Lawman

“What’s going on?” Garon asked her.

“Nothing, I hope,” she replied. “It’s just that I can’t get Grace on the telephone. I’m sure she’s all right. Maybe she’s just not answering her phone.”

“I’ll drive over and see,” he replied, and was out the door before Miss Turner could ask to go with him.

He pulled up in the front yard of the old Victorian house, noting again how little maintenance had been done on it. He took the steps two at a time and rapped hard on the door. He did it three times, but there was no answer.

He started around the side of the house. And there she was. In the rose garden, with pruning shears, cutting back her rosebushes. She was talking to them, as well. Obviously she hadn’t heard him drive up.

“I know she never liked you,” she was telling the roses. “But I love you. I’ll make sure you get all the fertilizer and fungicides you need to make you beautiful again, the way you were when Grandaddy was still alive.” She sniffed and wiped her wet eyes on the sleeve of the flannel shirt she was wearing. “I don’t know why I’m crying for her,” she went on after a minute. “She hated me. No matter what I did for her, she never wanted me in her life. But now she’s gone and it’s just you and me and this enormous house…”

“Are the roses going to live in it with you, then?” he asked curiously.

She turned so fast that she almost fell over. Her hand went to her chest. She was almost gasping for breath. “You move like the wind,” she choked. “What are you doing here?”

“Miss Turner couldn’t raise you on the phone. She was worried.”

“Oh.” She went back to trimming the rosebushes.

“That was kind of her.”

He glanced around at the bare landscape. There was a garden spot behind the house that looked as if it had just been plowed. He wondered if she kept the garden, or if her grandmother had grown vegetables.

“Did you find the man who killed that little child?” she asked.

He shook his head. “It’s not that simple to solve a murder. This is one of several similar crimes, some from years ago. It takes time. We’re forming a task force to investigate it.”

“My father used to work for the sheriff’s department here as a deputy, just like Grandaddy did. That was a long time ago,” she added. “He quit when he married my mother because she didn’t like him taking risks.”

“What did he do afterward?”

“He got a job as a limousine driver in San Antonio,” she replied. “He made good money at it, too. Then he met a pretty, rich woman that he’d been hired to drive around, and he went head over heels for her. He left my mother and filed for divorce. She never got over it. The other woman was ten years older than she was, and she owned a boutique.”

“Is your father still living?” he asked.

She shook her head. “He and his new wife were driving to Las Vegas when a drunk driver ran into them head-on. They both died.”

“You said your mother disliked you?”

She nodded. “I look like my father. She hated me for that.”

“What happened to your mother?”

“She…died about twelve years ago,” she said. “Just two years after Daddy did.”

“What did she do for a living?”

“She was a nurse,” Grace said quietly.

“You’re going to kill those bushes if you keep snipping,” he pointed out. “And the temperature’s dropping.”

She shivered a little as she stood up. “I suppose so. I just wanted something to do. I can’t bear to sit in that house alone.”

“You don’t need to. Pack a small bag. I’ll take you home with me. You and Miss Turner can watch movies on the pay per view channel.”

She looked up at him, frowning. “That’s not necessary…”

“Yes, it is,” he said gently, studying her face. It was wet with tears. “You need a little time to get adjusted to life without your grandmother. No strings. Just company.”