“What? Like the gardener and the lady of the manor?”
“Are you going to start on me again?”
“I’d like to,” he said softly as he gave her a look up and down.
She couldn’t help herself as she moved toward him, but he rolled away and got to his feet.
“There’s something bothering me about this story,” Luke said as he picked up his shovel again.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, but something about all of it is puzzling me. Uncle Alex and Miss Edi, you meeting Miss Edi, everything. Something about it keeps going ’round and ’round in my head, and it always seems like we’re missing something.”
“I don’t see any mystery,” Joce said. “My grandparents and Alexander McDowell were friends, that’s why he bought that house in Boca and that’s why Miss Edi moved there.
“I guess,” Luke said, “but there’s something odd about it all. Alex McDowell didn’t make friends. He was grumpy and he liked to work. And you know what Edilean is like. Everybody knows everything. The last time I had to play golf with my grandfather I asked him when and where Uncle Alex had made friends with your grandparents, and Gramps said that to his knowledge Alex rarely left town.”
“What about World War II?” Joce asked. “My grandfather manufactured helmets and he traveled to Europe several times. Maybe they met then.”
“Uncle Alex didn’t go to the war. He had some disability that kept him out of it, so he stayed in the U.S. and moved money around.”
“He was a banker?” Joce said, but Luke didn’t answer her. He was concentrating on his digging. She began to clean up the picnic, and she put the precious story on top of the basket. “I’m going to type this.”
“Computer got a battery?” Luke asked.
“Sure, it—” She smiled. “Okay, I’ll bring it out here.” As she stood up, she noticed that there were some plants in a cardboard box in the back of Luke’s truck. “What are those?”
“Some things I dug up here and there. There used to be a lot of cultivated gardens around here, and some of the plants have survived.”
To her, all of them looked like weeds. “So if you’re just walking around and you see a plant, you know what it is and how to dig it up so you don’t kill it?”
“Yeah,” he said, seeming to be amused by her question.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said, smiling, but he seemed to be so preoccupied that he didn’t notice.
The minute Jocelyn got to the house and closed the door behind her, Luke opened his cell phone and called his grandfather.
“Hey! Luke!” Dr. Dave said, “I just made a hole in one.”
“Congratulations,” Luke said quickly. “Mind if I come over tonight? I want to talk to you about something.”
“About my lie to Jocelyn about part two having the car wreck in it?”
“No,” Luke said slowly, “she didn’t mention that particular lie to me. This is about something else. Who knows the most about what Uncle Alex was up to?”
“I’d say his wife.”
“Someone who is alive.”
“I guess that would be me.”
“Did Uncle Alex leave any diaries?”
“Diaries are made of paper, and paper costs money,” Dr. Dave said. “Why don’t you come over now and we can play a few rounds together and talk?”
“As much as I’d like to do that, Joce is bringing her computer outside and she’s going to type the story while I work.”
“Good. I like that.”