Front Yard (16 page)

George almost jumped out of his chair, knocking over his wineglass, which survived intact, but emptying what was left of its contents onto the glass tabletop.

“Clumsy oaf!” cried Nan, laughing. “And, hey, you just ended your streak of never having spilled a drop of wine!”

“Clumsy oaf nothing!” said George. “Brilliant detective, more likely. I've got the answer!”

“The answer,” repeated Nan woozily. “To what? The meaning of life?”

“To our mystery, you silly Nan-bee. You said
treasure,
as in wrens. What about treasure as in the real McCoy? It's the lost treasure of Livia they're looking for. It's here!”

Nan sat up straight in her chair.

“George, please get me a tall glass of ice water. And one for you, too, while you're at it. This is the sort of thing that's going to require a little more attention on my part than I can give it at this point.”

George moved briskly, and, before Nan knew it—before it seemed that she had so much as blinked—the glass of ice water was sitting on the tabletop in front of her.

“Glug it down,” he said. They both knocked down the cold drafts in a few seconds.

“Now, where were you?” Nan asked.

“The treasure of Livia. It exists. It's right here in our backyard. It's under the white oak. Think of what Jim's been telling us all along. Think about our first meeting with Miss Price and all her ridiculous stories. She was just trying to trip us up. And all this interest in a tree, especially now that it's dying and needs to be cut down. And for what?”

“Because Miss Price remembers it as a child, from growing up on the farm,” Nan said. “Maybe she wants to preserve some of it, just like you did with that stupid carving of Miguel when we had to cut down the silver maple.”

“I doubt that. I seriously doubt that. We . . . I . . . might do weird things like that with a tree, but other, more normal people don't.”

“Oh, and she's normal?”

“No, definitely not. But someone either knows or suspects that the lost treasure of Livia is buried under that tree. I mean, why the sudden appearance of those guys pretending to be some tree care company who probably don't know the difference between a dogwood and a Douglas fir?”

“They want the tree for Miss Price?”

“No, they don't. Think about it, Nan-bee. What the heck would you want with eighty feet of dead white oak?”

“Make a bunch of barrels, maybe. Ha-ha! Okay, so maybe she wanted to put it out of its misery. Isn't that what she told you? That's not so far-fetched. Or, maybe she's stocking up on firewood for the winter.”

“Unlikely. Most unlikely. She doesn't want the tree. Doesn't give a hoot about it. She wants what's buried
underneath
the tree.”

“That kinda brings us back to the dead guy. Maybe that dead guy is some kind of big deal.”

“She doesn't want what's left of some old French guy. That story was probably just a load of bs. That tree's a marker for something a lot more recent. Remember her saying that? So, the question now is what to do.”

“Well, we have to cut the tree down. That's a no-brainer. I won't have a dead tree crashing down on our flowers and toolshed, to say nothing of ruining the aesthetics of the backyard.”

“Okay, but when the dimwit brothers show up, we're going to be sitting on this patio watching them.”

“And explain to me, dear, why we have to do that?”

“Isn't it obvious? We have to make sure they don't go carting off something that's rightfully ours as the owners of this property. Something that could solve all our money problems once and for all.”

18

T
he tree service crew showed up the next morning as advertised, at eight a.m. Only the name of the service wasn't “Chickamauga.” The painted cursive script on the side of the truck parked on the Payne Avenue curb read CURLY'S TREE CARE.

“I guess there must have been another name change,” said Nan as she and George sat on the patio with their first steaming cups of coffee.

A parade of heavy vehicles pulled up alongside the curb. A dump truck. A pickup towing a flatbed trailer on which stood a chained-down swinger with a clam grip to move the logs. A crane. Another truck hauling a chipper. Nan and George watched as the tree pruners walked by with their chain saws and climbing gear.

“How long?” Nan asked.

“Oh, about three and a half hours,” said the one crew member who was barking orders to the others, and whom they figured was probably the foreman. “That's cuttin' 'er down, taking out the stump, removing everything. Takin' that stump out's gonna take time and effort. Kinda weird, diggin' out that stump, then haulin' it somewheres. Don't worry about us, though; we're addin' it to the bill. Our crane's gonna have to come up the lawn some. Gosh, they've got some beautiful gardens here. Awesome!”

“
Our
gardens,” Nan said.

“Yours?” said the man. “Well, whatever. We should be able to move the crane up through here without squishing your flowers. It'll put a few dents in your lawn, though. We'll put particleboard down under the track to limit the impact. Say, you folks are okay where you are, but just don't get no closer. For safety reasons, you understand.”

At about eight thirty the Scroggit brothers showed up in their Citroën, parked on the other side of the street, and stayed in the car, shielded by tinted windows. Forty-five minutes later, the major branches of the white oak were down, getting churned up into sawdust by Curly's chipper. But the Scroggit brothers remained in their car.

“What are they doing in there?” wondered Nan.

“What they're doing in there is probably slurping coffee, eating doughnuts, and waiting for the tree to come down and the stump to come out,” George said. “After that, they'll come out, inspect the hole, and do some more digging. I'm betting they've got three things in the trunk of that car: picks, shovels, and metal detectors. Then, they'll whisk off whatever goodies they find down there.”

“So, our job is to prevent them digging.”

“That would be correct.”

Nan noticed the foreman-like guy talking on his cell phone, probably to the Scroggits.

“One thing it would probably be good to do is make sure we're squared away with that guy in charge,” she said. “Make sure he knows what's what.”

The whir of saws was continuous now. The man they identified as the guy in charge was walking back from the tree and toward the curb, probably to consult with the hidden Scroggit brothers, George and Nan figured.

“Uh, sir, sir,” said Nan, motioning him over. The man smiled and walked over to the patio. “How about a nice, strong, rich cup of coffee? And a Danish pastry to go along with it? Cream-filled.”

The man—much younger than they would have expected, and a pleasant-looking chap, with tangled, curly hair sticking out from under his hard hat—hesitated for a moment, then grinned.

“Well, I shouldn't stop for more than a couple minutes,” he said. “But I won't say no. Thanks a bunch!” Nan jumped up and darted through the backdoor.

“I didn't have time but for a half-cup on the drive over,” the man told George. “And it's that cheap swill they serve at Pecker's.”

“Pecker's?” wondered George, chuckling. The man blushed and chuckled right back as he looked down, embarrassed, at his scratched-up Red Wing work boots.

“It's what we call Packer's,” he said. “We stop off there to gas up and get our industrial-strength sludge before the first job of the day. Pardon the language.”

George smiled.

“You must be Curly,” said Nan, who returned with a cup of steaming special Fremont blend and a warmed-up pastry.

“That's right,” said the man. “How'd you guess? Ha-ha!”

As Curly slurped his coffee and munched on his pastry with evident relish, George and Nan pumped him for information, which he readily furnished. They'd been hired by the Scroggits to cut down this tree. He figured the Scroggits were the property owners, and that perhaps the Fremonts were renting from them or something. No, he said, the Scroggits had no connection with the company whatsoever. Curly seemed confused, then irritated, when George and Nan told him that the Scroggits had made out that they owned the tree company, and that they had no connection with the property whatsoever.

“We're the property owners here, Curly,” said Nan. “And we can prove it. Those guys sitting in that Rolls-Royce over there think there's something in the ground under the tree that they want. The problem, of course, is that it's our property.”

George rolled his eyes. Curly squinted and furrowed his brow, wondering where the heck around here a Rolls-Royce was parked. He said they were to haul the stump over to a location specified by the Scroggits, and that when they'd finished the job, and the site was cleared, the Scroggits were planning to do some digging at the site.

“I figured, ‘Hey, that's fine with me, you can dig all you want on your own property.' What that meant was we wouldn't fill in the cavity the way we ordinarily do when removing the stump.”

“They're not going to do any digging at all,” George said. “It's
our
property, and those guys are a couple of crooks trying to mess with us. If worse comes to worst, we'll call the police and see what they have to say about it. And if you see anything in that hole after you pull out the stump, you need to tell us about it first.”

Curly looked puzzled; this clearly was not the kind of complicated situation he was anticipating when he climbed into his truck for the first job of the morning.

“What I'm saying is the guys who hired you are working for us. They're sort of middlemen, I guess you'd say. But they're secretly trying to rip us off.”

Curly placed his empty mug on the tabletop and slapped his hands together to brush off the pastry crumbs. Frowning, he took off his hard hat, scratched his head, then tried to smooth out his uncooperative curls before putting his hat back on.

“Look, folks,” he said. “I don't know what's going on here. All I know is I'm getting paid for a job—actually, already got paid, and I got paid a big bonus to clear my schedule and do it first thing this morning. Everything's on the up-and-up as far as I'm concerned. We're a licensed and bonded service, and we're fully aware of what all the regs are for cutting down and disposing of trees. My intentions are to do what I got paid to do and clear out.” He paused, looking suddenly panic-stricken.

“Say,” he said. “Seein' as how you folks are the actual property owners, you're okay with cuttin' down the tree, right? And removin' the stump? I don't want to get into no trouble here.”

Nan and George chuckled.

“Sure,” Nan said. “We're fine with that. The tree and stump have to go. Look, go ahead and do the job you're getting paid to do. Once you leave, we'll take care of those two guys. You don't have to get involved one way or another. How's that sound?”

“That sounds just fine,” said Curly. “I just don't want to get involved in no property dispute here. But I will say this, I've got a bone to pick with those two if they're going around pretending to be running my company. This is
my
outfit, and ain't nobody gonna say otherwise. I worked fourteen years in the tree business before bein' able to start my own company five years ago. So,just who do
they
think they are? Well, hey, I gotta get back to the crew. Looks like they're getting' close to wrappin' up the job. Thanks for the coffee and pastry. That really hit the spot. And sorry for any misunderstanding. Once we finish the job, we'll be on our way. Say, you don't mind if we leave the stump hole and don't fill it in? That's what those guys told us to do . . . or told us
not
to do.”

“We're fine with that,” Nan said. “And, hey, thank your guys for taking such care to protect my flower beds. From what I can see, they're still intact.”

“When we take a tree down, nothing gets damaged in the process,” Curly said proudly. “That's our guarantee. One other thing. Those guys in the car want us to deliver the stump to somebody. That okay with you? I mean, they're paying for it.”

George and Nan looked at each other and frowned.

“I guess that's okay,” Nan said.

“Stump's already partially out of the ground due to the tree tipping over,” Curly said. “Usually, we grind it into sawdust. Unusual, to say the least, that somebody actually wants to keep the stump. We might end up using the swinger over there to yank 'er out and haul her 'er down to the street.”

“I wonder what the heck it is they want with the stump,” Nan said.

Curly tipped the bill of his hard hat, then strode off toward the tree and his four-man crew, who were busy cutting up chunks of the downed tree. A half hour later, the swinger with its clam grip had hauled everything down to the dump truck, and the tree service crew silently departed. Before they had reached the truck, Curly knocked on the passenger-side window of the Citroën, which silently rolled down.

“Wonder what he's telling those two?” George wondered.

“He could just be telling them that the job's done,” said Nan. “Then again, he could be chewing them out for misrepresenting themselves. He strikes me as that kind of guy.”

Once all the tree service vehicles departed, the Scroggit brothers got out of the Citroën and popped open its trunk, which groaned loudly enough to be heard all the way to St. Anthony.

“Needs a little WD-40 there,” George said.

The Scroggits strode brazenly up the slope, one carrying a shovel and pick, and the other a metal detector slung over his shoulder. Panting from their loads as they got to the part of the yard level with the patio, they stopped for a breather, and turned to look at George and Nan.

“My, aren't we up early,” said Nimwell.

“Yeah,” said Artis. “We figured you'd either still be sleeping, or maybe off to work by now.”

“You figured wrong,” said George. “We work at home.”

“I see,” said Artis. “Well, I hope our service so far has been satisfactory.” He made a big show of examining the scene from afar. “Everything appears to have been cleaned up nicely.”

“Just a little more cleanup work to do,” said Nimwell.

“Yes, no need for you to sit around here and wait for us. You're welcome to go about your daily business. Go out and get some breakfast. Get some shopping done. Don't feel like you have to stick around on account of us.”

“Yes, this is just routine stuff. And you're not being charged, so there's no payment to make and nothing to sign once we're done.”

“We figure an hour, maybe an hour and a half at most.”

“I think we'll just sit here and watch you guys,” Nan said.

“Oh,” said Nimwell.

“Well,” said Artis. “If that's the case, you should probably go inside, just for safety's sake. We all have to follow safety rules, you know. You don't want to be breaking the law by staying outside here and risking injury, or possibly even death, do you?”

“We'll take our chances,” George said.

“What's that thing you're carrying?” asked Nan, knowing full well what it was.

“This? Oh, this is a shovel,” said Nimwell. “And this is a pick.”

Nan snorted.

“I know what those are. What's that thing slung over your brother's shoulder?”

“Oh,
this!
” Artis said. “Of course. Not too many people know what this is. This is . . . uh . . . this is a detector of tree gases. Sometimes, trees that have died give off gases. Poisonous, noxious gases.” Nimwell wrinkled his nose in mock disgust. “This . . . uh . . . gas detector will let us know if your tree is passing . . . uh . . . releasing gas. If that's the case, we'll have to have our gas people come by and get rid of it; the gas, that is, since we already got rid of your tree. But I'm guessing there won't be any gas. This seems to have been a clean, gas-free job, wouldn't you say, Nim?”

Nimwell nodded.

“Still, we have to be diligent about these things and take the proper precautions. You wouldn't want poison tree gas infiltrating your walls and killing you in your sleep, would you?”

Nan and George stared at them silently. Nimwell fidgeted.

“Well,” said Artis, making a show of looking at his wristwatch. “Gosh, will you look at the time! We've got another appointment in an hour and a half. Let's get a move on, Nim, so we can get our customers' work done for them.”

“Hold on!” barked George as the two men and their clanking loads began to trudge toward the stump hole. “Because you're not going anywhere but back to your stupid French car.”

The Scroggits turned and sighed.

“What's the problem?” asked Artis. “Is it noise? Well, I promise you we'll work quietly. If you go inside, close the blinds, and draw all the curtains, you won't hear anything at all.”

“I think you two had better head back to your car and make tracks out of here,” said an icy-toned Nan. “And then, never come back. We know what your game is. You don't have anything to do with the running of that tree company. You just want our tree, or whatever's under it, eh?” The Scroggit brothers smiled meekly.