A Root Awakening: A Flower Shop Mystery (2 page)

Seedy glanced around, saw the man coming, and dropped low to the ground with a whimper, her little body beginning to tremble. I scooped her up and held her close, murmuring assurances as he got closer.

“What happened?” the man asked Sandra.

“One of the painters fell,” she said. “Norm, this is Abby Knight Salvare. She was here to see the house when the accident happened. Abby, this is my husband, Norm.”

“We’re baking gingerbread cookies, Daddy,” Bud said as I shook Norm’s hand.

“We were just saying good-bye to Miss Abby so we could go check on them; weren’t we, children?” Sandra asked.

“I’ll be in as soon as I see what the situation is,” Norm said, ruffling Bud’s hair. “Save me a cookie.”

Norm strode toward several of the workers while Sandra hustled the kids to the front door. Daisy kept glancing back at me and paused at the door to give me a look that I didn’t know how to translate, except to say that it felt as though she recognized me from somewhere.

I put Seedy down and walked toward Marco, still pondering the girl’s puzzling glance. My internal radar was clanging a very distant warning, and I didn’t know why.

Lorelei stood beside her black Camry talking on her cell phone, while the paramedics loaded the painter onto the stretcher and the remaining two painters carried the
aluminum ladder to their van. I went to where Marco and Reilly stood, then turned to watch as Norm talked to the roofers, who were heading back to their jobs. One pointed to the peak of the roof and gestured, obviously describing the accident. I expected Norm to come talk to the cops next, but instead he went inside his house.

“Any news on the painter’s condition?” I asked the men.

“He’s still unconscious,” Reilly said, hooking his thumbs through his thick leather belt. “His blood pressure is very low but his other vital signs are holding steady. The EMTs didn’t know any more than that.”

“Does anyone know why he fell?” I asked.

“One of the roofers said he’s had some health problems and thought he might have suffered a heart attack,” Marco said.

Seedy was tugging again, this time in the direction of a small white-and-red tube lying on the ground where the man had lain. Curious, I handed Seedy’s leash to Marco and went over to investigate.

“What did you find?” Reilly asked.

“This,” I said, and handed him a white Magic Marker with a red cap.

As Reilly examined it, Seedy barked and wagged her tail as though she wanted him to toss it for a game of catch. “Sorry, girl,” Marco said. “Not this time.”

“It must have fallen out of the painter’s pocket when he fell,” Reilly said. “I’ll pass it along to the detectives. In the meantime, I’m going to start taking statements from everyone here, but if you need to get going, I can stop by the bar and take yours later. You don’t need to stick around.”

“Make sure you talk to the people in the house, Sarge,” I said.

With just a hint of bemusement, Reilly said, “Anything else I should do, Captain?”

“No, seriously, Reilly,” I said. “Just see if you sense anything off.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. There was something about the way their little girl looked at me.”

“I can’t question them about a look, Abby,” Reilly said.

“Let’s go, Sunshine,” Marco said, leading me away. “See you this evening, Sean.”

“I just want Reilly to be observant, Marco,” I said as we walked toward his car.

“I’m sure he will.”

But I wasn’t. While I liked Reilly and knew him to be an honest cop with a big heart, I’d had enough dealings with him over the years to know he was a by-the-rules kind of guy. Until I could put my finger on what was bothering me, he wasn’t going to pry.

“You’re leaving, then?” our Realtor asked, hurrying over. “Without seeing the inside?”

“We’ve ruled this one out,” Marco said. “Right, Abby?”

I turned to stare at the front of the Victorian, my internal radar still buzzing.

“Abby?” Marco prompted.

“On second thought,” I said to Lorelei, “I’d like to see the inside after all.”

W
hile Lorelei was on the porch talking with Mr. Jones, Marco studied me. “What made you change your mind?”

“It’s a female’s prerogative,” I said, giving him my sweetest smile.

“Abby, I know you too well. You’ve got your snoop face on.”

That was flattering.

Lorelei came toward us and she wasn’t smiling. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to see the house today. It’s a bad time for them. We’ll have to come back. What does your schedule for tomorrow look like?”

“Let’s go home and think about this house some more, Abby,” Marco suggested. “We’ll let you know what we decide, Lorelei.”

“No sense putting off the decision, Marco. We need to find a new place soon.” I turned to Lorelei. “Say around eight o’clock tomorrow morning?”

Lorelei left with a smile on her face. Not so my disgruntled hubby, who scowled but didn’t speak on the drive back to the flower shop. So I kept busy by pointing
out various landmarks to Seedy, who lapped up every word as though she understood.

“And here comes the town square, Seedy. See the big limestone courthouse in the middle? It was built way back in the early nineteen hundreds. There’s Daddy’s bar across the street, and here comes Bloomers. See that bright yellow door? I chose that color because it’s my favorite. And the red-and-white-striped awning? That was Lottie’s idea.”

“Dogs can’t see red, Abby.”

How about that? Silent Salvare finally spoketh. “It’s not like she knows what I’m talking about anyway, Marco. Are you annoyed that I set up that appointment?”

“Not if you actually want to see the house.” He cast me a skeptical glance. “Do you?”

I debated my answer. If I said yes, I’d be lying. If I said no, he’d be even more annoyed. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

When in doubt, punt. “Look, Seedy. Here’s Bloomers. And there’s Lottie making a new display for the bay window.”

“That’s what I thought,” Marco said.

“You don’t have to go tomorrow, Marco. I can look without you.”

He glanced at me with raised brows, as though to ask,
Are you sure?

“It’s just that if you’re with me, you won’t have to worry about me getting myself into trouble.”

This time Marco lifted one eyebrow as he glanced my way. His message was clear:
You’re going to snoop, aren’t you?
He might have been a man of few words, but his facial expressions could fill a tome.

“So,” I said, running my fingers through Seedy’s fur. “Coming with me?”

He sighed. “Do I have a choice?”

I leaned across the console and kissed him. “You made your choice when you said, ‘I do.’”

Seedy yipped once and put her little paw on the window, eager to escape the car and return to her haven in my workroom.

“Are we meeting at the bar for supper?” I asked.

“Looks like it. Rafe is off tonight so I need to be there all evening.”

Oh, joy. Another evening alone.

From the time Marco had bought Down the Hatch nearly two years before, he’d spent almost every evening there, so our habit was to meet for supper before I headed home for the evening. But since bringing his younger brother Rafe onto his staff, Marco had been able to cut down on his hours, giving us two nights a week and one weekend a month together, along with our usual Sundays off. However, because his private investigating business had been growing, I found myself home alone more than I liked, even when I worked the more interesting cases with him. Thank goodness for Seedy.

“Then I’ll see you after five.” I slid out of the car and put Seedy down on the sidewalk. I watched her hobble toward the bright yellow frame door; then I stood for a moment gazing at the three-story redbrick building that housed Bloomers.

The shop occupied the first floor, with the display room up front, a coffee and tea parlor off to one side, the workroom in the middle, and a small bathroom and kitchen across the back. A heavy fireproof door opened
onto the alley and a steep staircase near the back door led to the basement. We kept larger supplies and huge flowerpots down there, along with pieces of my mom’s art that we were too embarrassed to display in the shop. I tried not to go to the basement very often. It was a scary place.

I opened the door and let Seedy go in ahead of me. No matter how many times I entered, I always got a thrill from knowing Bloomers was mine. Well, okay, the bank’s until the mortgage was paid off—like that was ever going to happen. Yet it was my name on the sign above the door, and I still puffed up with pride when I saw it. Little ol’ me, the law school flunk-out, had her very own business.

I took a moment to gaze around the interior, inhaling the sweetly perfumed air. The flower shop had an old-world charm, with original wood floors, a high tin ceiling, and brick walls that dated back to the early 1900s. I’d worked hard to keep the same feel with the decor, using a heavy round oak table with claw feet in the center of the room to display silk arrangements, an open antique armoire, a wicker settee in the back corner shaded by a leafy ficus tree, and an oak sideboard.

There were also large potted plants on the floor around the perimeter of the room, wreaths, sconces, and decorative mirrors on the walls, silk floral arrangements in the big bay window, and assorted gift items on shelves. The only modern touches were a glass-fronted cooler on the back wall and the cash counter to the left of the door.

Through the wide doorway on the right I could see women seated at three of the white wrought-iron ice cream tables in the parlor. I’d emptied a storage room
and added the parlor as a way to draw in more customers, and it had worked better than I’d ever expected. Most of its success I attributed to the woman who ran it for me, Grace Bingham, who not only brewed the best tea and gourmet coffee in town, but also baked scones every morning to sell in the shop. The flavor of the day depended on what was in season. Today it was apple.

“Hey, sweetie,” my other assistant, Lottie Dombowski, said as she stepped down from the bay window. “How’d the house hunt go? See something worth a second look?”

More like some
one
worth a second look. “The outside of the house was in deplorable condition,” I said, but before I could tell her the rest of the story, she put her arm around my shoulders and gave me a motherly squeeze.

“You’ll find something. Don’t give up the dream. The perfect house will come along when the time is right.”

After months of hearing about one futile house hunt after another, Lottie should have been as disillusioned as I was. But not her. She was a fighter. As the mother of eighteen-year-old quadruplet sons, she had to be.

Born in Kentucky, the large-boned, forty-seven-year-old had brassy curls à la Shirley Temple and wore pink barrettes to keep the hair off her face. In fact, she wore pink everything except jeans, which were white. I couldn’t actually have vouched for her underwear, but she swore it was also pink, and if I didn’t believe her, I could ask her beloved hubby Herman.

Lottie had once owned Bloomers, but Herman had suffered such serious heart problems that the resulting surgeries and insurance expenses had nearly
bankrupted them, forcing her to sell the shop. At the same time, I had been experiencing my own kind of failure. I’d been booted out of law school after my first year and subsequently dumped by my then fiancé, Pryce Osborne II. His parents, part of New Chapel’s elite, hadn’t wanted Pryces II through X to bear the stigma of my humiliation.

Down at heart and desperate for a job, I’d returned to the little shop where I’d worked summers during college, a haven that had called to me even back then. When I learned of Lottie’s situation, I took the rest of the college money my grandfather had left me, dashed it over to the bank, signed my life away, and hired Lottie back to train me.

Grace Bingham glided out of the parlor to join us and said to me in her crisp British accent, “I heard a
but
in your comment, love.”

Lottie gave her a puzzled look. “Excuse me?”

“You cut her off, Lottie, dear—not that you meant to, but there it is, isn’t it? Abby, love, would you like to finish now? The house was in deplorable condition, but?”

Grace smiled serenely and waited, knowing she was right. Her fingers were interlocked in front of her, her posture as perfect as her short, stylish gray hair. An impeccable dresser, today she wore a lilac sweater set and gray skirt with gray flats.

Lottie looked at me for verification. “I cut you off? I surely didn’t mean to. What else were you going to say about the house?”

“It wasn’t about the house. It was what happened
at
the house. One of the painters fell off his ladder and had
to be taken to the hospital. That brought the occupants out—a mom and two kids, maybe six and ten years old.”

“Home at this time of day?” Grace asked.

“Homeschooled,” I said. “While I was talking to the kids, Daisy, the little girl, kept looking at me strangely.”

“Strangely?” Grace asked. “As in mistrustful? Frightened? Curious?”

“Maybe curious. Anyway, I’ve arranged to go back tomorrow morning.”

“With what intention?” Grace asked. Her fingers were interlocked again.

“To see if my internal radar goes off when I see her,” I said.

“Is Marco okay with this little investigation of yours?” Grace asked with a skeptical eye.

In the length of time it took me to consider my answer, the women had looked at each other and come to a decision. “He’s not,” they both said.

“Let’s just say he’s humoring me,” I said.

The bell over the door jingled and two customers walked in just as a woman in the parlor signaled for more coffee.

“Tallyho,” Grace said, and sailed off toward the parlor with Lottie in tow.

While they took care of the customers, I parted the curtain, stepped into my little slice of paradise, and sighed. There was nothing better than a flower shop on a chill spring day. It was always summer inside my workroom.

I inhaled the floral scents and smiled as I gazed around at my nirvana. A big slate-topped table took up
the center of the room, with two walk-in coolers on the right wall, a long counter on the left wall with a built-in desk that housed my computer, fax machine, spindle for orders, and photos, and a doorway at the back that led to the tiny bathroom and small galley kitchen. Vases lined up by size and color filled shelves along two walls, and big containers below the counters held silk flowers grouped by color and type.

I glanced beneath the table and saw Seedy contentedly chewing on a rawhide toy, nestled into the pink-and-blue quilted doggy bed that Grace and Lottie had bought her. When I sat down at my desk, Seedy hobbled out and wanted to sit on my lap. With her perched on my knees, I counted the orders on the spindle, my smile spreading as the number rose. What a change from last year, when we’d gone through such an awful dry spell that I’d feared the shop would close.

I picked up a framed photo of Marco and me taken on our wedding day. “Look, Seedy. You’re in the picture.” The photo next to it was of my family on the same day: Mom with her peaches-and-cream English complexion and neat brown bob; Dad, freckled, redheaded, looking dapper even in his wheelchair; my brothers Jonathan and Jordan and their wives; my niece Tara holding her puppy, Seedling, who was Seedy’s baby; and my glamorous cousin, Jillian, and her fussy husband, Claymore, the younger brother of the scoundrel who jilted me.

As though I had conjured her, the curtain parted and a very round stomach appeared, followed by a snakeskin tote bag, and finally my cousin. Amazingly, even though she was nearly nine months pregnant, Jillian still managed to look like a fashion plate. Today she wore an
ankle-length black-and-gray-striped tube dress that was ruched in the abdominal area to allow for her expanding girth.

It was undoubtedly a designer dress—as an independent wardrobe consultant with champagne tastes, she wore little else—but with its skintight fit and stripes, she looked like a snake that had just swallowed a basketball. I dared not criticize her outfit, however, as she had already homed in on my bargain-brand khakis and button-down white shirt with a disapproving eye.

Despite the dissimilarity in our clothing styles, it was easy to tell we were related; we had the same Knight coloring—red hair and pale freckled skin—same nose (Marco had dubbed it “pert”), and same oval face. But where my hair was more of a matchstick red, Jillian’s was a sheen of coppery rose. Where my skin was covered in freckles, hers had an adorable smattering of cinnamon across her nose. And those cosmetic items merely scratched the surface of our differences.

Still, Jillian Ophelia Knight Osborne would always be the younger cousin I regarded as a sister, the frail child with scoliosis I’d protected fiercely and her parents had indulged relentlessly. Surgery at the age of twelve had fixed her spine, but nothing could undo the cossetting. Then puberty hit, and the geeky, spoiled, long-limbed Jillian turned into a tall, slender beauty sought after by all the boys, reinforcing her princess status and leaving her short, freckle-faced cousin in the dust.