Zonked in the Zucchinis (Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind #1)

Chapter 2

As Doreen walked outside, Mack at her side, she offered, “I’ll drive.” When he stopped and raised one eyebrow, she frowned. “What?”

He asked, “Where did you say this guy lives?”

“Joe Rich area,” she replied, frowning. “Can’t say I’ve been there much. At least not enough to know the roads.”

“In that case,” he stated, “I should drive.”

Instinctively she asked, “But what if I want to drive?”

He shrugged. “You could, but then we might need a tow truck.” Her hands went to her hips, and Thaddeus poked his head out from behind the curtain of her hair, staring at Mack as if in astonishment.

He grinned. “They have a different ecosystem up there.”

She frowned again, not sure what he meant by that.

“You don’t have any snow down here,” Mack explained, “and it’s been a relatively warm winter. However, depending on how far back into the Joe Rich area this guy lives, he could have a lot of snow at this point.”

“Snow?” she asked in horror, turning to look at her little car, sitting on the driveway. “Oh.”

“Yes, oh . My vehicle is a 4x4, and I would rather have it and not use it, than need it and not have it.”

“Okay,” she conceded, “you’ve convinced me.”

He laughed and motioned her toward the far side of his truck. As he stepped forward, Thaddeus made an awkward hop from her shoulder onto Mack’s arm and waddled his way up, squawking, “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”

Mack grinned at him and asked, “Do you ever stay home?”

Thaddeus gave him that snickering laugh of his. “ He-he-he-he .”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Mack muttered, then turned to Doreen. “Did you ever consider letting them stay home?”

“I do let them stay home sometimes,” she replied, as she walked around the truck, opened up the passenger side, and helped Mugs do his awkward jump into the higher-up truck. Then he found himself a place to sit on the back seat. Goliath, not to be outdone, took an easy graceful leap right up, as if trying to show up Mugs. Goliath proceeded to sit atop the seatback, with his paws crossed in front of him, looking to all the world as if a king for the moment.

Doreen laughed. “It’s really not quite so simple to get up into Mack’s truck, you know,” she muttered to the cat. Goliath just gave her that enigmatic stare that he always did. Even she struggled to step up and get into Mack’s truck, but she wouldn’t say anything. She climbed up awkwardly, managed to close the door, and, once she was seated, realized that Thaddeus had no intention of coming back to her side. “You probably don’t want to drive with Thaddeus perched on you like that,” she warned Mack.

“No, I really don’t,” he agreed. “Have you got a way to change his mind?”

“Sure.” She made a weird little whistle that she had learned from Jerry to use just for calling Thaddeus. His head swiveled in her direction, and she patted her shoulder. “If you want to come with us, big guy, you’ll have to come over on my side.”

Immediately he started a chorus of “Big Guy, Big Guy, Big Guy,” flapping his wings in joy.

She winced. “No, not your friend Big Guy at Jerry’s house.” Yet Thaddeus wasn’t listening. He kept up the Big Guy refrain until they headed out of town toward East Kelowna and then he fell silent. A peaceful silence reigned for the first time during the drive. “Do you think he understands?” she asked pensively.

“Considering that he’s just now quieted down, I would think so,” Mack replied, glancing at her. “The bigger question is, do you think he knows how to get to you-know-who’s place?”

“I would suspect so,” she agreed, with a nod. “And we do go there on irregular occasions.”

“Sure,” he pointed out, “but you haven’t been there in a while—or have you?”

“No, we’re due to go for another visit soon.”

He smiled. “At least you’re making friends in town.”

“I am, indeed,” she stated, with a big grin in his direction. “I’m not sure about friends per se, but, at this point in time, it’s just nice to know that I’m not being laughed at.”

“You’ll never be laughed at in this town.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “You’ve done too much good for everybody.”

“I don’t think people remember that though, do they?” she asked. “It’s human nature to remember the good and to forget the bad, and very quickly they forget the good too.”

He looked over at her in understanding. “You have done a marvelous job in town,” he noted. “Don’t ever let anything get you down about that.”

She looked at him and smiled. “Even though I do a better job at PR than your department?”

He snorted. “You certainly get the better PR. I’ll give you that. I even suggested to the captain that maybe he should hire somebody to write some good news about us to help override all the good news about you.”

She winced. “I’m sure that didn’t go over well.”

“I think he considered it,… for all of five minutes.” Mack laughed. “I didn’t mean it. The department is doing just fine on its own.”

“Particularly since you’re closing so many cases,” she pointed out, happy for him.

“Absolutely,” he muttered. “It would just be nice to think that we could do it on our own.”

She frowned. “I was thinking about this a while back. You really couldn’t have done it on your own.” He stiffened ever-so-slightly and turned to glare at her. “I mean, you didn’t even know about many of these cases, and, even if you did, it’s not as if they were at the top of your priority list. You have only so much manpower and only so many hours in a day,” she explained. “For me, it’s a whole different story. I was bored anyway.”

“And now?” he asked, with a small smile twitching his lips. “How do you feel now?”

“ Boredom was the right word for it back then,” she noted, with a wry smile. “Yet I’m happy to have this case now.” Her voice drifted to a soft whisper as she repeated, “I’m happy.” Even she recognized a sense of wonder in her tone.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he replied, his tone softening to match hers. “You’ve had enough bad times. It’s all about the good times now.”

She nodded. “I hope you’re right.”

“Nope, no hope about it,” he declared. “You make your life what you want it to be.” When she frowned at him, he asked, “What?”

“I guess I never expected to hear that New Age mumbo jumbo from you.”

Mack rolled his eyes. “I don’t know that it’s New Age mumbo jumbo, or that it’s coming from me,” he clarified, “but you have to understand that I worked hard to get where I am too. It wasn’t a walk in the park all the time, and I definitely did things wrong along the way. However, at the end of the day, I set a goal to reach the position I currently have,” he shared, “and I achieved it.”

“You did, indeed,” she agreed, beaming at him, as she squeezed his hand on the steering wheel. “You’re a great detective.” He chuckled. “Sometimes I think everything would be so different if we were living together.”

“Absolutely. Anytime you’re ready for that, you just let me know.”

She stared at him and noted, “You never mentioned it before.”

“You weren’t ready before,” he replied. “I don’t think you’re quite ready now either, but you brought it up. So I’m just telling you that, anytime you want to go that route, I’m there right with you.”

She smiled. “You’ve been very patient with me.”

He glanced at her and nodded. “I would like to think so.”

She sighed, realizing his eyes were twinkling at her. “I know that I’ve been quite a trial,” she admitted.

“You’ve been nothing but wonderful,” he stated. “Don’t go down that road.”

“If it weren’t for Nan, I wouldn’t have come to Kelowna at all.”

“I know,” he agreed, “and honestly she does like to remind me of that.”

Doreen burst out laughing. “I imagine that she does. She’s always been quick to take credit for things that she’s done. And, in this case, we do owe her all the credit.”

“And you owe yourself some credit too,” he pointed out. “Since you arrived, you’ve been a huge force for good in this town. Besides, we had a great Christmas, and now we have lots to look forward to in a brand-new year.”

She couldn’t argue with that. What a different future she now faced versus one year ago. “And, one of these days, all that lovely lawyerly stuff will be over and done with, and I can move on.”

“It will,” he said, with a smile. “Though I have no idea what’s left to be dealt with.” He looked over at her. “Do you?”

She shook her head. “No, not really. Something to do with Mathew’s estate, but I’m not sure what. Of course we still have the court cases involving him and my ex-lawyer Robin,” she added. “I don’t know whether the police have dredged up all of what they need out of it yet or not.”

“I can always ask, if you want.”

“Sure,” she replied. When he passed a major turnoff road, she eyed the ugly corner but had missed the road sign to the turnoff. “Where are we?”

“We just passed Big White,” he replied.

“It’s so”—she looked around—“different up here.”

“Have you ever been to this corner of Kelowna?” he asked curiously.

“Once, I think, for one of my cold cases. Bernard may have helped me on one up here. I just don’t remember it all,” she noted. “Funny, I wasn’t expecting it to be like this.” She frowned, as her gaze searched the country fields amid the mountains.

“You weren’t expecting this countryside landscape?” he asked.

“It’s really beautiful.”

“It is, but it’s a very different ecosystem here.”

“You mentioned that before,” she murmured. As they drove on, she saw snow piled high off on the side of the road. “I guess the skiers are happy.”

“Exactly,” Mack agreed. “We have a thriving winter wonderland recreation center going on here,” he stated, with smile, “and a lot of people come here for the skiing.”

“That would be wonderful.”

“Do you ski?” he asked.

“No, gosh no,” she said, frowning at him. “My ex-husband would never have approved of that.”

Mack asked, “What? The cute snow bunny on the slope look didn’t appeal to him?”

She smirked at him. “I would probably be the bunny falling off the slope,” she pointed out. “That look would never appeal to him.”

“Too bad,” Mack said. “I think it would be adorable.”

She laughed. “You have a skewed idea of a sense of humor though,” she noted. “I’m not sure that counts in this case.” When Mack took another corner up ahead, she looked around. “It’s really wintery here.”

“It is,” he confirmed. “They get a lot more snow up here than Kelowna does. Most of ours is gone in town, and, with your being on the river, you have access to a lot more sun in a day,” he explained. “So, although Kelowna will get more snow at various locations in town, out here they get quite a bit more.” He gave her a bright smile, as they passed the entrance to the ski mountain. “Anytime you want to learn how to snowboard, I’m in,” he offered.

She looked on with interest, as several of the cars behind them and the one in front turned and headed up the mountain. “I’m not the athletic type. Yet drinking hot chocolate and sitting around the fire and looking outside at the snow sounds like fun,” she replied wistfully.

He nodded. “If you’re serious, we can always go away for a weekend.”

She looked at him and smiled. “Now that would be fun, although I have no one to look after the animals.”

“My brother might agree to get roped into that—or we could rent a cabin and take them with us too. Maybe we could start you off with cross-country skiing instead of downhill.”

“I always wanted to ski,” she muttered, “yet I just never really imagined that I would be very good at it.”

Mack swore under his breath.

“I know. I know. I know,” she muttered, sighing at the remnants of hearing Mathew’s voice still in her head.

“Yeah,” Mack admitted, “those statements just make me all the more determined to take you up on the mountain to see if you would enjoy it.” Then he looked over at the animals and added, “But the animals are not invited for that.”

“Really?” she asked, looking at him in surprise.

“Yeah, really,” he stated, his lips twitching. “I don’t know how you’ll carry Mugs and Goliath and Thaddeus while on skis.”

“I have carried them in the past,” she stated, “but it’s not exactly an easy combination.”

“No, you’re not kidding,” he agreed, “and I can see them dumping you into a snowbank at the first chance.”

“Mugs might, if only to sit on top of me and to warm his feet.”

At that image, he burst out laughing. “I can so see that too,” he said, still chuckling. “What was the address again?” She looked it up on her phone and repeated it for him. He frowned. “I did check our database earlier, but I don’t have anything with that address in the files.”

Doreen asked, “Was this one of those areas where things were rezoned and new postal codes were given and others changed?”

“I don’t think so. Up here everything would happen in a pretty standard way, although I won’t say it couldn’t have happened, because you know how things go.”

“Right, the wild, wild west,” she said helpfully.

He grinned and nodded. “Exactly. So we don’t really know what’s going on along some of the backroads up here,” he explained. “We’ve pretty much input our paper files into the online database, and other areas in the department are up to speed in many ways, but you never really feel as if everything has been included.”

“Right, I can imagine,” she murmured. As they headed around one more corner, she smiled. “It’s a long way out of town.”

“And yet it really isn’t that far,” he noted. “It’s just a short drive, but you’re not used to driving very far.”

“If you say so,” she muttered, but inside she was quite happy that he’d driven, even if Mugs wasn’t terribly impressed. She looked down at him stretched out on the back seat, and he woofed at her. “It’s okay, buddy,” she said gently. “We’re almost there.” And, sure enough, Mack slowed and came to a turnoff onto a narrow dirt road. “Is this it?”

“It is,” he declared, “and, as you can see, it’s not paved.” He carried on up the road, and the dirt turned to mud and slush. By the time they reached the house, piles of snow were all along the roadsides.

“Wow,” she muttered.

Mack nodded. “The owner probably had the lane plowed before the last snowfall, which melted and left a muddy mess behind. You can see that the snow was all heaped up as we drove in.… So definitely more wintry conditions are up here than in town.”