Digging Up the Dead (2 page)

“Chandler was and still is the champion, but others, like Dashiell Hammett and Cornwell Woolrich, came close. All were said to have left unfinished manuscripts when they died. Chandler had completed only a few chapters of
The Poodle
Springs Story,
so Robert B. Parker, who wrote the Spenser series, was asked to complete the book in the Chandler style.”

“How do you know so much about our American writers?” said Arlene. She had recovered her breath and began to fan herself with a brochure she took from her purse. She nodded a greeting to a jogger who passed by.

Tosca explained that she had written several articles about American writers because she admired their style, and she enjoyed telling proper Brits about Sanderson’s unconventional preference for wearing tattered shirts and going barefoot in public.

“Yes, yes,” said Arlene, “but what about Sanderson’s lost manuscript?”

“Ah. I heard that he left at least one, maybe more. If they exist, they are yet to be discovered. Perhaps I’ll take that mystery on, too. I don’t always have to investigate murders, you know. A missing manuscript is always a good story, although Sanderson’s last books weren’t critically acclaimed. Reviewers didn’t care for them that much.”

Arlene tapped Tosca’s arm. “I bet you don’t know that his granddaughter, Karma Sanderson, lives two streets over.”

“What? Here on Isabel Island?” Tosca had started to get up from the sea wall but sat down again abruptly, her mouth wide in astonishment.

“Yes. His literary agent, Graydon Blair, does, too, and he keeps a boat here.”

Tosca noted the triumphant smile, the gleam in her neighbor’s eyes, and knew there was more to come. The two had become firm friends after discovering a mutual passion for gossip. Tosca came by hers naturally as the star Page Eight gossip columnist at the
London Daily Post
before her sudden reassignment to America. Arlene, an Isabel Island first-generation resident, enjoyed her own reputation as the local busybody.

Barely a week after arriving on Isabel Island, Tosca had stumbled upon some skeletal remains and hoped that by solving the mystery she could return to England in triumph, the royal lawsuit be damned. Arlene had unknowingly provided valuable information about the killer who lived nearby and whom Tosca ‘unearthed,’ as she liked to describe it. Although her story about catching the murderer ran in her London newspaper, Tosca wasn’t able to convince her editor to give her a shot at crime reporting full-time, and she was still obliged to send in a gossip column from her new home.

“All right, Arlene. I see you are bursting to tell me something.”

“I heard Karma and Sally Hirsch, who is still the publisher of Sanderson’s books, and Oliver Swenson, the in-house book editor, having a real heated argument,” said Arlene. “Graydon Blair was there, too. I’m sure you know he took over as Sanderson’s literary agent after Taylor Blair, his dad, passed away.”

“Yes, I know. Where did you hear them arguing? What about?”

“The four of them were having lunch near our table yesterday at that French restaurant you like.”

Tosca nodded thoughtfully. “I know Sanderson’s estate kept the son on. He doesn’t have the same silly nickname as his father, surely?”

“No. Graydon is too pompous to be called Tinky, although, as his family were local tailors in their day, everyone thinks it’s a perfect fit. Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy.”

She laughed. Tosca sensed her neighbor was about to confide more gossip, and she leaned forward expectantly, asking Arlene if the argument she heard was about book sales. She knew there was still a market among collectors for first editions of the 1940s classics.

”I don’t know anything about sales or first editions,” said Arlene, “but books were definitely at the center of what the shouting was all about. I heard words like ‘royalties’ and ‘cheat.’ Karma kept flapping those freckled arms of hers around, and Sally got really red in the face. It was quite a show. One word they kept repeating was ‘ghost.’ Did Sanderson write any paranormal books?”

“No, never, but you’ve told me excellent news. Definitely material for my newspaper column. Tell me more about this granddaughter,” she said. “Who on earth would name a child Karma?”

Arlene explained that Fuller Sanderson’s son, Norman, had married a hippie, an artist who went by the name Destiny and whose specialty was painting different versions of the solar system onto black canvasses over and over and over again.

“Destiny was kind of wacky, a real character,” said Arlene. “Never sold a single painting. You could smell the pot they smoked at their parties all over the island. Night and day their house was crowded with poets, artists and all kinds of riff-raff. Poor little Karma was ignored most of the time. She’d wander around the island by herself, singing songs she learned in kindergarten. I don’t know why Norman put up with a lifestyle like that for a child.”

Tosca nodded and told Arlene that all she knew about him was that he tried to become as famous a novelist as his father, hoping to out-write and surpass him, but never came close to Fuller’s brilliance. She added that Norman’s writing was once described as “muddled mediocrity.”

“Anyway,” Arlene continued, “after Karma’s parents died six years ago, she stayed on in their little beach cottage and started up a landscaping business in Newport Beach. She may look a mess with that hair of hers and those weird clothes, but she’s a wonderfully creative gardener. Several of us have her work on our yards, although I hear she’s in financial difficulties. Guess her grandfather’s book sales don’t amount to much these days.”

“Maybe not, but e-books sell well, it seems.” Tosca glanced at her watch and stood up. “Sorry, I have to go. See you later, Arlene.”

She patted her friend on the shoulder and began to walk off but stopped when Arlene called out, “Oh, I forgot. Karma’s having a party Saturday to celebrate the forty-third
anniversary of your idol’s death. Would you like to come?”

“That’s a strange milestone. Why not the twenty-fifth or fiftieth?”

“I have no idea, but please come to the party and meet Karma. I know you’ll like her, Tosca. She’s a sweet, gentle young woman.”

Karma ripped out the dying marigolds from their planter tubs as if attacking a bear, and flung them onto the walkway. Turning to her right, she grabbed the stems of two drooping hollyhocks and pulled. When the roots resisted her firm tug, she took a knife from the canvas tool belt around her waist and with one quick jab cut through the stems cleanly at the soil line. She exchanged the knife for her trowel and, thrusting it impatiently into the soil, dragged out the roots.

A short, stoutly built twenty-eight-year old with wavy red hair that hung around her oval face in untidy wisps, Karma Sanderson could have passed for one of Rossetti’s Pre-Raphaelite women or Titian’s medieval well-endowed flame-haired models, were it not for her sour expression and down-turned mouth. Muscular shoulders and a deep bosom strained at the plaid shirt she wore, her jeans caked in dirt at the knees.

After stuffing the dead flowers into a plastic sack, Karma tied its corners and hefted it onto her shoulder. She walked over to her twelve-year-old truck, parked at the curb, dumped the load into the truck bed that was already half full and returned to the garden. She stacked the empty tubs near the gate, tucked the shovel under her arm and knocked on the front door.

“All done, Mrs. Wingold,” Karma told the woman who peered out. “I’ve planted some more geraniums and added alyssum and a giant milkweed shrub for you.”

“Giant milkweed? That’s a new one to me. Was there room for it?”

“Of course.” Karma’s expression deepened into irritation. “That’s just its name. It’s really quite small and blooms most of the year, but keep away from the sap it produces. It can cause a rash or something. Might be harmful.”

Karma enjoyed seeing the look of alarm on the woman’s face.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Wingold, you won’t be drinking it, will you? On the upside is that its tiny white and purple flowers attract Monarch butterflies. Take a look for yourself. See you next month.”

Karma didn’t wait for a reply. She picked up the empty tubs and placed them alongside the sacks. By lunchtime she had repeated the routine five more times, planting the same mix of plants and telling each homeowner or leaving a note on the front door that she’d taken care of their yard. With a sigh she got in her truck and drove off Isabel Island across the single bridge that connected it to the city of Newport Beach.

I don’t care if all those yards look the same, she thought. Makes the streets look neat and orderly. Anyway, those rich people barely notice them on the way to the yachts berthed at their private docks. I hope they’ll appreciate those milkweeds after I had them shipped in free from India. I’m glad I discovered them, not that anyone ever complains about my prices. They can well afford them.

Karma headed for the twelve acres of land on the western edge of the city that her father had passed down to her after he died. Fuller Sanderson’s great-grandfather had bought the fields for one dollar an acre in the early 1800s after settlers arrived in the Native American Indian territory. His will specified his land was never to be sold nor built upon, but Karma had disobeyed the directive. She had a small rustic shed erected that served as an office for the garden center she had established five years earlier. She devoted most of the acreage to plants, but large areas were neglected and left to grow wild. Dotted around were two ramshackle potting sheds, a small greenhouse, a pergola and a tiny gazebo.

Despite her efforts, success was hard to come by as there were two well-established competitors in town. Karma had not only spent Fuller’s inheritance but also had gone into debt to keep afloat, buying and importing exotic plants only she, it seemed, appreciated. She considered herself a child of nature, as her mother had been, and filled the acreage with strange shrubs, flowering bushes, oddly-shaped small trees and hanging baskets of wildflowers, all plants that were proving far less popular with customers than she’d hoped.

After pulling up to the office, she slid off the vehicle’s high seat and slammed the rusty door shut. I need a new truck, too, she decided. I’ve just got to get some money somehow. That publisher of Grandfather’s books is cheating me out of royalties, I’m damned sure of it. Sally probably owes me thousands. Well, I’ll call her tonight. She’d better give me some straight answers about Fuller’s sales figures and bring me a statement as well as a check when she comes to my party.

“Sam?” she called, looking around for her odd-job man. Karma saw him limping toward her, his right leg dragging more than usual in the unexpectedly cool day.

“Seven more returns,” he said, a cigarette butt dangling from a corner of his mouth. “Them hangin’ baskets are all dyin’. You need to fill them with real flowers, not that stuff you find for free in the desert. They look pretty at first, but they’re wild, Karma. You should know by now wildflowers don’t last long. They start to wilt almost as soon as you dig ‘em up. I see you got rid of those giant milkweeds, though. Sure are ugly. Did you decide to toss ‘em?”

“Of course not. They’re in some of the Isabel Island clients’ front yards, except for the two I kept for myself.”

“Guess you can sell anythin’ that’s in full bloom. The flowers are kind of pretty. Anyway, how much longer do you think you can keep this place goin’? And if you have to close, what’s gonna happen to those six cats you took in? You already owe the vet a ton of money.”

Karma ignored him and went into the office. On the desk were sixteen phone message slips piled onto a spike next to a large glass-topped case of mounted butterflies that were arranged by color.

Sam followed her inside. “There’s all them messages about the party. Looks like everyone’s comin’,” he said, his wrinkled old face breaking into a smile. “Maybe this library fundraiser will help you out after all. Good idea to tie an anniversary in at the same time, though how you came up with that year, the forty-third, is beyond me. What the heck is it the anniversary of?”

“That’s how old my dad and mom were when they died. Don’t scratch your head like that, Sam. Anyway, I don’t need any excuse, and I certainly don’t need to justify myself to you.”

“Okay, okay, keep your hair on, but shouldn’t it be something to do with Fuller instead of his son?”

“It’s personal, and anyway, the fundraiser is for Fuller’s library, so it makes sense.”

“Ya know, I thought I was the only one who remembers your granddaddy. He sure was kind to me when I was a kid. Hey, I forgot to write it down, but that Arlene lady wants to know if she can bring a friend, some writer type with a weird name. Tessie, Tossa or something.”

“Sam, stop gabbing and unload the truck. There are bags of brush and weeds from the island gardens to put on the compost and some empty tubs that need to be cleaned and stacked.”

He turned to leave, then said, “Oh, here, I caught you a couple more Western Tiger Swallowtails. They were on that patch of thistles.” He pointed to a jelly jar on top of the file cabinet. Two butterflies lay motionless on the bottom. “That black one there,” he tapped the side, “that’s a female. Said to be deadly. Ain’t that somethin’?”

After Sam left the office Karma took the phone message slips off the spike and flipped through them but didn’t see the message she expected. She picked up the land-line phone and dialed.

“Graydon, have you heard from Sally? Do you know if she’s coming to my party? Hope she’s not still mad after that argument we had. She hasn’t left me a message saying she’s accepted my invitation.”

“I have no idea. Oh, I was thinking of stopping by your house to drop off my theremin that Bill Weinstein will be playing before I get there. He might come by tomorrow or Friday to check it out.”

“I’m going home now,” said Karma, “so you can come over and leave it with me.”