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

Chapter 14

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D oreen woke up to the ring of an early morning telephone call. Groggy, she reached for her cell. Nan’s excited voice hit her hard. “Nan, what’s the matter?” she asked, trying to prop herself up and to get her bearings.

“She died. That woman died!” she cried out.

“What woman? Who are we talking about?” Doreen asked, rubbing her eyes. “Who died, Nan?”

“Lynda Mahoney, the woman who was shot.”

“Oh, ouch,” she muttered, feeling sorrow in every bone. “That poor woman. I am so sorry for her family.”

“Exactly, but now,” she explained, “it’s a murder inquiry, so it’s definitely Mack’s case.”

“Yeah, it’ll be Mack’s case, not my case,” she pointed out.

“But the cold case on her missing father,” Nan suggested, “is still there. So you need to get your deputies on that. I’ve already talked to Mary here, and she gave me the 4-1-1 on the neighbor. Now tell us what to do next.”

Doreen sat up straighter. “So, did Mary speak to the neighbor about any other information regarding the circumstances surrounding Lynda’s missing father? Do we have the neighbor’s name? Do we have anything?”

“I have it. Somewhere I have it. I have it.” Then she started reading off all kinds of information.

Doreen groaned. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on now. I’m not even out of bed yet.”

“Why aren’t you out of bed? It’s 5:30 in the morning.”

Doreen looked at her phone. “What? Why on earth are you calling me so early?”

“This is important, Doreen. You know that we’re off and running to the races now on the cold case of Jack Mahoney.”

“If you say so,” Doreen muttered. She reached for a pen and paper beside her bed and said, “Okay, give me that neighbor’s name again.”

“Right.” Then Nan repeated all the info she had gathered from Mary, her fellow Rosemoor resident. “And Jack Mahoney is a name connected to Kelowna.”

Doreen scribbled down the last note, asking, “How’s that? I thought he was traveling for hundreds of miles, related to selling his cattle or his quarter horses, and just happened to meet his daughter in Merritt, before he took off down the road.”

“Because he had one home here—and probably more residences in other places too. Anyway, Lynda, the daughter, last saw her father at Merritt, where they met for coffee because she was working on a big ranch out of that area. Her father was coming to see a friend nearby. Or wait, maybe that wasn’t the reason. I can’t remember.”

“Why would Lynda work for another ranch when her father has one in the family?”

Nan shrugged. “Too bad we can’t ask her. Doesn’t seem she was estranged from her father. Maybe Lynda had a boyfriend who worked there in Merritt, and so she hired on there too, just to be close to him.”

Doreen snorted. Leave it to her eightysomething grandmother to have sex on her mind. Doreen sighed and got back down to business. “So, how old was this woman, Lynda, who died? I thought we were talking about someone who was younger, so how could her father have disappeared some two decades ago?”

“She is young compared to me,” Nan noted. “I think she’s fortysomething, and she supposedly last saw her father about twenty years ago.”

“And now we can’t ask her to confirm that.… So tragic that she passed on,” muttered Doreen.

“Yes, of course,” Nan replied. “And goodness knows that could happen to me any day.”

Doreen pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes, it could, but, then again, it could also happen to me.”

“And that’s why we have to do everything we can to help this poor woman in her quest to find her father. Apparently she never regained consciousness.”

“Oh boy,” Doreen muttered. “Okay, so does anybody else have information on her father?”

“That’s the trouble. Apparently Lynda last saw her father in Merritt some twenty or so years ago. When he missed a scheduled call to her a couple days later, she looked all over this area but never found him. She reported him missing to the local police, who have been looking for him too. So this was an active current case at the time. Yet still nothing has come to light, even after twenty some years. So Lynda came back up again just the other day to try to find something out herself.”

“Hmm. She must have had some new information to prod her into coming up here.… And now she’s dead,” muttered Doreen.

Nan asked, “Didn’t you say you might have a body?”

“No, I did not say I have a body,” Doreen clarified. “The farmer Milford out in the Joe Rich area thought a person might have died in one of his garden beds many, many years ago because he saw so much blood in the bed. But we need confirmation from the lab that the dirt contains human blood, not like a deer died there or whatever. And yet everyone I’ve talked to says the chances of anyone being able to tell is nonexistant as too much time has passed.”

“That would not help us,” Nan muttered.

“But back to Lynda, we do need to find out who shot her and to figure out what happened to her father. And, if we figure out what happened to her father, chances are, we’ll figure out what happened to her—or vice versa.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Nan continued. “Ooh, you’re right. You’re so good at this. We expect you down here for coffee in thirty minutes—or forty-five, so you can brush your teeth and get dressed and can walk over here.” And, with that, Nan disconnected.

Doreen groaned, flopped back onto her bed, and muttered, “What on earth?” She’d created monsters. She knew that. Although it might make them all feel good at Rosemoor to have a meeting, this was way too early for Doreen. She got up, dragged herself into a hot shower to shake the cobwebs from her brain. As soon as she got downstairs to the kitchen, she made a small pot of coffee and poured a cup as soon as she could.

She wasn’t even sure what she was supposed to do with this news and was struck by the fact that Lynda’s family had just had another major loss, and nobody should forget that. That poor woman had died trying to find her father. Somebody needed to find him and to pick up the threads, particularly if it had anything to do with the daughter’s death. In her mind, Doreen couldn’t imagine how it wouldn’t be connected, one way or another.

But why after all this time did Lynda return here? Unless she had come to some enlightened answer as to what had happened and then decided to contact someone herself. What if her contact person was the same one who shot her? Then her father going missing might explain why she’d been shot, but Mack wouldn’t like Doreen’s assumptions because they were just that, assumptions. She looked down at Mugs.

“Assumptions they may be, and, if that’s the case, we need to do something to get some proof. No way this poor woman should have died, just trying to find answers regarding her missing father, who she loved.”

Armed with caffeine in her system, a notepad in her pocket, and bundled up against the cold, she apologized to her animals for leaving them behind, then headed down to Nan’s, hoping for answers. She expected nothing but some overly excited elders, with little hope of verifiable information. So, as soon as Doreen was done visiting with them, she planned to head to the library to see what she could dredge up there.

She arrived at Nan’s apartment to find Nan, Richie, and Maisie all sitting there, waiting for her impatiently. Richie appeared to have gone to the main kitchen area and had stolen at least a dozen treats. She looked at the treats, frowned at him, and he beamed.

“Hey, we need to get our brain cells firing.”

“And sugar does that for you, does it?” she asked in a dry tone.

He grinned. “I’m far too old to worry about the damaging effects of sugar,” he declared. “I get to eat whatever I want to now.”

“Personally I think that’s a good idea no matter what age we are,” Doreen added, with a laugh. When she sat down, Nan poured her a cup of coffee, then shoved the basket of goodies toward her.

“Eat something,” Nan ordered. “We don’t want you fainting from hunger.”

Doreen nodded. “I didn’t have any breakfast.”

They all gasped, and the basket was up-ended onto her plate.

“You have to eat,” Maisie scolded.

Doreen looked at the three of them and sighed. “You do know that I’m old enough to take care of myself, right?”

They looked at each other, then back at her and shook their heads. “We know that, but that doesn’t mean you’re doing it.”

Doreen groaned. “Okay, let’s change the subject and turn our attention to this poor woman who died.” With her notepad out, she began, “So let’s make sure all four of us are on the same page and go over the facts here. What’s her name?”

“Lynda Mahoney,” Nan replied.

“Lynda Mahoney.” Doreen put a checkmark by her name in her own notepad. “And her father?”

“Jack Mahoney.”

“Jack Mahoney.” Another name checked off. “And he was in Kelowna when?” she asked, turning to look at them.

They looked at each other, then at her. “When what?”

“When did the father go missing?” Doreen repeated.

Nan nodded, searching through her notepad. “We don’t know that exactly, but more than twenty years ago,” she stated. “And we don’t know exactly where he went missing from.”

“We’ll hopefully find that out from Mack’s files,” Doreen muttered and made a note of that. “Has anybody talked directly to this neighbor about the shooting?”

“Nope, not yet.”

“Okay, do we have a number, so I can go talk to her?”

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Nan stated. She pulled out her phone and started texting.

“Who are you texting?” Doreen asked.

“I’m texting Mary, the resident here, who knows the neighbor.”

Before long a knock came on the door, and a woman with a walker made her way inside.

“Mary,” Nan said, “this is Doreen.”

“Of course, Doreen,” Mary replied, with a bright smile. “I’m so excited to be invited into this group.” She beamed with joy, as she faced Nan. “You promised me a hat, you know?”

“You promised information,” Nan replied craftily. Doreen, her gaze going from one to the other, opened her mouth, but Nan shook her head. “Don’t you worry about that now,” she said, with a wave of her hand in the air. “Mary has information about the neighbor.”

“Okay, let’s start with that,” Doreen began, knowing that getting sidetracked wouldn’t be helpful right now. “So, who is this neighbor?”

“Her name is Shirley,… Shirley.” Mary stopped and frowned. “I don’t remember the last name.”

Doreen nodded. “That’s okay. I’ll find it.”

“Oh, good,” Mary said. “You’re really good at that stuff, aren’t you?”

“I would like to think so, but it seems to be a lot harder these days.”

“Ooh, I’m sure it is. Criminals are getting much smarter.”

Nan grimaced. “If they get any smarter, we will all lose out.”

Doreen asked Mary, “Now, what did Shirley say, and what’s her phone number? Do you have her address? I’ll need a heads-up as to what she told you happened.”

“I already contacted her this morning and told her that Lynda Mahoney passed away early this morning. Shirley is pretty scared to go outside right now.”

Doreen frowned. “I thought the police considered it a targeted shooting, so she and her neighbors should all be safe.”

“Yes, but that’s a should , and nobody wants to listen to a should .”

“Right, that’s a fair point,” Doreen conceded. “Okay, so I need to make a trip up to see her.” Doreen frowned as she looked down at her notepad. “So, she’s saying Lynda Mahoney was here, looking for her father, Jack Mahoney. Do we know anything else about her father? Does Shirley know anything about what Lynda was looking for and why Lynda’s father may have gone missing?”

“I don’t know any of that,” Mary admitted. “The neighbor Shirley was a little cagey on the phone, as if she didn’t really want to say too much.”

Doreen frowned at Mary and asked, “Does Shirley live with someone?”

“She lives with Old Man Simmons,” she shared, with a grin. “And he’s cranky.”

“So maybe he wasn’t letting her talk.”

“Oh, I can see that,” Mary agreed. “He’s cranky.”

“Okay, when people are cranky, they usually have a reason of some kind.”

“Yeah, but he’s always been that way,” Mary noted. “I don’t think he needs a reason.”

“Okay then, I’ll go see if I can talk to her and this cranky old person.”

“Good luck,” Mary offered. “I really admire that you’ll do that.”

“Is he dangerous?” Doreen asked, looking at Mary.

The woman frowned back at her and shrugged. “Don’t know. I don’t think he’s killed anybody.”

“Do you know if he works?”

“Yes, he does.”

“Perfect. Let’s hope I can get there while he’s at work then, shall we?”

“That’s a very good idea,” Nan agreed. “I think we should come with you.”

“No, I will take my team, the animal team,” Doreen butted in. “We all know how much the animals break the ice for everybody.”

“That’s true,” Nan confirmed. “Very true.”

As soon as Doreen left, she headed home to get her car and her animals and then sent Mack a text about her plan to talk to the neighbor.

He called her and asked, “Why?”

“Because we heard that the woman died this morning—Lynda Mahoney—after being shot while looking for her father. So, of course, the gang thinks I should now look for the father.”

“Of course they do. You do know that we are looking into that as well?”

“Good,” she replied. “I’m not sure I can do this one on my own. Anyway, I’m just letting you know that I’m going to talk to Shirley today.”

“Good enough. Go ahead and talk to the neighbor. We’ve already talked to everybody, but you’ll share any information you get, right?”

“Of course. Just be prepared that it’ll probably not be information that you particularly like.”

“It never is,” he muttered, with a groan.

She laughed. “Do you know anything about that area?”

“Not particularly. Why?” he asked.

“Supposedly this woman’s husband is cranky.”

“Cranky how?” he asked, his tone sharp.

“I asked Nan’s source if he was dangerous, and the woman told me that, as far as she knew, he’d never killed anybody.”

“Good Lord,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you would say,” she teased.

“Keep out of trouble today, will you?” he admonished.

“Plan to,” she added, with a bright smile, even though he couldn’t see it. “Hey, give me kudos for calling and letting you know.”

“Yeah, great . If I get a phone call about some woman harassing the locals,” he pointed out, “I’ll know just who that is, won’t I?”

“I never harass anybody,” Doreen declared.

“Ah, I’m not so sure about that.”

“Of course you aren’t,” she replied, “but it’s really not what I do.” And, with that, she disconnected.

Just as she went to load up her animals in her vehicle, a knock came at her back door. She walked over and opened it to see the two boys standing there, a soaking wet lump in their arms. “Goodness,” she gasped, as she stepped back to let them into the house. “What are you guys doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“Yes,” Gavin began, “but then we found this.” And they held out a wet mop.

She looked at the mop and realized eyes glowed up at her. Then it whined. “Oh, my goodness,” she exclaimed. She dropped her purse and keys and looked down. Mugs was sniffing all over it. “This is a puppy. Where did you find this puppy?”

“Up the river,” Gavin moaned painfully. “Somebody just dumped it.”

“People will be people, and a lot of people,” she began, as she turned and looked at them, “seem to hurt animals.”

Gavin flushed and shook his head. “I never would have hurt him.”

“Please,” Randy spoke up, “can’t you help this one?”

“I don’t know. It looks as if he needs to see a vet. He’s really, really cold.”

Gavin nodded. “We need you to help.”

Randy added, “Please, you help the other animals. Can’t you help this one?”

“I don’t even have a vet,” she muttered. “That reminds me that I need to make an appointment for Mugs to get his shots again.” Mugs, hearing vet and shots , turned around and raced away from her, deeper inside the house.

The boys frowned at her, while watching Mugs’s reaction, and asked, “Did he understand what you said?”

“Probably. That dog is nothing if not supersmart.”

“Wow, it’s as if he really did know what you said,” Randy muttered.

“Yeah, he sure did,” Gavin added.

She accepted the wet mop and became concerned when she felt how cold the little dog really was. “Look, boys. I will get him to a vet, but you guys need to get to school. Do you hear me? Who knows? You might want to become a vet one day so you could help these animals.”

“Do you think we could though?” Gavin asked, eyeing her.

“Why not?” she asked. “You’ll need some kind of job, and you might as well do something with your life that you enjoy. And, if it makes you feel good to help animals, that would be a great thing to do.”

“I don’t think I have the smarts for it,” Gavin admitted. “He might,” he added, pointing to his friend, “but not me.”

She studied Gavin and suggested, “You absolutely have the smarts for it.”

“Maybe, but I don’t have any money for college or whatever.”

“Those are all things you can work out later,” she suggested. “First off, get your butts to school, and you do your very best as a student, while you think about this puppy all day. I’ll get him to the vet, and we will see what happens. I’ll probably have to drop him off and leave him there overnight or so, as it will take time to warm him up. I’ve got to go out myself right now. If you come by after school, I’ll let you know what the vet told me, okay?”

And, with that, she shooed them off, hoping that they would go to school. She looked down at the poor little guy in her arms, still shivering. She wrapped him up in several dry towels, pulled out her phone, and called the office of the vet she’d already checked out for getting Mugs’s shots when the time came. As soon as someone answered, she explained what had happened.

“Oh my,” the receptionist replied, “bring him right in. He’s probably hypothermic, and we’ll need to get him warmed up.”

“Thank you. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She loaded up the animals, and, with the puppy half on her lap and half not—knowing that, if she were pulled over, she would be in trouble—she quickly made her way down to the local vet. As she parked in front of the building, Mugs hunkered down in the back seat.

“I know,” she told him. “You’re all concerned about you today, but not everything is about you,” she explained. She headed inside, leaving Mugs, Goliath, and Thaddeus in the car. As soon as she and the puppy got inside, one of the receptionists looked up. Doreen explained who she was and held out the puppy she had wrapped up in towels.

Taking one look, the woman exclaimed, “Oh, what a sweetheart.”

“Can you please check him over and see what can be done for him?” Doreen asked. “The little boys who found him are quite distraught. I think I persuaded them to get to school, but they were pretty upset about this little guy.”

“Of course we will,” the woman stated. “I’m really glad they brought him to someone who could help.”

Doreen shrugged, then laughed. “They brought it to me, so they must have known I wouldn’t leave the poor thing to suffer.”

“Of course not,” the receptionist agreed. “We’ll get him warm and dry, then do a full check-up. Let me get your name and number, and we’ll get back to you.”

Hating to leave the poor little thing, Doreen looked back several times as she walked out, and the woman called back to her.

“We’ll look after him. I promise.”

With a sigh, Doreen nodded. “I know. I’m just being foolish.”

“It’s all right. It just shows you’ve got heart,” the woman replied. “We’ll take good care of him and will be in touch soon.”

Doreen headed back to her car with mixed emotions.

She didn’t know what she would do if she ever lost Mugs, but she hoped that, if he ever got lost, somebody would have the compassion to look after him until they could find his home. She didn’t know whether this poor little guy the boys had found had a home or not. It was hard to say what had happened, but Doreen was supposed to be heading out to talk to Shirley, when she got a phone call from Jerry.

As soon as she saw the number, she groaned, “Hey,” she greeted him. “Am I late?”

“No, not at all. I was just checking to see if you were still coming.”

“On my way right now,” she stated, embarrassed she had forgotten. “Be there in five.”