A Root Awakening: A Flower Shop Mystery (3 page)

Seeing Jillian, Seedy immediately leaped off my lap and dove for cover under the table. She wasn’t afraid of my cousin; she simply couldn’t tolerate Jillian’s Boston terrier, who seemed to be Jillian’s counterpart—a diva
dog coincidentally named Princess. The dog barked constantly, disobeyed every command, and ran in continuous loops, making everyone around her irritable. Two professional dog trainers had quit in frustration—not with Princess but with Jillian and Claymore, who treated the dog as though she were a human baby.

Fortunately, Jillian hadn’t brought Princess with her today. She threw her tote bag on the worktable, scattering ivy leaves from the last arrangement, and perched on a wooden stool with a heavy sigh. “My back is
killing
me. If I
ever
think of having another baby, smother me with a pillow. So what house did you hate this time?”

“A dilapidated Victorian on Napoleon Street.”

“The yucky tan and brown one? I could have saved you the bother, Abs. If you’d just let me find a house for you, I promise you’d be moving in a month.”

“We have a Realtor, Jillian.”

“Who hasn’t found one single home that you’ve liked. Why won’t you let me take you around town?”

“You don’t have a Realtor’s license, for one thing.”

“Sure I do. I just have to renew it.”

“You have a license? When did you ever sell houses?”

“While you were struggling in law school and didn’t have the time of day for anyone but Pryce.” She studied her shiny silver fingernails. “How sad that for nearly one year you forgot all about the cousin who so looked up to you.”

As Jillian was a head taller, it had been a long time since she’d actually had to look up to me. But I did feel a few guilt pangs because I had indeed ignored her during those two semesters of agony. How could I refuse
her simple request now, especially when it might actually find me a home?

“Okay, Jillian. If you renew your license, you can show me houses.”

“Perfect! My license renewal is already in the works, thanks to your ex-fiancé.”

“Do you have to constantly refer to him that way? Just say Pryce. Or call him your brother-in-law.”

“Okay,” she said with obvious reluctance, “but you sound less dull having an ex.”

“Less dull? I own a flower shop and help solve murder cases.”

“Exactly. So save tomorrow evening for me, seven o’clock. I’ve got the perfect house already picked out.” She pushed herself off the stool and groaned as she rubbed her lower back. “I wish Baby No Name would pop out. I’m tired of being fat.”

“First baby, Jill. Not gonna pop out.”

“And you know this because . . . ?”

She had a point. “I thought you’d settled on a name for the baby. Rain . . . or Snow . . .”

“So last month, Abs. Try to keep up.” With an over-the-shoulder wave, Jillian waddled out of the room. A moment later, Seedy peeked out from under the table as though checking to see if the coast was clear.

“She’s gone,” I told her.

Seedy sniffed the air, cocked her head, and waited for the bell above the door to jingle; then, after hearing it, she hobbled toward the small kitchen at the back of the building for a drink from her bowl.

*   *   *

A three-thirty break was the custom at Bloomers. It coincided with school letting out, providing a lull that allowed us a quick ten minutes to regroup. Right on the dot, Grace glided through the curtain bearing a tray loaded with scones, clotted cream, cups, saucers, a teapot, and napkins. Lottie followed and teatime ensued.

“It’s Monday afternoon,” Lottie reminded us at the end of our break. “Your mom should be making her weekly appearance any minute now.”

“I wonder what project she’ll bring this time,” Grace said, taking a final, thoughtful sip.

Amazing how we’d grown used to Mom’s strange works of art. A mention of it used to bring on shudders. Now we merely sighed. And poor Mom always thought she was helping our bottom line by letting us sell her artwork and taking the profit.

My mom, Maureen Knight, or “Mad Mo” as my brothers and I referred to her, was a great kindergarten teacher. She had the perfect temperament for it—calm, patient, loving, and able to rule a classroom without ever having to raise her voice. Mom was not a great artist, however. She came up with the oddest pieces I’d ever seen: sunglass frames covered in bits of sea glass that made the glasses a headache to wear; a tea cart that looked like a giant golf tee with a golf club handle; a six-foot-tall bowling pin painted with a human face that she designed as a hat rack; toilet seat lids covered with mirrored tiles that made a bathroom break a frightening experience—and the list went on.

She’d had a spectacular stroke of luck a few months back when two of her dog sculptures were noticed by an avant-garde artist in town who actually put on a private
art show for her. But Mom soon tired of making dogs out of skateboards and shoe soles, so she’d moved on. The question was, to what?

The bell over the door jingled, followed by Mom’s familiar “Yoo-hoo!”

“We won’t have to wonder long now,” Lottie said.

“A
bigail?” Mom called.

“In the workroom, Mom,” I answered.

Lottie drained her cup and rose. “I’m outta here.”

“Coward,” I said.

“You betcha. Come on, Gracie.”

“Right behind you, Lottie, dear.” Grace swept up the tray and glided into the shop.

I heard the women exchange pleasantries with my mom, and then the curtain parted and Mom stuck her head in. “Any luck with the house hunt today?”

“No. Why don’t you come all the way in?”

“Because you need to come outside to see what I brought you.”

That old shudder was threatening to make a return visit.

I followed her through the shop and onto the sidewalk outside, where I found my dad sitting on a short, multicolored park bench placed directly beneath the big bay window. His wheelchair was beside the bench. Dad had retired from the New Chapel police force after a felon’s bullet to the thigh put an end to his career. He
was able to maneuver stairs with crutches but used his wheelchair for everything else.

“You made a bench?” I asked her.

“Hey, Abracadabra,” Dad said, using his old nickname for me. “How’s my flower girl today? Isn’t this a great place to sit and watch the happenings across the street?”

I had to step back for a better look. The bench was made from what at first appeared to be glossy wooden slats painted in different primary colors. A closer look revealed that the slats were actually pairs of skis, with their curled ends on alternating sides and half lengths running in the opposite direction on the underside for support.

“Crafty use of the old stuff, isn’t it?” Dad asked. “We have a whole ski theme going on here.”

That was putting it mildly. The bench’s arms were constructed from ski poles, and it sat on legs made from what appeared to be lengths of aspen trunks stuck in child-sized ski boots.

“Your dad is calling it the Two Skeater,” Mom said. “A seat for two made from skis.”

I caught a glimpse of Lottie and Grace peering through the blinds in the parlor window. I was almost certain I heard Lottie’s guffaws.

Trying to keep a positive tone, I said, “So this is your new art project.”

“Actually, it’s your dad’s project,” Mom said, sitting down beside him. They squeezed hands. “He’s already started a second one.”

Great. Now my dad was an artist, too.

“It gives me something to do with my hands,” he said. “There’s only so much I can do on the computer.”

And then came the question that I dreaded. “How much do you think you can sell it for, Abigail?” Mom asked.

“I’ll have to do some research on it,” I said. “But honestly, Mom, I’m not sure I can leave it on the sidewalk without getting permission from the town.”

“You put flowerpots out in the summer,” she said. “Why not a bench?”

“Abby’s right, Mo,” Dad said. “She might need a permit.”

“Then let’s find a place inside,” Mom said. She thought a moment, then said, “I know. We can take out your wicker settee and put the bench in its place.”

Was that my ficus tree screaming?

“Now, then,” Mom said, pulling out a large tote bag from beneath the bench.

“Are you ready for
my
newest piece of art?”

No amount of preparation in the world could help me with that.

“I call it the iPot,” she said, and out came a twelve-inch terra-cotta flowerpot that she’d painted neon orange. The pot might have been tolerable if she’d stopped there, but no. She’d covered it with row upon row of one-inch black-and-white stick-on eyes that jiggled when the pot moved. It was like having an audience of eye-rollers.

“So it’s actually an E-Y-E pot,” I said, spelling it out.

“That’s my Mo,” Dad said, putting his arm around her. “Always the clever one with those names.”

“I’ve got more in the van,” Mom said. “I’ll bring them in as soon as we get the bench inside.”

I heard screams again, but this time they were coming from inside my head.

*   *   *

Tuesday

Eight o’clock a.m. couldn’t come soon enough for me. I’d thought about Daisy all evening and had even dreamed about her. In my dream, we were seated at a child-sized picnic table in the middle of a backyard drawing pictures. I’d made a vase full of daisies, which wasn’t hard to interpret. Daisy had drawn a picture I couldn’t interpret, and when I asked what it was, she said it was her puppy and it was missing not one but
two
legs. Then she’d pulled out a brown-and-white stuffed dog with the back legs ripped off.

I hadn’t awakened in the best of moods. The dream had, however, cemented my desire to see Daisy again.

Marco and I met Lorelei shortly after eight o’clock in front of the old Victorian. She rang the bell and turned to smile at us. “Excited?”

“Very,” I said, while Marco grunted noncommittally.

When no one came to the door, Lorelei rang the bell again and then knocked. “They might be upstairs.”

When still no one answered, Marco said, “Looks like they’re not home. Let’s go.”

I grabbed his arm as he started down the porch steps. “Give it another minute.”

“Surely they didn’t forget,” Lorelei said, pounding now.

“Do you have a key?” I asked.

“The owner didn’t provide one.” She pressed the doorbell frantically.

“Let’s go,” Marco said, tugging on my elbow. “We’re wasting time here.”

Lorelei turned the old-fashioned glass doorknob and
the door opened. She pushed it wide, calling, “Hello. It’s Lorelei. I’m here to show the house.”

It was completely silent inside.

“Something’s not right about this, Abby,” Marco said quietly.

Which made it all the more intriguing. I followed Lorelei into the tiny front hall and looked around. If the exterior hadn’t turned me off, the scarred wood floor, cracked plaster walls, stained ceiling, and rusty iron light fixture at the entrance would have.

“Come on,” I said to my obstinate mate, who stood on the porch with his arms folded across his leather jacket, scoping out the neighborhood. “Let’s have a look.”

“I don’t like it. Unanswered knocks, unlocked door . . . I think we should leave.”

“If you want to leave, Lorelei can give me a ride back to Bloomers.”

Muttering something about stubborn redheads, he followed me inside.

A few feet from the front door, an uncarpeted staircase led to the second floor, where all appeared dark. To the right of the stairs was a hallway that ran from front to back, punctuated by two arched openings along the outer wall. Through an arched doorway at the back, I could see grimy white metal kitchen cabinets.

“Hello? Mr. Jones? Mrs. Jones?” Lorelei called, heading up the hallway.

I was about to follow, but Marco put his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s wait here.”

I didn’t like it when he got bossy, but I knew he was only concerned for my safety, so I held my tongue and watched as Lorelei glanced in each doorway.

“See? No one’s home,” Marco said. “Let’s go.”

At that moment our Realtor reached the kitchen doorway—and gasped.

That was all it took to send me darting after her. I glanced through the two doorways as I ran past, quickly taking in a dilapidated green sofa and two mismatched chairs in the first room and a round oak table and four ladder-back chairs in the second. By the time I reached the kitchen, Marco had not only caught up with me, but also had pulled out his phone and was making a call, no doubt to the police, not that I could blame him. Judging by Lorelei’s shocked expression, I fully expected to see a dead body inside.

Instead, I saw absolutely nothing. No kitchen table, no chairs, no curtains, no decorations, not even a spoon rest on the stove. Some of the cheap metal cabinet doors were open, revealing bare insides. A microwave cart stood empty. There weren’t even any crumbs on the old black-and-white linoleum floor.

I opened the refrigerator door to find that all of its contents were gone.

“I don’t believe it,” our befuddled Realtor said, taking out her phone to make a call. “They’ve moved out!”

Giving Lorelei a disgruntled glance, Marco put away his phone and walked through the empty kitchen to look out the back window. Seriously, had he
wanted
to find a body?

“Mr. Jones didn’t say a word to me about moving when I arranged the showing,” Lorelei was telling a person on the other end. “See what you can find out.”

Yes, please do,
I thought
. Maybe that will tell me why my radar had gone off.

Lorelei finished her conversation and then started toward the front door, saying to me, “Let’s go see the upstairs. Empty or not, you’ll still get a feel for the rooms.”

“I’m going up,” I called to Marco, and headed after her.

The old wooden steps creaked as we climbed them, the way lit by a low-wattage yellow bulb high above us, which only made the peeling, faded gold-and-green-flocked wallpaper dingier. “Just imagine what the staircase would look like with bright sconces on the wall,” Lorelei said cheerfully.

“That’s a frightening thought,” Marco said dryly, coming up behind me. “Abby, if you’re not interested in the house, why are we doing this?”

“I’m interested in why these people fled during the night.”

“First of all, we don’t know that they fled. Second—”

“I don’t care,” I said, and stopped on the landing at the top to appraise the situation. There were four doors—one to our left and one to our right, which stood open, and two doors directly in front of us, which were closed.

“Let’s see the bedroom on the left first,” she said. Her cell phone rang, so she waved us on and stepped away to answer it.

My only thought as I gazed around the cramped room was,
Ugh.
It contained a beat-up maple dresser whose drawers had been emptied and a metal bed frame holding a stained mattress and sagging box springs. The mattress had been stripped of sheets and blankets, the window was devoid of a curtain, and the tiny closet was bare.

We found the same situation in the bedroom on the right—a bare closet, an emptied-out dresser, and a stripped-down mattress and box springs, this one a twin size. If there had been nightstands, they were gone now.

“Why would they move out and leave half their furniture behind?” I asked Marco.

“Some of the furniture came with the house,” Lorelei said, coming up behind us. “The Joneses had until the end of the month to move. They were all paid up until then.”

“The Joneses rented this house?” Marco asked.

“I must have forgotten to tell you that,” Lorelei said.

“So why did they move so suddenly?” I asked.

“I’ll find out,” Lorelei said.

“That’s okay,” Marco said, discreetly tapping my arm. “It’s none of our business.”

Why exactly had I wanted him to come with me? I returned to the unopened doors in the hallway. “And what do you suppose is behind doors one and two?”

“One of these should be a half bath,” Lorelei said. She opened one and found a tiny room containing an old pedestal sink, a toilet, and a checkered floor made from small black-and-white ceramic tiles, many of which were missing.

“No bathtub?” I asked.

“There’s a full bath off the kitchen,” our Realtor said. She opened the remaining door, revealing a set of narrow stairs. “This one leads to the attic.”

“Let’s go up,” I said.

“Why do you want to see the attic?” Marco asked as Lorelei started up.

“Because I’ve never seen a Victorian attic.”

“How about Victorian spiders?” Marco asked. “Because there’s probably a bunch up there.”

“Never mind, Lorelei,” I called. Spiders were my Achilles’ heel.

*   *   *

“I wish I knew why they moved out in the middle of the night,” I said to Marco as we walked back to town.

“Let me remind you that we don’t know they moved during the night. We were there at noon yesterday. They had all afternoon and evening to move.”

“Still, Marco, don’t you find the timing of their move too coincidental?”

“On the surface, yes, but let’s wait until we hear back from Reilly about his interview before we decide anything. If he thinks something’s off, we’ll take another look. So can we forget about this house now?”

“I can forget about the house, but not the look Daisy gave me.”

“Describe it,” Marco said, putting his arm around my shoulders. “Was she afraid? Angry? Worried?”

“The closest I can come to describing it is
curious
.”

“A curious child. Imagine that.”

I had to concede the point. Marco was right. What child wasn’t curious? Maybe Daisy had never seen a person with red hair before. Or maybe she’d seen me around town and couldn’t remember where. I just had to put her out of my mind.

We walked along in silence until we reached Franklin Street, and then Marco said, “So our house hunt continues.”

“Yep. And that reminds me—Jillian wants to show us one this evening.”

“Let me know how that goes.”

“Don’t you want to see what she found for us?”

He gave me the
You’ve got to be kidding
look, so I poked him playfully. “So what you’re saying is that when it comes to Jillian, you’re a chicken.”