Pushing Up Daisies

twenty-seven minutes.'

Characteristically, Lucy had become obsessed with the Yoly project and had all but moved in with me. In no time she'd written a script, shot a ton of additional footage, and interviewed everyone remotely connected to Yoly, including, with Felix acting as translator, Celinda Rivera, who was still in the United States, visiting cousins in New York.

Jon Chappell's help was invaluable. Lucy had dangled a coexecutive producer credit as the carrot to keep him engaged, but he needed little incentive—being in the same room with Lucy seemed to be payment enough for him.

'If there were Kennedys involved, even distant ones, I could be looking at a Peabody Award,' she'd said early on.

'Well, don't start writing your speech now,' I'd said. 'Not only aren't there Kennedys, we may not even have a Fifield.' I replayed my visit with Dina.

'Something going on in Washington?' Lucy said. 'In the summer . . . in the early seventies? She ever hear of Watergate? It must be dark, living your whole life with your head up your butt.'

Evidently, the summer Yoly disappeared, both Mr. Fifields were out of state, otherwise engaged, and could prove it. Which left the amazingly well-preserved— some would say pickled—Mrs. Fifield with only her lusty Mediterranean gardener for company. She made do.

'That rascal,' Lucy said. 'I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day. But if Guido Chiaramonte was boffing the very rich, very worldly Dina Fifield, would he waste his time with poor, simple Yoly Rivera?'

'In a heartbeat,' I said. 'Dina might have made him feel like a Roman god in the sack, but once they were vertical she probably fell right back into character and reminded him that she was slumming with him. With Yoly, he'd be the worldly, upper-class partner.'

By the time I had a realistic estimate and a signed contract with Dina, Felix and Hugo had assembled a workforce and we were ready to start as soon as the ink was dry. Not surprisingly, our first task was dismantling the fountain.

The marble pool and some of the statues would remain intact. The trumpeting angels would lead Dina to her gazebo; the cherubs would frolic in her serenity garden; the massive Roman god would preside over her waterfront pavilion. The rest I'd figure out along the way.

The smaller statues weighed close to three hundred pounds each and required three men to lift them off the brass rods anchoring them to the fountain's base. We hired a piano mover to raise Neptune and deposit him on his new perch facing the water on a quickly built platform of gravel and Pennsylvania bluestone. That alone took half a day, and anyone watching might well have wondered why I was more interested in a hole in the ground than a thousand-pound marble statue hanging precariously by a cable. Once Neptune was enthroned, I sent the men home.

Lucy was there to record the event, if, in fact, there was one; and Felix and the newly sprung Hugo provided the muscle.

In the center of the now empty marble pool was a concrete ring housing the fountain's pump and tubing. Four cinder blocks surrounded the pump.

We moved the cinder blocks and external pump. Underneath the pump was a thick square of black slate. It took Felix and Hugo and two heavy crowbars to flip over the slate. Black landscape fabric was wrapped around a lumpy, unidentifiable object, but poking through the weed mat was something that looked eerily familiar. A bone. A bone I was convinced belonged to Yoly Rivera.

CHAPTER 50

'There's such a fine line between cheesy and clever.' Babe Chinnery held up that morning's edition of the Springfield Bulletin. 'GARDENER DIGS UP TRUTH IN 30-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY.' I curtsied and slid onto a stool at the counter to a smattering of applause from my fellow diners at the Paradise.

'Breakfast is on the house,' Babe said, pouring me some coffee. 'If I had a liquor license I'd buy you a drink.'

The previous week had been a blur. The bones found underneath Dina Fifield's fountain were conclusively identified as Yoly's remains by matching a sample of her DNA with Celinda Rivera's. Guido Chiaramonte had apparently stashed her body under Neptune and, over the years, in the course of checking on Dina Fifield's plumbing, kept an eye on Yoly.

Jon Chappell's editor had unleashed his inner Rupert and given him carte blanche on Yoly's story. To Jon's credit he kept the tone reasonably respectful.

Guido's killer was still at large, but as long as Hugo was in the clear, I was leaving that problem to the professionals. The closemouthed day laborer community wasn't providing many answers, and Mike O'Malley feared the killer had already left the country and would never be found. Like Yoly, Guido would wind up on a yellowing flyer on someone's bulletin board.

It wasn't my problem; I'd solved my two mysteries and was happy to be back digging in the dirt. As people had predicted, I was inundated with job offers once the story broke.

'Where've you been? Busy giving interviews?' Babe asked.

'I've been working my little tail off,' I said, picking at the crisp, parsleyed potatoes next to my omelet. 'Halcyon opens to the public next week, we just finished Dina Fifield's hardscaping so the landscaping starts soon, and I am booked solid until the end of this season. And I've got a meeting set up with a small golf course in Westport that could be big.'

'Muy bien. Any word from the beautiful muchacho?'

Felix Ontivares had accompanied Celinda Rivera and her daughter's remains back to Mexico. Mexican news online ran the story for three days, complete with pictures of Felix and Yoly's surviving family members, including her mother and beautiful nineteen-year-old niece, a budding Tejano star.

'Ships passing in the night,' I told Babe. 'He had his arm around the niece in that picture, and if he's anything like his father, he likes them young. I'm a big girl. At least I'm not still mooning about the ex.'

'True. I always say the best way to get over someone is to get under someone.'

'Lucy said the same thing. Was that something you got in a fortune cookie?'

'Just a saying. Neil's the quote guy. I don't think it's Shakespeare, but I'll ask him.'

'While you're at it, ask him about these, too.' On a clean napkin I scribbled down some of the lines I'd seen on the Peacocks' needlepoints. 'I've been meaning to look them up but keep getting sidetracked.'

The Springfield Historical Society had agreed to let Hugo and Anna have a small ceremony on Halcyon's brick terrace the day after the opening, in appreciation of all the work Hugo had done there. Anna was thrilled; she'd been lobbying me since they set the date.

'I've got a few final touches for the garden. Then on Saturday night, I'm going to bring in an arbor and cover it with vines and flowers as a surprise.'

'Cool. You know Pete's baking their cake.'

'Don't tell him I said this, but his cooking's getting better.'

'Be nice. He's been practicing for weeks, even took a cake-decorating class in Wilton. Here, try a piece of today's test cake. I've gained three pounds being his guinea pig.'

It was charmingly decorated with a cluster of wisteria made entirely of sugar. Impressive, but it was a little early for buttercream, so I asked her to pack up the huge slab she'd cut for me and promised to try it later.

I considered swinging by SHS to pick up the bonus check Richard finally agreed to, but there was time. Besides, next week I'd have a new assistant to handle collections, the future Mrs. Hugo Jurado.

CHAPTER 51

The stone planters on Halcyon's brick terrace were overflowing with coleus, sweet potato vines, and dwarf fountain grass. Smaller, lightweight containers held masses of colorful zinnias and licorice plants spilling over the