The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery (37 page)

She went first to the veranda, in hopes of finding a leftover cup of coffee and a sweet. But the tea things had been cleared. Her glance turned longingly toward the kitchen, where she could still smell coffee. In the doorway, Barbara Seymour stood, wearing an embroidered denim dress which Louise guessed was normal Sunday afternoon attire.

Barbara’s expression was grim, aimed at keeping her at a distance. But Louise was determined not to lose the woman’s friendship. “I was hoping no one had emptied the coffeepot yet.”

She and Barbara were the same height. They looked levelly at each other. “I saved you some in the kitchen. Come on.”

Louise followed her. The kitchen’s gleaming stainless steel counters were now cleared, and the dishwasher was humming quietly. On a counter was a small tray with a few sandwiches and tarts, a small insulated thermos, and a pitcher filled with cream. “Oh!” she said, “for me?”

“Yes,” said Barbara solemnly. “I’m not blind, you know: I saw Sergeant Drucker come back and fetch you over to the barracks.”

“Jim wanted to talk to me.”

Barbara focused her eyes on an imaginary spot on the stainless steel, scratching her fingernail against it, avoiding Louise’s eyes. “He is one of those true believers who can’t be persuaded they’re wrong. It harks me back uncomfortably to some of my Calvinist ancestors. Yet when I heard about the deaths of those two students, and then think about the deaths here in Litchfield”—now the woman turned her gaze on Louise—“it’s almost more than I can comprehend!”

“There’s no real evidence that those students’ deaths weren’t suicides. Barbara, Jim and Frank had already been
cleared—by the time they got themselves into real trouble. But I think Jim’s going to do the right thing now.”

“So he did plan this, didn’t he? A punishment right out of the Old Testament.” Her pained eyes looked at Louise. “It’s a wonder he didn’t have Frank stone her, with the stones from that wall they dismembered!” Tears flowed from her eyes and down her lined cheeks.

“Oh, Barbara.” Louise went over and took the elderly woman in her arms and hugged her close. “This must be killing you.”

Louise could feel the woman’s wet cheek against hers move downward and up again, in a nod. Yes, thought Louise, those nearest and dearest to us could also do us great harm. Barbara surely was a living example.

“I loved Grace,” Barbara said, “and she loved me. But she’d never confide. Those big, scared eyes just presented a barrier, whenever I inquired about anything—personal. Because she knew Jim was my own blood, and she would do anything to keep from hurting me. And I feel sad that all her little poems are gone.”

Barbara extricated herself from Louise’s embrace. “But we’ll always have the one that’s going to be published. That was so important to her. And life goes on, doesn’t it? And you must eat, for you’ve been working hard. Come sit down.” She beckoned her to a small pine worktable where there were two chairs. They sat there, under a window with crisp, embroidered cotton curtains. It provided a nice view of the kitchen garden, from which the mist was clearing. “Here, let me pour you a cup of coffee.”

Strengthened by the quiet conversation and the food, Louise felt as if a fog were lifting from her mind. Jim Cooley and Frank Storm were in custody, and Sandy Post probably was by now, too. Barbara told her that the noxious Neil Landry had been routed from the mansion by his young
wife. The atmosphere around the place was beginning to improve. Louise felt relaxed and secure, the way a person should while visiting a country inn glowing with fine New England tradition. She had said her goodbyes to Barbara, and promised to stay in touch.

She took the shortcut toward the front hall, because she knew her family and friends must be waiting. It was an isolated corridor that led from the end of the kitchen hallway to the lobby, but she strode fearlessly into its deep gloom, feeling the history of the mansion, sure that the ghosts were gone from this place.

Her footsteps echoed on the stone floor as she reached the darkest point of the hallway, the point where the corridor inexplicably bent again, the product of some early architect’s quixotic dream. Her pulse quickened, and she recognized that same uneasy feeling she had been living with for the past three days. Sweat broke out on her body, as the phantoms of the mansion surrounded her in a final attack.

Then she heard a sound behind her, and all the imaginary fears became real. It was Sandy Post, her blond hair shining even in the dimness of the hallway. She stood silent and strong, a lethal little powerhouse ready to launch an attack. She was wearing a no-nonsense jogging outfit that made the bulky dress purse slung over one of her shoulders look out of place. The white running shoes on her feet almost seemed like weapons in themselves.

Louise had seldom felt so helpless. “Ai-ee!” Her little yip of fear and her faltering step backward told Sandy all she needed to know: Louise had learned the truth. She recovered her balance and then did her best to cover up. “Oh,
God
, Sandy, you gave me a start, coming up that way behind me.”

“Stop right there, Louise.” Sandy spoke in her normal little-girl voice. She would not have been threatening at all if Louise hadn’t just heard Jim Cooley describing how this woman might have snuffed out Jeffrey Freeling’s life with her determined little thumbs.
Might
have, indeed—she
must
have done it. There had to be a reason she was demanding Louise’s attention in this hidden-away passage.

Louise’s eyes focused on the object in Sandy’s hand. A large gray pistol, pointed straight at Louise’s stomach. It had a metal extension that Louise guessed was a silencer. Any kind of gun would be lethal in Sandy’s hands, and this one would do the job soundlessly. Her stomach constricted as she speculated on how long it would take someone to find her dead body with a hole blown through her middle.

But instead of fear, she was surprised to feel anger growing inside her. Why had this happened to her? Surely the wheels of justice could grind faster than this. She had briefed Sergeant Drucker a half hour ago, so why hadn’t they picked the woman up for questioning? Yet it wouldn’t do to get excited; Sandy was too good with guns. “I’m stopped,” said Louise tersely. “Now what do you want?”

“Always the cool one, aren’t you?” Sandy said. “You just know it all, don’t you, Louise? You went over to the jail, and I bet Jim Cooley told you all sorts of strange things.”

“What would he have told me?”

“Things about me,” she said petulantly. Louise could see her eyes smoldering in the semidark. “I guess you don’t know how awful this whole thing has been for me.”

Louise remembered her own suspicions that Mark Post and Jeffrey Freeling might be lovers, and it dawned on her that Sandy must have believed this, too. There was her motive for snuffing out Jeffrey’s life, a life only precariously held, after his fall from the peak of Bear Mountain.

“Yes, it must have been awful, suffocating a man and then finding out he had done you no harm. Jeffrey wasn’t Mark’s lover—but you must have thought so. You thought you were removing the embarrassing evidence of your husband’s homosexual history.”

“But you see, Jeffrey could have been his lover, if Mark had only had his way. Mark’s, like, not what he told me he was when we married.”

Louise kept her eyes on the young woman. “And I bet your daddy told you that right from the start.”

“Yes, Daddy did, in fact. But I had to have him—he was so hard to get.”

“And then, of course, it wouldn’t do to have people know that your new husband was inclined toward the opposite sex. So you had to remove Jeffrey, who you merely
suspected
’was involved with Mark. How pathetic. How utterly pathetic.”

They were the wrong words to say to such a privileged young woman, the apple of her father’s eye, and an Olympian to boot. “God damn!” she said. “Don’t patronize me, you—middle-aged gardening snoop.” She pointed the gun directly at Louise’s head.

Louise put up her hands in a double fan effect in front of her face, as if she had the power to stop bullets with her bare hands. “Just a minute, Sandy,” she said, in a voice she reserved for stern talks with Janie. What did she have to lose at this point by inserting a little motherly reprimand? Maybe that was what Sandy had lacked all her privileged young life. “Another murder isn’t going to do you any good, my dear. You’re going to end up strapped to a table with a needle in your arm. Just let that sink in for a minute.”

The younger woman said, “What do I have to lose, getting rid of you? Then it’s only Jim Cooley’s word against mine—”

Suddenly Louise pointed down the hall. “Someone’s coming …”

Sandy sneered. “You’re not pulling that old trick—” But she couldn’t resist a quick look, even though she kept her body and her gun carefully pointed at Louise. Louise didn’t delay an instant. She swatted the young woman’s hand smartly forward and sent the gun flying. It clattered on the stone floor of the hall, out of sight in the semidarkness.

“
Damn
you,” Sandy hissed, stuffing her hand in her big purse.
Oh, God
, Louise thought.
What else does she have in there?
And then a voice yelled, “Police!” Sandy jerked her hand out of the bag. Empty. Louise sighed with relief. “Hold
it right there, Mrs. Post,” the trooper called. “Don’t move. And put your hands up.”

Sandy stood there, well balanced on legs held slightly apart. Without haste she slowly raised her hands. She would have fooled them into thinking she would surrender, but her eyes gave her away. They were calculating and cold, defying Louise as she must have defied anyone who had ever presumed to tell her what to do. Sandy still gripped the handbag, and Louise knew she was just waiting for the right moment to pull out the second weapon she had reached for a moment ago. Then the woman would be in a perfect position to wheel around and open fire on the troopers coming down the hall.

Louise took in her breath sharply. Sandy was an Olympian, but what the heck, Louise was not in bad shape herself…

Without giving herself a chance to think further, she lunged toward Sandy and quickly twisted a leg around the other woman’s, pulling forward with all her strength in a startling example of bungled karate. This toppled them both off balance, and they hit the floor awkwardly, grunting loudly. Then, like two scrapping animals, they began grappling for the purse and the weapon inside it. The bag had fallen free from Sandy’s shoulder. Louise had body length on her side; she laid herself on the purse, as if protecting a living being. She heard the pounding footsteps approach, and yelled, “God, hurry!”

Before Sandy could make another move, the troopers had arrived. They bent down on either side of Sandy and hauled her up. One held her while the other handcuffed her. A third trooper helped Louise to her feet and asked if she was all right.

Rubbing her knees where she had struck them when she tumbled onto the floor, she looked up and gave him a reproachful look. “Not really. I’ll be a lot better when I get out of this place.”

Louise was through trying to exorcise the demons of Litchfield Falls Inn. All she wanted to do was go home.

I
T WAS COMFORTING TO BE BACK IN
Washington. The heat wave was over, and the night so balmy that it invited the world to join it, not hide from it. Bill turned off the air-conditioning and opened the car windows. Traffic on the George Washington wasn’t bad for a Sunday night, and in just eight miles and about twenty minutes, Louise would be home, slipping into a bath, and then into bed.

Bill took his eyes from the wheel for an instant and gave her a worried look. “You must be sore as the devil, Louise. I
can’t believe you tussled with a woman who’s been trying to be in the Olympics.”

Janie piped up from the backseat. “Yeah, Ma, pretty good for a wimpy woman who names her pillow ‘Puny.’”

Louise pursed her lips, then said, “I hadn’t thought of myself as a wimp.”

“Oh, I’m just kidding,” and the girl reached forward and patted her mother on the shoulder. Louise reached up and put a hand on the girl’s.