Nipped in the Bud (7 page)

Lisa reached over my shoulder and slapped another piece of pizza on top of my untouched slice. “Eat. You’re
gonna
need your strength to battle Mitch.”

“Yes, Mom.”
I rolled my eyes. She probably just wanted to keep my mouth full so I couldn’t say anything else to embarrass her guest.

I stuffed my mouth full of pizza and looked across the island.

Adam was still staring at me. His eyes were no longer playful. “So, you want to talk about the murder now or wait until we’re done eating?”

I swallowed.
Hard.
“Now, I guess
,
if you can give me good news.”

“Let’s hope I can.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

I looked square into those deep brown eyes that had changed colors several times. “Before we go any further, I want you to know I’m not a murderer. I didn’t kill Bud.”

“I didn’t think you did.” He blotted his mouth with his napkin.

“Good. I wouldn’t want you to represent me if you thought I was guilty.” I set my plate down and leaned forward. “There’s one more thing I need to tell you. The police chief, Mitch Lawson, and I aren’t the best of friends. In high school he bragged that he could jump off a railroad trestle. I kind of called him on it. He jumped and blew out his knee. Didn’t get to play ball most of his senior year. Seems like that’s making it easier for him to think I’m guilty.”

Adam chewed and flipped open his binder. “We can deal with that. Won’t be the first angry officer I’ve run across. For now, let’s focus on today’s events. Why don’t you start by replaying what happened with
Picklemann
?”

“Well,” I said as I tore off a bite of pizza. “It was really pretty simple.” I explained every little detail of our encounter, including my closing threat.

Adam looked up from his pad, now decorated with copious notes. “Your departing shot at the man certainly speaks to a motive. Still, Bud was the only witness to your threat, so the police won’t have that bit of information to use against you.”

I swallowed a bite that felt like a lump of the thick clay soil found in Serendipity.
“Not exactly.
Ernie Hansen overheard me when he was picking up pop cans from the weekend.”

“So all he heard was the threat at the end?”

“I don’t know. My employee, Hazel, told me about him.” I turned to Lisa, whose face readily displayed her anxiety. “You’re always one of the first to hear what’s going on.
Anyone talking about the rest of my conversation with Bud?”

She shook her head. “Not yet, but if Ernie was listening, it’ll be all over town soon.”

“I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” Adam jotted a note on his pad then looked up. “So what did you do after
Picklemann
left?”

“I put the tools inside the fence and secured the opening. Then I walked to my shop, The Garden Gate.”

“Any idea what time you got there?”

“I looked at my watch when Bud came to the park. That was ten thirty. By the time we finished arguing, I cleaned up the tools, and got back to the shop, it’d be close to eleven.”

“Anyone at The Garden Gate who can verify your whereabouts?”

At the thought of my alibi, I laughed.
“Only Mr. T.”

Lisa and Perry smiled. They knew Mr. T.

Confused, Adam glanced at us. “Think this Mr. T will be willing to testify if it comes to that?”

“Well, sure, but you better let me tell you about him before you put any stock in what he has to say.” I explained Mr. T’s feathered heritage.

Instead of acting like a stiff lawyer, Adam laughed.
A lawyer with a sense of humor.
This guy was special. What that meant for my case, who knew? At least I would enjoy getting to know him in the process.

“So,” he paused and gave me a silly grin, “any people that could provide an alibi?”

I thought through my day. The people I didn’t see. I had no alibi. Why didn’t I think of that before? A surge of panic rushed in. “I guess it depends on when Bud was killed.”

Adam swiveled on his stool to face Perry. “Any way you could find out the time of death?”

“I could call Lawson, I suppose,” Perry said. “But I doubt he even knows yet. This is a small town. Our police force isn’t used to this kind of investigation.”

“Why don’t you call anyway?” Adam asked. “They might have preliminary findings, and we’ll all rest easier tonight if Paige has an alibi.”

“I’ll see what I can find out.” Cell in hand, Perry pushed off his stool and walked toward the family room.

“Okay.” Adam looked at his notes again. “Other than Mr. T, who did you see after leaving the park?”

I ran the day through my filter again. “I suppose someone could have seen me. The only person that talked to me was my employee, Hazel, outside my apartment around
one o’clock
.” I told him about the mess in the alley, my communication with Ned, and the trip to wash my shirt.

Adam set his pen on the pad and stretched. His eyes were wary. “This isn’t good, Paige. Hazel can only give you an alibi for the time she saw you. If you’re right about seeing someone in the park,
Picklemann
was probably dead before you talked to Hazel.”

“But I didn’t kill him. Maybe someone else saw me.”

“We can do some checking. I wouldn’t put a lot of faith in the search. You moved around a lot. It will be hard to find anyone who can provide an alibi that covers a long enough time span. Then, we have another problem. What, exactly, did you tell Lawson about going home after cleaning up the alley?”

“Just that I went home before going back to the park.”

“And he didn’t ask why?” Adam’s eyes narrowed.

“No.” I peered at his tightening expression. “You’re starting to scare me with the way you’re looking at me.”

“Sorry, but obviously you haven’t realized that Lawson will think you washed your shirt to get rid of any evidence of killing Bud.”

I jumped up. “I had a reason for washing it.
A good one.”

“I know you did, but think about this from the police chief’s point of view. You fight with
Picklemann
, no one sees you for a few hours, and when someone does, you’ve changed your clothes. While your dirty clothes are spinning away in the washer,
Picklemann
is found dead.”

“So we don’t tell him about it.”

“By tomorrow, he’ll have had time to think about what you’ve already told him, so he’ll be certain to ask about it. You can’t lie to him.”

“But it makes me look guilty and I’m innocent!”

“I believe you, Paige, but the police aren’t going to take your word at face value. You’ll need proof of your innocence.”

“How about the e-mail you sent?” Lisa came around the counter and laid her hand on my shoulder. “We can get your laptop. That’ll prove you were in your office.”

Adam held up a hand. “Don’t bother. Even if the e-mail is on your hard drive—might not be depending on the type of account you have—it’ll only prove you were there for the few minutes it took to send the message.” Adam looked at Lisa. “How long would it take Paige to get from her shop to the park and back?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes at most,” Lisa said.

“Wait, are you saying I went back to the park and killed Bud?”

“I’m saying we have two hours to account for and a five minute e-mail won’t cover it all.” He looked at his notes. “How about the
phone call
for the fencing? Did you use the landline?”

“No, I have free long-distance on my cell.”

“A call you could have made from anywhere,” Adam said, letting his tone fall off as if he was thinking.

“I was at The Garden Gate then.” My frustration over not being able to prove where I was spilled out, and I pounded on the counter. “They have to believe me.”

“Wait,” Lisa shouted. “I talked to you, remember?”

“I used my cell again.”

“Like I said,” Adam’s brow furrowed, “the only time you have a concrete alibi is when you talked to Hazel, roughly
one o’clock
. You better hope
Picklemann
was killed around that time.”

As if God sent down an answer, Perry returned. “I struck out with Lawson. He told me it was none of my business.”

“Technically, he’s right,” Adam said. “This isn’t the sort of information the police release early on in an investigation.”

“Oh, they released it,” Perry said with a coy smile. “I called a buddy of mine on the force. This is off the record, and he’ll deny saying it if we go public, but according to him the body temp indicates
Picklemann
had been dead for an hour or two when Paige found him.
Looks like they’ll place the time of death between eleven and twelve.”

I looked from one person to another. The very thing I was thinking lay on their faces like a case of black spot invading my prize roses. I was cleaning up the alley during that time. No one could vouch for my whereabouts. I had no alibi.

“And now, enjoy the best of Through the Garden Gate with your beloved host, Paige Turner.”

“Paige, this is Solitary. I was wondering if you stood behind your advice.”

“I’m afraid I don’t
understand your question, Solitary.”

“Well, say you gave a caller advice about using native plants—”

“Oh, I hope they listen. Native plants do so much better in the climate and soil conditions they were meant to grow in. Even though they might become aggressive and you’d have to dig them up and pry them apart later, often that’s the only work they require.”

“Right, well,
say
the caller agreed with your advice and went out to dig up native plants at the Grand
Ronde
Reservation. Would you provide legal representation if the person was then apprehended for theft and trespassing?”

At eight o’clock Tuesday morning, I approached the park entrance, pondering Adam’s words
from
last night. Not the sweet little bit where he admitted I wasn’t bad to look at, but the nasty, ugly parting words he uttered as we climbed into our respective cars—to be prepared in case I was arrested today at my appointment with Mitch.

Be prepared! What did that mean? It wasn’t as if after the birds and the bees talk, my mother ticked off a lengthy go-to-jail list. The only thing I knew about jail preparation was what I learned playing Monopoly. At least there, you could get out for free.

Jail.

I couldn’t fathom it. A scary place filled with guards toting guns much like the uniformed cops swarming the park. Any one of them could haul me in and make sure I stayed behind bars. Would that stocky, balding officer carrying a plastic bag to the trunk of his car make the arrest? Or would the conspicuously absent Mitch do the honors himself? I voted for Mitch and his eagerness to prove my guilt.

Not that he was the only one whose face displayed disdain. The growing group of onlookers milling outside the yellow tape gave me harsh glares that screamed their belief in my guilt. I resisted the urge to put my head down while I rushed toward the earthy smell of my shop that always brought comfort. On the toughest of days, when I was unable to bolster a positive attitude on my own, I just had to step across that threshold, and my problems melted away.

Today was different. The gaping faces at the park made me feel like an outsider in my own town. Their guilty verdict was likely only the beginning of what I would face from the other residents. Would I get over this? Stay out of jail? Get the death penalty?

Stop it, Paige. Pity is not allowed here. I gave myself a mental slap. If I couldn’t come to grips for myself, I had to put on a good front for Hazel.

I found her stuffing seed packets into a rack beside the front counter. Her braids flopped as she bent over a box of reserve stock. She was dressed in the shop uniform of polo shirt and khakis, but I couldn’t help remembering the day she came in for an interview wearing worn, but clean jeans and a well patched blouse. This wasn’t the look I wanted my shop staff to have, but I knew about her past, and my compassion for the underdog urged me to give her a chance.

Her father had been in and out of jail for various crimes when she was young, and the family subsisted on welfare and handouts. Even when her father finally cleaned up his act, no one would hire him and they lived in squalor.

Hazel had been teased as a child, and as an adult the stigma lingered. She married a man who abused her, and people couldn’t understand why she stayed with him. It wasn’t until he got drunk and drove his truck into a lake that she’d gotten a break. That was when she met her current husband, who’d moved to town when the pickle factory opened. He didn’t care about her past, but others weren’t so willing to open their arms to her.

I didn’t want to be guilty of the same treatment. I interviewed her and found a woman knowledgeable about gardening and plants in general. I hired her on the spot and from that day on, she’d proven herself a capable and loyal worker.