The Perennial Killer: A Gardening Mystery Read Online Free PDF

bend.”
    Louise had thought her stomach was settled, but now it rumbled threateningly. Janie—“Surely that was a fluke.…”
    “Two things are happenin’ out here, Louise,” he said. “One’s the new folks tryin’ to meld in with the old settlers who farmed and mined the land. The other is the new folks disturbin’ the hell out of the wildlife.” He shot a glance back at Ann. “She calls what’s happened to these animals ‘loss of habitat.’ Translated, that means the yuppies now share space with wild creatures. So rattlesnakes are biting the kiddies in the backyard, bears are walkin’ in people’s back doors and stealing their Entenmann cookies off the counters, deer are eating their best landscape bushes, and the occasional lion nabs a dog or a baby—”
    The county officer admonished him from the back seat. “Pete! Don’t make it sound worse than it is! No
babies
have—”
    “Baby
dogs
, is what I was gonna say. Hey, look, Ann, I’m only telling Louise the facts—nothing more. Of course, there
is
die trade-off. We may suffer the occasional slaughter by wild animal, but we don’t have a helluva lotta drive-by shootings.” He paused to let that sink in. “Thefact is, the newspapers don’t even bother to report the death of
pets
any more. They get eaten by the dozens.”
    His face darkened, and Louise realized that suddenly the issue had become personal. “I tell you, if my cat gets eaten, there’s going to be hell to pay.”
    “Hell to pay?” said Ann. “Just what does that mean?”
    “I’ll sue the city of Boulder for not controlling the wild animals around here, that’s what.”
    Ann made a skeptical noise. “How about just blocking the cat door,” she suggested in a condescending tone.
    Pete shook his head. “Aw, I couldn’t do that to him. He’s too wild. It would kill his spirit.”
    Louise gave Pete a long look, and saw the flashing pale blue eyes, still full of mischief.
Devilish
mischief. Not only would he rejoice if she finally got sick, but he was also trying to scare her witless before she even got started. Well, he wouldn’t succeed. She turned back to Ann to talk about more positive things. “About this Porter Ranch. Are you the one who persuaded the rancher to sell his property to the county?”
    Ann blushed and could not help smiling. Louise smiled with her, and even included Pete in the smile, since he was driving more carefully now. “Yes,” said the land officer, “but I was assisted by, well, Cupid. Old Jimmy Porter-he’s a darling; I love him myself. There’s just something about him. What was I saying? Oh, yes. He fell in love with a schoolteacher he’s known for years, and decided to live in town after his wedding. That made selling a lot easier for him.”
    She pointed a finger out the window. They had reached one of the highest points on the road. The snow-capped back range of the Rockies had come into sight, while in the foreground, cattle grazed on a downward-slanted meadow. It looked just like a postcard Louise had seen in a Boulder drugstore when she’d bought a value-size bottle ofaspirin. “Almost thirteen thousand new acres of open space,” Ann was saying in a reverent voice. “There’s no question that this is the best thing I’ve been able to accomplish—to make all this land available to the people, so they can enjoy it, walk it, ride horses or bikes on it…”
    As Louise gazed out, her own hand relaxed on the handgrip above the door. Her stomach was no longer demanding her attention. How could she not like this beautiful place?
    Pete had subsided into silence but was keeping a close eye on Louise. Just why he had to do that, she didn’t know. She curbed a sigh and reflected that this wasn’t the only weird cameraman she had met since she got into the television business two years ago. And it probably wouldn’t be the last.
    Then they pulled over the top of the ridge, and she gasped. They were descending into an enclosed mountain