The Perennial Killer: A Gardening Mystery (21 page)

He snapped gnarled fingers. “Yep. That’s it. Stress. That’s it, exactly. Doctor Gary Rostov—I jes’ call him Gary—master of post-traumatics … stress. He explained it all t’me. Folks get all fussed up when they have a big shock—like maybe their ma dies, or they shot down so
many people in the
Vi
-etnam War that it made ’em disgusted with themselves. This keeps comin’ back to haunt ’em like a bad dream.”

“So he’s an authority on that.”

“Yep. Sez he knows how to snap ’em out of it. He lives back in that green house next t’the stream. Told ’im it was flood plain, and the house there’s had some problems. But he likes that spot. Bet he’ll have some stress hisself when we get another hundred-year flood in a few years.”

Louise laughed. “So hundred-year floods aren’t reliable.”

“Sure ain’t. They don’t keep a calendar. Our expert’ll just have t’head for higher ground is all.”

She didn’t have time to mention what was on her mind before Herb got around to his concerns. “Got somethin’ important t’tell ya, Louise, kinda off-puttin’. Wanna come in? Ellie’ll give us a fresh cookie, so it won’t smart so much.”

As they walked to the house, she saw that someone liked roses. The house was fronted with them, each one growing in its own separate wire cage.

“Ellie loves them roses,” the farmer said unnecessarily, “and course, we gotta protect ’em against those deer, ’cuz they love ’em, too.”

“Beautiful.” She wasn’t just being nice. They were impressive and healthy plants, if dwarfed by their protective cages. Louise sighed. Gardens all across America were being treated in this clumsy fashion because of the scourge of deer.

They entered the plain, elderly farmhouse, and Louise could tell a fastidious housekeeper reigned here—there was no red dust in this home. Dominating the living room were two plush recliners, their backs and arms prudently covered with crocheted antimacassars. They sat facing a large-screen television, and Louise could imagine the
farmer and his wife sitting in cozy comfort in front of the big box when the day’s work was done. The place smelled of sugar cookies and coffee, and Louise, who loved coffee, gladly homed in on the kitchen to meet Herb’s short, plump wife.

After introductions, Ellie didn’t waste time giving her the news. “Herb saw someone suspicious snoopin’ around your house today—’cept they didn’t get a chance t’ break in, because he went right down there. You didn’t appear to be home.”

“I wasn’t home the whole day. So someone was—hanging around?”

Herb answered her. “It was somebody in an old white car. Noticed he wore a wide-brimmed hat. Wondered if y’knew ’em or not. Kind of lingered there in your driveway, drove around once, and then took off fast.”

“Toward where?”

“Toward Boulder.”

Took off fast, and hurried to Boulder to the organic farm to shoot her? She ran down a little mental list: Eddie Porter? Tatum, Payne, or Reingold? One of their accomplices? Or hired gunmen? This was getting absurd.

Louise was an eager customer for Ellie’s cookies, and as she ate, she gave the couple a glimpse into her work in television. When she told them that she had been up at Porter Ranch when Jimmy Porter’s body was found, Ellie’s eyes lit up with excitement.

“Um, we live about as close to the Porters as a body can get,” she said, primping nervously at a bouffant hairdo already immobilized with hair spray. “ ’Cept for old Harriet, of course. I reckon I know as much about those ranch folks as
anybody
.”

At last, thought Louise, she’d found a real source of Porter family history. But as Ellie began to pour out her story, it soon became apparent it was not the clear history
Louise had sought, but a confused, emotional recounting of events. “Bonnie Porter suffered
terrible
up there on that ranch. Three of her little kids died there before she died herself. ’Course, she grieved the
hardest
over the boy who had the fits. Why, can you imagine holdin’ your lil’ son in your arms while he shook to death in a crazy fit?” The farm wife shook her head in disbelief. “And it sure didn’t help that family. Why, I know it affected Eddie—riled him up somethin’ awful. And maybe Sally, too. She was always such a depressed lil’ girl. Then, as if all this wasn’t bad enough, the deformed baby died, and Harriet’s
father
passed on—no one knew why. I wasn’t that surprised when Bonnie was caught in that fire. She was so low—it was like she
wanted
ta die herself, just ta get away from the pain…”

Louise set down an uneaten half of cookie, her appetite failing her. “How terrible,” she said, “and how good of you to have shared it with me.” After a moment, she changed the subject, feeling there had been enough talk of tragic family events. “While we’re talking history here, would you know who bought that stretch of land on Route Thirty-Six from Harriet Bingham?”

Herb sat up straighter in his chair. “I kin help ya there.” He gave Louise a shrewd look. He had probably subdivided all the land around this farm and made a bundle at it. “Harriet sold that land off, over time, to Earl Tatum and his friends. Yessir, Earl has always had the inside track with Harriet, and I wouldn’t be surprised if him and some buddy—say, that Payne fellow—didn’t buy her whole ranch off her mighty soon. After all, what’s an old lady like that gonna do up on that mountain all by herself?”

“Why, she might not even be safe up there,” chimed in Ellie. “After all, why’s everybody dying up there? If I was Harriet, I wouldn’t want to stick around with not hardly a soul ta talk to.”

Louise was becoming overwhelmed with fatigue and a surfeit of family history that was interesting, but of doubtful significance. What was important was the fact that Tatum had bought all those prime patches of land from Harriet Bingham. She thanked Ellie and Herb, and insisted she was quite safe walking the quarter of a mile home by herself, since there was still a little light in the sky.

Back at her rented house, she pulled the draperies and shades down and rooted around in the living room to find paper and pen. She had to start keeping notes on everything that was happening; right now, it was a confused mass of details. She found no paper, but her hand came upon a can of pepper spray, around which a scrawled note was fastened with a rubber band. She read:

Bare hands? Louise shuddered. She certainly wouldn’t walk those mountain trails until Bill returned. Pepper
spray might help with wild animals, but she realized it was a pitiful match for a rifle—like the one used to shoot holes in her cowboy hat today. Maybe she should have asked Herb if she could borrow a real weapon, a shotgun, perhaps. It could ride in the trunk of her car. Meantime, she would carry the pepper spray in her purse.

She tried the kitchen in her continuing search for paper, but was overcome with the sickening smell in the room. It made her wonder if someone had stashed a dead body under the sink. Then she realized she had forgotten to remove the trash from the wastebasket, and the odor was from the unused chicken parts she had thrown away.

After shoving the garbage down into the plastic bag and tying it, Louise went out the back door to deposit the trash in the Dumpster by the road. Once outside, it was a magic world, with clouds scudding across a full moon as if propelled by giant winds—and yet, it seemed there was no wind at all on the surface of the earth.

Lost in the beauty of the scene, she picked her way across the yard, past a decrepit greenhouse, and down the garden path. She was thirty feet from the Dumpster when she saw two almond-shaped yellow eyes staring at her. The eyes of a puma.

“Unnh,” she moaned, feeling a terrible disconnect from the civilized life she had led for the past forty-three years. Wondering if, after all her recent brushes with disaster, her death would be delivered by lion’s teeth.

In the light of the moon and Herb’s distant yard light, the sight was surreal. The two eyes slowly sank toward the ground as the lion crouched in a defensive pose, much like a big house cat. As if the huge animal were metamorphosing back and forth between its molecular structure of bones, muscle, and blood, and thin air, Louise caught only momentary glimpses of it: the powerful line of the shoulder,
the gaunt flank, those terrible eyes, and the ominous swishing of its enormous tail.

Although she had just read the renter’s instructions upon meeting bears and lions, her mind went blank. What was it she had to do with a lion, slink away—or scold? Look it in the eye, or look away? The cat then did something that sent terror into her heart. It blew air out of its nostrils in a series of high-pitched snorts, and then got up from its crouch and began to move, slowly circling to her left. She realized that in a matter of seconds the question of what to do would be moot. She would be outflanked and done for.

The answer came from her gut. She raised both arms high, one still holding the aromatic trash. “Owwwrrh” she cried. A deep guttural sound came out of her throat and she began to growl and then yell at the beast. “Owwrrh! Owwrrh! Go home! Go home! This is
my
home! Get out!”

The cat stopped dead in its tracks. Knowing she had nothing to lose now, she sprinted a few feet toward it, and the mighty beast sprang back. With surprise, Louise realized she was just as much an unknown quantity to this lion as the lion was to her. Having closed the distance a bit, she sent the white plastic-clad garbage of putrid chicken parts toward the animal with a mighty underhand pitch. Disappointingly, the cat did not pounce upon it, as she hoped it would. Instead, it slunk back into the shrubbery near the Dumpster, perhaps to see if the bag was going to move.

Still growling, Louise backed away. She stumbled over an apache plume bush, but did not fall. The growls had sent her adrenaline raging; she was determined to survive. Upon reaching the carport, she sprinted into the house and slammed the door.

Inside, she gave a frightened look at the big curtained windows. Thank God she had not heard stories of wild
animals breaking through glass, or she would never sleep again. She flung herself on the living room couch. For a few moments, she just lay there, until her shuddering gasps turned into normal breathing. She felt a complete sense of oneness with the pioneer woman, Emily. She now
believed
, like St. Thomas after he placed his hand in the wound in Jesus’s side. Then, overwhelmed with a great fatigue, she closed her eyes for just an instant. To her surprise, she did not wake until morning.

B
EING A PERSON WHO ATE ORGANIC
shredded wheat for breakfast, Louise didn’t care much for brunches. But Marty had insisted that he and Steffi meet her for one this morning, since he had begged off again on work—despite the tightening schedule—and had another proposal for the day instead. They sat in the restaurant of the Hotel Boulderado, plates heaped with intricate omelets sided with fruit wedges and chunky fried potatoes set before them. Marty was running down
the details of the remaining shoots, while Louise picked at her omelet.

As much as she wanted to, she wasn’t going to tell them about the mountain lion. Marty would not allow her to stay alone in her house if he knew both humans and wildlife were after her. It would be a good story to tell people later—if they would believe her.

“Pete and the sound man are okay on taking today off,” said Marty. “Steff and I want you to go with us to Aspen for the weekend.”

Louise let that one ride for a minute, and launched into her idea for a program on spontaneous gardens, describing what a great interview Ruthie Dunn would make. He liked it, and said they could work on a script together in Aspen.

“Do come with us, Louise,” urged Steffi, “and we’ll take Aspen by storm.” She was a large woman with dark curly hair, who looked so much like her husband that they could have been sister and brother. She looked thinner and more sparkly of eye than she had when she arrived, and was full of praise for Colorado. “I’m telling you, we’re having more fun than we’ve had since our honeymoon.” She turned to her husband, and apparently reached under the table to squeeze a part of him. His brown eyes lit up, as if she had turned on a lightbulb.

“Steffi, I can’t. I just don’t have a trip in me today. I decided I had to kick back and relax, and I even dressed for it, to get me in the proper mood.” Louise was in a casual summer dress with sandals and a big straw hat. She looked across at Steffi, who was wearing a joyously loud black-and-white-checked cowgirl dress and a squash-blossom silver necklace that must have weighed twenty pounds.