They laughed.
“Mr. Douglas’s sister died of a heart attack, they said,” Gil continued after a moment.
“Yes. She had blockages in all her arteries.” She sighed. “I told her cooking with all that lard was going to do her in. I only use olive oil when I cook. Well, sometimes I have to add a little vegetable oil, when I need to have really high heat. But no fat, ever. It was that fat that caused the blockages. That, and her high cholesterol. She refused to take any medicine for it.”
“Some people are stubborn,” Gil remarked.
“And some people are stupid,” she shot back.
“I have to agree,” Gil said. “It’s how we catch a lot of our criminals. Not that we have an abundance of them in Benton.”
“I hope you can find whoever put poor Marley in that hole,” she replied. “Why not just leave the body on the road so it could be found?”
“Beats me,” Gil confessed.
“Somebody killed him, didn’t they?” she asked, and looked pointedly at Nemara.
Gil hesitated. “Well, yes. The indications are that he was murdered.”
“Then somebody in Benton is a killer, young man,” she pointed out. “And for the good of this community, you have to find him.”
“Or her,” Gil returned. “We’ve had female killers as well as male ones.”
She shook her head. “What a world we live in.”
“I can’t argue with that. It gets crazier every day.” He looked at his notes. “Did Marley have any enemies that you know of?”
“No. Everybody loved Marley,” Judge Garrett replied gently.
“Not everybody, Judge Garrett,” he returned.
She sighed. “That’s right. Yes, I guess that’s right.”
* * *
They stayed a few more minutes to see if there was anything more Judge Garrett could tell them, but there wasn’t. They said their good-byes and went back out to the car. Gil drove them back to the water line. The men had finished filling in the deep hole and they were gone, leaving caution signs around the soft earth.
Gil and Nemara walked all around the area, looking at trees. Most of the leaves had turned, and many were falling, but some were still on the trees. Nemara had a picture on her phone of the maple tree they needed to find, but so far, no luck. Just quaking aspens and birch and fir trees.
“Let’s go see the florist,” Gil said suddenly, remembering that she might also have some information about the victim. Everyone said he had no enemies. But he had at least one. And Gil needed to find out who it was.
“Good idea,” Nemara agreed.
* * *
Mrs. Teague ran the local florist shop and had for as long as anyone could remember. She was in her fifties, spry and full of fun, and smiling as she greeted them.
“Hello, Gil,” she said. She’d known him since he was a young boy.
He chuckled. “Hi, Mrs. Teague. This is my colleague, Nemara.” He nodded toward the other woman, who smiled. “We’re investigating the murder of Marley Douglas.”
“Marley . . . was murdered?” she exclaimed, catching her breath. “Oh, my goodness, when? And by whom?”
“Those are questions we hope to be able to answer soon,” he said. “We don’t know a lot just yet. So we’re asking around to see what people remember about him. You must have known him.”
“I certainly did,” she replied. “I was in his Sunday school class, the one he taught for adults. Bible study.” She drew in a long breath. “We had so many search parties out when he disappeared,” she recalled. “He was loved in the community. A kind man, with a very big heart. Have you told the mayor yet?” she added, concerned. “They were best friends. Always together in the summer. They went camping and fishing.” She shook her head. “It will just kill him!”
“He knows,” Gil replied. “He was very upset.”
She drew in a long breath and leaned back against her counter. “Marley’s sister was really in love with Dirk Handley. I think he loved her just as much. They had some sort of disagreement, and things went downhill. He married that, that witch he lives with—Nita Riley—to show that he could live without Miss Douglas. What a sad, sad decision that was.”
“Did Marley have enemies?”
She smiled sadly. “He was loved,” she said simply. “He was the first on the scene if anyone needed help. He was a volunteer fireman. He was on the hospital board. He helped out in our soup kitchen. I don’t think anyone ever said a harsh word to him. He was that sort of person.”
Gil ground his teeth. This case got harder and harder.
“Do you know the native species of trees around town?” Nemara asked.
Mrs. Teague blinked, startled by the change of subject. “Well, yes. I mean, I love flowers and trees, and I’ve lived in Benton my whole life.”
“Can you show her the leaf we found?” she asked Gil.
He pulled it out and displayed it on the counter.
“My app says it’s a bigtooth maple,” Nemara volunteered. “But we’ve looked all around, and we can’t find a single one.”
She chuckled. “You looked in the wrong places. The only bigtooth maples around Benton belong to the mayor. He has an open fireplace—huge thing built with river rocks—and he burns the trees for heat in the winter.”
Nemara blinked. “I thought there were regulations against . . .” she began.
“Oh, the mayor’s above such things,” she said, not altogether teasing. “He does what he pleases. I believe Gil’s had at least one run-in with him about a leaf fire that got out of control in his yard . . .”
Gil grimaced. “It was a hell of a run-in,” he agreed. “I told him he had to be more careful, and he told me Jeff could find a deputy to replace me.”
“What happened?” Nemara asked.
“Jeff happened.” He chuckled. “He told Mayor Handley that if he fired me, the whole damned force would quit. He’d talked to the chief of police as well, and that gentleman said the police force would follow suit. The mayor was suitably shocked. And I kept my job.”
“But he’s still burning trash and letting fires get wild.” Mrs. Teague sighed. “He and Marley had words about that pretty often. You see, Marley’s home was only a stone’s throw away, up behind the mayor’s house. One of those wildfires caught some brush on fire in Marley’s yard and threatened the house. Marley was even-tempered, but he could get mad, and he did.”
This was interesting. Nemara listened intently.
“Very mad,” Gil agreed. “But he was not a violent man. I’ve seen him lose his temper at people in county commission meetings that I had to attend for funding requests.” He shook his head. “He never got physical, no matter how angry he got.”
“Well, that’s one suspect down,” Nemara said sadly.
He smiled at her. “We’ll find more.”
“You’ll really have to dig,” Mrs. Teague told them. “But why would somebody kill Marley in the first place?”
“That,” Gil replied, “is the main thing we have to solve. Thanks very much for your time, Mrs. Teague. If you remember anything else, will you call the office?” he asked. “If I’m not in, they can always track me down.”