This time Rina’s smile was genuine. “Actually, it sounds wonderful.”
“Great! Let’s get to it!” Decker picked up the paper and headed for the compost pile. One Sunday Times would make a week’s worth of excellent mulch.
Tuesday from twelve to two had been earmarked as Rina’s weekly get-together with Cecily Eden, and she couldn’t wait to tell her elderly friend about the newly built greenhouse. Rina was pretty sure that, to celebrate the construction, Cecily would insist on giving her all sorts of plants and would spurn any proffered payments. In order to offset this inequity, Rina had come to her friend’s house armed with a plate of chocolate-chip cookies fresh from the oven.
As usual, she walked up the driveway to the backyard gate and automatically turned the knob. This time she found it locked. Usually, Cecily left it open when she knew Rina was coming. It was good that the old woman was finally taking precautions. Rina would often scold her: “You shouldn’t be so trusting, Cecily.”
The old woman would laugh. “At my age, what does it matter? If anyone breaks in, he can take whatever he wants.”
Backtracking over the driveway, Rina went around to the front door. Cecily lived in a ranch house built in the fifties, what Realtors called midcentury style. Her kitchen and bathroom still had original tile, and her furniture had lived through enough years to be considered retro. The old woman kept the place spotless. Having worked with germs all her life, she was a stickler for cleanliness.
The structure wasn’t much bigger than a bungalow, but the property was over a half-acre. Rina rang the bell, and when no one answered, she rang it again. She knocked but still got no response.
Strange, Rina thought, because she knew that Cecily was expecting her. As she was about to walk away, almost as an afterthought, she gave a quick jiggle to the knob. She was shocked that the door yielded with the turn of her wrist.
The gate was locked… but the door was open.
Instinctively, Rina knew that something was wrong. She should have called Peter, but what was the sense of disturbing him at work before she had proof that things were amiss? As a lieutenant, Peter had his hands full of mishap and mayhem. She didn’t want to add to the mix unless necessary.
“Cecily?” she called out. “It’s Rina. Are you home?”
She stepped inside a tidy living room abloom with spring flowers-roses, lilies, irises, daffodils, tulips, and Cecily’s prized orchids. The couch had been upholstered in old floral fabric that looked something like wisteria vines through trellises. Two wicker chairs sat opposite the sofa. The carpet was green; the walls were peach-colored and plastered with botanical artwork-plants and flowers rendered in oil paintings, watercolors, crayon, pencil, charcoal, pastels, every possible drawing medium. Some were good, some were bad, and lots were mediocre. It was hard to enjoy any individual work, because there were so many of them hung chock-ablock. Still, Rina was always effusive when Cecily presented her latest acquisition picked up at a junk shop or flea market.
I’ve been collecting them for years, Cecily would say.
Again Rina called out the old woman’s name. When she didn’t get an answer, she began to worry, although nothing seemed out of place. She walked through the dining room, setting the cookies on the table, and went into the kitchen. Maybe Cecily had been called away suddenly. Rina knew that the old woman had two grown daughters and several grandchildren. Cecily had mentioned them in passing; nothing extensive, but nothing to indicate that the relationships were strained.
“Cecily?” Rina walked through the kitchen and laundry room, then out the back door. “Cecily, are you home?”
It was mid-May, and the garden was in full bloom, a riot of colors and heavy with fragrance. Cecily had divided and subdivided her lot, creating ecosystems and microclimates connected seamlessly by pathways and lanes. She had placed her rose gardens, bulb gardens, and cutting gardens where there was an abundance of sun and some partial shade. Tucked into a back corner was the Zen garden, with a pavilion and a small fishpond covered by barely visible netting that kept out the predators- stray cats, squirrels, raccoons, and herons. The other corner housed her greenhouse. The orchard took up the rest of the space, giant avocados providing shade for aromatic citrus trees. In the center was the rare Chinese sacred tree. A year ago, Cecily and her gardener had built a bench around its trunk. It was one of her favorite spots for reading and relaxing.
It was there that Rina discovered the body.
Gasping, she rushed over and felt for a pulse-for any signs of life-but she knew it was hopeless. There was no heartbeat and no breathing. The pupils were dilated and fixed, her empty eyes brazenly staring into the sun. Still, Rina called 911. Then she called her husband.
The investigator from the coroner’s office was named Gloria, a woman in her mid-thirties who had recently come to the profession. Wearing traditional dark scrubs emblazoned with CORONER’S INVESTIGATOR in yellow, she got up from her kneeling position and snapped off her latex gloves. She looked at Rina. “Do you know if she had any health problems?”
Rina shook her head.
Decker said, “Find anything sinister other than the bruise on her left temple?”
“Nope, and the bruise was probably caused by her falling and hitting her head on the ground. Nothing to indicate blunt-force trauma. She was an old woman. She must have had a doctor.”
“Henry Goldberg,” Decker said. “He’s a cardiologist. I found out his name from one of Cecily’s daughters. He’s on his way.”
“Great,” Gloria said. “I think I’m done here. You can go over the body if you want, but I’m feeling that she died of natural causes. If Dr. Goldberg feels comfortable signing off on the death certificate, that’s fine with me. That way the next of kin can call up the funeral home, and they can come pick up the body. If not, have the guys bring her to the morgue, and one of our doctors will sign her off.”
“No autopsy?” Rina asked.
“Not unless her physician or her children demand it.”
“Thanks,” Decker said.
“You’re welcome, Lieutenant.”
After Gloria left, Decker turned to his wife. “What have you been waiting to tell me?”
Rina bit her thumbnail. “It’s probably stupid.”
“It probably isn’t. What’s bothering you?”
“Cecily usually unlocks the back gate for me when she knows I’m coming. I tell her not to, but she does it anyway. This time she locked the gate… but the front door was unlocked. I find that odd.”
Decker agreed. “What do you know about her family?”
Rina shook her head. “Two daughters. The elder one is married with children.”
“Edwina Lettiger.”
“Yes, Edwina, that’s the one. I didn’t know her last name. Cecily would mention her occasionally, usually in connection with her grandchildren. The younger daughter is Meredith. I don’t know a thing about her other than her name.”
“Did Cecily ever talk about tension between her daughters and herself?”
“No. Why?”
“Between you and me, I looked around the house. Everything’s neat and in place.”
“Cecily was tidy. She used to say it came from years of working in a lab.”
“Except one of her bedroom dresser drawers wasn’t shut tight. A piece of a sweater was wedged between the drawer and the framework. It was a heavy sweater. You know how warm the days have been. Why would she be looking in her sweater drawer?”
“Maybe it’s been wedged that way for a long time.”
“All the other drawers were shut tight. This one drawer doesn’t fit with her image as tidy, does it?”
“Maybe she just never noticed it. You probably wouldn’t have noticed it if you hadn’t been looking.”