A Root Awakening: A Flower Shop Mystery (17 page)

“Maybe she sensed something was wrong. You know how dogs can tell when someone is about to have a seizure or go into diabetic shock?”

“Seedy’s never been trained for that, Abby. And if she did sense something, why didn’t she want to go to him after he fell?”

“Because she’s shy around men.”

“Point taken. Okay, go on.”

“The next thing I remember is that we were discussing whether to see the inside of the house when I heard a cry from the roof that made me turn around. I don’t recall where anyone else was at that moment because I was focused on Sergio. I only remember that after he hit the ground there was pandemonium from all directions as everyone tried to reach him. Lorelei and I got there first and pushed the ladder off Sergio, and I checked for a pulse. Then Sam started shaking Sergio, and you told him to stop.”

“Okay, right there we have a red flag. Is Sam really that stupid that he would shake a man who had just fallen from a great height?”

“After the conversations we’ve had with Sam, yes, I do believe he might have acted without thinking.”

“I’m not one hundred percent convinced about that, Abby. If someone was out to kill Sergio and then discovered that he was still breathing, a good hard shake might snap his neck like a twig.”

“So you’re saying that someone is Sam?”

“I’m not saying he’s the only one involved, but yes.”

“Then Sam is a lot smarter than he seems, and I don’t get that feeling when we talk to him.”

“Let’s move on. Does anything else stick out in your memory?”

“Let’s see. The paramedics came, then Sandra Jones and the two kids came out, and Seedy and I walked over to talk to them. Then Norm Jones came home and they went back into the house. I returned to you and Reilly, and we talked for a few minutes. Then we went home. Oh, wait. Back up. Seedy found a red marker right where Sergio had been lying. Remember that? I wonder what happened to it after we handed it over to Reilly.”

“Why don’t you give Reilly a call and see if he was able to find out whether the toxicology report has come in, and then you can ask him to look into the marker for us.”

“I’d better use your phone, then. He doesn’t always answer when he sees my name pop up on his screen.”

“Maybe he’s just busy. I don’t think he avoids you.”

“Wanna bet?” I pulled out my phone and dialed Reilly’s number, then put the call on speakerphone. “See?” I said when it went to his voice mail. “Now watch this.” I used Marco’s phone, only to have that call go to voice mail, too.

“You were saying?” Marco asked.

“Okay, maybe he’s busy right now, but it’s happened to me several times, Marco. I’m not making it up.”

Marco’s mouth curved up just a bit, a look he always got when he was about to tease me. “You’re kind of cute when you’re paranoid.”

“
Kind of
cute?”

“I don’t want you to get a swelled head.” He put his hand on my knee. “Know what we should do when I get home tonight?”

“If you tell me we need to go over the notes again, I won’t be responsible for what happens to you.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a romantic evening, just you and me, a few candles, some soft music, and a bottle of bubbly.”

“Now
that
sounds like a plan, Mr. S.”

Marco’s phone rang, so I checked the screen and handed it to him. “It’s Reilly.”

“Hey, Sean, we just tried to reach you.” Marco listened a minute, then said, “Okay, thanks. I appreciate it. Oh, one other thing. Remember the red marker Seedy found on the ground? What did the detectives do with it?” He listened another minute, thanked his buddy, and ended the call.

“The tox report is in,” Marco said, “but there aren’t any red flags on it—no drugs or toxins in Sergio’s system and only what they consider an allowable amount of alcohol. So we’re right back where we started—with nothing.”

“What about the marker?”

“Sean said he’ll look into it. My guess is that it fell out of Sergio’s tool belt, but rule number one is . . . ?”

“Don’t ask leading questions.” At Marco’s bemused glance, I said, “Just kidding. It’s V-cubed.”

“V-
cubed
?”

“That’s my shorthand for verify, verify, verify. So what did you think of Adrian’s answers?”

“It’s the same damn conversation we’ve had with all of them,” Marco said. “A bunch of nos. No one was close to Sergio before he fell. No one would do that to him despite how much they disliked him. And with zero witnesses, there’s not a single way to prove otherwise.

“Then we have the doctors giving us their no as far as an obvious medical condition that might have caused Sergio’s fall. Now we’ve hit another wall with the tox results. I hate to say this, Abby, but I think the only way we’ll ever find out what happened to Sergio is for him to tell us, and I don’t have a good feeling about that happening—not when Rosa keeps reporting that his condition is deteriorating.”

“Where is this leading?”

Marco sighed. “I’ve never failed to close a case to a client’s satisfaction before, Sunshine, but we’ve taken this as far as we can. The investigation is over.”

“I know it’s difficult for you to say that, Marco, and I don’t fault you for your decision, but how do we tell Rosa? She’s counting on us.”

“She’s holding on to a delusion, Abby. We’ll just have to be honest with her. We’ve explored every option and haven’t discovered one piece of evidence to support her claim.”

“I hope Rosa doesn’t get it into her head to keep investigating on her own. Look what happened when she tried to confront Jericho.”

“If she does, she does, Abby. There’s not a thing we can do about it. When does she work at Bloomers next?”

“Tomorrow.”

“We’ll have to talk to her then.”

And by
we
, I was fairly certain he meant me.

*   *   *

What would a plan be without a flaw? In our case, our romantic evening had two: Seedy and a cell phone that wasn’t put on mute.

As soon as we had poured the wine, lit the candles, turned on soft music, and closed the bedroom door that evening, Seedy began to whine and scratch the wood with her nails. Marco turned up the volume to cover the noise, but that only made Seedy bark, and there was no way romance could happen for me when my dog was barking a few yards away.

Marco put her in the bathroom and shut the door, prompting her to howl and scratch harder. It didn’t seem to bother him—typical one-track-minded male—but I kept imagining the deep grooves in the door that we’d have to repair before we moved, and that did nothing to keep me in a sexy mood.

If Seedy wasn’t distracting enough, my cell phone began to ring, prompting a string of unintelligible mutterings from Marco. The phone was sitting on the dresser, and as it rang, it vibrated across the top and dropped onto the wooden floor with a clatter. Trying to block out the image of a shattered screen, I also tried to ignore the beep that signaled that the caller had left a phone message, but then text messages began to come in, making a loud ding every time.

“Someone really needs to reach us,” I said. “I should probably answer it.”

“Go ahead,” Marco grumbled, “but I’ll bet it’s just your cousin.”

M
arco pulled his shirt on over his head, grumbling about Jillian being a pest and about leaving our phones in the living room from now on, as I sat on the bed listening to the message.

“It was Lorelei, not Jillian,” I said as he went up the hallway to let Seedy out of the bathroom. “I’m supposed to contact her ASAP. She has another house for us to see.”

“It could have waited until morning,” he said, still in grumble mode. “We’re not going to see it tonight.”

Seedy sat down in the bedroom doorway and gazed at me as though she couldn’t believe I’d had the audacity to lock her out. Now two members of my family were peeved.

“He did it, not me,” I told her, pointing at my testy husband.

“Come on, girl,” Marco said. “Let’s go for a walk and work off some energy.”

I wasn’t sure whether he meant his or Seedy’s.

“You know, Abby,” he said, snapping her leash onto her collar, “maybe Seedy needs a playmate.”

“Another animal crammed into this tiny apartment?”

Marco sat down beside me on the edge of the bed. “I mean when we move.”

“Then I’d have two dogs at Bloomers. Two dogs to board when we go on vacation. Two vet bills to pay. Two—”

“I get it. Come here.”

I laid my head on his chest as he wrapped his arms around me and stroked my back. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. It isn’t your fault that call came in. It just seems I’m frustrated at every turn.”

“I understand, Marco, and from now on we
will
leave our phones in another room. But we do need to move soon. In a house, we could put Seedy at one end and ourselves at the other, and then we wouldn’t hear her.”

“Don’t bet on that happening,” Marco said, getting up.

Speaking of whom, Seedy was now standing at the side of the bed, whining to be lifted up.

“We’ll have to train her to stay in a room without us,” he said.

Ah, there was that royal
we
again.

As soon as Marco and Seedy left, I returned the Realtor’s call.

“Abby, I’m glad you got back to me,” Lorelei said. “I found a wonderful house for you, but you need to see it soon because there are already two buyers who are very interested, and I’d hate for you to miss this opportunity. The owners had to relocate, so you could move right in. Would you be available tomorrow morning?”

“Are you sure this house is what we’re looking for, Lorelei?”

“It has two bedrooms, a basement, a garage, a fenced-
in backyard, and it’s just three blocks from the town square.”

The house did sound perfect. I arranged to meet her at eight o’clock, and then said a prayer that this would be the one.

*   *   *

Wednesday

I quickly realized that the reason the house had interested buyers was not only because of its location near the town square, but also, and probably the bigger factor, because of its rock-bottom price. Otherwise, I doubted anyone but a dedicated rehabber would have touched it. The bungalow-style house was ninety-three years old, and in some of the rooms, so was the wallpaper. There were big, drafty fireplaces in the living room, dining room, and both bedrooms, a massive oak staircase, ancient appliances, steam heat, and no central air.

“Don’t you love the high ceilings?” Lorelei asked as we stood in the master bedroom looking up at an antique iron chandelier. “You could take that down and put in a fan/light combination.”

“We could have a cozy fire up here in the evenings,” Marco said, crouching down in front of the blackened brick hearth.

A fire was what I was picturing, too. The heavy drapes around windows on either side were so close that I couldn’t imagine how they’d avoided being set ablaze by an errant spark. I peeled back a loose piece of the yellowing pale pink floral wallpaper next to the door and found older wallpaper beneath it. Who knew how many layers there were?

I knew I had to come clean with Marco. I simply wasn’t a fan of old homes.

“Despite the drawbacks, it has good bones, Abby,” Marco said, knocking on the thick plaster wall as we headed back down the hallway. “Look at these doors. Solid oak throughout. Six-inch crown molding, brick fireplaces, a bay window in the dining room . . . there’s a lot to like here.”

“And a lot to fix here, too, Marco. The baseboard trim and crown molding are in horrible shape, the wood floor needs refinishing, there are cracks in the plaster, and there’s no counter space in the kitchen. And with a one-car garage, one of us has to park outside.”

“But at this price we could build a new garage and renovate the house.”

There was that
we
again.

“Remember, you can move right in,” Lorelei said. “And you couldn’t ask for a better location. Plus it has a big basement.”

“Let’s go see it,” Marco said, smiling.

Lorelei wasn’t lying. It did have a big basement, a big, dark, damp, musty-smelling dungeon of a basement with a forty-year-old furnace, spiderwebs in the corners, and a water line six inches up from the cracked cement floor.

“It floods?” I asked Lorelei.

“My information says the owners had the problem fixed, and it would come with a ten-year guarantee.” She glanced at me, saw my concerned expression, and said, “Let’s take another look upstairs.”

“It has potential,” Marco said as we walked back to the town square.

“The potential for a flooded basement. And did you see the size of those spiderwebs?” I shuddered at the memory. “I’m sorry, Marco, but I have to give that house a no. I want a basement that I’m not afraid to use.”

“You didn’t like it at all?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, babe, don’t be sorry. You like what you like.”

“But
you
liked it.”

He put his arm around my shoulders and drew me close. “Buttercup, I wouldn’t be happy in any house if you weren’t happy there. We’ll just keep looking.”

“Let’s stick to houses that aren’t more than thirty years old, okay?”

“If that’s what my wife wants, that’s what she’ll get.”

Why did that make me feel guilty?

When I walked into Bloomers, Grace was setting up the coffee machines in the parlor, Lottie was filling the glass-fronted display case with fresh flowers and ready-made floral arrangements, and someone was singing off-key in the workroom.

“Is that Rosa?” I asked as I sat at a table in the parlor to have my morning coffee with Grace and Lottie.

“She sounds a bit like a parrot screeching, doesn’t she, poor thing?” Grace said.

“What did you think of the house?” Lottie asked.

“Great location,” I said.

“And?” Lottie asked.

I put my chin in my palm. “Great location.”

“Fight on then, love,” Grace said. “As that famed commander James Lawrence said in the Battle of 1812, ‘Don’t give up the ship.’”

“I’d take a ship at this point, Grace.” I paused as the
caterwauling grew louder. “What’s Rosa doing back there?”

“She’s putting together an order,” Lottie said. “She wanted me to show her a few of my techniques, so I gave her a lesson on a simple arrangement of mums and left her to it. She took to the lesson very quickly. Reminds me of you when you first started.”

“I hope I didn’t sing like that.” I finished my coffee and stood up. “I’ll go see how she’s doing. I need to talk to her anyway.”

“How’s her investigation going?” Lottie asked.

“It’s not,” I said. “The tox report came back clean, so medically there was no reason for Sergio’s fall, and we’ve interviewed his coworkers multiple times and haven’t found a single piece of information that supports Rosa’s belief that someone pushed him.”

“Then you need to let
me
talk to the men.”

I turned to see Rosa coming into the parlor carrying a beautiful arrangement of spider mums, button mums, and carnations in bright spring colors.

“Great job, Rosa!” Lottie exclaimed, clapping.

“Brilliant,” Grace said.

I wouldn’t have gone
that
far.

“I did do a great job, didn’t I?” Rosa said, setting the flowers on the table. “Thank you.” She pulled out a chair and sat down. “Now tell me what is happening with my case.”

I gave her a quick review of the interviews we’d done and the results of the toxicology report, while she sat with her arms folded and her mouth pursed. Before I could tell her that we were calling it quits, she said, “It is time for me to step in.”

“Rosa, you’re not a trained investigator,” I said.

“This is what you keep telling me, but I wait and wait for you and Marco to find out who tried to kill Sergio, and nothing happens. Take me along on your next interview and watch how I will get the men to talk.”

“Sweetie,” Lottie said to her, “I don’t think you’ll have much luck getting Marco to agree to that.”

Both of us were now sweeties?

“He will agree if I ask him,” Rosa said. “I don’t want to sound like I have a swollen brain, but people cannot say no to me.”

“I believe she means a swelled head,” Grace said.

“Same thing,” Rosa said.

Personally, I liked “swollen brain.” In any case, Rosa certainly held a high opinion of herself.

“This is why I must go with you on your next interview, Abby,” she said.

I kept my mouth shut. I’d tell her about our decision in private.

“Now that the matter is settled,” Rosa said, “let us talk about those ugly fish hanging by your beautiful cabinet. You must do something before they scare away the customers.”

“I can’t get rid of them,” I said. “My mom made them. It would hurt her feelings.”

“Maybe you can add flowers or something to make them look better, Rosa,” Lottie said, “like you did with her eye-eye-eye pots.”

“That
was
quite ingenious,” Grace said, nodding approvingly. “And Maureen did tell me she loved them.”

What was this? Rosa to the Rescue Day? And why hadn’t Mom told
me
she loved them?

“No,” Rosa said firmly. “Adding flowers to them will only make them uglier. To fix them, I will have to spray silver all over the wiggly eyeballs.”

“My mom will never go along with that,” I said.

“Actually, Rosa does have a good idea,” Grace said. “Silver would make the eyes look like fish scales.”

“That is exactly what I mean,” Rosa said to Grace. “You get it.”

Lottie raised her hand for a high five. “I got it, too.”

Were we keeping score? “But seriously,” I said, “considering that they are
fish
sconces, why waste the paint? We’re better off leaving them on the wall for another day, then taking them to the basement and letting Mom think they sold.”

“But that is dishonest,” Rosa said. “How can you lie to your mother?”

“I don’t lie to my mother,” I said, bristling. “Usually. Back to my point, who’s going to buy fish sconces anyway?”

“Fishermen,” Lottie said. “We can market them to their wives. They’re always looking for fish-themed gift ideas.”

“I like it,” Rosa said.

“You’re all forgetting one thing,” I said. “My mom has to agree to it, and I’m not going to be the one to suggest it. She’ll never forgive me for wanting to ruin her creation.”

Rosa slapped her palm on the table. “Then I will tell her. She will say yes—don’t worry.”

Good luck with that. If anyone was more stubborn than Marco, it was my mom.

I heard a melody playing in the distance and turned my head toward the doorway. “Is that ‘La Cucaracha’?”

“Oh!” Rosa jumped up. “That is my cell phone.”

As she dashed off to answer it, we cleared the table and headed off to our different zones. Bloomers Flower Shop was about to open for business.

I put Rosa’s arrangement in the glass display case, then went through the curtain and heard sobs coming from the kitchen. There I found Rosa leaning up against the wall, her hands over her face, crying her heart out.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Sergio,” she said. “He is worse. I have to go to the hospital now.”

*   *   *

I drove Rosa to the hospital and stayed while a doctor explained that Sergio’s organs were shutting down. While they let her see Sergio, I sat in the intensive care waiting room until a nurse came by to give me a message from Rosa.

“She said to tell you thanks for all your help and that her mother is on her way, so there’s no need for you to sit here.”

“Is Sergio . . . ?” I didn’t want to finish my thought, but the nurse understood.

“Rosa may be here all day,” she said. “We just don’t know.”

I felt bad for leaving. At the same time, I knew that Lottie and Grace needed me there. “Would you tell Rosa to let me know if she needs anything?” I asked the nurse. “Make sure she knows that all she has to do is call me and I’ll come back.”

“I’ll give her the message,” she said.

I returned to Bloomers and dug into my orders, but my thoughts were never far from Rosa and Sergio. We
closed the shop at five and then I headed down to Marco’s bar for dinner.

“Any word from Rosa?” Marco asked as he joined me at our booth in the back.

“Nothing. I wish there was something I could do. I’m glad now that I didn’t tell her we were pulling out of the case.”