Reunion in Death (In Death #14)(24)

She sat a moment, studying the rosy redbrick house. It was modest enough, even simple until you added the gardens. Floods, rivers, pools of flowers flowed out from the base of the house, streaming all the way to the sidewalk. There was no lawn to speak of, though there were tall clumps of some sort of ornamental grasses creatively worked in to the sea of color.

A stone walkway ribboned its way through to the base of a covered porch where flowering vines, thick with deep purple blooms, wound their way up round posts.

There were chairs with white cushions on the porch, glass-topped tables, and yet more flowers in pots that had artistically faded to verdigris. Obviously Shelly Pettibone liked to sit and contemplate her flowers.

Even as Eve thought it, a woman stepped out of the front door carrying a tray.

She was deeply tanned, her arms long and leanly muscled against the short sleeves of a baggy blue T-shirt. Her jeans were worn and cropped off at midcalf.

She set down the tray, watched Eve get out of the car. The mild breeze stirred her sun-streaked brown hair worn short and unstyled around the weathered, appealing face of a woman who lived a great deal of her life outdoors.

As Eve drew closer, she saw that the woman's eyes were brown and showed the ravages of weeping.

"Is there something I can do for you?"

"Mrs. Pettibone? Shelly Pettibone?"

"Yes." Her gaze shifted to Peabody. "This is about Walter."

"I'm Lieutenant Dallas." Eve offered her badge. "My aide, Officer Peabody. I'm sorry to disturb you at this difficult time."

"You need to ask me questions. I just got off the 'link with my daughter. I don't seem to be able to do anything to help her. I can't think of the right words. I don't think there are any. I'm sorry, sit down please. I was going to have some coffee. I'll just get more cups."

"You needn't bother."

"It gives me something to do, and just now I don't have nearly enough to do. I'll just be a minute. It's all right if we talk out here, isn't it? I'd like to be outside for a while."

"Sure, this is fine."

She went back in, left the door open.

"A guy dumps you for a younger model after thirty years or so," Eve began. "How do you feel about it when it kicks off?"

"Hard to say. I can't imagine living with anyone for three years much less thirty. You're the married one here. How would you feel?"

Eve opened her mouth to make some withering comment, then stopped. She'd hurt, she realized. She'd grieve. Whatever he'd done, she'd suffer for the loss.

Instead of answering, she stepped over, glanced in the door. "Nice place, if you go for this sort of thing."

"I've never seen anything like this yard. It's seriously mag, and it must take a ton of work. It looks natural, but it's really well-planned. She's got it all planted for maximum effect-seasonally, fragrance-wise, colors, and textures. I smell sweet peas." She took a deeper sniff of the air. "My grandmother always has sweet peas outside the bedroom window."

"Do you enjoy flowers, Officer?" Shelly stepped back out, cups in hands.

"Yes, ma'am. Your garden's beautiful."

"Thank you. It's what I do. Landscape design. I was studying horticulture and design when I met Walter. A million years ago," she said softly. "I can't quite believe he's gone. I can't believe I'll never see him again."

"Did you see him often?" Eve asked.

"Oh, every week or two. We weren't married any longer, but we had a great deal in common." She poured coffee with hands that wore no rings. "He'd often recommend me to clients, as I would him. Flowers were one of the bonds between us."

"Yet you were divorced, and he remarried."

"Yes. And yes, he was the one who wanted to end the marriage." She folded her legs under her, lifted her cup. "I was content, and contentment was enough for me. Walter needed more. He needed to be happy, to be excited and involved. We'd lost some essential spark along the way. With the kids grown and away from home, with it being back to the two of us... Well, we couldn't revive that spark. He needed it more than I did. Though it was difficult for him, he told me he wanted a change."

"You must have been angry."

"I was. Angry and hurt and baffled. No one likes to be discarded, even gently. And he was gentle. There isn't, wasn't a mean bone in his body."

Her eyes welled again, but she blinked the tears back, took a deep sip of coffee. "If I had insisted, if I had pushed him back into the corner our marriage had become for him, he would have stayed."

"But you didn't."

"I loved him." She smiled when she said it, heart-breakingly. "Was it his fault, my fault, that our love for each other had mellowed into something too comfortable, too bland to be interesting any longer? I won't say it wasn't hard to let him go, to face life on my own. We'd been married more than half my life. But to keep him with me out of obligation? I've too much pride for that, and too much respect for both of us."

"How did you feel when he married a woman younger than your daughter?"

"Amused." The first glint of humor crept over Shelly's face, and made it pretty and mischievous. "I know it's petty, it's small, but I mink I was entitled to a moment or two of amusement. How could I be otherwise? She's a bit of foolish fluff, and frankly, I don't think they'd have stayed together. He was dazzled with her, and proud the way men are when they're able to hang something stupendously decorative on their arm."