The Good, the Bad, and the Emus(12)

But the herbs gave me the first clue that not everything was rosy in the garden. The perennials, including multiple varieties of rosemary, sage, thyme, mint, oregano, and lavender, were thriving, but annuals like basil and marjoram were represented by bare spots. Nearby a large space clearly once devoted to vegetables held only a few rows of beans and some tomato plants. In fact, throughout the garden, the perennials were going strong, and the annuals were either few in number or missing entirely. Clearly Cordelia had been the one who loved and slaved over the garden. Annabel and Dr. Ffollett were carrying on as best they could, but their hearts weren’t really in it, and it showed.

They were keeping up with the bird feeders, though. Another half-dozen were scattered throughout the backyard. Their perches were getting lively traffic from cardinals, chickadees, titmice, goldfinches, bluebirds, and a lot of birds that Dad would probably have identified in an instant as either familiar friends or rare and welcome visitors, but which I just lumped together as “small, nondescript brown birds.”

“Not much left, is there?” Stanley said.

I was about to protest that unless your gardening focus was completely on edibles, there was quite a lot left. Then I realized he wasn’t sharing my focus on the landscape.

He was looking at what remained of the shed.

My stomach tightened suddenly, and I wondered if this was really such a good idea. I stared at the debris. The shed had probably been about six by eight feet. The charred front wall was partly standing, and the rest of the building had collapsed into a jumbled pile of half-blackened boards and timbers, with bits of glass and shingles mixed in. The charred and now rusting hulk of the generator was clearly visible behind what had been the back wall of the shed. In life, its useful but pedestrian, boxy shape would probably have been hidden entirely by the shed.

And the whole scene was fenced in with a double row of crime-scene tape.

“Chief Heedles hasn’t yet taken the crime-scene tape down,” Stanley said. “Maybe we should check with her first.”

“She hasn’t taken it down because she never put any up,” Dr. Ffollett said. “That was her idea.” He nodded slightly toward the house. “Did you know you can buy that stuff on the Internet now?”

“Ah,” Stanley said. “Well, then.”

He lifted up one section of the tape and ducked under.

I tried to think of a good reason to be somewhere else. Surely there must be more clues to be found in the herb garden. Or a need for someone to walk nonchalantly up and down in front of the house next door, where Annabel’s chief suspect lived, and jot down any suspicious activity. I was almost hoping for a call from Natalie—as long as it wasn’t about something that would kick off another round of stitches.

Why was I so reluctant to follow Stanley into the ruins of the shed? Cordelia’s body would be long gone. I could easily see Annabel wanting to preserve any gruesome details of the scene, like a tape outline or other visible signs of where the body had been found. On the other hand, the ruins of the shed were uncovered, so time and the elements would have had a chance to soften everything.

But my grandmother died there. Never mind that I hadn’t known her, and that she, apparently, had been content to keep it that way. She was still my grandmother.

I glanced up at the house. I spotted Annabel peering out from one of the windows.

Get over it, I told myself. Cordelia’s body wasn’t here, and I would be damned if I was going to let Annabel think I was squeamish. I stepped forward, lifted up the tape, and followed Stanley—

Who wasn’t wading into the thick of the rubble, thank goodness. He was circling the ruins at a careful distance, peering closely at everything and snapping photos every few seconds with his digital camera.

“Where was Mrs. Mason found?” he asked.

“By the generator.” Dr. Ffollett pointed.

Stanley began to pick his way around the perimeter toward the remains of the generator. I stayed where I was for now and tried to picture the scene as it must have been six months ago. I remembered that big storm Annabel had mentioned. A foot of heavy, wet snow fell, knocking out all the power, and then temperatures in the twenties set in for the long haul. Not fun for our household, even with plenty of able-bodied family members to shovel and haul firewood. And Cordelia and Annabel were two ladies in their late eighties or thereabouts, living in a house that looked at least as old as ours and was probably just as badly insulated. I half closed my eyes and tried to imagine the scene. Night instead of day—though it would have been bright; I remember how useful it was having a full moon in mid-power-outage. Moonlight over the unbroken snow of the yard—wait.