Seed No Evil (9 page)

“That's why we chose it,” I said. “Not many people visit Fairfield Park because it's a county park outside the city limits. The gazebo is set in a beautiful, secluded location. It'll give us plenty of privacy.”

Francesca looked baffled. “On a beautiful September afternoon, why would you want to hide your wedding? Aren't you proud to be getting married to my son?”

“Ma,” Marco said, putting his arm around me, “of course Abby's proud, and we're not hiding. We just like the privacy. We don't want gawkers.”

“You're going to be married in God's cathedral,” Francesca said, gesturing broadly, “so why not hold your ceremony where He can see you? Like on the dunes at Lake Michigan? You know those quaint outdoor shelters they have at Indiana Dunes State Park?”

Quaint as in old. All I could think of was getting sand in my new shoes and having to live with it for the rest of the day.

“Or at Community Park in the heart of the downtown area,” she said, “in full view of all the wonderful people in New Chapel.”

Trying to be tactful, I said, “Both sound lovely, but I'm sure it's too late to change locations now.”

“So here is what we can do—” Francesca said.

“
Mama,
” Marco said, “why don't you let us handle it?”

“Because both of you are simply too busy to see what's important,” she said, then noticed my expression. “Oh, I'm not criticizing,
bella
. I'm just stating facts. I have a lot of time on my hands, so let me do this for you. Yes?”

“No,” Marco said, which only made Francesca more desperate to convince us. He was using the wrong tactic. The right one would be to let her try to book a different location and see that it was just too late. Then she'd have to concede.

“Ah,” Francesca said happily, “I can see by the light in Abby's eyes that she's in favor of this, yes?”

“With a caveat,” I said. “This is a simple wedding, as you know, for family and friends only, so I don't want anything fancy, like a country-club setting.” Beneath the table, I took Marco's hand in mine and gave it a conspiratorial squeeze. “Right, Marco?”

“Right.” He gazed into my eyes and I knew he understood what I was doing. “Keep it simple.”

“Don't worry,” Francesca said. “You will be happy with the results.”

That was what I was counting on.

Wednesday

W
hen I woke up in the morning, the knot in my stomach had moved up to the lymph glands in my neck, or so it seemed when I saw my reflection in the mirror. I pressed on the swollen flesh and drew in a sharp breath.
Ouch!
It hurt
and
I looked like a frog.

My glands always got lumpy when I was coming down with something, so as a precaution, I took extra vitamin D and C before heading out the door. That would foil any germs hanging around.

Driving with the top down on my beloved old 'Vette, I turned up the radio and sang along with the music as I made the ten-minute trip to work. It was a beautiful September morning, and I wasn't going to waste it worrying about a potential cold. I wasn't going to fret about the wedding's location, either. We'd made it clear to Francesca that she could line up a setting for the ceremony and that was it. I was praying that she got the picture.

I pulled into the city parking lot, put up my ragtop, just in case the weatherman was right about the chance of rain, and headed up the street to my shop, still feeling froglike, yet positive. Jingles the window washer was busy scrubbing the plate-glass window on Marco's bar, so I called hello and continued on by. He barely glanced my way.

Jingles was an older man who'd been washing windows on the square since I was a child, and well before, I was sure. He'd gotten the name Jingles because when he talked to people, he jingled the coins in his pocket. I didn't think anyone knew his real name.

When I got to Bloomers I saw why Jingles had been so intent on his job. My window had been egged, as had the window of the insurance company beyond Bloomers. I was betting the same thing had happened to Marco's bar.

“Jingles, can you do my shop next?” I called, returning to Down the Hatch.

“Yes, miss. Four shops got hit last night. Yours'll be next in line for a cleaning.”

Refusing to let a few eggs or swollen glands ruin my good mood, I entered my flower shop, cheered as always by the bell over the door. “'Morning, ladies,” I called.

No one answered. The shop and the parlor were both deserted.

I continued on through to the workroom. There I found both women on their hands and knees, sopping up water with big towels.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Bad news,” Grace said, rising. “There's a leak in one of the coolers—and, dear me, what happened to your neck?”

Lottie stood up, too, and clucked her tongue. “Looks like you swallowed a couple of giant marshmallows.”

Grace palpated my painful glands, eliciting winces from me, then put her palm on the back of my neck. “No fever at present. Did you have chills in the night?”

“Now that I think about it, I did wake up once shivering, but I feel fine now, except for my glands. Which cooler is leaking?”

“This one,” Lottie said, tapping on the right door. “I called the plumber and he'll be out as soon as he can squeeze us in.”

Inventory: swollen glands, egged window, leaking cooler. If trouble came in threes, I'd just had mine.

“We're going to have to move our stock to the other cooler,” Lottie said.

“We don't have much room,” I said, circling the wet floor to get to the cooler on the left.

“We'll have to make room or we'll lose our flowers,” Lottie said.

I pulled open the insulated door and stepped inside. It would be tight. If we needed something in the back, I wasn't sure how we'd reach it, but what choice did we have?

My positive attitude was starting to erode.

We spent the next hour transferring containers of flowers and greens, finishing up just in time to open for the day. My assistants took their places and I opened the door to a large crowd that couldn't wait to get their morning coffee and scones.

As soon as the rush was over and Grace could handle the parlor alone, I returned to the workroom and glanced at the spindle. Two orders hung by their lonesome, but at least I had something to work on.

I pulled the first order slip and read through it. Naturally, the blossoms I needed were at the back of the first cooler and I had to remove a number of tall containers so I could climb past the others to reach them. And then I had to put them all back again.

I had just finished moving the last container back inside when I turned around and found my mom standing at the worktable, beaming. Then she saw my neck and gasped, “Abigail, what happened?”

“Just swollen glands,” I said, and touched them to find that they were even larger than before. And more painful.

“My poor little girl,” Mom said, clasping my shoulders for a better look. “Does it hurt to swallow?”

“No, it just hurts to touch the glands.”

She stopped probing my neck and went into the whole fever-chills interrogation until she pronounced me ill with a virus. “You should be home in bed.”

“I don't feel that bad, Mom. I just look bad.”

“You look cranky, too.”

And I was starting to feel cranky. “So why aren't you teaching today?”

“We had half a day of in-service training and the other half off.” She picked up a plastic bag from the floor. “I made something last night that I think you'll like.”

Before I could blink, she pulled a pair of flowerpots from her bag. They were made to look like two giant sunflowers, with the yellow flower petals bending backward from the centers to form the interiors of the pots. They were connected at the bottom by green metal stems, and, um, they weren't pretty.

“What do you think?” she asked, handing me her creation.

I set her pots on the worktable and stepped back to study it, stalling while I thought of something positive to say. Before I could answer, Lottie walked through the curtain, took a look at Mom's artwork, and assumed I had pulled it out for the order I was working on. “Oh, good. You finally found a use for those old sunflower pots. I thought we'd never get rid of them.”

Mom looked from Lottie to me. “What?”

Realizing she'd said something wrong, Lottie glanced up at a high shelf on the back wall and her eyes widened to about the size of Frisbees. Mom followed the direction of her gaze and her jaw dropped as she saw another pair of sunflower pots similar to hers.

“Oh no. I did it again!”

“I'm so sorry, Maureen,” Lottie said. “Now that I see them both, yours are much prettier.”

Mom's shoulders sagged. “Thanks, Lottie. I appreciate you trying to make me feel better. I just can't figure out how I could have spotted your pots all the way up there to copy them.”

“They used to sit on the table in the middle of the shop,” Lottie said. “Speaking of the shop, I'd better get my roses and head out front.”

While Lottie climbed over containers in the cooler, Mom pulled out a stool at the worktable and sank onto it. “What's the matter with me, Abigail? That's the second time I've copied something unknowingly.”

“You're still stressed out, Mom,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulders. “You need to relax.”

“It's true. I
am
still feeling stressed,” she said. “I keep waiting for the police to call me in for questioning.”

The phone rang at that moment, startling both of us. I picked it up at my desk and assumed a cheerful voice. “Bloomers Flower Shop. How may I help you?”

“I can think of several ways,” Marco said in a seductive growl.

I turned my back on my mom to answer in a low voice, “So can I, Salvare. And my mom is here.”

“Okay, then. How's it going today, Sunshine?”

“To tell you the truth, things could be better.”

“What happened?”

“Do you want the entire list?”

There was a pause on Marco's end. For a moment I thought we'd lost the connection. Then he said, “Can it wait until lunchtime?”

It stung just a little that he didn't have time to hear my tale of woe now, but then I didn't want to burden my mom with it either. “Of course. What are we doing at lunch?”

“I tracked down Justin Shaw. He owns a towing service just outside the city limits. I thought lunchtime would be a good time to catch him in the shop.”

“Okay, but I have to prepare you for my appearance. The glands in my neck are a little swollen. Mom thinks it's a virus.”

“I'm sure it's a virus,” Mom corrected. I gave her a thumbs-up.

“Are you contagious?” Marco asked.

“I'm not sneezing or coughing, and I feel fine.”

“Then I'll tough it out,” he said.

“Sandwiches on the way there?” I asked.

“I'll bring them along. See you here at noon.”

“Abigail,” Mom said, clearly chagrined, “surely you're not going out looking like that.” She pointed to my neck.

Just the confidence boost I needed. “Mom, the interview process is the best part of the investigation. That's where we really get to see what people are like. I'd hate to miss this one.”

“But your glands!”

I held up a stainless-steel flowerpot to check my reflection. “They don't look that bad, do they?”

“Your jawline is disappearing.”

“I'll take some aspirin. That should help the swelling. Go home and sit down at your pottery wheel and see what you come up with. I'll bet it'll be something brand-new.”

Mom sighed wearily. “I'll give it a try. And before I forget”—she dug through her purse—“here's the list of volunteers you asked for.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I took the list and put it in my purse. “How's the protest coming?”

“We have twenty people signed up for it,” she said.

“Abby,” Lottie said, sticking her head through the curtain, “remember the bride-to-be from yesterday? She's back. I think she's ready to choose Bloomers for her flowers.”

I wanted to clap and do a happy dance. Instead, I escorted Mom out of the workroom and went to meet with my new—I hoped—client.

•   •   •

Feeling jubilant at having a wedding to do, I left the shop—its front window now egg free—at noon and found Marco already waiting in his car out front. I climbed in and turned to look in the backseat, spotting a small red cooler there. “Yum. I'm starving.”

“Wow. Those glands really are swollen. Do they hurt?”

“A little bit. The aspirin is helping. What kind of sandwiches did you bring?”

“Nothing wrong with your appetite. Turkey and Swiss.”

He pulled away from the curb, shooting me what he thought were discreet glances, until I flipped down the visor and opened the mirror for a look.
Yeesh.
Mom was right. My jawline was almost nonexistent, and now my skin was beginning to itch, too.

I snapped the visor back in place. “Any news to report?”

“Here's the update,” Marco said, as I unwrapped a sandwich for him. “I spoke with Emma's coworkers on the phone this morning, but neither was free to talk because Emma was in the room. I have personal cell phone numbers so I can call them after five today.”

“That's good. And Mom gave me a list of the shelter volunteers along with their phone numbers.”

“I'll start researching them this afternoon, see if anyone is involved in a lawsuit with Bev.”

I unwrapped my sandwich and took a bite. I was surprised he hadn't asked about my list of troubles. Had he forgotten? “Any more news from Reilly?”

“I haven't heard a word.” Marco turned onto Lincoln Avenue and headed west.

Still nothing about my list, so I decided to jump right in with it.

“Jingles said your window got egged this morning. Mine did, too. And one of my coolers sprang a leak. So on top of having these swollen glands and finding my window egged, there was water all over the workroom floor when I got there. I'm hoping it's fixable. I'd have to go into debt to buy a new cooler. Those suckers are expensive.”

“Mmm,”
was all he said. He hadn't glanced my way. Was he even paying attention?

He finished his sandwich, took a swig from a water bottle sitting in the holder, then said, “How's business been today?”

“I had two orders waiting for me when I got in this morning, and a woman wants me to do her wedding.”

“That's great news about the wedding, Abby. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. I just wish I had more orders. I think I'm going to have to have those flyers you mentioned printed and have Lottie's boys plaster them all over town. I can offer a ten percent discount on them. At this point, I can't afford anything more.”

We drove in silence for the next five minutes, Marco with a look of concern on his face. But when we pulled into the gravel parking lot of Shaw's Towing, he shut off the motor and looked over at me as though nothing were wrong. “Ready, Kermit?”

“Thanks a lot,” I said, pretending to be offended but secretly relieved that he seemed back to his usual kidding self.