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

Epilogue

A Couple Days Later…

D oreen poured a cup of coffee and stepped out onto her deck. It was not quite mid-January and still too freaking cold. She didn’t know what she was thinking, but she continued to hold on to that misplaced hope that it would warm up at least a little bit, so she could sit out here comfortably. Still she couldn’t stop smiling as she’d heard from Nate who’d given Gavin the best New Year’s gift ever—he was going to be able to keep the puppy. The two had a serious talk and had come to a compromise where Gavin would be responsible for looking after the puppy, as well as keeping his nose out of trouble and his marks up as his part of the bargain. Nate would cover the cost of keeping the puppy as his part of the bargain. It seemed like both were happy with the deal. She was thrilled.

Mack stepped up behind her. “Why are you out here in the cold?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered. “It’s just funny that I still want to sit out by the river right now. The only reason I like winter is because I know that very quickly it’ll be spring, and we can enjoy being outside again.”

“And by then you’ll have a huge appreciation for the nice weather too.”

She smiled and nodded. “Good point.” She leaned back against him.

“My brother’s been trying to get a hold of you.”

“Of course he has,” she replied noncommittally.

“And is there a reason why you haven’t responded?”

She shrugged. “No. No reason other than the usual, which is that I’m busy,” she replied. “It’s been a crazy ten days, you know? And I haven’t told him about this case.”

“Ah,” Mack said, with a note of amusement in his tone. “Even he will be impressed. I think you solved, what, three cold cases all at once? Plus, my current murder case. Believe me that the captain is just crowing.”

She sighed. “At least then maybe he won’t argue so much about the cost of DNA testing in the future.”

“I wouldn’t count on that. He likes to argue. Besides, you’ve solved so many of the cold cases already, so how many more DNA tests could you ask for? Although… another one bothers all of us. Maybe one day we can get there.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“A case of bones in a box. A baby’s bones,” he began. “We have the box, and we have the skeletons, but not much else. They’re still on a shelf at the coroner’s office.”

“Oh my,” she muttered, twisting around to look up at him. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “Yes, they were found in a yarrow patch, a very long time ago. I don’t even have the details, but the captain brought it up, wondering if maybe it was time for that poor case to be resolved. Just rehashing that one case hit all of us pretty hard.”

“And yet you don’t remember much.”

“No, I don’t. I was just a youngster at the time of the original find. My mom might have more answers about it than I do. But, if you’re interested, the captain told me to give you the file and to let you run wild.”

She looked at him in delight. “Seriously? You’re not joking?”

“No, I’m not joking. I would say the captain is a happy camper and must be to invite you to rummage around, settling these cold cases.”

“I do cost him money though.”

“You do, indeed,” he agreed, with a laugh, “but that’s okay.”

“A baby? That’s sad” she asked.

“Yes, and ”—he winced—“it sounds terrible, but there are definitely bite marks on the bones.”

“Of course,” she said. “Anytime bones are left out in the wild, that could happen. And yarrow? It runs wild everywhere around here.”

“Does it?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes, it does, especially in these parts. I’ve seen quite a bit of it and wondered about picking some for tea.”

“You can drink the stuff?” he asked her.

“Absolutely. It’s good for all kinds of ailments. I’ll take a look at the case, though the thought of a baby dying is just heartbreaking.”

“I know,” he muttered.

Then she giggled and quickly stifled it.

“What?” he asked suspiciously.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” she said. “I’m going to the burial this weekend. Are you coming?”

“You mean for Rose to have a proper funeral? Yes, and I guess we’ll have one for Jack too.”

“Yes, now that he’s been dug up from Milford’s zucchini bed,” she muttered. “Who would have thought that Poppy could do that?”

“They had farm equipment at the time, remember? A tractor. She just used the bucket and worked away at it, I presume, all in Milford’s absence. It’s what I would do.” He nodded. “I guess it’s what all of us would do, and, being out in the middle of nowhere like that, there was a certain level of privacy.”

“But what about Jack’s vehicle?” she asked Mack. “He had to get there somehow, right?”

He frowned at her. “I have no idea.”

Doreen suggested, “I bet Poppy drove it off in the middle of nowhere and just left it parked there or maybe drove it into the lake and sunk it there.”

“Maybe. I can check to see if we’ve got any abandoned vehicles found in that area.”

“Oh, you keep track of those things too?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.

“No, not always, it depends on the circumstances,” he replied. “Much more can be done now with the advances in technology, but, back then, not so much. Yet, if we find a vehicle, and it’s in the way, we’ll tow it in. Often they are held for the legal owner.… Poppy was smart and devious. I guess we’ll never really know the whole truth about Rose’s sister.”

“Maybe not, but I’m guessing that, if nothing else, Poppy walked away when her pregnant sister needed help.”

“Maybe,” Mack agreed. “It sure sounded as if there was absolutely no love lost between them.”

“No, not at that stage,” Doreen pointed out sadly. “It seems there’s only so much love when it comes to jealousy between siblings, and, once somebody crosses the line, well, it’s all over.”

“Yet I’m not sure what it would take to cross that line.”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but I can guarantee you that Rose did it.”

“And what would that have been?”

Doreen sighed. “I would assume Rose seduced Milford, the man Poppy loved.”

“So, Poppy gets rid of her sister and took over Rose’s identity, in order to have the man Poppy loved?” he asked, with a headshake.

“Yeah, and that just deepens the mystery about Rose. Nobody really knew what happened to her because they didn’t need to know. Poppy took over Rose’s identity, and she could say that her sister Poppy had moved to Alberta or Vancouver or wherever, and nobody would be any the wiser.”

“Smart,” he repeated, with a nod, “but also devious.”

“Poppy didn’t always choose wisely, but I guess it worked because she got Milford, and she got to die in peace in the arms of the man she loved. She sure left him a heck of a mess to clean up afterward.”

“And yet I wonder if he was ever intended to find out the truth. She probably assumed he would stay there on his own farm and maybe never would even find that journal.”

“I would like to think that she meant for him to know something at some point in time. Otherwise why bring up the zucchini patch? Why press him to find out about the blood there? Why even write out her confession?”

“Maybe so, but I suspect that she couldn’t stand the thought of his hating her, even then, even after her death. Or finding out the truth beforehand because, what if, when she needed him the most, he found out the truth and left her?”

“That may have been Poppy’s greatest fear,” Doreen whispered.

He wrapped his arms around Doreen and asked, “What was that laugh about earlier?”

She smirked and looked up at him. “Well, I just closed out the Zonked in the Zucchinis case.”

He rolled his eyes. “You don’t know he was zonked .”

“I’ll bet you that the autopsy will prove he was hit with a shovel or a pitchfork to the head. You know that means he had to have extremely drunk, or exhausted or blindsided to have been taken out by her… So zonked at the time.”

He groaned. “Okay, that’s quite possible, but that still doesn’t explain your laughter.” She looked up at him and giggled again. He smiled. “What?”

“We now have yarrow.”

“Yeah, what about yarrow?”

“And we have animal bites. That means animal sounds…”

“Yes, so?”

“ Yipped in the Yarrow ,” she cried out triumphantly.

“Oh Lord, I’m so sorry I asked.”

Instead of continuing that ridiculous conversation, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.