Mulch ado about nothing

in the living room as she passed. An old television, a rocking chair with a pink sweater still hanging over one arm, a half-finished afghan spilling from a bright yellow bag of yarn by the side. Oh, Arnie, she thought. Let her go, please let her go.
    She passed through the kitchen to the back door without even looking at what treasures of Darlene’s were still there, except to accidentally notice a row of little ceramic pots on the windowsill with struggling, leggy violets with yellowing leaves.
    Arnie was standing outside the kitchen door when she opened it. “Did you make it okay up and down the stairs?”
    Jane was determined to be cheerful. “I only bashed out three of the banister rails with my crutch. Just kidding. I didn’t break anything.”
    She joined the rest of the group, hoping to prove to herself and the others that she could get around perfectly well. Arnie’s garden was truly pathetic, even though there were signs of hard work going into it. A wheelbarrow sat at the edge of the patio with garden tools. A large sturdy wastebasket was bulging with weeds. But the poor plants were a mess. The gardens had probably been wonderful five or six years ago, but were as dusty and preserved as almost everything she’d seen in his home.
    “You must divide the perennials, Arnie,“ Miss Winstead was saying. “Start with those Japanese irises. I’m astonished they’ve survived without division. They grow the first year out of one bunch of tubers and put next year’s growth outside the circle of the plant. That’s why all the clumps have holes in the middle. Take them up, cut the tubers in pie-shaped pieces, take out the dead middle, and start them over in well-turned soil.“
    “But that’s where my wife wanted them,“ he objected.
    “Of course,“ Miss Winstead said as authoritatively as always. “But take them out, cut them up, work in some compost and peat, and put a few of them back in and give the rest to friends. Do that every third year and they’ll thrive.”
    Arnie looked questioningly at the irises. Jane assumed he was wondering if this plan could possibly fit in with his plans to honor his wife’s garden. Jane hoped so.
    She wandered around a bit, trying to keep up with the others as they moved around the perimeter of the yard where all the gardens were. Darlene had obviously loved bachelor buttons, and Arnie had let them self-seed for years. Poor things were leggy and the colors had cross-bred into murky light purples and blues, unlike fresh seeds with their vivid colors.
    A huge peony bush that was finished blooming was falling away from its center, though Arnie had tried to prop up the desperate yellowing foliage with little green sticks. She mentally repeated Miss Winstead’s advice to dig it up and divide it. Even Jane knew that was what you did with a peony that had run amok.
    Piles of old bark mulch lined a cement path and looked as if they’d crumble to dust if stepped on or even touched. Some unidentifiable straggle of plants with stingy foliage and pitiful little faded coral pom-pomlike flowers were struggling along in the ancient bark.
    Miss Winstead was lecturing Arnie again toward the back of the yard. “Those would be beautiful white lilies if you divided them as well. They’ve crowded themselves almost to death and you’ve let a tree grow here that shades them. They like lots of sun. See that one over there that managed to self-seed itself into a patch of light? That one’s perfection.“
    “That’s the same kind of lily I sent Dr. Jackson,“ Stefan said, strolling up to Arnie and Miss Winstead. “I’d almost forgotten I did that. I wonder if her sister got the arrangement.”
    Shelley and Jane suddenly locked gazes of astonishment.
    Stefan seemed to be admitting that he sent the flowers with the threatening note that was accidentally delivered to Jane’s house the morning Julie was attacked. Shelley slipped away casually to the front of the house with her tiny cell phone in her hand, glancing back only once and nodding at Jane.
    Jane had the urge to question Stefan, but knew Mel would have a stroke if he learned of her interference. She frantically asked Miss Winstead if the lily in question had a name.
    “I imagine it’s Casa Blanca. Just smell it. It has a divine fragrance. Watch your step, Jane. You nearly fell into the hostas. Aren’t the stamens spectacular. Such a good yellow-orange.”
    Jane remembered trying to get that color off her face when she