John called working in the yard his getaway. He came home, put his hands in the dirt, and forgot everything he’d seen and heard on the streets of Charlotte. He was amazing with trees and shrubs. He had azalea flowers the size of grapefruit. All of their neighbors were envious.
He was a police detective for twenty years. Walked a beat for ten years before that. Then he answered a late-night domestic dispute call that ended in violence. It would be two years in December since he was shot and killed on the sidewalk outside a south Charlotte house. The husband killed his wife as well as John Lee. He fled the scene and was never found.
When John died, Peggy took all the money they’d saved plus his pension fund and opened the shop. Her accountant almost had a heart attack. But there was prime space in the downtown area available. She’d wasted enough time.
Business was slow at first. There were times she was afraid she was going to lose everything. But the idea caught on as more people began to inhabit the expensive condominiums and apartments being built. Charlotte’s inner city was coming alive, and Peggy’s garden shop was part of it.
Humming to herself, Peggy took off her purple cape as she walked in the door and tossed her hat behind the counter.
Traffic was light on Thursdays anyway. Things would pick up around lunchtime when the personal assistants and office managers came out of the uptown buildings. They loved to eat lunch in the courtyard outside her windows where benches and wrought-iron tables and chairs were set. Then they wandered through the shops.
She switched on the lights and set up the cash register for the day. She was having some trouble with the computer she used for ordering unusual plants and supplies for her customers. But a good swat on the case set that right. The store was ready for the fall planting season but gearing up toward the winter months when most outside work was maintenance. Her seed catalogs were beginning to arrive to fill everyone’s mind with visions of color for spring.
She looked around the shop. Everything was set up for her first customer. Except for the garden spade in the middle of the floor. Peggy glanced at her watch and wondered how late Selena was going to be as she walked around the counter to pick it up.
The pointed end of the spade was tinged reddish brown. Carolina clay, probably. But this seemed darker. There were traces of it leading toward the warehouse door in the back of the shop. Wondering what happened and who she was going to chew out for it, she picked up the shovel. That’s when she saw him. Her hands went numb, and the shovel clattered to the floor.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there looking at the man. Her first impulse was to turn around and run out of her shop, screaming for help. But she was made of sterner stuff. Or at the very least, she was morbidly curious. Years of being a cop’s wife didn’t prepare her for this. But her background as a researcher made her push her emotions aside and take another look.
The man was facedown in one of her attractive wicker baskets filled with anemone bulbs. It was part of the autumn scene she’d created, complete with scarecrow and pumpkins. He’d obviously fallen forward, dragging the scarecrow from its perch on the oak rocking chair. The straw figure looked forlorn, lying half under the man’s weight like some bizarre teddy bear.
She wanted to look away. She had her cell phone open but couldn’t get her fingers to press the buttons. The terrible picture mesmerized her. She felt like one of those people she yelled at who gawked at car accidents. She knew what she should do, but the connection between logic and motor function failed her.
The man could be a homeless person. Despite the best efforts of the real estate management group who owned Brevard Court, there were usually one or two of them hanging around. Although his clothes seemed too clean and his trousers had a sharp crease down the legs. There was also the little question of how he came to be in her shop.
The courtyard door was locked when she came in. She locked it after the last customer left yesterday. He didn’t come in that way without a key. The only other way in was through the back loading door. She wanted to check it. But she couldn’t get her feet to move any more than she was able to dial 911.
He might just be unconscious. Peggy really wanted to think that was the case. There was only one way to tell.
She stepped carefully around the man on the floor until she could reach down and touch his neck. There was no pulse. He was as cold as last winter. There was some dried blood on his white shirt collar. It spread down his back to darken his suit coat and reached up into his hairline. There was a thin trickle of it on his right ear. Blood had pooled on the floor around him.
He definitely wasn’t one of the college students who worked for her. She couldn’t tell who he was with his face buried in the basket. And she knew better than to move him. How many times had John come home complaining about a disturbed crime scene?
But she couldn’t help noticing some of the same details John used to tell her after coming home from a call at three A.M. Caucasian man. Probably about six feet tall. Fairly athletic build. Light brown hair. She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, and there were no visible scars. At least not from her perspective. There was a white mark on his outstretched wrist that looked like he was used to wearing a watch. His nails were manicured.
She stopped cataloging his vitals when her gaze reached his feet. He was wearing black nylon socks but no shoes. She glanced around the area. There was no sign of them. She heard a key rattle in the back door. It was locked, too. Not sure what to expect, her hand reached out for one of the rakes in the display.
“Morning, Peggy! How’s busi—geez! What happened?”
Peggy looked up at her assistant. “I’m afraid he’s dead. Don’t touch anything.”
Selena Rogers remained where she was, horror-stricken by the sight of the body. “How do you know he’s dead? Maybe he’s asleep.”
“I touched him. He’s stiff and cold. He’s not ever getting up again.”
Big blue eyes widened even further. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. There’s some blood. I don’t think he died from natural causes.”
“Did
“Of course not! Don’t be silly! I don’t even know who he is!” Peggy carefully stepped back around the body.
