Nightshade on Elm Street: A Flower Shop Mystery (7 page)

I
t was at least three seconds before either one of us had the wherewithal to respond.

“Let me make sure I understand,” Marco said, leaning toward them. I could tell by his expression that every brain cell in his head was at attention. “You’re stating that Pryce is responsible for Melissa’s disappearance?”

Orabell nodded vigorously.

“Would you clarify what you mean by that?” Marco asked.

I was practically on the edge of my chair.

“To start with,” Orabell said in a hushed voice, glancing toward the doorway as though to be sure Pryce hadn’t sneaked up on us, “he and Melissa had the most dreadful argument on Friday evening. We could hear them quite clearly from our porch. It runs along the front and side of our house facing this one, you see.

“Well, by the time Pryce was finished with her,” Orabell continued, “Melissa was weeping uncontrollably. Then Claymore and Jillian pulled up, and the weeping stopped immediately. We assume Melissa went inside to compose herself.”

“Did you hear what they were arguing about?” I asked, my pen at the ready.

“I caught only snatches,” Orabell said, “and that mostly from Melissa, as her voice tends to be on the strident side when raised.”

“Can’t be of much help on this, I’m afraid,” Halston said, tugging one earlobe. “Hearing isn’t what it used to be.”

“Would you share what Melissa said?” I asked Orabell.

“I can’t believe you would do this to me,” she said.

I was taken aback by the woman’s sudden change of attitude. “It’s just part of the interview process.”

Orabell smiled. “No, darling, those were Melissa’s words. ‘How can I show my face in town? This will ruin me.’ She was referring to their breakup.”

“Their breakup?” I repeated.

“You didn’t know?” Orabell asked. “Pryce called off their engagement.”

I was shocked—and yet I wasn’t, or shouldn’t have been, since he’d done it to me. Why hadn’t Pryce told us that up front?

Or had he? I recalled our first conversation, when he’d said,
Did you know that
I’d planned to marry Melissa?
I hadn’t caught it at the time, but now the use of past tense made sense.

“I’m saving the best for last,” Orabell said eagerly. Her eyes sparkled as she whispered, “‘You will pay for this.’”

“She threatened Pryce?” I asked.

“Yes, indeed,” Orabell said, as if this were the most delicious gossip to hit the Midwest in decades. “And two days later”—Orabell snapped her fingers—“she vanished.”

I’d wanted to vanish, too, after Pryce had dumped me. And, boy, had I wanted to make him pay. But for Pryce
to have taken action against me because of that? I couldn’t see it happening.

While I scribbled notes, Marco said to Orabell, “Are you certain of what you heard?”

“Yes, darling. My eyesight is horrible, but I have excellent hearing.”

“That she does,” Halston said drily, his teeth clenched even tighter than before.

“Abby and I will be here this evening around five thirty to conduct more thorough interviews,” Marco said. “Will you make yourselves available?”

“We will for you, dear boy,” Orabell said, rising. “Not here, though. You must join us for after-dinner cocktails in our home.”

“Thanks for the offer, but we don’t drink while we’re working a case,” Marco said.

“That won’t stop us from enjoying them,” Halston said, then guffawed.

“When you’ve finished talking to the others, trot across the beach to our humble abode,” Orabell called as they left the room. “We’ll be on the patio around back.”

I heard Pryce say good-bye to the Burches; then he strode into the room accompanied by a blond-haired man in a navy tank top, low-slung white linen drawstring pants, and brown flip-flops. The man, who I assumed was Jake, appeared to be about my age, twenty-seven, and by the way he carried himself, I could see why Jillian poked fun at him. Even now, as Jake stood in front of me, he had locked his fingers together, turning his palms face out, and was stretching his arms to flex his muscles.

“Jake Caldwell,” Pryce said, as Marco rose to meet him, “this is private detective Marco Salvare and his assistant, Abigail Knight. Jake, I’ll leave you to talk to them. I have a business call to make.”

“Dude,” Jake said, sizing Marco up, “a for-real PI?”

“For real,” Marco said.

“Awesome.” Then, with a smile that revealed deep-set dimples, Jake gave me a leisurely once-over, returning to focus on my breasts. “Pleasure to meet you,” he said.

I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes at him. “Likewise.”
He wished.

“So is it true redheads have red-hot tempers?” he asked with a side curl of his upper lip.

“Yep,” I said, “and a fast right hook.”

Jake elbowed Marco. “Bet she’s a wild one in the sack.”

“She’s my fiancée,” Marco said with a deadpan expression.

Instead of taking the comment as an attitude correction, Jake raised his hand for a high five. Marco pulled out his iPhone to check his calendar instead. “When would it be convenient for us to meet with you and your wife?”

Jake scratched his head, as though that was what he’d intended to do all along. “Oh, right. You’re here about Melissa. What time would be convenient for Lily and me? I don’t know. How’s ten o’clock tonight look?”

“Here?” Marco asked.

“Better make it at Beached. That’s where Lily usually is.”

Marco tapped it into his phone. “We’ll see you there.”

We were on our way out the front door when I heard my cousin call from up the center hallway, “Wait!” She was breathless by the time she caught up to us. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” I said. “All we did was schedule interview times for this evening.”

Marco pulled out his phone and opened the calendar
application. “Would you and Clay…
more
be able to get here by six o’clock?”

Instead of replying, Jillian hooked her hands through our arms and stepped outside with us. “Here’s a better idea. Let’s meet up at your bar after you’ve talked to everyone else so you can share their answers with me.”

“You know we can’t do that,” I said.

She made her
pfft
sound again. “You could if you wanted to.”

“In what world do private investigators share their information with outsiders, Jillian?”

She put one hand on her waist. “So you’re pulling the anti-professional excuse?”

“It’s
un
professional,” I snapped. “Yes, Marco, I know my teeth are clenched, but can you blame me?”

“Calm down,” Marco said, rubbing my shoulders. “What we find out is confidential, Jillian. By law, we can’t divulge anything or I’ll risk losing my license.”

Jillian glanced over her shoulder, then whispered, “But I
know
these people, Marco. I can help you. I’ll be able to spot their lies.”

“We’ll meet you here at six for your interview,” Marco said.

“Thank you, Marco.” Apparently believing Marco had capitulated, she gave me a smirk and went back inside.

“Is it any wonder that I grind my teeth at night?” I asked, as we walked to his car.

“Try humoring her, Sunshine. You know what Grace always says. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

“I refuse to humor someone who makes up stupid words.”

Marco opened the passenger-side door for me. “Will you humor someone who is crazy about you?”

My scowl left in a hurry.
That
sounded like an invitation for something yummy. “Always. Just name it, Salvare.”

“Good. Then let’s review your notes on the ride home.”

“What do we have so far?” Marco asked, as he backed out of the driveway.

As soon as I was buckled in, I took out the notepad and flipped to the first page.

“I’ll read everything I took down, and then we can go back over it. Okay, here goes.

“Pryce and Melissa had an argument before the other guests arrived, as witnessed by the Burches, who heard Melissa threaten him. Or rather Orabell heard her, because Halston seems to have a hearing problem.

“Jillian and Claymore noticed that Melissa was upset when they arrived, and later that she tried to hide it by being super friendly. I also noted that after Jillian made a comment about Lily’s tardiness, Pryce was very quick to jump to Lily’s defense, which makes me wonder if there’s something going on between Pryce and Lily.”

“Because he defended her?”

“Remember, this is Pryce we’re talking about. He wouldn’t jump to anyone’s defense unless he genuinely cared about that person…or was hired to do so.”

Which explained why he hadn’t rushed to my defense when his parents attacked me.

“We’ll have to dig deeper there,” Marco said. “Go ahead.”

“Okay, next up is the Burches. They seem nice but verge on snobbishness. Maybe that’s because they don’t open their mouths when they speak, like they have lockjaw. Anyway, I agree with them that Pryce has some accountability for Melissa’s disappearance, but I don’t
think he did anything sinister to her, which is what I thought Orabell was implying.”

“What about the scene they witnessed?”

“Well, if it’s true that Pryce broke off his engagement on Friday evening, then I feel even more strongly that Melissa’s gone MIA to lick her wounds and possibly to punish him by making him worry. I still don’t understand why Pryce wasn’t up front with us about their split.”

“Sunshine, think about it. Would you really expect him to announce to you that he broke another engagement?”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Take the probably out of it.”

“Okay, Mr.
Right
. Shall I continue?”

“Could I stop you?”

“Nope. But lucky for you, we have only one person left—Jake, who struck me as a player, and not a bright one. But we didn’t get to talk to him for long, so I could be wrong. How about you?”

“I wasn’t impressed with Jake, but maybe he’ll grow on us.”

An image popped into my head as I took out my cell phone to check for messages, making me laugh.

“What?” Marco asked.

“When you said ‘maybe he’ll grow on us,’ the first thing that came to mind was a toadstool.”

“A toadstool?”

“Toadstools grow by absorbing matter from their host. They’re a fungus.”

“And Jake’s a toadstool because he lives off of Lily’s money?”

“Correct. Also because toadstools look harmless but can be quite deadly.”

“Is that a gut feeling about Jake?”

“No, my gut is telling me that if we’re leaving at five
o’clock to come back out here for the evening, we should stop for a light meal on our way.”

“How about if I bring roast beef and cheddar sandwiches from the bar?”

“Marco, have you ever known me to turn down an offer of good food?”

“I’ll pack the sandwiches in the cooler.”

Back at Bloomers, Marco’s mom, Francesca Salvare, was playing hostess in the coffee and tea parlor while Lottie took care of the shop and Grace was at lunch. Francesca had started helping out back in June, when a murder involving Grace as a suspect had Marco and me working nearly around the clock to clear her.

Marco’s mom was a cheerful, energetic woman who didn’t know the meaning of relaxation. All her energy had worked in our favor when we were shorthanded, but after things settled down, I wasn’t able to convince her to stay away. I didn’t mind Lottie in the workroom with me, but three was definitely a crowd. I just didn’t have the heart to tell Francesca.

What had consoled me in the past was knowing that she was going back to her home in Ohio. But had she gone? Nope. She had opted to stay in New Chapel instead,
purportedly
to babysit for her grandchildren. I knew it was really to oversee my bridal shower and wedding preparations as well as Marco’s life. She hadn’t exactly hidden her feelings on either subject.

Francesca currently resided with Marco’s sister Gina, who had a toddler and a newborn, and a guest suite in her basement that was neither too hot nor too cold but just right for Mama Bear. That had been a relief for Marco, because his mom had been staying at his apartment. He still had the occasional nightmare about those weeks.

“Abby,
bella
!” Francesca cried upon seeing me enter the shop. With arms outstretched, she beckoned me to her and enfolded me in a hug. Then she gripped my arms so she could lean back and size me up. “Have you eaten lunch today? You look washed-out. Your freckles are jumping off your face. Come, I brought a pan of mostaccioli Bolognese fresh from the oven. It will make everything better.”

Taking my hand, she led me through the purple curtain, through the workroom, and into the tiny galley kitchen in back, where she sat me on a tall wooden stool at the narrow bar along the wall and opened our small refrigerator, pulling out a baking dish covered with aluminum foil. “Do you have a serving spoon?”

“It’s in the drawer. I’ll find it for you.”

I started to hop down, but she wasn’t having it. “Sit, sit! You’ve had a busy morning.”

So I sat as she dug through our cluttered kitchen drawer.

Francesca was in her mid-fifties but had the vibrancy, hourglass shape, and smooth skin of a woman much younger. Her eyes were dark brown and crinkled at the corners like Marco’s, with dark brown arched brows and thick black lashes. Her gloriously full-bodied dark hair waved around her face and onto the tops of her shoulders. Her white silk shirt, paired with multiple silver chains and flowy black slacks, was impossibly clean for her having just made a dish with red sauce in it.