The Perennial Killer: A Gardening Mystery (25 page)

Then, something happened. A warm object thudded into the back of her bare calves, and then leaped onto the bed beside them. She yelped and jumped. “What the—”

Pete jerked back, too, and cried “Toughy! You little son of a gun!”

Thank heavens for Toughy, Louise thought. She sighed gratefully and leaned down to greet the feline. “So this is Toughy. How d’you do, Toughy. You really know how to make an entrance.”

“Gosh, I miss Bill. Did you know that this is the longest separation we’ve had in years?”

“Keeps you by his side, does he? That’s what I’d do, if I
were married to you. Otherwise—girl like you—couldn’t tell what trouble she might get into.”

Pete was jaunty and full of jokes, as if their romantic moment had never happened. Louise was sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter watching him open a can of premier cat food for the slightly-worse-for-wear orange tabby who prowled the counter’s length. Toughy nudged Pete affectionately each time he went by, stopped politely for Louise to scratch him behind the ears, then restlessly pursued the remainder of the countertop.

“See,” said Pete, “male, unfixed, and hungry. That’s my Toughy. How can I ask him to stay home all day and sit on the living room windowsill like a wuss?”

“So it’s his destiny to go out and get in fights that send the gentler neighborhood cats to the vet.”

“Yep, until I block that cat door. With the mountain lion situation like it is, I may come to that.” He shot her a halfway serious look from under the reckless eyebrows. “So, back to Bill. I kind of figured you were the loyal wife—even when I was puttin’ the moves on you.” Louise felt herself blushing in embarrassment. As far as this man was concerned, it was just a trial balloon—putting the moves on her to see how far he could get. He had no guilt, and he didn’t expect her to have any, either. But did she? She wouldn’t carry this as a secret the rest of her life. But on the other hand, she didn’t intend to tell Bill, at least not right away.

Then Pete surprised her. He leaned both arms on the counter and said, “Look, Louise. If you didn’t miss your husband—I’d think less of you. You’re not only awfully pretty, you’re better than that. You’re like an old shoe. And that’s the very best thing I can say about a woman.”

With that, he dumped the cat food in a clean cat dish and set it on the floor, causing Toughy to jump lithely down from the counter and stick his nose into it. “Now
that we’ve got that straight, d’you want to catch the art movie with me? I promise I won’t even try to hold your hand. For sure, it’s too early for you to go home to that lonely house.”

“Thanks for likening me to an old shoe. I can’t remember when I’ve had a compliment just like that.”

Fleetingly, she wondered what it would be like to have love affairs with other men, which would have been easy to do on a number of occasions during her marriage. Here she was tonight, with an especially attractive, intelligent, naturalistic man who, to read from his eyes, had great depths of passion.

Pete wouldn’t have “taken” her—they would have taken each other in an egalitarian kind of way, in his beautiful, shadowy bedroom. But when the cat pounced, the little sexual pang inside her evaporated like a drop of dew in the western sun. And, of course, it helped that the wine was wearing off. Although he was a lovable man, she didn’t need or want Pete. She wanted no arms around her except her darling Bill’s.

“So hold on for a minute,” he was saying, and disappeared to retrieve his cell phone. She wandered into the dining room and over to a big rolltop desk. She couldn’t help seeing the set of papers in the upper corner. Leaning over, she looked at the name on the top. Reingold. It was a business proposal, handily—for her—prepared in a graphic, easy-to-read style. It named Pete, Josef Reingold, and two others in a one-thousand-unit housing project on land proposed to be annexed to the city of Longmont. Pete had attached a Post-It note to the front. “Josef—What do you say we call it the Twin Peaks Mountain Shadows Development?”

She smiled at how ridiculous the name was. Even she knew that if you could see the twin peaks of the Rockies, you were on the plains, not in the mountains’ shadows.
But Pete had created a name that would appeal to home buyers, whether or not it made any sense.

Such a skilled marketer. Once again, she realized she was in the presence of a real mover and shaker, fully as competent as the movers and shakers she met and sometimes had to deal with in Washington, D.C. Pete Fitzsimmons was skilled in everything: capital acquisition, marketing, and especially, a flair for people management that would be the envy of many a Washington pol.

She heard footsteps, and barely had time to scamper away from the desk.

“Ready?” he asked.

Louise looked at him, and her suspicions mounted as quickly as one of those piles of afternoon thunderheads over the Flatirons. He’d called her an “old shoe,” which somehow had felt good—but was that to assuage whatever shame she might have felt at nearly being persuaded onto that big white bed?

And Pete
pretended
to be concerned about the Porter murders, and about Frank Porter’s short-range future on this earth. Yet here he was, deeply involved with Josef Reingold, the key figure in any Eddie Porter plot to murder his family. Not only that, but Pete himself had just as much motive as anyone else to get rid of the two “knee-jerk” Porters who were going to sell the ranch for open space.

As she looked up at his smiling face, however, her suspicions dissatisfied, like those clouds that dropped their brief rains on the Front Range and sailed on eastward to Kansas.

A
FEW MINUTES LATER, THEY
were standing in front of the movie house, and Louise was having second thoughts. Pete said, “Look, pardner, I promised—no hanky-panky. I want to be your friend. Remember that old shoe business? Let’s just be old shoes together. Anyway, what’re ya gonna do, go home and fight with lions again?”

A shiver ran through her. “No, thanks. I just have a lot of free-floating worry.”

“About what?”

“Well, Frank Porter, for one. What’s Eddie Porter up to? I’m even worried about Bill. I haven’t heard from him in days.”

“Aw, c’mon. Better to worry with me than alone in that house with lions prowling around it.”

She nodded reluctantly and they went in.

It was dark inside the theater itself, for the feature had begun. “Gives new meaning to film noir,” she said, giggling. They stumbled down die aisle and felt their way into two seats. After awhile, she could see a little, and noticed two men come down the aisle and sit far to the front of the theater. She and Pete exchanged glances; he had seen them, too.

Since the movie was not compelling—the agonized French heroine was too self-engrossed for her taste—Louise found herself focusing on die late arrivals. Finally, as the story was moving toward a predictable conclusion, she had an idea. Plucking Pete’s sleeve, she whispered, “Those two…”

“Yeah, I know. You’ve been watching them instead of the movie. I’m beginning to read your mind. Let’s just duck out the front door.” They hurried down the side aisle and opened the exit door near the stage, throwing illumination from a streetlight onto the couple. Josef Rein-gold, again, this time with Tom Spangler. They were so busy talking in their isolated theater seats that they didn’t appear to notice Louise and Pete’s departure.

But they looked back, as they started down the street, to see the theater door had been shoved open right after them. Out came Reingold and Spangler. The nuclear plant manager, jovial as ever, caught up with them and said, “We decided to join the artsy crowd tonight, like you. But what a dismal film!”

Josef Reingold, who had paused to light a cigarette, sauntered up to join them. He eyed Louise and Pete, nodding
politely to her. “Mrs. Eldridge, hello. And Pete, my friend.”

“So, you two are just out for a little Friday night fun,” said Pete. He appeared to be a little nervous in the presence of Josef Reingold, while Louise was busy trying to figure out what linked the developer to the plant manager. Was Reingold lusting after Spangler’s prime piece of undeveloped property near the plant?

Then Tom Spangler took the mystery out of it. “Josef invited me out for die evening, because my wife and family are back visiting in Oklahoma. Not often do I get a night out with the boys.” His eyes shone—evidence he enjoyed palling around with the debonair Reingold? Or the effort of keeping up this aw, shucks facade? He studied his watch. “Heck, it’s ten, and I don’t know about you folks, but it’s gettin’ to be my bedtime.”

They bid good night to each other, and Louise and Pete went to the parking garage where she had left her car earlier in the day. “Reingold keeps interesting company,” she said. Pete looked at her strangely, as if she’d gone a step too far. “Louise, you’re getting a little paranoid, aren’tcha? Did you ever think that Tom Spangler is just one of the guys? Next, it might be
me
Josef is talkin’ to. As for your investigating habits, if I were your husband, I would worry about you—because you put
everybody
on your shit list.”

They stood awkwardly next to her car. Pete seemed to realize the reason for her silence. His criticism had made her embarrassed and uncomfortable. He said, “Some people are not as bad as you think, if you only knew them on a day-to-day basis. How can I say this? Land is fair game. Anyone can buy land … and make a ton of money. Land is destiny. It’s my destiny. Don’t think of me as a ruthless fellow. I’m just a guy who likes land.” His eyes widened. “Hey, wait. You couldn’t think that
I
—”

“No, of course not,” she protested. But she remembered the papers she’d peeked at on his desk.

He reached over and took her hand. “You don’t look convinced, but I’ll take your word on it. Louise, look, we’re just beginning to become real good friends. Why, we’ve gotten through the hostilities stage—sparring with words, and that sort of silly stuff. And through the romantic stage—when I foolishly, but not unnaturally, tried to seduce you. And now you’re aiming to make me into a suspect.” He shook his curly head. “I sure wish you wouldn’t do it. I think you should just go home, lock your doors, and go to bed.”

She didn’t know what to say. Actually, Pete was beginning to sound just like Bill, constantly asking her to quell her natural curiosity. But unlike Bill, Pete had his own selfish motives.

“Thanks for the warning, Pete. And thanks for the evening.” Her voice was remote. So much for a budding friendship.

For some reason, she felt tears coming to her eyes. She turned away from him and let them roll down her cheeks. Probably the wine.

Anxious to get home now, Louise pulled into the downtown traffic, a residue of tears still on her cheeks. A bumper sticker on a passing sports car provided a welcome distraction.
HONK IF YOU’VE BEEN DIVORCED FROM DANA
, it read. Irrationally, her tears began to turn to laughter.

Mood swings
, she thought.
Don’t tell me I’m in that stage of life. Oh well, maybe veering from crying jags to fits of laughing goes with fooling around with other men, getting shot at, and facing down a mountain lion
.