Night of the Living Dandelion (21 page)

“Not if I shift the tree over a few feet before it’s time for Mum to arrive.”

“That’ll work.”

Grace started toward the curtain, then paused and turned back. “You do know that bloodletting could be considered exsanguinating, don’t you?”

Damn Grace’s supersonic hearing! “Yes, I do. But thank you anyway.”

When I didn’t say anything more, she said, “Well, then, I’ll just go hang that bat mobile.”

Said Batwoman to Girl Blunder.

I plucked an order from the spindle. It was for a table centerpiece for a thirty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration, so I pulled out my handy anniversary guide, which told me my theme colors should be in tones of coral and jade. The closest I had to true coral was orange-red roses. After that, I’d have to make do with orange lilies, Gerberas, and carnations, so I pulled a mix of all four, plus green carnations. For a base, I eyed the collection of containers stacked on top of the cabinets and realized I couldn’t reach any of them.

Frustrated, I decided to find a way. I wheeled over to the counter along the back wall, dragging a wooden stool with me, and then, balancing on my good foot, I climbed onto the stool, got onto the counter on my knees, and carefully raised myself up. Once I felt balanced, I stretched my hand as high as I could reach . . . only to miss the mark by several inches.

“Abby, good Lord!” Lottie exclaimed, rushing over. “Why didn’t you call me?”

I slumped down onto the counter. “I thought I could do it.”

“You can’t do everything you used to do, sweetie,” she said, helping me down.

“I hate being so dependent.”

“I’m sure you do, but sometimes you’ve just got to accept your limitations. Now tell me which vase you want.”

Accepting limitations was a skill I had never mastered. Five minutes later, however, I was back at the worktable, my supplies laid out in front of me, ready to bury myself quite contentedly in my new design. I started with a round glass vase, then fastened a flat glass plate onto the top so that it looked like a cake platter. I placed my wet foam in the center of the plate and used orange-colored sisal to cover the foam and add texture.

Since I wanted some of the floral stems to arc downward, I used long, curving lime twigs, then added pale green eucalyptus and pieces of Nandina domestica. For my base, I used Hedera colchica “Sulphur Heart,” a leaf that mixed light and dark green, reminding me of the veins in jade. Then I began to arrange my blossoms—pale green “prado” carnations, orange-red roses, orange lilies, pale orange carnations, and then five orange Gerberas of differing heights standing upright in the center. I added the last stem, then turned it in a circle to view it from all sides. Perfect!

Grace came through the curtain with sticky notes lined up in a row on her sweater sleeve. “Oh, how absolutely lovely, Abby! Bravo, dear. Well-done. Your clients will adore it.”

“Thanks, Grace.”

“ ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever.’ ”

I’d created a thing of beauty. Grace never disappointed me.

“That was Keats, in case you’re curious.”

Make that Keats who hadn’t disappointed me. Of course, I always felt on top of my game when working with flowers. Who would have guessed that a redheaded, freckle-faced tomboy would fall in love with designing floral arrangements?

Grace plucked the first sticky note off her sleeve. “The automatic door opener will be installed this coming Friday, and I was able to get the price dropped another fifty dollars.”

“Bravo yourself, Grace.”

“Also,” she said, removing another square from her sweater, “the bats are hanging safely behind the dieffenbachia.” The third note she read silently, then sighed as she said, “Jillian asks that you call her as soon as possible because Claymore is trying to kill her.”

He probably wasn’t the only one.

“You don’t think Claymore would actually . . .” She made a slashing motion across her neck.

“No.”

Grace breathed a sigh of relief. “I didn’t think so.”

I finished wrapping the arrangement and stowed it in the cooler before I returned Jillian’s call. “Hey, Jill, what’s up?”

“You have to help me,” she whispered. “Claymore is trying to poison me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Claymore loves you, Jillian.”

“He loved the old Jillian. I can’t help what I’ve become. I didn’t seek it. I couldn’t stop it from happening. Why won’t he accept that I’ve become a creature of the night?”

“Did you go to the doctor?”

She whispered, “The doctor is conspiring with Claymore. That’s who gave him the poison.”

“Is Claymore there?”

“He just walked out of the room, but he’ll be back any minute. He thinks I took the poisoned pill, but I hid it in my cheek and spit it out when he looked away. Oh, no. Here he comes.” The line went dead.

A few minutes later, Claymore called. “Abby, I’m sorry Jillian bothered you. Did she say I was trying to poison her?”

“Yep, and that the doctor is in on it.”

He sighed heavily. “The doctor thinks she was bitten by a spider. He said she’s got a blood infection from scratching the bites and he prescribed an antibiotic. But she won’t believe me. She said he’s lying and that we’re antivampiristical.”

“If she’s making up words, she can’t be too ill.”

“She needs to take her meds, Abby,” he whispered. “She puts them in her mouth, but I don’t think she’s swallowing them.”

“She’s not. She told me as much. You’re going to have to trick her. Can you mash one into her favorite dish?”

“All she’s eating is red meat. Maybe I can put the meat and the pill in the blender.”

A raw meat shake. Yum. “Okay, Claymore, whatever it takes.”

Lottie stuck her head through the curtain. “Marco is out front.”

Was it time already? “I’ve got to run, Clay. Good luck.”

Run. Ha. If only! I took my coat from the back of my desk chair and wheeled into the shop. Lottie helped me get onto the Evil Ones, Grace got me out the door, and Marco got me situated in the car. Thank goodness for my village people.

 

One deck above the gaming room of the Calumet Casino boat, three men sat before a bank of television monitors in a U-shaped area, their eyes fixed on the activities going on below. And although it was only half past twelve, it seemed by their intense concentration that there was a lot of it to watch.

We were standing just inside the doorway of the darkened security room with Paul Van Cleef, the chief of security. Paul was a large, friendly man in his sixties who looked like a throwback to a Western cowboy of old. He had a full white mustache and goatee, and heavy sideburns down his deeply lined face. He wore a fringed leather vest over a blue twill shirt, with blue jeans and cowboy boots.

Van Cleef introduced us to the three men, who murmured a response without taking their eyes off the monitors. We were shown to an open station to view a digital video taken in the main gaming room on Tuesday evening. Our primary goal was to make sure Vlad was nowhere on the tape, but we were also hoping to learn whether Lori Willis had come to the boat that evening, and if so, whether she’d left with anyone.

“I brought you bottles of water,” Van Cleef said. “It can get pretty warm up here. I’ll be in and out, so if you need anything else, holler.”

Marco handed me his notepad and pen, and I recorded the video’s date and starting time. Then he fast-forwarded through long parts of the tape until we saw Lori arrive. She was wearing a pair of navy patent high heels, a slim navy skirt, a white blouse that she’d unbuttoned far enough to reveal a glittering gold chain with what appeared to be a yellow daisy pendant hanging from it, and a matching pair of yellow earrings. She carried a small red clutch purse in one hand.

“Six thirty,” Marco said.

I wrote it in his notebook:
6:30 p.m. Lori Willis arrives. No sign of Vlad.

We skimmed through the tape until the time stamp in the corner showed that it was nine o’clock, at which time Lori got up and walked over to the hostess outside the Tumbling Dice Restaurant. They talked briefly; then Lori returned to a different slot machine.

9:00 p.m, Lori talks to hostess at restaurant. No sign of Vlad
, I wrote. “Lori must have been checking to see if her dinner date had arrived.”

“We need to find out what she said to the hostess,” Marco said.

“Didn’t Grant Gambol tell us that neither party had shown up for dinner?”

“I think he said neither party had dined there. Would you make a note on that, though?” Marco turned to Van Cleef, who had come back into the room and was seated nearby. “Would it be possible for us to bring one of the restaurant hostesses in here to view this piece of video?”

“I can arrange that. Who do you want?”

Marco pointed to the young woman on the tape. “I don’t know her name.”

“That’s Caryn. I’ll see when she works next.” He got up and left the room.

We continued to watch the tape, which showed Lori playing the slot machines. No one stopped to speak to her and it didn’t seem as though anyone was watching her. She gambled for another half hour before checking back with the restaurant hostess. Marco paused the video when Van Cleef returned.

“Caryn will be here in about ten minutes if you want to talk to her,” he said.

“Thanks,” Marco said. “Appreciate it.”

He hit PLAY, and the video resumed. After another ten minutes of it, I rubbed my eyes, feeling the strain of staring at a bright monitor in a dark room.

“Someone wanted to see me?” I heard.

In the doorway stood a young raven-haired woman in a long, shimmering blue dress.

Marco stood up. “Yes. Over here.”

He made the introductions, then explained what he needed. “If you’d care to sit down, Caryn, I’ll show you the woman in question.” Marco reversed the video, then paused it at the point where Lori walked up to the hostess. “Do you remember this woman?”

Caryn leaned closer to the monitor. “Can you zoom in?”

Marco found the icon to magnify the image. “Sure, I remember her,” Caryn said. “She’s the one who was murdered, right?”

“Right. Her name is Lori Willis,” I said.

“Creepy how she was killed, wasn’t it?” Caryn said to me. “Like a vampire attack.”

A muscle in Marco’s jaw twitched, but he didn’t comment. Instead, he directed Caryn’s attention back to the video at the point where Lori was speaking to her. “Do you remember what she said to you?”

“She wanted to know if anyone had asked for her. I said no, then asked if she had a reservation. She said she had one but not under her name. Then she said she’d be back later.”

“Did she tell you the name of the other party?”

Caryn shook her head. “Not then, but she did the second time she checked. She said the reservation was under Vlad Serban.”

I glanced at Marco and saw that jaw muscle working hard, but he let Caryn continue without interrupting.

“So I said to her, ‘Are you talking about the vampire?’ And she just smiled like it was supposed to be a secret.” Caryn rubbed her arms, as though shivering in delight. “I
wish
he’d shown up! How exciting would that be?” She turned toward me. “Are you into vampires?”

“No, I like normal, red-blooded men, not men who drink red blood.”

“Whatever floats your boat,” Caryn said, and giggled. “We say that a lot here.”

I noticed Marco giving me a look that said,
Can we get on with this?
So I said, “I think my partner has a question for you.”

“Oh, sorry,” Caryn said, turning her attention back to Marco.

“How many times did Lori check with you?” Marco asked.

“Just twice. Then she sat down at a slot machine where she could see the front of the restaurant.”

“Did her date ever show up?” Marco asked.

“Not that I was aware of.”

“Did anyone ask for Lori at any time during the evening?”

“No. Sad, isn’t it? First the woman gets stood up, then killed. Talk about bad karma.”

Marco thanked Caryn for her time, and Van Cleef escorted her out.

“Someone wanted Lori at the boat that night,” Marco said. “But why use Vlad as the lure? I’m not seeing the connection.”

“Did you see Caryn’s reaction when you mentioned Vlad? A lot of women are into the vampire craze, Marco, and therefore highly attracted to Vlad. Lori must have been one of them. Maybe a coworker or someone at the bar overheard her talking about Vlad.”

He pointed to the screen. “Let’s see if Lori leaves with anyone.”

We started the video again, skimming through as much as we could, stopping so I could write:
1 a.m. Lori left boat alone. Still no sign of Vlad.

We ran through another hour’s worth of the video; then Marco turned to Van Cleef, who was working at a desk nearby. “Can we see the surveillance video of the parking lot for the same Tuesday evening?”

“If you give me about thirty minutes,” he replied.

I glanced at my watch. “I’ve got to get back, Marco. The orders are probably piling up. Why don’t you take me home and then come back?”

“Let’s make it in one hour then,” Marco told Van Cleef.

 

I asked Marco to call me as soon as he’d viewed the video; then Team Bloomers swept me into the shop and off the crutches so Grace could take her lunch break. Because of my limited mobility, Lottie took parlor duty while I helped customers in the shop. We weren’t as busy as the week before, primarily, I thought, because of a police presence on the block to keep away the vigilantes.

Once we were fully staffed again, I headed toward the purple curtain, then noticed that the dieffenbachia was standing several feet away from the corner, with nothing behind it.

“Lottie, what happened to the bat mobile?”

“It sold. Can you believe it? Two college kids were in here for coffee and scones at lunch and happened to spot the bright colors swaying behind the dieffenbachia leaves. They bought it for their dorm room.”