Nipped in the Bud (4 page)

We strolled toward each other and met in front of the Crazy Curl.

She pulled a toothpick from her mouth and stabbed it in my direction. “Well, haven’t you been a busy girl this morning. I heard all about your big blowup with Bud. Everyone in the Bakery was
yakkin
’ about it. Especially about the end, when you threatened him. You didn’t really, did you?”

“
Maybe.
. .a little, but I didn’t mean it. I was just mad.” My face got hot. I thought about the whole town gossiping about my weak moment and took a bite of my sandwich. “Hey,” I said with my mouth full, “how’d those people know about it, anyway? Bud and I were alone.”

“Ernie Hansen was
lookin
’ for pop cans in the park, like he always does on Monday morning.
Said he heard you
givin
’ Bud what for.”

“Of course he has to go and blab it all over town.” I ran a hand around the back of my neck, stopping to massage a muscle that had tightened.
“Just what I need.
No one is going to want to hire me to do their yards when they hear this.”

She tossed the toothpick into a nearby trash can. “Relax. No one pays much attention to Ernie. He’s always telling stories.”

“Then let’s hope people think this is another one of his stories.” We chatted about her morning at the shop while we walked toward the park. At the corner of
Main
and Oak, Hazel kept walking toward The Garden Gate to return to work, and I entered the park by the front entrance.

While traveling the distance to the play area, I ate the last of my oozing sandwich and plotted out my afternoon. I didn’t like surprises when it came to my schedule or my life. Control of my day was priority to me, and I didn’t react well when things didn’t go as planned.
Case in point, the sight before me.
I
was
right. Someone had been here. The zip ties once again peeked from resting spots in tall blades of grass. And someone had shoveled Lisa’s mulch into a mound on the vinyl tarp.

“Bud,” I said under my breath. Probably let his kids pile up the chips so they could add to my work.
“No matter.”
His trick would not ruin my day. I’d recovered from his fencing
demands,
I could recover from this with some fast work.

I picked up my favorite shovel and threw my frustrations with Bud into digging. The spade penetrated the mound and stopped short on something. The reverberations of the wooden handle sent a tingle up my arm.

“What did that prickly old globe thistle do now?” Exasperated, I moved to the other end of the mound and tried again. This time, my shovel went deep but came up holding something heavy. Like roots clinging to a tree stump, whatever I’d found was connected to something that wouldn’t budge.

I strained the muscles in my arms and shook the shovel, sending bark flying.

“What in the world?”

I sucked in a breath. The air seemed to swirl around me like a vortex.

I was mistaken. There was no way Bud made this mound
because.
. .Bud
was
this mound.

Careful not to jiggle the blade and reveal more than the shoulder-up view I had of Bud’s body, I lowered the shovel to the ground. My gaze locked on his face. My brain scrambled for my next move. This was all wrong. I was used to dealing with dead plants—tugging them from the heavy clay soil after careless clients forgot to water them, but I wasn’t prepared to find a dead body.

I wasn’t prepared at all.

I’d need to report this, but
who
to? 911? Or should I just run to the police station a few blocks from here?
Wait, police?
Did I need the police or a doctor? Was Bud still alive?

“Think, Paige, think.” I looked around.

Maybe it would be faster to get Doc. But if Bud was dead, fetching the good doctor would be a waste of his time. I had to check—lay my fingers against his neck and see if blood still coursed through his veins.

I reached out my hand.
Snapped it back.
I couldn’t do it.

“His wrist.
Use his wrist. Pretend it’s a plant runner, not an arm.” I knelt in the moist mulch with my back to his face and dug into his chip blanket until I found his hand. I positioned my fingers at the wrist. The clammy skin told me what I needed to know.

“Sorry I’m late,” Lisa called from outside the fence.

I dropped Bud’s hand as if she’d caught me in the act of killing him.

“Lacy didn’t want to go down for her nap. Wow! You’ve really been shoveling—” Lisa stopped on the other side of the fence, her mouth hanging open, eyes wide. “Oh
my g
osh
! Paige! You didn’t? Did you.
. .did you kill him?”

The two of us were tainted by murder for the second time today. This one was real. Someone had died. Right here on my project. Someone I had an argument with and threatened earlier. Someone even my best friend thought I’d killed.

“I didn’t kill him,” I said, forcing myself to calm down and fighting the desire to snap at her. “But he’s dead. I found him under this pile.”

“Oh, oh, oh, what are we
gonna
do?” she wailed and looked around in frantic sweeps of the area. “We should call someone. Yes, that’s it.
Call.
We need to call. Who should we call?
Maybe Perry.
He’s a lawyer. He’d know what to do, wouldn’t he?” Our gazes locked, and her eyes displayed my inner turmoil in vivid Technicolor.

One thing we had to do. Get away from Bud and fast. I stood and rushed to the other side of the fence. Slipping my hand through the crook of her arm, I directed our steps to the nearest picnic table. Ashen and perspiring, Lisa dropped onto the bench in a plop. I leaned against the tabletop, resisting the urge to climb on and curl into a fetal position. Both of us turned our faces from Bud and stared at each other without speaking. We had to do something. It was my job to take charge. Keep calm for Lisa.

“I’ll call for help,” I finally said and flipped open my cell.

“911, what’s your emergency?” The perky female voice that should never be allowed for a 911 operator answered on the third ring.

“There’s a body. I mean, I found a body.” I was surprised by how stilted and lifeless I sounded.

“Who is this?” the operator asked in a far more fitting tone for her job.

“
Paige.
. .Paige Turner.”

“Paige. Oh, hi, Paige. This is Janice
Engler
. You might remember me as Janice Baker. We went to school together. You helped me with my algebra.”

“Right, yeah, school
together.
. .algebra.”

“Yes, good, now how about telling me where you are.”

“Oak and Main.
The park playground.”

I heard her fingers clicking on a keyboard, tapping into a computer and most likely onto a screen for others to see that Paige Turner found a dead body.

“You say there’s a body at the playground?”

I glanced across the grass to be sure it wasn’t a bad dream. I could see the mound, not Bud, yet I knew he was still there. “Yeah, I’m working on a landscaping project here, and I found a body.”

“Is this person breathing?”

“No, no,
he’s.
. .ah. . .no pulse. I touched his wrist.” My tone zoomed high like a rocket with its sights set on the moon.

“Okay, okay, Paige. Calm down. You’re doing fine. We already have a unit on the way. They’re just down the street. Listen. You might be able to hear the siren already.”

Willing my stomach not to empty onto the ground, I slumped against the table and planted my hands on my knees.
Blood.
My knees were covered in blood.
Bud’s blood.

“Lisa, look.” I pointed at my legs.

She leaned forward and groaned. Our gazes met. Her eyes were vacant and scared. Mine likely held triple that emotion as it dawned on me that I could be considered a suspect in the killing of Bud
Picklemann
. No way he just up and died and mounded chips over his body. No, he was clearly murdered.
But by who?
And why?

“Paige, are you there? Paige?” Janice wasn’t nearly this persistent with her algebra homework.

“Yeah.”

“Stay with me now. Listen. Do you hear the siren?”

Nearly in a trance, I listened for what seemed like hours until the wail that told me help was on the way rang through the air. “They’re coming. Thanks for the help.” Afraid Janice would decide to catch up on old times while we waited, I hung up and handed my phone to Lisa. “This has nothing to do with you. I’ll talk to the cops. You should go home. Call Perry to come and get you. You’re too upset to drive.” I tried to give her a supportive smile, but when I realized I had no one other than
Calgon
to take me away from all of this, I scowled.

And I kept scowling while she sobbed our story into the phone. Kept scowling while watching the police car fly down the street and screech to a stop on
Main
.
Kept scowling as Police Chief Mitch Lawson rushed across the grass with his hand firmly planted on his unclipped holster.

I jerked my head toward Bud before Mitch could say anything. “He’s over by the opening in the fence,” I said, feeling as if I, too, were dead.

“You two okay?” Mitch
asked,
his tone more commanding than concerned.

I nodded and watched him charge away, crossing the grass toward Bud’s body. I hadn’t seen Mitch this close up since I’d been back in town. He hadn’t changed much since high school, except for the touch of gray at his temples. Stout, built like a football linebacker, he didn’t have the large-hanging-over-the-belt belly that I’d found to be prevalent in the other males from our class. He still sported a slight limp from when he jumped off a bridge into the river and blew out his knee in high school.

I peered at Lisa and tipped my head in Mitch’s direction. “You think he’s ever gotten over our little misunderstanding?”

Lisa swiveled on the bench. “I don’t know how he feels about your part in all of it, but he won’t ever get over missing his senior year of football.”

“But surely he doesn’t still blame me. He was the one who bragged he could jump off that bridge. I just called him on it.” I watched him for a few minutes. “Look at him. He still seems just as cocky.”

the
approaching ambulance and several squad cars. But instead of lingering on Mitch, an approaching ambulance and several squad cars drew our attention. One by one their sirens wound down and they parked behind Mitch’s car. The first
EMT
bolted out of the ambulance and headed for Mitch. The second raced behind and stayed to minister to Lisa, whose face was as white as the fluffy clouds circling overhead. He draped a blanket around her back and checked her vital signs. He asked if I needed help. After extracting my phone from Lisa’s clawed fingers, I told him to take care of her. I remained in a vigil-like stance, watching the surreal action whirling around me.

Mitch and the
EMT
talked for a while, making wild gestures with their hands then came back across the clearing. The
EMT
returned to his rig while Mitch instructed his officers to fan out and control the growing group of onlookers. He barked orders to the crowd, his fingers pointing with his demands.

A satisfied look on his face, he strutted toward our table, looking Lisa and me over as if trying to decide something. “You both find the body?” he asked.

I shook my head and explained how I found Bud and when Lisa showed up, adding that Lisa should be allowed to leave as soon as Perry arrived to take her home.

“You, come with me,” he said.

You?
Did he just say you?
Didn’t he recognize me? Or was he still miffed after all this time? “Paige. My name’s Paige Turner.”

“Don’t worry, I remember you. How could I forget? Come on.” He latched onto my elbow and plodded across the open area to another table. “Sit.”

I slowly lowered myself onto the bench. “Why’d you drag me over here? I need to stay with Lisa. She’s really upset.”

“And I need to keep the two of you apart until we get both your statements.”

I stood. “That’s just crazy. Lisa had nothing to do with this.”

Mitch held out his hand. “This isn’t optional, Paige. Like it or not, your friend is part of this investigation. If you talk to her about what happened, one of you might change your story. Not on purpose, but it happens.”

I gave Lisa one last look then settled onto the splintered bench. “What do you need?”

He asked me a series of rapid-fire questions.
First about Bud and exactly how I found him then about my whereabouts during the day.
Though I was distraught, I calmly handled all of them until he chastised me for disturbing evidence. That’s when I finally snapped.

“I already told you about that. I didn’t know he was under the chips until I used the shovel. The only other thing I did was feel his wrist for a pulse.”

“Right, you did mention that.” Mitch’s face tightened, and his eyes narrowed in what must have been his practiced bad-cop glare. “I found several shovels inside the fence.
All of them yours?”

“All the tools are mine. I told you that before, too.”

“When’s the last time you touched the shovel with the blue handle?”

There were several shovels in the enclosure, but I knew exactly which one he meant. “I don’t know. Maybe when I put it in the truck or carried it over to the playground. I brought it along for Lisa. Since it has such a short handle, I don’t tend to use it much.”

He studied my face, his eyes becoming hard and appraising. “You and
Picklemann
get along with each other okay?”

“Where’s this coming from?” I stared at him until he shifted his feet and looked down at his oversized boots while I tried to classify him in the plant world, the only world that made sense to me most of the time.

No doubt, he was bamboo—not the neat clumping variety I loved to have in my gardens, but the treacherous running type. He was stiff and wooden like bamboo stalks, aggressive and unstoppable with his questions running like roots through my life. Like a surprised mole in the garden, his head popped back up, a patronizing look planted on his face. “Let me rephrase my question. Any reason you might want to see
Picklemann
come to any harm?” The words were innocent enough, but his tone was loaded with accusation.

Was this residual anger from high school or did he know about my fight with Bud this morning? If he’d talked to anyone in town, he surely heard. I couldn’t admit to fighting with Bud.
Couldn’t form the words.
Wait. Oh my goodness. Mitch knows I threatened Bud, too. He thinks I killed him.

Unable to make my mouth move, I panicked and looked around.

Mitch cleared his throat. “I’ll take your silence to mean you might have wished
Picklemann
some harm.”

I jumped up and glared at him. “Who in this town didn’t? In fact, Charlie Sweeny was in the park today, too. He interrupted my conversation with Bud and threatened him.”

“Now that’s what I need from you, Paige.
Helpful information like that.”

Whew! Maybe he didn’t think I did it. I relaxed a bit.

Mitch ran a hand over his head, leaving stray hairs sticking up like a bristle brush that would work really well to sweep fall leaves from the driveway. I stifled a smile over the thought of using him as a broom, and he forced one at me. “
S’pose
you could help me with one more thing?”

This was better. He was asking for my help. I released a smile, a peace offering. “What?”

“Seeing how all those shovels are yours and you explained how
Picklemann’s
head ended up on the one, maybe you could explain how what I’m pretty sure is his blood and hair got all over the blue-handled one.”

“How would I know that?” I drew back from the intensity in Mitch’s eyes. “You think I killed Bud.”

He stepped closer. “You had motive. Everyone in town knows about your argument this morning. Then we have the shovel.
Yours to be exact.
And you were the one who called 911. So, yeah, if I were a betting man, I’m sure I’d hit the jackpot if I put my money on you.”