Murder in the Boonies: A Sleuth Sisters Mystery (The Sleuth Sisters Book 3) by Maggie Pill Page A

Daisy laughed out loud every time he did his paws-on-shoulders routine, despite the fact she generally stumbled backward under his weight until she bumped into a wall. Pansy and Iris loved Styx too, so he was in his glory with lots of pats and pets.
    The girls could have had their own bedrooms, but they chose to sleep in the king-sized bed in the lavender one. Once we’d set their bags in there, I took them to the den and left them alone for a while, figuring they needed some down time. Pansy turned on the TV—something I’d never seen in their house on the farm—and they settled in on the couch.
    While they unwound, I went outside to do some chores. I’d bought sets for my flower boxes a few days earlier, and I thought it was safe to plant some of the pinks along the south-facing wall.
    I’d been at work for perhaps twenty minutes when Iris came outside. “Want some help?”
    I almost said, “Go enjoy being a kid,” but I guessed she needed something to do. So far in her short life, Iris had been expected to stay busy. Now she probably felt at loose ends.
    “Great,” I said. “There’s another trowel beside the garage door.”
    We worked together for a while in companionable silence. The sun was warm on our backs, and the dirt yielded easily to the tools. I had already set the plants in place for the arrangement I wanted, so it was simply a matter of digging a hole, adding a little fertilizer, setting them in, and firming the soil around them.
    When we finished Iris said, “I’ll get water if you have a bucket.”
    “We’ll use the hose,” I replied, guessing she was used to lugging buckets of water. “There’s a spigot around the corner.”
    I hauled the hose out of storage and hooked it up. Iris uncoiled it then watered the plant plugs so they’d settle into their new home without harmful air pockets around their roots. We stood back to admire our work, and Iris reached down and gently brushed some mud from a tiny leaf. “You like growing things,” I said.
    She nodded. “You put a seed or a plant in the ground. It makes itself at home and gives you something back: food, ground cover, or flowers.” She rubbed her dirty fingers on the back of her skirt. “I’d rather work in the garden than talk on the phone.” After a pause she added, “Or do math.”
    Though I agreed, it’s a bad idea to tell kids it’s okay to hate math. “Which classes do you like?”
    “English,” she replied immediately. “I love stories about monsters—Dracula, Frankenstein, Pogrebins.”
    I didn’t get the last one, and I guessed Ben McAdams wouldn’t have approved of her reading choices. Taking up a rake I’d set out earlier I said, “The other beds haven’t warmed up enough for planting yet, but I’m going to get them ready.”
    “I’ll help.” She took a second leaf rake from its place on the garage wall, and we headed to the back of the house. As we worked I asked, “What was Ben like?”
    She shrugged. “He was okay, I guess. Not like a dad, though.”
    “You remember your own dad?”
    She bit her lip. “Pretty well. Pansy kind of does, but she says it’s just little bits. Daisy was a baby when he died, so she doesn’t remember him at all.”
    “He was killed in a car accident?”
    “Yeah. We were on our own for a while, and money was really tight. Mom met Ben at church, and he seemed real nice. He’d buy us dinner after service—just McDonalds, but still. After a couple of months, he took us all out to the farm.” Her gaze drifted as she remembered. “It was June, and it was so pretty out there, you know? The trees and all the flowers.”
    Our mother prided herself on her flowerbeds, and I recalled the profusion of blooms she left behind: peonies and daffodils, tulips and hyacinth, snowballs and lilacs. I could almost smell them myself, and I had a moment of nostalgia for the place. Maybe I wasn’t the same girl who’d hated living on the farm. Maybe my own flower beds were proof it had