The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery (14 page)

Ah, but even Nora was running into trouble with the
Storms, Louise discovered as she fell in stride with the trio. Frank was gently chastising Nora about being a woman alone. “Remember the words of Rumi,” he said.

“I’m afraid I don’t know Rumi,” said Nora.

“Oh, you should. He was a thirteenth-century poet, a kind of mystic. He said,
‘It is dangerous to let other men have intimate connections with the women in your care. Cotton and fire sparks, those are, together. Difficult, almost impossible, to quench.’
” Unaccountably, Frank had grown deadly serious: Did he disapprove of a woman of Nora’s beauty going off on a weekend without her husband?

Nora was walking between Frank and Fiona. Now she slipped an arm in each of theirs to make a threesome. “I’m sure, with you around, Frank, I will be completely safe from sparks.” Louise wondered, however, if there was something to fear from the electric combination of Nora and Jeffrey Freeling; she was glad Jeffrey had chosen to go climbing instead of coming on this garden tour, for it was proving to have its own charged moments.

Crossing the green again, they went into the deli. As predicted, Bebe and Grace had become inseparable, and their emerging friendship continued as they chose to sit together at one end of a long, group table. Louise and Bill sat next to them with the crew. Nora and the Storms sat at a second table.

“So at last were off to see the Sacred Blood iris,” said Doug. “I’m glad the drizzle has stopped, or you’d be slogging through the iris fields just like that time in Wilmington when the Winterthur grounds were soggy as a sponge.”

Louise looked out the window at the slightly brighter skies above Litchfield. “I hope it will be perfect. Just wait until you see this new flower—I hear it’s magnificent.”

“
Magnificent?
” Doug’s eyes shone mischievously, and she knew she was in for a hard time. “Maybe so, but Sacred
Blood?
Are they kidding with that name? Are they dedicating the proceeds to the church, or something? I’m a Catholic”—he wagged his head playfully—“especially when
things get rough. I can tell you that name’s sacrilegious, and I’d
hate
to tell you what my pious old grandma would think. Man, they’re talking about the Sacred Blood of Jesus, right out of that picture Granny has over her bed, with the crown of thorns and the exposed heart with little droplets going down Jesus’s chest…”

“How you do go on,” Louise told the cameraman, and patted his hand. “It’s just a plant name, Doug.”

Bill chimed in. “I couldn’t agree with you more, my good man. The name’s definitely irreverent. Does Rome know about this, Louise?”

Louise shot her husband a wry look. “I’m amazed at your concern, Bill, especially since you haven’t practiced your religion since I met you twenty-two years ago.”

Grace piped up boldly from the end of the table in her childish voice. “I can’t wait to see it: It is the most authentic bright red iris ever grown—that’s where the name came from. The color of fresh blood.” Louise knew this information had been published in scores of garden magazines, in addition to Jeffrey Freeling’s mentioning it last night during his dispute with the Gasparras. And Grace was certainly abreast of all the new developments in the field.

Louise told them, “I heard it took hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop. Lots of money spent, and probably lots of money to be earned, selling such a beautiful flower.”

Bebe leaned her elbows on the table and clutched her iced tea in both hands. “I would just
love
to go and pick a huge bouquet of them, and put them on my husband’s grave.”

“Oh, dear,
no
,” protested Grace.

“What’s the matter—you don’t think graves should have flowers?” asked Bebe, her tone a little sharp.

Grace answered gently. “It’s not that. It’s just that I don’t believe in picking flowers. Each one of them is God’s creation.” She laughed, closing her eyes self-consciously, as if when she did that, people would not be looking at her.
Ironically, this only emphasized her beauty—the luminous skin, the finely sculpted face, the pale, long lashes. “Some things I truly believe in. Over my dead
body
would I have a picked bouquet in my house. It disturbs the unity of God, earth, nature, and man.”

“Oh, for
heavens
sake,” said Bebe, “that sounds so off the wall—is that New Age?”

“I’m sorry you don’t like it,” said Grace, chin firm—for once. “I just don’t happen to pick flowers and let them die—it’s unnatural.” She smiled radiantly, her defenses down after a pleasant, social afternoon. “I even wrote a poem about it.”

“Really? A poem?” asked Bebe.

“Yes. I keep the poems I write—and other snatches of verse—in here,” and she produced her little, rumpled red notebook from her pocket. In a soft voice, she recited:

She looked around the group, seeking approval.

“Far out,” said Doug, stroking his ample beard. He directed a good-natured smile toward Grace: “This woman is a poet, that’s for sure. And it even rhymes—I
like
that in a poem.”

The Storms, listening from the next table, seemed to be a trifle disgusted with this latest speech. Louise could understand that Grace’s poetry did little to add to the success of Higher Directions.

“I like it very much,” Nora called from the neighboring table.

Encouraged, Grace said, “I was telling Nora about Coleridge. He was one of the many poets who wrote about or used the symbolism of the flower.” She riffled through the
notebook again. “Ah, here it is: This was written after he read the German Romantic poet Novalis’ writings about the ‘blue flower’ …” She searched out Nora’s face. Her fellow poet nodded encouragement. Grace read.

She looked around again. “Isn’t that lovely and mysterious?”

It was hard to read Bebe at first, hard to see the anger in the woman in her sleeveless tank top, shorts, and New Spirit walking shoes. But this young woman was treading on all of Bebe’s gut feelings about graves and death. “Well, Grace, you’ve got a problem.”

“A problem?”

“Yes, because somebody
picked
that flower Coleridge was carrying through Paradise, didn’t they, now?”

“Oh, but I didn’t mean—”

Bebe went on relentlessly, green eyes flashing an unkind look at Nora as she did. “You and Nora may be the intellectuals, the English majors, the poets, who spout off about all these books about German Romanticism and nonsense like the ‘blue flower.’ What does ‘blue flower’ stand for, anyway, some secret sex symbol? You may be the one who has to jot all those garden notes and poetry down in your little notebook all the time …”

Grace, sitting opposite Bebe, was almost visibly wilting, as her lawn dress had already done, her joyous nature attacked frontally by her companion.

“… but as far as I’m concerned, it’s ninety percent pure foolishness. Foolishness comes in many forms. There’s this intellectual stuff you’re talking about. There’s the town gossip where I live—it’s all the same.” Bebe’s face was red and
perspiring, her voice even hoarser and louder than usual. “Oh, yes, our town is like a bad joke—the people are like the kids who followed the Pied Piper. They follow and believe anyone—anyone, even old biddies!—who tell them some juicy story in a convincing way.”

Whether Grace thought she still possessed the woman’s friendship, or whether she herself was fed up and ready to strike back at the older woman, Louise didn’t know. The pale blue eyes were guileless, the hair with the now-sagging tortoiseshell clip flopping in her face, giving her a faintly mad appearance. But Grace threw out the next remark in an innocent voice, like a grown-up who had not yet learned all the rules of politic speech. “Bebe, you’ve gone back to talking about your husband’s death. There’s something to be said for keeping your own counsel on some of these personal matters—at least I try to do that. Don’t you think you’re complaining too much? Why, surely people will think that a person who is innocent would not have to be constantly complaining—”

The rest happened in a flash. Bebe rose from the bench, shoving it and its other occupants mightily back from the table so that they had to grapple quickly with it to keep it from tipping over. She stood there, a large, apoplectic presence, with her hands knotted into fists. The still-seated Grace cringed before her. “You
twit!
” she bellowed, bringing the young man and woman behind the food counter hurrying over. “You
overromanticized
little twit, who doesn’t know diddly-squat about life, to say nothing of gardening … who are you to accuse me of killing my darling Ernie? How
dare
you?”

The Storms had a strange reaction to the outburst. At first, they seemed to enjoy someone telling off Jim Cooley’s wife, but then they swiftly amended their expressions when they realized there was every indication that Bebe was going to do physical harm to the younger woman.

At Bebe’s first loud words, Bill, who had been talking to
the crew, had slid off his seat and hurried over to the woman. Now, he stood between her and Grace, his voice low, like someone trying to talk a terrorist into giving up his gun. “Bebe, maybe we’d better save this conversation for later. I know you Ye upset, but—”

“It’s all right,” said Bebe, shoving her way past him. “I’ve said my piece.” She fumbled inside her purse, extracted some cash, and gave it to Bill, who was patiently following her. “Pay my share, will you, while I go out and have a smoke? I need something to soothe my nerves.”

Nora realized how far things had deteriorated and stepped up to take her turn at monitoring Bebe. She put her arm companionably through Bebe’s, turned her calm gray eyes upon her, and said, “I’ll go with you, since I’m a smoker, too.”

Louise looked at Grace. The woman’s hair and dress were messy, her blue eyes as blank as an empty TV screen. Her only link with reality at that moment was the little notebook she clutched in her hand. But was there any reality in that notebook?

Her heart stirred by pity, Louise took a step toward her, but the young woman flinched and turned away, too crushed to accept solace.

T
HE BESPECTACLED YOUNG MAN HAD
been following them all day, aiming his Nikon at Louise and Doug, as Doug aimed his camcorder at Louise. Tom Carrigan was with
The Litchfield Hills Sentinel
, doing a story on her visit to Litchfield County and the program she was shooting for
Gardening with Nature
. In between shoots, he would sidle up to Louise and ask her questions about her show, which she would answer politely but distractedly. Given a choice, she preferred to be left alone to concentrate on the script during breaks.

It wasn’t until they were at Wild Flower Farm, three miles out of town, that Louise gave young Carrigan a good look. He was a narrow-shouldered, academic-looking fellow with a calm, intelligent face. Suddenly she felt like a cat contemplating the demolition of a mouse. Because she was going to use the press this time—instead of the usual pattern of the press using
her
.

They had reached the garden path lined with Sacred Blood iris, and she dismissed the reporter from her mind for the moment. Now Louise realized what all the excitement was about: The flowers were the most stunning she had ever seen. She had to work hard to maintain some measure of professional detachment in the presence of Doug and the crew. After taking her first look at their exquisite red forms, she was afraid she would babble something like, “I
adore
these gorgeous beauties!” Instead, she somehow stuck to the script. The translucent red blossoms seemed to glow, like the red of an Art Deco vase from the hand of a master, and they stood out all the more on a day that was still shrouded in mist. The glaucous, swordlike foliage complemented the red, only making their beauty more irresistible. And they exuded a faint, spicy, incredibly desirable smell.

Once she had recovered from her horticultural swoon, Louise became aware that this was one of the botanical discoveries of the decade. And Wild Flower Farm was going to make a killing—eventually. Their price was fifty dollars per plant, and the nursery would be paid a royalty for each plant sold by another nursery,
in perpetuity!
But Wild Flower Farm had already
spent
several hundred thousand dollars bankrolling the research at NYU that had produced this wonder, and it would take some time to recoup this cost before the profits began to roll in.

With the iris segment completed, Louise and the crew made their way to the next setup at the farm’s popular Moon Garden. Looking up, she saw the reporter had fallen into step with her on the wide path.