Jill Churchill - Mulch Ado About Nothing

“Still…" Jane urged.

“I don't want the police here," Arnie said.

“No, of course not," Shelley said brightly. "It makes talk around the neighborhood. But the detective who came here with the officer is a friend of Jane's, and her neighbors are used to seeing him around her house. Maybe you could drop by Jane's and talk to him there.”

Arnie said, "I guess that would be okay. Maybe when we're touring your two yards tomorrow."

“I'll set it up. It'll only take you a minute to tell them about the car you saw. If it's not valuable information, they won't bother you again," Jane assured him.

“Okay. Now, if you have the time, I'd like you to come look at something.”

He took them to the backyard and said, "I might take Miss Winstead's advice about dividing these Japanese irises. She said to do it in the fall. But I'd like to put the cuttings somewhere else in the yard.”

You won't do it, Jane thought, but went along with allowing the visit to last longer. She glanced around the yard again, and once again noticed the pitiful straggly plants with the little coral droopy pom-pom flowers. "Why don't you plant the extra cuttings over here?" she suggested. "The colors would go well together. And these little plants look like they're struggling for light. You could move them into the sunshine.”

And the irises would kill off the ugly plants, she reflected.

Arnie nodded. And leaned down to pluck a few flowers off and handed a couple to both Jane and Shelley. "They don't look like much, but they smell nice. Darlene used to put the foliage in vinegar for salad dressing."

“That went well, I think," Shelley said when they were on their way home.

“I hope it's useful to Mel to know about this mystery car. Take me home now. I want to put on my jammies and veg out in front of my new television.”

Twenty-six

The last clay of the class was anticlimactic. Though the death of Dr. Eastman had been on the local evening news and there was even a mention of the suspicious circumstances, treated almost as a joke on one of the networks Friday morning, the class assembled at the community center dutifully.

All except Stefan.

He'd come to the classroom either the evening before or early in the morning. He left a note on the podium saying since one or more of the class attendees had reported an innocent remark he'd made the day before to the police, causing him much humiliation, he wouldn't be present today.

So he hadn't been as casual and unconcerned as he acted when he was taken away. Jane couldn't blame him a bit.

Everyone was subdued and feeling awkward in the presence of the others. Miss Winstead looked downright haggard and was the first to bring the subject out in the open. "What a perfectly horrible way to die," she said.

When no one else replied, she continued, "I had a long, highly unpleasant relationship with the man, but I wouldn't have wished this on anyone."

“It was a shame," Arnie contributed.

Geneva Jackson, who had come this morning now that her sister was comfortably settled back in her own home, murmured a vague agreement with Arnie.

“We're all under suspicion, you realize," Ursula said bluntly. "The police will pick one of us at random to persecute and perhaps even prosecute.”

A bleak silence fell over the room and it grew darker by the coincidence of a storm front moving in front of the sun just as she spoke. Nobody bothered to turn on the lights.

“I think we should all just go home," Charles Jones said. "There's no point in finishing our tour or the class.”

Shelley spoke up. "I disagree. Jane and I would welcome you to see our yards and give us the benefit of all your experience. We've been looking forward to you coming. And nothing will bring Dr. Eastman back. His death was a tragedy, of course, but none of us are quitters, I hope.”

Remarkably, they were all so cowed by the situation and Shelley's remarks that they went along with what she said.

Charles Jones grudgingly agreed. "We'll have to make them short visits and put this all behind us."

“Not entirely put the experience out of our minds," Ursula said rather sensibly given her normally extreme views. "No matter what else happens, I for one have learned a great deal of useful information from the rest of you. And I agree that the last two gardens deserve to be seen.”

It was turning into a bleak day, with the sky darkening and death discovered yesterday. Jane would have been perfectly content if they didn't come to see her yard, except for the fact that she'd called Mel late the night before and told him about the conversation she and Shelley had with Arnie and how he was willing to tell what little he'd observed, but only if he could meet Mel privately at Jane's house.

But secretly she was in agreement more with Charles Jones than with Shelley. A fine twist of fate. She'd rather go home and spend a day that threatened to become rainy and dark in her cozy, safe bedroom mindlessly watching her television than have all these people to her house.

She still wasn't entirely convinced, in spite of the coincidences, that the attack on Dr. Jackson and the murder of Dr. Eastman had been committed by one of the class. She recognized it was a possibility, but so were a lot of other scenarios that nobody but Mel was aware of.

But she couldn't betray Shelley's wishes and opt out. "Let's go to my house first and Shelley's after mine. Her yard is nicer than mine," she said as Shelley was jingling her car keys meaningfully.

The rest of them dragged themselves out of their chairs and followed Shelley and Jane to the parking lot. Everyone but Jane had driven their own cars, in anticipation, probably, of being free to bolt when they wished to.

When they all reassembled at Jane's house, she did her best to be cheerful and welcoming. She'd noticed Mel's little red MG parked up the street where he was waiting to tactfully pluck Arnie out of the crowd and have a talk with him. She doubted that Arnie's information would be helpful, but was in too deeply to back out.

Nobody had much to say about Jane's yard, although they all tried to be polite about her clearly recently imported plants around the patio in tubs. Ursula asked about the nice little rocks that covered Willard's damage to the yard. "It's an odd but appealing curve from one side of the yard to the other, but what are you planning to do next?" she asked with abnormal social grace.

“I thought I'd line both sides of the path with some low-growing ground cover," Jane improvised. "Can you suggest something suitable?"

“Let me think about it. I'll give some starts of several of my ground covers you could try out. It's a little late in the season to start them, but you might as well give it a try.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mel signaling to Arnie, who moved unobtrusively and unwillingly toward him.

Miss Winstead caught Jane's attention and said, "I envy the view of the field behind your house. It's rare to find a big open area like that in a well-developed suburb.”

This gave Jane the chance to explain how it had happened to be there. "It was the last block of houses in this division that were planned. The developer got in trouble with the financing of the building project, and for some reason nobody knows, a multitude of lawsuits have dragged out for years, preventing anyone else coming and building. The homeowners' society has taken over temporary responsibility for keeping it attractive. Part of our dues are spent on mowing it early in the spring and scattering wildflower seeds on it."

“What an excellent solution," Miss Winstead said.

“Over the last five years or so the wildflower plants seem to have finally beat out the weeds. Otherwise it would really be a blight," Jane agreed. She was blathering along on autopilot. "Frankly, I hope the lawsuits drag out for the rest of my life. I'd hate to lose this view. And my cats enjoy the field enormously. They'd be heartbroken if houses went up back there, and so would I.”