Pushing Up Daisies

for the last two hours.'

'I have a mother, you know.'

'She just called. She thinks you should go, too.'

I guess I had been hanging out at the Paradise a lot. Newly single, I dragged my feet going back to my empty house. It was one thing to be a regular, quite another to be a fixture. Babe waved away my halfhearted attempt to pay.

'Forget it. We're still working off the plantings you did out in the parking lot. Get outta here. And good luck,' she called after me, betting I'd take her advice.

Outside, I inspected the beds I'd put in last fall. Not bad, and they'd look even better in a month or two. The diner's LasVegas–style neon marquee was now surrounded by a tasteful assortment of foliage plants to harmonize with the tropical paint job. Very tiki bar. On the marquee was Babe's thought for the week. This week's was A CLEAR CONSCIENCE IS USUALLY THE SIGN OF A BAD MEMORY. Babe, in a nutshell.

I climbed into my Jeep, mulling over her suggestion. Why not? The girls at SHS may know something, and, if not, I'd treat myself to the vintage ceramic lamp I'd been eyeing the last few times I'd been in.

The Springfield Historical Society is located in a formidable brick building, early nineteenth century, with impressive white pillars and a great expanse of front lawn sloping down to the street. They'd approve of that tasteful description. Unfortunately, the own er of the property next door is one of those cheerful retired fellows who think even minor holidays need to be celebrated with a display of lights, hundreds of ornaments, and larger-than-life inflatables, so now the Historical Society is known countywide as the building near Holiday Harry's.

I made a right at the giant bunny (Easter was coming), parked near the bicycle rack in the SHS lot, and picked my way down the stairs to the shop, sidestepping boxes of recent donations. That's where I was, poking through the castoffs, when I overheard the news of an even bigger donation. Halcyon and all Dorothy Peacock's property had been left to the Historical Society.

'Well, there really wasn't anyone else to leave it to, was there, Bernice?'

I cleared my throat to announce myself.

'Hello, Paula. I almost didn't see you over there.' In theatrical fashion, Inez Robertson covered the mouthpiece of the old rotary phone and pantomimed that she'd be off soon.

Inez and her friend Bernice were known locally as the Doublemint twins. They were lifelong friends who sported identical upswept hairstyles (Inez's jet-black and Bernice's Sunkist orange) straight out of the sixties, although it's probably unfair to blame an entire de cade for their molded, shellacked heads. In addition to being the well-coiffed guardians of Springfield's best junk, with the slightest encouragement they were good for a little local dirt.

'Paula, you should have seen that garden.' Without missing a beat, she hung up the phone and continued, with me, the conversation she'd been having with her friend. 'Once a year, the sisters opened it to the public. All the local children were invited for games, and there were Shetland ponies that took us from one end of the garden to the other. Then there was a race through the maze and all sorts of treats and exotic candies. It was a wonderful tradition,' Inez added wistfully. 'What a shame Dorothy couldn't keep it up.' She patted her immovable hair for punctuation. 'Their brother helped, of course.'

'The paper didn't mention a brother.'

'I'm sure of it.' She tapped her chin, mentally flipping through years of town history. She slammed her powdery hand on the counter in triumph. 'William was their younger brother. He disappeared years ago. Went to Alaska or someplace. No one ever heard from him again. At least not as far as I know.'

'Well, whoever's handling the estate will have to look for him,' I said, wondering when I could tactfully get around to the real reason for my visit.

'Now I remember. Margery tried to find him once, years ago, for some Historical Society function. Richard was just as happy she didn't succeed. Probably jealous, the old fool.'

Richard was Richard Stapley, the Historical Society's president; Margery was his wife. And now the house had been left in their care.

'William was a handsome boy,' Inez droned on, oblivious to my mounting impatience. 'Quite a heart-breaker, too. He might have gone to Hollywood.'

Yeah, maybe he was James Dean, I thought meanly but didn't say. I picked her brain some more about the Peacocks and local history, then when I couldn't stand it any longer, I popped the big question. 'Any idea what will become of the garden?'

I was not the first to ask.

'Well,' she said heavily, grateful for a new line of gossip. 'People have been traipsing in and out since yesterday. I've seen three landscapers' trucks this morning,' she said, unnecessarily puttering with the dusty costume jewelry in her display case. 'I just hope it isn't that awful Mr. Chiaramonte. I don't know what Richard sees in him. He was here again this morning.' She wrinkled her nose as if there were any doubt what she thought of him.

Great. Competition already. And from landscapers established enough to have a fleet of vehicles with their names plastered on the sides.

'Of course, it's Richard's decision. After all, he is the president,' she added, stretching out the verb and hinting that there was a story there, too; but time was short and I didn't take the bait. She peered out of the thrift shop's high casement window and into the parking lot, where she had a tire-level view of any visitors. 'I don't see his car, but it's such a lovely day, perhaps he rode his bicycle.'

'I noticed a silver Specialized when I parked,' I said.

'That's his. Go on, dear. He'll need lots of help,' she said. 'And you are one of our best customers. I held this for you.' From behind the counter she pulled out the lamp. It was one of those aggressively ugly lamps from the fifties that optimistic sellers on eBay refer to as Eames era, an amorphous green and gold affair almost three feet tall from base to finial with a ring of small sputniklike balls shooting out of the top. Frighteningly enough, I already owned the perfect lampshade for it.

'I'm not exactly dressed for an interview,' I said, as she painstakingly wrapped the lamp in copies of the Bulletin so old I wouldn't have been surprised to see NIXON RESIGNS on one of them. Suddenly I felt amateurish and grubby in my baggy jeans, sweatshirt, and ever-present Knicks hat.

'Don't be silly,' she said, finishing up. 'You're a gardener—he won't mind. And Richard's a newcomer, too, you know. From Boston.'

I took the lumpy package, said good-bye, and made my way up the stairs. To the right was the exit to the parking lot, and to the left was the long corridor to Richard's office, the hallway filled with vintage photographs from Springfield's past. I caught my reflection in the glass of one of them and made a feeble attempt to fix my hair. What the hell—all Stapley could do was say no, and what ever he decided, it wouldn't be based on my having hat hair. Outside his office, I took a deep breath and tried to exude an air of competence. I knocked.

Richard Stapley was in his seventies, a little over six feet tall with thick white hair and a closely cropped beard. His dark eyes were framed by thin wire-rimmed glasses, and he wore the womb-to-tomb WASP uniform of light blue Brooks Brothers shirt, khaki pants, and Top-Siders.

'Have a seat,' he said in a way that was outwardly friendly but still made me feel like I was there to take dictation.

The bicycle had undoubtedly kept his weight down, but he still looked like he was no stranger to good food, good wine, and good cigars, as evidenced by the decanter, humidor, and crystal bonbon dishes on his credenza. Just under the portrait of Winston Churchill.

'One of my heroes,' he explained, when he saw me staring. 'Do you play?'

Was he hitting on me? Maybe I didn't look as bad as I thought I did. 'Excuse me?'

'Do you play golf? Those look like golf clubs in your package.'

Inez had wrapped my lamp in so many layers of newspaper that it did indeed look like a set of golf clubs.

'No.' I laughed, finally at ease.

Stapley settled into his tufted leather chair and got right to my point. 'I expect you're here about Halcyon. I've gotten very popular with the gardening community since poor Dorothy passed. She was a fine woman,' he said, clipping off the end of a fresh cigar and rolling it between his fingers. I hoped he wasn't going to light up, but I was