Free Hearse and Gardens by Kathleen Bridge Page A

what did the church think about Gordon Miles’s claim? What if they already gave the money from the sale to some missionaries, or helped the homeless, or invested in some other altruistic project?
    I hadn’t told my father that my preliminary hearing about Little Grey was scheduled for today, at four thirty. I’d finally be able to set my sights on Gordon Miles, and let my gut tell me if he was a good guy or bad.

CHAPTER

NINE
    I left the cottage an hour before my scheduled court appearance, wanting to stop off at Little Grey to make sure someone hadn’t left me another present, like the pitiful seagull. I took the path to the back of the folly, wanting to do a little foraging of my own. I had some annual herbs on their last legs. Elle called me the Herb Whisperer because I talked to my plants. Didn’t every gardener?
    I carried an antique flower basket on my arm, amazed something so old could still be useful. My rosemary bush was out of control. I couldn’t even find the marjoram I’d seen on the day of the strangled gull. And, of course, the mint had taken over, per usual. Sometimes I thought early botanists made a mistake classifying mint as an herb—it was more like a weed. However, nothing was better than a few leaves of chocolate mint in your peppermint tea.
    When my basket was overflowing, I lifted the wroughtiron Chinese cricket by the door, retrieved the key, and went inside. When I’d first found the folly, I had to use a machete to clear the way. The key had winked at me as soon as the first ray of sun hit metal. Divine providence. At least to my way of thinking.
    Officially, a folly is a structure with no purpose, decorative and frivolous in appearance. Mine was built in the Queen Anne style. It was once painted white, and had large-paned glass windows with all the early bubbles and streaks of late-nineteenth-century glass. Over the doorway was a fan window in a starburst pattern. Once I held the deed to the land, I’d turn the folly into either a potting shed or a design studio—sometimes I lay awake at night fighting with myself over which to choose.
    I turned the key in the door and entered. It was just as I left it. A cot folded in the corner, a kerosene lantern, which gave off an amazing amount of light, enough to finish the entire collection of Victoria Holt books I reread this past summer in homage to mine and my mother’s love of Gothic suspense novels. Where my land stood was sometimes called the Montauk Moors because of the thirty-foot-high cliffs—just like in my Gothics. It was still a dream of mine to visit Cornwall, England—until then, Montauk would do nicely.
    The folly décor was kept simple. I used mostly found items. I’d brought in an aqua carriage house door, worn and faded by years of salt air and sun, that doubled as a tabletop. I’d placed it over two large electrical spools I’d liberated from the side of the road. The iron garden love seat, which was piled with cushions and pillows made from vintage fabric, had been sitting next to the fire pit at theedge of the property. Outside the folly was Elle’s small gas grill I’d borrowed, not a big deal, seeing she hadn’t taken it out of the box. I even had an outdoor potty, The Watercloset, which I’d purchased from a swanky local party supplier. I was the first person to buy one outright—not rent it for an outdoor Hamptons gala.
    When I left the folly, I swept pine branches across the path to hide my trail, like the Montauketts of yore, not wanting anyone to suspect it was my hideout.
    On my way to the Jeep, I went up the front steps of Little Grey, tiptoed across the wide plank porch floor, and peered inside. Everything looked copacetic, except for the salty-wound notice barring entry to the cottage by order of the East Hampton Town Police Department.
    *   *   *
    When I arrived at the courthouse and walked up the steps, I