The Perennial Killer: A Gardening Mystery (4 page)

L
OUISE STARED OUT OF THE
window of the covered pickup, praying the man and woman who were her companions on this trip did not expect too much of her until she’d had time to adjust. She’d just packed off her family, Bill in his rental car to parts unknown, Janie off in a van to go to the wilderness camp in Estes Park. As she had watched her beloved husband disappearing down the driveway of their rental house, all she could think about, unfortunately, was the remote
possibility of nuclear disaster—and the much more likely prospect of continued marital discord.

Then she was picked up in this giant vehicle, and she had no more time for fretting. The pickup was designed for important male activities such as work, sports—or just showing off. But she wasn’t sure it had shocks. They were jouncing up a nightmarish road, a steep washboard of a road that shook her innards, and she wasn’t sure what she would do first—throw up, faint from vertigo, or die from lack of oxygen. Then she made the mistake of looking out the side window, and was terrified to see blue sky where there should have been road. Before she had time to scream, the driver saved them from the washout by swerving the vehicle to the left, then violently to the right to avoid colliding with a sandstone cliff on the other side.

“Whoa, there, baby!” he chortled, as if this were just part of the fun of traveling the miserable mountain thoroughfare. “Don’t worry, we’ll soon be pullin’ in t’ Porter Ranch.”

“Oh, God.” She felt like Odysseus, with Scylla on one side and Charybdis on the other. She closed her eyes, swallowed hard, and clamped a protective hand over her knotted stomach.

“What’s the matter,” said the man, “never driven in mountains before?” His blue eyes stared blandly at her.

“Of course I have,” Louise said. Her voice trembled with each bump. “The Alps. The Pennines. The Pyrenees…”

“Then why do you look like you’re gonna blow chunks?”

She sat up straight, and gave him a disgusted look. “That must be your crude way of saying—”

“—you’re gonna toss your cookies.”

“Well, I don’t think so,” she said coldly.

He shoved his disreputable hat back on his brown, curly
hair and grinned, his eyes disappearing amid the sunburned wrinkles under his shaggy eyebrows. The only shaggier eyebrows she’d seen were on her neighbor’s schnauzer. He said, “You sure
look
like a little gal who’s gonna toss her cookies.”

She would rather have died than give the man that satisfaction. He was driving this truck like a madman. The only trouble was that she needed him, badly. He was her video cameraman for the Colorado shoots of
Gardening with Nature
. But what rock had her producer found him under? An odd-looking, tall creature, he had folded his lanky legs in their decrepit jeans like an accordion to move his seat forward to make room for the blond young woman in the back seat. Louise’s so-called “resource person” for the shoot at Porter Ranch, she was the county’s senior land officer and the one who had suggested this reconnaisance trip to see the place. So far, the “resource person” had been useless, not even clever enough to slow down this crazy driver. She just kept her nose buried in paperwork. How she could read anything, Louise couldn’t imagine.

Pete Fitzsimmons and Ann Evans. Pete, a joker. Ann, serious as a judge.

“I’m not going to be sick,” insisted Louise. “I wouldn’t dream of redecorating your upholstery with partially digested strawberries and shredded wheat.”

“Aw, no problem,” Pete said breezily. “My pickup’s seen lots worse than that.” The wheels screeched again as the truck went into a tight curve.

“Unnh!” Louise groaned. Her breathing continued to come in irregular bursts. “You
could
slow down, damn it!”

“Oh.” He grinned, reducing the pickup’s speed. “Sure, I’ll slow’er down. S’pose that li’l bite outta the road back there did scare ya a little.”

“It’s like a bloody Outward Bound experience.”

He threw his head back and laughed. But Louise was not finding this trip funny. It was time for her mantra. She relaxed, leaning back in the seat, and her lips began to move.

“Whatcha mumblin’?” asked her lunatic driver.

“Nothing,” she said shortly. She wasn’t about to share her mantra. He would only laugh. Instead she kept mumbling:
You are a piece of raw liver, you are a piece of raw liver
…

After a few minutes, it seemed to work. She cast a careful look at Pete Fitzsimmons. She had to remember to be nice to him, for it was never good for the talent to fight with the cameraman. In fact, what all talent wanted was for the cameraman to
love
them. “The truth is,” she said in a sincere voice, “I have two problems.” Was that too obvious a play for sympathy?

“Yeah—I’m Ustenin’.”

“One’s a certain, uh, aversion to steep bumpy roads like this one. And then there’s my altitude sickness—I’ve had it for days, so I should be getting over it.” She swallowed carefully. “Give me a while and I’ll be just fine.”

“Heights, huh?” he said skeptically. “We’re not very high—not more ’n seventy-five hundred feet. This whole road we’ve been ridin’ on is part of Porter Ranch. You’re on the crest of a low little mountain ridge, because the Porter who originally laid out the roads had a thing for privacy and insisted on makin’ it hard for people to get up here.” He gave her another look. “Sure it’s heights that ail you? I read it different. Your mind’s a million miles away. You’re in the dumps.”

Great! A complete stranger could tell that she was unhappy. She made an attempt at humor. “If I am, it’s because of what’s happening to my face.” She gave him a fake little smile. “See, each time I smile, the laugh lines cut into my cheeks like a knife, and my lips feel as if
they’re cracking apart. I arrived Wednesday and in three days I’ve turned into a wizened old crone.”
And I feel like one
, she thought miserably,
now that I’ll be hanging out alone again in a rented house and fretting about my husband
.

“Try Bag Balm.”

“Never heard of it.” But her mind gratefully latched onto this distraction from her dark thoughts. She laughed again. “Bag balm—funny name.”

“It’s a funny product. It’s for cows. If you use it, you’ll smell strange, but your skin will love it. Dairy farmers use it to heal sore udders.”

“Really?” She thoughtfully stroked her chin and peered over her dark sunglasses at him. He’d already warned her to keep her sunglasses on, lest she burn up her eyeballs. Now, he had a cure for her dry skin.

“Heck,” he said, shoving his hat back even further on his curly head, “I’m the kind of man who has solutions for everythin’. Got any female problems y’need advice on?”

She gave him a dirty look.

So much for letting her guard down. The man was certifiably crude. She could either fight with him, or ignore him. She decided to ignore him, but it was hard to do, especially since he kept shooting her looks. He was amused at her outfit—her “location” clothes that she’d unfortunately decided to wear: white cowboy hat covering her long brown hair, scratchy new plaid shirt, western neckerchief, too-tight denim pants with flashy belt and dangling Swiss Army knife, silly-looking tooled cowboy boots that tilted her forward like a butt-thrusting hussy. She was painfully aware of how Nouveau West she must look.

As for him, he was one of those tall, craggy-faced men in worn clothes who blended in out here like a clump of sagebrush—a huge contrast to the men with whom she usually associated in Washington. Louise gave a resigned
little sigh. Washington, at the moment, seemed a million miles away. Men in the nation’s capital, in their uniform of suits, ties, and leather dress shoes, would appear silly to this ruffian. But they had charm. He had none. They had manners. His were nonexistent. No, Pete was obviously a different sort of person. He would never be a politician, since he seemed to care nothing for the impression he made on people.

She did concede that he could be called handsome, with those incredible eyebrows, the faded blue eyes, and the curly hair—although he badly needed a few extra pounds. With him, faded was definitely in, bright was out. Many washings had reduced the plaid design in his shirt to a shadow. His old-fashioned, many-pocketed fisherman’s vest was old enough to have been inherited from his grandfather; it made her think of her own worn, many-pocketed gardening shorts. His filthy felt hat with its ratty sheepskin sweatband around it most likely seldom left his head.

As for the age of this ill-mannered, scrawny cameraman, she guessed early forties, like her.
That’ll make for a fair contest
, she decided.

Probably to test whether she’d made progress conquering her acrophobia, he hurled the truck around the corrugated edge of another curve. This time, she rode it out with her eyes closed and said nothing; her pride wouldn’t let her.

He gave her an approving look. “Good girl. By the time we wind our way over the top of these foothills, you’re gonna be cured of your silly fears.” He reached a sinewy arm across her to the glove compartment box and snapped it open. “Look in there,” he said, “and grab those soda crackers. They’ll help settle your stomach.”

She found the little package, unwrapped it, and took a grateful bite of a cracker. Then she shot him a glance. “You think I’m not at home out here in the West, and
you’re right—I’m not.” She quickly gobbled down a second cracker. “It may be hard for you to understand, but I prefer Washington any day. It may be a steam bath, but it’s not like this—so hot and dry that it parches your skin. The land there gently undulates; it doesn’t leap up at you in big lumps and cliffs.”

“Sorry ya feel that way about the West. Maybe you’ll change your mind.” They bumped along in silence for a few moments, and, despite all odds, her stomach began to feel better. Then Pete drawled, “Y’know, Louise, just the other night I happened to see that TV commercial you’re in—the one about a mulching lawn mower.
Man
, was it corny!” He chuckled at the memory of it.

How many times had people laughed at that commercial? For the umpteenth time, Louise explained. “It is a little embarrassing, prancing around that mower and proclaiming its virtues like a circus barker. But you’d be surprised how well they pay me.…”

He rattled on as if he hadn’t heard her. “You do okay on your gardening show—ya got that edgy, East Coast delivery, but it comes across real well.”

Edgy, East Coast delivery
, “Thanks, Pete. You’re generous with compliments.”

“You’re welcome. I thought I’d get off on the right foot with you since we’re shootin’ packages for six
Gardening with Nature
shows.” His smile
seemed
sincere. “WTBA-TV must love you—syndicatin’ you all over the place. Your family come out with ya?”

Louise ignored the way her stomach clenched again. “Um, almost. My husband has some business out here, but isn’t here at the moment. And our daughter Janie is spending some time as a counselor at a wilderness camp in Estes Park.”

“So that’s the story. Well, for a nice family woman,
you sure have a lurid past. I’ve heard about those murders you solved.”

She remained stubbornly silent; she had no obligation to provide people with gory details.

Pete appeared unfazed. Now he was reaching back into the jump seat, one hand on the wheel, the other rummaging through an open camera bag labeled
Domke
. He explained happily to Louise, “I want to take a few shots. The light’s perfect. It just matches your smile.” He retrieved a Nikon and held it in one hand, expertly fiddling with it as if subduing a small animal.

“Did I hear the word murder?” It was a soft voice from the back seat. Ann Evans had apparently decided to join the conversation; the senior land officer set aside her papers and leaned forward to catch up, the motion causing a hank of beautiful, straight hair to fall over her sincere face. Louise took her first close look at this woman decked out in tan safari shirt and shorts, and saw surprising lines of care in her face. Ann was older than she had first thought, maybe somewhere in her late thirties. As blond as sunshine, she was wearing no makeup, and had green eyes like a cat’s. The world would have considered her a beauty, if only she had thought she were one.

“Oh, just a few situations where I happened to be around,” said Louise with a gesture of dismissal. “I didn’t do much.”

“Those murders up in Connecticut,” said Pete. “I know you helped solve them. And when your TV buddy was killed, you caught that guy, too, didn’t you—or was it your teenage daughter?” The camera was up to Pete’s eye now, whining again and again as the film advanced.

“What are you
doing!
” Louise cried, involuntarily putting a hand up to her face at the same time the car swerved. Pete calmly pulled them back from the edge of disaster and grinned. “Sorry, folks. Can’t miss the opportunity
to take a picture. That golden backlighting—man, it hit your face just right.”

Like every cameraman she had known in her two years in TV, Pete was obsessed with light. Good light meant you turned your attention from anything else you were doing—even driving on a steep road with no sissy side rails—and started shooting pictures.