A Good Year for a Corpse, page 1
part #7 of Susan Henshaw Mystery Series
A GOOD YEAR
FOR A CORPSE
A Susan Henshaw Mystery
Valerie Wolzien
© Valerie Wolzien 1994
Valerie Wolzien has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1994 by Ballantine Books.
This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
For my two Judys—
Judy Armstrong and
Judy Ryan.
For all their support.
Table of Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
ONE
Horace Harvey was unusually busy the week before he died.
He checked into his hotel late Saturday night.
Early Sunday morning, he treated the president, vice president, and secretary of the Hancock, Connecticut, chamber of commerce to brunch at the Hancock Inn. His appetite apparently unsatisfied, he proceeded on to afternoon tea in the home of the town’s mayor, followed by a wine tasting and meeting of Parks Are People, better known as P.A.P.
Monday he got an early start and was seen at the breakfast meeting of the F.O.P.P. (Friends of Potted Plants), where his Savile Row chalk stripe stood out among the loden green uniforms the group had tailored at great expense so they would be appropriately dressed while working. That afternoon he strolled through the extensive system of parks maintained immaculately by the H.E.C. (Hancock Environmental Committee), where specimen flowers bloomed among ecologically correct, water-retentive ground covers, where wildflowers blossomed, where pesticides were unknown, and where good bugs feasted on bad bugs. It was excellent exercise, and that night he dozed off during an awards dinner given by the board of the local historical society.
Sixty-seven-year-old men tire easily, and Horace Harvey was spied yawning more than once Tuesday during lunch with the organizer of the town’s amateur theater group. But later in the day, he attended an open hearing on noise pollution and development in Connecticut, enjoying a spirited debate between the chairman of Q.U.I.E.T. and the leader of H.O.P.E.
Wednesday, Horace Harvey was seen following the mayor around town hall, speaking with the professional gardening staff of Hancock, arguing with the custodian of the building where the theater group in town performed, leaning over a computer screen with the reference librarian in the historic files of the library, and, finally, sharing coffee and doughnuts with the acting chief of police.
He spent Thursday morning on the phone, arranging for the big meeting that he planned for that evening. No one knows what he did in the afternoon.
TWO
That afternoon Susan Henshaw was in her kitchen trying to grind coffee beans, talk on the phone, and figure out why the family’s new puppy seemed to prefer dirty paper towels to the expensive food their veterinarian had recommended. “Well, I guess I’ll have to drive over to your office before we leave. Thanks anyway,” she said into the receiver. Hanging up the phone, she noticed that the papers covering her large pine kitchen table were shifting in the wind.
It was a beautiful spring day, one of the first of the year, and the windows were open to catch the fresh breezes. “Hi!” Susan called out, seeing her friend Kathleen crossing the Henshaws’ mossy brick patio outside their back door.
“Hi, yourself,” Kathleen responded, entering the room and dumping three large paper bags on the tile countertop next to the door. “Fabulous day. I thought you’d be outside walking the dog.”
They both turned and looked at the mound of fur lying in the corner of the room. One light beige ear was soaking in a large personalized ceramic water bowl.
“I see you decided on a name,” Kathleen commented. “Does she really look like ‘Spike’ to you?”
“No. Jed didn’t notice that the bowl was printed when he bought it—you know how husbands get in unfamiliar stores. And the poor animal still doesn’t have a name. Chrissy wants to call her Chelsea—which is definitely not politically correct. Chad keeps thinking of clever names like Dammit and Fart Face. Jed says we should call her Spot.”
“Why?” Kathleen asked, looking down on the eight-week-old golden retriever bitch. “There’s not a mark on her that I can see.”
“She makes them on the rug. Do you believe this? I think we’re going to have to start family therapy to get this thing resolved. It’s ridiculous.”
“What do you call her in the meantime?”
“Almost anything. She seems to respond more to tone of voice than any particular word. Maybe we should name her Sleepy—she drops off the second she walks in the door. She loves being outside, but I can’t leave her there. She keeps eating crocus—mostly the yellow ones. Do you think they taste different than the purple and white?”
“Lemon, grape, and coconut?”
“Sounds silly, doesn’t it?” Susan admitted. “But she’s so tired. Do you think they’re poisonous?”
“I have no idea, but I’ll ask Tillie the next time I see her. She knows the most amazing things about plants. And spring bulbs are one of her specialties. You wouldn’t believe…”
Susan chuckled as her friend continued. Kathleen had recently discovered the joys of gardening, and in Hancock, Connecticut, Tillie Greenleaf was the guru of the garden. Kathleen had removed the barrette that was stylishly confining her thick blond hair, and sat down, massaging the small of her back.
“Are you okay?”
“Between picking up Bananas and all this cultivating, my spine is getting more of a workout than it’s used to,” Kathleen answered, referring to her three-year-old son, Alexander Brandon Colin Gordon, by his nickname. “What are you doing?” she asked, peering over Susan’s shoulder.
“Trying to map out two short trips—to Boston and Washington, D.C.”
“Sounds like fun. When are you planning to get away?”
“Soon. Early next week. And it’s not going to be fun. I’m taking Chrissy to look at colleges. I’m not looking forward to spending all this time with her.…” She frowned at the papers in front of her.
“You two still feuding?” Kathleen was well aware of her friend’s anxiety over her daughter’s choice of boyfriend—as was everyone who knew Susan. For over a month, she had been loudly bemoaning her daughter’s infatuation with a young man whom she considered unsuitable.
“ ‘Feuding’ is not the word. She’s now talking about not going to college at all. She wants to stay here with Brian. She says that an artist doesn’t need a formal education—an artist needs to live. Of course, that’s Brian talking. He doesn’t want her to leave and stop buying gas for that dreadful Mustang he drives.… I just can’t believe this is happening to Chrissy. She has so much going for her. There’s no reason for her to ruin her life like this.”
“She’s not going to ruin her life. She just has a crush on someone you don’t like.” Kathleen repeated the same thing all Susan’s friends had been saying.
“I suppose so, but, you know, probably someone thinks that about every teenager who does something so stupid that it really does affect the rest of their lives.” Susan bit her lip and shuffled the papers in front of her. “Well, maybe she’ll see something at one of these schools that will make her forget Brian.”
“Of course. She’s such a talented artist, and once she gets to college, she’ll find out how much she has in common with the other students.” Kathleen went on, “You might actually enjoy the trips, you know. Boston and Washington are both beautiful in the spring. You’ll be right on time for the cherry blossoms in D.C., won’t you?”
“Maybe. Of course, there might still be frost in Boston. But this is silly. What’s in those sacks?”
Kathleen smiled and patted the top bag. “Thank goodness you asked. I was wondering how I was going to bring it up. It’s a complete set of the records of H.E.C.—Hancock’s Environmental Committee, you know. It’s the oldest ecological group in town—it’s been around since the beginning of the movement. H.E.C. was founded on the first Earth Day in 1970,” she said with pride, then frowned and continued, “and I don’t think anyone has done anything since then except take notes and stuff them into one of these three bags.”
Susan stared at the Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Grand Union bags, the contents of which were bursting over her kitchen counters. “It all looks very biodegradable,” she commented.
“I wouldn’t mind adding it to the compost pile myself,” Kathleen admitted. “But I have to organize the entire mess. It’s my job,” she explained further. “I’m the new secretary of H.E.C.”
“And what have the previous secretaries been doing?”
“Apparently storing the bags,” Kathleen answered with a shrug. “But I’m supposed to go through this stuff before the meeting tonight.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. It’s important. We want to be able to reply intelligently to any questions Horace Harvey asks about the history of H.E.C.” Kathleen was emptying the Saks bag as she spoke. Handwritten notes, typed sheets, crumpled receipts, a half dozen spiral not
“How did you get to be secretary of H.E.C.?” Susan asked, flipping through one of the notebooks.
“I was asked.” Kathleen opened one of the notebooks and glanced at the first page, frowning. “I haven’t been a member very long, and I don’t go to many business meetings, so I didn’t know about this mess. Usually I just help out in the parks since I can take Bananas along with me—in fact, that’s why I joined in the first place.”
“I remember you telling me about it last October.”
Susan had watched for a half dozen years while Kathleen adjusted to life as the wife of a widower in the suburbs. Not naturally domestic, Kathleen had often found it difficult to connect with the community. Capitalizing on her experience as police detective in the city, Kathleen had run a security business until the birth of her son. She had then tried out various service organizations before joining the fall bulb-planting parties that H.E.C. held in the town’s elaborate park system. “And I guess I was so flattered that anyone would think of me as an officer of the group that I didn’t stop to consider what I was getting into,” Kathleen explained.
“H.E.C. is a fine organization, you know. There have been hundreds of flowers and trees planted in the last twenty years by H.E.C. And because of H.E.C., Hancock had a professional recycling center functioning fifteen years ago. H.E.C. sponsors dozens of speakers and projects in the public schools. Hancock’s park system would be almost half the size it is presently if H.E.C. hadn’t been so active.… You probably know all this, don’t you?” she interrupted herself.
Susan had lived in Hancock for fifteen years. “I know some of it,” she admitted. “And I know that you all must have green thumbs. The parks are looking fabulous. I was just admiring those urns of pansies at the municipal center yesterday.”
“H.E.C. has nothing to do with any plants in pots.”
Susan looked up, surprised to hear the change of tone in her friend’s voice.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Kathleen added quickly. “I’ve picked up the prejudices of the group I belong to, I guess. You see, F.O.P.P. is our competitor.”
Susan blinked. “Fop?”
“F.O.P.P. Friends of Potted Plants. It’s a much smaller group than H.E.C.: they do nothing except plant and maintain the potted plants located in public spaces in town.”
“And the two groups are in competition? Isn’t Hancock large enough for everyone to carve out their own space?”
“We compete for financial resources. In this case, Mr. Horace Harvey’s financial resources, to be specific,” Kathleen explained.
“Oh.” Susan paused and thought for a minute. “I think I heard him mentioned recently. There were two women talking about him in the puppy socialization class that we’re taking at the high school. He’s planning on leaving a large sum of money to some civic organization, right? But I thought they were referring to something historical.”
“That probably would be S.O.D. It’s an organization that wants to save an old dump in town.”
“What old dump?”
“A colonial dump from pre–revolutionary war days. I don’t know very much about it. Apparently someone who lives down by the river was having an addition put on their house, and this thing was discovered when their backyard was being excavated. At least that’s the story I was told.”
“It must be huge. Hancock was a thriving community even in those days.”
Kathleen answered slowly. “I don’t think it’s that big. From what I heard, it’s just a small pile of buried rubbish. Tillie thinks that this is a case of much ado about nothing. She says it won’t cost a lot to excavate the dump site, and there really isn’t much general interest in town about it.” She frowned. “I mean, I think it’s interesting, but I was a history major in college.”
“So what is H.E.C. going to do with the money if Mr. Harvey gives it to you?” Susan was slightly amused at the conflict her friend seemed to be feeling.
“We’ll redo everything,” Kathleen replied enthusiastically, grabbing a pile of her papers before they tumbled to the floor. “There’ll be water gardens and wildflower meadows. The entire north section of Toad Hill Park will be turned into a walled rose garden with rare heirloom varieties. We’ll build an herb garden along the banks of the river, with a special section of aromatic plants for blind people to enjoy. And greenhouses will keep the parks open in the middle of winter.…”
“Heavens. How much money is this man giving away?”
“I don’t know. Apparently he has at least a million, and he plans on leaving it all to one organization. He grew up here, although he made his fortune somewhere else. But for some reason, he decided that he wanted to do something for Hancock. I suppose he was grateful to the town for the outstanding beginning it provided for his life or something like that.” Kathleen picked up the Grand Union bag and peeked inside. “This seems to be correspondence. Maybe there’s a letter from Mr. Harvey explaining it all.”
“Why don’t I look for it while you sort through that stuff?” Susan offered. She found herself intrigued by the situation as well as the man. The conversation she had overheard in her puppy-training class had convinced her that H.E.C. wasn’t the only organization that believed it deserved to be the recipient of Mr. Harvey’s largesse. In fact, two young women had seemed convinced that something called P.A.P. was very likely, if not certainly, the organization he had chosen to endow, so she was surprised by Kathleen’s next words.
“There’s very little doubt that Mr. Harvey has decided to give H.E.C. his money.”
“Really?”
“Yes. He came to a meeting a few days ago, and he was very enthusiastic. He spoke with Tillie privately after the group broke up and assured her that he was going to leave his entire fortune to H.E.C.”
“ ‘Leave his entire fortune’? You mean he’s talking about writing a will in favor of H.E.C.? He’s not going to give away the money immediately?”
“Exactly. It should all be explained in the letter. Have you found it?”
“Not yet.” Susan had been sorting the correspondence into a half dozen piles while they chatted. “How are you doing?”
“I don’t even know where to begin. There are maps of all the parks in town here, lists of plants bought, records of plants planted, tables of planting times, freeze dates.… It’s fascinating. When I have more time to look at it all, I’m going to enjoy it.” She got up and headed toward the coffee machine on a nearby counter. “Who would have thought that a city person like me would love gardening? Even Jerry has gotten involved. We’re going to have a vegetable garden in the backyard this summer, and he spent all day Saturday rototilling the spot. It will be so good for Bananas. Tillie believes that children should be exposed to plants at an early age.
“Want some coffee?”
Susan nodded, and Kathleen filled two mugs with the steaming brew and carried them back to the table. “I sure wish I knew what questions Mr. Harvey might ask. It would make everything easier.”
“Is he interested in gardening in a technical way? Will he want to see your plant lists? Or do you think he just wants to see the plans of what H.E.C. has accomplished in the parks?” Susan asked, trying to pin it down.
“Maybe the layouts of the parks,” Kathleen answered slowly. “Tillie didn’t say anything specific, but I got the idea that Mr. Harvey is less interested in what we do than in getting his name on it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He will only give us the money if we agree to put his name on a park. I think that might be the reason that he chose H.E.C. rather than a different organization. Wouldn’t you rather have your name on a park than on a dump—no matter how historical?”
In one of those coincidences that make life interesting as well as confusing, Susan was to hear more about Horace Harvey almost immediately after Kathleen departed to pick up her son. Sorting through the papers that her friend had promised to collect before dinner, Susan was still searching for the philanthropic letter when her phone rang.
