If I thought things were chaotic before finding Professor Lowry’s body, what happened next took chaos to a whole new level. Police swarming, neighbors gawking, students crying and screaming … it was all too awful. And overwhelming. Flower House overflowed with people coming and going. Every room of the shop, every inch of the grounds outside, even the street and sidewalks up and down the block—they were all fairly crawling with people.
I realized later that the moments right before and after the grisly discovery were the calm before the storm. I’d stared at the body for a moment, disbelieving. There was something off about the man’s appearance, and not just the fact that he was dead. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I wasn’t about to stand there and study him. As soon as Calvin and I had ascertained that the professor was beyond help, we’d grabbed Gus and backed out of the storeroom. Then immediately, instinctually, we turned to each other and embraced in a tight hug.
At least one of us was trembling; I couldn’t have said which. As for me, I felt a tightness in my chest, like a dam barely holding back a surging wave of panic. How did this happen? Could it have been an accident? Something heavy fell … or the professor fell … or—why was he in the storeroom in the first place? Disconnected thoughts flashed through my mind, but one thing was clear. Someone must have whacked the professor on the back of the head.
Not again. How can this be happening again? Only three months earlier, another man had suffered a violent death in this shop. I’d worked so hard to bury that terrible chapter and get folks to associate Flower House with a more positive image. So much for our grand opening.
The instant that selfish thought cropped up, I felt a kick of remorse. A man was dead, for crying out loud!
The hug with Calvin lasted only a few seconds. In that time, I became aware of two things: One, it felt really good to be this close to Calvin. And two, he was whispering something in my ear. As I focused in on what he was saying, I became increasingly alarmed.
“I’d just seen him. I hated him. He didn’t deserve this. Or maybe he did. I should have talked to him. I might have prevented this. I’d just seen him.”
Gently, I pulled back and searched Calvin’s face. Was he okay? As if waking from a dream, he looked into my eyes, then seemed to focus in on my expression of concern. Clearing his throat, he dropped his arms.
“Are you—are you okay?” he asked, echoing my thoughts about him.
I nodded and took a deep breath. “More or less,” I answered hoarsely.
“Land sakes!” cried Granny. “I knew it! Didn’t I say that bird was an omen?”
I looked over to see Granny appear in the doorway of the storeroom. She must have slipped past us while we were hugging.
“It’s a good thing I made you all put red clay ’n’ salt in your shoes,” she said, before turning back to the storeroom. “Come here, Gus!”
Evidently, Gus had snuck past us too. At Granny’s urging, he came out of the storeroom and crawled under a chair. I feel ya, Gus. I wished I could hide under a chair too.
“Well,” said Granny, shutting the door to the storeroom, “I don’t know who he is, but he ain’t gonna get any deader. Where’s a phone?”
“Oh, Granny.” I felt tears spring to my eyes and swallowed the lump in my throat.
She came over and patted my shoulder, then picked up the cell phone I’d left on the counter. As I watched, she dialed 9-1-1. Then she pushed open the door from the kitchen to the hallway and left the room, calmly reporting that there was a dead man at Flower House.
“I need some air,” I said, moving to open the back door.
“Me too,” said Calvin.
He grabbed a leash from the hook by the door and leaned down to coax Gus from under the chair.
“Come here, buddy,” he said. And then, “What’s in your mouth?”
I turned swiftly to see Calvin pry open Gus’s jaws. “What is it?” I asked. We were careful not to let Gus in the workroom while we prepared flower arrangements, in case we dropped any clippings on the floor. The room was clean now, but it was always possible the pup could have found a stray leaf or petal.
“It’s a piece of paper,” said Calvin. “Or part of one anyway.” He handed me a wet, half-eaten wad of paper.
Wrinkling my nose, I set the thing on the worktable and dabbed it with a paper towel. Calvin leaned over my shoulder. “Looks like a receipt,” he said. “From ‘something Mini-Mart.’”
“Must be Marla’s Mini-Mart,” I said. “That’s the gas station on the west side of town. The date and time are gone, but this seems to be a receipt for sunflower seeds. The price was ninety-nine cents.”
“Huh,” said Calvin. “That’s not something you or Deena would’ve bought, is it?”
“No. We still have a bunch of the sunflower seeds Granny brought us from last fall’s harvest. Plus, that gas station isn’t very convenient, unless you’re on your way in or out of town.”
Granny came back into the kitchen and handed me my phone. “Where’s Wanda?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in a while.” I briefly explained to Granny about the appearance of the university van and all the hubbub that followed.
“Good grief,” she said.
Calvin helped himself to some water from the refrigerator. I noticed him mop his forehead with his shirt sleeve.
“Let’s step outside,” I said, picking up Gus’s leash from where Calvin had dropped it on a chair.
“I’ll wait on the front porch,” said Granny.
I called to Gus and was surprised to find him once again playing with something in his mouth. “Now what?” Then I glanced at the worktable. The receipt was gone.
“Gus! What did you do?” I reached into his mouth and pulled out what was left of the receipt: a tiny corner with no writing. “Ugh. So much for that.”
“Gus, you little scamp,” said Calvin. “I guess the paper fell off the table, huh?”
“It must have. Probably when Granny swung open the hall door.” I wiped my hands on a towel, while Calvin took the leash and clipped it to Gus’s collar. They headed out the back door, with me close behind. I wanted to look around for a minute before joining Granny.
Cicadas were rattling in the trees, informing us how late it was getting. To my surprise, the green delivery truck was still parked in the driveway. Walking partway up to it, I saw Bart sitting behind the wheel and—what else—staring at his phone. Through the half-opened window, I heard strains of a sad old country tune.
Gus pulled Calvin in the other direction, toward the garden. I went with them and spotted three students lounging over by the greenhouse. The one I’d nicknamed the rebel was smoking another cigarette and staring absently into the distance, as he paced back and forth. The curly haired blonde sat on the ground scrolling through her phone, while the cute preppy boy leaned against the greenhouse wall with his eyes closed.
“Should we tell them?” I said softly.
“We should probably wait for the police,” said Calvin.
We continued around the side of the house, letting Gus sniff the bushes along the way. I thought again about the receipt the corgi had eaten. Where had he found it? Of course, anyone could have tracked it in on the bottom of a shoe or dropped it from a pocket. But wouldn’t I have noticed a piece of litter on the floor? Besides that, Gus had it right after Granny shooed him from the storeroom.
I grabbed Calvin’s arm. “Hey,” I whispered. “Do you think Professor Lowry dropped that receipt Gus found?”
Calvin slowly shook his head. “No way. He’d never eat sunflower seeds, not from a shell. He was too fastidious.”
It struck me that Calvin must have known the professor pretty well. I’d have to ask him about that later. “Then the killer dropped it?”
He looked doubtful. “Maybe?”
Shrugging, I walked on. I knew it was a stretch. So what if the killer had dropped the receipt? How would that help identify them? Even if the mini-mart purchase could be traced to a single person—a difficult proposition, considering we never saw a date or time, and the receipt was now gone—it was hardly a smoking gun. The killer could have ended up with the receipt in any number of ways.
Before I could speculate further, I spied Wanda ambling up the sidewalk. She had an odd expression on her face, as if she were upset or confused.
Calvin and I met her on the sidewalk.
“Where have you been, Wanda?” I asked.
She peered sharply at me. For a split second, I had the impression she didn’t know who I was. Then her face cleared, and she waved vaguely in the direction behind her. “I went for a walk. I always forget what a pretty little spot Melody Gardens is.” Dipping her chin, she gave me a knowing look, then winked at Calvin. “Perfect place for a lovers’ whatchamacallit. A dusky-dark tryst?”
I glanced at Calvin to gauge his reaction. Under other circumstances, we might have laughed at Wanda’s suggestion that we were a couple. He quirked his mouth in a sad half smile. Of course, it didn’t matter. There would be no trysts tonight.
The sound of sirens pierced through the evening air.
“Something has happened, Wanda,” I said. “Something bad.”
I had to tell my story multiple times before the evening was out. The first telling, to the responding police officers, was a haphazard rush, as if I could speed the end of this nightmare by pelleting them with everything I knew in one fell swoop. The second time was in a slower, more methodical manner to Acting Chief of Police Renee Bradley.
I’d met Officer Bradley during the last investigation that took place at Flower House. She was a competent, middle-aged policewoman, with short blonde hair and a pleasant demeanor. In fact, I’d found her easier to get along with than Police Chief Walt Walden. She’d been promoted to Deputy Chief and was filling in for him now, since he was still on medical leave. I was glad to learn he would make a full recovery following an incident last spring (especially since he was a friend of my dad’s), but I was secretly happy Officer Bradley was now in charge. She was way less intimidating than Walt Walden. She was thorough, too. She had me write down my entire statement, and then carefully went over it with me to ensure I’d left nothing out.
We were sitting in the café room, just me, Acting Chief Bradley, and a second officer. Another pair of officers was interviewing the students, one at a time, over at Bread n’ Butter. Outside, a beat cop (a dark-haired officer named Davy Wills, who I recognized as a former classmate of Rocky’s) watched over everyone else as they waited their turn. They were directed not to talk to one another. Evidently, the police wanted to hear each person’s firsthand observations before they could be influenced by what other folks said.
Before I was called in, I’d held onto Gus on the front stoop. I couldn’t stay inside, because the place was overrun with investigators and forensics experts taking photos and gathering evidence. Granny got to go first, because she’d made the 9-1-1 call—and also because she insisted. As I waited, I tried to make sense of what had happened. All I could think of was how disliked the professor had seemed to be. I felt kind of guilty about the uncharitable thought, but it was true. Bart and Wanda had both yelled at him. None of his students had interacted with him, as far as I could tell. Calvin clearly didn’t like him.
Calvin was called into the café after Granny. I was surprised at how long his interview took. When he came out to get Gus, he seemed rather pale and a little dazed. After my turn in the “interrogation café,” I thought I knew why. Deputy Chief Bradley asked me more questions about Calvin than about Professor Lowry and his students.
“How well do you know Calvin Foxheart?” she asked.
“Calvin?” I said, startled at the question. “I see him almost every day. He takes care of the greenhouse and helps out around the shop. He also rents the apartment upstairs and helps look after Gus. He’s a nice guy.”
I realized I hadn’t answered her question, and for some reason I felt my face grow warm. Wasn’t it just this morning that I, myself, was questioning how well I knew Calvin?
“He’s new in town, isn’t he?” said Bradley. “At least, he was new last time I was here, in April.”
If she already knew the answer, why did she ask the question? What was she getting at?
She continued as if we were having a friendly conversation. “He told me he was a teacher at UT in Knoxville. Do you know why he left that job?”
“He’d met Felix online, and they struck up a friendship,” I said. “I think Felix sold him on Aerieville and offered him the apartment. They shared a love of plants.” Well, plants and geocaching, and an interest in the Arwin Treasure. But I still didn’t see the relevance of any of this.
“Did Calvin ever mention anything about Professor Steve Lowry?”
I shook my head. “Not before today. Why?”
“He never said anything about a professor at UT stealing his research and having him fired?”
Now I could only stare, stunned by the news.
“He was quite candid about it just now,” Officer Bradley said calmly. “He admitted he still harbored a lot of resentment toward the professor.”
“I had no idea.”
“When was the last time you saw Calvin today, before the two of you found the professor’s body?”
“Um, I don’t know. Let me think. He went upstairs before the professor came in. Then he came down to take Gus out, and I saw him in the hallway. That was probably twenty minutes or so before I saw him in the hallway again, right before we heard Gus barking from the storeroom.”
“Did you actually see Calvin take the dog outside?”
I crinkled my eyes, not at all liking the direction of this conversation. “No. I went back to the front of the shop, and he took Gus out the back door. I assume. I mean, I believe he did.”
There was a knock on the side of the archway between the café and the shop floor. It was Officer Dakin, a young ginger-haired cop I recognized from the last investigation. He held up a large clear plastic evidence bag.
“What ya got?” asked Officer Bradley.
“Thought you’d want to see this,” Dakin said, approaching the table. “We found it in the garbage bin in the kitchen.” The garbage bin in the kitchen? He must mean the large plastic can we use to collect flower trimmings and other plant debris. What did they find in there?
Bradley took the bag and set it on the table between us. She tilted it to give me a better view. “Have you seen this before?”
It was an ornate silver candlestick. There was another one just like it on a shelf in the orchid room. Only this one seemed to have a dark substance caked on the sconce end of the candle holder.
A wave of nausea washed over me. Swallowing hard, I sat back in my chair. It was the murder weapon. If this situation had seemed unreal before, it suddenly felt a whole lot realer.
I found Granny talking to the coroner in the driveway behind Flower House. It sounded like she was instructing him on how the body should be removed from the house—no doubt due to one of her superstitions. As I walked up to them, she shifted her attention to me, and the coroner made his escape.
“Soon as the police finish talking to Wanda, I’m gonna get her home,” said Granny. “She’s had a rough time of it today.”
I nodded sympathetically. “When she got here earlier, she had some words with the professor out in the street. She was upset with him for some reason. Did she tell you why?”
“I haven’t been allowed to talk to her yet,” said Granny. “I’ll find out later, I’m sure.”
It was on the tip my tongue to say something about Wanda’s habit of hitting men upside the head, but I thought better of it. This was no laughing matter. Besides, Granny might think it rude of me to even hint at the suggestion that Wanda might have killed the professor. There was no way little old Wanda Milford could have clobbered the tall professor hard enough to knock him out, let alone deliver a death blow. The idea was preposterous.
Wasn’t it?
“Now listen,” said Granny. “You better call your mama before she hears about all this nasty business through the rumor mill.”
I winced. She was right. Heck, the way news traveled in this town, there was a good bet my mom had already heard and was even now on her way to Flower House.
“I don’t suppose you want to call her,” I ventured.
Granny laughed softly. “No, thanks. I’ve had quite enough of Mandy’s loving concern for one day.”
Officer Dakin came out the back door and walked up to Bart’s truck. With all the commotion, I hadn’t had a chance to speak to the delivery man. I’d been vaguely aware that he’d climbed out of the cab of his truck when the police first arrived. After being informed about what had happened, he was then allowed to wait in his vehicle until it was time for him to make his statement. Now, as he followed Dakin into the house, Bart looked over at me. His expression was inscrutable, but his eyes stayed locked on me for several seconds. Something about his penetrating gaze made goose bumps prickle along my arms.
“They must be done with Wanda,” said Granny.
“Huh?” I said, turning to Granny. “Oh, right.” I shook off the odd feeling and walked with Granny around to the front of the house.
Wanda seemed subdued when she emerged through the front door. Her new hairdo had fallen, and her lipstick was smeared. She was a far cry from her usual fiery self.
“Come on, Mae,” she grumbled to Granny. “It’s suppertime, and my dogs are tired.”
I hugged Granny goodbye and stood on the sidewalk as they drove away. No sooner had they left, when another vehicle rolled slowly down the street and pulled into the space they’d just vacated. It was a UT van, just like the one still parked in front of Flower House. Through the van windows, I saw half a dozen shell-shocked college kids. They must’ve heard the news from the other students, I surmised.
The driver’s side door opened, and a woman stepped out into the street. She was dressed for hiking, in tan cargo pants, a tank top, and boots. From what I could tell, she seemed to be a fit and trim thirty-something Black woman, with chic ultra-short hair. Her expression was somber and worried. For a moment, she stood in the road, looking from Flower House to Bread n’ Butter, apparently not knowing where to go. I started to approach her. At the same time, a cop stepped out of a patrol car across the street and waved at her.
“Sheila Washington?”
“Yes.” Her voice was tight, as if it was all she could do to keep it together. My heart went out to her.
He joined her a few steps from the van. I stayed on the sidewalk, unsure what to do.
The cop placed a palm on his chest. “I’m Officer Wills. My condolences, ma’am.”
She hugged her arms in a protective gesture. “What happened?” she asked bluntly. “Someone attacked Steve in the flower shop?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine, ma’am. This is an open homicide investigation. We’re still putting the pieces together.”
“Unbelievable,” she murmured. The crease between her eyebrows deepened as the news sank in.
“The deceased, Mr. Lowry, was your friend?”
Unless I was mistaken, she seemed to hesitate before answering. “He was my colleague. We’re—we were co-teaching a summer botany field course.”
“Can you help us locate his next of kin?”
“I can give you the name of our department head. Steve wasn’t married, and I’m not aware of any close family he had.” She glanced over at Bread n’ Butter. “Where are the students from his group? Are they free to leave?”
“Some of them are.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve been able to clear four of the students. They were at the bakery at the time of death.”
Tilting her head, she gave him a curious look. “How can you pinpoint the time of death without an autopsy?”
Quietly, I took half a step closer and leaned in. I was curious about that too.
“There’s a short window,” said the officer, “between the last time the deceased was seen or heard alive and the time his body was found.”
Oh. Of course.
“Heard?” said Sheila.
“On the phone,” explained Officer Wills. “The individuals at the bakery told the owner, Flo Morrison, that their teacher would pay for everything.” He chuckled softly. “I guess she didn’t want to take their word for it. One of the girls called Mr. Lowry and spoke to him, before handing her cell phone to Flo. Flo confirmed that Lowry said he’d be right over. And we verified the call was received on Lowry’s cell phone.”
She nodded. “I see. And the other three students?”
He pulled a notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. “Yes. April, Vince, and Isaiah,” he read, then looked up. “They were still at the flower shop.”
Her frown held a shade of impatience. “Who else was there? Surely you don’t think one of the students did this.”
I took another step forward. What did the police think?
Officer Wills was noncommittal. “We’re speaking with a number of individuals, and working as hard as we can to get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, we’d like those three students to stick around town. I can give you directions to the local motel.”
Closing her eyes, she sighed in resignation. “Guess that means I’ll be staying too. I’ll let my grad assistant drive the others back to Knoxville now, if that’s okay.”
“Yes, ma’am—in just a minute. I need to gather the names and contact info for everyone on the field trip. Also, do you or your assistant know a former teacher named Calvin Foxheart?”
I must’ve made a noise, because Sheila and Officer Wills turned sharply toward me. Without realizing it, I’d inched right up next to them. I smiled sheepishly.
“Hello,” I said, thinking fast. “Sorry to interrupt. I, uh, just wanted to mention that there’s a nice bed and breakfast not far from here. Much nicer than the motel. It’s run by a friend of mine.”
A B&B would certainly be nicer for Sheila and the students. This particular one would also be more convenient—for me to keep tabs on this investigation.