Swan for the Money(56)

“I’m sure he will.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I kept my doubts to myself.

Mother spotted some new arrivals and went to greet them. I strolled over to talk to Dad, who detached himself from the other guests when he saw me.

“She didn’t make it,” he said.

“Mother told me,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“She never really had a chance. So what are your thoughts on the case?”

“That we should be staying out of Chief Burke’s hair so he can solve it,” I said. “At least until after we get this rose show over with,” I added, seeing his disappointed look.

“Poor Sandy,” he said, with a sigh. “The miniature rose categories will be pretty sparse without her.”

“But not the entries for the Winkleson Trophy,” I said. Not that I cared, but maybe I could distract him. “Who else is entering? Besides you and Mrs. Winkleson, of course.”

“We won’t really know till tomorrow,” he said. “Most of the rose club members have been saying they don’t have anything worth entering. But of course, everyone’s going to say that before the show, about nearly every category. You don’t want to jinx things.”

“Don’t you pretty much know who else is hybridizing?” I asked.

“Yes, but the way she worded the trophy language, it’s an odd category. The seedling class is for roses hybridized or found by the exhibitor, and in most shows, every other class requires that you enter only roses that are of ARS approved varieties. The Winkleson Trophy is for the darkest rose grown or hybridized by the exhibitor. Very unusual. Not ARS approved.”

“Why word it that way, then?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Molly Weston’s theory was that Mrs. Winkleson was hedging her bets. Making sure she could enter a commercially available rose if her own hybridizing efforts didn’t pan out.”

“She’s probably right,” I said. “So that means even if Matilda is darker than any of the other new hybrids, you could all be beaten out by someone who has a particularly good specimen of, say, Black Magic.”

“Precisely,” Dad said. Then he frowned. “Have you heard someone talking about their Black Magic roses? That’s one of the darkest around, you know. I’ve been using some of them for my breeding stock.”

“Mrs. Winkleson has some in her rose beds,” I said.

“You’ve seen her rose beds?” Dad asked eagerly. “She hasn’t let anyone from the garden club see them.”

“Apparently she’s a little paranoid,” I said. “She’s got them locked behind a twelve-foot chain link fence with razor wire on top.”

“Oh, my.”

“Keeps the deer and goats from eating them.”

“I can understand that,” Dad said. “I may have to move my roses farther from the house so I can put up a fence tall enough to keep the deer out.”

“You can’t just fence them in where they are?”

“Your mother isn’t keen on the idea. Not very aesthetic. Though now that they’ve attacked my last Matilda bush, she might feel differently.”

“Did the deer definitely kill the bush?” I asked. “Or just eat all the flowers you could possibly have exhibited tomorrow?”

“They may not have killed it outright,” he said. “But they did so much damage that it’s going to be touch and go whether it survives. And it’s the only Matilda bush I have left. The deer got the other two last fall, back when I was still calling her hybrid number L2005-0013. Ripped them out, roots and all, and ate every bit.”

He shook his head sadly.

“Mrs. Winkleson isn’t taking any chances on that happening to her roses,” I said. “I wouldn’t bet on your odds of getting her to let you inside, but you could probably learn more than I could peering through the fence. I can see taking stern measures to keep out the deer and goats, but why would she be so protective of her rose garden that she’d take such extreme measures to keep everybody out?”

“Maybe she’s growing them indoors,” Dad suggested.

“Is that a problem?”

“It is if she’s exhibiting them in a show,” he said. “Against the rules. You can only enter roses grown outdoors. And if she’s growing her entries in a green house, she wouldn’t want anyone in her garden to see what is and isn’t there.”

“True,” I said. “But I haven’t seen any signs of a green house. Just rows and rows of roses. Are there any other rules she could be breaking?”

Dad thought about it for a moment.