SHERIFF GALLAGHER FROWNED when he saw me Monday morning. Or maybe his irritation stemmed from not being able to "put his hands" on Hal's manuscript. It ticked me off that he tried to make me feel guilty about it.
"I wished you'd told me right away, Melanie. Would have helped." He stood from behind his desk. "Wait a sec while I see if Sophie has it."
He left the office door open, so I didn't try to look at the files stacked neatly on his desk. I glanced at the plaque on the wall behind it, which proclaimed him a member in good standing in the Iowa Sheriff's Association.
Gallagher ambled back a minute later, manila folder in hand. "Found it in the evidence locker." He glanced at a tag on the front before he tore it off. "Good place for it, since the truck stayed in the lot overnight. Sorry for the delay."
I stood and took it. "No problem." Our eyes met. "Any news on who killed Mr. Frost?"
He held my gaze for just a second and looked back at this desk. "I think we're getting closer. Won't know much for a day or so."
I didn't ask for details, since I knew he wouldn't answer. "How's Granger holding up?"
Gallagher shook his head as he sat back down. "Tough. May get easier after the funeral tomorrow."
I hadn't given Frost's funeral a thought. Why would I? "It does. But it takes a while."
I decided not to add that I didn't give a damn about anything for six months after my parents' funerals.
STOOPER WAS WORKING AT Syl's place, and I planned for Mister Tibbs and me to join him after we visited some businesses on the square.
Seeing a newsstand with Monday's South County News deterred me for a bit. I put fifty cents in the metal coin slot and pulled out a paper.
A two-inch headline blared, "Local Farmer Found Dead in Neighbor's Barn." I scanned the article. It mentioned that Aaron Granger, Ambrose and I had arrived at essentially the same time, and that Ambrose had removed the knife.
However, most of the article was a statement from Sheriff Gallagher saying in fifty words or so that he didn't know much. Nothing implied that Ambrose had anything to do with Frost's murder.
I breathed more easily and bent down to pet the leashed Mister Tibbs. "Maybe it'll be okay."
She cocked her head at me, and I turned toward the local dollar store. A bike rack sits a few yards from the entrance. Mister Tibbs would be okay there for two or three minutes.
Jagdish Patel owns shops in several small towns in South County as well as nearby Van Buren and Lee Counties. He told me once that none made enough to justify staying in business, but together they let him stay solvent. Plus, it kept two brothers-in-law employed.
I'd sat in a couple of council meetings in a few towns when they discussed leasing him a building that had come back to a town because of a tax lien. Some people grumbled about the low rent they charged him, but the alternative meant another vacant building. We have plenty of those already.
I appreciated the cool air that greeted me as I entered the small store. With its wood floors and ceiling fans, Patel's shop is more like the variety stores of old than the chain dollar stores of today.
On one side are modern beauty products, on the other side household and cleaning products. In the middle are packaged foods that lean toward sugar and salt, plus toys and craft supplies.
Patel's sing-song Indian accent greeted me. "Good morning, Miss Reporter."
I did a small wave. "Gardener, remember?"
"Oh, sure. Can I help you?"
"I need toothpaste, and then I have a proposition for you."
His smile became more perfunctory. There aren't many businesses in River's Edge compared to even fifteen years ago. People drive the few miles to larger towns so they have more selection and, usually, cheaper prices.
That means every sports team asks for donations for their jerseys. The Lions and Rotary Clubs or churches want discounts on paper goods for pancake breakfasts or bazaars.
I plopped the toothpaste on the wood counter. With its chipped, dark green paint, the counter is quite a contrast to the sleek cash register.
Mr. Patel walked over and picked up the toothpaste to scan it. "What's up?"
I explained my idea for the planters and quoted a price. "So, I'd bring them full of dirt and plant and water them. You'd keep watering them, so no monthly service fee or anything like that."
"That'll be two-ten." He bagged the toothpaste, clearly pondering. "That's not bad. I'll do it. You plant them again next year?"
"Sure. I'll give you a price before I do it."
He took my money and handed me the bag. "What I really need is someone to scrape the paint around the big window, then caulk and repaint."
I didn't relish that kind of work. "What about Stooper? He's been helping me a lot at Syl Seaton's place."
Patel's expression could be described as pained, so I continued. "He drinks less. Always on time. You can check with Syl if you like."
"He's new, so I'd take your word first. Have Stooper stop by."
BY THE TIME I swung into Syl's driveway, I'd also secured planter placements from the drug store and Chamber of Commerce.
The craft store and the tiny coffee shop had turned me down, but I bet they'd have their own flowers in front before I could provide mine. Mine would look better.
Mister Tibbs stood in the back seat, tail wagging and paws on the window, which was not much bigger than her head.
"Okay, girl, you can chase squirrels, but stay where I can see you." I opened my door, and she hopped onto the front seat and out the door in two seconds.
"So much for being attached to me," I muttered.
Stooper had left Syl's before I arrived, or perhaps he had put the trellises in Sunday. On his own, obviously. They looked good, though the roses had not yet been threaded throughout the slats.
Syl's snazzy truck sat at the end of the driveway. He was obviously working at home rather than in Des Moines. As I parked, he walked out the front door and onto the wide porch.
"Morning, Melanie." He nodded at the trellises. "Good to see the progress."
I walked backwards toward the porch, inspecting whether the trellises were evenly spaced on each side of the front gate. They were.
"Thanks to Stooper. I bought them, but he did the hard work." I turned to face Syl.
He had what could be described as an ear-to-ear grin. "Heard you stepped in it again."
I shook my head. "You better watch it. You're sounding like a farmer."
"Hey, you're a farmer."
I frowned. "I hope to be again. I can't tell you how appalled Ambrose and I felt to find Peter Frost in the barn like that."
He grew somber. "I'm sure. What would have brought him to your barn?"
"No one knows. Kind of odd, but maybe he saw something he thought needed checking." I used this line to anyone who asked. It encompassed any possibility, and was the kind of neighborly thing most farmers would do. Except Peter Frost had not been that kind of neighbor.
Syl gestured to a porch chair, and we both sat. "How's your brother? I read in the paper that he found the man."
"Other than irritated that the sheriff has implied Ambrose might actually have killed Frost, he's okay."
"Humph. Hard to imagine."
"I'm trying to look at it from the law's perspective. Next week we had a scheduled hearing about whether Frost had a leg to stand on for his claims on the property. People who don't know us could say we had a reason to want the guy dead."
"Gone on for a while, hasn't it?"
"Seems like forever, but it's only been a couple of years." I looked at the neat gardens in Syl's front yard and thought how barren the area around my parents' house looked. My mother always had flowers blooming, but Ambrose and I just paid people to mow.
"Our lawyer thinks a judge will throw out the claim. Would have happened earlier, but Frost's lawyer got a couple postponements."
"Did he think you and Ambrose would give in if it went on?"
I nodded. "We thought so. It bothered both of us, probably Ambrose more. He worked those fields with my Dad a lot more than I did."
Syl looked at me and turned away as he asked, "So what happens now?"
"I haven't had time to talk to Ken Brownberg, but I can't imagine Frost's estate pursuing it."
I assumed Frost left everything to Granger, who had never farmed. He probably knew most local farmers thought Frost's claim was a bald-faced lie.
With land prices going up and down with the price of corn, it would be a heck of a headache for Granger to fight for something that might not earn him a profit. Ambrose and I would run the farm ourselves, so we wouldn't be paying for the kind of labor Granger would have to.
I realized I'd been silent for as much as a minute and looked at Syl. I'd expected his sometimes irreverent smirk, but his eyes implied sympathy.
He looked away. "I hope you get it resolved quickly."
I stood. "I bought some good organic fertilizer at the farmers' market yesterday. Used most at my place, but I saved a little for those tomatoes behind your house."
"Sure. Put it on your next bill."
"God no." I grinned. "Plus, I'd have to charge you for the stink."
He frowned as he stood. "Great. I'll go close the kitchen windows."
I drove my truck closer to the back of Syl's house and took the wheelbarrow from the small barn behind the house. Since Stooper and I worked so much at Syl's, I kept a few things on hand. Mostly items that were a pain to haul in and out of my pickup.
By the time I finished spreading the stuff, the bright sun beat down. Stooper would be here soon, and we could work together to get some of the roses off the white wood fence. Though the blooms were strewn along the fence, the bases of the plants were near the trellises.
My phone rang as I pushed the wheelbarrow toward the barn.
"Melanie? Sheriff Gallagher here."
"Hi. You find the killer?"
"We think so. I'm calling as a courtesy. I asked the police in Dubuque to arrest Ambrose."