Death In The Garden Read online

  DEATH IN THE GARDEN

  By Caroline Clemmons

  Copyright 2014 Caroline Clemmons

  Cover Graphics

  Lilburn Smith

  iStock by Jon Tarrant and Frank VandenBergh

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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  Author contact information Mailto:[email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to my sweet hero husband and our two daughters for their support and encouragement.

  Thanks also to those who have helped with critiques. What a wonderful group you are! Most authors work alone, secluded with their computer and isolated from the world except by tether to the world-wide web. Those, like me, who are fortunate enough to have wonderful friends who offer constructive and precise critiques, know the value of these friends. Your input has sharpened my prose and made me a better and a happier writer. Thank you Ashley, Geri, Penny Jane, and the Raven Mavens!

  As we say in Texas, blessings on all y’all!

  Chapter One

  “What do you mean, change the landscape design?” I asked the meanest man in Gamble Grove, Texas, Vance Rockwell. “Your wife approved the diagrams and we have a contract.” At least he’d chosen Sunday’s closing time to arrive at the garden center shop and no other customers remained to witness his rant.

  “Miss Cameron, I don’t like the way the garden will look from my terrace. Should have gone with a Dallas landscaper. Fact is, your plan looks amateurish.”

  “Amateurish?” I went from panicked to annoyed to boiling. “Mr. Rockwell, yours is a professional layout that will be the finest English-style garden in North Texas, probably in the state. It’s exactly what your wife asked for. Shall I call her and see if she’s unhappy with the plan.”

  Rockwell stepped toward me and yelled, “You’d damn well better not call her!” He jerked a finger at his chest, his cuff slipping up to reveal what looked like a gold Rolex. “It’s my property and I say what goes on it.”

  I stood my ground and inhaled the roses in the vase nearby and fought to keep my voice calm but firm. “You know we’ve been working on this garden for a month. It's laid out and the irrigation system is in place. When it’s completed, you’ll have a showplace.” Despite the soothing floral scents surrounding us, I really wanted to hit him on the head with a massive container of cacti.

  “Listen here, little lady, you make the changes I say or I’ll put Gillentine Gardens out of business. I can buy and sell your grandfather ten times over.”

  I hated being talked down to and called “little lady.”

  “Having trouble, Heather?” Walter Sims, my mentor and also my employee, appeared at my side. In one hand, he carried his shovel like a shield. With the other hand, he patted my shoulder as he watched the blowhard. Walter had never brought his shovel inside the shop before, and I hoped this wasn’t a bad omen. All I needed was for him to hit Rockwell.

  I held my palm out toward him, gesturing him back. “Don’t worry, Walter. I’ve got this.”

  Rockwell’s face rearranged into a cruel sneer. “Butt out, Sims, you old fart. We don’t need a handyman has-been putting his two cents in where it’s not wanted.”

  My attention went on overload. How could I watch both men at once? “Walter, make sure everything’s ready to close while I talk with Mr. Rockwell.”

  Walter’s shabby appearance contrasted to Rockwell’s flashy excess. I was glad of Walter’s support, but I didn’t want him annoying our most lucrative customer’s odious husband.

  “Mr. Rockwell, I have a contract for the design approved by your wife. Since you’re a successful businessman, I’m sure you realize Mrs. Rockwell’s deposit covered only that plan.”

  Rockwell’s face turned so red I thought he’d explode. “I’m telling you that I don’t like that plan.” He stabbed the same well-manicured finger at me again. “Are you too stupid to understand what I’m saying?”

  Walter stood at the end of the shop, and I saw his scowl. I would deal with him later. For now, I had to deal with Rockwell. “Oh, I understand exactly, Mr. Rockwell.”

  I refused to give in to a bully and stepped forward with what I hoped appeared confidence, my voice calm in spite of the turmoil building inside me. “If you wish to make changes at this stage, you’ll set back our schedule. Of course, I’ll make the changes if you feel that strongly. However, altering the plans will require an addendum to the contract after a conference with the original contractee and an additional deposit.”

  “Additional nothing! You’ll regret this!” Vance Rockwell turned and stomped out the door to his red Ferrari. Gravel pinged as he sped out of our drive and pulled onto the highway.

  Would he convince his wife to change the design at this stage? His wife, Bootsy, had expressed delight with our plans and our progress. Could he douse her contentment with his claims? Sighing, I glanced at my watch. Half past our Sunday closing time of four. I switched the neon sign from Open to Closed.

  “Glad to see that bastard leave. Sorry he gave you a hard time, Heather, but you stood your ground and beat that devil at his own game.”

  “I certainly couldn’t allow him to bully me. Giving in to a tyrant like him would likely have him demand change after change at our expense. That’s no way to finish a project—or make a profit.”

  My anger with Walter fizzled. He’d always doted on me as if I were a favorite niece, even a daughter. As concerned as I had been that he would whack Rockwell with that shovel, I was grateful for Walter’s loyalty and presence. But I was a big girl now and I could take care of myself.

  Walter and I walked out together and locked the gates then turned toward my office. I looked at my old friend Walter as we walked. Work-stained clothes hung loosely on him. He stood a couple of inches under six feet with thinning brown hair that always looked as if he needed a trim. It seemed to me that he grew gaunter each day. In spite of that, he was still a strong man able to put in a hard day’s work—even with a hangover. I recognized all that with my head.

  My heart saw the gentle, compassionate man who’d helped my eight-year-old self recover from my parents’ death twenty years ago. A man who’d nudged a brokenhearted, silent girl to deal with sorrow by caring for plants. The man who’d listened to my childish babble and who’d answered endless questions with patience and good humor—and who still did.

  At the office door, he patted my shoulder. “Guess I’ll go check on my Nora soon as I put this shovel in the shed.”

  He meant he’d go to the cemetery, where he lovingly tended the pink roses—her favorite—that he’d planted on his wife’s grave sixteen years ago.

  “You’re still battling the cemetery workers over the shamrocks under the roses?”

  “Durn right I am! Nora always wanted to go to Ireland and I never got to take her. Least I can do is give her that little bit of Irish. Them caretakers keep telling me shamrocks are weeds that’ll spread to other graves. Can’t see what that’d hurt.”

  “Me either. Bees love the flowers.”

  “And so did Nora.”

  “See you tomorrow, Walter. Take care.”

  ***

  Bookkeepin
g and other chores between customers consumed Monday. Late in the afternoon, Carole King’s voice serenaded “I Feel The Earth Move” from the shuffle on my CD player. Thinking about my argument with the horrid Rockwell, I agreed with Carole that I’d felt the earth move, but not in the good way she meant. In fact, it had been way too long since I’d felt like the person in her song.

  “Please turn that off.”

  Chelsea Bedford, my shop manager and best friend, frowned. “Hey, I thought you loved Carole King.”

  “I do, but today the earth really is moving.” I related the previous day’s altercation with Rockwell, ending with. “Good heavens, Chelsea, I am so tired of Walter’s fatherly attitude. It was almost World War III yesterday. I love Walter, but I sure didn’t need him throwing gasoline on the fire.”

  “No, you didn’t. I know how important it is to prove your ability to your grandfather. And I know Walter’s having more than a little trouble adjusting to you as his boss after all those years of telling you what to do instead.”

  Chelsea looked up from repotting a tray of pink lantana. "Do you really think Walter would have punched Rockwell?"

  “I’m afraid so—or hit him with that shovel. I certainly wouldn’t have minded knocking that smirk off Rockwell’s face. First I wanted to hit him with that cactus garden you set on the counter then I pictured myself with a baseball bat knocking his hard, round head into the next county.”

  Chelsea laughed, so animated her brown corkscrew curls bounced around her face. I envied her sun-streaked hair and wished my own would curl like hers.

  “Fat chance. You’re never even rude to a customer.”

  She had my number. “I can think about it, though.”

  Today, Chelsea’s tight red shorts rode low on her hips with a vee. She wore one of the garden center’s dark green T-shirts, shortened so a couple of inches of tanned and taut skin displayed the gold ring with a tiny heart dangling. “How do you like my new belly button ring?”

  “Ouch, not for me.” Hers wasn’t normal business attire, but customers didn’t seem to mind. Which meant I didn’t either. The fact I’d been Chelsea’s babysitter when I was thirteen might make a difference. Babysitting only lasted four years. Now the former brat was my best friend. She was an efficient worker with apparently boundless energy.

  I checked out her shoes, obviously new. “How you stand on your feet all day wearing red platform mules is beyond me.”

  She did a spin and flashed a cocky smile. “You should try them. Pretty shoes make me happy.”

  “Maybe for elsewhere.” I pulled my mind back to business. "Walter was right about one thing. Rockwell is a Grade A jerk. I’ve never dealt with a more impossible man.”

  “Imagine wanting to change the landscape design at this stage. He must be nuts.”

  “Good heavens, he must have seen the landscaping’s preparation and progress every day.”

  “Ohmygosh, yes,” Chelsea said. “And everything’s ordered and set up.”

  “Right.” I took a deep breath to calm myself, but all the meditation in the world wasn’t going to help if I had to deal with that man on a daily basis. “If we didn’t need this job to go well, I’d have made some colorful and physiologically impossible suggestions to him. But I’m trapped, forced to deal with a creep named Vance Rockwell.”

  Still searching for calm, I inhaled the soothing garden scents I loved. Spicy geraniums and lavender at the end of the counter and the rich aroma of roses in a vase by the register blended and quieted my frazzled nerves. Even the musty smell of the potting soil in Chelsea’s tray pleased me.

  My own private aromatherapy.

  “And I’ll bet you set that cheat straight.” Chelsea pumped her trowel-free fist in the air and boogied in a circle, arms flailing. “Go, Heather, go Heather! That’s great.”

  We bumped hips, me ducking her wildly flapping trowel. I stepped back and admitted, “Not so great. He wants me to reduce his bill for the strip we planted in front of his place. You know, between the brick fence entry and the road? Says the plants were substandard."

  Chelsea gasped. "What an old liar. They were perfect.” She pointed her trowel at me. “So, by the way, is that house.”

  “It is gorgeous, isn’t it? But can you imagine anyone living there? In a place like that, would you lie around on the couch in your jammies and wolf down chips and salsa while you watched movies on TV?”

  “Not a chance. I’d probably be afraid to touch anything. Besides, I’ll bet they have huge flat screen TV’s everywhere and still end up watching TV in a fancy-shmancy media room.”

  “Probably. The important thing is that Bootsy called to tell me she loved the entry garden. The plants are all hardy and drought resistant." I tapped my fingers on the counter, wishing I could tap Rockwell’s head with a hammer. Hard.

  The Rockwell landscaping job was what I had dreamed of, the first large-scale design since I had taken charge of our family’s business eight months ago. And I mean do large, large scale. Eight long months without a major assignment had stung my professional pride and wounded the center’s pocketbook.

  I was afraid Grandpa would wonder if he’d made a mistake in turning the business over to me—especially with our sales falling since one of those warehouse type competitors opened three months ago. After Grandpa’s personal investments took a major nosedive in the fluctuating stock market, he has relied on income from the garden center.

  Chelsea giggled. "Too bad Rockwell’s so awful instead of like his son, McDreamy."

  “Which son?"

  She wiggled her eyebrows. “Sam is who I mean. I met him at a party a couple of weeks ago.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” I was a little hurt by her silence. We were BFF’s, or so I’d thought.

  “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel since his mom’s our client.” She watched my face.

  I shrugged. “His mom’s the client, not him.” But I wondered if a spat between Chelsea and Sam Rockwell would taint our relationship to Bootsy.

  Chelsea sighed as if she were relieved. “Ohmygosh, he’s a major hottie, and he has a new red Porsche Carerra that’s almost as hot as he is.”

  She reached for another lantana. “Hey, maybe you’d like me to set you up with the older half-brother? He’s good looking, works in McKinney at a pharmaceutical company. Too much like a techno-nerd for me."

  Why is everyone always trying to fix me up? "No thanks, not a relationship I’d ever want to cultivate. Think of having Vance Rockwell as a father-in-law. Ugh." I shuddered at that image.

  “Ugh is right! But Heather, you haven’t had a date in weeks.” She pointed her trowel at me accusingly. “Ohmygosh, you haven’t gone out since you and Mack broke up after my New Year’s Eve party.”

  “I don’t need to be reminded of the Mack the Jerk mistake.”

  “I could say I told you so, but I’ll take the high road.” Her brown eyes sparkled.

  “Listen, brat, I don’t have time for a relationship right now.”

  “There’s always time for luuuuuvvve.” She danced around me and finished with a shimmy. “You want to turn into a dried up old maid like Miss Thurston?”

  The image of the fearsome social studies teacher we’d both endured in high school hardly fit. “I’m only twenty-eight. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not ready for the rest home yet.”

  She hugged my shoulders. “I know, but you never take time to let off steam. All this pressure needs release.”

  “Chelsea! I can’t relax even when I try. All I can think of is I have to make this business greater than it is now. I can’t fail my family and our employees.”

  “Heather, we all know what you’re up against. Killing yourself won’t change things.”

  “This Rockwell job is all that’s keeping us in the black.” I exhaled a giant sigh. "I guess I'll offer the jerk a discount."

  "Heather? Don’t do it." Chelsea tossed her trowel and gloves on the counter and followed me into my office. Peering over m
y shoulder at the monitor, she said, "You're always undercharging customers anyway."

  I shrugged, unable to deny I’m a soft touch for a loyal customer. "When the Rockwells moved to Gamble Grove, both Walter and Grandpa warned me about Vance Rockwell."

  Sure I ran our family’s garden center, but my grandfather and Walter offered plenty of advice. Usually way, way more than I cared to hear. Plus they still treated me as if I were twelve. Annoying, but I loved and trusted both of them. This time their predictions had been dead on.

  "What did they say?"

  "Told me Rockwell's hard to get along with.” I held up fingers as I ticked off items. “He always complains. He tries to cheat merchants. Acts like a small business owner's worst nightmare. Walter guaranteed Rockwell would play us."

  Chelsea laughed, her brown eyes sparkling. "Well, he did. But Sam said they’d just moved here three months ago, so how did Walter know?"

  "Walter and Rockwell were classmates here in Gamble Grove and graduated from high school together.”

  “No way.” Chelsea gaped. “Antique old Walter and Mr. Rockwell?”

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it? Walter’s fifty-six, so Rockwell must be the same.”

  “Walter’s sweet and funny, but he looks about a hundred.”

  “True, but looks are deceiving. And there's some sort of grudge between them. It goes way back. They had a huge fight about the time Rockwell moved away, but that was before I was born. Walter won’t explain.”

  “Ooh, and I know your grandmother’s rules against gossip.” She pretended to zip her lips. “You better not mess with her.”

  “Exactly why I’ve never been able to find out the details. All I’ve wheedled out of Grandpa is it had something to do with a woman, but I don’t know who."

  "Walter and a woman? Eeuww." Chelsea wrinkled her nose. “I even have trouble believing he once was married. If you weren't such a softie, you’d have fired him the first time he missed work after one of his booze binges."