Due to our harsh and lingering winters, spring wasn’t as beautiful in the Midwest as it was in some areas of the country. Many trees were still mostly bare, and it took perennials longer to blossom. What we had going for us was grass, brilliantly green from the abundant March rains. We also had farms, and tilling made the air smell fresh and earthy.
With any luck, though, Shakespeare’s Garden would be in full bloom today for the grand reopening. Dedicated in 1923, the garden had gone to seed and was a mass of tangled weeds, tarnished statues, and rusty benches. The English Department had spent a good deal of money on the renovation, and Reed Williams had spent a good deal of time preparing for the reopening. This morning’s itinerary would include the unveiling of the garden, the reading of the winning sonnet entry (unfortunately, not Lenny’s), and the dedication of a new Shakespeare bust.
I rushed to put on my ankle boots, shooing Dickinson away from my bootlaces. I’d been up since six this morning and was eager to leave. The several cups of coffee I’d drunk hadn’t helped my high anxiety levels. After Lenny and I discussed my book contract over dinner, it was impossible to think about anything else for the rest of the night. I tossed and turned for hours before I finally got up, signed the contract, and scanned and emailed the thing back just to get it off my mind. I’d only slept a few hours when I awoke to Dickinson’s meows. She was feeling the restlessness of spring, too. When this semester was over, I really needed to think about taking a vacation, one that let you bring your cat.
As I left my little yellow bungalow, I heard Mrs. Gunderson—Gertrude, I reminded myself—call out my name.
“I noticed you didn’t sleep last night.” She was struggling with a weed near her front stoop. “Your light was on. I hope you aren’t having difficulties with Leonard.”
I walked over and gave the weed a yank. “Nope, Lenny’s fine. It was my insomnia. I can’t seem to shake it for very long.”
“It’s all those books you read,” she said, dusting off her hands. “They put terrible ideas in your head.”
“Then what were you doing up?” I said sweetly, but Mrs. Gunderson was smart. She gave me a look that said she wasn’t going to let me outsmart her.
“Crocheting.”
She said it as if she’d been crowning the king of England.
“Have a good day,” I said, tossing the weed in the street as I continued walking to campus. The morning was as quiet as on a Saturday or Sunday, but that was just because it wasn’t yet eight, and few classes were held that early. The garden ceremony didn’t begin until nine, but I thought a walk might help revive me. Besides, it was Friday, and the ladies at St. Agnes were making cookies for the school kids. I took a short detour so I could pass by the church—a faded orange brick, like the bluff of town. I was disappointed to find the back door locked. That was unusual. Returning to the sidewalk, I hoped nothing was wrong. It was unlike them to be absent on a Friday.
All the way to school, I was off kilter, tripping once over a rock and then again on the curb. I glanced down to see if my laces were the culprit, helped along by Dickinson, but they were perfectly tied. I hustled to cross the street to campus, glad for the protection of the towering old buildings. Nothing could get to me here, even the strong wind.
From a distance, I could see that the barricade around Shakespeare’s Garden was gone. I breathed a little sigh of relief. One thing was going right this morning. Reed Williams would be happy to see the garden was event ready. The sun was out, too, willing away the wind. As the day progressed, it would grow warmer, encouraging visitors to stay awhile. I was glad. I wanted people to marvel over how much work had been put into the garden. Reed had been planning this event for over a year. Finally, he would reap the harvest of his hard work.
As I approached, I noticed Reed in the garden. He was staring down at something on the bench. Maybe an inscription had been mangled. Woe to those who misquote Shakespeare. Then I spotted a person on the bench, a man. How unseemly that on our pretty little campus, someone had passed out in Shakespeare’s Garden! Reed was trying to wake him, and I hurried to help. Reed was touching his arm, but I wouldn’t be afraid to give the student a shake if I had to. People would start arriving any moment.
Until I saw the student—Tanner Sparks. His face was distorted, unnatural, the skin ashen. It could only be the sleep of death.
Reed looked up from the body. “I found him like this. He’s not breathing, and I … can’t … find a pulse.”
“Have you called an ambulance?” I was already pulling out my phone.
“I … no. I just got here.” Reed was dazed and having trouble putting together simple sentences. “I was going to try CPR, but his face was cold.”
I punched in 911. “They’re on their way,” I said, ending the call. Tanner’s face was slack, his frozen features so unlike those of the spirited student I knew. Alive, he’d been one of our most animated actors and passionate scholars. He loved the attention he got from causing a scene. This was one scene, however, he wouldn’t have wanted to star in.
I glanced around the garden, looking for clues to his death. Had he tripped? Fallen? Everything was in perfect order for the event. Not even a stray branch from the wind. I checked his body for a wound. No blood stained his clothes—jeans and a T-shirt. Then I saw it: a substance emerging from his ear and forming a liquid trail to his neck. I pointed. “What’s that?”
Reed squinted, his large nose protruding even farther. “It appears to be … I don’t know.” A tall man, he bent over for a closer look.
“Don’t touch it,” I said. “It might be important.”
He straightened, and I noticed how his shirtsleeves didn’t reach the wrists of his long arms. He looked at me, the garden, and then back at Tanner. “It is important.”
For the first time since I arrived, he was able to pull himself together. He was the rational Shakespeare scholar from down the hall once more. “What do you mean?” I asked.
He gestured to the garden, which featured an impressive array of pink, red, blue, and purple flowers. “Don’t you recognize the scene?”
The garden, the bench, the liquid in the ear. Something did seem familiar.
“ ‘Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole / With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial / And in the porches of my ears did pour,’ ” quoted Reed.
Hamlet—of course! I remembered at once. In the play, the ghost of Hamlet’s father tells his son that he did not die of a snake bite in the garden. Hamlet’s uncle, eager to usurp the throne, poisoned him. “But what exactly is hebenon?” I asked Reed.
“As far as we know, Shakespeare was referring to henbane, a poisonous flower, but it could have been hemlock or a nightshade,” said Reed. “Hebenon doesn’t actually exist.”
“I imagine henbane wasn’t on your list of flowers—”
“No,” Reed said decisively and maybe with a touch of anger.
The ambulance and police sirens pierced the eerie silence that had fallen over the garden. A small town, Copper Bluff didn’t have many emergencies, and the EMTs and police tripped over each other getting into the garden. One man lagged behind, and I knew from the square shape of his shoulders and old-fashioned cap that it was Officer Beamer. I liked to imagine we were friends but knew this wasn’t exactly the case. He was cordial to me, and I admired his dedication. Could one call that friendship? I wasn’t certain; his furrowed brow suggested otherwise.
The EMTs were busy with Tanner, so I met Officer Beamer halfway through the quad. He kept plodding toward the scene, and I followed along, retracing my steps as I talked. “Officer Beamer, it’s good to see you. Of course it would be even better under different circumstances. One of our English students, Tanner Sparks, appears to be dead. Something very suspicious is coming out of his ear. It could be what killed him.”
We had reached the garden gate, and Beamer stopped. He pointed to a circular bench in the quad. “Sit. I’ll get to you later.”
He shut the gate to Shakespeare’s Garden, leaving me open-mouthed. I stomped over to the bench. He didn’t have to be rude. Reed Williams was still in the garden. Why shut me out? The seat was cold, and I pulled my sweater under my rear. It wasn’t so bad. I had a good view of the scene and could see what was happening from here. I pulled out my phone and texted Lenny.
Could you meet me? I’m in Shakespeare’s Garden.
Is everything coming up roses? he texted.
No, I said. Coming up murder.
* * *
Lenny arrived ten minutes later. Dressed in a red sweatshirt with a university logo and jeans, he looked like a grad student. He also wore tennis shoes and was practically running toward the garden. I called out to him before he reached the gate, and he veered quickly in my direction.
He stood, catching his breath in front of me. “Who is it?”
“Tanner Sparks,” I said. “He’s dead.”
“Our Tanner Sparks?”
“The very same. Reed found him in the garden. I arrived just afterwards.”
“Was it really murder?” Lenny glanced toward the garden. Crime scene investigators were taking pictures. “They must think so.”
“We won’t know for sure until after the autopsy,” I said. “He was lying on the bench when Reed found him. A liquid was coming from his ear.”
Lenny turned back toward me. “Like in Hamlet?”
“Yes,” I said, surprised by how quickly he had put it together.
He sat down, embracing me with his warm arm. “You’re cold. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “It’s the wind.” But I was upset. Though I didn’t have Tanner as a student, I did know him from the department. I couldn’t believe a young man so full of life could be dead. I took a deep breath and pointed at Beamer. “He wants to talk afterward.”
“I bet,” said Lenny. “It might be awhile, though.” Students were gathering around the garden. They were keeping a safe distance, but many had their phones out. Sophie Barnes, my former student and a detective on the Copper Bluff Police Force, was telling them to stay back, but it was no use. They were coming out of their dorms in droves now to investigate the commotion.
In the midst of the chaos, a girl broke through the crowd, her blonde bun bobbing back and forth. Heedless of Sophie’s warning, she was quickly nearing the garden as if intending to walk right in. An officer stopped her but not before she was near enough to see Tanner’s lifeless body.
“No, you don’t understand,” she pleaded. “That’s Tanner Sparks. He’s my boyfriend.”
Now I recognized her. Her name was Mia, and she lived with her friends in the white two-story house down the street from me. She must have been the one Tanner called “psycho.” I studied her more closely. She didn’t look psycho; she looked like any girl on campus, except less awake. Her clothes—a half-shirt and sweatpants—told me she must have received a call from one of her friends in the crowd surrounding the garden.
“I know her,” I told Lenny. “She and her friends live down the block from me. I heard Tanner call her psycho when he was leaving the house the other day.”
Lenny followed my gaze. “Maybe he meant it affectionately. She looks pretty upset to me.”
“How can you call someone psycho in an affectionate way?” I said. “Never mind. Here comes Giles.”
Giles, wearing his signature tan blazer with elbow patches, was walking and talking with Felix and Andy, the scholars visiting our campus. Engaged in conversation, he didn’t seem to notice anything amiss until he saw the police officers. Then he stopped in the middle of the quad and stared. Scratching his head, he turned to Felix. That’s when he saw Lenny and me. We stood to meet him.
“What’s going on?” Giles’s voice was measured. Even in a crisis, he remained calm. “Why are the police here? I didn’t get a campus alert.”
“It’s Tanner Sparks,” I said. “Reed found him on the park bench this morning. Dead.”
Giles blinked, not speaking. He was taking the news harder than I expected. Usually the one to comfort others, he stared silently into the garden.
“Don’t worry, there’s no active threat,” said Lenny. “Tanner must have died sometime last night.”
At Giles’s elbow, Felix and Andy were speaking in voices too low to hear. Felix was wearing a well-tailored suit and tie. Andy was wearing a Ralph Lauren sport coat that made his black hair look almost blue. Both were overdressed for a garden party, I thought, and looked out of place on our small college campus.
Felix raised his voice to include the rest of us. “Tanner Sparks. That’s the student who said Shakespeare isn’t Shakespeare?” He sighed. “Poor fellow. Maybe he had too much to drink. A lot of alcohol poisoning on campuses these days.”
Andy shook his head. “I don’t think so. Tanner didn’t drink anything but Mountain Dew. Bottles of it.”
“You knew him?” I asked. He sure hadn’t acted like it when he criticized his presentation.
“We were undergrads together at Iowa,” said Andy. When nobody said anything, he added, “What? I grew up there.”
Lenny and I exchanged a look. Each of us always knew what the other was thinking. The well-dressed windbag was in his own backyard.