Nightshade on Elm Street: A Flower Shop Mystery (31 page)

“Could you tell if it was Halston?”

“I just saw a figure in shadow.”

Marco turned for a look but didn’t see anyone either and didn’t feel that whoever it was posed a threat. He took my hand and led me off the pier. “Let’s go home. We got the information we came for, and I’ve had a long day.”

“Tomorrow will be long, too. Don’t forget, we have to
decorate the Fraternal Order of Police hall in the evening.”

“The fun never stops.”

Friday

The morning dawned bright and sunny, which was better than my mood after I got to the shop and saw that Francesca had set up the kitchen as her workstation. Instead of bringing in platters of appetizers, she was now making them in our tiny galley area, then carrying them through the workroom to get to the shop.

By noon, I was so full of Italian food, I couldn’t eat the ham and cheese sandwich I’d brought with me. Instead, I poured out my frustrations to my diary.

Lottie stuck her head through the curtain. “Jillian is on the line. Want me to shoo her away?”

“You know what happens when you shoo away a fly? It just keeps coming back.” I put my diary away and picked up the receiver. “What is it, Jillian?”

“I’m sitting here in my apartment with my mom and your mom, Abs. They’re so distraught that they wanted me to call and beg you to wear the green dress and the
Jimmy Choo heels. They said they’ll never ask another thing of you ever again if you do.”

“Why does it sound like you’re in a grocery store? Are you shopping?”

“Grocery store?” Jillian forced a laugh. “What would make you think that?”

In the background, I heard, “Cleanup in aisle four.”

She
was
at the grocery store, and I had a feeling she was alone, too. “Let me talk to my mom.”

“Um, your mom is kind of indisposed right now.”

I heard a crash of metal, as though she’d run her shopping cart into someone else’s cart.

“Watch where you’re going,” an unfamiliar voice cried.

“Give up, Jillian. You’re not with our distraught moms, and I’m not wearing the dress or the shoes. And would you pick up some bottled water for me while you’re there?”

She hung up on me.

Marco phoned just before I closed up shop for the day. “Hey, Sunshine, I’m not going to be able to help you decorate for a few hours. Our power went out an hour ago, we’ve got a bachelor party booked for the evening, Rafe isn’t here yet, and I’m waiting for an electrician. Any chance we can decorate in the morning instead?”

“Sure. That’ll work. I can start preparing the food instead.”

“Great. Thanks, Abby. How did it go today with my mom, if I dare to ask?”

“For the customers, it was fine. They probably got the freshest, tastiest Italian food in town. For me, it wasn’t too bad. Your mom worked up front or in the kitchen most of the day and she only brought up the shower twice. Then she left at three o’clock.

“I’ve just got to find a way to tell her not to bring in food, Marco. I feel like I’ve gained five pounds today, and I really don’t want Bloomers to be known as a place to eat. We need to come up with a solution.”

“I’m sorry, babe, about my mom and about this evening. I promise I’ll make it up to you later.”

“You know,” I said in my sultriest voice, “that paybacks can be murder.”

His voice was low and husky when he said, “I can handle anything you toss my way, Fireball.”

“That brings all kinds of fun things to mind.”

Lottie bustled through the curtain just then, so I changed my tone. “Speaking of things, have you heard anything more about Pryce’s case?”

“I take it someone came into the room,” Marco said.

“You know it.”

“I talked to Mrs. Ambrose today, and she said the only two people she saw back in the house on Saturday were Melissa and Orabell. She didn’t witness either of them in Lily’s bedroom, because she was working in the kitchen.”

“So we know of three suspects for sure who could have gone through Lily’s bag sometime over the weekend—Jake, Melissa, and Orabell.”

“Right. I also did some deeper sleuthing on Jake and learned that before he met Lily, he’d worked for an older woman.”

“Doing what?”

“Whatever she needed—handyman, gardener, driver, personal fitness instructor…The woman took care of his housing and all of his expenses and was disappointed when he left to marry Lily.”

“Sounds like Jake likes to find women who’ll take care of him.”

“I still haven’t been able to find out whose idea it was to take out insurance policies, but I did learn that Lily had a will made before marrying Jake. Guess who she left Beached to? Are you ready? Pryce. Apparently, his money financed Beached to get it up and running.”

“Wow. That can’t help Pryce’s case much. Does he know about it?”

“He’s the one who contacted me. He found out this morning when he was called in for the reading of her will. According to Pryce, Jake was in shock after hearing it. He undoubtedly expected to inherit all of Lily’s assets.”

“An even stronger motive for murder. Marco, Jake is quickly rising to the top of my suspect list, too.”

“Abby,” Grace said, poking through the curtain, “I do apologize for interrupting, but we’ve got a customer up front who says she got food poisoning here today.”

“Food poisoning?”

“Would you like to speak with the lady?”

“I’ll be right up, Grace.” To Marco I said, “Did you hear that?”

“I heard,” Marco said with a heavy sigh.

“I think I just found a way to stop your mom from bringing in any more food.”

W
hen I went home after work that day, I was smiling. It didn’t even bother me that it was an hour past closing, or that Marco was still tied up at Down the Hatch, because I’d eliminated a huge problem: no more appetizers.
That
would cut down on Francesca’s visits to the store. Fortunately for us, the customer who thought she had food poisoning merely had indigestion from an overload of cheese and spices. Grace had accompanied the woman to the after-hours clinic and gotten a fairly prompt diagnosis.

Still smiling, I heated up a frozen dinner for my supper and worked on my shower menu. Simon was delighted to share my chicken and noodles entrée—the sauce was his favorite—but I had to put a stop to his jumping up on the counter while I prepared the dipping sauce for the bridal shower.

I pulled out the recipe I’d copied from a Food Network show and went over the ingredients. Peanut butter, ginger, chicken strips, cilantro, curry powder—yikes! Skewers! How had I missed skewers?

After six o’clock in the evening, the only place I knew that might carry authentic Chinese skewers was a store
north of town called the International Shoppe, so I made the dipping sauce and put it in the fridge, then grabbed my purse, phone, and keys, dashed out the door, ran down the two flights of stairs, and hopped in the Vette. I turned on the ignition, then saw a note stuck under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side.

I opened the door and snagged the note, then sat back in the car to read it.

It was on Pryce’s stationery, in his handwriting:
Meet me on the pier at eight o’clock. We need to talk.

I stared at the paper in surprise. Was there any reason Pryce would need to meet me privately? In the dark, no less? What would he need to talk about? Our disastrous relationship? His caddish behavior? And why would he write a note and stick it under my wiper?

Operating on the theory that the note wasn’t written
to
me, I wondered why it was left
for
me. Did someone want me to know that Pryce had lied when he’d said he’d asked Lily to meet him only once? Or was there a more sinister purpose, such as to lure me down to the water alone?

That hardly made sense. The note-leaver wouldn’t be foolish enough to think I’d take that risk. All our suspects knew Marco and I were a team. Whoever had slipped that note under my wiper blade had to figure we’d be together for any kind of meeting.

What if it was intended for both of us? Or what if, as I’d thought earlier, it was just to tip us off that Pryce had lied? Or what if it really was Pryce’s request?

There was only one way to find out, and that was to be at the lake at eight o’clock, so I called Marco at the bar to tell him about it.

“Hey, Sunshine, you’ll have to speak up,” he practically yelled. “We’ve got a bachelor party going on here.” In the background I heard noisemakers, horns, and male laughter.

“Marco, I just found a note on my windshield purportedly from Pryce saying he wants to meet on the dock at eight o’clock.”

“I’m sorry. What was that again?”

Trying to condense my request, I said, “Pryce. Wants. To. Meet. At the cottage! Can you get away for a few hours?”

Shouting again, he said, “I caught something about meeting at the cottage. I can probably leave here in an hour or so. How’s that?”

From the sound of things, Marco would be really lucky to get away in an hour, and with almost a half hour drive from the town square, we’d never make it by eight. “I may go on up there,” I called. “If I do, I’ll be careful.”

“Did you say
careful
? About what?” Amid loud shouts and clapping, Marco yelled, “Abby, if there’s any danger in what you’re proposing…”

My voice was getting hoarse. “Just give me a call when you’re done there.”

I put away my phone and read the message again. If the note really was from Pryce, and I went to the cottage, what was the worst that could happen? That I was wrong about him wanting to apologize? What was the best that could happen? He’d apologize and I could watch him grovel.

If the note wasn’t from Pryce, it was obviously from someone else in that group and possibly the killer. Did I really want to put myself in jeopardy when all I had to do was to call Pryce and ask him if he’d left me a note? But if he said no, then what? I still wouldn’t know who left it or why.

Just go to the International Shoppe and forget about it,
that nagging voice in my head whispered.
You don’t need to know who put it there.

Unfortunately, it was contrary to my gut feeling, which was telling me that I needed to do some surveillance
work. If someone was hoping to make Pryce look guilty, I needed to know why.

I stuffed the note in my jeans pocket, fired up the Vette’s engine, and headed north. On Route 49, I turned off at Indian Border Road, pulled into the store’s parking lot, and dashed inside, casting a hurried peek at my watch. Half an hour until eight o’clock.

With the help of a friendly stock person, I found the skewers, paid at the cash register, and dashed back to the car. I turned on the ignition, then glanced at the pink and gold sky. Ten minutes until sunset. Fifteen minutes to get to the cottage from the International Shoppe, and I’d be there early enough to set up a surveillance before the last rays of daylight had faded.

The sun was almost down as I parked the car off the road on Elm Street a few hundred feet before Pryce’s cottage. With a bright yellow Corvette, I didn’t dare get any closer if I wanted to take whoever might be on the dock by surprise.

I sat there for a moment thinking what Marco would do to be invisible and stay safe. In my glove compartment, I found a black knit hat Marco had given me for stakeouts, so I put that on, tucking my red locks up inside. I also had a small flashlight and a tool to cut through seat belts and break windows in case of emergency, and a black Windbreaker in my trunk, also one of Marco’s gifts. I tucked the tools in my purse, donned the jacket, then started up the road.

Let Marco know,
a voice whispered. It sounded so real, I glanced behind me, but of course no one was there. Imaginary or not, however, it was sound advice.

@ Pryce’s cottage to do surveillance. Come when U can,
I texted, then dropped the phone in my purse and put the strap across my body, leaving my hands free.

As I came up to Pryce’s front yard, I heard a woman some distance away warbling, “Halston?”

Through the trees I caught sight of Orabell standing on her front verandah, a loose turquoise blouse and long, gauzy white skirt billowing around her in the late summer breeze.

“Halston?” Orabell called again.

I hurried alongside Pryce’s garage and snuck through the trees to reach the front of his house. Peering through a window, I saw the warm glow of lamplight coming from the back of the cottage, which could have meant that Pryce was home or that he had a lamp on a timer. I made my way over the sand and scrub near the house and around to the back, where I crouched alongside the deck to study the pier.

The sun hovered at the edge of the lake like a fried egg on a plate, illuminating the Osbornes’ dock and a small motorboat moored there. I watched until the sun dropped out of sight, but saw no sign of anyone waiting for me.