Mulch (17 page)

“So what does he have to do with anything?”

“Only that when I went back to get my stick the next day, he had pulled the shades down on the windows in that workshop—see it right there? The shades are still pulled down; they’re always pulled down now when I walk through here. I guess he didn’t like me messing around his yard.”

“Well, put him on our list of suspicious persons. But we’re headed somewhere else, right? Where did you and your mother go to get those bags of leaves? And by the way”—
Chris paused and looked carefully at Janie—“isn’t your mother a little odd, I mean, to go around and—”

“No,” said Janie firmly. “I don’t want to hear that any more. She’s just an organic gardener. She can’t help it; she’s no worse than my great-grandmother, who had a farm in Illinois. She used to bury garbage in the garden and mulch like mad. You know about mulching, I suppose? But I swear: Otherwise, she’s pretty normal. Now she might get some little job writing gardening articles, but like your mom, that wouldn’t get her out of the house.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.” Chris threw back his head to get his long hair out of his face. “I think it’s very good for mothers to get out of the house.”

“And as for my great-grandmother, know what happened to her? She’s old and in a wheelchair, but she still gives other people advice on gardening. They take her around from the Home to different places so she can give lectures.”

“Your mom’s just like your great-grandmother.”

“’Cept when Great Gram could still walk, she and my mom looked really funny together—like Mutt and Jeff. Great Gram is tiny, and Ma’s pretty tall.”

He looked down at her. “So? You and I are a lot alike, and look how different we look.”

She smiled. “Yeah—you’re ugly, and I’m beautiful.” Suddenly self-conscious, she added brusquely, “Let’s get going—it’s not far.”

They walked to the end of the park in the woods and turned right onto Martha’s Lane. “It’s down at the end. Race you!” And she sprinted down the asphalt street. Chris followed and
they were neck and neck. Then Chris surged ahead and out of sight.

Janie slowed to a walk, and Chris trotted around in a circle and came back to walk in tandem again. “Which house?” he asked quietly.

She pointed. “The one with all the bushes and trees in front.” They walked across the parkway in front of the house, the leaves crunching underfoot.

“You picked up leaf bags right here?”

“Right here,” said Janie, and pointed out the spot.

“But the yard is still all filled with leaves. It’s a woodsy yard, just like ours. You don’t even rake them.”

“They must have a lawn in the backyard that they raked,” said Janie.

Chris looked at her, as if to gauge her mettle. “Want to go look?”

“Okay.” Janie’s heart was thumping again.

With care they walked up toward the house, past the shield of evergreens that hid the front door from the street.

“Look at all those ads thrown on the front porch,” whispered Chris. “There’s nobody home here. Let’s go out back.” He led the way into the backyard. There was a large lawn strewn with leaves and beyond it a thick woods.

They stood for an instant, taking it all in. Then Chris looked at Janie, another challenge in his gray eyes. “Nobody’s around. Let’s go peek in the house.”

They made their way quietly across the yard and looked through a crack in the drawn curtains. Two table lamps threw dim light on the room. “It’s pretty,” whispered Janie, “all rose and white. It looks like nobody lives here.”

“Maybe used to, but doesn’t any more,” whispered Chris. “This place is creepy.”

Janie looked at him in alarm. “I think I’m getting scared.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t mean to scare you. C’mon.” He took her hand and they made their way back to the front yard and the street. “All I can say is, it doesn’t look like anyone raked leaves around here.”

“It’s probably a new leaf fall.”

“Leaf fall,” said Chris sarcastically, dropping her hand. “Where’d you get that expression?”

“Trees have a succession of leaf falls. Oak leaves hold on later than other leaves. Look up there.” She stopped and pointed to a tree outlined in the moonlight. Colonies of silvery leaves still clung to the black branches. “See, they still have, oh, I’d say about ten percent of their leaves. They stay there all winter, through all the wind and snow and rain. Then they let go in spring.”

“Huh, ‘let go in spring,’” said Chris, scuffing his tennis shoes against the asphalt. “‘Successive leaf falls.’ Who talks like that?”

Janie gave him a smug smile. “My mother.” Then she took off with her long, thin legs and ran toward home.

“Y
OU’RE SURE YOU DON’T WANT ME TO GO
with you or meet you there?”

“Thanks, but no.”

“Where is the office?”

“Dupont Circle. I know just where it
is.
I applied for a job at a building not far from it.”

“It’s not five minutes away from me, if you want me to come.”

“What would you do? You can’t come with me. How can I be hypnotized with my husband holding my hand?”

“It would really help things if you remember something.”

“You mean they would get off your back, quit coming to your office to question you and making you feel like a criminal?”

“Well.
You’re
crusty today.”

“I guess I am. Maybe I’ll feel better when we see each other again tonight.”

“Good-bye, dear.”

“Good-bye. By the way, can we trade cars, please? I’d like to listen to my Miles Davis tape.”

“Good idea. Will jazz get you in the mood to be hypnotized?”

“I’ll let you know later.”

“Okay. ’Bye, Louise.”

It was cold again so she put on her full-length wool coat and dress boots and went out to his car. The white Camry. It started up at the turn of the key. Its still-new smell and plush interior gave her a shock, although she and Bill traveled in it frequently on weekends. Her six-year-old wagon, redolent with the smells of cow manure, was like a creature apart from this sleek one she drove today.

It was a point of difference between her and Bill. He had to have his fancy car. Out of some leftover student rebellion—or was it from her minister, who constantly spoke against materialism like a prophet crying in the wilderness?—she disdained new possessions and favored the old. She knew one thing: No one would ever steal her car, while this white job would make a good candidate, especially if she parked it on the street in the rather questionable neighborhood in downtown Washington that was her destination.

She turned on Miles Davis and let her mind ride free. Just as she feared, this was becoming another winter of her discontent.

Bill was all settled in his job. Janie and faraway Martha were both snuggled in again with their schools and friends. She had tried, and tried again, and still no job. Her closest companion had been a sodden contractor who had occupied her life when they moved in. Now even he was gone. She refused to wimp out and become a volunteer again. Both in foreign service posts abroad and in their homes here in the States she had been the consummate volunteer—the one who set up children’s library reading programs, fund-raisers, whatever was needed most and was up her alley. No more; her next job was going to yield a paycheck. And she
might
have a job, if that garden book editor would only call her.

In the meantime people thought of her as an unemployed housewife. Not only that—the unemployed housewife who had found the body parts in the mulch!

Tears came down her cheeks. Miles Davis’s oblique, wailing trumpet was a perfect accompaniment. The minute she got up this morning she knew she would feel like crying.

She realized expectations were high. Her husband and the police glibly anticipated that she would lie on a couch, get hypnotized, and throw up to them out of her dutiful subconscious a handy clue to solve the crime of the body in the bags.

She parked on the street, looking around suspiciously at passersby and hoping no one would steal the dratted car; that would surely be the final indignity in her troubled life.

The offices of the hypnotist were fancier than the street—
modern, with decor in the pleasantest hues of pale apricot and beige. Hypnotism must pay well, she decided.

“Mrs. Eldridge? Dr. Gordon.” His handshake was vigorous. He had white hair, slicked back to cover a widening baldness. He looked to her as if he used a sun lamp. His suit was dark blue with a stripe that to her tastes was slightly too wide. He was just a little taller than she, but then she had high-heeled boots on today with a deep red woolen dress. The somber dress she thought appropriate for such a serious business as being hypnotized and having one’s mind, soul, and body put in the hands of another.

He invited her to use the women’s lavatory. She demurred. “I’m fine as is, thanks.”

Briefly, they sat and he told her what they hoped to accomplish.

“Have you helped solve crimes before, then?”

“On occasion, yes,” he answered, in his mellifluous voice. He offered no further details.

He invited her to sit in a reclining chair near his. She did so, pulling her dress well down and crossing her legs at the ankle, as if following the dictums of a prim mother.

Then he began talking, in a sonorous tone that seemed to echo in the room. “I want you to relax … to feel yourself letting go … going into a deep sleep.”

She noticed he repeated “deep,” “relaxing,” and “letting go” many times, and it rather annoyed her. He needed editing. He asked her to close her eyes and she did.

It was relaxing, and she felt herself slipping off a shelf into another level of consciousness. He was counting now. “You
are going deeper, deeper, deeper…. You’re doing excellent.”

Doing excellent! The improper usage clanged in her brain. Although wide awake, she kept her eyes closed.

“You’re doing well.”

She relaxed a little.

“Take these moments to enjoy and feel the wonderful relaxation of your body and your mind…. There now, you’re doing just excellent.”

She opened her eyes and looked at the man. “I’m sorry.”

He looked startled. “You’re not asleep.” He looked at his watch. “Ten minutes, and you’re not asleep at all.” He looked puzzled. “Mrs. Eldridge, are you troubled by something?”

“Mmmm. Not exactly. I just don’t think I’m going to be hypnotized.”

“Can I ask why not? Something about me—does it make you uncomfortable?”

“Well …” Briefly she considered telling the truth, then thought better of it. How can you tell a man he sounds like a charlatan? “You have a very nice voice. But I know I am not going to be hypnotized. I just can’t be.”

“Ah.” He sat back and nodded as if at last understanding. “I think you are a woman who is afraid, or shall I say docs not want to give up control.”

“Not any more I don’t.” Her voice sounded very cool. She liked the way it sounded. She flipped the wooden handle that allowed the recliner chair to right itself and stood up. The doctor stood up, too.

“This is a little disappointing, Mrs. Eldridge. The police
suspect you know something that you haven’t remembered yet.”

She looked at him with widened eyes. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty, Dr. Gordon? I don’t believe that’s called for. I’m not the criminal. As for the police, well, I guess the police will just have to solve the crime the old-fashioned way.”

She left the office. The receptionist, who apparently sensed something was awry, had Louise’s coat ready for her to slip on.

As she strode out of the building onto the deserted street, she realized her challenge to Dr. Gordon was so much hot air. Actually, she felt guilty as sin, and that made her angry. “Guilt sucks,” she muttered fiercely, as she strode down the sidewalk, grateful again to her college daughter for widening her vocabulary.

Two preteenage boys approached, appearing to come out of nowhere. Both casually brandished sticks, acting exactly like Janie with her stick, bopping them on the ground, waving them in the air, hitting out at trees. But this was not Sylvan Valley—it was an empty street in downtown Washington. And here she was, looking like Mrs. Big Bucks in her fancy clothes and inviting purse, ready to climb into her $30,000 car. She clutched her purse strap with tight fingers and gave them a Clint Eastwood glare that said, “Don’t even think about it.”

They looked back at her with innocent faces, two young black kids going home for lunch. Feeling foolish, she opened the car door, got in, and drove away.

She maneuvered through the heavy late-morning Washington traffic, yielding not an inch to pushy drivers in sports cars
who went ballistic if another driver got in front of them. But she did not mind driving these studs wild this morning: Today, no one would get the best of her!

But Geraghty had gotten the best of her. He didn’t bother to keep her informed about the murder investigation. All he had done was interview Janie once, and Bill about three times, and shoo her off to the police psychologist. The crime had to be top priority since it was the grisliest murder Fairfax County had seen since the slashing death of a young couple last year in their Alexandria condo. No, the police were still hot on the case, but certainly not bothering to share any of the details with her or Bill.