Summer Garden Murder (8 page)
Read Summer Garden Murder Online
Authors: Ann Ripley
11
M
artha grabbed her arm. “Ma, you have to ignore those guys. The detectives are at the door. When they called earlier, Morton sounded like they really meant business. You have to talk to them now.” She hurried to the front door, with Louise trailing her.
artha grabbed her arm. “Ma, you have to ignore those guys. The detectives are at the door. When they called earlier, Morton sounded like they really meant business. You have to talk to them now.” She hurried to the front door, with Louise trailing her.
Bill came down the hall and intercepted them, putting both hands up to bar their way. “Hold on a minute,” he said, and put an arm around each of them. “My dears, I have something to say. I know we're all exhausted from being up all night, but let's keep calm with these folks. This may take all morning or all day. But then I expect they'll get out of here and let us go on with our lives.”
“I'll turn the air conditioning temp down,” offered Martha. “That will help keep us cool.”
“Great,” said Bill, and opened the front door to the police. “Ah, Detective Geraghty, Detective Morton,” he said, in a nonchalant voice. “Come in.”
Mike Geraghty walked in the front door, then stood aside and said to his companion, “Why don't you go first, George?”
Louise's mouth fell slack. She knew that this order of entry was far from meaningless. What had happened to Geraghty? Far into the night, all through the hours of questioning at the Mount Vernon substation, it was a Lieutenant Dan Trace who was in charge. Trace was a giant of a man, six-foot-six at least, with a deep voice but a quiet way of speaking, quiet and impressive. He'd posed few questions, but all of them important. But Mike Geraghty had led the interview, as if he were next in command under the lieutenant. Morton had come up with some nasty queries, asking her if she had issues with any of the neighbors “besides” Hoffman. Because she thought he'd learn it from someone else anyway, she'd answered that Mike Cunningham was the only one whom she didn't consider a friend.
“You don't like him?” challenged Morton.
She'd shrugged, trying to minimize it. “Ask the other neighborhood women. He's a bit of a flirt, that's all.”
Morton had given her a smirk.
A grim thought hit her. Maybe Lieutenant Trace had decided that Geraghty was too close an acquaintance of Bill and Louise Eldridge to take an important part in this investigation, so by this morning had substituted Morton as lead detective.
Deciding it was best to ignore these bureaucratic details, she led off with her main concern. “Before I offer you coffee, Mike, I want you to promise me that no one is going to disturb my gardens until I'm out there with them. Can we agree on that?”
The detective went to the patio door, opened it and walked out for a brief conference with the technicians standing on the flagstone. They were leaning over and eyeing the flowers. Louise was reminded of thieves who'd just discovered a precious stash of loot.
Geraghty returned to the living room and said, “It's taken care of. As for coffee, Louise, no thanks.” He turned to George Morton. “That's right, isn't it, George? You don't need coffee?”
Morton said, “Let's just sit down and get to it.” He gave Martha a hard look. “Miss Eldridge, do you want to stay or not?”
“I do,” said Martha. “I feel very much a part of this.”
They took seats, Louise on the couch with Geraghty next to her and George Morton on the other side in her grandmother's antique chair. Martha and Bill occupied chairs across from them. Geraghty cocked his head toward Morton. “So, George, why don't you start this time?”
Suddenly the room felt close, and she thought she could even smell rancid perspiration on one or other of the detectives, probably Morton. Unlike Mike Geraghty, who had his little worn pad poised on his knee, Morton held only a folded piece of paper in his hand. He raised his big head on his shortened body and addressed her. “Now, Mrs. Eldridge, just a few questions. Here's what we already have. You admit that you hated Peter Hoffman.”
“I didn't exactly hate him. I'd say I seriously disliked him.”
“But you acknowledge that you had a nasty fight with him in this house on Saturday night, August fourth, following a party at the home of Ron and Nora Radebaugh. During the time of the fight, you threw a heavy pitcher at him that might have killed him if your aim hadn't been off.”
“Oh, no
.
That pitcher wasn't heavy enough to kill him, not unless I'd hit him directly on his head or somethingâ”
.
That pitcher wasn't heavy enough to kill him, not unless I'd hit him directly on his head or somethingâ”
“We'll leave that for now. It's thought that you invited him into your house to talk things over.”
“Humph,” said Louise. “I did not invite him. He broke into my house. That's why we brought charges against him.”
Morton bent his head and looked at his notes. “Okay, that's what you say, Mrs. Eldridge. Some of your neighbors and friends say otherwise. Let me continue. Then, after filing charges and petitioning for a restraining order, you and your family set off on a vacation. But you, Mrs. Eldridge, returned to your home and backyard around midnight on Sunday, August twelfth.”
“Yes. I told Lieutenant Trace and you and Mike that about six times last night.”
“All right.” The detective leaned forward and took a deep breath, casting a quick glance at the notes. “Here's what we have. Shortly after midnight on Monday, August thirteenth, someone sighted you, wearing your gardening hat and an old sweatshirt, moving your garden cart from Sam Rosen's side yard into your yard.”
“No, no,” remonstrated Louise, “I did no such thing.”
Morton said, “Hold on and let me finish, Mrs. Eldridge. This same source claims that after that, he heard little noises, maybe like digging noises, way back in the woods where he couldn't see you.” He glowered at her. “In other words, in that azalea garden where we found the body.”
“I did not dig; I just bent down and felt the soil in that garden. If that person heard me digging, why didn't he come out and see why I was digging in the middle of the night?”
The detective cocked his head, looking amused. “Wonder if our source had decided you were a kind of ... obsessive gardener who might just do a thing like that.”
She released a heavy sigh. “And what's all this about my hat and sweatshirt?”
“The hat was found on a hook in your garden shed. The sweatshirt reads âBullfrog Marina.' Sound familiar?”
“It's my old sweatshirt from Lake Powell. I leave it hanging in the toolshed.”
“Huh,” grunted Morton. “Funny that we found it neatly folded, directly under Mr. Hoffman's body, in the grave you dug for him.”
Louise's breath caught, and she thought she'd faint. Bill stood up and came over to where she sat on the couch. He looked down at Mike Geraghty and said, “Let's trade seats.” Geraghty moved to her husband's chair, and Bill sat down and took Louise's hand firmly in his.
Morton watched silently. Then he said, “Back to that sweatshirt, Mrs. Eldridge. We've picked up a detail about youâthat you're compulsively neat. So this handling of the sweatshirt would be something you'd do, wouldn't it? Sort of your âsignature.' ”
“That's bullshit,” snapped Bill. “It doesn't prove a damned thing.”
“Then maybe the stains will.”
Louise's mouth fell open. “It's stained? Stained with what?”
In a gentle tone, Mike Geraghty explained. “The sweatshirt has some dark smears on it. Would you know how they came to be there?”
“I have no idea. You know, this is all wrong. I didn't dig in that garden. I haven't worn that sweatshirt since spring.”
“Okay,” said Morton, “let's go back a step. Here's what I think happenedâhere's the big picture. You lured Peter Hoffman into the woods. You hit him on the head a number of times, then wrapped him up in that big plastic tarp. Then you went and got this little garden cart of yours, transported him and buried him under the azaleas.”
“I did not do any of that. How did you ever get that idea?”
Morton's brown eyes narrowed as he gave her a long look. “Wait, there's more. In our search of the toolshed early this morning, we found what we think is the weapon. It's a nasty-looking device, and it has your fingerprints on it. It appears to have residual traces of blood in the crevices. We've sent it out for testing, along with the sweatshirt.”
“Where was this tool?” demanded Bill.
“Hanging in this selfsame garden shed, Mr. Eldridge, on a big hook on the pegboard on the north wall.”
Louise shook her head in confusion. “About three feet long, right?”
“Thirty-four inches, to be exact,” said Morton.
“That's my edging iron. Anyone could have used it and then put it back. But you must realize that.”
He turned his brown-eyed gaze on her again. “But how about the tarp?”
“How about it?” she asked.
“Mrs. Eldridge, we've found your fingerprints on the plastic tarp in which Mr. Hoffman's body was wrapped. Yours and only yours, all over it.”
She was breathing more quickly now. She'd had plastic tarpaulins stored in the shed for years, using them to cover delicate plants from frost. “Well, well, well,” she said, sarcastically. “Look at all this evidence! Why don't you just arrest me for the crime? With my record of helping the Fairfax police solve crimes, surely I must be the perfect suspect for you, Detective Morton.”
To her relief, Mike Geraghty spoke up. “We know your record, Louise. Some of us can't believe you did it and think this evidence could have been manufactured. So the Criminal Investigation Bureau will be investigatin' a number of other folks, too.” He looked carefully at George Morton. “Isn't that right, George?”
Morton gave Geraghty a sour look. “Naturally, the scope of our investigation will include others, since Mr. Hoffman did not live in a vacuum.”
“No, he was living with his wife, wasn't he?” said Bill in a bitter voice. “And his lawyer, who got him off a murder rap with only four years in a mental hospital, now lives across the street from us. And there must be others who might like to have seen the man dead. So why don't you get to it, Detectives?”
Crimson suffused Morton's face as he carefully got up from the chair. Soon, they all were on their feet. Clearing his throat first, he said, “I know how you hate to hear this stuff, Mr. Eldridge, but your wife is a likely candidate to have killed Peter Hoffman.” He paused and shrugged his shoulders and turned back to Louise. “I'll concede that maybe it was a crime of passion, a crime of the moment. That much I'll concede. Hoffman was a big man, but I understand you play competitive tennis and do yoga. You're plenty strong enough to have perpetrated the crime, especially with a cart to haul the body.”
“Who's your tipster?” asked Louise.
Morton didn't answer her. Instead, he scratched his head, as if his mind were on other things. “By the way, what is it with that little cart?”
“It's a golf cart decked out for gardening purposes,” answered Bill. “Sam Rosen had it modified with a metal flatbed on the back.”
“We found it parked in your bamboo patch by the side of the house.”
“That's my Oriental garden, not a bamboo patch,” insisted Louise.
“ 'Fraid that's where we found it. And we found dirt removed from the hole, too, near the bamboo. We've taken it away; it might have evidence in it. It appears to have been transported there in your trash can, apparently set on the back of the flatbed.”
Bill had moved close to Morton now. His hands were on his hips. “Would you please answer my wife's question? You have a tipster who led you to us. And just who in the hell is it?”
Morton straightened, as if to make himself taller than Bill, a hopeless task. “I'm not at liberty to say, Mr. Eldridge. But in conclusion, this evidence doesn't paint a very pretty picture about your wife. You're just lucky we haven't hauled her down to the station already. As it is, I intend for us to pursue a few other leads first. If they don't pan out in the next week, we'll know we have our perpetrator”âhe sent Louise a somber lookâ“right here.”
Martha, who had listened in attentive silence up until now, said, “This is silly, Detective Morton. My mother has gone out of her way more than once to help you people catch criminals.” She flashed a resentful glance at Mike Geraghty. “At least Detective Geraghty has to appreciate that.” She stepped close to Morton. Louise noted the red-faced detective was caught in a pincers movement between her husband, her daughter and herself. “Since you're through, why don't you leave?” She put out a hand, as if to take his elbow and escort him out.
For a second, Morton stared at her lithe, tanned figure in tennis costume, then quickly moved across the room. On reaching the front hall, he stopped and turned, studiously avoiding looking at Martha or any of the family. Instead, his gaze was fastened somewhere in middle space. “Mrs. Eldridge,” he said, “don't think about leaving home. Remember, right now you're between a rock and a hard place.” As an afterthought, he added, “And please don't get any ideas that you're gonna investigate this crime. You're too involved, believe me. If I were you, I wouldn't even talk about it with my friends. Now, c'mon, Mike, we have work to do.”
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