It took me a moment to remember where I was. Gus was sprawled on my feet, and my head rested on a soft pillow, but the high plaster ceiling above me, with a square mid-century light fixture, was not at all familiar.
The smell of coffee drifted to my nose, and I heard the quiet clinking of dishes. Oh, yeah. This was Calvin’s apartment. I felt a slow smile spread across my face, as I recalled our lovely evening. We’d stayed up late talking. Besides some serious discussion about the murder, and a little joking around, we’d had some nice getting-to-know-you conversation. I’d thoroughly enjoyed myself.
And his couch was surprisingly comfortable. Luckily, I kept an overnight bag in my car for times when I visited my folks for dinner and decided to stay the night. So, I was able to brush my teeth and change into clean clothes. Moving quietly, I slipped into the bathroom to freshen up, get dressed, and comb my hair. We may have grown a little closer, but that didn’t mean I was ready to let Calvin see my bed head.
When I joined him in the kitchen, he was adding salt and pepper to a skillet of fried potatoes and onions. Another steaming pan held scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese. On the table were bowls of sliced Ruby Red grapefruit and a platter of toasted sourdough bread next to a jar of rose petal jam. My mouth watered at the sight of it all.
“Wow! This is way better than the bowl of cereal I usually have.” I poured myself some coffee into a mug he’d set out. I had to grin when I saw what it said—“I think you’re dandy”—above a picture of a dandelion. Calvin’s mug was equally punny, featuring a picture of a cactus under the words “Looking sharp.”
He flashed a shy half smile. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I kind of made everything I had.”
“It looks and smells delicious.”
Gus thought so too. He eagerly pranced around the kitchen hoping for a taste.
We chatted comfortably over breakfast but, unfortunately, couldn’t dawdle long. Gus needed to go out, and there was work to do. After cleaning up together, we went downstairs and opened the shop. Calvin offered to take Gus with him to the greenhouse for a while, while I arranged flowers. I walked outside with them and stashed my overnight bag back in the Fiat. As I was returning to the house, Deena pulled in. I waited for her beside the driveway.
“You’re just getting here too?” she said, checking her watch.
“Uh, not exactly.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Wait a minute. You have that look again.”
“What look?” I pressed my lips together in an effort not to smile, but it was useless. Deena saw right through me.
“The look you get when you’re thinking about Calvin as a prospective boyfriend.” She was grinning now too. “Did you make it official?”
“Official? No. Not really.” Come to think of it, with all our talking last night, we’d never once discussed the nature of our relationship. In fact, other than the palpable chemistry between us, we might have been a couple of friends having a sleepover. He hadn’t even kissed me goodnight.
Deena and I went inside and gathered our floral supplies for the morning’s orders. As we filled vases with water and flower food and stripped leaves from flower stems, I gave her all the details—starting with the call from Bart and ending with Calvin’s feast of a breakfast.
“One thing’s clear,” said Deena. “No, make that two things.”
“Do tell.” At this point, I was yearning for some clarity. My mind was as tangled as a briar patch.
“First, Bart is more suspicious than ever and probably guilty. But we already knew that. Second, Calvin has it bad for you.”
I laid out two types of greenery: glossy myrtle, with small fragrant leaves, and hardy salal, with shiny lemon-shaped leaves. Selecting the myrtle (an ancient symbol of love), I shot Deena an inquisitive look. “What makes you say that? About Calvin, I mean.”
“Oh, only everything.” Tapping her fingers, she ticked off the reasons in turn. “He offers you a place to stay; he spends hours with you just hanging out; and he goes overboard trying to impress you with breakfast. And, most importantly, he was respectful of you last night and didn’t try to take advantage of the situation. So he’s a really good guy, and he must really like you.”
There I went, smiling again. I handed Deena the order I was working on and asked if she’d gather some of the flowers. She went up front and returned shortly with half a dozen stems of stargazer lilies. I interspersed them with blush and crimson roses and finished off the bouquet with a couple of pink snapdragons and a few sprigs of baby’s breath. The result was a dreamy, romantic concoction that smelled as sweet as it looked.
“Someone has romance on the brain,” said Deena, handing me a pink ribbon.
“I’m just making what the customer asked for,” I said—even though the order only requested “something nice with lilies for under $100.”
I placed the bouquet in the cooler and got started on the next order, a cheerful daisy bouquet. This was what I loved most about working with flowers: no matter what the variety, they were always uplifting.
The front door jingled. Deena opened her eyes wide in mock wonder. “Do we actually have a walk-in?” she said.
“Let’s find out!” Setting the daisies aside, I headed up front, with Deena right behind me. We found Nell Cusley gazing around the shop as if she were trying to memorize every flower. She was a plump, motherly woman, with short hair and fair skin prone to redness. I’d always found her overt nosiness and gossip habit irritating, but I knew she meant well. And now that she was a customer, I was inclined to be forgiving.
“Hi, Nell,” I said warmly.
“Hello, girls.” She barely looked our way. Instead, she gravitated to the café, swiveling her neck to take in every inch of it. “I like what you’ve done to the place. It’s very rich-looking. Luxurious. But inviting too.”
“Thank you.” I walked around her and gestured to the tables and sofa. “Why don’t you come on in and have a seat. Can I get you something to drink? Herbal tea or iced tea?”
“I’ll take ice water, if you have it.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll get it,” offered Deena.
I excused myself to grab my notebook, a wedding flower catalog, and contract form from the office. When I came out, I found Nell opening the door to the orchid room.
“Everything’s so pretty,” she said. After a quick sweep with her eyes, she backed out of the orchid room and turned to face the closed kitchen door. “Is that where you found the dead body? In there?”
I drew a slow breath and tried to smile. “It was in the storeroom, actually. We’re going to remodel and get rid of that room altogether.”
Deena came out of the kitchen with a tray holding a tall glass of water and a plate of the pansy cookies she’d made at my house the other night. She glanced at me in puzzlement. “Did you say ‘we’re getting rid of a room’?”
“Yes, the storeroom. I just decided. We can ask Richard to remove the door.” Before opening his Bed and Breakfast, Richard had been a part-time handyman.
“Sounds good to me,” said Deena.
Nell followed our exchange with wide-eyed interest. “You mean Richard Wales? I heard he quit his job at the bank rather suddenly last spring. I suppose it was to work on his mother’s house?”
I pretended not to hear her, as I led the way back to the café. Gesturing for her to sit on the sofa, I pulled up a chair and opened my notebook. “So, Sue Ellen is getting married! Let’s talk flowers.”
For the next half hour, Deena and I plied Nell with questions about the wedding and shared our ideas about the floral design. She was enthusiastic about our choices. I was a little concerned about Nell’s budget, considering all the extras she said she wanted. But she didn’t bat an eye when I told her the price. When Nell signed the contract, Deena treated me to a little dance of joy. I was trying not to laugh, when Calvin and Gus came inside.
After saying hello to Nell, Calvin turned to me. “I need to make a run out to Ranker’s Garden Center,” he said. “Do you have any deliveries you’d like me to make on the way?”
“Yes, that would be great. Can you wait about five minutes? We’re just wrapping things up here.”
Nell handed me a check for the deposit, then finished off her water and hoisted herself to her feet. “I’ll see you all on Saturday. What did you say, about two hours before the ceremony?”
“Right. We don’t want the flowers to wilt, so we shouldn’t show up too early. Two hours should give us plenty of time.”
Before I could say anything else, the front door jingled open again. I was already standing, so I excused myself and headed out of the café to welcome the newcomer. It turned out there were three visitors: Deputy Chief Renee Bradley, Officer Dakin, and another officer I didn’t recognize. For some reason, the sight of them made my stomach drop.
Nell sidled up next to me and saw them too. “Morning, Deputy,” she said. “How’s Chief Walden? Any news on when he’ll return to the force?”
“Good morning,” said Bradley. Ignoring Nell’s question, she addressed me. “Is Calvin Foxheart here?”
Calvin and Deena both came out of the café, with Gus scurrying around their legs. “I’m right here,” said Calvin. His voice was quiet and calm. In contrast, Gus let out a sharp bark that made us all jump. The corgi tried to run up to the police officers, but I called him back. For once, he actually listened. Still, he emitted a low, restrained growl.
Bradley took a step toward Calvin and held up an official-looking piece of paper. For one terrible second, I thought she was going to arrest him. What she said next wasn’t much better.
“This is a search warrant. Could you please show us to your apartment?”
The cops spent more than two hours combing through Calvin’s apartment. He stayed up there with them, while Deena and I waited on pins and needles below. I had a heck of a time getting Nell to leave. She wanted to stay and play twenty questions, guessing what the police might be looking for. She was deaf to every hint I dropped, but I couldn’t be more forceful. The last thing I wanted to do was offend her. It was bad enough that Nell had witnessed this embarrassment and would be blabbing it all over town.
And here I was hoping she’d be spreading the word about our floral arrangements instead.
Finally, Nell received a phone call from a waitress at her diner, saying she was needed in the kitchen. As soon as she left, I locked the door behind her and flipped the sign over to Closed.
“Should I go ahead and make these deliveries?” asked Deena. “I could pick up some sandwiches on the way back.”
“Yeah, might as well,” I said.
We finished up the morning’s orders and packed them into Deena’s car. Five minutes after she left, the cops finally came downstairs. To my surprise, they were empty-handed. I’d thought for sure they’d cart out as much as they could carry, from Calvin’s laptop to the clothes he’d been wearing on Saturday. Then again, I had no idea what they were looking for.
Deputy Chief Bradley nodded at me as I unlocked the door for her. The other two officers avoided looking at me. Once they were gone, I let Gus out of the study. He ran straight for the open door to Calvin’s apartment and bounded up the stairs. I decided to follow him.
The door upstairs was open too. I tapped on it before entering and found Calvin sitting on his couch with his head resting on the cushion and his eyes closed. He looked up when Gus jumped on his lap.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Terrific,” he said glumly.
“It looked like they weren’t carrying anything when they left.”
“That’s because they didn’t find anything.”
“What were they looking for, anyway?”
He waved his hand listlessly toward a paper on an end table. I picked it up and saw that it was a copy of the search warrant. There were only three items listed: gloves, a canteen, and Steve Lowry’s university identification card.
I felt a surge of guilt about the canteen. If I hadn’t mentioned it to Officer Wills, the cops wouldn’t even know it was missing. The gloves I could understand; though, it seemed strange to me that they would search only Calvin’s apartment and not the entire property. On the other hand, I supposed they’d had their chance to search the shop on the day of the murder. Also, I seemed to recall hearing someplace that search warrants were supposed to be narrowly focused.
The university ID, however, was a surprise to me. “I wonder how they knew the professor’s ID was missing.”
“I asked the same question,” Calvin said. “Bradley told me the dean had asked her about it. It’s a key card that allows access to all school buildings.” He sat up and placed his hands on his knees, as if he was thinking about standing but couldn’t muster the energy. “Evidently, there was an empty space in his wallet where they think the ID was usually kept.”
Pacing across Calvin’s living room, I glanced out the window and thought about what he said. The killer had taken the time to remove the professor’s wallet, pull out the ID, and return the wallet to the dead man’s pocket? It would be difficult to do something requiring that level of dexterity in something as bulky as gardening gloves. The killer must have worn something tighter, like surgical gloves.
I returned to Calvin’s side and sat next to him on the edge of the couch. “Well, hey,” I said cheerfully. “It’s good that they didn’t find anything. They ought to leave you alone now.” I couldn’t understand why he seemed so down.
He shook his head, evidently not convinced. “Chief Bradley is chatty and pleasant for a reason. She was trying to put me at ease, hoping I’d slip up and say something incriminating.”
I wanted to challenge Calvin’s assumption and reassure him that he could be wrong—but I didn’t know that for sure. And he didn’t seem very amenable to my optimism anyway. With a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet and gathered his wallet—and its loose contents—from the coffee table. I realized the police must have rifled through everything.
“I’ll go ahead and run those errands now,” he said.
I stood up too. “Deena took the deliveries already. Don’t you want to wait and have some lunch?”
“Nah. I’ll grab something while I’m out.”
Saying little else, Calvin left, and Gus and I went downstairs. Deena returned with sandwiches. I brought her up to speed while we ate in the café.
“You don’t suppose…” She trailed off and took a sip of her iced tea.
“Suppose what?” I asked.
She gave me an apologetic look. “I was wondering if the police might know something about Calvin that we don’t.”
“Deena!” How could she say that? I trusted Calvin. It troubled me to hear her voice her doubts.
“Never mind.” She finished her sandwich and cleaned off the table. “By the way, I called Richard. He’s going to stop over and look at the storeroom door sometime this afternoon.”
“Good. Thanks.” I chewed my last bite of food, even though I barely tasted it. This business with Calvin had me worried.
Fortunately, I had a pleasant diversion in work. After lunch, we made a detailed checklist for the wedding and cleared off a countertop to hold all the non-plant supplies we would need. This included everything from ten centerpiece vases, a dozen corsage and boutonniere pins, and a flower-girl basket to reams of floral wire, tape, and ribbons. Since we were a sustainable, foam-free florist, we also needed plenty of chicken wire and floral water tubes for hydration. Even though it was a modest-sized wedding, the flowers would be plentiful.
In the middle of these preparations, we had two walk-in customers in a row, followed shortly by Richard. His buoyant energy was a welcome ray of sunshine.
“This place is a vision!” he gushed, wandering around the café. “And it smells heavenly. I just want to curl up in here with a steamy novel and sip cappuccino all day.”
“How about rose tea?” suggested Deena.
“Even better.”
I held up a container of shortbread pansy cookies. “You have to try one of these. Deena made them.”
With an expression of delight, he examined the delicate purple petals pressed on top of the cookie. Then he took a bite. “Mmm! Deena, I knew you were a woman of many talents, but this is sorcery.”
Grinning, she gave a little curtsy. “Thank you, sir. I’ve learned it’s fun to be crafty.”
“She’s amazing,” I agreed. “And speaking of multitalented people—come and see the job we have for you, Richard.”
We went to the kitchen and gathered at the entrance to the storeroom. Richard scanned the interior and wrinkled his nose but refrained from commenting. He turned to the door and gave it a small thump.
“Solid,” he said. “This is probably original to the house. You sure you want to remove it?”
“Positive.” I told him about my harrowing experience being trapped in the little room. Even though it had only lasted for a few minutes, it had made a big impact.
“That’s horrible!” he said, shuddering. “How distressing that must have been.”
Deena ran a finger over one of the shelves just inside the storeroom. “We need to repurpose this room somehow. Clear out the negativity.” She laughed shortly. “Listen to me. I sound like Sierra now.”
“You’re welcome,” I said wryly.
“I’ll give it some thought,” said Richard. “What’s on the other side of the far wall?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s an exterior wall.”
He gazed thoughtfully around the room, as if he were imagining the possibilities. Then he frowned and turned to me. “I can’t get over the fact that somebody trapped you in here. Who do you think it was?”
I withdrew into the kitchen and sat on a stool. “I don’t know, but I have some ideas.”
Richard looked from me to Deena. She pursed her lips. “It turns out all of the murder suspects were in the vicinity at the time.”
“Huh,” said Richard. He picked up a rose petal from the worktable and felt its velvety softness.
“What are you thinking?” I asked. I sensed he had something on his mind.
“Um, I don’t know. It might be nothing.”
“Come on, Richard,” said Deena. “If you have info to share, then spill it.”
“Well, I did overhear something. Some arguing. April and Isaiah have been sniping at each other lately. Then she was in the boys’ room last night, and there were raised voices.”
“What were they saying?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I couldn’t make out their words very clearly. However, I did hear them say ‘Lowry’ a time or two.”
“To be a fly on that wall,” Deena murmured, echoing my sentiments exactly.
Richard met my eyes. “You might have been right in the first place, Sierra. There may be something off about these visitors. Perhaps they’re not quite as adorable as I’d thought.”