“How did you know?” Marsha asked in a faint whisper.
“Because we just found Rosie’s husband under her kiwis.”
All the color from Marsha’s face drained completely away. She sat down with a hard thump on the corner of the raised bed. “Really?”
At Doreen’s nod, Marsha whispered, “I didn’t mean to. … I was so upset when I found out what he’d done.”
“He told you about his male lover, right?”
“Yes, while he was packing. Curtis said they would run away together.”
“And then David was having a similar conversation with Rosie at the same time, I presume?”
“I don’t know what happened to him. But Curtis? I lost my temper. … And it was just rage. I was just so upset. I was out here, in the garden, and that red fury was building up so strong that, when he had finished packing, he came outside to say goodbye. And I reached up with my shovel and smacked him hard on the side of his head. He dropped like a log, and I basically folded him into the garden,” she said, staring at the kiwis. “And a really weird thing happened over the years. The kiwis did better and better and better.”
Doreen could just imagine. Talk about natural fertilizer. “And did Rosie kill her husband right away too?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know about Rosie. But I don’t think so.”
“And how did Rosie know that Curtis was buried in your kiwis?”
“I said something once. That I had a particularly rich source of nutrients for the plants,” she said sadly. “I didn’t mean to, but I needed to tell somebody. And I think she understood. She said she was trying to settle up the divorce with her husband. Now I know that to be a lie. We were not really friends, but we were cordial enemies back then. After all, we had bonded over our shared experience.”
“One that led to blackmail, I presume?”
Marsha nodded slowly.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll find out that Rosie’s husband died of a heart attack brought on by his own heart medicine that he had left at her place,” Doreen said. “And it was all good, and both of you were content to keep your husbands out of the way and out of your lives. Until Rosie’s grandson found out.”
At that, Marsha winced. “Did Rosie really kill them? All three of them?”
“I think so, yes, because they knew about your husbands’ gay affair, even if the other women didn’t know about your husbands’ deaths,” she said. “Plus, I think Rosie committed suicide herself.”
“Why would she do that?” Marsha cried out quietly.
Mack suggested an answer. “That’s easy,” he said. “She had just received a pretty rough diagnosis that her cancer was back.”
“Oh my,” Marsha said sadly. “Yes, she would have done that to avoid going through the chemo and radiation again.”
“And she left a trail leading to you,” Doreen said quietly.
Marsha stared up at her. “I really didn’t mean to kill Curtis,” she said.
“Maybe not,” Doreen said. “But, the end result is, we’ve got six dead bodies all because of one extramarital affair.”
“Not just an affair,” Marsha said in a very sad tone. “A homosexual affair. You know what it’s like to realize that your husband who you’ve shared your bed with for all those years prefers men? It’s something that you can’t even begin to fathom unless it happens to you. It’s just so horrifying. … It’s more than a betrayal. Any affair is a betrayal, but this? This was like nothing else.”
Marsha sniffled. “I’m sorry he’s dead and gone,” she said, “but I’m not sorry that I managed to bury that secret for all these years. It’s the only way I could put one foot in front of the other in this town. So, as much as you may judge me for it, I don’t feel like I have anything else to say.”
“Except for one thing,” Doreen said. “I don’t understand why you put the flowers at Rosie’s memorial site.”
“Because, in many ways,” Marsha said, “she was the only one who understood. Nobody else could even come close to understanding what I’ve gone through except her because she had been through the exact same thing.”
“Right,” Doreen said. She turned to look at Mack. “Satisfied?”
“Hardly,” he said, his gaze on the older woman, who sat crushed against the flower bed. “I have an awful lot of questions still. Like Rosie’s will for one.” Mack turned to Doreen. “And why would Rosie come to you?”
“Her grandson really had terrorized her, and, after all the fighting,” Doreen said, “I’m sure she was happy to give her estate to anybody but him. Plus she wanted me to know what she’d done. What Marsha had done.”
“Any money she had left should be my money,” Marsha said bitterly. “All these years, I paid her to keep quiet about me killing Curtis, and yet I shouldn’t have. She’d killed her own husband too.” At that, she started to laugh out loud in a horrifically loud cackle. And then, just as quickly, it went from laughter to tears.
Doreen walked over and gave the woman a hug.
Mack stared at the two of them. “This is just too unbelievable.”
Still holding the now-weeping Marsha, Doreen looked at him. “Are you so sure I should focus on gardening as a hobby? Apparently growing kiwis is a killer.”
Epilogue
Saturday Late Morning …
Two days later Doreen walked away from the graveside. Rosie had been buried, after her autopsy stated her death a suicide, having ingested the remainder of her husband’s old heart medicine and a cocktail of other drugs she’d had.
That wasn’t why she would be remembered though. No, she had been accused of killing the other three women, and her husband, David, which had the entire community up in arms—not to mention the added news of Marsha going to jail for murdering her husband too.
Doreen had quietly stepped out of the hype reverberating around town. She watched as Nan walked away ahead of her. She would go to a celebration-of-life
