The Perennial Killer: A Gardening Mystery (11 page)
Read The Perennial Killer: A Gardening Mystery Online
Authors: Ann Ripley
Tags: #General, #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction
She returned to the study, and found Ann preparing to leave. Unlike Louise, Ann had a schedule to keep, and probably appointments later at her office. “Are you
sure
you’re all right?” she asked. “Can’t I call someone?”
Harriet Bingham rose out of her chair. In a stronger voice, she said, “I’m perfectly fine, now that you helped me with my pills and my allergy medicine.” Louise then noticed the prescription medicine bottles in a metal box with its lid flipped open, sitting on a table beside the woman. “Don’t you worry, now, Ann. And please come back again.”
They promised they would, and went back out to their car. Harriet seemed a pathetic figure to Louise: obviously a woman of property—valuable property—and yet with no one here to share her suffering. As they climbed in, Ann shook her head and echoed Louise’s thoughts, “I feel so sorry for that woman.”
But Louise’s mind was onto another matter. She didn’t know exactly how to tell Ann that she didn’t like people to talk about her involvement in murders. She took an oblique approach. “I sure get embarrassed,” she said with a big grin, “when someone tries to make me out to be an amateur detective.”
The gentle reprimand brought a blush to Ann’s tan face. “Oh. Sorry. Well, no harm done, I hope, and I promise you I won’t brag you up to anyone else.” No sooner had they pulled out of the driveway than a big SUV pulled in.
A blond, sunburned man hopped out in a show of robust athleticism, then stopped for a second to stare at them. Louise noticed a certain masklike quality about his face. In a few great strides he had disappeared through the pines.
“He’s going in there as if he lives there.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Ann. Her voice sounded strained. “That’s Mark Payne, a Boulder developer who wanted to buy out Jimmy Porter. He’s related to Harriet.” She pursed her lips grimly. “He thinks that gives him an inside track to buy Harriet’s land.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“I’m sure
he
thinks so. Let’s keep going; I don’t want him to come out and talk to us.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Oh, just because he knows me,” she said shakily. She was trying to sound offhand, but her face had reddened.
Louise drove down the side road. Through a break in the trees, she could see Harriet standing with Payne near a window. They were staring out at them. Payne loomed beside the elderly woman like a north country god. Louise stole a quick look at the woman sitting beside her. Another blond type, the type Payne might choose for his beloved. Suddenly, she realized something had happened between Mark Payne and Ann Evans.
Ann seemed anxious to change the subject. “Why don’t we drive back to the Porter Ranch and just give their weeds a quick look?” Louise guided the car past the ponderosa woods and down the road to the entrance with the squeaky old sign.
“There’s Sally,” said Ann. “Poor thing.” Jimmy’s daughter was a somber figure in the distance. Wearing a plain housedress, she kept her head down as she swept the sunny front porch of the ranch house. With the light falling on her straight, light hair and stocky figure, she looked like a good subject for a Dutch master. Even from afar, Louise
could sense her palpable grief. Here was a woman who, granted, had a career as a teacher, but who otherwise had devoted her life to her widowed father. Something occurred to Louise. She glanced at Ann. “Where was Sally going to go when Jimmy sold this place?”
“Oh, she wanted to get a little condo in Boulder to be near her dad and his new wife. But who knows what she’ll do now.… What do you say we go out the back way? We’ll stop this time to see the weeds.”
Louise looked at her with panicked eyes.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ann, laughing. “You got in here just fine. Why can’t you drive out?”
“Oh, but it’s
downhill
this rime. You know, steep grade, brakes fail, you fall to your death, end up as a pile of broken bones and seeping blood.”
Ann just laughed at her.
“Don’t mind me—I’m obsessing. Sure, I’ll drive you out the back way.”
Louise put the car in gear gingerly, thinking about the lonely Sally, following Jimmy to town and setting up housekeeping right next door. She wondered how the old man had liked the idea. What if he hadn’t—or if Sally had hated the idea of leaving this mountain?
W
EEDS MAY BE WINNING IN THE
West, just as they did in the South some years ago. Normative and noxious weeds are invading millions of acres of western land, thus crowding out native species, and clogging waterways. This is another version of the South’s experience with the kudzu vine and the
Melaleuca
tree, that have become dominant in parts of Southern states.
These weeds form monocultures that reduce the land’s ability to sustain wildlife diversity and livestock grazing.
Leafy spurge, an aggressive sort with roots sometimes twenty feet deep, is actually life-threatening to cattle and elk, because of the habitat degradation it creates. Weed specialists call the result “biological pavement,” an enticing-looking scene that to the casual observer resembles a wildflower meadow, but is totally inimical to animals.
Using the simplest method first: grazing.
“Integrated weed management” is the expert’s answer to getting rid of weeds. Like “integrated pest management,” “IWM” calls for using the simplest ecological solution first, and then moving to ever-sterner measures. (Grazing is the easiest way to control weeds, and then come mechanical, biological, chemical, and cultural controls. But so far, the efforts to control these weeds are relatively small, as opposition springs up from residents worried about contamination from chemicals. People also complain about manual weed-pulling, fearing its effect on their respiratory systems, and even biological controls, speculating that they might become a problem in themselves.
Some of the worst offenders
. Most of what are called weeds were introduced as Europeans colonized the
world. Some were brought purposely, some by accident in ship holds. Some of the toughest in the West are skeleton weed, leafy spurge, knapweed, Medusa’s head, purple loosestrife, and Canada thistle. It is thought that these invasive plants have already caused more than seven billion dollars’ worth of crop and rangeland losses in the West. Unchecked, the plants affect not only rangeland, but also acreages set aside for wilderness—which are often inaccessible and therefore make it harder to get rid of nonnative pests. Scientists are urgently trying to devise ways to fight them, calling together public and private land managers, commercial nurseries, farmers, ranchers, and foresters.
Is the solution worse than the problem?
Herbicide use arouses deep suspicions in communities. An example is Boulder County, Colorado, where people opposed to chemical spraying determined to solve the weed problem another way—with hand-pulling. They gathered an army of volunteers to hand-pull diffuse knapweed and thistle from a certain area of the county. The volunteers obliterated a reported eighty-five percent of the crop, but that was not enough. There was plenty left to reseed the plants. When the
county proposed spraying with Transline, a herbicide thought to be reasonably safe, nearby residents objected. It is an ongoing battle in communities throughout the United States.
Objections or not, large governmental efforts will be needed to curb the spread of acres of these noxious plants. But when only smaller tracts are involved, homeowners, not herbicides, can be the best weed control. Pulling weeds seems so old-fashioned, but is marvelously effective. Even dead-heading weeds, thistles and the like, can shrink the problem before it becomes too big for the householder to manage.
Don’t buy weeds for your garden.
The greatest irony may be that Americans add to the problem by
planting
weeds—even the ones that are sold for $6.95 a pot in our local nursery. An example is purple loosestrife, or
Lythrum
, which crowds out valuable native plants. Some states list it as a noxious weed and prohibit its distribution, while many others unfortunately don’t. The naive home gardener can innocently purchase it and worsen the problem. Others that are easy to buy, and hard to get rid of, are Saint-John’s-wort and, in seed form, dame’s rocket.
The weeds that got a bad rap
. Those who have been raised in suburbs where the badge of honor was a weed-less lawn may have a tough time ever handling the truth about dandelions: Dandelions are not weeds! They have always been considered weeds by suburban gardeners, and chemical companies cater to their distaste, featuring pictures of droopy, dying dandelions in weed-killer ads. And yet today, as health foods and alternative medicines are no longer a fad but a gigantic and growing industry, the thinking is changing about these charmingly configured yellow-flowered plants. They are nutritional manna spread upon the earth. Enjoy them in salads or soups, harvesting them when young, before the flowers appear. And don’t mind the neighbors. Some day they, too, will discover what they’re missing, and thank you for providing them with starter seeds.
I
T WAS LESS THAN AN HOUR AFTER
Louise dropped the land officer off at her home in Left Hand Canyon that she received a phone call from Ann. She had forgotten to ask Louise if she would be interested in attending the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee meeting tonight.
“It’s a six-thirty meeting, and won’t last much longer than a couple of hours because the agenda is short tonight. It will give you a flavor of the county’s open space program. Everybody will be there, because this is the
night we talk about something that’s sort of controversial, but would be terrific if we can ever get it through. Conservation easements on private land to provide a wildlife corridor system through the whole of Boulder County.”
“And what does all that mean?”
“Well, for wildlife, it would be just great—a swath of connected paths for animals, many near rivers and streams, which is high-value wildlife habitat.”
“Wouldn’t it be extraordinary for people to donate land in a place where land is so valuable?”
“It’s not an easy idea to sell.” A tentative quality entered Ann’s voice. “But we have to try, and of course, some people love the idea. Others are mad as hops: They don’t want to relinquish development rights to their land to the county at any price. It would affect Harriet Bingham and lots of others, especially developers. Not Jimmy Porter, since it looked as if we were getting the whole Porter Ranch. But the Porter Ranch will come up in the discussion, because everybody knows the deal is on hold and they’ll want to chew that over for awhile, too. Join Sally Porter and me for a quick dinner beforehand. Sally’s in Boulder to make her father’s funeral arrangements, but she doesn’t want to attend the meeting.”
Finally Louise agreed, and Ann told her where they’d meet.
“The Hogback House—are you kidding? That’s the name of a restaurant?”
“Louise,” said Ann, chuckling a little, “get with die program. Didn’t you know you are surrounded by hogbacks out there in Lyons?”
