“I know. Don’t worry about insulting me. I’m too old not to have come to terms with what I am. Did anyone explain why this unusual thing was happening?”

  “No, and some people were pretty upset. I overheard one of the waiters complaining that the people with reservations were being treated like second-class customers, but Charles said that many of the women coming to the meeting were not only community leaders, but they were some of the best customers that the Inn had. And he’s right about that. Alissa Anthony eats dinner here at least once a week. And Mr. Spinoza eats lunch here regularly. I could go on and on.”

  “So you can understand why Charles agreed that the party could take place?”

  “I suppose so. It’s just that it was really very unusual.”

  “Do you think that the reasons Charles gave were enough reason for the party to be held?”

  “I guess so. What else could there be?”

  “I wish I knew,” Susan said. “Do you know why Charles isn’t here today?”

  “Personal reasons.”

  “That’s what you heard?”

  “That’s what was written on the day sheet. Have you seen the day sheet?” she asked, reaching under some copies of Gourmet that were on the desk.

  “I haven’t even heard about it.”

  “Here it is.” She handed a computer printout across the table.

  Susan read for a few minutes before making any comments. The page began with a note that Charles was going to be gone for the day for, as she already knew, personal reasons, and named the two people, a waitress for the dinner crowd and a waiter at lunch, who would greet the guests and take care of any problems that might develop. It continued to explain that the most unusual thing to take place that day was that a church group from a neighboring town was scheduled to have brunch in the porch room. A final paragraph was dedicated to the specials that the chef had prepared and his explanation of any special ingredients. “This is amazing. Who writes it?”

  “Charles.”

  “And it’s the same format every day?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they saved?”

  “Sure. It helps to avoid repetition. Do you want to see the one for Thursday?” she asked, her hand on the desk drawer anticipating the answer.

  “Yes.” Susan reached out, and a similar sheet was placed in her hand. It took her less time to go through this one. “The party that night isn’t mentioned here.”

  “I don’t think it was even planned until around lunchtime. I know that I came in at the regular time, around one, and the place was in an uproar trying to get ready for the evening. Tables were being rearranged, extra appetizers and desserts were being ordered.… There’s a lot of extra work when an event like this takes place.”

  “And you’re sure that it wasn’t planned when this was written?”

  “Positive. I think Charles writes them the night before, but he frequently does an update in the morning. Chefs discover that there’s something new and fresh on the market and frequently want to change their specials. Sometimes large parties make reservations early in the morning—not parties as large as this, though. And Charles turns down parties of a dozen or more if they don’t give enough notice. But lunchtime is not the time that this type of thing happens.”

  “And when did this party get put on the schedule?”

  “I’m not completely sure, but I think just before I got here, just before one.”

  “And the plans were made by Horace Harvey?”

  “Yes. Do you have any more questions?”

  “No, you’ve been a big help,” Susan said, standing up. The other woman had been doodling on the desk’s blotter, and Susan was astounded to see that her scribbles displayed the same distinctive capital letters as the note that had been slipped to her during her meal with James Malarkey.

  THIRTEEN

  “I had forgotten all about it,” Susan said, rummaging in her copious purse. “Ah … here it is.”

  “Maybe you should read it to me so I don’t crash the car,” Kathleen suggested.

  “It doesn’t make any sense. That’s probably why I forgot. It doesn’t really go anywhere as far as I can tell.”

  “We’re almost at Tillie’s house. Are you going to tell me what it says?”

  “ ‘Please help him. He’s innocent and he can’t prove it.’ ”

  “And does that mean anything at all to you?”

  “Nothing. I guess the writer means that one of the men involved in this case didn’t kill Horace Harvey, but I don’t see how that idea gets us anywhere.”

  “Unless you’re sure that waitress wrote it—why didn’t you ask her about it when you were there?”

  “I’m not positive that she wrote it, but I’m sure I’ll be talking with her again. While I was there, it occurred to me that the Inn itself is more significant than I first thought.”

  “Maybe,” Kathleen begrudgingly agreed. “But we’re here. We can talk about it after we talk with Tillie.”

  They had arrived at a charming small Tudor home on a quiet cul-de-sac.

  “Wow.”

  “That’s what everyone says.” Kathleen agreed with Susan’s assessment. “You know, I took my mother to Holland the spring after my father died, but I don’t think the bulb displays there had much on Tillie’s yard.”

  “It’s beautiful. Do you think she’s here?”

  “It’s a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. I don’t know Tillie well, but I have a hard time imagining her anywhere else but her garden on a day like this.”

  “And you’re so right about that.”

  Susan and Kathleen turned toward the speaker. The man coming around the corner of the house was wearing chinos, a light blue turtleneck, and a well-worn Harris tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. The pipe poking up from his breast pocket spoke the word professor before Kathleen said, “Professor Greenleaf, it’s nice to see you. I don’t know if you remember me.…”

  “I do. Kathleen Gordon. One of the most beautiful gardeners to join H.E.C. as well as the woman who has been such a kind friend to Tillie for the last few days. I’m glad to see you. I’ve wanted to thank you for everything you did for us.”

  “I think your lawyer did a lot more than I could. We’re here to see Tillie. Is she free?”

  “She’s out back, in her garden as you guessed. Just follow the path. And please, let me thank you again. You were a good friend when Tillie needed one desperately.”

  Susan and Kathleen followed the brick walkway around the house. Either side was lined with mounds of tiny blue and white grape hyacinths. Next to the house, multicolored primroses fought with narcissus for space in the dark loam. Baskets hung from eaves, full of ferns and red species tulips. Susan stopped exclaiming and just enjoyed the view.

  Tillie Greenleaf was sitting on a wooden lounge, a trug of garden tools at her feet and stains on the knees of her chinos, betraying the work she had been doing since dawn. She got up to greet her guests, putting a smile on her face. “Kathleen. Susan. How nice to see you.”

  Susan waited until Kathleen and Tillie had exchanged greetings before she asked any questions. She would have liked to wait all day. How was she going to ask this nice woman the questions that James Malarkey had given her? Everything was so personal: How long had she known her husband before they got married? Where did they meet? Where did the money supporting their lifestyle come from? Susan looked around the yard that ended down with a tiny elegant glass gazebo by a pond. Maybe being a professor paid better than she imagined.

  Or maybe she shouldn’t ask about those things. What possible difference could they make to the murder investigation? Except, she reminded herself, it was possible that Tillie still was the main suspect, and as such, anything about her life that James Malarkey was interested in was worth more than a second look. She leaned back in the chair and looked at the budding trees against the blue sky. She must have dozed off, because it took Kathleen more than a few minutes to get her attention.

  “Susan? Are you asleep?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “Kathleen says you have some questions to ask,” Tillie reminded her gently. “You don’t have to worry about offending me. The most important thing now is to find out who killed Horace Harvey.”

  “Detective Malarkey wanted to know some things about your past,” Kathleen started.

  “About your past with your husband,” Susan added.

  Tillie Greenleaf smiled slightly and picked up a piece of trailing ivy. “Some things just never go away, do they?”

  “Maybe you should talk directly to Detective Malarkey?” Susan suggested.

  “I’d rather talk with you and Kathleen. God help me, I hate that man.”

  “Would anyone like some lemonade? And maybe, Mrs. Henshaw, it would be easier for me to answer questions about my life with Tillie than for her to do so.” Professor Greenleaf appeared with a large tray in his hands.

  “Dear …”

  “Let me,” he insisted, sitting down next to his wife. “I think what the police are interested in is my war record—so to speak. You see, I was a draft resister, and I was imprisoned for more than three years in the beginning of the Vietnam War. I met Tillie there. She was a visitor to the prison. Tillie is a Friend … Quaker, if you will … and she was very involved in her prison work. She’s a lot younger than I am, of course. She was a senior in high school when I met her. We were married the afternoon of her graduation from Swarthmore. It had been a long five years. The courts then were not entirely sympathetic with the plight of prisoners of conscience. I was not incarcerated in what people now call country club prisons. I was in a maximum security prison with murderers, rapists, and the like. Possibly a better man than I am would have studied these people and searched for a way to understand and possibly change their miserable lives. I chose to continue my studies of English literature. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Donne in prison.”

  “And that was not an easy task under the circumstances,” his wife insisted.

  “The experience changed both our lives. Tillie was happy at Swarthmore, but she chose to go there to be close to me. And I guess I naively thought that was going to be the only permanent change in our lives stemming from my original decision, but I was wrong.”

  “What happened?” Susan asked.

  “I couldn’t get a job. The most liberal colleges and universities didn’t require my services. I’d always wanted to be a college professor. I’d always expected to be a college professor. I had, over the years, received a lot of support—verbally—from my colleagues and mentors. But they all forgot about me when I was finally released from prison. Politically correct is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the middle of the road.”

  “But I thought you were a university professor,” Kathleen said.

  “I was, but never in the ivy-covered walls that I had envisioned. A relative of mine got me a job as an assistant at a small offshore medical school—there was a feeling that there should be a humanities course or two thrown into the science curriculum. I shouldn’t complain. I was lucky to get it. And in time and with a lot of publishing credits, I did manage to move to a fine little school in Texas, and from there to a university in the Midwest. I had a nice life there and my share of professional respect. But the only ivy I’ve ever come to know intimately is that which my good wife has planted.”

  Susan wondered how she was going to ask about anything as crass as money when he had just been so honest with them.

  “My mother had been a widow for years, a fairly wealthy widow, to be honest, and when she died, we moved to Hancock. I was going to continue my writing, but it’s not always easy to do what we intend to do.”

  “We have a lovely life here,” Tillie said in a firm voice. “A lovely life. I, for one, wouldn’t change it for the world.” She turned to the others. “My husband made a decision of conscience, and it changed his life. But he had the courage to make the decision and the courage to live with the result. I am very proud of him. Very proud. And, as he said, I am a member of the Society of Friends. I would not take the life of another for any reason. I don’t expect a man like Detective Malarkey to understand that, but I know you both do.”

  “Thank you,” Kathleen said, understanding the compliment.

  “Do you have other questions for us?” Professor Greenleaf added.

  “I don’t think so, at least nothing that Detective Malarkey asked us.”

  “I have a few questions of my own, if you don’t mind us intruding more,” Susan said somewhat reluctantly.

  “We will answer anything. You and Kathleen know that Tillie isn’t guilty. I have found that it doesn’t do to depend on receiving justice from our judicial system. I appreciate the time and effort you’re willing to put in to prove my wife’s innocence.”

  “Were you at the Inn with your wife Thursday night?”

  “No. I do not have a green thumb and I’m not active in H.E.C.—although my wife occasionally co-ops my aged back for digging and spreading compost. I was, if I may anticipate your next question, at an ale-tasting party at a tavern in Norwalk. I consider myself something of a beer connoisseur, and I was happy for the opportunity to taste the products of the new smaller breweries. I came home rather late, and Tillie was picked up by the police almost immediately.”

  Susan took a deep breath and asked the question she had been dreading. She looked straight into Tillie Greenleaf’s eyes. “Why did you say you were glad that Horace Harvey was dead?”

  Tillie glanced at her husband. “Did I say that? I was so surprised by his death that I probably didn’t know what I was saying.”

  Susan decided to skip it for the moment. “Apparently everyone in town knows that white lilacs are your favorite flower,” she began. “And you said that there was some blooming in your greenhouse right now, didn’t you?” She glanced down at the glass house at the end of the yard as she spoke.

  Tillie got up. “Do you want to see it?”

  “I’d love to,” Susan answered quickly.

  “You two go ahead. I’ll entertain Kathleen while you show off your pride and joy,” her husband suggested.

  “He’s bragging, in a sense,” Tillie explained, starting off. “The greenhouse was a birthday present from him—and he designed it as well.”

  “It’s really wonderful. It looks like one of those little glass houses that people have in England.”

  “That’s what it’s supposed to resemble. But it’s very practical. Triple-glazed, solar as well as gas-heated … et cetera, et cetera. I know that I bore people when I start talking about gardening.”

  “Do you take care of all this by yourself?”

  “We hire people for the heavy work, but gardening is my second love—right after my husband—and I’m inclined to become jealous when someone else is doing what I can do.”

  They had reached the greenhouse, and Tillie opened the many-paned door into the interior. “Wow. Aroma therapy,” Susan said, taking a deep breath.

  “That’s the lilac.” Tillie nodded at the large flowering bushes on either side of the doorway. “And probably some of the citrus trees …”

  “Citrus trees … ?” Susan was so impressed that she was about to forget what she had come here for. She gathered her thoughts while Tillie explained the nature of the plants in her orangery.

  “You didn’t come here just because you’re interested in the plants, did you?”

  “No,” Susan admitted. “I was mainly interested in whether or not someone could break in here and steal some flowers without anyone detecting the break-in.”

  “You mean the lilacs found in Horace Harvey’s pocket, don’t you? Well, the answer is, as you can see, that it is more than possible. There are no locks on the doors; anyone could walk in and take whatever they wanted. We didn’t think security would be a big problem when we had this built.”

  “Of course not,” Susan agreed. “It really is beautiful.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Did Horace Harvey ask any questions about you or your husband as well as H.E.C.?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. His approach to picking the group to receive his inheritance was unusual, but the process of looking at the organization was completely professional. He checked out our bank statements, looked at the parks, asked what I would have thought were the right questions.”

  “Tillie …” Susan hesitated.

  “Go ahead,” Tillie insisted with a smile.

  “Did you know Horace Harvey before?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Susan stared at the garden wonderland around her. She believed Tillie Greenleaf, but … things just weren’t making sense.

  Susan had been to Alissa Anthony’s house many times, but she had never been left alone in the room that Alissa referred to as her own private green room.

  “This is the most extraordinary place,” Kathleen was saying, leaning over the leather tuxedo couch to read one of the dozens of framed clippings that hung on the deep green silk-covered walls. “ ‘A sensation! —the Hancock Gazette. Alissa Anthony was a theatrical success last weekend in an original version of Empress Jones.’ They’re kidding!”

  “What?” Susan turned away from some rather garish watercolors of turn-of-the-century costumes.

  “Listen to this! ‘Ms. Anthony’s sensitive depiction of Empress Jones as a white feminist—’ ”

  “Alissa, I’m so glad you could take the time to talk with us,” Susan interrupted Kathleen, hoping her enthusiasm would cover anything sarcastic that was about to be said.

  “I’m very busy today.” Alissa used both arms to lift her abundant hair off her shoulders, thus decreasing at least one burden on them. She flung herself on the chaise lounge that, together with a large ornate Victorian papier-mâché table, seemed to serve as her desk and chair, and continued. “Of course, I’m always busy. I thrive on work. Simply thrive on it. Like a small orchid struggling up toward the sun, like a moth to the flame, like Icarus flying to the—”

 

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