Chapter Eighteen

Amber always enjoyed going to Stan’s parents’ house. They were still together, still happily married, and seeing the two of them together, in the same house they’d owned since they were married, next door to the house where she’d grown up, always made her feel grounded.

Still, a huge degree of sadness always weighted her down when she visited, even though she hadn’t lived there for seven years. She doubted she’d ever get over the loss. After she graduated from college her parents went to visit her mother’s family when her grandmother’s heath began to fail. Once there, they found they enjoyed the difference from tiny town to mega-metropolis and made the move permanent. Amber had been happy for them, even though she missed them terribly. The worst day of her life was when she got the call from her mother’s brother, Uncle Henry, telling her that her parents had been killed in an automobile accident.

If it hadn’t been for Stan and his parents, she didn’t know how she could have made it through that.

Even still, nearly every time she came to visit Kathy and Frank, Kathy pointed out the old garden shed that the new owners never did tear down. Her mother had marked both her and Stan’s height on it every year until they both stopped growing. As a child, it had been fun. As a teen, it got rather embarrassing.

Just like always, Kathy gave her a big hug when she walked in the door, which Amber often thought odd. Kathy didn’t hug her son when they visited, but she hugged her ex-neighbor.

“What brings you two out here? Did you find your little gnome?”

Like everyone else, the first thing people asked about was the gnome. So far, no one had asked about the trophy, which really was the most important of the two missing items. Every time someone asked, she had to assume that everyone thought that Gnorman and the trophy naturally went along as a set. The garden club members never really saw one without the other. When the trophy wasn’t in someone’s garden strapped to Gnorman’s hand, it was in a case at Pamela’s home. As president, she kept all the club’s archives. When Gnorman wasn’t proudly displaying the trophy, he lived in Amber’s backyard. Until he started running around town, of course.

Amber smiled politely. “We haven’t found him yet, but Stan and I think we’re close to finding out who’s been doing this. I wonder if you could do us a favor?”

“Anything.”

Stan stepped forward and held out the box he’d been carrying. “Amber made a special garden ornament shaped like a squirrel and some flowers, and she’s hoping to attract butterflies with it. We’re wondering if we can keep it in your yard for a few days to test it out.”

Amber quickly turned away so Kathy wouldn’t see her face. At first she had wanted to attract butterflies, but her creation hadn’t looked like it did now. She had a live Butterfly Bush in a planter, with the squirrel on the side reaching into the bush while he climbed the planter. Stan had switched the real plant with a jumble of wires and ceramic flowers meant not to adorn, but to mask. In the conglomeration of fake flowers, he’d hidden a small surveillance camera that transmitted to the receiver that was now hidden under the mulch in the planter, which used to be filled with potting soil.

At first they had planned to tell his mother what they were doing, but at the same time they both realized how much Kathy liked to talk. Amber had learned at a young age not to trust her neighbor with a secret because Kathy never could keep one. The quickest way to spread news around Bloomfield wasn’t to take out an ad in the Gazette, it was to tell Kathy.

They were pretty sure the Gnome Gnapper was a member of the garden club. If they told Kathy about the hidden camera, the Gnapper would know before sunset. Then, all their hard work would be for naught.

If Kathy didn’t know about the hidden camera, all they had to do was wait.

Kathy made a strange face at the sculpture, but Frank walked up to it and touched the ceramic flowers and poked at the wire supports. “Why do you think this would attract butterflies? They don’t look like real flowers, and they have no scent. I don’t think it’s going to work.”

Amber gritted her teeth. She’d told Stan that no one would believe it. She didn’t know much about flowers, but she did know about butterflies. However, Stan convinced her that only real wires would support the camera and keep it aimed where they needed it, and they needed a spot to hide the receiver if they couldn’t keep it in the house. The arrangement had become uglier and uglier as Stan worked to get it how he needed it. Now if anyone besides his parents saw it, she would faint again, only this time from embarrassment.

“I’m hoping the color will do it. If it doesn’t work, I’m going to change the colors until I get it just right.”

This time Kathy took a poke at one of the flowers, then touched the ceramic squirrel. “I don’t know about this.”

Stan gave his mother a huge, wide-eyed smile, something no mother could say no to. “Please? This is really important to us.”

Both his mother and father quirked an eyebrow at the same time, almost like they’d practiced, but Amber knew they hadn’t. Most of the time they didn’t have a clue that they both did the same thing at the same time, often finishing each other’s sentences. Amber had to wonder if it was a casualty of living together for so many decades.

“Us?” his mother quipped.

“Yes. You know how I’m always trying to help Amber with her garden. We think butterflies would make her garden happier. Also, if this works, she can make more so other people can put them in their gardens too.”

Amber tried not to choke. They’d rehearsed what they were going to say, but Stan was going way over the top with it. Especially since she’d seen better artwork at the garden club’s summer preschool craft program. There was a reason Stan was a mechanic.

Frank looked down at the project. “I don’t know. It really won’t match Kathy’s color scheme this year.”

“It’s really important to us.” Despite his father’s protests, Stan carried the statue into the backyard. Amber and Kathy watched while Frank disagreed with everywhere Stan tried to place it. She knew Stan was trying to aim the camera to take in the biggest scope of where the Gnapper could leave Gnorman, but she had a feeling that Frank wanted to get it as far out of sight as possible.

Rather than watch the father/son debacle, Amber followed Kathy back into the house to help make some tea.

“Please tell me that Stan put that arrangement together, and not you.”

Amber sighed. She couldn’t tell Kathy the complete truth, or they would never get to the bottom of the problem. “Let’s just say that I started it, and Stan finished it.”

“I don’t understand. He’s got much better taste than that. Look at his house. I have to admit I was surprised, but it proves he’s got a sense of style.”

Amber nibbled her lower lip. She didn’t want to say too much, but she couldn’t lie. “I might have helped him decorate his house.”

“Of course you did. We knew you helped him, but we never knew how much.” Kathy’s hands froze on the teapot. “Just exactly how much of his house did you decorate?”

“I think I’d rather not say.” Too late Amber realized that she’d said more with what she didn’t say, than what she did.

A silence hung while Kathy digested her son’s lack of artistic ability and failure to coordinate colors. Amber had helped him choose his furniture, and she’d coordinated the colors, both for his house and garden. The only thing she didn’t do was dress him. It didn’t take a lot of coordination to match jeans and a T-shirt and put coveralls on top.

Although, when they went to church on Sundays, and then on their non-date last weekend, he sure did look good, and he’d done that on his own.

Either he wasn’t as bad as he led her to believe, or he’d asked for help from the sales staff. Or perhaps he bought his outfits from the sale flyers and bought exactly the outfit pictured so that his good clothes were put together by the professionals who dressed the models for the photo shoot.

Next time he went shopping, Amber planned to ask to see the flyer.

Kathy tilted her head and studied her. “What are you smiling about?”

Amber felt her cheeks warm up. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I was thinking about something else. I think the kettle is boiling.”

Kathy poured Frank’s tea and added just the right amount of milk for Frank, while Amber poured Stan’s tea, adding a spoon and a half of sugar, just the way he liked it.

Frank and Stan appeared to have finally agreed on the best location for the hidden camera, although Stan didn’t appear to be quite satisfied.

They made small talk and caught up on the events of the past week, and as soon as the cups were empty, Amber and Stan left.

After being in Andy’s yard for three days, Gnorman’s time there was nearing an end. When Gnorman found his next new temporary home, they would be ready for him.