Forgotten in Death(98)

The guard came back. “Mr. Bardov is pleased to meet with you and offer you refreshments in the garden. You may go to the house, and Mrs. Bardova will show you the way.”

“Thanks.”

She got back in the car.

“It’s beautiful,” Peabody said. “And I know it’s probably built on the crushed bones of his enemies, but it still looks sort of like a mansion in a fairy tale.

“That water feature. I wonder if I can build something like that.”

Eve nearly stopped the car. “Build?”

“It would be a fun project—maybe next spring. I’ve never built anything like that.” Peabody craned her neck as Eve drove past it. “I think I could.”

“You baffle me, Peabody. Sometimes you just baffle the crap right out of me.”

Before they reached the house, a woman came out on the porch.

Like Marvinia, Marta Bardova wore simple leggings and an overshirt, hers in bright red with some frills down the front. Tendrils of silvery-blond hair escaped from the loosely bundled knot on top of her head.

“Welcome to our home,” she said when Eve got out of the car. “I’m Marta Bardova. I’m starstruck.” She laughed as she pressed a hand to her heart. “I so loved The Icove Agenda, even though I wept for the babies. Oh, those babies broke my heart.”

She held out her hand to shake. A ringless hand, Eve noted, of a woman who smelled like … sugar cookies.

“Detective Peabody.” Marta shook again. “I have to ask you a personal question.”

“Um. Okay.”

“McNab. In the book, and now in the new book, he’s your love. Is he?”

“Ah, yes. We’re…”

“I’m so glad!” Beaming, Marta clapped her hands together. “He’s adorable. In the books, he’s adorable. I wish you many happy years together. Please, come in. Yuri’s working in the garden. My granddaughter brought her twins to visit.”

“We’re sorry to interrupt,” Eve began.

“No, no. We’re baking, so you’ll have lemonade and cookies. They’ll be thrilled.”

Here was color, Eve thought as Marta led them through the house. Lofty ceilings, open space, happy colors, and floods of light, vases everywhere filled with flowers.

And the smell of sugar cookies.

“You’ve beaten the storms they say are coming,” Marta continued. “It should be nice to have a talk in the garden while the sun shines.”

Eve heard squealing, a female voice order someone named Nicholas Michael Cobain! to Stop that right now, followed by laughter.

Marta rolled her eyes. “Our great-grandson is a handful.”

Eve spotted the handful—around four, she guessed, all curly headed and caramel skinned and wickedly gleaming eyes—squeezing some pink stuff out of a tube onto a girl—obviously his twin.

“I make a flower on Tasha, Mama!”

The girl, a near mirror image of her brother, squeezed something green out of a tube. It shot out in a stream, hit him right below the left eye.

Hilarity ensued.

“My charming and perfectly behaved family.”

The woman currently refereeing looked over, sighed. “We’re a mess, Mama. So sorry.”

“Messes clean up. But how will the cookies get decorated if you decorate each other?”

The girl offered an angelic smile. “We taste good!”

“Let me see.” Marta walked to the wide kitchen island, bent down, made smacking noises on the girl’s arm, the boy’s face. “Good enough to eat. Now pretend you’re good children and say hello to our guests.”

“Hello!” they chorused.

“Well done. Just this way,” she added, and gestured to the wide opening where the glass doors had been folded back to let in the June day.

Peabody actually gasped, and had Marta pausing to look at her.

“It’s—it’s just glorious. Your gardens. And another water feature, the arbors! Oh, and the play area for the kids. The flagstone paths, with moss. It’s the good witch’s garden. I have to steal these ideas. We’re going to start gardens and landscaping.”

“You garden?”

“When I can. But not like this. I haven’t worked in a garden like this since I came to New York. Smell the peonies! I’m sorry.” She caught herself—or Eve’s bland stare caught her.

“Yuri will be delighted. And you must talk to him about your gardening. I dig and plant where he tells me, but this is his.”

She led them down one of the paths, beyond a knoll buried in flowers, through a screen of slim trees to where the mob boss, in dirt-stained baggies, a faded blue shirt, and a straw hat, sat on a low, rolling stool, doing something to what even Eve recognized as a tomato plant.

“Yuri, your guests.”

“Yes, welcome, yes. One second.”

“Epsom salt mixture,” Peabody said. “For the magnesium.”

He looked over in approval. “You know.”

“Your gardens are amazing, Mr. Bardov.”

“They’re work, and the work is my pleasure.” He rose, dusted his gloved hands on his pants.

“You’ll talk,” Marta said. “And when you’re ready, there will be lemonade and strangely decorated cookies on the patio.”