Murder Crops Up by Lora Roberts

the parents from that game last Saturday sounded like they were ready to start a rumble.”
    “It’s the volunteer syndrome.” Emery sounded like this continued some previously fought skirmish with his wife. “Like I said when that site council thing broke out, volunteers always get bent out of shape about something at any given point. They get into turf battles.”
    “Literally, in this case.” Bridget topped up my glass. “I mean, most of the time the gardeners cooperate with each other. If your neighbors plant something tall that shades your plot, you tell them about it, and they don’t do it the next season. But some people take sheer thoughtlessness as a hostile act and get themselves totally lathered up over it. The whole Bermuda grass thing—” She shrugged.
    “But none of that is enough to kill over.”
    “I’m sure it will turn out to be a freak accident,” Emery said in a soothing voice. “People who garden just aren’t the kind of people who kill.”
    “All kinds of people garden,” I said. “They’re not all nice, by any means.” I thought of Carlotta’s round, sweet-looking face. She seemed so comfortable, until you noticed her mean little eyes.
    “That’s true,” Emery said. “After all, Webster isn’t my idea of a gardener.” He drained his glass and leaned back in his chair. “He’s such a funny guy.”
    “Funny-peculiar, Emery means.” Bridget went over to the sideboard to cut slices of a toothsome-looking apple pie that had been calling to me all during dinner.
    “He’s a good worker,” Emery amended. “When I have to bring him on board because we’re slipping our deadlines, he really whips things out. But he wants us to jump through all these weird hoops—a dedicated phone line just for him, all kinds of security codes, have his check ready right there, not mailed to his P.O. box, et cetera. I don’t really know where he lives.”
    “Maybe he’s homeless.” I knew the tricks to living without an address.
    “Not with the rates he charges.”
    “He’d have no reason to do anything to Rita, either. I think they were dating at one time, but they seemed perfectly friendly to each other whenever I saw them.” Bridget dealt us each a slice of pie. Its rich cinnamon aroma made my mouth water. “Tea?”
    “Thank you.”
    She poured me a cup of delicate green tea that somehow went perfectly with the apples. I savored my first bite, and said, “That’s two men we’ve heard of in the past few hours that Rita was dating. I wonder if one of her boyfriends could have come to have it out with her, pushed her, and run away when he realized she was dead.”
    “It’s not even that complicated,” Emery insisted. “She must have tripped and fallen wrong. That rake across the path, maybe she didn’t see it in time to avoid it. A dive into a foot-deep trench could be unhealthy.”
    Bridget’s expression lightened. “That sounds reasonable. At any rate, Bruno will get to the bottom of it. He’s very good at reading the crime scene."
    Emery looked at her askance. “You’re starting to sound like someone who spends hours watching TV cop shows.”
    “You know I don’t,” Bridget said indignantly. “They’re too upsetting. I can’t even watch those Prime Suspect shows you like.”
    “Children,” I said. “Remember you are modeling the correct behavior here.”
    Emery smiled, but his voice was serious. “I don’t want you ladies thinking of yourselves as sleuthhounds. Let the police take care of it. They know what they’re doing.”
    “That’s not what you said a couple of months ago when all that proprietary code was leaked to your competitor. You said the police were idiots because they didn’t find out who did it.”
    “Well, industrial espionage isn’t really their bag.” Emery waved that away. “This kind of accidental death looks pretty straightforward.”
    I had been thinking about it. “I’m not so sure it was an accident, Emery.”
    “Why not?”