“What do you mean too?” Mack asked in exasperation. “Back up here a bit. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I will.” Doreen quickly explained the conversation. “The thing is, by now, I don’t know if she’ll retract what she said because it was on the phone, and I had no way to record it.”
“Of course not,” Mack said. “Except for your little recorder at home.”
Doreen snatched it up and saw it was on. She said, “Hang on a second.” She hit Play, and the voices came back through again.
Mack sighed. “So, you do have a copy of it.”
“Yeah,” she said in shock, Goliath sitting here, staring at her. “I think Goliath may have walked on it. He may have just pressed the Play button while I was on the phone.”
“Was the phone on Speaker?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s giving me some trouble, so it was on Speakerphone.”
“Well, it doesn’t prove anything though,” Mack said, “but we were wondering about Rosie because apparently Rosie’s the last one to have seen two of the three other ladies.”
“Who is the other one, not seen, that you know of?”
“Kimmy.”
“Okay. Yes,” Doreen said. “And I think that’s because they told her gay grandson about his gay grandfather.”
“And then who killed Rosie?”
“Well, we’re not short of options,” Doreen said with a heavy sigh. “Between Marsha’s husband, if he’s still alive, Marsha, and Rosie’s grandson.”
“And, of course, she could have committed suicide.”
“But then why she be on her way to meet—”
“But everything is pinpointing and blaming Marsha, isn’t it? Maybe Rosie decided that it was time to call it all quits before she got caught herself.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but Rosie was the fourth of the deaths. What about Kimmy’s death? Nan said Kimmy did have a heart condition. So her having that chemical in her blood would be normal, right?”
“I’ve been checking on that too. At the moment, I’m not even sure Kimmy’s death is connected,” he said steadily. “It’s possible hers was a natural death, and Rosie chose to kill off everybody else to make it look like they were all connected and to implicate Marsha.”
“That would be a devious mind,” she said. “Any idea what happened to her husband?”
“No. And we need to check out his community garden.”
“Is he still alive?”
“Look. Let me make some calls,” Mack said. “I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up.
At that, she quickly dialed the grandson and identified herself. “What do you want?” he said rudely.
“What I want,” she said, “is to know where your grandmother’s kiwi garden was.”
“Why do you care?” he asked.
“Because I understand it had something to do with her son, your father.”
“My father is dead,” he said.
“How long ago was the accident?”
“A long time ago,” he said. “And it was my father’s plot of land that my grandmother used for her kiwis. It was a community garden, but she had a section off to the far side.”
“So, is that where her kiwis are now?”
“I imagine so,” he said. “I honestly don’t know the difference.”
“Well, she was pretty secretive about it.”
“Of course she was. I don’t even know if the kiwis are growing there.”
“Maybe I could take a look,” she said.
“Sure, fly at it,” he said in a bored tone. And he gave her the address where it was.
“Thanks,” she said.
It was already too late to go out tonight, but the next morning she planned to go first thing, bright and early.
Chapter 28
Thursday Early Morning …
When Doreen got up the next morning, she made coffee, put it in a thermos, called her animals to her, and headed out to the address. It wasn’t too far to walk, but it was a good mile. By the time she got to the community garden, she was the only one there. Some of the individual plots of gardens were a riotous color of beautiful flowers. Others were vegetable gardens. She kept on walking through the gate to the back corner, where Danny had said his grandma’s garden was located.
And, sure enough, a trellis was back there, and a long planter box with some vegetables and flowers were at the base. But definitely kiwi plants grew up along the trellis, where they would get direct sunlight. She didn’t know about enough water because the fruits would need a tremendous amount of water to keep going. Mugs was interested in the box though. He kept straining at the leash to get closer.
Goliath, being Goliath, didn’t seem to care. Thaddeus just watched Mugs as if unconcerned. Then why should he be? There were always a lot of people around here. As she stared down at the planter box, her phone rang. “Mack, what’s up?”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m looking at Rosie’s kiwis,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I think you need to come.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I’m pretty sure I know why her kiwis are doing so wonderfully.”
He groaned. “What does this have to do with anything?”
“Please come,” she said, “and bring a shovel.” And she hung up on him.
As she walked around the small garden, she wondered how simple and how ugly it could be. She hoped she was wrong. Not long afterward, when Mack’s truck pulled up outside, she noted he wasn’t in a RCMP car. She checked her watch and realized he hadn’t even started his workday yet. He hopped out with a shovel in his hand and walked toward her, but his expression wasn’t happy.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Mugs wasn’t. He barked and woofed, wagging his tail in joy at the sight of Mack. Even Goliath appeared to be excited as he ran to him.
“Mack is here,” Thaddeus crowed in her ear. “Mack is here.”
“I can see that,” she muttered. “Too bad he isn’t happy about it.”
He glared at her as he straightened from greeting the animals. When
