After an eventful morning, the day slowed down to more of a normal routine. There was a steady stream of customers who were buying up our fall arrangements. When Cynthia came in at noon, I was busy putting more together.
"Have you been busy this morning?" she asked as she came up from the back, tying the strings of her apron around her waist.
"Surprisingly, yes. If you want to help me refill the cooler with premade arrangements before the shipment gets here, then one of us can go deal with that and one of us can stay on the floor."
"Sounds good to me."
She walked over to join me at the small workstation that was toward the back of the store. We tried to do as much as we could in the backroom, so as not to make a mess in the front, but on days like today, when it was busy, you had to do what you needed to do, mess be darned. Even though I knew ‘mess be darned’ wasn't in my mother's vocabulary. The more I worked at Petal Pushers the more I appreciated how hard she had worked my entire life.
"Anything interesting happen this morning?" Cynthia asked me.
I gave her a side-eye. "Don't tell me the gossip mill has gotten around that fast."
Cynthia laughed as she cut the ends of some purple mums. "No. I was just making conversation. But now I have a feeling something interesting happened, so spill."
"Nikki Wainscot came in here and she was none too happy," I said and gave her a rundown of what transpired.
"Do you really think she or Joyce had something to do with Susan’s murder?"
"I did at first. I mean, simply because they both had major beef with Susan."
Cynthia shook her head. "I can't believe Susan turned them in to child protective services as if they were abusing their kids by feeding them a vegan diet. Just crazy."
"I know. That's why I didn't at first think it was too far out there to think that they might have done something, but now I don't think they would have risked it. But get this. Nikki said that Dale was at her house the day Susan died," I said, looking at her, waiting for the shocked expression to cross her face as I knew it would.
She stopped what she was doing and just stared at me, and shook her head as if to clear out her ears. "You've got to be kidding me."
"Nope. Not kidding."
"Why on earth would Dale be at her house? You don't think they were…" she trailed off.
I shuddered. "No. And if I did have any doubts, Nikki made sure to clear that up. Nikki told me that Dale came over to apologize. Supposedly he felt bad for what Susan did and wanted Nikki to know."
"Doesn’t that seem weird? I mean, I don't know Susan and Dale except for her coming in here to get flowers or talk to your mom, but it seems kind of odd.”
"I agree."
"Wow, family dynamics. They'll get you every time."
As we went back to work putting together flower arrangements, I couldn't help but wonder about Dale. There was the extra life insurance, there was him apologizing to Nikki and Joyce, and he was at the Mi Casa with Susan’s sister. Though that made sense no matter if I felt a weird vibe. I wasn't sure after the last time he would be willing to talk to me again, but it sure seemed like a lot of things were pointing in his direction.
I put down the flowers that were in my hands and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I found Trevor's number and typed out a quick text.
"Has the sheriff said anything about potential suspects?"
I waited for a second, but I watched the little dots signal an inbound text was coming.
"No. He's being very closed-mouth about things."
"He hasn’t said anything about Dale?"
"Again, no. Why, you think Dale did it?"
"Not for sure. It is usually the spouse who is the first suspect and all that."
"True. I'll let you know if I hear anything."
"Thanks, Trevor."
I slid my phone back in my apron as Cynthia was finishing up an arrangement.
"You do such a good job."
"Thank you."
She walked over to the cooler to get more flowers while I put the finishing touches on what I was working on. I heard the door slam open, and I looked up to see Jenni rushing in, her face all flushed, her shoulder-length brown hair half-falling out of its ponytail.
I took a step toward her. "Jenni, are you okay?" I said, reaching her and touching her arm to try to provide some comfort.
"Someone destroyed all my flowers," she said and burst into tears.
Cynthia and I glanced at each other, and Cynthia jerked her head toward the back. I nodded. I put my arm around Jenni and started to guide her toward the back of the shop. I was sure the last thing she wanted was for customers to see her in this state.
"Let's go to the back," I said.
She nodded, letting me lead her to the door to the back and into the break room to take a seat.
"Can I get you a coffee, water, or we have Diet Coke and root beer?"
"Root beer would be great," she said.
I went to the small fridge and got a root beer for her and a Diet Coke for myself. Setting both down on the table, I sat across from her and popped the top on my can. "Now, do you want to tell me exactly what happened? You said someone destroyed all your flowers?"
"Yes," she said vehemently. "I ordered all the flowers for the arrangements I was entering the contest with, plus a few backups just in case. You know how sometimes you don't get good quality flowers."
I nodded. There was always a small percent of flaws for secondary flowers from each shipment, which we sold at a discount, but that wouldn't be acceptable for contest entry.
"Scott told me that I could keep everything I had delivered on site and put it right in the cooler in the barn instead of taking it home and having to transport it. The shipment came in yesterday and I unpacked it and put away, and then when I came back in today to start working on my arrangements, someone had opened the cooler and cut all my stems in half. Nothing is usable," she said and broke down crying again.
I was floored. What a horrible thing to happen.
"Do you have any idea who might have been in the barn? Does anyone else have access besides you and Scott?"
"Not normally. But people are already coming and starting to set up for the flower festival. Normally they can't do that until Thursday, but this year we didn't have an event on Tuesday or Wednesday, so when people have asked Scott, he just told them it's fine. Usually when we have an event, we do leave it unlocked so people can come and go as they please."
That seemed a bit of a risky move for a business. I was all for trusting people and all that, but the truth of the matter was you couldn't always trust people.
"Do you have any cameras or anything there?"
"Not down at the barn. We don't collect money down there and we’ve never had an issue before. We only have cameras up at the main house where the gift shop is and the café."
I guessed that somewhat made sense. Though it didn't help Jenni.
"Do you have any idea who could have done this?"
Jenni paused for a moment, and I had a feeling she wanted to say a name but for some reason was hesitant to.
"You can tell me. I won't say anything."
"Oh, I don't care if you do. It has to be Josie."
"Josie MacArthur?"
"Yes. She'll do anything to win."
Considering her attitude when she was in the store the other day, I could kind of see where Jenni was coming from, but still, there needed to be a reason why Josie would sabotage her. Maybe since Jenni had come in second the last few years? I almost had to smile. Clearly Cooper and Willie were rubbing off on me.
"Do you have any concrete reason that you think Josie would do anything to win?"
"Because that's who she is. She's always bragging about how great she is, but she is also not above sneaky tactics to win."
Now I was even more interested. "Do you have any examples?"
"Nothing I can prove. She is good at being sneaky, I'll give her that. Presley, what am I going to do?"
"Can you reorder the flowers?"
"I already called on my way here. My supplier is out; he doesn't have the quantities I need."
Now I understood why she’d come here. I had been a little surprised, since it wasn’t like we were friends or anything, but I realized she was probably hoping I could get her the flowers that she needed.
"Do you have a list of what you need? I can see what I can do."
Hope radiated across her face. "You would do that? Even though we’re competing against each other?"
"Of course. I don't care if we’re in competition. I wouldn’t want to win this way anyway," I said.
Jenni grabbed a list from her back pocket and handed it to me. I looked at the list, mentally calculating what we might have in stock, and if there was anything I didn’t have that could be ordered in time. Just because Jenni couldn’t get it didn’t mean I couldn’t. There were often different availabilities for wholesalers than retailers. As I went back to the storeroom to write down what we had before placing an order, I couldn't help but think about Josie. It looked like she was running neck in neck with Dale at the top of my suspect list.