Page 87 of Out on a Limb
“Thank God.” I grabbed the sprayer nozzle attached to the long hose and twisted on the tap before going back to the literal shitshow on Collette’s driveway.
I stood outside of the splash zone as I shot a jet of water at the brown muck that I’d bet my ass didn’t come from an animal. As I cleared the bulk of it a pile of the plastic bags they’d used to create the shit sacks came into view.
Someone went to a lot of work to make a set of excrement explosives and put them—
I turned back toward the house as I continued to spray down the tires and concrete. The camera feed we’d been watching last night didn’t show much of the driveway, which meant we wouldn’t be able to see the actual placement of the poop packages…
But we might be able to see the getaway car.
I finished hosing the mess, using the force of the water to scoot the bags to the grass, then wound the hose back into place.
I pulled open the door to find Collette already watching the feed from her camera, her face twisted into a tight scowl. “I should have gone with plan A.”
“Plan A?” This time I went with what I was used to and hooked one hand over the headrest on Collette’s seat, using it as a brace as I twisted to look out the back window.
“Plan A is always arson. Sylvia wanted to burn the trailer down.”
“Your plan A is always arson?”
“Not mine. Sylvia’s.” She frowned at the bags I’d pushed into her side yard. “I should have let her do it.”
“You sure this was them?” I backed out into the street, holding the position a little longer than I needed to, so I could do a visual sweep of the street. “We know for sure someone else was here last night.”
“Can you imagine Alan shitting into a plastic bag?”
“People do crazy things when they’re desperate.” I shifted into drive and slowly headed toward the main road, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. “And last night he thought you were the problem.”
“Unless he keeps a week’s worth of craps on hand then I don’t see how it could have been him.” Collette wrapped what remained of her sandwich in the paper towel it sat on. “Hopefully now he thinks someone broke in and took all the stuff that’s missing.” She snorted. “Besides the money I think he’s siphoning off the top.”
I came to a stop beside the large sign at the entrance of her subdivision, looking both ways before pulling out onto the road. “What are you going to do about that?”
Collette sighed. “I don’t know.” She wiped at a bit of goat cheese smudged at one corner of her mouth. “A year ago I would have told my grandmother.”
Mr. Johnson always acted like he was the one in charge. He was front and center of every event, taking full responsibility for any success the garden had. And while I knew that wasn’t true, I assumed everyone else went along with his bullshit. “Not your grandfather?”
Collette stared out the windshield. “I don’t know how much my granddad ever had to do with anything that happened there.”
“What makes you say that?” I wanted to keep my eyes on her so I could try to read her expression, but traffic was surprisingly congested.
She was quiet for a minute. Finally she turned my way. “I’ve been trying to remember how much my granddad was at the garden before my grandmother died.” Collette shook her head. “I don’t think it was really much more than he is now.”
I worked my way back. Back to the days when Ruby Johnson walked the property.
Fed the fish.
Smiled at everyone around her. Spoke to them like they were friends.
While her husband sat in his air-conditioned office acting like he was the boss. “It seemed like he was there more.”
“But is that just because he was loud?”
I didn’t have to look at her to recognize the sadness in her voice.
“He never came in and worked. He walked around barking orders at people like they were beneath him.” She stared at me for a few long seconds. “People like you.”
She wasn’t wrong. Her grandfather and I had shared more than a few tense moments in my time at the garden. Enough of them that I assumed he’d fire me when Ruby died.
But that would have required finding my replacement, and lucky for me Wilfred Johnson III was more interested in finding a replacement woman than he was a replacement horticulturist.
