A Root Awakening: A Flower Shop Mystery (20 page)

I
paced for ten minutes, my anxiety rising with each step. Finally, I peeked through the curtain from the workroom to see what was taking so long.

“What’s happening?” Lottie asked.

“Rosa’s taking the sconces off the wall.”

“Uh-oh. What’s your mom doing?”

“I don’t believe it. She’s giving Rosa a hug.”

“A hug? That Rosa is a wonder,” Lottie said. “
La Mujer Maravilla
.”

“What about Maraville?”

“
La Mujer Maravilla
means Wonder Woman.”

I turned to gaze at Lottie in astonishment. “You’re speaking Spanish now?”

Lottie blushed all the way up to her brassy curls. “Rosa taught me that.”

I stepped back as Wonder Woman came through the curtain and laid the sconces on the table. “It is done,” she said solemnly, brushing her hands together.

“Was Maureen okay with painting the eyes?” Lottie asked.

“Of course.” Rosa gave me a gentle poke. “As I told Abby she would be.”

Woman with the swollen brain wins again. I wondered how that name would translate. “How did you convince her?”

“I told her that I was afraid she would be sued for copying another artist’s work.”

“What other artist?” I asked.

“An artist that I saw at an art fair last summer,” Rosa said with a shrug, tearing off a piece of wrapping paper. She wouldn’t meet my eye.

“Another artist made fish-shaped sconces with wiggly eyes?” I asked.

“Maybe not with the wiggly eyes.” Rosa folded the paper around the sconces. “Maybe not in the fish shape.” She taped the paper and put the sconces in a shopping bag. “But I saw many artists at the fair. That part is true.”

I was not even going to think about how many times I’d used that same tactic on Marco.

Rosa set the shopping bag aside. “Your mother would like to paint them herself, so we are going to the hobby store now to buy the silver paint. And so you see? I told you she would be okay with it, and she is. Next time maybe you will trust me.”

Lottie put her hand over her mouth to hide a smile.

“Hold on,” I said. “Making up a story about imaginary sconces is just as dishonest as what I was going to tell her.”

Lottie moved into my line of vision and dragged a finger across her throat, her way of telling me not to argue with Rosa.

“No, that’s okay, Lottie,” Rosa said, obviously having caught sight of her. “Abby, which is better? To let your mother believe that an artist who is good enough to show her work at a fair made the same sconces that she did, or to hide her sconces in the basement and have her think that they sold?”

“That’s not my point,” I said.

“Can’t you just be happy that she is happy?” Rosa asked.

“Of course I can . . . and am . . . and will be. But what happened to that little speech you gave me about lying to my mom?”

Rosa put her hands on my shoulders and gazed into my eyes. “Abby, she is your mother, not mine.”

*   *   *

“So my point was that Rosa lied, too,” I said to Marco over dinner at the bar, “but the difference is that she came off looking like a hero. Now Lottie and Grace think Rosa is some kind of
Mujer Maravilla
. That means Wonder Woman, by the way.”

Marco jabbed his French fry in ketchup and ate it. “You have to admit that Rosa’s idea worked out well for everyone.”

I scowled as I wound another forkful of spaghetti into my spoon. “We’ll still have to sell them.”

Marco slipped a French fry to Seedy under the table. “Why do I get the feeling you’re jealous of Rosa?”

“I’m not jealous. I’m just . . .”

Just what, Abby? You like Rosa’s spunk. You admire her creativity. You love the way flowers call to her. So just what?

Marco was waiting. I finally shrugged. “Maybe a little jealous.”

“I thought so.”

“I don’t like feeling that way, Marco. Rosa is a sweet person, and she just lost her husband. How can I be so hateful?”

“Here’s how I see it.” Marco picked up another fry. “You’ve been Lottie and Grace’s wonder child for almost two years, and suddenly another wonder child enters the picture. Now you have to share your space as well as the spotlight, and that takes adjustment.”

“First of all, please don’t call me a
wonder
anything. Second, you make me sound like a jealous sibling.”

Marco reached across the table and took my hand. “You and Rosa are a lot alike, Abby. You have to get used to having a sister in the house, that’s all.” When I didn’t reply, he said, “What is it, Sunshine? Something’s still bothering you about Rosa.”

“Not Rosa. It’s me, Marco. I’m feeling extremely petty right now. Rosa is sexy, beautiful, exotic, and clearly talented—and I don’t want her to be better than I am at arranging flowers, too.”

“That’s what’s bothering you?” Marco sat back with a smile. “Okay, and what if she is? Then the two of you would be a dynamic duo. The hottest florists in New Chapel.”

I was having a hard time imagining Rosa and myself as a team. She’d no doubt come off looking as sexy as Catwoman and I’d be her funny little sidekick. I pictured us side by side in an advertisement and had to shake the image from my head.

“So,” I asked, not looking at him, “you think I’m as hot as Rosa?”

“Hotter. Baby, there’s a reason why I call you Fireball.”

I smiled to myself as I sipped my wine.

“Think what the two of you could do, Abby. You could put your heads together and come up with some new arrangements that would knock the socks off your customers.
Muy caliente.
”

Did everyone speak Spanish but me? I thought about Marco’s idea as I ate a fry. “I don’t know. Rosa has a lot to learn about being a professional florist before that can happen.”

“And you and Lottie will be there to teach her.”

Not Lottie. She was
my
mentor. If anyone was going to teach Rosa, it would be me. “Thanks, Marco. It’s so nice having someone to talk things out with.”

“I’m always here for you, baby.” Marco glanced around at the growing crowd. “And I’d better get back to work.”

I wondered whether he’d caught the irony.

“Okay, but before you go, I did talk to Rosa about Sergio’s note. She said Sergio printed everything because he’d never learned cursive. Despite the doubts I laid out, she’s adamant that it was his note. She said if someone had given a help note to him, he wouldn’t have put it in his pocket. She’s assuming we’re still working on the case. I didn’t have the heart to tell her we weren’t.”

“That’s okay. After the funeral, we’ll sit down and explain it.”

*   *   *

As soon as Seedy and I got home that evening, I logged on to the Internet and started searching through the
Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune
’s
newspaper archives from five and six years back. I was hoping to find a story
about a baby girl stolen from a hospital, but nothing came up. I tried the same search with Maraville’s newspaper,
The Courier
, with the same results. Was it possible Daisy was the Joneses’ real child? But then why didn’t Mrs. Welldon remember her?

I pulled up Ted Birchman’s phone number and gave him another call.

“Mr. Birchman, this is Abby Salvare again. I’m sorry to bother you, but do you know where your brother moved to five or six years ago?”

“You’re still checking references?”

“Yes.”

He scoffed. “Come on, Mrs. Salvare. I wasn’t born yesterday. No one goes to the extremes that you’re going to for one potential renter. Level with me or I’m hanging up now. Is my brother in trouble again?”

“What would you say if I told you I was tracking a pair of kidnappers who took a baby boy from a Maraville hospital ten years ago?”

“If you’re talking about Ed and Sandra, I’d like to say you’re barking up the wrong tree. My brother has done some shady things in his life, but kidnapping a baby?”

“I hope I’m mistaken, Mr. Birchman, but I’m following a trail that is leading to a man by the name of Norm Jones, the alias your brother is using now.”

“Dear God,” I heard him mutter.

“Do you happen to know if Sandra was pregnant when they left Bowling Green?”

“I didn’t see Sandra before they left. I only met my brother at a coffee shop to say good-bye, and he didn’t mention anything about her expecting another child. Why?”

“Because they have a six-year-old girl who might have been kidnapped, too.”

“Oh, my God.”

“As I said, I hope I’m mistaken.”

“I hope you are, too.” He paused, then said, “I just remembered something that Ed told me. He said that he and Sandra hoped to add to their little family. It never occurred to me that he’d snatch a baby to do it.”

“Did he say where they were moving to?”

“Yes, they’d decided to move back to Maraville to be close to Sandra’s family.”

Then there should have been some record of Daisy being taken from a local hospital. Why hadn’t I found it?

“Do you know Sandra’s maiden name?” I asked, thinking I might be able to track her through her family.

“I’m sorry, no. Ed never mentioned it.”

“That’s all I need to know. Thank you for your help, Mr. Birchman. This must be difficult for you.”

“Surprisingly, it’s not as difficult as you might think.”

I hung up, then began to plan my strategy.

Step one: Using Marco’s first rule, I would have to get a look at the attic window in the Victorian to see whether it would have been possible for the kids to see Sergio on his ladder. To do that, I’d have to get back inside the house.

Step two: If that panned out, and once I’d found out where the Joneses lived, I’d have to approach Sandra about interviewing the kids at a time when Norm was gone so I wouldn’t have to deal with both of them. That meant either waiting until Monday, when Norm was at work but I might be too busy to get away, or setting up surveillance on the house this Saturday, my day off, while
Marco was at the bar, in the hopes that Norm would leave on an errand.

I chose Saturday, with Monday as my backup. But first I needed to track down the Joneses, and the best way to do that was to follow Norm home from school. I glanced at my watch. He would be at the school late tonight. I could make it to Maraville in plenty of time to catch him.

*   *   *

Trying to be inconspicuous in a yellow Corvette was nearly impossible. I had been tempted to switch cars with Marco, but if he happened to leave early and found my ’Vette in place of his Prius, he’d want an explanation. So I parked down the block from the elementary school, pulled up my black hood, grabbed a flashlight, and walked as close to the school as I dared. Then, crouched down among a stand of trees alongside the school playground, I waited for Norm to come out.

While I waited, I texted Lorelei and asked her to set up another viewing of the Victorian as soon as possible. She texted back almost immediately to tell me I could see it at ten in the morning. Perfect. Marco would be at work. So far so good.

Shortly after nine, two men exited the rear school door, one of them Norm and the other Mr. Paisley, the janitor I’d talked to previously. I watched as Mr. Paisley drove off in a black-and-silver pickup truck with a Chicago Bears decal on the rear gate while Norm stood at the curb looking up the street. A few minutes later, their old blue van pulled up and he got into the passenger side.

Afraid I’d lose them, I darted among the trees and slid behind the wheel of my car just as the van drove
past. I thought I was safe until I realized that my hood had slipped down. Before I could duck, Norm’s head swiveled my way and I was certain he spotted me. But the van continued on, so I hoped I was wrong.

When they reached the end of the block, I waited until I saw the left turn signal on, then eased away from the curb and followed. Once the van had turned the corner, I sped up to make sure I didn’t lose it, then pulled back and let a few cars go past before following. In this way I was able to keep track of the Joneses for the twelve blocks it took to reach their house.

When they pulled into a driveway alongside an old white-clapboard house, I backed up to the corner, then watched as Norm and Sandra exited the vehicle and entered the house through the front door. I was surprised that Sandra had left the kids home alone, but perhaps it would happen again tomorrow.

I waited until the porch light went off, then drove past, wrote down the address, and headed home, wishing I could share my elation with Marco. I was going to crack this case and possibly Sergio’s as well. I was pumped.

*   *   *

Saturday

“What do you have on tap this morning, Buttercup?”

Sleeping until nine, if truth be known. But a husband landing on the bed beside me at eight a.m., bouncing me awake, had pretty much scotched that idea. “Nothing definite,” I said, stretching like a cat.

“Seedy has been fed and walked, and my lady’s coffee awaits.” Marco gave me a playful pat on the hip. “Lucky you. It’s a great time to be indoors.”

“Because?”

“It’s one of those rainy, dreary days that makes staying home a pleasure.”

I threw back the covers and hopped out of bed. It was also a perfect day for surveillance, and I had already formulated my plan. The only glitch was that I had to leave Seedy behind, but I had a solution for that, too.