A Flower Girl Murder (10 page)

“Not if they knew there was a cold-blooded killer among them,” Sage said.

“Fine,” Ben finally said, “Let’s hear it, but you two will promise that if I’m not convinced, there will be no more talk of Natalie’s death and that we’ll go out to dinner as soon as possible, no changing or fixing hair or make-up.”

Sage and Prim looked at each other for reassurance and turned to Ben again. They nodded in unison.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A Funeral and a Culprit

Three figures filed out of the front door at dawn. Stars were still blinking in the thinning blue of the sky and the horizon was already painted tangerine with the approaching sunrise. Birds were twittering in the branches of the giant oak in front of the house and gave the start of the day a festive note, though the mood of the three people clutching their travel mugs of steaming coffee and tea was anything but festive.

Sage climbed in the back of Ben’s sheriff car, while Prim and her husband got in the front. They drove in silence, partly because they were still sleepy at this hour and partly because they were nervous in anticipation of what would transpire at the Pendergrasses’ house in just a few short minutes. A quick call to Cathy last night had revealed that the funeral would be held exceptionally early the next day, mainly to discourage other townspeople from attending.

Ben parked the car a block away from their destination and turned to the sisters.

“I think it’s best if you two stay here,” he suggested, “Let me handle the whole thing.”

“No, Ben,” Prim said firmly, “I think at least Sage deserves to be there. She worked out this whole case. Actually, I wouldn’t mind sitting in too. It’s all I’ve been thinking about the past couple of days and I really want to see the guilty be put in their spot.”

“Alright,” Ben sighed, “But let me do all the talking. I’ll ask you if I get stuck on some of the details.”

“Sure,” Prim smiled, “You are the authority around here. It’s only right.”

The three of them took a last sip of their hot drinks and walked to the Pendergrasses’ front door. Jasmine came to the door after the second ring and opened with a confused look on her beautiful face.

“Sheriff Greene? Mrs. Greene?” she said, “Good morning, but… We didn’t expect any more guests. As my father must have told you, we are keeping the event within a very close circle.”

“Yes, Jasmine,” Ben said mildly, “We know and we are not staying. We’ll only be a minute. We need to talk to you all about something.”

The confusion grew even more pronounced on the girl’s face.

“Sure,” she said, “Please, come in! Though I’m afraid we were just on our way to the chapel.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Prim said, “As Ben, Sheriff Greene, said, we won’t be long.”

The three of them followed Jasmine inside the house and into the living room. Everyone was already there, gathered around a low coffee table. There were plates of fresh pastry and cups of coffee and Sage recognized the napkins and paper cups from The Cheshire Cat.
The cafe must open really early then,
she thought.

There were only six people in the room, so Father Pendergrass must have been very strict about inviting only Natalie’s closest friends and family. There was him, sitting at the far end of the table in a wingback chair, his eyebrows furrowed as he took a cup of tea to his lips. Emily, Josh and Trevor sat on the sofa, each of them cradling a napkin with a piece of pastry, looking as if they were attending an awkward birthday party. Kevin was standing by the empty fireplace, leaning over the mantelpiece, and as soon as the newcomers entered, Jasmine joined her fiance, taking his arm.

Everyone was wearing black and out of courtesy and respect, Prim, Ben and Sage had also donned dark outfits.

“Good morning, everyone,” Ben started and before Father Pendergrass could interrupt, he went on, “We are sorry to be intruding at such a sensitive moment, but I’m glad you are all here for what I have to say.”

“What’s this about?” The Father was furious, judging by his glinting eyes, though his face remained calm. “I’m sure it can wait as this is not the best time.”

“I’m afraid, Father,” Ben continued, “That this is the
only
time.”

“How very disrespectful,” the Fathered murmured.

“Not if you knew why we found it necessary to bother you at this hour.”

“Okay, what is it? Can we get this over with? If you don’t mind, I have a daughter to bury.”

“A daughter you can’t wait to bury, because of all the shame she has brought on to your family,” Ben said.

“How dare you!” The Father grew red in the cheeks and made a start to get up, but Ben stopped him with a raised hand.

“And also a daughter, who you have no idea has been brutally murdered,” Ben hurried to say.

The Father froze in his seat, his face immediately changing color to almost white.

“What?!” Kevin, Emily and Josh shrieked in unison.

“It’s interesting that it’s the three of you who are really surprised at the news, since you are the only ones who have no idea about anything I’m going to say now.”

Ben waited to check the effect of his words and just as he’d expected, he was greeted with dead silence, all eyes fixed on him with varying degrees of shock or resentment.

“Father,” he continued calmly, “You have raised your daughters within a very strict set of beliefs. You even started a purity circle to make sure they were well aware of the implications of premarital relations. You’ve kept them within such tight constraints that it’s no wonder they wanted to rebel so badly. When you found out that Natalie had a positive pregnancy test, you saw all the years of education and strict rules go out the door. Naturally, you wanted to keep your daughter’s shame out of the public eye and so you hurried with the funeral and warded off my intention to perform an autopsy, so the pregnancy doesn’t become public knowledge.”

Everyone’s eyes had grown wide and no one even dared move in fear that Ben might address them next.

“In fact, the only people who were really interested in the purity circle were Kevin and Emily,” Ben continued and Sage was glad to see that the exchanged furtive glances between two of the people in the room only confirmed her theory. “And maybe even Natalie, because she wasn’t the one who was pregnant.”

A shared gasp traveled through the room.

“What do you mean it wasn’t her?” Father Pendergrass asked in horror.

“It was you, Jasmine, wasn’t it?” Ben directed his eyes towards the girl and the entire room followed his gaze. Jasmine stood there petrified, unable to utter a sound.

“You knew Trevor had always liked you and even though you were about to get married to Kevin and Trevor was your sister’s ex-boyfriend, you wanted to fool around a bit before the wedding. Only, you didn’t expect you’d end up pregnant.”

“It was fine at first,” he went on, “Because it was very early on and you were getting married soon, so as long as you kept your secret, you could always claim it was Kevin’s. You even managed to convince Trevor not to say anything on the morning of the wedding as the two of you were fighting over at the stone terrace. He wanted to marry you and be his baby’s father, but you wouldn’t have it. You were too afraid of what your father would say or do. Not to mention that he would have certainly cut you off from his will.”

Sage noticed that the two fiancees were no longer holding hands. Jasmine was looking at the floor, while Kevin’s eyes were on his future bride, narrowed in disgust.

“But then, just as the wedding was only a couple of hours away, Natalie found out as she went through your trash bin to look for a bra strap. She found the pregnancy test. I don’t know whether she suspected that Trevor was the father, but she had enough reasons to hate you already, because her beloved boyfriend had left her because he was in love with you.”

“She saw it as a good chance to bring you down, get your father to disinherit you and shame you in front of the whole town. The only mistake she made is that she didn’t hide her discovery fast enough and Jasmine saw her fish it out. Maybe Natalie even told her what she now knew as she probably never expected that her own sister could cold-bloodedly murder her on the day of her own wedding.”

“Dad!” Jasmine suddenly cried out and ran to kneel in her father’s feet. “Dad, it’s not true! Don’t let him say these awful things about me!”

“Quiet now, Jasmine,” her father hissed. “How did she do it? How do you think she killed her sister? We all know there was nothing wrong with Natalie before she collapsed.”

“There is a flower called Daphne,” Prim said, stepping forward next to her husband, “Or, as we call it around here, lady laurel. The town is full of these bushes in private gardens and even in the village green. It has pretty purple flowers, but it is also one of the most deadly flowers if ingested.”

“So, you are saying Jasmine fed her sister
a flower
?” the Father asked impatiently.

“No,” Prim continued calmly, “That would have been absurd, wouldn’t it? The poison of the Daphne is concentrated in its berries and sap. If it enters the bloodstream, it can cause coma and even death. Jasmine used this same flower to make her own corsages for the wedding. She punctured her sister’s wrist, so the poisonous sap could seep in and let her believe it was just thorns. The Daphne has no thorns. She used a needle or another sharp object.”

“I saw the puncture marks on Natalie’s wrist,” Sage added, joining her sister in the middle of the room, “When I examined the body last night. The skin around it was irritated and blistered, just like it is in cases of Daphne poisoning.”

Silence weighed down in the room.

“
No
!” Jasmine wailed, “It’s not true! Daddy, don’t listen to them! I didn’t think she was going to die. I though I’d just make her a little sick… Make her miss the wedding. I didn’t kill her!”

The Father wasn’t even looking at his daughter.

Her wails reverberated through the room.

“Jasmine Pendergrass,” Ben said, stepping forward and reaching back for his handcuffs, “You are now under arrest…”

Epilogue

Sage stepped off the stone stairs and dipped her toes into the cool morning sand of the beach. It was so clean and fine that it massaged her feet pleasantly as she walked towards the shore, her flip-flops swinging in her hand. It was beautiful. Everything around her was tinged in pink as the sun had just swum out from the horizon.

It turned out that only a few days of getting up at sunrise could make you a morning person.

She’d already had a blueberry pancake breakfast at home, together with her nephews, and hurried out the door on a small mission. She was clutching a mug full of freshly brewed coffee that warmed her palm in the crisp morning. When she reached the small deck with fishing boats, Dan was already there, fiddling with the ropes of his own small boat. A week had passed since the day of Jasmine’s arrest and the last time she had seen him on a similar morning.

He didn’t notice her at first, so she had a few moments to admire his back as he continuously leaned over the mysterious fishing equipment, sorting something out. The sand and the gentle noise of water lapping in equal intervals muffled her steps and she secretly enjoyed the fact that he didn’t suspect her approaching.

“Good morning, captain,” she called out.

Dan’s shoulders heaved in surprise for a moment, but then he turned in his slow, lazy manner, a half-smile already on his face.

“Isn’t that the last person I expected to see this early,” he said.

“Well, it’s not really a coincidence,” Sage said, “I was looking for you.”

“Hm, I knew I shouldn’t have shared my secret free morning routine with you,” he said, “Next thing you know, you’ll be camping out here to get to corner me with questions.”

“No, no, I swear,” she said, smiling, “No more questions. It’s more like… I wanted to thank you.”

“Jump in then, I was just taking off.”

Sage hesitated for a moment as the offer came quite unexpectedly. Plus, her dress wasn’t exactly the most appropriate fishing attire, but then he turned to her once again and extended his arm to help her get on board. She noticed the little lines around his eyes and the dimples in his sunburned sides when he smiled and couldn’t help but think they made him even more attractive.

“Alright then,” she said and wobbled onto the boat, leaving her flip-flops on the shore and trying not to spill any coffee on herself. His strong hand steadied her immediately and she made it safely onto a small bench lining the side of the boat. She watched as he untied the rope that was latching them to the dock and pushed the boat out into the sea. The small engine soon purred into action and started propelling them further in towards the pink horizon.

“Thank me for what?” Dan said in a while, when there was nothing more for him to do than sit and steer the boat forward.

“Here,” Sage said shyly and extended the mug of coffee towards him.

“What’s that?”

“My way of saying thank you,” she said, “I thought… Well, you make coffee for everyone in town, every morning, so I thought you deserved someone to make you a cup on your day off. Plus, you were nice to me when you had no reason to be and answered all my insane questions.”