The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery Read Online Free PDF

them, shedding most of her mystique with the one sentence. “We wanted to keep the romance of Tuscany alive by spending a few days in charming Litchfield hills.” Her blue eyes widened. “You know, they say there’s a similarity between the two places.”
    Mark turned his birdlike gaze on them. “But not between the profits they make. In Tuscany, it’s fifteen-dollar lattes in the piazzas, and thousand-dollar Ferragamos.” By accident, probably, his glance rested on Louise and stayed there. He gave her a slow grin, as if he were saying, “I’m cute, and so are you.” Ah, thought Louise, is this the kind of guy who must prove his manhood at every turn?
    “Like, you wouldn’t believe the crowds near Florence,” Sandy continued, her voice grating on Louise’s ears. Although Sandy was grown up and married, she had not left behind her Valley Girl vocabulary that, thanks to television, had come into universal use even among the allegedly educated. Louise was suddenly thankful her daughters hadn’t picked it up.
    “
Everybody’s
doing Tuscany this summer,” Sandy continued, “in addition to wherever else they might be going—it’s kind of, you know, an obligatory stop. Of course, Mark had to get back to Stamford to his computer company …” She gave her new spouse a look that would have dissolved most men, but which did not seem to penetrate Mark. When the new bride went on to tell them she worked in marketing with Calvin Klein in New York, Louise and Nora discreetlyshared a look that said, “Tell us something we couldn’t already guess.” It was the kind of job that would fit Sandy like a glove.
    The pair good-naturedly sat down at an adjoining table with Janie and Chris, and the four soon found something in common, despite a decade’s difference in their ages: cars. With this proximity, it was easy for Nora and Louise to overhear the details of Mark Post’s problems garaging his Bentley in the horse barn on the inn’s property—the only option available. And the car
needed
garaging because—after all—it was brand-new. Mark and Sandy fervently hoped bird droppings wouldn’t land on the car’s pristine roof.
    “Young love takes many forms,” Nora told Louise, sotto voce. “One is working together to ward off bird guano.”
    Louise giggled. “This may be Janie and Chris’s chance to absorb Yuppie life and learn to love it.”
    “Or better still, learn to hate it.”
    When another—older—couple arrived, getting acquainted with them was more difficult. They were shy, Louise guessed. They sat at a table by themselves and sipped iced tea, determined to appear too busy refreshing themselves to speak. But Louise was more determined to include them. She sauntered over and asked them straight out if they were interested in the garden tour. And they finally opened up: The Gasparras were growers from southern Pennsylvania, their specialty, the iris.
    “We didn’t come here for the tour, you can bet your life on that,” said Rod Gasparra, a short, stocky man with dark heavy eyebrows sheltering his brown eyes. Louise guessed his ancestry included some Middle European—Romanian, perhaps—blood, plus an assortment of other nationalities. He wore a sober business suit. If this was to be a vacation weekend, the man hadn’t gotten into the mood yet. “We might do the tour, we might do something else, like hike.
Viewing
flowers is not our top priority,” he added, his tone rising. “I have some serious talking to do with that fellowwho owns Wild Flower Farm.” During this little burst of emotion his fists balled up and his face turned a dull red; Louise would hate to see the man really blow his top.
    Dorothy Gasparra put a restraining hand on his arm, her face wary. Her rosy cheeks were framed by wavy, attractive brown hair caught back in a no-nonsense bun, and she had spectacular brown eyes that reminded Louise of gypsy nights. “Dear, Mrs. Eldridge doesn’t—”
    “Just call me