After tripping over a coil of plastic garden hose, Sophie Monet fell headlong into a bed of native mints. A little damp but otherwise unharmed, she pulled herself to her feet. After wiping her hands on a towel, she stood for a moment patting her silvery hair into place and smoothing her gardener’s apron over her denim skirt.

    Almost before she had her breath back, she saw a man wearing black jeans and a black sweatshirt and with a black nylon stocking disguising his face jump over her garden wall. He landed with a thud, his Nikes punching deep holes smack dab in the middle of her favorite chocolate daisy bed. She’d been babying those daisies with special soil and expensive fertilizers for over two months.

    At first, Sophie’s surprise left her too upset to scream. Then her face flushed and she felt far too frightened and angry to scream. What good would screaming do! How dare this intruder deliberately mutilate her prize-winning plants! She took a firm grip on her trowel, brandishing it when she approached the man as if she had no fear and as if she thought he’d consider the trowel a deadly weapon.

    "Mister," she shouted, "you get out of here! Right now! Git! Can’t you see you’re ruining my special Berlanderia lyrata! How dare you trod on my Gloriosa..." She took another step forward then fearfully retreated onto a graveled pathway as the intruder growled a curse and stepped toward her, his tone low, coarse, and menacing.

    "Shut up, you old dingy bat. Your garden and your fancy words bore me." The man muttered his insults through the nylon stocking covering his head, and all the time he was easing directly toward her tool shed.

    Police sirens screamed like banshees, first in the distance and then growing closer. The ear-splitting alarm from the Security Bank of Kansas City wailed from down the block and across the street. People began to flock to the street to see what was happening.

    Sophie wanted to shout a plea for help. But no. Now she saw sunshine glint on the silver gun in the intruder’s hand—a gun aimed right at her heart. She was afraid to raise her voice.

    "You’ve robbed the bank." She barely breathed the words as she realized she stood face to face with a thief and maybe a killer. "You’ve robbed the bank." She repeated the words senselessly. What if his finger on the trigger was shaking so badly he fired the gun accidentally? "You’ve robbed the bank." The words droned like a litany.

    "Brilliant thinking." The intruder sneered at her, holding up a bulging manila envelope that looked as if it might burst at its seams. "This loot’s going to take me to Rio—maybe even farther than that. I love to travel. You boring garden types wouldn’t understand travel. You’ve probably never been out of Kansas City, have you?"

    He didn’t wait for a reply and Sophie didn’t offer one. Boring, huh! She overlooked the insult, but she tucked it away in a corner of her mind. No use to tell this scum-bucket she was a horticultural therapist. Just keep him talking. That’s what she had to do—keep him talking. Why, he might have some of her money stashed in that envelope. She’d deposited her savings in The Security Bank for almost forty years. They’d lent her the money to create her "Garden of Delights. Those bankers were her good friends."

    People with sensory disabilities traveled from all over Kansas and Missouri to enjoy her garden collection of sights, smells, and sounds. Those people needed her as much as she needed their business. She had to keep this thief talking. She owed it to herself as well as to the bank and her customers to keep the streets of Kansas City free from crime.

    "I’ve done a great deal of traveling, mister. Collecting these special garden plants has taken me to many states and even into Mexico, Canada, and Belize. My Nicotiana sylvestris was especially hard to find. Had to travel to...

    "Put a sock in it, old lady. Listen to me and you won’t get hurt."

    "You listen to me and I’ll tell you how important my garden is to lots and lots of people."

    "I know all about your crazy garden," the thief snapped. "Last week I paid your admission fee and scoped the place out for use as a short-term hiding spot. You weren’t sharp enough to catch onto what I was doing, were you? Admit it. You weren’t. The dumb cops won’t find me in here as long as you tell ‘em you haven’t seen anybody answering my description around here today. Nobody at all. Nada. And that is what you’ll tell them if they show up asking questions."

    Sophie studied the thief carefully while she tried to think of something else to say. Keep him talking. She wasn’t used to talking to such scum, but she had to make some conversation interesting enough to keep him here. If only there were some way to signal the police without waving her arms and screaming.

    "I’ll bet you’ve never noticed my choice chokecherries." Sophie pointed to the lush bushes at the side of the garden path. "Their strong almond scent is a special delight to people whose sense of smell has been dulled by disease or diminished by age. Why, just last week a man suffering from the aftereffects of a stroke stopped by to view this garden, and..."

    "And your tool shed will make me a great hiding place," the intruder interrupted. "Those ventilation holes in the pine door will give me a clear view of your garden and of you. Don’t try any funny stuff if the police come nosing around here asking questions or you’re dead."

    "The tool shed may not be such a great hiding place as you seem to think," Sophie said.

    "The back of the shed has a full length window. And today I left it wide open. The fresh air helps keep my potting soil and fertilizers well-ventilated and free from mites and mold. If the police circle the shed, they’ll be able to see right inside through that window."

    "Don’t you try to trick me!" He moved close enough to prod her with the gun barrel. "I don’t remember any window. Lead the way around the shed and show it to me. "Move it quickly, old woman. If you’re lying, you’ll be mighty sorry. I need to get under more cover than your garden wall offers and I need to get there right now."

    Sophie held her breath, pretending to limp as she trudged toward the back of the shed. What would the thief do when he discovered she had lied about the window? Shoot her? Hit her? Moving as slowly as she dared, she kept walking forward. When she pointed up at three quaking aspens, she deliberately kicked a coil of the garden hose into her path.

    "Aspens make a real show in the fall of the year. You should see them shimmer and shake in the sunlight. Why visitors from Colorado tell me that my aspens are as beautiful as those in the Rockies."

    As the man looked up, his gaze automatically following her pointing finger for a moment, Sophie stepped around the hose, carefully maneuvering it directly into his path. Seconds later, he caught his toe in the plastic and fell. At the same time, two policemen came sprinting through the garden gateway.

    Sophie started to congratulate herself on helping capture the bank robber when he sprang to his feet again, yanked the stocking from his head to clear his vision, and vaulted over the bricked wall onto the terrace at the side of the street. Nobody in the crowd of people watching thought fast enough to try to stop him, and moments later he disappeared into the heavy Main Street traffic.

    One gorilla of a policeman motioned to his partner and they gave chase. But to Sophie’s dismay the officers returned puffing, panting, and wiping their brows after only a few minutes.

    "Where did he go?" Sophie asked. "I hope you didn’t lose sight of him."

    "I’m not sure what direction he took after he left the main street out front." Gorilla shrugged and both officers stood panting and gasping. "But we did catch a guy matching his description jogging along State Street. The guy said he was out exercising, but he came with us—reluctantly."

    "Where is he now?" Sophie asked, peering up and down the street. "I don’t see anyone around."

    "He’s in a squad car," Gorilla answered. "Two other offices are taking him to headquarters downtown."

    "We’ll need an eyewitness to identify him as the bank thief. If you could help, we’d appreciate it. You won’t have to come face to face with him head-on. We’ll put him in a lineup of men and you’ll stand behind a special two-way window to view the lineup. You’ll be able to see him, but he won’t be able to see you. You did get a good look at the man after he tossed the nylon face covering, didn’t you?

    "No, I really didn’t," Sophie said. "But not to worry. If he’s the man we’re looking for, I can identify him easily enough."

    "Will you come with us to headquarters?" The officer asked. "It’s a long shot, but if... Can you close your business for an hour or so?"

    "Under the circumstances, I’ll be glad to do that." Sophie grinned. "And it’s not such a long shot. Believe me."

    The walls of the police headquarters were painted a bilious greenish brown that matched the stench of stale cigarette smoke. Sophie wished she could hold her breath until the identification ordeal was finished, but she didn’t complain. She had come to help. She tried to take very shallow breaths. The officers placed the suspect in a lineup with four other men and asked Sophie to point out the thief. Each man wore a numbered sign hanging like a giant cardboard pendant on his chest.

    "Just tell us the number of the man you suspect," the officer said. "That’s all we want to hear. Just say the number and we’ll give the man some serious questioning."

    Sophie studied each man in the lineup carefully, noticing height, body build, and clothing.

    "No can do," Sophie said, shaking her head. "I’ve got to smell his shoes and his pants if I’m going to make a sure and positive identification that can really help you get a confession from him."

    The officers rolled their eyes and suppressed grins at Sophie’s strange request, but in a few moments they brought in a basket of shoes and another basket of pants—all taken from the men in the lineup. Sophie sniffed each garment carefully until she came to the one she had been hoping for—and expecting. Then she sniffed the shoes, glad to find a smell that matched the odor on the pants. She held the garments toward the police officers.

    "The guy who wore these pants and shoes is your culprit," Sophie said.

    "How can you be so sure," Gorilla asked.

    "I managed to trip the thief in a way that caused him to fall into my patch of spearmint. There’s no mistaking the clean sharp scent of fresh spearmint, Officer. He’s your man. But what about the bank loot?"

    "The thief dropped it on the other side of your garden wall," the officer said. "If we get a confession from this guy, you’ll collect a ‘good citizen’ reward from the bank."

    "I don’t expect any reward for doing my civic duty," Sophie said. "But if the bank would stake me to some raised planting beds, I could expand my garden. People confined to wheel chairs could easily enjoy blue indigo, Gloriosa daisies, and a variety of mints right from their seated positions."

    "Sophie," the officer said, "I’ll speak to the bank president today."

    "Tell him to stop by my garden." Sophie grinned. "There’s a special tea rose in bloom. I’ll save a bud just for him, and you can tell that thief that botany is seldom boring."