Page 2 of X-Ray in the Xanth (Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind #3)

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A s soon as Mack walked out the door and headed to his truck, Doreen called him back and asked, “Where are Arnold and Darren working?” When he glared at her, she shrugged.

“You and I both know that I’ll find out, so you might as well help me sort out where they are.

If nothing else, I can ask Richie where his grandson is working today. ”

He snorted at that. “ Right . They’re down at Higgles Park in Rutland.”

Doreen grimaced. She knew the Rutland neighborhood within Kelowna. But that park? “Higgles Park? I don’t know that one.”

“I don’t think it’s called that anymore. It’s a name the old-timers know, and it’s supposed to be going through a rebeautification process.”

“Ah, so Darren and Arnold digging there also helps out the city. So where is this park?”

He shrugged, smiling at the glare he got in return from Doreen. “Have a nice day,” he exclaimed. And, with that, he walked to his truck, whistling a happy tune.

She frowned back at him. “Now you’re just being mean.”

He lifted a hand and waved, then got in his truck and drove away, a big grin still on his face.

She groaned as she stared at Mugs, as he slumped down at her feet. It seemed he also couldn’t believe Mack had just done that.

Richard looked over from his front yard and called out to her in exasperation, “Now what? You guys are acting as if you’ve been married for eighty years already.”

She gasped at him. “That’s not fair,” she cried out. “He’s got a new case and won’t tell me a thing about it.”

Richard just stared at her, then shook his head and walked inside, slamming his front door behind him.

She frowned at Mugs, shaking her head. “How come nobody understands?” she muttered.

She headed back inside to look up the location of Higgles Park.

She’d never even heard of such a place. When she couldn’t find anything about it online, she grew frustrated.

How was that a thing? She contacted Nan, thinking, of all people, her grandmother ought to know something.

“Hey, have you ever heard of a place in Rutland called Higgles Park?”

“Nope. Wait.… Maybe, but it’s not called that anymore.”

“I know,” she muttered. “Mack wouldn’t tell me what its name is now.”

Nan went silent, then asked, “Is there a particular reason you’re asking?”

“Of course I have a reason,” Doreen declared in exasperation. “And I’m part of the reason they’re down there, but Mack won’t let me go be a part of it now.”

“Of course not.” Nan laughed at her. “He’s trying to keep you away from his current case.”

“I know that, which is also why I’m determined to find out what I can, however I can.

On that last case, a bunch of photos were found under Lilybeth’s bed.

” She shook her head and continued. “In one of the photos, the location was recognized, and apparently Arnold and Darren headed down there to prove if it was or wasn’t that location.

While there, they found something worth getting out their shovels for, but all they will tell me is that they found a partial jawbone and some ancient X-rays. ”

“What?” Nan asked in astonishment.

“Exactly. So, in terms of things getting clearer, it’s just getting murkier. I thought, if I could at least go down there, maybe I could talk to them.”

Nan laughed. “Sounds good to me. I bet Richie knows where Darren is today. I’ll check with him and get back to you right away.

Meanwhile, I’ll ask around to see if anybody remembers that Higgles Park location or knows its new name.

As this area grew, where maybe five separate communities merged together, the lines shifted.

So things became a little bit harder to sort out. ”

“I understand how that could happen,” Doreen muttered, “but surely somebody knows something.”

“Oh, we’ll find somebody who knows something,” Nan vowed, “but that doesn’t mean anybody will be prepared to tell you about it. You know how Mack orders Darren to keep his mouth shut, especially when it comes to Richie’s meddling.”

“ Great ,” she muttered.

As soon as they ended the call, Doreen could almost imagine her grandmother racing down the hallway, telling everybody that they had a new case—especially the Sherlock-hat-wearing crowd.

That made it sound as if Nan were the town crier, spreading the good news that they could look forward to having something new and interesting to hear about.

It’s not that they were all bored out of their minds, but these mysteries were fun for them.

It was exciting to solve problems, particularly problems that had been set aside years ago.

It’s not that anything was unsolvable, but more a matter of new technology becoming available, along with people finally willing to talk.

And, if people were willing to talk, Doreen was willing to listen, in whatever capacity that would be.

Of course, that caused all kinds of other issues too.

Still, when Nan called back a little bit later, she shared, “It’s up off the Belgo Road area. It used to be more of a baseball park with local games for the school kids than a real park.”

Once Doreen got a rough idea of where it was, she thanked Nan and noted, “I’ll take a drive up that way and see if I can come up with anything.”

“Or we could come with you,” Nan suggested eagerly.

“Who is we ?” Doreen asked warily. “Whenever we get into these we things, it becomes a lot more complex.”

Nan laughed. “Maybe just me then. I can fit in the car, even with all the animals.”

“That you could. All right, I’ll come down and pick you up in a few minutes.” With that, she ended the call and started grabbing leashes for everybody. The animals were more than ready to head out on an adventure.

“You guys seem to think you’ve been deprived of excitement for the last day or two. While it’s been so cold outside, we don’t go outside as often each day. However, it hasn’t been very long at all, you know?”

Yet she had to admit that she was just as eager and anxious to get moving as they were, even though the cold weather sucked her breath away as she stepped outside each time.

She bundled up again, yet it still probably wasn’t enough.

As soon as she had everybody loaded up in her car, she drove to Rosemoor, found Nan already standing outside, pacing impatiently on the sidewalk.

At least she was dressed for the winter temps here in BC.

The second Doreen stopped her car, Nan dashed inside. When Doreen frowned at her, Nan pointed. “You need to drive this thing out of here, before everybody finds out that we’ve gone without them.”

Doreen rolled her eyes but quickly backed out of the parking lot and took off.

Almost immediately Nan’s phone rang. She turned to Doreen and nodded. “See? Now they will all be asking where I am.”

“Surely you can come up with something. However, since you were seeking information on the park, somebody probably spilled the beans, and now here you are, absconding without them.”

“Exactly,” Nan exclaimed, with glee.

Such satisfaction filled her tone that Doreen had to laugh. “You are too funny.” She shook her head.

“You’ve got to have some excitement in your life at this stage,” Nan explained, then settled in and looked around to see all the animals.

Thaddeus poked his head out of Doreen’s hair. “Thaddeus loves Nan. Thaddeus loves Nan.”

“Ah, thank you, sweetheart,” Nan replied, stroking his soft feathers. “It’s always so lovely to see you.”

The two of them kept up a nonsensical conversation, while Doreen tried to navigate her way to the Belgo Road area. “Why is Belgo Road cut into so many pieces?” she asked in frustration, as she took yet another wrong turn.

“When growth happens, city planners happen,” Nan stated.

“This is not a planned city area,” she replied in frustration. “Why are there so many intersections where it’s one street name on one side and a completely different name on the other? Surely nobody could think that was planning .”

“It was planned,” Nan stated, with a nod, “but not necessarily well planned.”

Doreen groaned. “The whole city is a mess that way.”

“Yet it’s much better when you’re up here.”

“Maybe,” Doreen muttered, “but, if you looked up Belgo on the map, it’s all over the place.”

Nan nodded. “And you’re right there. It’s definitely a bit of a hodgepodge, but we’ll get there.”

It didn’t take too many more wrong turns, until suddenly Doreen hit the brakes and pulled to the side of the road. When Nan eyed her curiously, Doreen pointed up ahead to the police vehicle blocking the road.

Nan chuckled. “See? Sometimes we don’t even need maps. We just have to spot any black-and-white cruisers.”

“That’s terrible,” she muttered, “but still, it’s a good indication that we could be in the right place.”

“Could be,” Nan agreed. “Looks very much like we must be at the scene of the crime.”

“We’ve been wrong before,” Doreen noted, as she hopped out, then walked over to where the policemen were standing, as crime scene tape was being rolled off in the park.

Arnold looked up and grinned. “We took bets on how long it would take you.”

Immediately Nan stepped up. “What? You took bets without me?”

Arnold frowned at her and grumbled, “Yeah, we figured at least that way we had a chance to win.”

She snorted at that and nodded. “Good thinking, you know? Good thinking.”

Arnold practically preened, as if he were happy with the compliment.

Doreen sighed. “Are you guys done chitchatting?”

“Oh, we’re done all right,” Arnold declared, “but it’s all good. We’re having a grand old time here.”

“I heard about the jawbone.”

“Of course, which is why you’re here.” Darren groaned. “We’re not allowed to give you any information.”

“But it’s a cold case,” Doreen clarified, rubbing her hands together.

“What makes you think it’s a cold case?” Arnold asked, glaring at her.

“Because the body’s been lying here, and it’s cold, well at least a body part is here.”

Darren snorted at that response, and Arnold looked a little confused. Darren shook his head. “That might work for Mack, but it sure ain’t gonna work for us.”

“No, maybe not, but I can phone the captain and get access to this, if I want.”

They frowned at each other, then at her, but nodded. “That you can probably do,” Darren noted.

“And it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you did because it would cover our butts,” Arnold added, giving her a stare.

“Do you think it’s really a problem? Me being here?” she asked, astonished. “I mean, all I’m doing is… observing.”

“Yeah, for how long?” Arnold asked, shaking his head. “From what we know about you, your observing has a way of ending up becoming something else very quickly.”

“Oh, you mean, like solving the crime?” she asked, tongue-in-cheek.

He rolled his eyes. “We don’t have time to do any of that other stuff,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Doreen thought she detected a note of envy in his tone. “And that’s one of the reasons why I do it,” she replied. “Because you guys don’t have the time or the extra manpower, but these victims still need to have a voice.”

“Maybe,” he muttered, looking over at Darren.

Darren shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t see anything wrong with Doreen looking around, and she would eventually find out from Mack anyway.”

“And, if not Mack,” she added, “definitely the captain.” She pulled out her phone, sent the captain a text regarding the Higgles Park body part. Then she looked over at the two men. “We do know it’s human, correct?”

“Yes,” Darren confirmed. “Obviously we haven’t had an anthropologist come in, and I don’t think we’ll need to in terms of identifying whether it’s a human body part or not because it was clearly a human jawbone.”

“Right.” Doreen nodded. “Any other bone and you may have had a question from a layman, but the human jawbone pretty well makes it clear.”

“It really does,” he agreed, shrugging. “Nothing is quite so easily identifiable.”

“Except a human hand or foot,” she pointed out, looking at him.

He sighed and nodded. “Anyway, we found a jawbone, so a jawbone is a jawbone is a jawbone.”

She smiled. They were right in that a jawbone was definitely fairly clear-cut. As she watched, Darren and Arnold resumed with the digging. “Are you guys doing all the digging? Don’t we have anybody in forensics to dig this up?”

“Yeah, the coroner was here already, and she’s coming back with a crew to help, but it’s not as if she’ll grab a shovel and give us a hand.”

“I would grab a shovel and give you a hand,” Doreen offered, “but I would have to hold Nan back if I did.”

At that, the others looked over at Nan and shook their heads. Darren pointed out, “See what we mean? Doreen’s here for the glory,… not the work.”

“Hey, I would help dig, but I also know that you guys wouldn’t let me dig,” she replied. “If Mack found out that you gave me a shovel, you know how much trouble you’ll all be in.”

“Yeah, we sure do,” Darren muttered, “so you don’t get to help.” Just then he stepped back and gridded off another section. “We’re not necessarily doing the final grid work. That’ll be on the coroner, except…”

“Except what?” asked a woman behind Doreen.

She turned to see Elizabeth walking toward her.

A hard smile cut into her face as Elizabeth muttered, “Of course you’re here.”