Free Murder Crops Up by Lora Roberts

Being the target of a gossip campaign was hard enough without adding Rita’s death into the mix. “There are things going on—”
    “I won’t interfere. And Aunt Molly says Uncle Bill has frequent-flyer miles he never uses, so she’s going to give me enough for a ticket. I’ve never flown before, do you realize that?”
    “Many people have never flown before.” Including me. I contemplated the wonder of getting from Denver to San Francisco in two hours instead of three days of hard driving—hard on Babe, at least.
    “You don’t understand, Aunt Liz. I have to get away.” Usually she was levelheaded and sunny. But just then, Amy sounded downright hysterical. “I just can’t be here with her right now. I hate her so much!”
    Renee, Amy’s mother, was often at loggerheads with her daughter. Renee was not a sympathetic woman, and although she adored Amy, her love took the guise of constant nagging and worrying. If she’d agreed to let Amy come visit me, without insisting on coming along, it was a sure sign that she’d reached the end of her rope.
    Amy waited, not saying anything. I capitulated.
    “Okay. Come on out. But be prepared to work. I’ve got a lot of fall digging to do.”
    She didn’t gush her delight, as I expected her to. “Thanks, Aunt Liz,” she said, her voice small. “You’ll never know what this means to me.” She hesitated. “I’m going to get my plane reservation now. Can I call you back soon with the time?”
    After Amy hung up, I reviewed the conversation and found it worrisome. I didn’t feel equipped to cope with teenage needs and angst, and frankly didn’t want to face any of it. But perhaps it wouldn’t involve me. I’d provided a place of refuge for Amy before, and certainly I could respect her privacy in a way that seemed impossible for Renee to do. If my niece had had a painful love affair or flunked one of her accelerated classes, I wouldn’t pry. Whatever it was, she couldn’t be any worse off with me than in the bosom of my caustic family.
    Since I had to wait for Amy’s call back, I made myself at home. Drake’s house is larger and in better shape than mine. The back door opens right into the big kitchen, which gleams with his collection of well-kept cookware. He’d replaced the appliances and cabinets a couple of months before, and added vinyl flooring embossed to look like Mexican pavers, but much easier on the occasional dropped dish. Meticulous order prevailed. I liked that.
    His telephone and answering machine were on a small desk near the door, along with neatly labeled binders of recipes, a messier one of phone logs, and a folder jammed full of scraps of paper that were in some mysterious way important. The answering machine’s blinking light indicated a message. I do not like telephones, but I do like answering machines. They keep callers at a distance, they lessen the intrusion.
    Drake keeps a notebook for recording my messages, as well as a log for his. Since I don’t get that many messages, I assumed the one on his machine would go in Drake’s log, not mine.
    The message was for me, from Drake. He’d already heard about the contretemps at the garden.
    “Dammit, Liz, you are some kind of trouble magnet. Don’t go poking around into this one. I don’t care if you know every person in that garden like the back of your hand. Just stay out of it and let Bruno do his job.” He added, as an afterthought, “I miss you. I’ll call at eight tonight.”
    Not a message I needed to write down. I reset the answering machine and put on the kettle to make tea. Drake has a supply of my homemade tea bags in a glass canister near his stove. He’s a coffee man himself, though struggling to cut back his consumption. His chrome-laden Italian espresso machine didn’t make that easier. In the evenings he’d froth up a bunch of milk for his decaf cappuccino and my hot chocolate. It seemed luxurious to me, to sit sipping our foamy drinks, watching a video if we