The Gardener's Plot by Deborah J. Benoit

Author:Deborah J. Benoit
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Chapter Fourteen

I retraced my steps, peered through the peephole, undid the locks, and opened the door.

Sally stood on the doorstep holding out a large box.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Darned if I know,” she said. “I found it on the porch. Family didn’t hear the delivery guy when he knocked—all busy playing some new video game down in the family room. Anyway, it’s not ours. See for yourself.” She pushed the box into my arms.

I took the box, flipped it to check the label. “Ah, my I’m a Gardener order!” I moved back into the room. Sally followed. I set the box on the desk and grabbed a box cutter from the desk drawer. “So why did he leave it at your house?”

Sally reached over and tapped the label. “A simple typo. They transposed the house number.”

Sure enough, the label read 86 West End Lane rather than 68 West End Lane. This wasn’t the first time it had happened. Still each time it did, I was glad I had a neighbor who redirected my packages promptly. Of course, I did the same when I received Sally’s packages and mail. Tit for tat.

I pulled the flaps back on the box. And stopped.

“Something wrong?” Sally asked. “Not what you ordered?”

I stared at the box, but my thoughts were far away. About twenty-four hours away. “What if this package wasn’t the only confused delivery?” I said slowly.

“Are you missing something else? I can ask Denny and the kids. I suppose it’s possible they forgot to say if there was another package.”

“No.” I shook my head, turned to look at her. “That’s not the kind of delivery I mean. What if”—I took a deep, shaky breath, gathered my thoughts. I didn’t like where this particular train of thought ended. I hesitated a moment as though saying the thing would make it so. “What if the person the police were after Sunday night, the one they used the dog to track to your mulch pile and the bloody shovel hidden there, what if that person got mixed up and thought your yard was mine. Eight-six or sixty-eight. One house next to the other. An easy mistake.”

Sally stared at me unable to say a word.

“What if the shovel was meant to implicate me in Carl Henderson’s murder?” There it was. I’d said it out loud, and it didn’t sound nearly so paranoid or far-fetched as I’d expected. It sounded plausible, real. It sounded like a threat.

“There has to be another explanation,” Sally said.

“Like what?”

Sally shook her head. “How should I know? It must have been random. A convenient place to hide a shovel. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out why someone would choose my yard of all the places in town to stash that thing.”

“And now we have a reason,” I said softly.

“Maybe you’re wrong.”

“I don’t think so.” I ran my hand over the open flaps of the box. Life in the garden was so simple and straightforward. Well, most gardens anyway.

“You could leave town for a while,” Sally suggested.

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