Chapter 7

Around dinnertime, I swung home to feed Chester. Granted, Chester has dry food available to him twenty-four/seven—and it shows. But without regular supplements of canned cat food, he’ll do things like chew the bottom of my cabinet doors or put fang marks in my blinds. For some reason my landlord finds this annoying.

I poured out a half can of something that smelled like it washed up on the beach somewhere and grabbed a quick bowl of cereal for myself. I craved a shower before I headed back to the shop, but with Liv and company waiting for me, I settled for a quick change of clothing. I opted for more casual jeans and my neon green “Florists Rock” T-shirt. While we had plenty of work, there’d be no customers to impress. I was heading out the door, tossing a toy mouse in Chester’s direction to distract him and keep him from running out again, when the telephone rang.

“Hello?”

“Audrey? This is Jenny.”

I leaned down on the arm of the couch. “Jenny . . . how are you, hon?” I wasn’t sure where the “hon” came from. Maybe my subconscious mind was trying to sound sympathetic.

“Audrey, this is a nightmare. I’ve tried to call, and no one will . . .” Jenny completed the sentence with sobs instead of words.

“Jenny, calm down. I’m here.”

She began again. “I can’t talk long. I’m in jail. They say someone can bring by clean underwear and socks. But Mom hung up on me. And I can’t get through to Sarah at all.”

Sarah was Jenny’s roommate, one of the health club set.

“Would you like me to swing by your apartment and bring in some of your things?” Grandma Mae was always mortified by words such as “panty” and “bra,” always substituting the more-generic “things.” I guess I picked that up from her. Unmentionables should remain unmentioned.

“Yes, I mean . . .” Jenny sighed. “I guess the underwear and socks need to be new in an unopened package. But I would like someone to stop by the apartment. I’m worried about Sarah. She’s not answering her phone, and after what happened to Derek, I . . . Oh, Audrey, who would do such an awful thing? There must be some kind of nut job out there. What if he got Sarah, too?”

I pinched my eyes shut momentarily, trying to blink away the brashness of the request. What do you do when you’re worried about a crazed killer on the loose? Just call old Audrey, whom you haven’t talked to in months, and send her into the thick of it.

Of course I agreed to check on Sarah. There’s a fine line between a well-bred Southern lady and a sucker. And I’d never been very good at finding that line.

I got the size and brand information on her jail-acceptable “things,” glanced at the clock, and promised they’d be there in the morning.

“Jenny,” I said, tucking the paper in my pocket, “I wanted to ask you. What happened with Derek?”

“Audrey, I don’t know. The police said . . . But I was so groggy. Breaking up with Derek was probably the hardest thing I ever had to do. After Derek and I talked, I took a sleeping pill and went to bed. I just wanted to get everything out of my mind.”

“But the knife, Jenny. The knife that I gave you to practice with. What happened to it?”

“It was in the bag I took inside,” Jenny said. “I think . . . I don’t know. Everything is all blurry.”

I heard some voices in the background, and Jenny said, “I have to go. Good-bye.” And she hung up.

I called Liv and told her why I would be late. She understood. After all, Grandma Mae had taught her to be a Southern lady/sucker, too.

I swung by Jenny’s apartment first and knocked on the door. No answer. Nothing seemed amiss. No broken-in doors. No bloodcurdling screams. I tried not to look at the place Derek’s car would have been parked. But I couldn’t resist. Despite the tragic circumstances, it was nothing more than a parking space—empty, potholed. Only the remains of a police flare marked the scene.

I decided to try to check on Sarah again after purchasing Jenny’s things.

Ramble is known for the historic stone and brick shops that line Main Street—shops that now showcase antiques and collectibles. Some purposefully convoluted zoning laws kept chains out, for the most part, in favor of local mom-and-pop businesses. The occasional tourists, heading through for a peek at where Washington slept while doing his survey of the area—or where Civil War general Jubal Early stabled his horses—find them charming. Main Street is a great place to buy a scented candle, a knockoff butter churn, or stale fudge. And, of course, flowers. Underwear, not so much. So I headed out on the fifteen-minute drive to the Walmart in the next town over. The strip mall also boasted the nearest Chick-fil-A and Five Guys, so I made that trek often. Well, not quite a trek, more of a jaunt.

I found all of Jenny’s “things” in short order.

Okay, I also picked myself up a chicken sandwich and waffle fries.

I wiped my mouth with a napkin just as I pulled into Ramble town limits. Yes, I’d timed it to a science.

The lights were dark in Jenny’s apartment when I pulled up. A knock on the door, again, brought no answer.

A herd of flowerpot critters—you know, the googly-eyed animals made of painted clay flowerpots—stared up at me from the porch. Our shop carried a small selection, made by a local craftswoman. Jenny, I recalled, had once retrieved a spare key from under the frog. Or was it the pig? If she hadn’t moved it.

I tried both. And found it under the bunny. Pressing the key in the lock, I turned it and heard the click as the door unlocked.

“What are you doing?”

I whipped around to see Sarah Anderson. Actually, I whipped around to see no one, but found Sarah Anderson, all five foot two of her, when I happened to glance down. Sarah was the cover model for the “petite” entry in Webster’s. Not just short, she was thin and as cute as a proverbial button. Even now, when she was clearly returning from the gym in a tank and slim capri exercise pants. Her skin glistened and escaping tendrils of her blond hair caught every breeze.

Frankly, if I looked that cute after exercising, I might do it more often. My postexercise look was best described as a hot mess. And that was probably generous.

“I said, what are you doing?” Sarah’s voice was always soft and feminine, but it bore a bit of an edge at the moment.

“Oh, I . . .” I looked down at the key. “Jenny asked me to stop by.” Okay, Jenny asked me to check on her roommate, not break and enter into her apartment. “She worried when she couldn’t reach you.”

Sarah held out her hand and I dropped the key into it. She opened the door and I followed her in. “Jenny’s worried about me?”

“She said she tried to call but couldn’t reach you.”

Sarah went to the fridge and pulled out an apple. “She probably tried my cell phone. But I misplaced my charger after the police searched the place. Or maybe one of them wandered off with it.”

Of course the police would have searched Jenny’s apartment. I followed Sarah into the kitchen. The apartment floor plan was open, so I could see and talk to her from the front door, but I craved an opportunity to get a better look around.

Not much had changed since I’d last been in the apartment, cluttered and decorated in modern garage sale—mostly by Jenny, I thought. But that wasn’t what I was looking for.

“Sarah, were you home the other night when Jenny and Derek were here?”

While Sarah turned to the sink to mix some unappetizing green powder into water, I glanced around the room. The plastic shopping bag from the flower shop sat on the table next to a newspaper, a sticky cutting board, and a glass half full of water. Or was it half empty? The optimists and the pessimists could argue that later. Next to it were the pruning shears I’d lent Jenny. I could understand why the police hadn’t taken them—they had nothing to do with Derek’s death. Why they’d taken ours, I had no clue. Perhaps all the pollen flying in our shop just made Bixby cranky.

Sarah took a long draft of her green swill. “Not right away. When I got home from the gym, Jenny and Derek were in the living room talking. The conversation looked pretty intense, so I excused myself and took a long shower. When I came out, Derek was leaving.”

“No idea what they talked about?”

“Only what Jenny told me. That she and Derek broke up. She seemed pretty upset. I mean, who wouldn’t be?”

“So Derek left, and Jenny was still here? Did she go out after that?”

Sarah shook her head. “Jenny said she was tired and wanted to sleep. Said she wanted to forget this whole mess happened.”

“Sarah, were there flowers in the house when you came in?”

“Bixby asked me the same question. I honestly couldn’t tell you. When I walked in and saw Derek and Jenny and the expressions on their faces, I can’t say I made an inventory of the room. I just wanted to get out of there. When Jenny went to bed, it sounded like a great idea to me, too. Audrey, I’d like to say Jenny never left after that point, but a long day at the gym makes me bone tired. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.”

• • •

No one with a cat ever needs an alarm clock. Six was the absolute earliest I wanted to awaken, and an extra half hour (or two) after such a long night at the shop seemed more than reasonable.

Chester never got the memo. He circled me on the bed with the motor running. When I pulled the covers tighter to my ear, he proceeded to take what cat lovers call love nibbles. Yes, he bit me.

“All right.” I pushed the covers off and he raced to the kitchen. I considered closing the door and going back to sleep, but that would result in persistent paw scratching on the door until I opened it again—another cat habit my landlord was less than thrilled with.

I followed Chester to the kitchen, where he started weaving around my legs and yowling like only a true tomcat can. I refilled his dry food and water before giving him a half can of some rather surprisingly appetizing-looking beef nuggets in gravy.

After a quick shower, I rummaged up some clean working clothes, taking quick inventory in my closet to ensure I had enough to carry me through the next few hectic days. I then grabbed a dress for a bridal appointment later in the afternoon. And sighed.

My worst problems were a busy workday and a destructive cat. But Jenny was sitting in jail. And poor Derek was dead. I drew in a quick breath, exhaled it slowly, and determined I would have a good attitude. I owed it to our customers. And I owed it to Liv and our crew to set a good example. Besides, I could always collapse on Sunday.

After an invigorating two-block walk in the chilly April morning air, I beat everyone to the shop. I even put on a pot of coffee and powered up the radio before shuffling through the stack of funeral orders yet to be assembled.

When Liv arrived, a few minutes later than usual, she looked scary-pale. The only color in her face came from the dark circles under her eyes. I caught the whiff of ginger coming from her travel mug. She propped open the alleyway door to let in the cool air. We spent the next hour or so assembling the remaining orders. The blinking wall phone suggested there were more, but they would have to wait. The Rawlings had requested that their flower deliveries be made only before and after the hours they’d advertised for visitation. Any new arrangements wouldn’t go out until later in the afternoon anyway.

When our delivery team arrived, they loaded the van under Liv’s direction and then packed the remaining overflow into the CR-V we used for smaller deliveries. When I went to climb into the passenger seat, I found a basket arrangement neatly buckled in, instead.

“Should I strap myself to the hood?” I asked, a little more amused than irritated.

“No, the boys and I got this.” Liv buckled herself in.

I looked back at the crowded van and packed CR-V. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, positive. I’d rather keep you here with Amber Lee. And maybe there’s time to get Jenny’s things over to her before your consulting appointment.”

I glanced at my watch. “Sure I can spare the time?”

Liv rolled her eyes and then rolled up the windows before easing down the alley with her floral cargo.

Inside the shop, Amber Lee moved with amazing speed, filling the self-serve cooler and readying the shop for opening.

“So how did you like the Rawling place?” She wiped a few stray smudges from our glass counter.

“Quite a setup,” I said. “Ever been there?”

“Naw, been trying to get a tour of the place from a guy in my garden club. Says he works there. His name’s Worthington.”

“Worthington? The butler?” Aloe guy.

“He’s a butler? I thought he might be a gardener or something.”

“Do you know much about him?” I asked.

“Only that he lives on the estate in his own private cottage and that he likes to garden. He talks about plants and soil but little else. Should I try to find out more?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, how weird would it be if the butler did it? But I wonder what he might know about Derek’s death since he works with the Rawlings every day.”

“I’m on it.”

“Don’t go to any trouble.”

“No trouble at all.” She winked.

I picked up a peach rose discarded because its long stem had broken, then gathered a few more flowers and arranged them into an old-fashioned nosegay bouquet. The thought of going to the police department and possibly facing Bixby intimidated me a bit. But I had an ally there, one who might be able to smooth my way and supply me with a little extra information, and one who was very fond of nosegay bouquets.

• • •

“For me, Audrey?” Mrs. June cradled the small bouquet, then lifted it to her nose and inhaled, a look of sheer ecstasy filling her wrinkled face. “Sure beats smelling sweaty cops all day.” She opened her drawer, pulled out a glass bud vase, poured part of her bottled water into it, and set the flowers inside, placing them right next to the nameplate on her desk, which read “June Hoffman, receptionist.”

Mrs. June had been Grandma Mae’s next-door neighbor. Our grandmother had tried to coax us to address her as Miss June—as is the old Southern custom. But Mrs. June wouldn’t hear of it, claiming it made her sound too much like a centerfold model.

Mrs. June had also received a number of our childhood bouquets. And she’d reward us by telling us stories about the police department—tales of vagrants and counterfeiters and bootleggers that I now wondered if she didn’t get from old Jimmy Cagney movies and not real life. And stories that I doubted Grandma Mae knew about.

Now nearing the typical age of retirement, Mrs. June had outlasted several changes of administration at the Ramble Police Department. She was a rotund, jowly woman with poufy hair she kept dyed a rich “decadent mocha” (I’d seen the box), though it no longer appeared natural. A small pair of readers perched on the edge of her nose, and, like always, she’d dressed up her sweater with a chunky costume necklace and matching clip earrings that made her lobes droop low.

I leaned over and gave her a hug, sniffing in her familiar aroma consisting of a blend of the same perfume she’d worn ever since we met her, now mingled with Bengay. “How are you doing?”

“Hanging in there, kiddo, hanging in there. And thank you so much for the flowers.” Her arthritic fingers stroked the rose. “But I do suspect you’re here about Jenny.”

I reached into her candy dish and pulled out a Hershey’s Kiss. “I brought some things she asked me for and was hoping to visit with her . . . after you and I have a minute to catch up.” I flashed her a smile and sank into her visitor’s chair.

Mrs. June removed her readers and let them fall on the cord that hung around her neck.

“I can make sure Jenny gets her things, but I’m afraid the visit is not going to happen.”

“Isn’t she allowed visitors?” I asked. “Surely Bixby can’t stop people from—”

Mrs. June held up a hand and looked around the room before continuing.

The Ramble Police Department had an eclectic mix of furniture and fixtures. Not being a town given to extravagance, things were replaced when completely worn-out or obsolete, meaning the building was furnished with reminders of many eras. A wall-mounted pencil sharpener that looked like it dated from the early part of the previous century. Battered mustard yellow and avocado desks that screamed the 1970s and were almost in style again. Thankfully they’d removed the seventies paneling a couple of years back in favor of the natural historic brick. Of course, new computers and copy machines looked almost anachronistic against the older furnishings.

She leaned in and continued, softly, “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than blaming Bixby. But first of all, we don’t keep prisoners here. We don’t even have holding cells anymore. All prisoners are taken directly to the regional detention center.”

“Then I’ll go there. That’s, what, just ten minutes . . . ?”

Mrs. June shook her head. “It would be fruitless. My niece Brenda works there. Jenny is allowed visitors, but now she claims she doesn’t want them.”

“Doesn’t want . . . ? That just doesn’t make sense. Jenny called me.”

“I know. I know.” Mrs. June’s eyes took on that let-me-kiss-it-and-make-it-all-better expression. “But just between you and me—and I’m only saying this because I know she’s your friend—a lot of things she’s been saying and doing don’t make much sense. If I didn’t know better . . .”

“What?”

“Well, it’s just that . . . when she got here, she fell asleep in the interview room twice. Now, according to Brenda, she spends much of the time pacing her cell. And she’s not eating.”

“Stress? And I know she’s counted calories for a few years now.”

“But her meals are mostly untouched. It’s almost like . . .” Mrs. June trailed off and waited. A dramatic pause. She certainly demonstrated a love for the dramatic, but I was too tired to carry out this guessing game much longer.

“Like?”

“Audrey, I’ve been doing this job for a long time, and I’ve seen suspects come and go—not all the time, mind you. But even in Ramble it happens. And back when we used to hold our own prisoners, I saw all kinds of reactions to the stress of being locked up. But this kind of reaction? I’ve seen it before.”

Another dramatic pause. Mrs. June was a shoo-in for the Ramble Drama Guild. I waited this one out.

“And you know her pretty well. Could she have been—I hate to say it—doing drugs of some kind? Because it almost seems like she’s suffering some kind of withdrawal.”

I stood and did some pacing of my own. A few years ago, I would have sworn that Jenny could never be involved in drugs. But did I know the new Jenny? I knew that some women take illegal drugs to help them lose weight. Did I know for certain she hadn’t been involved in drugs? Or hadn’t killed Derek, for that matter? Could people change that much over such a short period of time? “You know, Jenny told me she had taken a sleeping pill. Could that have done it?”

“It’d have to be a pretty powerful sleep aid.”

“You mention your drug theory to Bixby?” I asked.

“He saw everything I saw. But I certainly don’t have to draw any conclusions for him.”

“Good. If Bixby thought she’d been on drugs, that would give him all the more reason to suspect her guilt.”

“I wish I could get her regular doctor to go see her, but there’s no other sign that she’s sick. I think she’d be much better off in a hospital.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Maybe ask around. See if anyone knows what she was taking. Perhaps then we’d know how to help her. Our guys didn’t find any drugs in her apartment during the search. Meanwhile, I’d pray for the little thing. Brenda said that she seemed so lost, you know what I mean.”

“Will do, Mrs. June. I guess I’ll run these by the regional center anyway.” I lifted the Walmart bag.

“Actually, you can leave these things here with me. Lafferty has to run a drunk-and-disorderly over in a few minutes. He can take them with him.”

She reached out for the bag, then looked through the items. “I’ll make sure they clear these to her right away. Perhaps that would help her mood a bit. And I’ll keep asking Brenda about a visit. Maybe she can work on Jenny to let you go out and see her. If she agrees, I’ll call you.”

“Thanks.” I sat silently in the chair for a moment, wondering if I should ask the next question. I loved Mrs. June and wouldn’t want to needle her for a favor that made her uncomfortable or to do anything to compromise her employment status.

“You’ve got something else on your mind, Audrey.”

“I think Bixby’s dead wrong on this one.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” It wasn’t that Mrs. June held Bixby in disdain because of any particular incompetence. But I knew she idolized a longtime chief of police who had served several administrations ago—her father—and no one had measured up since. At least in her eyes.

My gaze traveled to the wall, to the framed oil painting of her father in uniform. “I also don’t think he’s going to look for anyone else while Jenny’s in custody.”

“What are you getting at?”

“She needs help.”

“She has a public defender, but I heard she barely said two words to her. Helping that child is not going to be easy.”

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on her desk and my chin on my tented fingers. “Mrs. June, are you privy to information on the case?”

She glanced to the empty desks behind her but leaned in closer anyway. “I might be. After all, someone needs to make sure case reports are legible, filed correctly, and photocopied. I guess it would depend on what you were after.”

“I’m trying to understand what happened after Jenny left the flower shop. I know she had the knife and the bouquet when she left. And that looks bad—she and Derek in the car with the bouquet and the knife. If they had a violent argument there, it’s everything in one tidy package—means, motive, opportunity. But they didn’t break up in Derek’s car. Jenny’s roommate said Jenny and Derek were talking in the apartment—that Derek left and Jenny went to bed. I guess I’d like to know more about the crime scene and what Bixby found in the car.”

Mrs. June wheeled on her chair to a credenza behind her desk and sifted through a number of folders before wheeling back toward me.

“I won’t show you the crime scene photographs,” she said. “They’re pretty gruesome. But there’s an inventory sheet here of everything found in the car. And a report describing the scene. I shouldn’t show you that, either, though.”

“Okay, don’t show it to me. But they found a bouquet in the car, right?”

“Yes, or rather, the remnants of one. It looked like it was tore up pretty good. Petals everywhere.”

“That doesn’t make sense to me. Who would vent their rage against flowers? Except maybe a displeased bridezilla or two I may have encountered over the years.”

“Or maybe a bride who just called off her engagement.”

“Oh, that doesn’t look good for Jenny, does it?”

“The weird thing was that someone tore it up after Derek was murdered. But not long after.”

“How could they tell that?”

“There was blood underneath the petals, like they were tossed on top of Derek’s body—and on the stems where the killer grasped them.”

“The killer’s hands must have been covered in blood, then. How could he get away without being seen?”

“That’s why Jenny is a prime suspect. The theory is that after her roommate went to bed, Jenny sneaked out and killed Derek—who was still in the car in front of her place, for some reason. Then she went straight back into the apartment, changed, cleaned up, disposed of the incriminating clothing, bleached everything, then went to sleep and waited for the police to show up, thinking that her roommate could alibi her.”

“But that’s idiotic.”

Mrs. June gave a halfhearted nod. “Nevertheless, that’s the working theory.”

“Did they find anything in the apartment to corroborate that?”

“No bloody path leading to Jenny’s bedroom door, if that’s what you mean. And no bloody clothes. Only recent evidence of bleach in the tub and on the floor. And a suspicious spot they cut out of the rug and sent off to the state lab for testing. But there’s no law against cleaning with bleach, or all of our grandmothers would have ended up in the clink years ago.”

“The thing that I don’t understand, though, is . . . the knife being in the car.”

“Oh, Audrey, dear. I can understand that would be disconcerting, since you gave it to Jenny. But you can’t blame yourself.”

“I don’t.” At least I hadn’t until Mrs. June suggested it. “But I gave Jenny a bag full of tools and a bouquet. The bag is in her apartment; the shears are in the apartment. How did the bouquet and knife end up in the car if Jenny is not the killer?”

Mrs. June’s brows furrowed before she leafed through her file again, licking her fingers to help her turn pages. “Audrey, did you give her a roll of green florist’s tape?”

“Yes, but I don’t recall seeing it in the apartment.”

“It’s on the inventory list of items found in the car.”

Shortly after, I exited the brick government building back onto Ramble’s sunny Main Street. I was still shaking my head. Even if I had read Jenny all wrong, and she had gone back out to kill Derek after Sarah went to bed, why would she take the bouquet? And why in the world would she take the florist’s tape?