The Perennial Killer: A Gardening Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

doing—even driving on a steep road with no sissy side rails—and started shooting pictures.
    Louise looked at Ann Evans in dismay. Surely this young county official didn’t want to die, either.
    “Don’t worry,” he assured them, “I’m almost done and I won’t scare y’all again.” This time, Pete simply held the camera in the air and without drawing it to his eye got off a couple more shots. Then he unceremoniously dumped the apparatus back into the carryall. “Now tell us more about those murders, Louise. Was it you, or your family, who caught the killers?”
    She gave him a stony glance. “If you keep both hands on the wheel, I’ll tell you.”
    “Promise.”
    “We did it together,” she said shortly, then pressed her lips together, like a stubborn child.
    “That’s it?”
    Ann, the diplomat, stepped in to mend the breach. “Gosh, I’d like to hear about that some time, but maybe not now. Louise, your TV show is doing so well. I’m glad you came out here to do programs. It’s terrific publicity for our open space program.”
    Louise smiled. “Finally, because of support for the idea from the President, people are beginning to understand what ‘open space’ means.”
    “And once they see your
Gardening with Nature
program, they’ll know all about the tracts of land purchased or donated to the counties, to keep them out of development,” Ann enthused. “It’s worked beautifully in Boulder.Thirty years ago, the city fathers decided they wanted to keep these foothills untouched, and they succeeded.”
    Pete chimed in. “Now you have a pretty lil’ mountain town surrounded with enough land to make two more cities of the same size. Pretty darned luxurious, if y’ask me. Boulder sits on, say, sixteen thousand acres. But encircling it is over
thirty thousand
acres of parks and open space. And that’s just the
city
of Boulder. The county’s out there, too, buying open space land like there’s no tomorrow.”
    “Darn right,” said Ann, her pretty bottom lip stuck out defensively. “Fifty-four thousand acres.”
    “That could be three more cities,” grumbled Pete.
    Louise ignored him. This boorish cameraman sounded like a developer. She turned to Ann and said, “Marty Corbin has always wanted to do a show out here. Open space issues tie in so well with my being a member of the National Environmental Commission—”
    The cameraman chuckled. “Man, that must make you a pawn of every owl-eyed environmentalist that ever lived.”
    “
Pete
.” Ann shook her head, as if to intimate that Pete could not be taken seriously.
    Louise went on. “Of course, we’ll still talk about flowers and trees, but we want to expand the show a bit to touch on things like preserving wilderness, saving habitats, creating wildlife corridors, and finding new ways to purify water. Boulder County’s right in the middle of all that.”
    “You’ll love doing a show at Porter Ranch,” gushed Ann. “It has everything: meadows, valleys, cliffs, special rock formations, little lakes, even marshes. About the best assemblage of flora on the Front Range of the Rockies—as well as some pesky weeds we’ll see today while we’re up there. And the animals, we have all sorts of animal and bird species—elk, deer, raptors, jackrabbits. And, of course, bears and lions—”
    Pete skinned a look back at Ann. “Okay, slow down there, pardner—you’re
speedin’
. Are you gonna tell Louise the dark side, how lions’ve been killin’ people?”
    Ann made a gesture as if to minimize his statement. “Now, Louise, don’t you worry. There have been only three deaths from mountain lions in Colorado in the past several years.”
    “Yeah,” said Pete drily, “
only
three. Includin’ a skinny twelve-year-old boy hiking with his parents in Rocky Mountain National Park a month ago. He was only a hundred or so feet from his family when the lion selected him for his dinner. Ripped him apart before they even rounded the