The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery (32 page)

Drucker finished talking to Cooley and took Louise by the arm, wordlessly guiding her into the mansion. He stopped in the library, where he ceremoniously closed the door. He might have been about to give a child a salutary scolding. He stood there looming above her, declining to sit down; this meeting would take place by the door, and it wasn’t going to take long. First, a brief, disgusted shake of his head. Then he said, “I never thought, when I solicited your help, that you were going to put me in the position of having to fish another dead body out of that pond.”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Never mind apologies. Let’s get down to more important things. You got a fax, Louise.” And he handed her a paper on which there was a blurry picture of two familiar-looking people.

She gasped in horror. This man and woman now lay dead in the local morgue, and they had died in the name of love.

W
HEN
L
OUISE ARRIVED IN THE LIBRARY
, only the cat was there to greet her; the guests and staff were not yet there. “Hi, kitty,” she said absently, wandering about the room, thinking hard.

As she passed to the right of one of the big leather couches, she nearly stepped in a pile of broken vase pieces on the floor. “Oh, oh,” she exclaimed. As she remembered it, the expensive-looking, flower-bedecked object had stood well back of the couch, on the wooden pedestal that now lay beside it on the floor. The vase was reduced
to so many fragments that Louise was sure it was beyond repair.

She put her hands on her hips and looked at the cat. “Hargrave.”

Hargrave sat in his box—a wise, impertinent look on his face.

Crouching down to touch the biggest piece, she began to have second thoughts. If anyone could find an artisan to put this thing back together again, it was Barbara Seymour. “Naughty kitty,” she chided. The cat blinked his eyes, shirking all guilt. Louise tipped her head at him, assessing. Hargrave was not a kitty. Not really. He was a seasoned tomcat who obviously knew how to conduct himself around a house filled with precious objects. It was very strange to think that the cat was responsible.

She would call the housekeeping staff in a minute, but first things first. She had a feeling about this library, and she had to pursue it before the others showed up. She was sure there was another clue here somewhere.
Of course, dummy
, she scolded herself,
you could try the fireplace, the only place in the whole house where a murderer could openly destroy evidence
.

She went over to the wide stone opening and knelt down. The slate hearth was cold against her bare knees. She stretched forward to see what she could see. The embers were lifeless and gray, a clutter of little shapes. Then, she detected a movement in her peripheral vision.

Hargrave, who had watched all this from his basket, now sprang up. He crowded his large cat presence directly in front of her and proceeded to rub the side of his head vigorously against her forehead. Louise burst out laughing. “What an opportunist,” she said, “waiting until I come down on your level.”

Then he stopped rubbing and just sat there, looking at her. Green cat eyes staring deep into her hazel ones. Sending a message.

She smiled. “You’re definitely trying to tell me something,
aren’t you, old boy? Don’t tell me you broke that vase just to call attention to this room! Or was someone else pussyfooting around in here last night? Well, I’m definitely getting it; actually, I got it even without you.” Not the least abashed that she had just had a one-way conversation with a cat, Louise sprang to her feet, went to the door of the library, and called out for help.

Sergeant Drucker’s men had come in and moved the library furniture into a large horseshoe shape, with an open end at the fireplace. There were seats for twenty-one: Jim Cooley, Frank and Fiona Storm, Mark and Sandy Post, Rod and Dorothy Gasparra, Bill, Nora, Chris, Janie, Neil and Stephanie Landry, Barbara Seymour, and her staff of six, including Teddy Horton. Four were still empty, with Bill, Janie, Chris, and Teddy unaccounted for. Louise knew what had delayed Bill. But her heart raced as she feared for Janie’s safety. Then she realized all the people she distrusted were in this room.

They all sat down, except for Jim Cooley, Drucker, and the four state troopers on Drucker’s crime squad. The troopers stood in their drab gray uniforms, unrelieved except for blue-and-gold Connecticut state police patches on either shoulder. Their presence attested to the fact that this was more than a little social chat with the sergeant.

Yet Jim Cooley was in a state of denial. He stood near the fireplace with two troopers, conversing as casually as if this were a cocktail party. Louise found his bravado unsettling. Was Jim going to get away with all this?

Well, at least the cat seemed to have his number; Louise had a good view from her seat nearby. Cooley was standing right next to the wicker basket where Hargrave was resting. The cat watched Cooley’s legs with concern, his ears flat against his head and his tail twitching back and forth, as though he might reach out and attack him with a claw or a
tooth. Instead, he rose, looking disgusted, and slunk away behind the couch.

Over on the other side of the room, Sergeant Drucker also appeared unhappy. Face stormy, he stood at the library door with arms folded and feet braced wide apart, quietly chewing out a trooper. Louise assumed he was upset because his squad had not been able to locate four people—extra-tall people at that—on the grounds of the inn. After issuing a final order to the trooper, who immediately rushed out the door, the sergeant strode to the front of the room. His tall, grim presence brought the library to silence, and Cooley to his seat.

Once he had arrived at the fireplace, however, Drucker looked out at the crowd and smiled. Louise was perplexed: He had slipped back into his usual good humor as easily as he would slip on his coat. Was this lightning switch in mood just part of his act?

In a light, almost jovial tone, he said, “This shouldn’t take long, ladies and gentlemen. I know you’re anxious to enjoy that wonderful tea Miss Seymour has set up. I also want you to know how much I appreciate your cooperation with this investigation. It has been a bit puzzling, and as I told you all at the outset, it was a question of ruling out foul play. So, through the able assistance of my crime squad, and of a special helper, Mrs. Eldridge, I believe we’ve reached some conclusions. And I must inform you, that just as a formality, this session is being taped”—he nodded his head to one of his men standing at a nearby library table—“by Trooper Barnes.”

Drucker took a step toward them and grinned in a friendly fashion. He continued: “You must realize we know a lot more about you than we did yesterday—having run you through the police computer. This, plus other crosschecks in your local communities. So, without revealing any secrets or confidences, let me share with you a few of the things that I’ve learned.” He tossed out a hand in a
nonthreatening gesture. “Consider this a kind of review. We want to set your minds to rest. I know you’ve been living in each other’s pockets for three days now, so most of what I tell you will be no surprise. But it will help you put the facts straight and eliminate gossip and rumor. That way, you can all go home and get a good night’s sleep.”

What a warm, fuzzy guy he was, Louise thought—but not really. He held a small notepad in his big hands. He looked down at it. “All right. Let’s take the victims, first. Dr. Jeffrey Freeling: Several of you noted he was a bit grouchy. He had that reputation, too, at NYU: a demanding teacher who wouldn’t stand for any slacking off. A public reputation for bickering with other scholars about his research breakthroughs”—he smiled boyishly—“a fact I picked up in an article in
The New York Times
,” He glanced around at their faces. “We lost a talented man here, when he took that misstep at the top of Bear Mountain.”

Jim Cooley nodded. “We knew that, Sergeant. So now, what
of
Freeling’s accident?”

The sergeant smiled at Cooley. “Let’s leave that until later.” His face sobered. “Now, your wife, Mr. Cooley, a lovely young woman, not even forty. Taking college classes in an attempt to get a degree. Botany, poetry, her favorite subjects.”

Jim Cooley reddened, then bowed his head. Louise watched him in disgust. What a faker.

“Mrs. Cooley, then,” the sergeant went on, “was a somewhat nervous but well-met person with few connections in her life outside of her immediate family in Brooklyn. Her parents are deceased, and she had no sisters or brothers. Many noted her tendency to—well, how will I say it?—get down in the dumps.”

He flipped over a couple of pages in his little pad. “Mrs. Hollowell, now …” Bebe looked up nervously. “A grieving widow. Your husband Ernest passed away only a few weeks ago. As we all know, you’ve been pretty upset about these
deaths, and talking to all of us quite a lot about them.” What an understatement, thought Louise.

That was all he said about Bebe; then he turned abruptly and faced Sandy and Mark, meeting two sets of anxious eyes. “The Posts. This young couple lives in Darien, and Mark works in Stamford. Both knew Dr. Freeling, and apparently had some bad feelings toward him over something that happened at NYU some years back. However, they appeared to have made peace with each other.”

He stared at Rod and Dorothy, who sat on one side of the circle, edgy but silent. “Mr. and Mrs. Gasparra work hard at their Pennsylvania nursery business. On this trip, they’ve encountered some friction with local people, notably the owner of Wild Flower Farm. They also publicly expressed a grudge against Dr. Freeling; they had no dispute, however, with Grace Cooley.”

His brown eyes touched on Stephanie and Neil Landry. “The Landrys were conspicuously absent at the time of these deaths.” He gave Neil Landry a pointed glance. “There has been some demand that we also investigate the tumble Barbara Seymour took down the front stairs Friday, in case it’s related to the other deaths. Our conclusion is that it’s not related, and at the moment we lack evidence to prove that anyone meant Miss Seymour harm.”

Barbara stared at the floor. Louise was sure she wished they weren’t talking about her. Stephanie grabbed her aunt’s hand and whispered something in her ear. Neil Landry sat apart from the two women, his aloof expression further separating him from them.

“Now the two hardworking individuals involved with Jim Cooley in the very successful educational enterprise, Higher Directions—Frank and Fiona Storm. They have spotless reputations, and so do their schools, for the most part. The only shadow on them is the case of two students from the Brooklyn facility who committed suicide in May-just before they were supposed to graduate.”

“I wish you wouldn’t throw things like that into the conversation, and not allow us to explain it,” said Frank. He sat next to his wife, proud and immovable.

“Go ahead,” Drucker said amiably.

“The two young men in question were probationary students,” said Frank. “Their graduation was in doubt during the entire semester. Then, they unfortunately fell into a vortex of evil.”

Drucker lifted an eyebrow. “Homosexuality, I hear. That’s a vortex of evil, in your opinion?”

Storm didn’t like his tone. “To Higher Directions, homosexuality is a sin, and it should be eradicated from society.”

Drucker said, “I suppose the same goes for adultery.”

“It does,” Frank agreed fiercely. “But those boys were deep into trouble according to witnesses. They began the usual downward spiral that accompanies this kind of behavior: lying, smoking dope, slacking off in their schoolwork, hanging around bad companions, staying out after curfew— the whole nine yards. Before you knew it, they were known to be depressed, self-absorbed, and—”

“—candidates for suicide,” finished Sergeant Drucker.

“Exactly. That’s what the police concluded, Sergeant.”

“Thank you for that explanation; it was very informative. Now your partner, Mr. Jim Cooley, with whom many of you have become friends this weekend, occupies quite a prestigious place in the ranks of educators. He heads a business that runs three private schools with a total of about fifteen hundred students. Mr. Cooley has told us his wife was— upset. Miss Seymour told us the same thing of this niece by marriage, though Miss Seymour mentioned that Grace had seemed to perk up lately. In the absence of any other evidence, we could say with assurance that Mrs. Cooley took her own life, in this dramatic and rather poetic way.”