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“Hated him,” said Willard.
“I’m afraid she did,” Ethel conceded. “She accused Garth of poisoning her roses. Those roses of hers were her pride and joy.”
“Why would Mr. Janken want to poison her roses?”
“Libby claims Garth was getting even with her for calling the police when one of his parties got too loud.”
“Which house is Libby’s?” I asked, eager to question this promising suspect.
“It’s the two-story Spanish across the street,” Willard said, “with the Swarovski Rudolph on the lawn out front.”
“The Swarovski Rudolph?”
“Rudolph the Reindeer’s nose is a Swarovski crystal,”
Ethel said. “Lord only knows how much it cost!”
“I tell you,” Willard said, wagging his gherkin at me, “there’s something strange about that woman.”
I thanked the Coxes for their time and their egg salad and headed back outside, contemplating the nature of life on Hysteria Lane. Who would’ve thought there’d be so much hostility lurking beneath the surface of this picture-perfect block? It made the Middle East look like a picnic in the Amish country.
I was in the middle of a war zone, all right. Trouble was, I didn’t know the good guys from the bad.
The nose on Libby Brecker’s Rudolph was indeed a red crystal, in all probability a genuine Swarovski.
I found Libby on her lawn spritzing it with Windex. She was a plump woman with bright brown eyes and hair so glossy, I could practically see my face in it.
Once again posing as an insurance investigator, I flashed her my Century National card and explained that I was looking into Garth’s death on Seymour’s behalf.
“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Go ahead,” she chirped. “Ask away.”
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By now she was down on her knees, buffing the runners on an elaborate wooden sleigh that was probably once owned by Currier & Ives.
I asked her if she’d seen anyone on the roof in the days before Garth’s death and like everybody else I’d spoken with, she gave me the same disappointing answer.
“Just the roofers. Who, incidentally, seemed to be doing an excellent job. I was thinking of using them myself, but after what happened to Garth, that’s not going to happen.”
Poor Seymour. I was certain most people would react the way Libby had. If word of Garth’s death got around, his business would be ruined.
“Of course, Garth was foolish to go up on the roof in the first place,” she said. “You really need to hire a professional for that. I always do. But then I’m acrophobic. Dreadful fear of heights,” she added, in case my vocabulary didn’t extend beyond three-syllable words. “I get dizzy in high heels. Ha ha.”
(Translation: If you’re hinting at foul play, sweetie, don’t even think of trying to pin this on me. ) “Are you sure you didn’t see anyone else up on the roof, other than the roofers?
“Omigosh!” she cried, hitting her forehead with the palm of her hand. “I just remembered!”
At last! A lead!
“My cookies!” she said. “I’ve got cookies in the oven!”
So much for leads.
“C’mon inside, and we’ll talk there.”
I followed her into her house, past a border of newly planted rosebushes, little stubs with the nursery tags still on them. Probably replacements for the ones that had been poisoned.
“Take your shoes off,” Libby instructed, kicking hers off.
“I just waxed and buffed the floors, and I don’t want to track in any mud.”
We put our shoes on something Libby called her “mud THE DANGERS OF CANDY CANES
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rug,” an area rug so pristine, it was hard to imagine it had ever been sullied by a speck of actual mud.
“I’ll be right back,” she trilled. “Make yourself comfortable in the living room.”
She pointed to a room off the foyer and then scurried to the back of the house.
I made my way through an arched entranceway to the living room.
Yikes, I thought, looking around. The place was a real-life issue of Martha Stewart Living.
The furniture was upholstered in a palette of white and beige, accented by colorful throw pillows and strategically placed vases of fresh-cut flowers. Cinnamon spice potpourri scented the air. And framed in the window was a magnificent Christmas tree, studded with what looked like exquisite handmade ornaments—angels and snowflakes and fragrant pomander balls. What a masterpiece. It made the one at Rockefeller Center look like a blue light special at Kmart. I wondered if the resourceful Libby had grown the darn thing herself.
Padding around the room in my socks, hoping I wouldn’t skid into a tailspin on the freshly waxed floors, I came across a pine étagère filled with artfully arranged photos and mementos.
There was Libby on the beach with a sunburned potbellied man, both of them wearing leis, smiling into the camera. Her deceased husband, I presumed. There were several pictures of twin boys at various stages in their lives, from diaper days to high school graduation. But what caught my attention was a framed newspaper photo of Libby grinning at the camera, clutching a trophy. The headline above the photo read: LIBBY BRECKER, 42, WINS ANNUAL ROSE COMPETITION
FOR FIFTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR. And indeed, proudly displayed and dramatically lit on a center shelf were five golden trophies from the West Los Angeles Gardening Club for Most Beautiful Rose.
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Interesting, I noted, how the roses got better shelf space than her husband and kids.
Libby was crazy about her roses, all right. Crazy enough, I wondered, to have killed someone she thought poisoned them?
“I see you’re looking at my family pictures.”
I turned to see Libby sailing into the room with a tray of cookies and milk.
“The twins just went off to college this year,” she said, putting the tray down on a gleaming pine coffee table. “Golly, I’ve missed them. Empty nest syndrome, you know.”
Why did I get the feeling she was secretly relieved not to have to worry about the twins tracking mud onto her floors?
“I brought us some cookies.”
She waved me over to the matching white sofas that fronted the fireplace and I sat across from her, sinking into a luxurious down cushion.
“Have one,” she offered. “They’re chocolate chip.”
As if I didn’t know. I can smell a chocolate chip cookie baking in Pomona. And these looked particularly scrumptious, studded with chunks of chocolate and walnuts.
Of course, I couldn’t possibly allow myself to have a cookie, not after the brownie I’d just had at Willard and Ethel’s.
(Okay, so I had a brownie at Willard and Ethel’s. Okay, two brownies. Oh, don’t go shaking your head like that. I’d like to see what you’re eating right now.) The last thing I needed was another calorie clinging to my thighs. But I couldn’t say no, could I? Not after all the trouble she’d gone to put them on a tray and bring them out to me. No, under the circumstances, the only polite thing to do was eat a cookie. But just one, that was all.
“Thanks,” I said, grabbing one. “They look scrumptious.”
“They are,” she said, with a confident nod.
I took a bite. I thought I’d died and gone to cookie heaven.
With great effort, I forced myself to resume my questioning.
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