LITMIR.BIZ

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Pastor Flemming, that day at the golf course, he’d been sleeping poorly. When she’d asked him about it, Bob had repeatedly shrugged off her questions. She’d pressured him until she got an answer, although it hadn’t been too satisfactory.

      In the beginning, their marriage had been shaky. Bob wasn’t the same after Vietnam. They’d married shortly after he was discharged from the army, but he’d started drinking by then. At first it was just a few beers with his friends after work. Peggy didn’t begrudge him that. Then Hollie was born, followed two years later by Marc, and Peggy had been so preoccupied with motherhood she hadn’t really noticed what was happening to her husband. Soon he was out with the boys every night or bringing his drinking buddies home. She and Bob had argued often and she’d grown increasingly desperate.

      The summer afternoon Bob received his first DUI, she realized that his drinking was more than a few beers with friends; it had become a serious problem that dominated their marriage and their lives. Despite her tears and her pleas, he refused to acknowledge there was anything wrong.

      Peggy would always be grateful to the friend who’d recommended she start attending Al-Anon meetings. Without the support and encouragement she’d received from other men and women married to alcoholics, she didn’t know where she’d be today. It forever changed her life. She’d stepped back and stopped protecting Bob from the consequences of his addiction. If he drove drunk, she phoned the police; if he fell down on the floor too drunk to get up, she left him there. His drinking was his problem and she refused to make it hers, refused to be caught in the eye of a hurricane because he chose to hide his sorrows in booze.

      Thankfully, after Bob had been fired by the third plumbing contractor in a row, gotten his car insurance canceled only to be renewed at rates that rivaled a house payment and been called before a judge, his head started to clear. Then and only then did the light dawn. He’d gone to his first AA meeting and by the grace of God, hadn’t touched a drop since.

      Shortly after he’d achieved three weeks of sobriety, he came to her and told her everything that had happened one terrible day in Vietnam. He’d wept bitter tears of guilt and self-recrimination as she held him and cried with him. She’d marked the date he sobbed out his story on her heart, because it was that day their lives and their marriage had changed. It was that day she knew Bob had the power to stop drinking. That had been twenty years ago now, in January 1983. He’d helped many an alcoholic through the AA program since then, and she continued to attend Al-Anon.

      As Peggy came into the kitchen, Bob smiled at her. He had the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

      “How long have you been up?” she asked. Since he was already dressed and shaved, it must’ve been a while.

      “A few hours. I have an appointment with Roy this morning. I wouldn’t mind company if you’d care to tag along.”

      Although he tossed out the invitation in an offhand manner, Peggy knew her husband well enough to realize he wanted her with him. He’d been nervous for days. Ever since Troy Davis had come by the house.

      The local sheriff had asked Bob a few questions regarding the John Doe who’d died in their home. As far as she could tell, they were the same questions he’d asked months earlier, when the body was discovered. Troy didn’t stay long, but afterward Bob had paced the house for hours until Peggy thought she’d go mad if he didn’t sit down.

      “Sure, I’ll go,” she told him as she poured a cup of coffee. The pot was nearly empty, and she started a fresh one. They had no guests at the moment, but extra coffee never went amiss.

      “Looks like we might get snow,” her husband said, staring out the window.

      Peggy sat down across from him and reached for the remote control. They kept a small TV in the kitchen, where she generally watched the morning newscast from the local Seattle station. There’d been rumors of snow all week, but only now had the temperature descended to the point that it was a possibility.

      Snow in the Puget Sound area wasn’t a common occurrence. Contrary to popular belief, Seattle and its outlying regions actually had a moderate climate. As long as records had been maintained, it had never gone over a hundred degrees in summer or below zero in winter.

      “I hope it does snow,” Peggy said, thinking how the schoolkids would love it. As a matter of fact, so would she. The Christmas lights were up outside, the wreath hung on the door and the illuminated family of deer stood in the middle of their front yard. Snow would be the perfect complement.

      Bob closed his Big Book and yawned loudly.

      “What time did you get up?” she asked again.

      He shrugged. “Early.”

      “Two? Three?”

      “Around there,” he agreed, settling his gaze on the television screen.

      Peggy suspected it might’ve been even earlier. Her husband couldn’t get the notion out of his head that he knew the dead stranger. The John Doe had received extensive plastic surgery, which certainly complicated the process of identifying him. For a while, there’d been speculation that it might be Dan Sherman, but that had turned out not to be the case, since Dan’s body was found a few weeks later. All this death in Cedar Cove—it was hard to reconcile in such a friendly, sleepy town.

      “What time’s your appointment?” Peggy asked.

      “Ten.”

      “I’ll be ready,” she promised him.

      A few hours later, Bob and Peggy arrived at Roy McAfee’s office not far from the Harbor Street Art Gallery. Corrie, Roy’s wife, acted as his secretary. Peggy liked Corrie, although she didn’t know her well. Roy was a no-nonsense man, a stolid, Detective Friday kind of investigator who tracked down the facts. The similarity between Roy and Joe Friday from the old Dragnet TV show reassured Peggy. He was a bit distant, an observer, a man who didn’t allow emotion to cloud an investigation. Corrie was just the opposite, warm and outgoing. Even though she now worked for her husband, she appeared to be the stay-at-home-and-bakecookies type of wife and mother. Peggy suspected that was the reason she’d been drawn to Corrie. They were a lot alike.

      As they sat in the reception room, Peggy picked up an old issue of Readers’ Digest and Bob jiggled his foot incessantly. It was all she could do not to reach over and stop him.

      “Roy can see you now,” Corrie announced, holding open the door.

      Peggy looked at her husband, silently wondering if he wanted her to go in with him.

      “Not right now.” Bob shook his head. “I think I’d like to talk to Roy alone, if you don’t mind.”

      He’d gone pale, she noted. “Of course. Whatever you want.”

      Bob walked into the room and closed the door. Peggy gazed anxiously after him. She didn’t know what he was going to ask Roy, or if he had anything he needed to hide.

      Now it was Peggy who did the pacing.

      “I’ve always meant to ask you about your herb garden,” Corrie said from behind her desk. “How did you get started?”

      Peggy folded her arms and looked out the office window, onto Harbor Street. “By accident, actually. Years ago we bought a house that had a rosemary bush and I loved the scent of it. I clipped branches from it so often that I soon bought a second plant and then a third. Before I knew it, I was buying bay and sage and basil. I found out that I have a knack for growing herbs. When we decided to move back to Cedar Cove—”

      “Oh, you lived here earlier?”

      Peggy nodded. “Bob and I both graduated from Cedar Cove High School. Bob was in the class of 1966 and I graduated two years later in ’68.”

      “We’re close to the same age,” Corrie said. “I’m forty-seven and Roy is fifty-one.”

      “Do you have a herb garden?” Peggy asked.

      Corrie

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