Vandals in the Vidalias (Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind #5)

Prologue

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Nan’s birthday party at Rosemoor the week before had been wonderful. Mack drove to Doreen’s house to retrieve Nan’s special birthday gift, placing it carefully in his truck bed before peeking under the wrapping. His expression had been wonderful to see. “Wow. She’ll love this.”

And Nan did. So did everyone else. Doreen felt so much joy to see her grandmother’s face light up, as she and Nan both loved their furry and feathered family so much.

Now, however, the weekend and the party were already a warm memory, and the drive to Vancouver was almost over. Her animals had been very subdued, which made the travel time nice. Mack pulled up into the long fancy driveway, staring in shock at Doreen’s former home.

“I know,” Doreen muttered. “Even looking at it now, it’s hard to believe I lived here for so many years.”

“And yet it wasn’t your home, but it should have been.”

“Right,” she agreed, giving him a bright smile. “It really wasn’t. It was a cage, but it’s still hard to go back in time and to face how long my marriage was and what my life was like here.”

Mack just waited in the truck as she dealt with all these memories, with all these emotions.

Finally she shrugged. “It’s fine.” She opened the passenger door and stepped out. “I can’t believe we’re here. It was a decently long drive.”

“You were looking at flying down,” he reminded her, “then changed your mind.”

She nodded and smiled. “If we had flown down, then we couldn’t have brought the animals.” She let Mugs out. He raced around, sniffing.

Mack smiled. “I guess this was home for him too, wasn’t it?”

“He certainly spent some years of his life here, yes,” she agreed, “but it’s not as if he cares. If he’s with us, that’s what’s important.”

Goliath got out, sitting right next to the truck tire, staring in disdain, as if not believing what kind of place they had brought him to. Yet he usually had that expression on his face regardless.

“What’s the matter, Goliath?” she asked. “I would have thought this would be right up your alley,” she said, with a snicker. “After all, it is fit for a king.”

Mack shook his head. “It really is, isn’t it? Good God.”

Then a tall man in a security uniform stomped up to them, asking, “Who are you people, and why are you here? This is private property. This is a gated community. How did you get through?”

Doreen smiled at him. “The gate guard, Amos, checked our supporting paperwork and IDs and allowed us in. You can check with Amos to confirm. So do you work for the Parkers?” she asked, pointing in the direction from which he came.

He frowned. “No. I work for the Smithsons, the new owners next door.”

Doreen nodded. “I’m the new owner of this property. My name is Doreen Montgomery. I was Mathew’s estranged wife and now in charge of his estate.” She pulled out her driver’s license to share with him. “And your name?”

“Jefferson,” he grumbled as he frowned, checked her ID, and then returned it to her. “Mrs. Smithson has seen a couple roaming around the property recently, and I attempted to speak with them, but they ran off instead.”

Doreen frowned at that, turning to Mack. “Interesting,” she muttered. Facing Jefferson again, she added, “This is my fiancé, Corporal Mack Moreau of the Kelowna RCMP.”

Another vehicle pulled up behind them, and Mack turned and smiled as Nick Moreau got out.

“Hi, Nick,” she greeted him. Turning to the guard again, she explained, “This is my attorney, if you wish to confirm these facts with him. Plus he can provide the name and contact info for the local probate attorney representing Mathew’s estate.”

The guard did take a moment to interrogate Nick and seemed satisfied with his answers. “Thank you for your time.” And then he promptly left.

Nick frowned at them both. “What was that all about?”

Mack suggested, “Why don’t we discuss this inside?”

Nick nodded. “Good idea.” He took another look at the mansion before him and whistled.

“Right,” she muttered, as she walked over and gave him a hug.

“Hey, my almost sister-in-law. How’re you doing?”

“Since we stopped at Merritt and had brunch together,” she teased, with a chuckle, “I think I’m doing just fine.”

“Good.” Nick nodded. “I wasn’t sure how this trip would go for you.”

“I’m fine. Besides, I brought Mack for support.”

Mack chuckled. “That’s me. I’m just here for support.”

“That’s a good thing too,” Nick noted, “because, on the way down, I did get a call from the Vancouver police.”

“Really?” she asked, turning to him. “What about?”

“Apparently you had some break-ins in the garden area. They couldn’t find any damage to the house or any entry points, but the greenhouse was broken into.”

She stopped and stared at him. “The private security man mentioned how those neighbors saw a couple, a man and a woman, walking around here recently. Drat. That was my little corner,” she muttered, her heart sinking as the realization hit her. “Wow, I hadn’t really expected to feel that.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Nick told her, patting her shoulder. “Let’s get you into the house, and we can look around while we’re here. The police do want me to contact them about it as soon as we have some answers for them.”

“Answers for them?” she asked, turning to stare at Mack. “How are we supposed to have answers for them? We just got here.”

Mack chuckled. “It’s vandalism, and it’s an unoccupied house. I’m pretty sure this is low on their list of crimes to investigate.”

“Right,” she muttered, raising both hands. “Why would they care?”

“You have to understand,” Nick explained, “that Vancouver is a massive city and that you are in a very wealthy area to boot. So they do want to touch base at least.”

She looked back at Mathew’s palatial mansion. She slowly walked up to the front door. “It still doesn’t feel real.”

“Of course not,” Nick agreed. “How long has it been?”

“I stayed nearby for just a month or two before I moved to Kelowna. That period is kind of a blur. It’s just over a year as he kicked me out just before Thanksgiving,” she muttered.

Nick nodded. “And look at how much your life has changed.”

At that, Mack put a gentle hand on her shoulders. “Do you want to go in alone?”

She faced him and frowned. “Heck no,” she muttered. “I still half expect Mathew to jump out of the woodwork at me.”

“Even though he’s dead and gone?”

“He may be dead and gone, but some things never die,” she declared. “I was a ghost of the person you know now while I lived here, and I really don’t want to go back to that timid existence.”

“And you won’t,” he declared cheerfully. “We’re here to take care of the business end of selling this house and its contents. That’s it. And, if you want to keep anything, we brought the truck, so you can take whatever you may choose back with you.”

Thaddeus poked his head out from under her hair and gave a massive whistle.

“Right,” she quipped. “Could have been yours too, you know?” she told him and then laughed. “No, it couldn’t. I refuse to live here. And, even in Mathew’s lifetime, he would never have allowed a bird in the house. Poor Mugs had a hard-enough time here.”

“Why?” Mack asked.

“He had to be perfectly groomed all the time. The maids were instructed to wash his feet each time he came inside from the yard. No jumping around or onto people. He was shut up in a room when we had guests over. No begging for food at the table, or he was shut up in a room again. No treats, except for those the staff and I snuck over to him. And, if he so much as passed wind, Mathew had him kicked out of the room immediately.”

Mack chuckled. “Mugs is much better off where he is now. It’s not as if a dog can control that.”

“No, but I’ve got to tell you that it seemed as if Mugs had this instinctive knack for doing it on purpose, whenever Mathew showed up.”

“Maybe it was his way of getting kicked out, so he didn’t have to deal with Mathew,” Nick suggested, chuckling. He handed over the keys. “I’ll let you do the honors.”

She stared down at them, made a face, and then turned to the front door.

Putting the key in, she unlocked it. Pushing it open, she stepped in cautiously.

Mugs raced past her, Goliath on his heels, both streaming down the hallway.

Mugs knew exactly where to go. “He’s heading for the kitchen,” Doreen shared, “in case you are wondering.”

“He’s not really expecting there to be food, is he?” Nick asked.

“There was always a stash of treats for him in one of the bottom drawers,” she explained, as she went in that direction.

She knew that the others were more or less following her, even as their shocked gazes stared around. She turned to them and admitted, “I know. It’s a little over-the-top.”

“A little?” Mack repeated, staring at her. “This is how you lived?”

“No, this is how I was caged, remember? Language is everything.”

He smiled at her. “You do know …”

“Don’t even say it,” she muttered. “If I wanted this life, I would have stayed. I didn’t want it even when I stayed for too many years. I certainly don’t want it now, don’t want anything to do with it.”

In the kitchen, she walked to the drawer that had always been full of Mugs’s treats. She opened it, expecting it to be empty, yet dog treats were right there. “I’m surprised they didn’t get rid of these.”

She pulled out a few and tossed a couple on the floor for him. He sat down and dug in. Goliath sat beside him, sniffing every once in a while, wondering what the heck he was chewing on but completely disinterested otherwise.

Catching sight of the attached greenhouse out the kitchen window, Doreen walked over to the ten-foot-tall double French doors, unlocked one, and pushed it open, stepping outside into the fresh air.

She loved this place still. It was a mix of screen panels and glass windows, so she had a wonderful space to grow things.

Seeing the damage to one of the nearby glass panels, she cried out and raced over to it. “Why would they damage the greenhouse?” she asked in shock.

“Depending on who it was and why,” Nick suggested, coming up behind her, “it could have just been maliciousness. A lot of people just want to destroy things.”

Mack checked this side of the double French doors. “While they seemed to have entered this area, I don’t see any forced entry into the main house itself.”

“But destroying the greenhouse is just so sad,” she whispered, as she stepped farther inside and looked around. “It’s such a beautiful space.”

“This is a greenhouse?” Mack asked from behind her. “No way. This is huge.”

She sighed. “I guess most people here would call it a conservatory.”

“Yeah, ya think?” he muttered, clearly astonished.

It was obvious to Doreen that he was really struggling with what she had as her former home. She added, “Remember that none of this even matters to me.”

“I’m working on remembering that,” he conceded, “but I have to admit, … it’s a shock. This exceeds anything I could imagine.”

Still, it wasn’t anything that she wanted him to feel bad about.

As she walked through the greenhouse, conservatory, or whatever Mack wanted to call it, it broke her heart to see the damage.

It was all fixable, yet it was senseless, and there was no need to hurt plants like this.

She sighed. “We certainly have to put this to rights before we can sell it,” she muttered.

Nick looked over at her. “Do you think it’ll make a difference?”

“A conservatory like this should be in its prime,” she stated, “and obviously it’s not.”

“That’s true,” he agreed. “Depending on how much it costs, it is something to take into consideration.”

“I would like it brought back to the way that it was meant to be, no matter the costs,” she explained.

“This was my space, Nick. Can’t you call the property manager who was hired by Mathew’s probate attorney?

Surely they can find someone with references and glowing reviews to properly restore this area. ”

Nick nodded. “Sure. I can do that. It was probably your only happy place amid all this … other.”

Doreen nodded, giving another long sigh.

“And maybe that’s why it was damaged,” Mack suggested, turning to her.

She stared at him in surprise. “If it was, … that would imply it was done by somebody who knew me.” She frowned.

“I doubt anybody here even remembers me anymore. I have no friends here.” She looked around again, shaking her head.

“It is sad …” Then she walked over to where the worst of the damage was, planted her hands on her hips, and stared.

Mack came up behind her. “Problems?” he asked her.

She turned to him. “I had Vidalia onions here. I kept them growing all year-round, so we always had fresh onions. I know it sounds silly, … but it was just one thing that I could do myself, and it was always a fun hobby.”

“Okay,” Mack replied. “So, what’s the problem?”

“This particular bed is where the worst damage is, and that makes no sense.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because the broken glass window where they entered the greenhouse is on the other wall.” She frowned, but then her eyes lit up, as a trickle of amusement slipped through her. “On the other hand,” she began, “I get that this is not exactly a case-case, right?”

“No, not a case, just vandalism.”

She chuckled again. “But maybe …”

“What is it that’s making you laugh about this?” Mack asked, perplexed.

She snickered. “Vandals in the Vidalias.”

“Hopefully that’s all that is going on here,” Mack noted.

That comment made Doreen study the bed closer again, gasping as she pointed. “Maybe not.”

He turned, and there—sticking out the far end of the garden bed—was something that didn’t belong. He leaned forward to get a better look.

She whispered, “Is that a nose?”

He frowned, turned back to her, with his gaze finally going to Nick, and Mack nodded.

“Yes, it is.”