She waved a hand while Stella rolled with laughter. "I don't know why I'm going on about that, except
it's the sort of traumatic experience you never forget, even after more than thirty years. Now they live
on the other side of the city. We get together every now and then for dinner. He's still got the freckles, but the cowlick went, along with most of his hair."
"I guess you know a lot of the people and the history of the area, since you've lived here all your life."
"I guess I do. Can't go to the Wal-Mart, day or night, without seeing half a dozen people I know."
"What do you know about the Harper ghost?"
"Hmm." Jolene took out a compact and her lipstick and freshened her face. "Just that she's always roamed around there, or at least as far back as anybody can remember. Why?"
"This is going to sound insane, especially coming from me, but... I've seen her."
"Oh my goodness." She snapped the compact closed. "Tell me everything."
"There isn't a lot to tell."
But she told her what there was, and what she'd begun to do about it.
"This is so exciting! You're like a detective. Maybe your father and I could help. You know how he loves playing on that computer of his. Stella!" She clamped a hand on Stella's arm. "I bet she was murdered, just hacked to death with an ax or something and buried in a shallow grave. Or dumped in the river—pieces of her. I've always thought so."
"Let me just say—ick—and her ghost, at least is whole. Added to that, our biggest lead is the ancestor who died in childbirth," Stella reminded her.
"Oh, that's right." Jolene sulked a moment, obviously disappointed. "Well, if it turns out it's her, that'd
be sad, but not nearly as thrilling as murder. You tell your daddy all about this, and we'll see what we
can do. We've both got plenty of time on our hands. It'll be fun."
"It's a departure for me," Stella replied. "I seem to be doing a lot of departing from the norm recently."
"Any of that departing have to do with a man? A tall, broad-shouldered sort of man with a wicked grin?"
Stella's eyes narrowed. "And why would you ask?"
"My third cousin, Lucille? You met her once. She happened to be having dinner in the city a couple
nights ago and told me she saw you in the same restaurant with a very good-looking young man. She didn't come by your table because she was with her latest beau. And he's not altogether divorced from
his second wife. Fact is, he hasn't been altogether divorced for a year and a half now, but that's Lucille for you."
Jolene waved it away. "So, who's the good-looking young man?"
"Logan Kitridge."
"Oh." It came out in three long syllables. "That is a good-looking young man. I thought you didn't like him."
"I didn't not like him, I just found him annoying and difficult to work-with. We're getting along a little better at work, and somehow we seem to be dating. I've been trying to figure out if I want to see him again."
"What's to work out? You do or you don't."
"I do, but... I shouldn't ask you to gossip."
Jolene wiggled closer on the bench. "Honey, if you can't ask me, who can you ask?"
Stella snickered, then glanced toward the reptile house to be sure her boys weren't heading out.
"I wondered, before I get too involved, if he sees a lot of women."
"You want to know if he cats around."
"I guess that's the word for it."
"I'd say a man like that gets lucky when he has a mind to, but you don't hear people saying, "That
Logan Kitridge is one randy son of a gun.' Like they do about my sister's boy, Curtis. Most of what
you hear about Logan is people—women mostly—wondering how that wife of his let him get loose,
or why some other smart woman hasn't scooped him up. You thinking about scooping?"
"No. No, definitely not."
"Maybe he's thinking about scooping you up."
"I'd say we're both just testing the ground." She caught sight of her men. "Here come the Reptile
Hunters. Don't say anything about any of this in front of the boys, okay?"
"Lips are sealed."
* * *
In the Garden opened at eight, prepared for its advertised spring opening as for a war. Stella had
mustered the troops, supervised with Roz the laying out of supplies. They had backups, seasoned
recruits, and the field of combat was—if she said so herself—superbly organized and displayed.
By ten they were swamped, with customers swarming the showrooms, the outside areas, the public greenhouses. Cash registers rang like church bells.
She marched from area to area, diving in where she felt she was most needed at any given time. She answered questions from staff and from customers, restacked wagons and carts when the staff was too overwhelmed to get to them, and personally helped countless people load purchases in their cars, trucks, or SUVs.
She used the two-way on her belt like a general.