The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery (20 page)

She automatically reached out to touch the note. The sergeant said, “Please don’t. Just read it.”

Bending over, she read aloud:

The words trailed off; Grace could not think of a phrase to complete her poem. “Dear God,” Louise whispered, as a wave of coldness ran through her body.

“What is it?” asked Sergeant Drucker.

Was this the point at which Grace, so unsure of herself, so frail and nervous, the poet and erstwhile student whose only expertise was gardening and a certain capacity to write—was this the point where she gave it up, left this room, walked the trail up to the falls, and jumped to her death?

“So, what do you think?” coaxed the sergeant. “This poem could be a definitive piece of evidence.”

She forced her eyes away from the paper and slowly wandered around the large room, trying to feel the vibrations of the delicate and poetic Grace. She paused to stare out the large windows that afforded a superb view of the distant hills. What tipped Grace over the edge, made her unable to go on with her life?

Finally she answered him. “It’s so dark, so morose. And the references to ‘our love in the mist’ and the ‘Iris Red’ which I’m sure refers to the Sacred Blood iris—”

“Sacred blood?” His eyes widened.

“Plant nomenclature is a bit strange,” Louise said matter-of-factly. “The question to ask, Sergeant Drucker, is whether
this is the way a woman talks to her husband in a suicide poem. I think it is, if all is lost between them. I’d be very curious to know exactly what the status of the Cooley marriage was.”

She circled back to the desk and read the unfinished verse again. “Yes—it definitely says there’s been a parting of the ways. What did Jim tell you? That is, if you’re at liberty to share that with me.”

Drucker’s eyes scanned the room as he spoke. “He maintains she was very down in the dumps lately. She apparently suffered from depression—went to a psychiatrist once a week. Took antidepressants on occasion.”

Louise’s mind perversely called up a picture of a happy young woman enthusing over old-fashioned garden flowers. Yet each new fact supported suicide. Ongoing depression. The need for antidepressants. She tried to force herself to acknowledge the increasing possibility that two people leaped or fell to their deaths today, without benefit of evildoers to help them.

“I did see her taking pills at every stopping place today. But they looked like aspirin to me—aspirin and echinacea.”

“Take a look at the bottles.” Using a handkerchief to keep from contaminating any fingerprints with his own, he opened the drawer of the bedside table and pointed to a series of bottles. “Here’s her medicine. Let’s see, Prozac—well, that’s pretty strong. Saint-John’s-wort: She’d used most of the bottle. Echinacea.”

Louise understood it now, and it made sense. Grace believed in natural remedies, medicines from flowers. She doubted that the woman had depended on Prozac to get through life, so much as she did the natural herb, Saint-John’s-wort, a popular remedy for depression.

“And here’s a little plastic Baggie,” said Drucker. “It looks like aspirin, and”—he held it up to the light with the same handkerchief and peered at the impression on the pills—“it is aspirin. But Mr. Cooley said when they were in the room
together before coming down for tea, she took one of those Prozacs. Who knows? The autopsy will tell us just what and how much medication she consumed before going up to the falls.”

Louise stared at the Baggie. It was the one from which she had seen Grace removing pills. Surely, popping aspirin wasn’t that bad, was it? It was from a plant, too—she’d read that somewhere.

Drucker continued: “Mr. Cooley also mentioned something else. They apparently couldn’t have children, in spite of lots of special efforts—” His face reddened. “You know, temperature-taking, etcetera.”

“Well, that’s enough to drive some people over the edge. The trying and failing, that is.”

“That’s what they did: They tried and failed. So as a substitute, she spent a lot of time gardening—or so he says.”

“Yes, she told us at length about her garden. She was immersed in it.”

“He called it an obsession, which he finally had to try to ‘curb,’ as he put it. She took to writing poems about it-well, that poem in the room was just one of them, I guess.”

“So you’re saying there was strain in the marriage, created by depression, obsessive behavior, and maybe the lack of children. I bet Frank and Fiona Storm could tell us more about it.”

“They probably could, if they chose to—but they have been the soul of propriety, especially as private family matters go. Mr. Cooley admitted to me that he told his wife he wanted her to get her feet on the ground. But he came off sounding pretty protective of her. Not like somebody who was going to ditch her for not producing an heir for him, or for being a flighty garden fanatic.”

Louise turned toward him so quickly that he flinched. “
Flighty
garden fanatic. Well, I’m one too, you know, Sergeant Drucker. In fact, that’s how I make a living. I work at being what you would call a flighty garden fanatic every day
of my life. That’s why I felt a certain empathy with Grace. She was
passionate
about gardening—not flighty.”

The sergeant’s face was crimson. “Ma’am, I apologize. I was just talking from Mr. Cooley’s point of view. He’s the one who considered her fanatical—not me.”

“Of course,” said Louise, not quite exonerating him. He was just another person who viewed gardening as a kooky pursuit, not one of America’s major industries. “Now, Sergeant, let’s not get hung up on that. Did you find Grace’s notebook?”

“She had a notebook?”

“Yes. It was like a teenager’s diary. She wrote in it constantly—a little red leather looseleaf notebook about three by five inches big. She noted everything she saw on the tour, put in poetic quotes she liked, things like that. You must have found it.”

“Most likely someone has already checked it into evidence. I’ll find out.”

After a moment, she added, “In fact, I’d say that notebook is another definitive piece of evidence. Grace put her heart into her writing. We garden fanatics do that, you know.” She smiled kindly at him; every man deserved a second chance.

Drucker gave her a wary look and changed the subject. “So what do you think of what Mr. Cooley said?”

“Well, in Grace I saw a person who was very happy and delighted one moment, then floundering in a deep emotional trough the next. Very sensitive to everything, but of course, all of us were devastated to hear that one of our fellow guests, uh, fell off the mountain.”

“Believe it or not, we’ve had more than one do that over the years.”

“This accident was a shock to everybody at the inn. Yet Grace barely knew Jeffrey. What was almost as traumatic, I’d guess, was the terrible fight she had today with Bebe Hollowell. Why, the woman was about to punch Grace in
the nose. Grace said some tactless things and hurt Bebe’s feelings. Then Bebe lashed right back at Grace.”

“How’d she do that?”

“It was rather silly at first. Bebe said she’d like to put some of that new red iris on her husband’s grave. Ernie Hollowell—he recently died, you know—”

“She told me all about it.”

“And Grace told her she didn’t believe in picking flowers,
period
. That, of course seemed to denigrate Bebe’s desire to beautify Ernie’s burial spot, and Bebe just blew her top. Then Grace made matters worse by suggesting that Bebe’s constant talking about Ernie’s death made her appear guilty of something.”

“Huh,” said the sergeant. “So that’s what happened. Mrs. Hollowell didn’t give me details. But she does seem to be suffering from guilt.”

“I haven’t talked to her since we found Grace.”

“Never seen the likes of it. She’s with a trooper now, who’s trying to calm her down. No wonder she’s upset. There’s nothing like having someone die after you’ve just had a fight with them. And then there’s her lack of alibi.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Mrs. Hollowell was up in her room, like Mrs. Cooley, from teatime on. There was only one other person out of sight near the time of Mrs. Cooley’s fall.”

Louise had a dim memory of someone excusing herself directly after dinner, pleading exhaustion.

“Fiona.”

“Yes. Fiona Storm.”

She looked at him. “There were about seventeen people staying in this house, weren’t there?”

“Yes, not counting Barbara Seymour and her staff.”

“You almost need a chart to keep track of people’s comings and goings, and of all the strange events of the past day or so. The odd behavior people had toward each other. The disagreements and fights. The bumps and thumps …”

“Oh, yes—you mentioned them. Now, this was last night?”

“Last night, very late—actually about two in the morning. And the other sounds …” She sighed; she was going to have to tell him about the love moan.

“What other sounds?”

“As if some of the guests had sneaked out of their rooms and were tiptoeing around the upstairs hall in the dark. And there was a kind of moaning, as if someone were … making love.”

Drucker looked at her incredulously.

“I’m only telling you how it sounded. I couldn’t see much of anything because all the lights were out—someone must have thrown the circuit breaker. I heard doors opening and closing, but I’m not sure how many, and someone went down the front stairs—I know that for sure, because the stairs squeaked. And, as I said, somebody was moaning, as if…”

“As if they were enjoying themselves, huh?”

She laughed nervously. “It’s a wonder we didn’t hear a ghost playing the pianoforte in the living room! And then, there were the two men I saw in silhouette, in front of the hall window. They appeared to be—hugging each other. That’s all.”

The sergeant’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
That’s right, Sergeant Drucker
, she thought,
add homosexuality to this perplexing set of deaths and you really have a mess
.

“Was that before or after the, uh, moaning?”

“Just after.”

His brow had creased into a formidable set of wrinkles. “You’re right, Mrs. Eldridge. We’ll have to reconstruct the whole weekend. This is going to be something to try to sort out.”

S
OME THINGS, LIKE DIAMONDS, MAY BE
forever, but gardens are not. Seemingly solid, earthy, and unchanging, they need constant care. They must have a yearly freshening up, and on occasion, bigger changes. Here are some important tips:

• This comes from a botanical garden director, who warns that renowned gardens didn’t get that way without a lot of work. Although it may sound strange to you, make your motto, “Maximum manure, and maximum disturbance of plants.” Most of the plants in botanical
  showplaces have been lifted each year and rich new soil tucked under their tushes and around their sides.
  

• Many backyard gardeners have deconstructed themselves in the process of reconstructing their gardens—for instance, after deciding to do a complete garden overhaul in the space of one weekend.
  

• If you have too much garden, downsize, and put in plants that “pay rent.”
  

Do these seem to be warring ideas— treating our gardens like ICU patients to make them prosper, and in doing so putting ourselves into intensive care? The answer, as usual, is to compromise. You can have a near-prizewinning garden without destroying your back. It requires a sensible garden plan; a rational schedule to do the work; the right kind of tools; physical training; and a Tom Sawyer approach to getting others to help you.

Yes, you should train for the gardening season, just as any athlete would train for arduous physical activity. As long as you avoid ruining yourself, gardening is very good for you: You will use up as many calories as you would taking a brisk walk, or playing a round of golf. Don’t go overboard—follow a work schedule and don’t dig for longer
than you can handle. Start out slowly and harden yourself as you would a seedling, by first working in the shade, then going out gradually to face the sun. Dress sensibly, and carry a big water bottle. One woman, known for overgardening and ending up in bed on a heating pad, keeps a cell phone in her jeans. Her husband calls from work and warns her after three or four hours that it’s time to quit for the day.

Needless to say, this gardener has tools that help her avoid self-destruction: easy-to-use high-quality pruners and tree loppers; a sharp shovel and hoe; and a set of three or four sturdy cart wheelbarrows. Their size makes it impossible to carry a lazy man’s heavy load, which is her natural tendency. Several carts make it easy to sort garden materials and collect spent dirt.

The first step is to sit down with your garden map and study it. You don’t have one, with plants marked with their full names? Make one. Even a crude one will do fine. After you use it for your latest garden renewal, tape it to your refrigerator door in summer—what better use could a refrigerator door have? As you acquire new plants, you can quickly jot down their name and location. In fall, put this valuable resource tool into your looseleaf garden notebook. No notebook? It is a place to keep your garden’s history, and should
include an informal diary of what happened in your planting patches all year, what succeeded, what failed. It can hold the list of annual tasks to be done, empty seed packets, seed-starting calendars, garden snapshots, and articles about plants.