The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery (31 page)

The gardener can have different varieties of iris in bloom for more than two months. The earliest are the six-inch-high bulbous dwarf crested iris, in lavender, blue, white, and yellow. They add a special element to woodland gardens. In May come the bearded iris, their bloom extending for four to six weeks. Then follows the beardless variety, Siberian and Japanese among them, which bloom through June and sometimes into July.

Iris are basically divided between two varieties, the
bearded
, and the
beardless
—which some wags call a “clean-shaven” iris. Bearded iris, in general, like sun, a raised bed with good drainage, and soil that is low in nitrogenous
compounds and organic food, but high in mineral food from decomposed rock. The pH should be neutral to slightly alkaline. The small, bulbous types also like this environment. Beardless varieties are different: They can take wet feet, thriving and spreading in these conditions in moist swales and draws. They are gross feeders and like lots of manure-filled compost that is acidic. All varieties should be allowed to keep their foliage, except in the case of new transplants.

Since water gardens have become more popular, the beardless variety,
Iris pseudacorus
, is being sold in great numbers. This naturalized iris will grow five-foot-tall foliage in or near a pond, and produce yellow flowers followed by handsome seedpods. But watch it! It forms a giant clump until the only way you will be able to move it is with a backhoe, so it is best put where it is going to stay.

Among the beardless iris are many natives. They include the pale blue
Iris missouriensis
, which is called blue flag in some parts of the country;
Iris virginica; Iris californica;
and probably the most vivid of this group, the Louisiana iris hybrids. They come in yellow, red, blue, rust, purple, and white. And if you put them in your garden, you might find that they tend to “walk.” They have exceptionally long rhizomes, and are liable to spring up two feet away from where
you first planted them. Boards placed in the garden will help keep them from wandering.

Of course, the Japanese iris,
Iris ensata
, is known and coveted by gardeners for its huge, lush flowers. Siberian iris
(Iris siberica)
is similar and sometimes easier to grow. It has smaller flowers.

You must keep your eye on bearded iris. They will crowd themselves out if you don’t. Dig them up and divide them every three to five years; otherwise, their blooms will grow smaller, and dwindle away.

Since they’re easy to field-grow and cross-pollinate, there are thousands of varieties of iris. Colors and combinations of colors seem endless. You can develop some new varieties of your own with some simple cross-pollination. This will produce seeds that benefit from cold stratification before germinating into baby plants. Within two years, you may get abloom, but what kind of bloom is problematical. It’s those mixed-up genes: As a grower said, “You may create a very ugly new baby. The iris has a lot of pretty mixed-up genes, so that when you get a cross, you’re liable to get a big surprise.” Most gardeners are content dividing the rhizomes with a simple whack with a sharp shovel. As always, beautiful and obliging.

J
IM
C
OOLEY’S EXPRESSION CHANGED
. The phony pleasant look was gone, replaced with what was in his heart: sheer cruelty. Louise realized she shouldn’t have thrown those combative words in his face.

They watched each other like two kids in a dangerous contest—daring each other to step toward the nearby mouth of the falls. Louise cautiously pulled her hands out of her pockets. If she fell off the front of this rock, she would slip straight down to the pool and rocks below. But the same fate
applied to Jim Cooley, and he knew it. These thoughts made her dizzy. She flexed her toes to clamp her sandals tighter on the curved surface of the boulder. If she did fall, she intended to do her best to fall backward into the stream.

“Louise Eldridge,” he said airily, as if they were just meeting for the first time. “Can’t I talk you out of this?”

“No, Jim, you can’t. I suggest we act like the reasonable people we are, and go back down the trail to talk it over with Sergeant Drucker.”

He laughed. “I don’t know why I would want to do that.”

She put her hands on her hips. Grace’s deliberate attempt to lead them to her killer gave Louise a feeling of strength. Unlike Nora, she was not inclined toward extrasensory perception. Yet right now she felt as if the dead woman’s spirit were there, helping her.

She needed to keep him at bay. “I’ll tell you one thing, Jim. The police will never believe a second person fell off these falls. What do you take them for, a bunch of idiots?”

“Louise, consider the facts. The police haven’t even connected the two deaths. And they never will—if you aren’t around to tell them.” He showed her his teeth in a big grin. “It’s about the luckiest moment of my life to find you here—because I could tell you were hot on our trail, and I was getting very worried that the police would believe you. So I need to dissuade you from making such a big mistake.”

“What makes you think the others—my husband, Nora, Chris, Janie—don’t know what I know?”

That cat-that-swallowed-the-canary grin again. “Because I saw you all leaving the library a few minutes ago. Depressed. Frustrated. Resigned to the fact that Jeffrey fell, and Grace jumped.”

The man was right. She hadn’t shared her final scenario with anyone. Not even Janie. She hadn’t had the chance. Janie had dashed from their room right after she had disclosed the vital information that Jeffrey Freeling had a love garden.

What a fool she’d been to keep this to herself!

“I—I left some hints with people. They’ll figure it out.”

“Contrariwise, Louise, your reputation
precedes
you. You’re a derring-do, reckless woman who’s been in bad situations before. Now, what would be more logical to the plodding, rather unimaginative Sergeant Drucker than for you to come up to the falls, snooping, and then slide off the rocks because in fact, Louise, they’re slippery as hell in this kind of weather!”

“And what about you?” she asked.

“If I were to push you off the falls? I’d simply dash back to the mansion and into my room, the way I came. Frank and Fiona would be happy to say I’ve been with them the whole time.”

Louise watched in horror as he jumped into the shallow stream and splashed across it. “Oh, God,” she muttered, nearly losing her balance. She reached above her and grasped the limb of a hemlock that drooped over her perch.

“He-e-e-lp!” she screamed, repeating it over and over like a wounded, yelping dog. “Help, help, help!”

With the man now scrabbling up the rock on which she stood, Louise wished she still had her rugged Sir Harry Lauder’s walking-stick branch in hand. Jim hoisted himself onto the boulder and took her by the shoulders, teetering. A desperate thought came to her. “Wait—you don’t want to kill me.” Her voice came out in a shuddering croak. “I’m the only one who can explain to them all why you did it in the first place. Make them understand.”

“You, explain—explain what?” he growled and tightened his hold, preparatory to giving her a good shove forward. Her eyes widened, and she felt as if she were going to faint.

Then she heard the call. “Hello, up there. What’s going on?”

Her heart leaped, pounding harder in her chest. “Please help me!” she screamed. Then she looked up at Cooley and said, with a wryness she hadn’t known she could still summon, “Well, Jim, go ahead if you must. But someone is watching.”

They both looked down through the mist to the base of the falls. Two state patrolmen assigned to search the grounds for evidence stared up at them from the edge of the deep pool twenty-five feet below.

“Sir, what’s goin’ on up there?” said one. The other was already sprinting up the trail toward them.

“Officers,” Jim called out, in his smooth, baritone voice, “Mrs. Eldridge was in trouble. But I’m here now. And I’ll help her down.”

He released her, and she slid by him and jumped down into the stream, splattering cold water onto her bare legs, but not minding. In fact, she was loving the feeling of being alive. She scrambled to the other bank, up some rocks, not minding the bruising of her knees, and onto the pine-needle-covered path. Now it was safe to turn and look at her adversary He was still standing on the rock where they had both been a moment ago, looking calm and in control.

“Come on, Jim, we have to go back down that trail and talk to some people.”

He hopped off the boulder. “Coming. And I was glad to be of service here, Louise. You’d really gotten yourself in a bit of a jam, with both your wild imagination and your dancing on those rocks.”

She thought,
What a peculiar group we make, the four of us, Jim and I walking in front of two grim-faced troopers as if we were prisoners
.

The troopers had treated both her and Jim as lawbreakers, and indeed they were—both were wandering around inside the taped-off area secured by the police.

When he saw her coming across the lawn, Bill ran down the porch stairs and gathered her in his arms. “Louise, my God, where’ve you been?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he looked at Cooley and the troopers in bewilderment. “Have you four been out together? What’s going on?”

Louise murmured close to his ear. “Please don’t ask me right now. I’m in a lot of trouble here.”

One of the troopers said, “Is Sergeant Drucker inside?”

Bill turned to him crossly. “He’s talking to Mark Post at the moment, but he damned well better get out here.” One trooper escorted them to the veranda, while the other strode quickly into the mansion.

In a moment; Drucker appeared. He looked at Louise carefully, as if checking for signs of violence. Seeing none, he couldn’t resist a little joke. That crinkly smile took over his face. “Well, well, I hear you two were up at the falls, hugging. What were you doing, trying to reenact Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty at the top of Reichenbach Falls?”

Jim Cooley broke out in his rich laugh. The man was smooth as silk. “Hardly as confrontational as
that
. Louise climbed up on the rocks there. I don’t know how she did it, but knowing how dangerous it was, I trotted up after her—”

“Wait a minute,” protested Bill, sensing something wrong with this story.

Drucker put up a hand to urge him to be quiet. “And then what happened, Mr. Cooley?”

“She was up on one of those big boulders. I guess she was trying to figure the angle of Grace’s fall.” He looked at Bill, his eyes wide with innocence. “I do know the woman has a reputation as a kind of daredevil detective—”

“Watch it!” cried Bill, stepping closer to Cooley. But Drucker grabbed his shoulder, holding him steady.

“So I thought I’d better try to keep her from doing anything too dangerous.”

“That isn’t the way it was,” said Louise quietly. “Ask the troopers.”

One of the men shrugged his shoulders. “Like we told you, sir. We couldn’t tell exactly what was happening.” Drucker looked perplexed. The troopers saw only a man and a woman on top of the falls. They could have been doing anything, just up there for the fun of it, maybe. Jim
Cooley had just revealed himself to Louise as a guilty man, but he had not revealed himself to the world. Right now, he stood chatting with Sergeant Drucker, a benevolent but slightly sad smile on his face, perfect for the bereaved widower and champion of foolhardy damsels.

Well, the son of a bitch was not going to get away with it. “Sergeant Drucker,” she called out, “when you’re through talking to my savior, could I have a private word with you?” Then she turned to the tall trooper hovering near her. “This is important,” she told him, fixing him with her gaze. She gave him specific directions to her important discovery behind the boulder at the top of the falls. “And now I need to talk to my husband for a minute.” The trooper nodded toward Bill, and her husband approached her. Leaning her head briefly against Bill’s shoulder, Louise knew that the trooper could neither see her mouth moving nor hear what she asked before her husband gave her a quick kiss on the forehead and hurried off.