Pushing Up Daisies

'Babe mentioned. It was here in Springfield, right?'

'I got out of it. Mostly this,' he slapped his bad leg. 'But I couldn't stand it when the bad guys won.'

'Did that happen often in a town like this?' I asked.

'Not often. There was . . . There was one case . . . missing girl. Gnawed at me for years.'

'Pretty girl? Long, dark hair?' I asked.

He squinted at me. 'How'd you know?'

'I saw an old poster in the police station. What do you do now?' I asked, relieving him of an unwanted memory.

'A little carpentry, a little painting.'

'Handyman?'

'Handyman?' Babe said, coming back to us in between customers. 'This guy is an artist. Have you seen the bar at Cafe Gennelli's? Gerry hand-carved the bar and created the sculpture outside. I'm saving up for one.'

'Just working down my bar bill; it was easier than washing dishes,' he said modestly.

I hadn't been to Gennelli's but recognized it as a downtown restaurant popular with the designer martini crowd, not a place I would have thought appealed to a guy like him. He saw what I was thinking.

'My friend's kid owns it. I was just helping him out; the clientele's a little underripe for my taste. By the way, forget what I said about that other thing. I've just got too much time on my hands. Aside from the corpse, how's the new job going?'

I gave him the brief, polite answer I'd been conditioned to give most people, but when he asked a few intelligent gardening questions, we launched into a lengthier discussion on bamboo, something he had wrestled with at his last house. I was for, he was vehemently against.

'Well, don't try to plant any on the Peacock property. Dick Stapley will never let you. If he can't control it, he doesn't like it. Besides, they never had it at Halcyon.'

'We could plant some here,' Babe said. 'I'd like that . . . maybe put a hammock outside. . . . I could get a hula girl tattoo.' She swiveled her hips in a way that drew ahs from the customers at the counter.

'I'm gonna run,' Gerald said. 'Thanks for the coffee, kiddo. Next time's on me.'

As he left, he crossed paths with Mike O'Malley. They acknowledged each other with the universal male grunt 'ay' instead of 'hello.'

Babe held up the paper. 'Nice bit of detecting. Take you guys long to figure that one out?'

'You cut me to the quick. Here we are, making the streets safe for you and yours, and all we get is grief and the occasional stale-donut joke.' Mike held his hand to his heart and faked a pained expression. Then he leaned over the counter and whispered something in Babe's ear. She howled.

'Two large coffees to go and a couple of those fine greasy donuts. Extra trans-fatty acids on mine, please.'

From the kitchen, Pete yelled, 'I made those myself this morning. No partially hydrogenated anything, just pure unadulterated fat.'

Yum .

O'Malley paid little attention to me and left soon after. The rest of the early morning crowd drifted out, too, and Babe came back to me.

'What was so funny?' I asked.

'Mike told me you thought he should be looking for the baby's father. He said he couldn't imagine trying to get the old coots in this town to jerk off in Dixie cups. He thought the effort might kill some of them.'

'They don't even have to do that anymore. I saw this on TV the other night, they can just use a cotton swab—'

'Honey, honey, it was a joke.'

'All right, he has a sense of humor and knows what trans-fatty acids are. That's promising. What's the deal with him?'

'Why—you interested?'

'Please. I'm a gardener, remember? I dig. Never mind. I'm more interested in that guy Felix who was here the other day.'

'He's a honey, isn't he?'

'I'm wondering if he'd work on the garden with me. I could use another pair of hands.'

'On your bud get? Don't count on it. But leave a note for him, and I'll put it on the bulletin board. I'll make sure he sees it next time he's in.'

We returned to our postmortem of the Knicks and their abysmal season, eliciting a few more grunts from the tall guy in the back and prompting him to leave.

'Hey, think lottery,' Babe called after him, as he stooped to walk out the door.

A voice came from the back of the diner. 'I could use some service here.'

'Sure, honey. I almost didn't see you back there behind that newspaper,' Babe said. She picked up a menu and headed to the far corner of the diner. 'What can I get you?'

I overheard the man ask what I was having.

'Paula? Egg-white omelet, no fries, skim milk in the coffee.'

'Yes, well, that doesn't really work for me. Two eggs, scrambled well, on a bagel, hash browns, bacon on the side. And coffee with real milk, please.'

'You got it.'

I fished out a business card and scribbled a few words on the back of it for Felix Ontivares. Then I wedged the card in the upper-right-hand corner of the Paradise bulletin board on top of the signs for handymen, gently used furniture, and a new miracle weight-loss program that promised to 'melt 10 lbs. in 2 days.'

'Yeah, right,' I mumbled.

'What's that?' Babe asked.

'Oh, nothing. You just can't believe everything you read.'

From behind his newspaper, I thought I heard Babe's last customer grunt in assent.

CHAPTER 7

A few days later I got a call that the yellow crime scene tape was down, so I hustled over to the Peacock house to start work. When I arrived, I was surprised to see two cars already in the driveway. The first I recognized as Hugo Jurado's old junker. An Olds 88, it either had a custom paint job or all the rust spots had finally connected to give it an eerie, radioactive glow. The other was a baby-blue Caddy, the type favored by Floridian retirees who wear those flattering plaid pants and white belts. I knew who owned that one, too.

I walked around to the back of the house and saw Hugo and Felix Ontivares standing together, talking. They walked toward me.

'Buenos dias, amigos. zQue tal?' I asked, brandishing my high school Spanish. 'Something tells me you talked to Babe.'

'Yes. We couldn't find your card, so I just brought my cousin Felix to meet you. It may be at odd times because of other jobs, but we can each work fifteen or twenty hours a week until the job is done,' Hugo said.

'That's wonderful. I wondered if you two knew each other. There's a ton of work to do here. If Felix is as good as you are, you won't need a lot of supervision either, so you two can be here even if I'm not.'

I felt obliged to deliver the bad news sooner rather than later. 'You do know I can't pay you much,' I said to Felix.

'Babe told us. I can use the experience, though. And Hugo said you were a decent person to work for. We can do it.'

I couldn't believe my good luck. 'Once the business gets going, things will be different. I'll need full-time help and for three seasons, not just spring and summer.' I mumbled some more stuff that I hoped sounded attractive, but I'd already made the sale.

We walked around the property, discussing the work. Hugo and I quickly fell into our shorthand way of speaking, half English and half Spanish, and I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking I might actually be able to tackle the