FIFTEEN

AN UNEXPECTED THRILL OF excitement fluttered through my solar plexus at the thought of learning more about Ariel from people who really knew her. No one I'd talked to so far had been all that close to her. The picture I'd developed was largely one-sided, and less than flattering. Maybe she was kind to animals. Maybe she mentored troubled teens. Maybe she helped out on the tulip farm every year without fail.

I mean, it was possible, right?

A few miles southeast of town, a brightly painted sign advertising Kaminski Tulip Farm hovered over a mailbox covered with stencils of tulips. The arrow at the bottom pointed down a recently graveled drive, toward a house easily visible across the fields. It was white with dark-blue trim, and a big covered porch wrapped around from the eastern-facing front door to the south side of the house. A windbreak of tall poplars, straight and precise as the pickets of a giant fence, marched along to the north. As I drove closer, I saw the impressive vegetable garden sprawled to the south, separated from the porch by a narrow strip of emerald green lawn.

It was an oasis in the brown dirt of the newly harvested fields, but in the spring, floating in the sea of daffodils and tulips of every color imaginable, the tidy and welcoming farmhouse would fade into the background.

My tires crunched up the driveway, and a huge German shepherd came barreling around the corner from the direction of what looked like a barn. Fitting the idea of Ariel into this rural background was beyond difficult. Maybe the family had originally lived in town. Perhaps Rocky was the anomaly, not his sister.

I parked behind a dark blue Suburban, opened my door and reached to pet the dog. He promptly raised his hackles and growled low in his throat. I jerked my hand back. Froze. Tried not to look him in the eye. Of course, I can't hide my emotions from humans, so I don't know why I thought I could hide them from a dog. He advanced slowly, a continual rumble issuing from deep in his chest.

"Tut! Tut, you leave her alone. Get in here." The speaker stood in the shadow of the front porch.

At first I thought she was saying, "tut, tut," bad doggie, but soon realized Tut was the monster's name. He obeyed with alacrity, bounding up the steps to the porch, tail wagging, seemingly the embodiment of man's best friend.

The woman stepped into the light and waved at me. "Don't you worry, he's all right. Come on in!"

I grabbed the gift basket and ventured up the walkway, noting the neat rows of white alyssum, yellow daisies, and purple allium that lined each side of the flagstones. Enormous baskets of fuchsias hung over the porch railing. Half a dozen bird feeders swung from giant iron hooks driven into the ground around the yard. The beneficiaries of this abundance flitted in from the poplars. Beneath the feeders, Oregon juncos and varied thrush grubbed at the fallout. The shouts of children playing carried from behind the house.

"I'm Sophie Mae Reynolds," I said. Tut watched me, but his gently waving tail signaled more of a welcome. "Are you Gabrielle Kaminski?"

The woman came down the porch steps. "That's me. Everyone calls me Gabi."

She was in her late twenties, buxom, with light brown hair drawn back into a simple pony tail. The sunlight glinted off the smoothness of it. My hand ran through my own short mop when I saw it. Gabi had brown eyes and a sprinkle of freckles across her cheeks and nose. Her lips were surprisingly pink against her tan, and they parted to reveal a slight overbite. She was taller than me, and gave the impression of bulk, mostly because of her chest.

A farmer's wife who looked like a farmer's wife ought to.

I held out the basket of soaps and preserves to her. "I'm Ariel's friend." A slight exaggeration. "I called yesterday about bringing her art up from Cadyville?"

She took the basket and smiled broadly. "Oh, look at all these goodies! That is just so nice of you."

"It's from everyone at the co-op," I said, exaggerating again.

"Well, you just tell everyone thanks, then. It's such a sweet thing to do." She turned back toward the door, still talking. "Now, I've got iced tea brewed, or there's cider from last fall. Or would you rather have a cup of coffee? I can warm some up from-oh, that's silly. I might as well make us up a fresh pot, don't you think?"

"Cider sounds delicious," I said.

I followed her inside. To the left, toys littered the living room. Straight ahead, a spacious kitchen in yellow and white. A basket of peas dominated the middle of the trestle table, and another large basket of produce sat on the counter: beets, Swiss chard, and a few early cherry tomatoes among the greens and onions. Though I'd traveled north, there was more sun and fewer trees here; a microclimate that allowed a longer growing season.

I pointed. "All that from your garden?"

She nodded as she poured out cloudy amber liquid and returned the chunky stoneware pitcher to the refrigerator. Ice cubes hissed and cracked as she handed the glass to me. I breathed in the sweet tang of apples before taking a sip of the cold homemade cider.

"Hope you don't mind if I shell some peas while we talk," she said. "We're having them for dinner, and it takes awhile to work through a big pile, you know?"

"I'll help." I sat down at the kitchen table and reached for a handful of pods.

She smiled, revealing more of the overbite. "Thanks! Just toss the empties in this pail."

"Ariel's artwork is in my pickup," I said.

"Rocky'll unload it later."

"Is he at work?" I asked, a little disappointed.

She nodded. "Putting a new transmission in Ollie Swenson's old Le Baron."

I'd told Gabi when I hoped to arrive, and received the impression Rocky would be there, too. But I didn't want to ask how long he'd be. I could stay for a while. After all, I was on vacation. In the meantime, Gabi seemed quite willing to talk to me, and she had a pile of peas to shell.

I pressed a pod between the pad of my thumb and the side of my forefinger. It opened with a popping sound. "Gabi, I'm so sorry about what happened to Ariel."

"Thanks" Her tone was light.

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. She didn't seem all that broken up over her sister-in-law's death.

She glanced up at me without raising her head from where her hands worked rapidly over her dishtowel-draped lap. "Were you a close friend of hers?" Ping! A handful of peas bounced into the stainless steel bowl.

"Not what I'd call close, no," I said. "I only recently joined the co-op, and we hadn't had a chance to get to know one another very well. She seemed like a nice girl, though."

I was telling the truth. Until I'd heard about her mooching and affairs, Ariel had seemed like a perfectly nice girl, if a bit of an airhead who lacked empathy.

Gabi smiled uncertainly. She probably wondered why some woman who barely knew her sister-in-law had driven to La Conner to offer her sympathies. Her hands never slowed, though, and the bowl of shelled peas began to fill. The German shepherd wandered into the kitchen, black toenails clicking on the vinyl floor. I eyed him, still leery.

"Don't worry about Tut," Gabi said. "He's territorial-that's why we got him-but once he knows you're okay, everything's fine."

Still, I didn't plan on making any sudden moves. I glanced at my watch. "Does Rocky come home for lunch?"

"Oh, he'll show up pretty soon. He's out in the shop."

"I thought he was putting in a transmission," I said.

"Sure. He's a mechanic. No way could we make it on what the flowers bring in. So he has a shop around the back where locals bring anything with four wheels-and some things with two-for him to work on. Would you like to see it?"