yard work

Laboriously, the President of the Garden Club got down on her replacement knees. It required a special technique and one of those gardening cushions she had always thought were for old people. Well, now she was an old person. What had she been thinking to plant all of these peonies? Yes, they were beautiful when blooming, but that happened for such a brief time. Her roses bloomed all summer long. And now the honeysuckle vines had threaded their way between the tender peony points.

    She wasn’t quite ready to deal with the trampled roses where the body—and murderer or murderers and police had been. The body. Malcolm Addams. She needed to know more about the man. Rich. Handsome. Quite the catch for Catherine—or for anyone. A dark tan, long silver hair, good build. She could have fancied him herself. She looked around for her wheelbarrow to toss the vines into, but it wasn’t there, of course. She made a heap of them instead. Very attached to his daughter, according to Bobby. Didn’t approve of Bobby, of course. Who would? Young girl just out of college. Needs to find her way in the world. Doesn’t need to get sucked into Block Island, where the best a smart woman can hope for is a real estate license or a cleaning company. Seasonal choices. They used to waitress and bus, but that was beneath college kids these days. No summer jobs for pocket money. Now they only wanted internships that would lead to something. Parents had to pay for them, of course. And the island had to hire from Brazil, Peru, Thailand, Ukraine. Places where people still knew how to work.

     The girl seemed nice. Bobby had brought her around to look at the roses last summer. Taking the summer off to celebrate finishing her masters in something or other. Nice if you could afford it. Another summer love for Bobby.

     And speak of the devil—that was Bobby’s van pulling up. She had to get up off her knees in the most inelegant fashion, rump first. She hoped Bobby was too busy parking to notice her struggles. He should be taxi-ing right now, anyway. The one o’clock must have come in. And then she noticed her old-lady panties and bras waving in the breeze on the laundry line. “Oh deah!”

      Well there were worse things than a laundry line of skivvies.  The girl with Bobby was dealing with one of them right now. And the boy, too, who must be her brother.

     “Merry, you remember Kate,” said Bobby. “This is her brother, Bill.”

     “I’m so sorry,” said Merideth, reaching out her hand. The girl looked ashen. Shaking hands seemed cold, even to a standoffish New Englander like herself, and she changed the outstretched hand into a quick hug.

     “I still don’t believe it,” said Kate. “That’s why I asked Bobby to bring me here, to see where you found him.”

     “I was just thinking about your father and wondering what he was like.” Merideth led the little procession down to the toolshed, next to the poor trampled Parson Pinks. She stepped aside.

      “There’s no blood,” said Kate.

      “Well he was killed over there, in the brush between those three houses. Bayberry bushes and honeysuckle and escaped rosa multiflora and poison ivy. The murderer or murderers should have several tokens to remember the area by. They brought him over here in my wheelbarrow. Do you want to go over there? The tape is probably still up, but they must have finished. I haven’t seen anybody over there for the last day.”

    “I don’t, said the boy. He shuddered and looked down at his knuckles, which were scratched.

     Maybe he was cold. But the girl wanted information.

   “I’ll take you,” Bobby said to Kate.

     “Come on into the house, Bill,” said Merideth, as the other two headed across the field. “It’s chilly when you’re just standing around. It’s this wind.”

     She sat him down and went into the kitchen to boil water. More tea and sympathy.  She must be channeling Mrs. Marple. “Who’s older, you or Kate,” she called to him.

     “I am. Five years.”

      Kate seemed older to Merideth. More mature maybe. But the two looked a lot alike. Dark hair and skin, like their father. But with startlingly light grey eyes. Must be the mother’s. “Do you live nearby?”

   “No. I live in L.A.”

    She put teacups down on the coffee table. The kettle whistled. “Be right back.”

     “Do you see your father often?”

     “No. They got divorced when I was fourteen. Kate would go on visits, made a point of getting to know him. Spent last summer here.”

    “Yes, I met her then.”