Murder by Yew (An Edna Davies Mystery #1)(9)

Dee’s smile left her eyes, then returned so suddenly that Edna wasn’t certain she’d seen the flicker. “You’re so right. I will call that gentleman and see about making an appointment. If I can just get some rue …” Leaving the sentence unfinished, she stared innocently at Edna.

“The witchbane is out back beyond the wall,” Edna said, using the more common name for the herb. She looked at Dee’s feet in the impossibly high heels. “I don’t think you’d better be walking over there in those shoes, though, and I must help Tom clean up here. “

Edna hoped Dee would take the hint and just leave, but her unwanted guest fluttered a delicate hand and cooed, “Oh, I don’t mind waiting. I’ll just follow this little brick path. I know it must lead to the kitchen garden you spoke of. You don’t mind my looking around, do you?”

Before Edna could answer, Dee strolled off more gracefully than Edna would have imagined in those city shoes. Turning to Tom and catching him gazing after the hip-swinging beauty, she snapped, “Are you going to rake, or shall I?” The sharpness of her tone surprised not only her but Tom, as well, from the look on his face. Without a word, he bent to his task.

In almost no time, he had the branches and twigs raked into a large brush pile. As he stooped to grab the first armful to dump into the plastic bag Edna held open, Hank came running up behind them, chased by a giggling Danny, who ran smack into Tom’s behind, sending him sprawling into the middle of the debris.

The youngster stood stunned as his grandfather struggled to his feet. With green twigs sticking to his clothing and hair, Tom might have passed for a kin of Sasquatch. Danny’s face started to crumple with the first signs of tears when Tom grabbed him and lifted the boy high into the air. “Look what you’ve done to your poor old grampa.” Tom laughed and gently bounced his grandson above his head until Danny began to smile, then laugh aloud, and finally squirm to get down. Once on the ground, he resumed chasing the dog, who had stopped to rest and watch but was now leading the boy a merry chase around the circular garden in the middle of the driveway.

Watching the two and laughing, Tom began to brush the debris from his hair and the front of his shirt while Edna, chuckling herself, picked greenery off his back. She swiped at a clump of twigs stuck to his lower back, then noticed that one had caught on a small scrap of paper that was sticking out of Tom’s pocket. Before she could stop her motion, the paper ripped and the top portion fluttered to the ground.

“Oops.” She bent to pick it up and, handing it back to Tom, she apologized. “Hope this isn’t too important.”

“Nah.” Tom pulled his wallet from the same back pocket and stuffed the torn slip into the paper money section. “It’s the name and number of a private detective. I got it from Mary.”

She stepped back to look up into his face, wondering for a moment if he might be kidding. There was a definite twinkle in his eye that she took as a challenge. Trying to recall something about Tom that would warrant the use of a detective, she suddenly gasped, “You don’t think your son-in-law is having an affair, do you? Is that why Nancy has left him?”

She’d never known anyone to hire a detective before, and she found, similar to her reaction over her neighbor’s arrest, she was fascinated. The fact that Mary had supplied the name was something Edna stored in the back of her mind to be considered later.

Tom snorted. “Oh, no. It hasn’t anything to do with Walt.” He laughed again, this time with more amusement, apparently seeing more humor in her remark than Edna thought necessary. “I’m trying to locate a long-lost friend. When I mentioned it to Mary, she said she knew a private eye. If I can find my old buddy, it’ll be a great surprise for our upcoming high school reunion—our fortieth.”

Edna was disappointed it wasn’t anything more exciting. “I guess finding people is what detectives are good at.”

“Well, I think this one will earn his money. Last I heard from Bobby was a letter I got from Albuquerque, New Mexico.”

“I wouldn’t think it’d be difficult for a detective to find a man in Albuquerque.”

“Except the letter was sent nearly forty years ago, and my friend has a pretty common name.”

“Oh?”

“How many Robert O’Brien’s do you suppose there are?”

“Probably thousands,” said a voice from behind them.

Edna jumped and spun around to see Dee Tolkheim standing not more than three feet away. So engrossed had Edna been that she hadn’t heard the woman approach.

Dee sashayed up to Tom. “Bend down,” she commanded.

Coloring slightly, he lowered his head. She plucked a small bunch of green needles out of his hair. “There now,” she said with a slow smile.

Edna couldn’t bear the thought of another coquettish display. She wanted this woman off her property. “I’ll get you some of the rue Mrs. Rabichek left to dry in the tool shed,” she said, turning to hurry off on her errand. Once Dee had her witchbane, she’d have no more excuse to stick around.

It took Edna longer than she expected to retrieve the dried swag from the shed. She had to hunt for the step stool in order to reach high enough to untie the twine that was holding it to one of the rafters. Mrs. Rabichek must have been very agile to hang these so high, she thought, picking at the tight knot.