Pushing Up Daisies

'Tanya—Richardson,' she added. 'I have to pick up my little brother from his piano lesson at four.'

'Don't worry. We'll be finished long before then,' Mike said gently.

'Mr. C. doesn't let us have the keys. I don't know how I'm supposed to lock up.' She began to blubber again; I handed her a tissue. 'Is—is he going to be all right?' she asked.

'He's in good hands now. And don't worry about the shop; we'll take care of it. I just need you to tell me everything that happened this morning.'

'Nothing happened. Nothing. I can't believe I switched days with LaToya. I wasn't even supposed to be here.' She shredded the tissue in her lap.

I put my arm around her for support.

'Just tell me everything from the minute you walked in the door,' O'Malley said.

'I got here at eleven. Mr. C. wasn't around, but that's not unusual. He gets here at the crack of dawn, so sometimes he's eating lunch and listening to music when 'his girls' come in. That's what he calls us,' she sniffled, 'me, and LaToya Kidd. LaToya doesn't like it, but I don't mind. He's a harmless old geezer.' She blew her nose loudly. 'I didn't have one customer all morning. Until this lady.' When did I change from girl to lady?

'Not even someone who didn't buy anything?' Mike asked.

'Nobody.'

'No phone calls?'

'None. Well, one, but it was a hang-up. I figured it was a telemarketer who didn't realize he'd dialed a business.'

'You remember what time it was?'

'Maybe eleven fifteen, right after I got here. Honest, I didn't see or talk to Guido or anybody until this lady came.'

When O'Malley finished with Tanya, he asked if she'd like a ride home.

'Are you kidding? If my neighbors see me coming home in a police car, my parents will ground me for life.' She looked at him as if he were titanically stupid.

'I can give Tanya a lift, if she wants.'

She nodded enthusiastically.

'I may have a few more questions for you,' O'Mal-ley said to me.

'I'm not skipping town. You know where to find me.'

'That I do.'

I hadn't been in the diner for five minutes before O'Malley slipped into the booth opposite me.

'Jeez. You don't waste any time.'

'I hadn't quite finished with you, but I didn't want to scare the kid any more than she already was,' he said.

'Me neither,' I said. 'That's why I drove her home. I tried to reassure her, I even suggested it might have been an accident—but she's a smart girl, I don't think she bought it.'

'You think she's okay?' he asked.

'She's all right. What's that thing people always say about kids . . . they're resilient? I love that. She was more concerned about putting on a good face for her little brother. I called the hospital; Guido's still unconscious,' I said.

'Yes, I know.'

I'd intruded on his turf. 'Sorry. Any suspects?'

'Apart from you? How much time do you have? They're not exactly putting up any statues to Guido in Mexico or Guatemala or Colombia. Or here, for that matter. A lot of his workers have probably wanted to do the same over the years.'

'But actually doing it, that's something else.'

Mike looked down at the six dishes on the table. Babe and Pete saw the fuss at the police station and had heard about Guido. They'd been plying me with comfort foods since I walked in; dishes were lined up in formation from one end of the table to the other.

'You should have the soup before it gets cold. Cold matzo ball soup is not a good thing,' he said. 'Will you be eating that muffin?'

I slid the plate over to his side of the table.

'No one in the neighborhood heard anything unusual,' he said. 'Someone saw an old rust bucket parked on the block that morning. No plates, no ID. There's no guarantee it's anything, but we're checking it out.' He sliced the muffin into quarters, furthering my suspicion that we had nothing in common; I'd have picked off the top first.

'The weather was not our friend,' he went on. 'The rain kept most people indoors, except you, so there aren't a lot of witnesses. You'd think the rain would help with tire tracks or footprints in the nursery, but what wasn't gravel or mulch was a swamp. Primordial ooze. As it is, we've only got yours and some wheelbarrow tracks. What's most telling, as you may have noticed, my budding sleuth, is that there was no sign of a struggle. Guido casually turned his back on his assailant, and was stabbed. We've got a few leads. Not many.'

Which he wasn't inclined to share with an amateur in a crowded public place. He poked through a bowl of condiments until he found a foil thimble of jelly that met with his approval.

'You'd have to be pretty pissed off at someone to plunge a knife into his back, wouldn't you?' I said. 'There isn't the anonymity of dispatching someone from a distance. I imagine shooting someone would be a lot easier than feeling a knife go through someone's flesh.'

'I guess that lets you off the hook. Personally, I'm glad to hear you say that,' Mike said, reaching for my knife. 'Have you given this much thought or is this all gleaned from repeat screenings of The Godfather?'

'Guido may be a terrible boss. But few people really kill their employers, even if they fantasize about it. Someone must have really hated him.'

'Maybe it was the last straw, one insult too many, one salacious remark too many,' Mike said, meticulously layering jelly on his wedge of muffin. I knew he was leaning toward one of Guido's workers.

I shook my head. 'I know these guys. I can't believe any of them could do this. A lot of them don't even realize how objectionable Guido can be, because of the language difference.'

'You know them? Is that so? You mean like Hugo and Felix?'

He had me there. How well did I really know any of them? They came, they pruned, they left. They could all be mass murderers or nuclear physicists in their own country for all I knew. I was starting to worry. I hadn't known about Hugo and Anna and I hadn't been able to tell that Felix wasn't a garden-variety leaf blower. And I hadn't seen either of them for days. Were they really working elsewhere and managing the family fortune in Mexico, or were they hiding out?

'Speaking of which. Where are Hugo and Felix? You were joined at the hip a few weeks ago.'

Well, not quite, pal. Maybe O'Malley did know about that night in the green house. I mumbled something about the new office building, and steered him away from my missing workers.

'I just don't see Guido enraging one of the workers this much. A good screw you maybe, but a knife in the back?'

He brushed the crumbs from his fingers, and smiled at the simpleton sitting across from him. 'As I said, we're following up on a few things.'

O'Malley got up to leave just as Babe returned with two portions of red Jell-O.

'Off so soon?' she said, putting the plates down. 'This is my speci-al-ity.'

'Thanks for the muffin. She's buying.' He turned and left.

Babe sat down and helped herself to one of the Jell-Os.

'O'Malley thinks one of the workers did it,' I whispered.

'What do you think?'

I tried to erase the image of Hugo's purple face when he thought Anna had been attacked, and his anger over Guido's racist remarks; I only hoped he hadn't overheard any of the smutty comments that followed. And I hoped the rust bucket that had been spotted at Chiaramonte's nursery hadn't been Hugo's.

'None of his workers stays with him long enough to hate him that much. But who else could come and go