Elspeth kept her ear cocked for the whirring of the wood chipper as she power-walked to the back of the area where the flower show was set up. She’d seen an area there hidden behind a bunch of lattice that had barrels for refuse and machinery. If Adelaide was going to put a wood chipper anywhere, it would be there.
“But how did the cat make you suspect Adelaide?” Ida asked, snapping her large purse shut and power-walking along beside her.
“Not the cat, the footprints. You see, when I got to the show this morning, I cut across that grassy roundabout area—you know, the one at the end of the street?”
“With the flowers in it?”
“Yes. At first I wasn’t going to cut through—the grass was dewy, and I didn’t want my shoes to get wet—but I’d nearly been run over by a car on the roundabout and didn’t relish walking around it.”
“I know! I keep forgetting they come from the wrong direction here!” Ida said.
“Yes, well, when I got to the middle, I stopped to look at those beautiful, tall daisies. I was wondering if some might look good in my garden, and the gates for the show were just opening, so I had a few seconds to tarry.”
“And…”
“And that’s when I saw the wheelbarrow tracks in the dew. They were coming from the entry gate.”
“Okay. So what? We already know that Adelaide picked them for the vases at the gate,” Ida said. “They look pretty nice there, too, I might add.”
“Don’t they?” Elspeth took a sharp right. “But, judging by the state of the tracks, they’d been there about an hour or so, and they were only coming from the front gate, not from the street, and Adelaide lives on the street our cottages are on!”
Ida was silent for a few seconds, then Elspeth heard a sharp intake of breath. “Which means that Adelaide must have lied about getting to the show late!”
“That’s right. Edith saw her and assumed that she was just getting there, but in fact she’d already been there.” Elspeth pressed her lips together. “I wonder what she was doing, though. Why was she leaving? Had she forgotten to pick the flowers, or was she trying to remove the murder weapon, and Edith caught her, forcing her to pretend as if she were picking the flowers?”
“But why the wood chipper?”
“When I saw her, she was collecting branches and sticks. Seemed very intent on making sure it was in a pile so that it could be put through the wood chipper after the show closed,” Elspeth said. “My guess is that since she couldn’t hide the handle of the murder weapon at her house because Edith caught her trying to leave this morning, she plans to chip it up.”
“It’s brilliant!” Ida said. “Chipping it up in the wood chipper would ensure it was never found.”
They rounded a corner and almost barreled into one of the show volunteers with his light-blue-and-yellow vest.
“Hey, ladies! The show is closing. The exit is that way.” He pointed in the direction from which they’d just come.
“Sorry, we’re on police business,” Ida said as she pushed past him.
“Police business?” Elspeth whispered once they’d sped past.
“Well, it’s almost police business.”
“Speaking of which… maybe we should call them.”
“What, and miss out on all the fun and credit? No way!” The sound of a wood chipper split the air, and Ida added, “No time for that now anyway!”
They raced toward the sound. Elspeth was in good condition for a senior citizen, but she had to admit she didn’t get much of a chance to run, and she was quite winded when they finally careened around the lattice to find Adelaide Timmons standing next to her wheelbarrow full of branches.
“The exit is the other way,” Adelaide shouted as she turned the chipper off and moved in front of the wheelbarrow. She was smiling, and her voice was kind, presumably because she thought they’d just gotten lost.
“We’re not looking for the exit,” Ida said with authority. She didn’t seem the least bit out of breath and, at Elspeth’s questioning glance, she added, “I keep myself in tip-top shape with yoga.”
“That’s nice,” Adelaide said. “But the show is over for the day. You can come back tomorrow for the yoga-in-the-gardens event.”
Ida’s eyes lit up, and for a second Elspeth wondered if maybe she’d forgotten why they were there.
“Actually, we’re not leaving yet.” Elspeth craned her neck to see into the wheelbarrow, which was behind Adelaide. It looked like it was filled with branches and other debris. She couldn’t see an old handle. As she was looking, a white cat with brilliant-blue eyes trotted over to the wheelbarrow and hopped on top.
“Really, I must insist that you ladies leave. This area isn’t part of the show, and it could be dangerous here.” Adelaide tried to shove them out of the area, but Elspeth and Ida held their ground.
“I’ll say it could be dangerous,” Ida said. “There could be a killer here!”
Adelaide froze in her tracks. “Whatever are you talking about?”
“Oh, well, just that a man was killed, and someone did it.” Ida moved closer to Adelaide, trying to peek around her at the wheelbarrow. “Did you see the killer, perhaps, when you were here early setting up?”
“I came in late this morning,” Adelaide said.
“Oh, that’s funny. I thought Kenneth Fairlane said you were in the orchid tent before the start of the show.” Ida moved left, and Adelaide moved right to block her.
“I think you ask a lot of questions. You need to leave.” Adelaide stepped toward them, her arm outstretched toward the edge of the lattice as if trying to guide them out.
“Meow!”
The white cat jumped out of the wheelbarrow, tipping it over. Branches and debris tumbled out onto the ground. And one other thing: the broken handle of a garden implement.
“Aha! I knew it!” Elspeth lunged for the handle, but Adelaide was too quick. She shoved Elspeth out of the way, grabbed the handle from the ground, sprinted to the wood chipper, and turned it on.
Ida was fast. She pushed Adelaide away from the machine and pulled on the handle. Elspeth joined her, and the two of them tried to pull the handle away, but Adelaide had a grasp on the D-grip end, and Ida and Elspeth could only grab the splintered shaft.
The deafening sound of the wood chipper knifed the air as they tugged and pulled.
“Let go!” Adelaide yelled. “It’s just a spade handle.”
“We will not!” Ida yelled back. “This is evidence!”
They were losing the battle. Elspeth realized she’d have to try something else. She let go of the handle, startling Adelaide enough to confuse her, and then she karate-chopped Adelaide’s right hand and stomped on her right foot, causing the other woman to drop the handle. Ida scooped it up without a moment’s hesitation.
Ida turned admiring eyes to Elspeth. “Good work.” Or at least that was what Elspeth thought she’d said. It was hard to tell over the roar of the machine.
“You too,” Elspeth returned the compliment.
“Ahhh!” Adelaide let out a cry then lunged for them, and all three of them tumbled to the ground, Ida holding the handle for dear life as Adelaide tried to pry it from her. Elspeth jumped on top to stop her.
“Hold it right there! Nobody move!”
Elspeth recognized the voice right away. The police had come.
Louise shut off the wood chipper and looked down at them, her hands on her hips.
“We caught the killer, and she has the murder weapon!” Ida pointed to Adelaide, who Max was already hauling to her feet.
“Why don’t you tell me all about it?” Louise bent to examine the handle while Ida and Elspeth told them how they deduced that Adelaide was the killer and how they’d saved the evidence from the wood chipper.
Louise turned to Adelaide. “Can you explain why you have this?”
“It’s just an old piece of a spade.”
“Then why put it in the wood chipper?” Max asked.
“I was recycling,” Adelaide said.
Louise stood. “Okay, then can you explain why you lied to us about coming in late this morning? Several people saw you here.”
“I… well… they must be wrong.”
“They’re not wrong,” Max said. “We know you had means, motive, and opportunity.”
“I… he was… the sale was going to close down the show! I don’t have anything else since my husband died!” Adelaide burst into tears.
Elspeth felt a teeny bit sorry for her, but honestly, the woman could have gotten another hobby. Or maybe even a cat.
“No one in the village wanted the sale,” Adelaide blubbered. “I was doing the whole village a favor.”
“I’m sure you saw it that way, but maybe Sir John didn’t,” Louise said. “Tell us how it happened.”
“I begged Sir John not to sell. But he was determined. Wanted to travel the world with Celia.” Adelaide’s mouth twisted. “He had plenty of money. He could have just given the house to Angie. Even Celia agreed. But no. He didn’t want to leave it to her because he didn’t agree with her artsy lifestyle.”
“So you lured him here to kill him,” Ida prompted.
“No! I invited him in to see the show early before anyone else. I was hoping that once he remembered how beautifully it was set up and how those showing their plants depended on the show and loved it, he’d have a change of heart. But he didn’t.” Adelaide’s expression turned hard, and she wiped tears from her cheeks.
“So you whacked him over the head,” Ida said.
“We argued, and things got heated. Before I knew it, he was lying facedown in the koi pond, and I was holding half a spade in my hand.” Adelaide glanced at the handle. “I can’t believe it broke. He had a really hard head.”
“But why keep the handle?” Max asked as he put cuffs on her. Adelaide didn’t seem to even notice. She was engrossed in telling her story. Elspeth figured she must have been resigned to her fate.
“It splintered, and I bled. I couldn’t leave it. I was going to take it home to bury in the yard, but when I saw Edith coming out on the path from the woods, I knew she would think it was suspicious for me to be going home at that time. That’s when I came up with the wood chipper plan.”
“But by then, the show was opening, and you couldn’t run the wood chipper because it would be too disruptive to the show,” Elspeth said.
“That’s right. So I just hid the handle with the debris we’d collected from fallen branches and such. I figured I’d just chop it up tonight, and that would be the end of it.”
“That would have been a good plan,” Max said. “If not for two curious senior citizens.”
The tone of the sergeant’s voice almost sounded like he was proud of them, and Ida and Elspeth beamed at him.
“Two curious senior citizens who told the volunteer in the path they were with the police.” Louise didn’t sound so proud of them, and their beams faded.
“Well, that is how we got here so fast,” Max said.
Louise shrugged. “I suppose they deserve some credit. We were coming to question Adelaide about some of the discrepancies in her statement, but if the volunteer didn’t point us in the direction that the ‘other police’ had gone, we wouldn’t have run and might not have gotten here before the handle was turned into chips.”
Elspeth and Ida beamed again.
Louise scowled at them. “Instead of congratulating you on a job well done, I should be arresting you two for impersonating police officers!”
“Jeez, can’t a girl get a break here?” Ida put on the charm. “We did help a little, didn’t we?”
Louise snorted. “I won’t throw you in jail, mostly because I’m afraid you might miss your flight out of here. Just promise you won’t do it again.”
“We won’t,” Ida and Elspeth said at the same time. Elspeth wasn’t sure about Ida, but she was crossing her fingers behind her back.
“Fine, then. When do you ladies leave town?”
Elspeth had had such a fun time that she hated the idea of leaving, but she was anxious to get home to her cats. “Next Tuesday.”
“Me too,” Ida said. “We should compare flight times. Maybe we can share a ride to the airport.”
“Sounds good,” Elspeth said.
“Yeah, sounds good to me too.” Louise herded them toward the exit. “Have a lovely trip home. Hopefully I won’t be seeing you before you leave.”
“Those two ladies sure are characters.” Max smiled as he watched Ida and Elspeth leave.
“They were kind of fun.” Louise hated to admit it, but she had found the two old ladies charming in an irritating sort of way.
“I don’t think they’re very fun at all,” Adelaide muttered. She’d been calmly accepting of her fate and had given them no trouble once the confession was out.
“I’m glad they didn’t come to any harm. We’ll just let them think they had the case all wrapped up,” Louise said.
“They probably think they led us to the killer and we’d never have solved the case without them,” Max said.
Louise frowned. “Well, they didn’t. We had a hunch it was Adelaide from the start.” Louise pressed her lips together and glanced at their retreating backs. “Though I will admit that they did help us out in getting information.”
“And they stopped the killer from destroying the evidence.” Max pointed to the spade handle.
“Yes, they came in handy,” Louise admitted. “I hope they go home and tell all their friends how they solved the case, but I don’t want to see them back here any time soon.”
“Keeping them out of trouble was a lot of work.” Max took Adelaide by the elbow and propelled her down the path to their police car waiting at the entry gate.
“You can say that again. I feel sorry for the police in the towns they live in back in the States.” Louise followed with the spade, which she’d put in a large paper evidence bag that she’d produced from one of the deep pockets of her trench coat.
Max laughed. “They must have their hands full. They did get the villagers to talk, though. You sure you don’t want to hire on some little old lady consultants just for that purpose?”
“Don’t go getting any ideas. Two miniature Miss Marples in one lifetime are enough!”