Free Never Sleep With a Suspect on Gabriola Island by Sandy Frances Duncan, George Szanto Page B

confines of the discipline to millions who found delight or solace or enlightenment in remarkable hybrids. For she had bred a black Chrysanthemum morifolium.
    Her excitement had been muted by dear Artemus. Mostly he thought and acted as she did. Now Artemus had struck out on his own. And screwed up.
    Tam would have gone first to Jenny or Gretchen or Betsy, whatever her name was this month. Usually, Rose didn’t interrupt him in town, the boy needed to entertain himself. She consulted her watch—4:30, by now he’d be at his dojo .
    She double-locked the inside door, wheeled her chair through the trough of disinfectant and along the track beside the carnations. This generation was so gloriously slowed, the flowers had bloomed ten weeks late. Rose drew her cellphone from her pocket and called Tam in Nanaimo. A female voice explained he was in the midst of warm-ups. She left a message.
    She rolled to the outside door, drew it closed behind her, and turned off her phone. She settled squarely into the chair. She’d not done this since the morning she found Roy. Poor Roy. Damn Roy. She grabbed the turning rail, burnished oak, and concentrated on its warmth. Felt one with the chair, her spine its spine, its wheels her legs, she and the chair a single energy. The chair and Rose thrust forward onto the asphalt. Her lungs screamed, “YyiiiYyy!!” She was rushing ahead, hard as her hands could pull at the wheels, fierce as the wheels could draw from her hands, around the circular drive, around again.
    She’d given birth to the cry in her first triathlon year, a triple trumpeting: to the water as she rose from her dive, to the wind as she mounted her bike, to the hills as she started her run. Her coach had warned her, the cry was a waste of breath. She knew it doubled her energy.
    Around a fourth time. Till, her heart pounding, the chair slowed to a stop at the path to Tam’s cabin. She breathed in to the depths of her lungs. She glared at the ground. What was Roy doing here at night, what got him killed? She’d checked the greenhouse right away. All had been in order. Roy, a good worker, finally just another handyman, a human being sure, but as a gardener replaceable. And hiring detectives? Let the police earn their pay. Having the Mounties on the case was bad enough, but at least they were respectful.
    She still breathed hard. Slower in her recovery time, but not too bad. She studied her hands. Wrinkles by the knuckles, blue veins too. Old woman’s hands. Better than her useless legs. But she wouldn’t vegetate! Vegetating was for plants. She laughed aloud. Eighteen years ago even Artemus thought she was half finished, vegetable from the waist down. He’d bought her a cat, a rag-doll. The beast climbed onto her lap and lolled there. Artemus had assumed—and feared—that a cat was all her lap was good for. Hah! She’d hated that cat. Like she hated dwelling on her past. Slowly she rolled her way along the pergola to the house.
    Artemus stuck his head out the doorway. “Tam’s on the line, dear.” He handed her a cordless phone.
    She stared at Artemus. She felt a sudden pang of warmth toward him and took the receiver. “Hello.”
    â€œExercising, were you?” Tam asked.
    She saw Artemus’ small smile as he turned and disappeared into the house. “Spying, were you?” Tam hadn’t called her cellphone? Oh yes, she’d turned it off.
    â€œCan you talk?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDid A. unhire him?”
    â€œThem. Artemus agreed the detectives—two, the other’s a woman—weren’t necessary. But as soon as they appeared he changed his mind. Again.”
    Tam swore under his breath. “They smart?”
    She realized she didn’t know. “Not particularly.” Added, “The woman seems cleverer than the man. And younger by maybe ten