Katelyn’s Killer Murder Mystery

There was, of course, the heady optimism of a new beginning, my debut as a gardener in Stephanie’s townhouse garden. But what I remember most clearly is my newest friend’s body dripping swamp water, her surprised eyes wide open as the EMTs lifted her from the pond.

It was a sunny Thursday in May. I’d been enveloped in floral perfumes and a cloud of sun-splotched backlit red leaves. No desk, no office. This was how life was meant to be.

Steph and I had become friends last fall at a Master Gardeners class that I’d signed up for on a whim. I soon realized that she knew more about horticulture than most of our instructors. At the second class when I confided to her that I wanted to find a way to jump off the hamster wheel of my public relations job and, as a kid, liked to help my mom in our garden, she suggested doing it professionally. Which led, a half year later, to the first paying gig for Summers Breeze Gardening.

For six decades, Stephanie had nurtured her prize-winning garden on Queen Anne Street in the historic center of Annapolis. But since arthritis had ended her ladder-climbing, she’d hired me to prune out some branches that were chafing the elegant boughs of her garden’s centerpiece, a majestic burgundy-leaved Japanese maple. I was four rungs up my new stepladder extending my lopper’s jaws to the first victim when she called.

“Penelope, can you come down for a second? My neighbor wants to meet you.” I performed the surgery and, as the severed branch caromed to the ground, I smiled privately at my already growing reputation.

Steph’s tall neighbor, on his side of an old wrought iron fence between the two gardens resembled a Blue Heron standing in the shallows. Aside from his aristocratic New England accent, he reminded me of my late and lamented Grandpa Jack.

Expecting that Lionel Fielding would become the second client for my fledgling gardening enterprise, I gave him a shiny new business card and assured him that the pleasure of our meeting was all mine.

“Miss Summers,” he began, in his delightful accent, “I should very much like your help with a little problem over here.”

I loved his eloquence, but right away I had a funny feeling. Little problems, I’ve found, can always be depended on to escalate. I doubted if my new avocation was ready for one that would undoubtedly expand to a plus size. And when the “little problem” turned out to be in his goldfish pond, I refused.

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Fielding. I don’t do pond work.”

“Most landscapers,” he muttered, “work with garden ponds.” His elegant gray hair, button-down collar, and rep tie marked him as a wealthy retiree. Or he could have been a senior tutor at our Great Books College, St. John’s. You had to have money to live in this part of Annapolis.

I couldn’t see much of his pond. But what I did see looked worse than the most dismal day-old Navy coffee I’d ever tasted. Unless I was hallucinating, what he had was an unkempt miserable collage of decayed leaves and twigs in an ugly brown soup. If there were critters in that swamp, they’d have needed sonar to find their way because they sure as sugar couldn’t see a thing. Whatever talents Lionel Fielding had, they didn’t include pond-keeping.

“I’m sorry to report…,” I said with all the affected sweetness I could muster, tipping up my well-worn USS Enterprise ball-cap aw shucks fashion so he wouldn’t miss my new-client sparkle, “…that I’m an exception.”

“It’s just that our little fellow has been spouting for years.” He gestured to a small frog fountain that dribbled at the edge of the pond. “Till this morning.”

I shook my head. “Sorry.” Then to Stephanie, “We could call the guy who taught the Master Gardeners pond class.”

Lionel glanced from the ailing frog back to me. “I can certainly appreciate that ponds aren’t a specialty of yours—” he wore the hint of a smirk “—but it wouldn’t seem that finding the problem would require a degree in hydraulic engineering.”

Smartass, I thought to myself. The minor matter of a frog fountain on the sick list seemed to be a major inconvenience. He was probably the type who needed help changing a light bulb.

In spite of my six years in the Navy, water and I don’t get along. Swimming pools were bad enough, but a pond that refused to let you see into it? That hid slithery things? I couldn’t go there. When I was ten, my little brother Josh drowned in a swimming pool. It was my fault. I was engrossed in “The Secret Garden” when I was supposed to be watching him. I’ll never get over my guilt, not only for his death but for driving my mother away. Ever since, just the thought of a lake or pond gives me the shivers.

At the Naval Academy, we had to swim, but for me, each time, it took every ounce of determination I could muster. Fortunately, my aircraft carrier was never torpedoed so I never had to do the abandon ship thing for real.

“Lionel, look.” I tried to hide my annoyance. “I’m not a pond gal. Planting, pruning, and maintenance are what I do.” I didn’t add that I had no intention of ever adding pond work to my repertoire.

Here I was, more than twenty years since Josh drowned and I still haven’t outgrown the fear that a kraken would rise up and drag me under. I know it’s not rational. Give me a break. At least I’d outgrown my fear of monsters under the bed. Maybe I should try electroshock therapy. I’d just started my first day as a professional gardener and, instead of growing, my reputation was already in a basket on the highway to Hades. What was unnerving was that Lionel did remind me of my Grandpa Jack, for whom I’d have done anything. I knew I should just find the damn pump and clean off whatever glop was blocking its intake. No big deal, right?

“Okay,” I grumped, took a deep breath and dredged up what little moxie I could. “I’ll try to find your pump.”

“It’s bound to be something simple,” Steph said as we went through her gate into the cobblestone alley and around into Lionel’s yard. “Two shakes of a lamb’s tail and you’ll have it fixed.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t share her optimism.

Up close, the pond was even more derelict. Last fall’s leaves and winter’s crop of downed branches were like the fifth-grade joke about Beethoven in his grave: decomposing. Seeing into the slough was impossible, so I knelt at the edge and willed my hand below the surface. Like Nancy Drew in stories I’d read more than twenty years ago, I was in a very damp cellar without a flashlight. I pushed aside rotting branches, braved unseen slimy critters and swept through decayed leaves. Nothing.

I shifted to my left and reached deeper, defying invisible jaws. More of nothing.

I shifted back to the right and reached even deeper. My dread gauge soared from amber to bright red as I swung my arm in a wider arc. More leaves—a submerged branch—then— what?

I yanked my arm out and scattered soggy rotten leaves in every direction. Like the day my little brother drowned, my heart leaped. Definitely not in a good way.

“Something in your pond,” I stammered.

But from deep in my English major brain came the very real possibility that someone had travelled to what Hamlet described as the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

“Somebody,” I whispered.