Chapter 26

Saturday Noon …

A s Doreen headed back home again, she walked very slowly past the house in question, without any new revelations. Well, one maybe. She needed to go clear around the property and get a look at the front, so she could get the lay of the land. That thought led to another, reminding her that she still hadn’t made it to the crime scene from the Taser death case. That bothered her. She understood there was really nothing to see, but she always visited the crime scenes, so she really needed to follow through and take a look for herself.

With the animals in tow, she walked through her house, got everybody a quick drink of water, then headed out to the front door and back down the neighborhood again, via the street this time. When she came up the street that led to Jethro’s place, she turned there and walked a little farther. She stopped at Jethro’s house, then turned and took a look at the house right beside it. Sure enough, it was at the beginning of the inward curve of the cul-de-sac, so he didn’t have a direct view.

Still, the home was close by, so any loud noises would have likely bothered Jethro. Given his age and the fact that some things in life would disrupt him and would make him angry, perhaps noise was something that troubled him most readily. Much like Millicent was perturbed by weeds and getting more bothered by the day, it was quite possible that noise had a similar triggering effect on Jethro.

Doreen wandered around the block, taking a good look at the house on her trip back. When she came around again to the front, deciding it was time to head home, the door opened, and a woman stepped out. The woman was dressed normally, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Doreen studied her carefully, putting her peripheral vision to good use as she wandered slowly along, seemingly letting Mugs have a few minutes sniffing at the weeds and the grass. She noted a fair bit of makeup on the woman, presumably Julie, but not an inordinate amount.

Just then a man stepped out, gave her a kiss, and headed to the car parked in the driveway. The woman gave him a wave, then quickly stepped back inside, slamming the door. The fact that she’d slammed the door was already interesting, and the fact that she had kissed him said something else too. Doreen just didn’t know quite how to put it all together, but something seemed off.

She watched as the man got into the car and backed down the driveway. Doreen quickly took a picture of the license plate, an act hopefully disguised as something else entirely, though she still wasn’t all that great at that particular subterfuge yet. When he drove off, she gave him a casual wave, and he honked with a pleased grin and kept on going. She smiled to herself.

“So, that was either a happy customer,” she muttered, “or somebody who has more of a relationship with this woman than expected.” Of course that brought up a whole different set of possibilities. As Doreen stared at the house, still lost in thought, the woman stepped out again, speaking caustically.

“What is your problem?”

Doreen blinked several times, looking a bit abashed and confused. “Sorry, just woolgathering, I guess.”

“Well, go woolgather somewhere else,” she snapped. And, with that, the woman stepped back into the house and slammed the door again, harder this time, if that was even possible.

Doreen slowly wandered home, realizing that she had probably looked like a complete idiot standing there, with her gaze glued onto the house, as she tried to figure out what was going on. She shook her head. “Really smooth there, Doreen, very smooth.”

Still, it was what it was, and now she was heading home, where she could put some of this down on paper and maybe get it sorted in her head a bit, maybe figure out just what was going on. Right now, it didn’t seem all that easy because some of this just didn’t make any sense.

Back home, she took the animals straight into the garage, without really giving herself a chance to stop and think, and, with the animals loaded up in her car, she drove straight to City Park. She headed for the back, where she had been a couple times before but had never made it to this little community garden—the scene of the Taser-death crime.

It was a small community garden, and a few people milled around, which meant that at least the crime scene had been released, and the site was now open to the public once again. She got out, wandering closer. One of the women looked over at her suspiciously. Doreen just smiled and kept on walking. Obviously it wasn’t her garden, and she didn’t really know anything about this. The fact that she was here because of a murder wouldn’t make the lady any happier.

As Doreen wandered up and down the gardens, admiring the plants even now ready to harvest, another woman came over and asked, “Do you belong here?”

“I was just admiring the beautiful gardens.” The woman looked at her guardedly, though Doreen had no idea why. “Obviously that’s a problem for you. Isn’t this city property?” she asked.

The other woman hesitated and then shrugged. “We’ve had some weird happenings lately.”

“Right, and I guess community gardens are based on trust, aren’t they?”

“Exactly.” The other woman nodded. “Then that body was found here.”

“Right, I heard something about that,” Doreen replied, with a nod. Mugs walked up closer to one of the gardens and lifted a leg on the wooden signpost. The woman didn’t seem to care, so Doreen let him. When he was done, he trod closer and sat down and stared up at her. “It’s okay, buddy. We just wanted to stop and take a look at the garden,” Doreen repeated. “I don’t have much of a vegetable garden at home anymore.”

“Interesting. There is quite an avid gardening community in town, so I’m sure you could join some clubs and events, if you wanted to do more.”

“I guess I could just plant some things and see how it goes,” Doreen added, with a shrug. After a few moments of silence, she continued. “That body, was there any news on who it was?”

The other woman shrugged. “No, I don’t know anything about it. It wasn’t anybody who had a garden here or anything.”

“What a strange place to leave it.”

“Leave it?” The woman frowned at her.

“My understanding was that it was dumped here.”

“Sure, but I don’t know why that would be.”

“Right, and that’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Why people do things is always a bit of a mystery.”

“Especially when it comes to corpses,” the woman noted, with a delicate shudder.

Doreen smiled at her. “Very true. Anyway, I just wanted to come and take a look. So thank you for your patience.”