Handcuffs in the Heather (Lovely Lethal Gardens Book 8) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  About Ice Pick in the Ivy

  Get Your Free Book Now

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  About This Book

  A new cozy mystery series from USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. Follow gardener and amateur sleuth Doreen Montgomery—and her amusing and mostly lovable cat, dog, and parrot—as they catch murderers and solve crimes in lovely Kelowna, British Columbia.

  Riches to rags. … Everything is under control, … until it isn’t. And Doreen’s in the middle of it!

  The four boxes of files Doreen inherited from journalist Bridgeman Solomon have already helped her solve one crime, and Doreen hopes they’ll continue to assist her as she sticks her nose into future cases. But, when she stumbles over a pair of pink satin handcuffs in her standoffish neighbor Richard de Genaro’s heather patch, it’s hard to believe that those reporter’s files could have anything useful to offer regarding that.

  Doreen takes a look though, and soon she’s headed down a merry trail of prostitution, embezzlement, and, of course, murder. But the minute the files suggest a connection to Doreen’s specialty, a cold case, her beau and partner in crime, Corporal Mack Moreau, starts breathing down her neck.

  With her trusty animals leading the way, Doreen sets out to find the connection between the reputable banker who died in an unsolved hit-and-run and the prostitute who owned the pink satin handcuffs. As Doreen puts it all together, even she is surprised at the outcome of her latest investigation.

  Sign up to be notified of all Dale’s releases here!

  Chapter 1

  Friday Late Afternoon …

  “All you need to do now,” Mack said, “is stay out of trouble.”

  Doreen shrugged. “How much trouble can I get in? I’ve been gardening all day, and I’m coming up to the big hydrangea bush. I can get in no trouble with that.”

  He just looked at her. “Hydrangeas?”

  She shrugged. “Those big flowering plants. I promise I’ll spend tomorrow working in my garden.”

  He stared at her in doubt, also noting how all three of her animals sat nearby, watching the exchange like a tennis match. They didn’t seem disturbed at the discussion. They knew this was the usual exchange between Mack and Doreen.

  She chuckled. “Of course I can’t guarantee what I might find.”

  “You don’t get to find anything,” he said, a warning in his tone.

  “Well, why not? There was a gun in the gardenias. Maybe I’ll find …” She stopped, pondered for a moment. “How about I find handcuffs in the hydrangeas?” she announced triumphantly.

  “How about you don’t? How about you just stop trying to find anything?” And, with that, he turned and stormed out.

  Mutinously, she watched him walk out the front door, her traitorous animals trotting behind him, all wanting goodbye hugs or pats. She trailed behind him, her gaze falling on the wheelbarrow with the little bit of dirt left that she had “borrowed.” She still had to return the last of it to her neighbor.

  She picked up the handles to the wheelbarrow and pushed it to his house, her animal trio in tow. There she rapped on the door. When he opened it, glaring at her suspiciously, she said, “I just brought this back. I promise to get you some more to replace what I used.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t bother. That’s all extra anyway. It was outside because I’m supposed to spread it in the front garden but haven’t gotten around to it.” He glared at her animals.

  Mugs, Thaddeus, and Goliath knew better than to ask Richard for a hug or a pat to the head and stayed close to Doreen.

  “Put it right there.” Richard pointed to a spot at the corner of the garage.

  She nodded and said, “Well, thank you for the dirt I used.” She lifted the wheelbarrow handles and dumped the last bit in a pile as he’d requested. As she turned the wheelbarrow around, she looked at the hydrangeas in his garden and said, “This garden is doing really well. And that heather is gorgeous. The hydrangea is looking lovely too.”

  “The hydrangea is nice. It’s the blue-flowering variety.”

  As she studied the bush, she wondered out loud, “I’m surprised that bush is so small though.”

  He shrugged. “It’s been small since forever. I don’t know why. Probably no room to grow against the house.”

  She wondered. “May I take a look?”

  He stared at her suspiciously. “What could you possibly look at?”

  But she eyed something flashing in the sunlight. Only it wasn’t in the hydrangeas but rather in the blooming heather in front of the bigger bush. “Who knows? Something could be restricting the bush’s root system.” At least that gave her an excuse to get in the garden bed.

  She crouched at the edge of the hydrangeas to where the heather had tangled up in something metallic.

  Almost immediately she identified the item. She gasped, and then she laughed. Very carefully she scooped away the leaves and the mulch that had piled up over the years. Mugs, Thaddeus, and Goliath all stepped in to help. “Hey, guys, I’ve got this.”

  And, sure enough, she found a set of handcuffs, one of which was caught around the plant.

  She sat back and howled with laughter. It wasn’t handcuffs in the hydrangeas. Instead, it was handcuffs in the heather …

  Who’d have guessed this?

  Even better that they were torn and very much worse-for-wear pink satin handcuffs … She snickered.

  Wait until she told Mack …

  Chapter 2

  Friday Late Afternoon …

  Doreen reached over with a nearby stick and carefully disentangled the metal object. It was caught up in the heather from deep underneath, half buried and half twisted in the greenery. Luckily both the cuffs were open and not clicked shut. Eventually she broke them free and held them up for her neighbor to see. She snickered again and, trying for a straight face, asked, “Did you lose these?”

  Richard inspected the handcuffs, partially covered with what appeared to have once been a soft pink satin; only now they were soiled with dirt and stained over time. Embarrassed, he stared at her, his jaw dropping. “Those aren’t mine,” he squeaked, his face flushing bright red.

  “Well, maybe not,” Doreen said. “They’re pink. Maybe your wife’s?”

  He was so irate it looked like he would stomp his foot. Instead he spun on his heel and roared, “Get that nastiness out of my yard!” Then, when he reached his doorway, he looked back and said, “You probably planted them there.”

  She stared at him in surprise. “Well, they’re not mine. And it’s obvious they’ve been here for
a long time, long before I moved here. Who knew you were into kink behind closed doors?”

  He slammed his door in her face.

  She burst out laughing before mustering enough seriousness to leave. Calling her critters, she pushed the wheelbarrow with one hand and held the handcuffs with the other, still looped over the stick she’d poked them with. When she reached her house, she parked the wheelbarrow in her garage and took the handcuffs inside. She carefully laid them on a piece of paper towel and studied them. “Handcuffs in the heather,” she said to herself. “Mack will never believe that.”

  Not that she was ready to tell him. It definitely wasn’t a police issue but a sex-story issue. And, of course, that raised all kinds of interesting questions. She’d never really been exposed to sex toys, so this offered a whole new level of research. And she also expected all kinds of issues when doing that research with her own laptop. She had decent virus checkers, but she was bound to end up on porn sites. Not exactly what she considered her daily reading. Although, if that was all she had for issues, then whatever.

  But relieved that her unpaid workday designated to helping the local police was more or less over, with the potential of a fire tamped down here at her house and with Steve caught and hopefully at the police station, Doreen opted for a hot cup of tea at the creek. It amazed her how the soothing sound of the water perked up her spirits and gave her energy instead of draining her. Right now, she didn’t really want too much energy because she was looking forward to an early bedtime tonight. And considering what she’d been through these last few days, a hot bath and an early night would be perfect.

  But she couldn’t stop thinking about the handcuffs. What an odd place for them. Her neighbor had to be in his seventies. He had told Doreen that he had a wife, Sicily, yet Doreen had never seen Sicily. Doreen had heard that odd androgynous voice out in their backyard behind the tall wooden privacy fence every once in a while. So Doreen was never sure if she was speaking to Richard or to Sicily.

  And Doreen wasn’t even sure that he was a he or that Sicily was a she. Even if a he, maybe Richard was homosexual. She didn’t have any problem with that. But, if the neighbor’s partner was hiding away, that would explain why nobody ever saw them. In which case, maybe the handcuffs were theirs.

  She smirked at the idea. Something was very delightful about the thought of her grumpy secretive neighbor with pink satin handcuffs.

  She relaxed by the creek, the setting sun highlighting the greens of the trees around her and her animals. It was truly a unique spot which she was so grateful to have. She couldn’t imagine living in those town houses with people so close on either side. She appreciated this creek, with the wide open spaces, a ready path, and a spot for the animals. And maybe all because of the creek she’d ended up finding a solution to so many cold cases. She certainly came here to find joy. She knew the media would hound her as she helped to solve each case, and that usually meant her front yard would be out of bounds again. Most of the time the media didn’t follow her to the backyard, but she couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t.

  She didn’t even want to contemplate how many cold cases this last case would close. At least she hoped Annette Helmsman’s deathbed confession should help close several of them. And now with Steve’s involvement confirmed, that would be another matter resolved, if not two. And potentially a lot more.

  Once the authorities got digging into that stuff and checked out Steve’s finances, who knew how many other women were paid to stay quiet? Doreen wondered if some of those women were still alive. Maybe they were buried on his property. Not to mention, who was the body they found burned to a crisp that they had first thought was Steve? On that note, she walked back to the house where she called Mack.

  His voice was exhausted as he said, “Please, not tonight.”

  She winced. “I was just making sure you were okay,” she improvised. “I know it was a pretty rough day.”

  “You think? On the other hand, Steve is in jail, locked up, and not saying a whole lot. But now we have reasonable access to everything in his life. It’ll take weeks to run it all down.”

  “Unless you get more from him,” she said. “You might want to play the Penny card with that. I’m pretty sure he might have had something to do with the deaths of George and the nurse.”

  “In what way?”

  “I just feel like Penny and Steve have been friends, if not more than friends, for decades. And I think that was the source of the fighting between her and George. He was probably always worried something more than friendship existed between them.”

  “Interesting line of thought,” Mack said. “We can use that. We can interview each of them and see what the other has to offer.”

  “Of course, if it’s true love, neither will roll on the other.”

  He gave a half snort. “True love tends to fall by the wayside for self-preservation when it comes to jail time.”

  “They’re both getting jail time regardless,” she said. “But what we can’t have is reasonable doubt that Penny worked alone, and then Steve walks free on yet more crimes. Or both being involved and not proving either case clearly. Of course, if he’s already going away for several murders …”

  “Depends. We don’t have a full investigation going yet at Steve’s house. We’ll return to his property, probably with cadaver dogs. Then we’ll see what we can find.”

  “So whose dead body was that who burned in the fire at Steve’s house?”

  “Police business, Doreen.” He sighed. “We’re checking into it.”

  “Good,” she said.

  “You sound exhausted too,” he said.

  “With good reason,” she retorted.

  “If you would stay out of trouble for once …”

  She snorted. “Absolutely! Wouldn’t that be nice?” Then she smiled and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, if we’re still on for dinner?”

  “We are. Not to worry.”

  “Great,” she said. “In that case, I’ll hang up. I’m sitting by the creek, trying to relax and unwind. I need a good night’s sleep tonight.”

  “You need several good nights’ sleep, and you need to stay out of trouble.”

  “With all the antiques gone, and pretty much everything else resolved with Penny and now with Steve locked up, I think I should be good to go. Oh, except for one thing.”

  “One thing?” His voice turned dark when he asked.

  “I did find something oddly incidental.”

  Mack gave a heavy sigh on the other end. “I don’t like the sound of that. What? Where?”

  “Well, it will give you a good laugh when I tell you,” she said. “I did find handcuffs. Not in the hydrangeas but in a patch of heather.”

  “Still an H,” he said, chuckling. “And why would you have found handcuffs?”

  “I took the rest of the dirt back to my neighbor. And, while I was there, I saw something shiny in his big heather patch. They were just so full of beautiful blooms that I had to admire them. And then I saw the metal object. When I pulled apart the heather to take a closer look, I realized what was there. So I used a stick to pull them out.”

  “Handcuffs?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Handcuffs in the heather at my neighbor’s house, yes,” she said, laughing. “So, you should be happy it’s not at my place.”

  “I highly doubt they’re significant in any case, so that’s great. I bet your neighbor loved it.”

  “So not,” she said. “In this case, they’re not real handcuffs either.”

  And she knew her humor should have been a dead giveaway, but Mack was obviously tired when he asked suspiciously, “What do you mean, not real?”

  “They’re wrapped in pink satin,” she said with a giggle.

  He snorted and then chuckled on the other end. “Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

  “And, of course, they’re quite dirty, as if they’ve been there for a while. I do have them here, but I’ll just toss them in the garbage.” She di
dn’t plan on doing that, but she wanted to hear if Mack had any reason she shouldn’t.

  “You do that,” he said. “I’m pretty sure you don’t need anything else on your plate right now. Anyway, I’ve got to go. It’s been a rough day.” And he hung up.

  She hung up too. Then she picked up the handcuffs and put them in a ziplock baggie with the paper towel she had lain them on and set them on the nearby bookshelf that was already fairly stuffed again. She frowned at that, but she didn’t really have any other place to keep the handcuffs. It wasn’t like she had a cupboard where she could store evidence. She did have a couple spare plastic baskets though. She went into the hall closet, pulled out the stack of baskets, and put the cuffs in the top one. Then she put it away again into the front closet. She called the animals to her for an early bedtime, and they all trooped upstairs.

  Chapter 3

  Saturday Early Morning …

  The next morning, Doreen opened her eyes. The first thing that popped into her head was spaghetti. Today was spaghetti day, and she couldn’t wait. Her stomach already growled, and she wasn’t even sure if she’d eaten last night. Probably just a few crackers with cheese. She did that most days, and the days morphed into each other. Yet her stomach had gotten used to having some regular food, cooked by Mack, but last night she’d been too tired and too exhausted to do much. The day’s events had caught up with her, making her beyond aware of what she’d been through, and all the things she still had to do as well.

  She still lay in bed, plotting her day and sensing where her three pets were. Goliath was curled around her head. Mugs lay across her feet. She thought she heard the tiny squeak of the nearby overhead perch for Thaddeus. Her body tried to convince her not to do more. It warned her that she’d pay if she moved.

  She shook her head and said, “You should have a hard day of work in your own garden today.” She shifted and gasped in pain. But then she remembered the fight with Steve and that garden work she had done at Millicent’s on Friday, followed by all her own backyard gardening accomplished yesterday and realized she had every right to be sore. She slowly made her way out of bed and into the shower.