Front Yard Read online

  “Down to the hardcore this year, I guess,” said Nan. “Livia’s true-blue gardeners, the ones in it for the long haul. Speaking of which, we’d better get crackin’ ourselves. We don’t want a couple of girls showing us up, do we?”

  George didn’t respond. He was stewing about someone getting murdered in their yard, however long ago that might have been.

  The Fremonts were intermittent Christians belonging to the Please-Redeem-Me Lutheran Church, an offshoot of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that allowed a little pagan-flavored nature worship to enter into its doctrine. While that was plenty good enough for Nan, George occasionally entertained extreme spiritual notions more in line with his druidical antecedents. For instance, he thought it was quite possible that malevolent spirits of the unsettled dead rattled around and created mischief in the places where they had died.

  Nan, though she had become an accomplished plant whisperer and had petitioned the synod to add an epicurean element to the tenets of their faith, had no doubt that the dead went to abide blissfully with Our Lord and Savior unless they were real creeps. In that case they just turned into the fossil fuels of tomorrow, and were quite incapable of oozing up through the earth.

  George turned on the radio. The exuberant babblings of Milo Weavermill and Bernie “Bad Dog” Simpson, the voices of the St. Anthony Muskies, salved his nagging anxieties. So did the fact that the Muskies were hammering the Pelicans, 12–2, and Johnny “Smokestack” Gaines had already jacked two out of the park.

  “Turn that down, please,” Nan said.

  From a block away, they couldn’t see daughter Mary and Shirelle, their gardening intern, who were supposed to be hard at work prepping the soil in their front yard for the new gardens that Shirelle had purportedly been designing for them over the winter and spring. No sign of any turned-up soil, the rototiller, or burlap-encased shrubs or bushes. In fact, there was no sign of any activity at all.

  But there was something else that caught Nan’s attention, something new, big, and artificial sticking out of the yard.

  “Look, George, they put it back!” Nan beamed.

  On the rounded corner of their lot, at the little grassy spot where their unshaded bluegrass, rye, and fescue tended to cook brown by late July, the Burdick’s sign had reappeared. Made of wooden planks and posts sunk deep into the turf, it measured six feet wide by four feet tall. Most important was what the sign said in dark letters branded boldly, yet tastefully, into the knotty pine boards:

  CONGRATS, G. AND N. FREMONT, 1ST PLACE PRIZE, BURDICK’S BEST YARD CONTEST. The G. AND N. FREMONT part was on a little raised panel, detachable, so that when the next contest came around in four years it could be replaced by a similar panel with the new winners’ names on it. George cringed, then made a manly effort to give Nan some positive support.

  “Oh, boy,” he said. “It’s back.”

  “Last year’s sign was better,” said Nan, as she leaned forward, squinting and knitting her brow. “The letters are too big. Gee whiz, they couldn’t even make the room to spell out our first names. What’s going to happen if Jocelynbower Ker-plunkinpoof Wimblybones wins next time? Ha-ha! I mean, hey, they’re giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes, and they’re going to skimp on the sign design?”

  George didn’t answer. He was too busy trying to figure out who had just hit that double while he honed all his senses to be alert for any signs of dead-guy activity.

  4

  A Spring Prelude

  “Mom, Daddy, they put the sign back up!”

  Mary bounded down the steps to the garage quivering with excitement as George and Nan got out of the car.

  She and Shirelle had been sitting on the front stoop lazily sipping cold lemonades. They had been wishing aloud that they could be in Martinique or Maui pounding down alcohol-fortified coconut milk and scarfing down native chocolate served to them on gold platters by cute guys in tight swimming trunks.

  As George and Nan pulled up the driveway at a crawl, they saw that the two girls were engaged in languid conversation, probably not about the horticultural condition of the front yard, and clutching beverages instead of gardening hand tools. The yard looked empty. What happened to their trip to Burdick’s?

  “They just put it back up about an hour ago!” Mary said. “We watched them. The guys putting it up were real hunks!”

  “Yes, dear,” said Nan laconically. “How exciting. Too bad we don’t have much to show for it yet. Maybe they could have waited until after Memorial Day since it’s been such a late season.”

  Nan found herself wondering whether Mary’s newfound gardening jag was all just for show, and if she might turn out to be like George’s side of the family, in other words, a little slow to the mark. If that was the case, had they been too quick to stop calling her by her childhood nickname—“Sis”—last summer?

  “They did actually say they were going to put it up again this year for a few weeks,” said George glumly. “No big surprise there.”

  “Daddy, don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud. Don’t you want to be famous some more?”

  “No. I do not.”

  “Oh, George,” said Nan, giving George a playful jab to the ribs. “A little more notoriety won’t kill us.”

  “Yeah, Daddy, when someone gets to be your age you gotta go for it while you can.”

  Nan and George smiled tepidly.

  A car stopped at the corner, and a woman poked her head out of the driver’s side window. She studied the sign, then craned her neck to see around it and take in the barren slope that was gray-brown with still-dormant grass. After a few seconds, the visitor scowled and drove off.

  “Not much to see yet, is there?” said Nan. “I hope she comes back when things look more promising.”

  “By the time things look good the sign will be gone, Mom,” Mary said. “You need to ask them if you can keep the sign up at least through the middle of June. By then, the gardens’ll be the bomb!”

  Nan scanned the front yard for any sign that the girls had actually been doing something that might resemble physical labor.

  “So, how are we doing here? The stuff from Burdick’s you bought—you dumped it in the backyard, right?”

  Mary frowned, then pursed her lips.

  “Uh, okay, Mom, here’s the deal. You know the plan Shirelle was drawing up? She wants to tear it up and throw it away. She said it wrecks all the spontaneity that succeeded so well in the backyard. So, we didn’t get anything from Burdick’s. We didn’t even go to Burdick’s. We’re waiting for you and Daddy to have a front yard inspiration.”

  Nan and George exchanged knowing glances: Here was solid evidence that Mary’s newfound passion might be a fleeting one.

  “But Shirelle has spent a lot of time working on those plans,” Nan said. “And she has so much expertise and training that your father and I don’t have. Besides, the backyard took us six years. We want to get the front yard into shape now.”

  “Yeah, but Shirelle said that, from now on, we’re throwing all the by-the-book stuff out the window and going with your gut. C’mon, you can do it. Just get inspired.”

  George smiled in a sort of pained way, as if trying to hide a sudden hemorrhoidal flare-up. Nan snorted derisively.

  “As you recall, Miss Mary, we’re responsible for continuing the backyard. You and Shirelle were to take on the challenge of new gardens in the front yard. Being amateurs, we wanted to see how the experts did it. In fact, you might recall that we changed our minds about having her work for free and decided to take on Shirelle as a paid intern. How’s she going to get her college credit if we do all the work?”

  “But, Mom, Shirelle felt like her efforts were so puny compared to what you and Daddy did in the backyard. She needs your help.”

  Nan looked sternly up at Shirelle, who smiled guiltily and raised her ice cube–filled glass in salute. Mary laughed.

  “Don’t worry, Mom; it’s just lemonade.”

  Settling into the
new celebrity-endorsed swivel rocking chairs on the back patio, George and Nan gazed out over the expanse of their backyard. They quickly noted how little there was to see.

  Well, there were the beginnings of a few things. Pointed hosta tips had emerged to the extent that if you brushed away the vegetative detritus that seemed to be everywhere, and leaned low enough to bring your eyes within about a foot of them, you could make out a couple of centimeters’ worth of plant, recognizable only as beads of purple and green.

  The columbine was two inches tall. No sign of any clematis, which had a long summer’s trip to make, climbing up the trellis and the newly positioned weathered-gray ladder tilted at about a seventy-five-degree angle against the siding. The lovely magenta phlox, such a dependable source of early-season color, was only just showing signs of life, as were the lilac bushes, which ordinarily would have been masses of purple perfuming the lower twelve feet of the backyard atmosphere with their delicious grape scent.

  The irises were up, but only barely, and there was no sign of the buds that should soon be shrouding the bridal wreath spirea with clouds of tiny white flowers.

  With the exception of the marigolds, which George had ill-advisedly insisted on planting in two spots that would allow only intermittent sunlight once the trees leafed, their annuals were still sitting in their flats. They had bought this first installment of annuals two weeks earlier, but the late-flying snowflakes and persistent rains had made it impossible to plant them. George and Nan had uncharacteristically left them out in the elements, strewn all over the patio. As a result, the cardboard flats had been softened by a continuous bombardment of moisture into soggy cellulose.

  Nan gazed at George’s weather station, with its rain gauge screwed into the end post of the split-rail fence that divided their backyard into two distinct garden sections. He had emptied it just two days ago, and the floating red ring had since then been raised by countless thousands of collected raindrops to the one-and-a-half-inch yellow marking.

  Things were starting to look up, though. The ground had dried some yesterday afternoon. Enough to get planting, as they discovered on their tour. Puffs of refreshing wind from the north careened around the corners of the house and over the roof. Fragments of the cloud scud that had blanketed the sky earlier in the morning were in rapid retreat.

  And here was that welcome stranger, the sun! It dappled the yard on and off again for a couple of minutes, then lit it up for good, causing Nan to squint and think about searching for those elusive sunglasses.

  Here was something else to cheer her. George was back after a very brief absence, having retrieved a bottle of their house wine—the Sagelands vintage 2007 merlot. He extracted the cork with a gentle suction “pop,” then poured them both a half-glass, giving the bottle a little quarter-turn twist that, from Nan’s careful observations, had never resulted in so much as one spilled drop anywhere.

  A couple of healthy sips later, Nan found herself entering that blissful place called “Merlotland,” where you were more than welcome to leave your petty little concerns behind, in the care of the teetotaler. All but one little concern, that is.

  “So, where do you think this Sieur guy is buried?”

  “You mean, Monsieur Boyer, or Sieur de la Salle?”

  “Whomever.”

  George glugged down the remnants of his wine to fortify him for the unpleasant dead-person speculation he had hoped to avoid. “I hope nowhere,” he said. “And besides, who’s to say anyone was killed here at all? If that Historical Society lady yanked our chain about the so-called treasure, why wouldn’t she yank our chain about that?”

  “I don’t know, George. I think she could have been telling the truth about that. Another thing: I have a sneaking suspicion she was lying about there not being any treasure. Didn’t you notice how freaked out she was when you first mentioned something else buried there? I think she knows something she doesn’t want us to know about. Like maybe there is a treasure, or something of value.”

  “I still think it’s all a big bunch of hooey,” said George.

  “Speaking of a big bunch of hooey, look who’s coming.”

  Jim Graybill charged clumsily up the railroad-tie-and-pea-gravel steps to the patio with the relentless energy of a man determined to do something big that he can’t quite put his finger on. He was a loping, disjointed, and careless walker, and Nan, no matter how much her mood had been brightened by a half-glass of Dr. Feelgood, watched with irritation as his clunky work boots scattered her pea gravel everywhere.

  “Fremonts!” Jim gasped.

  “Graybill!” said the Fremonts.

  “May I sit?”

  “Of course you can sit,” said George. “Glass of merlot? It’s a new vintage this year, 2007.”

  Jim shook his head. He was one of the few neighbors who rarely partook of the Fremonts’ Sagelands bounty. That never stopped George from asking. After all, it was darn near an insult to turn down a glass of merlot at the Fremont table.

  “Whaddup, Jimmikins?” said Nan.

  “Pardon?”

  “Whaddup, Jim-bob?”

  Jim’s face was a blank, a sure sign of the slow-wittedness that had come over him as of late. Nan and George attributed that to a sort of post-traumatic stress resulting from the loss of Alicia, his wife. Alicia had run off six months ago with the guy who came by to fix their dryer.

  “Okay, I guess you’re asking me how I am.”

  “Very good, Jim,” said Nan.

  “I’m fine. So, how’d it go?”

  “‘It’? What’s ‘it’?”

  “C’mon, Nan. Your know darn well what ‘it’ is.”

  “Okay, no foolin’ around,” said George, freshening up the wineglasses with the remnants of the Sagelands. “What’s ‘it’?”

  Nan laughed.

  “You guys know. The Livia Historical Society. You went there this morning, didn’t you?”

  “Why would you think that?” said Nan in a robotic tone. She had zoned out and was staring off into the gardens, preoccupied by the stunted look of one of their bleeding hearts. Jim sighed.

  “Maybe you want a gin and tonic, Jim,” George said. “Bombay Sapphire with just the right touch of lime.” Jim waved off the offer. George shot up and bolted toward the backdoor anyway.

  “How did I know about your visit?” continued Jim. “Because you promised me you’d go. And George and Nan Fremont never go back on a promise.” Nan, brought back into the here and now by the loud chirp of the resident male cardinal, smiled in a sweet, perky way. “And the only Saturday they would have been open for weeks was today. So . . . how’d it go?”

  Nan had drifted off again. This time, she found herself deep in thought about her proposal to the synod for linking old-fashioned Christianity with something more indulgent to mold a new spirituality. Actually, the deeper she got into it, the more the old-fashioned Christianity part got shoved to the wayside. This was turning into more of a cult, with the pastor playing the part of Bacchus, and offering up some really good merlot—Sagelands preferred—or gin and tonics for the non-wine drinkers, at communion. With unlimited refills. Communion would be followed by some kind of revelry, a hymn or two for appearances’ sake, and the selection of designated drivers to make sure everyone got home safely.

  Then, Jim choked on something and an old rattletrap belonging to the Stephens boys roared and came sputtering down Payne. That broke the spell. Nan shifted her gaze skyward as the prickly flagellum of Christian guilt whipped her back into shape. She quietly apologized to the one, true God, for entertaining such paganish notions.

  I’m sorry, Lord, she said in silent prayer; I’ve had a bit too much to drink here. Didn’t mean to stray. Blame George; he’s been plying me with alcohol, which you put on this earth in the first place, didn’t you. So, it’s you guys’ fault if I end up worshipping false idols before the day’s over.

  Looking back down at the table, she noticed that a tall, ice-filled glass dripping with condensation and
topped with a slice of lime perched on the rim had suddenly appeared in front of her.

  “I hope this is mixed weakly, world’s fastest bartender,” she said. “We just had a glass and a half of wine in a matter of about five minutes, you know. And there are young and impressionable folk roaming about the grounds. Don’t want to set a bad example.”

  “Mixed weakly yours, mixed strongly mine,” said George with a grin.

  “Say,” Jim said. “I think I will take one of those, if you don’t mind terribly.”

  “I do mind terribly,” said George. “But I’ll get you one anyway.”

  “Uh, Nan,” he said. “The Historical Society?”

  “Oh, yeah. You wouldn’t believe the historian we ran into there.”

  “That so?”

  “Oh God, Jim, she was a piece of work and a half. . . . Hey, this drink isn’t weak at all. Goldarnit!” Nan clinked her ice cubes and stared at the witch’s brew of gin and tonic, then shrugged and took a sip. “Very rude and strange, Jim. She kept telling us all these stories about things that happened here. And by ‘here’ I mean right here where we’re sitting now. One was about murder.”

  “Murder?

  Back came George, who placed a fizzing gin and tonic gingerly on the table in front of Jim.

  “Presto!” he said. Nan smiled. She was happy to see George showing off something he was really good at.

  “Well, it was a murder that was supposed to have happened, what was it, George, about three hundred years ago?”

  “Give or take forty or fifty.”

  “And that was just the start. She said there were pirates heading up the Big Turkey with gold doubloons.”

  “Pirates? The Big Turkey? You couldn’t even take a kayak. . . .”