to find out the address. He came back carrying a couple of advertising flyers he apparently had found near the front door.

They slowly made their way back down the lane.

“There’s something else….”

Geraghty turned toward her, blue eyes alert. “Ah. What is it?”

The memory slipped away as quickly as it came, like a wisp of smoke.

“I … I just can’t remember. Maybe nothing.”

“Maybe not,” said Geraghty slowly. “Can you do something for me?” He stopped the car and turned full toward her. “I want you to sit down with your family tonight and talk about all these places you’ve been”—he nodded at the list she had in her hand—“and get Janie and Mr. Eldridge to think of anything at all that happened when you were out at these places.”

Then he drove on Route 1 toward Louise’s house. “I think we’ve done it for today,” said Geraghty. “We’ll do a thorough check on these addresses, for one thing. Although anybody could have done just the opposite of what you did.”

She looked at him. “What do you mean?” She put her hand to her head. “Oh, of course.”

“Yeh. Anybody could have brought their bags of leaves and put them in front of someone else’s house.”

Louise smiled wanly. “That would leave you nowhere, right?”

“Right. That’s why the forensics report will be important … and another report, too.”

“What’s that?”

“Missing persons, Mrs. Eldridge. You see, this woman had a life. What kind of a life we don’t know. But someone’s bound to miss her.”

“Oh,” sighed Louise. “I don’t envy you your job at all.”

“It’s not so bad,” said Geraghty. “I meet lots of nice
people. Like you, for instance. So, Mrs. Eldridge, I’m hungry. Can I by any chance interest you in a burger? We’re not far away….”

“A burger.” Her stomach flinched. She had recently read that most burgers contained about fifteen teaspoons of fat. On the other hand, the release of the iron grip of headache had left her with mushy feelings of gratitude toward the whole world. So she said, “A burger sounds very nice.”

Geraghty turned into the fast-food place and parked expertly in a crowded lot. As they entered, Louise realized this was truly another world. Red and tan Formica everywhere, repeated in the uniforms of the youngsters behind the counter. The colors assaulted her eye, waking her up for good on this slow-to-get-started morning. The number of people surprised her. She and the detective stood at the end of a long line.

Then she became conscious of the smell, the smell of grease. Little globules of grease perfumed the air and must be entering all her apertures and fastening themselves onto her clothes and her exposed hair. She tried to restrain a shudder. Then, determined to be a good sport—after all, she had come here of her own free will—she shook the picture from her mind and concentrated on the customers, who almost filled the place up.

She looked at her watch; it was noon. The noon crowd, she noted, included students from the nearby high school and nondescript older couples, the women without makeup or pretence, the men equally plain, hunkering down with rounded shoulders to gobble their meals. There were a couple groups of young business people, perky, sitting tall, dressed and groomed for success in whatever the game was around here—
maybe the big insurance firm located nearby on Route 1. They acted no different than if they were lunching in Georgetown.

Sprinkled in were the young mothers. They were not the slimmest mothers she had ever seen, but they had pretty, plump faces and bright winter outfits that probably disguised figures heading for trouble. Their children seemed to hang on them and clamor for specialties. “Mom, I want the fresh apple pie!” yelled one little boy, then hustled over to the condiments counter to gather up expertly the ketchup, napkins, cream, and straws that the family needed. For these children, this place was like a second home.

She and Geraghty had worked their way to the front of the line. He grinned down at her, as if reading her mind over the past minute or two. “What’ll you have … the treat’s on me.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought …” said Louise, straining to read the offerings on the wall menu. She had left her reading glasses somewhere. “Maybe a plain hamburger.”

“You’re willing to wait, then.”

“Wait?”

Geraghty gave her a strange look. “You don’t cat fast food at all, do you? Plain hamburgers are like a special order. They take, maybe, five minutes.”

“Oh, gourmet stuff, huh? Okay.” She squinted her eyes at the menu again and then looked straight at the smiling young black man waiting for their order. He seemed to have a twinkle in his eye. “I’ll have your Super Burger,” she said, pulling herself straighter and maintaining eye contact. “I’m sure it’s very good, and a glass of milk.” The youngster turned to
Gcraghty, but Louise interrupted with an afterthought. “Uh, what does it have on it?” She shook her head. “Not ketchup.”

“Yes, ma’am. Ketchup.”

She put up a restraining hand. “No, I don’t want—”

The young man hadn’t stopped smiling since she began to speak. “Hold the ketchup: no problema. How about our Russian dressing instead?”

“Russian?” asked Louise suspiciously.

“Pink. Very tasty.”

“Okay, if you say so. And a big cup of coffee please.” That would banish the very last strings of headache left in her brow.

“Super Burger,” said Geraghty. “Good choice. I’ll have one too, with fries, slaw, and coffee, and a piece of apple pie.”

Louise asked the young man, “You wouldn’t have a few pickles, would you? Pickles to put alongside, not inside, the hamburger?”

He smiled again. “Ma’am, pickles are our middle name.” He rang up the total and Geraghty paid. Then, before their eyes, in less than ten seconds, the young man gathered their orders, set out their cups, and prepared and delivered a small cup of pickle slices for Louise.

“Enjoy,” he said.

As they walked to an empty table, Louise said, “I know why people like these places.”

“Why?” asked Geraghty, placing the tray on the table and settling himself down.

She took off her old jacket and hung it on the hook, then slid in opposite him. “Because it’s instant gratification, as opposed to postponed pleasure.”

“Never thought of it quite that way before.”

It was a very large burger, whose insides she did not want to investigate but whose sides were leaking pink sauce. Louise took her first bite and realized it had things in it that she would never have combined in her craziest recipe. Then she gave in. She chewed slowly, savoring the sharp tang of a pickle that—contrary to her likes—was embedded somewhere within; the sauce, also tasty; the enticing taste of beef; and then the crunchy aftertaste of tomato and lettuce. She took a sip of milk to wash it down.

“How d’ya like it?” asked Geraghty, his mouth half full. He looked as concerned as someone introducing a gastronomical treat.

“Not bad,” said Louise, hunkering down and going for another bite.

Geraghty reamed through his lunch, wiped his mouth, and settled back with the big coffee.

Louise wondered how his stomach stood such abuse.

Geraghty said, “There’s something we didn’t go into yet, Mrs. Eldridge. It might be called ‘what you know but don’t know you know.’”

“You mean that memory of something happening on Martha’s Lane?”

“The memory that won’t shake loose. And there might be others, too. You and Mr. Eldridge, being highly educated, know the mind is like a computer and it has a lot of files. A lot of these memory files won’t come open unless we have the password to open them. You need to spend some time concentrating on anything that might have happened to your family over the past month or two, but particularly the past few
weeks. And then, there’s another way to help you remember things.”

“What, torture?” She grinned and carefully wiped pink sauce from her mouth. These burgers were messy but good. Not anything like the rather austere, lean ones Bill occasionally grilled in the summer.

“No. Hypnotism.” He leaned forward. “Hypnotism has been used very successfully on occasion. And you, Mrs. El-dridgc”—he sat back and waved a hand at her as if he had invented her—“I believe you know something you’ve forgotten.”

She downed the last of her milk. “Hypnotism. Does the Fairfax Police Department have a resident hypnotist?” She couldn’t restrain a smile.

He scowled back at her. “No. But we know where there is one—not here in Fairfax County, but in Washington. You might not take this seriously, Mrs. Eldridge, but it may be at your own peril. I think you know something that could help us.”

Louise was sitting back, feeling comfortably fed, sipping coffee. And then his words sank in, and her brain communicated to her stomach a sharp unease.

She stated it flatly: “Then the opposite of that is that the something I know could hurt the murderer.”

“Exactly. That’s why the possible peril.” Geraghty looked at her, his blue eyes wider than usual. Concern for her? “That is why we have to get going. We have to find out what you know. There’s an outside chance you could be in danger.”

She looked around at the crowd of students and oldsters and professionals and mothers innocently eating their rations.
None of them had overheard; she and Geraghty looked like part of the crowd; middle-aged couple, the man overweight, the woman with unkempt hair. And yet here they were talking about murder and danger. She stared down for an instant at her thin hands cupping the plastic coffee cup, then looked up at the big detective. “I can think of one good thing out of this, Detective Geraghty. You must not any longer think of our family as suspects.”

“Not you, anyway, Mrs. Eldridge. And within a few days I believe we can safely eliminate any suspicion regarding your husband. What we want to do is to solve this terrible crime, and without hurting you or your family.”