Pushing Up Daisies db-1 Read online

  I'd need everything within a month, preferably by Easter if the shrubs were going to get established early in the season. Despite the inevitable consequences, I would throw myself at Guido Chiaramonte for the loan of a chipper, chain saw, some leaf blowers, and whatever other equipment I didn't own.

  Guido was a local nursery own er, in his eighties and notorious for hitting on women of all ages, shapes, and sizes. Women on walkers did not escape his advances. One of my early Springfield fantasies had been to buy Guido's place when he retired or went back to Sicily, but the old reprobate had shown no signs of doing either. I once took him up on his offer to teach me about the nursery business, and I was met with amorous overtures that were half-amusing, half-revolting. Now I was planning to flash a little cleavage and bat my eyelashes at the old letch. For tools. I was shameless.

  I made a timeline for the Halcyon job and refined my sketch of the garden, eventually getting around to the white garden and the spot where I'd found the body. Unconsciously, I'd been avoiding it, but I would have to go back there—mentally and physically.

  Not to night though. My legs were stiff from sitting on the floor, and my neck ached from scrunching down to inspect old photos with a magnifying glass. I gave myself a good stretch, packed up my notes, and went downstairs for some mindless entertainment.

  Mindless was right. The former programming exec inside me couldn't help but criticize. Five shows devoted to moving your furniture and cleaning your closets? No wonder cable television kept resurrecting classics. That was my first job in the business, screening vintage sitcoms for TVLand. Uncle Miltie must be turning over in his grave. And the shopping channels were growing like ground cover. Who really needs another peridot pendant? I sure didn't, but the disembodied hand dangling the necklace lured me the same way the tarnished chain had that morning. I shook off the urge.

  I passed on the plastic surgery shows in favor of something called Island Survival. Very realistic. Someone should produce Manhattan Survival. It's an island. The winner would have to score a good table at a trendy new restaurant, pick up a model, get a hair appointment with this month's stylist-to-the-stars, and get a cabbie to take him to one of the outer boroughs—all the really useful survival skills.

  A couple of hours later, all but brain-dead, I was glued to one of the grisly true-crime programs I might have been producing had I stayed in New York. "John claimed his wife went shopping and never returned, but he really killed her, put her in a metal drum, and left her in the basement for thirty years until we found her."

  That was the direction the new own ers of my old company wanted me to take. I'd cranked out a few episodes, but my heart was never in it. It was too hard to take. And there was always one cop who still had all the facts at his fingertips, as if the crime had just happened yesterday—his own Lindbergh baby.

  There were lots of those cases. Too many. And just as many on the other side. The Jane Does who turned up and remained unclaimed. I started to wonder what my little baby's name was. Wait a minute. My little baby? Who said that? I didn't have a baby—get a grip.

  But I did have a baby. At least I did for the twenty minutes or so it took the cops to find me in the Peacocks' garden, crouched down, the taste of vomit fresh in my mouth and my eyes locked on the partially unwrapped body of a dead baby.

  A noise upstairs shook me down to my Polarfleece socks. I put the TV on mute and strained to hear what it was. Between the acorns and the bird feeders, my place is one giant salad bar for critters, so I don't usually get too spooked by the odd noise in the middle of the night. I grew up in New York, so not much scared me, except when things were too quiet.

  Heart pounding, I tiptoed upstairs to investigate. I still held the remote in a white-knuckled death grip. It'd make a dandy weapon if the intruder was a munchkin.

  Outside my kitchen window, the blackness held all sorts of bogeymen. I imagined shadowy figures with outstretched arms in the weeping hemlock but, happily, saw nothing. Behind me, another log in the dying fire collapsed, repeating the sound that first startled me. I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath, until it came out in a whoosh. What an idiot. Sheepishly, I went back down the stairs, but not before setting the security alarm. The previous own er had had it installed, probably to safeguard his collection of bling. I didn't have anything worth stealing, so hardly ever used the alarm, but it wouldn't hurt to have advance notice if an ax murderer was coming up the stairs.

  My usual antidote to stressful situations is sports, but at this hour only ESPN Classic sports was broadcasting. I recognized the vintage Knicks game where Willis Reed limps out of the locker room, plays for three minutes, but so inspires the team that it carries them to victory. The clip is shown ad nauseam at Madison Square Garden, usually when all hope is lost. Not exactly a surprise ending but just what the doctor ordered. So I fell asleep again, not dreaming of dead babies and bodies stuffed in fifty-gallon drums but of Earl "the Pearl" Monroe and Walt "Clyde" Frazier. And the scariest thing in my dream was Clyde's postgame outfit.

  CHAPTER 5

  Like everyone else in Springfield, Babe Chinnery had heard about the body. She'd left me a voice mail message the next afternoon, so I checked in at the Paradise at around 5 P.M. before heading to the library, where I planned to spend my downtime researching the Peacock garden. I'd barely walked through the door when she rushed over and hugged me, showing a maternal side I hadn't known existed.

  "How the hell are you?" she whispered, steering me to a booth. She sat down with me. This was about as common as Rick having a drink with someone in Casablanca.

  "You okay?"

  I nodded.

  "Really?"

  "Really. I just didn't expect to walk into a local ghost story my first day on the job. I thought they were kidding when they called that place the Addams family house."

  She motioned for Chloe to bring us some coffee. "I found a stiff once. Backup singer. OD'd right before a show. Pretty unprofessional, if you ask me."

  The midriff-baring waitress came over with two cups and a plate of Pete's homemade donuts, which I suspected could also be used to border flower beds.

  "Why does every sixteen-year-old kid think we want to see her belly?" I asked. Then I remembered who I was talking to. I sipped the coffee and broke off a chunk of the donut. Babe wasn't moving until I told her everything.

  "It was so old," I whispered, donut in midair, "it looked more like a museum piece than a body. Like a toy papoose you'd see in a Thanksgiving pageant." That crack finally convinced her I was all right.

  "I heard you hurled in the flower bed. Is that what you call adding organic matter?"

  "What, is that in today's Bulletin?" I angrily popped the hunk of donut into my mouth. Stress eating.

  "O'Malley stopped by this morning. Don't be mad. He was worried about you."

  "Mr. Sensitivity. If he's so worried, he can finish up fast and let me back onto the property. I'm losing time. I don't work, I don't eat."

  "You don't eat anyway. Get an advance. Tell Stapley you need to order things. Don't you need stuff?"

  "I don't even know what I need yet." Mysteriously, the entire donut on my plate had disappeared. "Not until I hit the books. Any idea how late the library's open?" I asked.

  "Beats me. I get all my books from Kathy's Book Nook; us little guys have to stick together."

  After a minute or so, someone said, "The main branch is open until nine P.M. tonight."

  I turned to a lean Hispanic guy reading at the counter. At first glance, you might mistake him for any one of the dozens of guys who stand around downtown Springfield at six or seven in the morning. They wait for contractors or landscapers to give them the nod like the rotten union boss does in On the Waterfront. I'd met a lot of the Manual laborers at the nurseries; most of them looked sad, slump-shouldered in their cheap T-shirts from places they'd never been and weren't likely to go. Not this one.

  "There is a book club meeting to night from seven to nine."

 
"Thanks. I wonder what they're discussing."

  He held up a copy of Lolita. "I am almost finished. Lots of work at the beginning of the season."

  "I know, I'm a gardener, too. Paula Holliday."

  "Felix Ontivares."

  "Nice to meet you."

  He nodded in my direction, then he peeled a few dollars from his wallet, paid, and left.

  "Just another conquest," I said, shaking my head as the door flapped closed behind him.

  "Don't take it personally. Most of the nursery guys are quiet, but it's a language thing. Felix doesn't have that problem. He's new, only been around a couple of weeks. Guido says he's a good worker, too. And you know Guido—he doesn't like any of the immigrant guys. Only the women," she added with a smirk.

  "Babe, is there anything else I should know about the Peacocks? You kind of suggested Stapley didn't tell me everything."

  "Nothing I can tell you. You think I'd have sent you there if I thought you'd find a stiff? There were so many rumors about the old girls, I didn't think he had the time to tell you everything." She changed the subject. "Are you okay for cash? What's he paying you, anyway?"

  I looked down, groaning inwardly. "Well, it's such a great opportunity, I thought . . ."

  "That cheap bastard. Look, the library's open for hours. Stay here for a while. I'll tell you about the time I met the Lizard King. Chloe," she yelled, "we're gonna need some more coffee. And a couple more donuts." As an old Doors fan, I couldn't refuse.

  The Ferguson Library is a large white clapboard building in the center of town, the kind of place that's either the library or the funeral home in a small New En gland town like Springfield. I hadn't been there before, and Mrs. Cox, the librarian, did everything but ask for a tissue sample before issuing my temporary library card. After the presentation was made, she kept me under surveillance.

  The Historical Society's Web site was still under construction and the Bulletin's wasn't much better, but it did yield a number of useful links and more pictures of the garden. The lion's share of the info was still on microfiche, the seventies' version of index cards. Mrs. Cox directed me to a file cabinet that looked like it was waiting for a tomb raider to open it.

  Dorothy Peacock was ninety-three or ninety-seven years old when she died, depending on which piece of local folklore you chose to believe. She followed the colorfully named Renata, who had passed away four years ago. The two had lived alone for many years, any other Peacocks having died or dispersed years before.

  Halcyon had been built in 1830 by Dorothy's great-great-great-grandfather Owen for his bride, Olivia, on a lush piece of property right on the water as befitting the former sea captain.

  Although the captain was wealthy, and another of Dorothy's ancestors had made a tidy sum in the railroad business, the original three-hundred-acre homestead had been whittled down to the current seven acres through a combination of greed, bad investments, and the inevitable wastrel descendant or two. Dorothy's father recovered from the stock market crash, but his untimely death left the Peacocks' real estate assets in a holding pattern, and he was never able to fulfill his dream of buying back the acreage other family members had sold off. And Dorothy had other interests.

  I was wandering in turn-of-the-century Springfield when my cell phone jolted me back to the present. Mrs. Cox scoured the room for the perpetrator. Not wanting to incur her wrath or disturb the book club crowd, which was just gathering, I ducked outside and fished the phone out of my bag with the same mixture of annoyance and surprise I always registered when it rang these days.

  It was Lucy Cavanaugh, childhood friend and former colleague, currently orchestrating a seven-figure children's television deal (international and DVD rights included). I could hear furious keyboard clicking in the background; at 7 P.M. she was probably still in her office.

  "Bravo for actually having the phone on. Listen, I just had drinks with the programming director at the Garden Channel. They have a fat bud get, and they're looking for producers. They need you, and you can do both of the things you love: TV and gardening. It's perfect. What's that stuff you're always going on about— mulch? You can produce the definitive history of mulch. Every other history from guns to candy canes has been done, why not mulch?"

  "Is mulch in the air today?" I asked incredulously.

  Then I told her what had happened, and the keyboard clicking finally stopped. "Jeez. Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine. I'm like one of those utility workers who accidentally uncovers ancient burial grounds. The cops'll do their thing, and eventually I'll get back to work."

  "Oh, yeah. I don't know—is it inappropriate to congratulate you on the job, I mean, under the circumstances?"

  "Inappropriate? Okay, who are you and what have you done with the real Lucy? It's cool. Thanks."

  "In that case, were any of the cops cute?"

  Same old Lucy; priorities in order: work, men.

  "One of them was sort of cute, if a little tubby."

  "I'm not prejudiced. In fact, I'm tired of guys who are cuter than I am," she said, keyboard clicking resumed.

  I delivered my pitch. "Come up next weekend. You can check out the men in uniform yourself. We'll have a spa weekend, you can detox from the party circuit. We can work out," I said sneakily. I could get a good eight hours of gardening out of her if I told her it burned fat.

  "Sure. We'll have a little mystery party—rent a few Hitchcock movies, play Clue."

  "Sounds like a plan," I said, pleased with myself for signing on my first unsuspecting volunteer.

  "Good. Look, I'm off to a screening. Pick me up at the train station a week from Friday; I'll get the six oh four. Call if you—I don't know—if you need anything or find another body."

  "Thanks, I will."

  Okay, my best friend is off to quaff champagne, flirt ferociously, and make financially lucrative deals at a film screening, and I'm pulling weeds at a haunted house. What's wrong with this picture?

  Back inside the library, I collected my things and tidied the table where I'd been working. This earned me an approving smile from Helen Cox. Her thin lips had been set in a straight line since the moment I'd gotten here, reserving judgment until she was sure I was a responsible library user. I whispered "Good night" to her, and that really sent my stock soaring. On my way out, Felix Ontivares strode in. He nodded but kept going.

  I might not have stopped at the substation at all if it hadn't been next to the Dunkin' Donuts. I felt momentarily disloyal to Babe, then the moment passed.

  "Great One, skim milk, no sugar, please."

  I heard a voice behind me. "This late in the day, a coffee that size will have you up all night alphabetizing your seed packets." It was Officer Smythe. He had the body of a serious weight trainer, so I was a little surprised to see him there, licking powdered sugar off his fingers.

  "You caught me," I said. "I'm a sucker for Dunkin' Donuts coffee. I thought I'd stop next door to see when I can get back to work."

  He shrugged. "Mom's not in. Talk to Guzman." He picked up his bag of Munchkins and pushed the door open with his tiny, rock-hard butt. "Later. Gotta go mind the speed trap."

  It didn't hurt for a single woman living on her own to have a good relationship with the local police. Maybe next time weirdo neighbor acts up, I'd impress him by being on a first-name basis with the Man. I took my supersized cup and went next door to the Haviland substation.

  "Hi. Are you Officer Guzman?" I asked the first guy I saw.

  "No, I'm much better looking."

  "I'm Guzman," came a voice from the back of the office near the watercooler. "Pay no attention to him— he's a lonely man. What can I do for you?" she said.

  I closed the door behind me. I'd forgotten Guzman was the name of the female cop. She was my height but more muscular, with dark hair pulled into a stubby ponytail, held on the sides by half a dozen metal clips. I told her why I was there.

  "No, Mikey would have called. He's good that way—if he says he's gonna call
, he does."

  She must have seen how disappointed I was, and added, "Sit tight, you'll be back digging in the dirt before you know it. Off the record," she whispered, "I think you'll be hearing from him soon."

  Very soon, in fact, because just then O'Malley walked in.

  Guzman shrugged with a little smile. "I saw him through the window."

  "Hello, Plant Lady. I hope that's decaf," he said, eyeing my extralarge coffee.

  "Is that my official nickname?"

  "Oh, no, just trying it on for size. It needs tweaking."

  I knew it wasn't my business, but I asked how the case was going.

  "Not going too far, truth be told. Have a seat."

  While he got out the files, I checked out his cubicle. The bulletin board was layered with yellowed WANTED posters for missing persons and for information regarding a cop shot close to twenty years ago.

  "I guess there's not much crime here. Those flyers look pretty old."

  "Or it could mean that we catch most of the bad guys, and those are just a few that got away."

  Touché.

  There were perfectly edged stacks of papers lined up against the far edge of the desk. A couple of pictures of kids (his?), a few postcards from national parks, and a wooden plaque inscribed WORLD'S BEST MOM. A pencil cup had the quote MEASURE TWICE, CALL A #*%! CARPENTER. Anal, I thought.

  "Okay," he said, "the corpse, as you know, had been a corpse for some time, tucked away quite lovingly, until the new gardener came along."

  "How come it didn't decompose? Just working in the garden or hiking I've seen animals . . ."

  "Any number of things can cause a body to mummify, but it doesn't usually happen by accident in Connecticut's acid soil. Most probably someone intentionally treated either the body or the material it was wrapped in. It's also possible the body was moved from some drier, more airtight resting place. That was suggested by the outer box, and the absence of seedlings and rocks that unconsciously led you to dig in that particular spot."

  All right, maybe he wasn't just a suburban donut hound.