| Emma's Garden is sold
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| NJ |
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| WI |
Beaver Dam |
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Front St. |
| WI |
Cambridge |
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| WI |
Fort Atkinson |
The Velveteen
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| WI |
Madison |
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| WI |
Watertown |
Watertown Booksellers
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| WI |
Stoughton |
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REVIEWS:
4 Stars
Excellent mystery…
Jessica Tyson is called to Wisconsin to help find three missing
women. She has a special gift for finding missing people. The police
chief is inept and won’t make a move without his mayor’s
permission. There is a lot more to this mystery than she first thought.
Her investigation soon becomes personal.
Jerol Anderson knows how to write a
mystery that will hold people’s attention. Her plot is well
developed. I found myself trying to solve the mystery right along
with Jessica. The characters are well developed. They seem life-like.
Fans of mystery will not want to miss Emma’s Garden,
Reviewed by Debra Gaynor for
ReviewYourBook.com, 11/08
EXCERPT:
Jessica Tyson
took a long sip of coffee and settled into the lounge chair in the
entryway greenhouse of David Chapman’s foyer. Absorbing the
June morning sunlight through the skylight above, she drew in a
long healing breath. Now that she’d moved in with David, her
fiancé, at the home they shared in Fremont, Washington their
life was mellowing into real comfort.
Melinda, David’s fourteen-year-old
live-in niece, had helped add color to this escape spot with a potted
geranium and a bird of paradise. Jesse smiled, remembering their
fun time at the florist in Pioneer Square.
“I have to go. I told
them I’d be there.” Melinda’s shrill shout pierced
the air from the kitchen.
Jesse’s cell phone rang
and she checked it.
“Sergeant Cardon.”
She groaned aloud. “Another interruption to spoil my quiet
moment.”
“Cardon here,”
his voice barked through the receiver.
From the kitchen, David instructed
loudly, “You aren’t going until I meet these kids.”
Melinda’s voice cut the
air as she tried, but failed, to match David’s calm tone.
“It’s a prom float. We were the only four sophomores
chosen to work on it. It’s just in Jimmy’s garage.”
“Cardon,” Jesse
growled into the receiver, “save me. Get me out of here.”
“What do you mean?”
he asked.
“Can’t you hear
that racket in the background?” Jesse held the phone from
her ear to make sure Cardon could hear.
David shouted, “Then
bring Jimmy over here first, okay? Either that or I’ll show
up at his house and really embarrass you.”
“How’s he supposed
to get out here?” Melinda whined.
Jesse returned the receiver
to her ear. “David and Melinda are having a, I guess you’d
call it, heated discussion.”
“You already told me
he’s a junior,” David continued. “That usually
means he has a driver’s license. I’ll be home by five.
Call me on your cell if I’m to meet you someplace.”
Jesse jumped at the slamming
back door.
“Whew,” she breathed
out. “The tornado’s off to school.”
“Well,” Cardon
announced, “I’ve got something a little different going
on over here. I’ve got this small-town police chief calling
me from Wisconsin. Met him last year at a forensics seminar here
in Seattle. He’s got some people missing and he’s calling
for help.”
Jesse shook her head.
Same old Sergeant Cardon, right
down to business.
“And of course you offered
me? Right?”
She calmed her heart and held
her voice steady. God had given her the gift after all. It started
as a child and now had become her career. While standing at the
scene of a murder she could actually see how it occurred and she’d
helped the Seattle Police Department with several unsolvable cases
already.
“What does that mean?
Offered you? Just thought since you grew up in Wisconsin, maybe
you’d like to pay a little visit.”
She stared at the unread newspaper
she’d just strolled out to retrieve from the corner café.
“Sorry, I guess I’m getting hooked on this vacation
time. Just never thought I’d become so popular that you’d
ship me across the nation on cases.”
She heard his sigh through
the phone. “Meet me and we’ll talk,” he said.
“You know it’s your decision.”
“When and where?”
“Same place, Duke’s,
and I’m on my way.”
Jesse chuckled. “Of course.
Let me get my shoes on.”
Cardon laughed in response.
“See you there.”
Jesse drove up and parked in
her usual spot on First Avenue. She turned off the car, pulled the
key out of the ignition and hooked the ring through her forefinger.
Gripping the steering wheel, she slid her open palms back and forth
across the top.
A smile found its way to her
lips as she stared at the sparkling of sunlight off car bumpers
and shadows from a green-striped awning shading the sidewalk. A
huge pot with red, yellow and blue flowers caught her eye.
“One day I’ll retire
and learn about flowers,” she mumbled as she climbed out and
into the sharp sunlight.
She pulled open the big wooden
door to Duke’s Hideaway and inhaled the familiar odor of beer
and frying foods.
Place never changes.
She knew Cardon could be found
tucked away in his regular spot—a booth near the bar. She
slid into the seat across the table from him. A mug of coffee with
two creamers on the side sat in front of her place.
“Pretty casual today,
pedal pushers and tank top,” he commented over the rim of
his coffee mug and then slurped a sip.
Jesse smiled. “They’re
called Capri pants now. And I didn’t think you’d mind.
Something tells me my casual days will be ending very, very soon.
“And what’s with
the coffee?” she asked.
“Thought I might have
to jolt you awake from your little vacation.”
“Actually, it’s
a rocky vacation in that house. You heard it.” Jesse emptied
the creams into the steaming mug. “What’s the matter?
The guys down at the SPD can’t screw up enough murder investigations
locally? You have to farm me out now?”
“Yeah.” Cardon’s
whole round body shook with his nod. “That’s about it.”
“So, tell me about your
friend in Wisconsin.”
“Chief Dodge, a young
whipper snapper in Argus, Wisconsin. The whole village of all of
two thousand people depend on him to keep them in line. But he’s
an indecisive kinda guy. Leans on other people to make his decisions,
if you know what I mean. Says that a lot, too—‘know
what I mean?’
“Anyway, at the conference
we talked briefly about what you do. You know, how you see the action
where a murder has happened. He acted skeptical, but then we were
attending a conference on forensics, so he tried to show an open
mind.”
Jesse raised an eyebrow. “Kinda
like you did during the first two cases we worked?”
“Hey, I caught on. You
had me hooked by the end of the Queen Anne case.”
Jesse glanced down at the table
and chuckled. “Okay, sorry. Go on.”
“Two women have disappeared
from Argus, his little village of two thousand, earlier this year.
One a battered wife and the other a single bank teller who made
off with a deposit bag. So after a couple of months’ search,
he put them on the back burner. Figured they both wanted to run
off. You know, like in our last case.”
Jesse lowered her coffee mug
and rolled her eyes.
“Wouldn’t have
called me,” Cardon continued, “but there’s a third.
The mother of a teen’s come up missing now. Her mother and
the teen’s grandmother, Mrs. Emerson, has threatened to call
the FBI if the chief doesn’t get off his ass and find her.”
“He suspects they’ve
all been killed?” Jesse asked.
Cardon shrugged. “Well
it’s the right area to have a serial killer running around,
isn’t it? Dahmer, Gein—you know what I mean?”
“Don’t you criticize
where I was born and bred,” Jesse warned. “Only I get
to do that.”
Cardon held up his hand to
stave off Jesse’s arrows. “Hey, don’t get your
dander up.
There’s no sign of death and that’s where you come in.
“But I want you to be
extra careful on this one. I don’t know how professional these
guys are. Keep me posted step-by-step and maybe we can work on this
together.”
“Well, Of-fi-cer Car-don,
we may pull you in from the stone age yet. If I’m going to
keep you posted, you’ll have to learn to use e-mail.”
She took a sip of the coffee. As it went down, she savored the warm
familiarity of jousting with Cardon and grinned over the rim of
the cup.
She fingered the side of the
mug. “I suppose you haven’t thought about the dynamics
of my just picking up and moving from my present situation to across
the country.”
He reached and gently gripped
her wrist. “How are things with you and David?”
She smiled.
He really is coming out of
his shell. A real concern for me.
“We’re doing well.
Only there are three of us now, remember?”
Cardon let out his familiar
belly chuckle. “Yes, so I heard this morning. And your mentioning
e-mail reminded me. Your little charge, Melinda, sends me e-mails
all the time and I have to ask for help to open them. At the station
they thought I had a lady friend until she started calling me Gramps.
They get a laugh out of that, too.”
“She must be a handful.
Are you ready to move out?”
“No, I just wonder sometimes
where this is going. She actually gives David and me a center. Never
run out of learning experiences—for all of us.”
“And she’s into
boys now, you know.” Cardon spoke over the rim of his mug.
“You knew that was coming.”
“Yes, but it’s
all about the trust. Communication and trust.” Jesse shook
her head. “Difficult and different.”
Cardon nodded. “You’re
right.”
Jesse wondered if Cardon really
understood. “You’ve changed a lot since we first started
working together, Gramps.”
“I hope I’m helping
us all grow up.” Cardon let out a sigh and sat back. “Isn’t
that what a gramps is supposed to do?” He rested his head
on the wooden back of the booth. “She e-mails me and I read
about her friends and realize I have to be the adult with advice
now. She says she thinks I’m a cross between Columbo and a
rock star.”
Jesse raised an eyebrow and
growled, “C’mon.”
“Pretty good assessment,
don’t you think?”
“I don’t even want
to go there.”
Jesse drew in a long, deep
breath. “Now what about Wisconsin? If I take this on, anything
special I need to pack besides laptop and phone?”
“Yeah, your sense of
small-town and big ears. There’s no way they’re not
going to know exactly why you’re there. Word’ll travel
within a couple of days.”
“You kidding? I’m
sure the whole village knows about me and my mission already. I’d
be surprised if my face isn’t already glaring across the front
of the local Gazette.”
Cardon grinned and eyed his
coffee. “Three people—all women. One suspected of just
walking out on an abusive husband, one older and alone and may have
just wanted to leave her boring single life with a full bank bag
and now this mother leaving behind a daughter, evidently with no
reason to leave.”
“The usual,” Jesse
mumbled. “But you have more information, right? I mean is
there a husband and father to the mother and daughter duo?”
“No husband or father
around, except the first disappearance with the abusive husband.
“I’ve made notes
in this pad for you.” He lifted a spiral notebook from the
seat beside him and slid it across the table. “Chief Dodge
will fill you in on the rest.”
Hand-written.
But she didn’t comment.
He’d have to learn to type to send e-mails.
“So you advertise my
abilities all across the country?”
“Actually it was a hypothetical
thing. We talked like ‘what if there was a person who could
read where a death occurred.’
“And remember, Jesse,
you are only assisting. Got to make it look like the chief’s
in the lead at all times.”
“So this Mrs. Emerson
thinks her daughter may be dead and the whole village thinks she
ran off?”
“Might be the other way
around. The chief and the mayor, his buddy, keep hushing it all
up. Mayor says people run away all the time—like runaways
from high school. Nonconfrontational Chief Dodge just follows instructions
from the mayor and his public. Now this lady, Mrs. Emerson’s
putting the pressure on. Threatened to bring in the FBI to find
her daughter—dead or alive.”
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