A Rose From the Dead (22 page)

“
Pffft.
Of course I’m positive. I’m always positive. Positive outlook, positive approach to life, positive ions—”

“It’s in a shopping bag under the table at your booth. I told Lottie to watch it for me.”

If only I had known that thirty seconds ago. “Great. I’ll take care of it.”

“Aren’t you going to ask for Crawford’s business card so you can call him?”

“That was my very next question.”

Giving me a skeptical glance, Marco stood up and pulled Crawford’s card from his pocket, holding it just out of my reach. “Abby, if you’re planning anything, I want to know about it right now.”

Planning. Hmm. There had to be a way around that.
“Marco, the only thing I’m planning to do is pack up the booth.”

Still giving me a skeptical glance, he handed me the card, then leaned down to press a kiss on my cheek. “See you later.”

I smiled at him. And then I started plotting.

A
s soon as Marco was gone, I swallowed the rest of my coffee, then headed for my booth, where I was surprised to see that Max had returned and was helping Lottie pack up. At the Music of the Soul booth across the aisle, Angelique was seated at her harp with her eyes closed, playing a melody that sounded slightly familiar, but not enough to identify it. That was possibly due to the annoying way in which she played it—a rapid cascade of notes followed by a long pause followed by another cascade, then another pause…almost like a person tumbling down a flight of stairs, hitting the landing, then tumbling down again, from the forty-third floor of a skyscraper. That last flight of steps couldn’t come any too soon.

When Max caught sight of me, he strode toward me and put his arms around my shoulders. “Thank you, Abby. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” I muttered against his shirt front.

He stepped back, smiling broadly. “Lottie told us how hard you and Marco have been working to help Delilah. Whatever you did, it worked, and I can’t even begin to express our gratitude. You were our guardian angels.”

“We were very glad to be of help,” I told him. No sense spoiling the mood by divulging that it hadn’t been our snooping that had done the trick. I liked the idea of being angelic.

“Anyone want coffee?” Max asked. “My treat.”

Lottie waved her hand like a woman going under for the last time, but I turned down the offer. I’d had enough caffeine for a while. I went into the booth and crouched down behind the table to peek inside the shopping bag Marco had left. Yep, the envelope was still there, and the DVD, bankbook, and black cassette were inside. Leaving the package in the shopping bag for the time being, I stood up. “Max, you don’t happen to have an old Beta tape player tucked away at home, do you?”

“Sorry. We got rid of that a decade ago. The camera shop in town might have one, but they won’t be open until tomorrow morning.”

“That won’t work. I need it now.”

“What about asking the people at the
Make It Easy
set?” Lottie asked as she took a seat at the table and removed one of her pink leather flats, bending down to rub the bunion on her foot. “Didn’t Chet Sunday do a show this morning on transferring old photos and tapes?”

Duh
. How had I forgotten that?

Lottie bent down to tug the offending shoe back over her foot. “What do you need it for?”

Time for a diversionary tactic, since Sybil’s tape was another thing I didn’t want Grace to know about. Pretending not to hear her, I walked into the aisle and looked in both directions. “Isn’t Grace back yet?”

“I haven’t heard from her since she said she was going to do some more research. And of course the stubborn woman refuses to carry a cell phone, so there’s no way to track her down.”

At that, the harp music stopped abruptly and Angelique came swirling toward us, stopping a few feet away to strike a ballet pose, arms forming an oval above her head, balancing on one foot with the other tucked under her like an albino flamingo.
“Dolce et con affetto,”
she said in her paper-thin voice.

Lottie sat up and said crossly, “Would you mind translating for us mortals?”

Angelique came down on both feet, her arms flapping at her sides, as if someone had just let out all her air. She threw Lottie a chilly glance. “Grace has gone with her friend Walker.”

“Where?” Lottie asked.

“Grace didn’t volunteer that information, nor did I ask,” was her flippant reply, as she glided back to her booth and resumed her seat before her golden instrument.

Lottie pushed back her sleeves and stood up, as though she were fully prepared to thrash the hapless harpist. “Is Jolly Roger implying there’s something going on between Grace and the colonel?”

My diversionary tactic had worked too well. “I don’t think that’s what she meant. Angelique likes Grace. She wouldn’t spread malicious gossip about her.”

“Then why can’t she just say what she means?” Casting a glower in Angelique’s direction, Lottie sat down again, grumbling, “
Dolce et con affetto
, my sweet a—”

“I can translate.” Handing Lottie a cardboard cup, Max said, “It’s been a long time since I played an instrument, but if I remember,
dolce
means
sweetly
and
con affetto
means
with affection.
”

“See?” I said to Lottie. “Nothing malicious in that.” I held my hand alongside my face so Lottie wouldn’t see me mouth, “Thanks, Max.”

“Now, if you ladies will excuse me, “Max said, “I’m going out to the loading docks to see if I can reserve a time slot for you. It’ll be easier to load your van from there instead of carrying everything across the parking lot. I’ll be back soon.”

“Thanks again,” I called.

Lottie waited for Max to leave, then said to me, “Sweetly, with affection? So what is Angelique saying? That Grace and the colonel are sweet on each other?”

“I’m sure what Angelique means is that the colonel is sweet on Grace. Remember Grace’s plan was to flirt with him to get information? Well, obviously it worked.” When had I suddenly become an expert on Angelique’s intentions?

“That’d better be what she meant,” Lottie said with a huff.

An announcement over the PA system interrupted our conversation: “There will be a closing cocktail hour at five o’clock in the hotel lounge. Appetizers and aperitifs will be served. And don’t forget to pick up your souvenir bag before you leave.”

A cocktail hour? That would give me a little breathing room, since it was almost four o’clock.

“What the heck kind of souvenirs do a group of morticians hand out?” Lottie asked.

Across the aisle, the harp went silent as Angelique suddenly covered her face and burst into noisy tears. I could see her shoulders trembling.

“That is one strange woman,” Lottie said, shaking her head. “I don’t know whether to wring her scrawny neck or gather her up in my arms and rock her like a baby. Maybe I should go over and see if I can help.”

“Why don’t you let me do that? I need to talk to her anyway.”

I walked across the aisle and stood at the end of her harp. “Angelique,” I said softly, “are you all right?”

Sniffling, she quickly wiped away her tears with the backs of her hands. “I’m fine. What do you want?”

“I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

“Then sit on a stool, please. My neck will hurt if I have to keep looking up.”

I’d have to be standing on stilts for that to happen. But I was all about humoring her, so I pulled up a short, black padded stool and perched on it. “Remember the poem about the rose petals you recited to me yesterday evening?”

She began to strum the harp strings. “I’ve set it to music. Would you like to hear it?”

Um…no.
But figuring it might be the only way to win her cooperation, I nodded enthusiastically.

She seemed pleased and began to play, singing along in a high, reedy voice, “Roses are red and violets are blue-ew-ew-ew. Find the petals and a killer, too-ew-ew-ew.” She quieted the strings, then put her hands in her lap and looked at me, clearly waiting for some words of praise.

It was one of those awkward moments that called for a quick decision. Did I boldly plunge forward with the truth and possibly ruin any chance I had of getting her cooperation?
“Angelique, on a scale of one to ten, the poem would rank a one, tops, because frankly it stunk. And neither the verse nor the melody are original because I’ve heard variations of both before.”

Or did I go with my other option—the little white lie? Cowardly, yes, but guaranteed to leave us both happier than the truth would.

Answer: “That was amazingly
dolce
, Angelique!”

She gave me a tired sigh, as though I could have done better, then began to absently strum the strings with her right hand. “Why did you ask about the poem?”

“Because I wondered how you knew the killer would have the rose petals.”

“It told me so.”

“
It
being…?”

“The petal I found outside the storage room. Its spirit spoke to me.”

A talking rose petal. I had no comeback for that. Bloomers’s blossoms had never so much as whispered to me. Maybe my floral knife had intimidated them. Or, as Grace might say, maybe I just hadn’t listened. “Where did you get the tune? Did the petal sing, too?”

“If it had
sung,
I would have told you so,” she fairly hissed. “The melody came from”—she waved a thin hand in the air—“far, far away.”

“How far?”

“I wasn’t actually thinking about what I was hearing, because that was when I found the petal”—Angelique paused as her lower lip began to quiver—“and then I found Sybil, and that’s when I realized that whoever had met her in that room had taken the rest of the flower with him.” At that she covered her face and began to sob. “If only I could have saved her.”

I wasn’t sure whether I should attempt a hug or just let her cry, so I glanced across the aisle at Lottie for help and she gave me a questioning glance, as if to ask,
“What did you do to her?”

I shrugged, then made a motion with my arms to show hugging, then I pointed toward Angelique. Lottie shook her head. Whew. A few consoling words and I was off the hook. “Don’t blame yourself for Sybil’s death, Angelique. Help me find her killer instead.”

She peered up at me with swollen, red-rimmed eyes. “How?”

“What do you remember when you came through the exhibition hall yesterday evening?”

She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose. “I’ve already gone over everything with Grace.”

“She has a bad memory. You’d better give it to me again.”
Forgive me, Grace.

“Okay,” she said reluctantly, then closed her eyes to concentrate. “I remember that the big overhead lights had been dimmed…and the whole room felt very desolate. I didn’t see anyone around, not even when I turned the corner into the back hallway. That was when I saw the rose petal and picked it up.”

“When did you hear the melody?”

She stared at the floor, her brow wrinkling in thought. “Right before I turned the corner.”

“But you didn’t see anyone in the hallway?”

“No. I felt an icy chill though, like dead souls swirling all around me.”

Or maybe she’d felt a rush of air when the killer opened the back door. “Play the tune for me again, please.”

She obliged, but all those cascading notes were too distracting.

“Would you like to see the petal?” she asked.

Without waiting for my answer, Angelique rose in a fluid motion and glided over to a three-tiered stand at the back of her booth, where she had a stack of CDs in plastic cases. She pulled a case from the bottom and brought it back to show me. Through the clear plastic I saw a single rose petal, identical to the ones now in my own pocket.

“Listen,” she whispered, holding it against my ear.

I listened for several seconds but heard nothing, not even the ocean. “Sorry, it’s not talking to me.”

Giving me an annoyed glance, Angelique put the case back, then went to sit at her harp, her delicate fingers strumming the strings as tears continued to course down her white cheeks. My phone began to vibrate, so I excused myself and slipped away to answer it.

“Abby, dear,” Grace said in a quiet voice, “would you be good enough to join me in Walker’s suite? We’re in room four sixty-two on the fourth floor. I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

There was an expectant tone in her voice that made my pulse beat faster. “Is everything all right, Grace?”

“Everything is fine. But will you hurry, please? Walker is ready to confess.”

“T
he colonel did it?” I blurted, but Grace had already hung up. I stood there with the phone pressed to my ear, too stunned to move. Grace had solved the case—damn it.

“Don’t that beat all,” Lottie said with a laugh after I’d told her. Then she saw my face and donned a serious expression. “Take Marco with you. It might be dangerous up there.”

Dangerous? The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. Grace was alone with a murderer, and I was thinking solely of my wounded pride. That snapped me out of my funk. “Marco went back to New Chapel,” I called, starting up the aisle. “I’ll phone him on my way.”

I did a speed walk up the aisle, turned the corner, and cut past aisle one, where I could see Chet Sunday onstage with a reporter taping an interview in front of an audience. Serpent Sue was there, too, front and center, in an aqua cashmere sweater.

As I dashed up the main hallway, I noticed that the coffin–phone booth had been taken away. Good riddance, I thought with a shudder, pulling out my cell phone. I hit speed dial number two and headed up the connecting ramp and into the hotel lobby, waiting for Marco to pick up. When the call went to his voice mail, I left a brief message, then stepped onto the elevator. I got off at the fourth floor, read the brass sign so I’d know in which direction to go, then raced up the long hallway on the left, watching the door numbers until I found the colonel’s suite. I pressed my ear against the door but didn’t hear anything, so I knocked quickly and said, “It’s me, Grace.”

“Come in, dear. It’s open.”

I stepped into a suite that was identical to Sybil’s. Inside, I found Grace seated on a beige sofa beside the colonel. Both of them were calmly sipping tea, as though confessing to murder was an everyday occurrence. It was totally surreal.

“Abby,” Grace said, rising, “have a seat. I’ve already poured your cuppa.”

I sat in a chair adjacent to the sofa and accepted the cup. Grace sat down beside the colonel, who kept his cup to his lips and his gaze lowered. His normally florid face appeared ashen, except for two spots of color high on his cheekbones.

“Walker and I had a long chat this afternoon,” Grace began, “and after much soul-searching he’s decided to clear his conscience. He’s simply too honorable a man to keep such a troubling matter to himself any longer. This became all the more evident when I explained how vital this information was to your investigation.”

So now we were back to
my
investigation instead of
our
investigation. Grace must have decided she’d had enough of playing detective.

“First I need your word, Abby, that this will go no farther than to Marco. I want Walker treated as if he were one of Marco’s PI clients.”

The colonel was about to confess to murder and I was supposed to keep it to myself? “But, Grace, this is—”

She held up her hand. “It will be up to Walker what happens next.” Patting the colonel’s hand in a maternal way, she said, “There’s nothing to do now but get on with it, love.”

He gave her a fond smile. “Thank you, Grace. You’ve made this much easier for me.”

“You’re a good man, Walker,” Grace said. “Never doubt that. We’ve all made mistakes that we regret.”

I wouldn’t have classified shutting someone in a coffin as merely a mistake, yet I couldn’t help but admire how Grace had established a deep bond of trust with the colonel in just a few hours. He darted a glance my way as he took out a handkerchief to mop his sweating face, and I noticed then that his eyes were bloodshot and red rimmed, as though he’d been either swigging down the booze or fighting back tears.

In a very dignified manner, he set his cup and saucer on the coffee table and rose, walking to the window to stare outside, his back erect and his hands clasped behind him in a military posture. After a moment he sighed heavily, and keeping his back toward us, began to speak.

“Thaddeus Blount and I opened our funeral home in an old Victorian house that we’d borrowed every dime to buy, but once we’d set up business, we had very little money to spend on advertising. As a way to draw customers, we came up with the idea of offering free cremations for veterans in the hope that we would get return business from the soldiers’ families. We went to the VA hospital to spread word of our offer, and it worked after a fashion. But we didn’t make much money, so to keep from going bankrupt we”—he paused to take a breath and let it out, as though building strength to finish—“sold cadavers to medical schools.”

“Question,” I said, as that tiny part of my brain that retained traces of legal knowledge kicked in. “These cadavers, were they your—um—clients?”

With his head bowed, the colonel nodded.

“Did the clients’ families give you permission to sell their bodies?”

He hesitated, then slowly shook his head.

Wow. No wonder he wanted that kept quiet. The lawsuits alone would destroy him. “Did you bury empty caskets?”

“No,” he said forcefully, “we never sold bodies tagged for burial, only those to be cremated.”

“So what did you put in the urns?”

“Chicken-bone ash.”

I glanced at Grace in astonishment, but she only put her fingertip to her lips to warn me to keep quiet. So
that
was the secret Billingsworth and Blount had shared. Not only had they sold cadavers, but then they’d duped the families with chicken-bone ash. If that wasn’t fraud, I didn’t know the law. Come to think of it—well, never mind. An image of Marco’s aunt carefully dusting around that urn on her coffee table came to mind. Marco would be furious when he found out.

The colonel continued, “We weren’t proud of what we did, believe me, and as soon as we could, we stopped, and never spoke of it again. I’d managed to put it out of my mind entirely until Sybil came to me after Thad died. She told me my old friend had left me a taped message, which I found very touching—until she played it for me. You can imagine my shock when Sybil demanded money to keep it quiet.”

He stopped to wipe his brow again. “I tried to convince her that the scandal would damage the good name of Blount along with mine, but she didn’t care, and I knew Sybil well enough to take her threat seriously. What else could I have done? I would have disgraced my wife, who has stood by me all these years, and my sons’ reputations would also be tainted. You can imagine my turmoil. So I started meeting her demands, even though paying a sum that large was depleting my life savings. Thad and I had made a good living on the funeral home, but I wasn’t wealthy by any means. If I had continued to pay her, my funds would have been gone within fifteen months, and I simply couldn’t let her do that to me.”

He dropped his head into his hands and muttered, “I just couldn’t let her do it.”

I was about to ask him a question when Grace mouthed, “Wait.”

Finally, the colonel raised his head, distress etched in the fleshy folds of his face.

Here comes the confession,
I thought, wishing I had a tape recorder. Too bad Reilly wasn’t here to witness this.

“So I did the only thing I could,” he said in a voice heavy with regret. “I cashed in my 401(k) retirement fund so I could pay her off once and for all.”

Wait. What? That wasn’t a murder confession. I gave Grace a look that said,
What gives?
She signaled for me to be patient.

“Somewhere in Sybil’s house there’s a DVD with my name on it,” the colonel said sadly. “I only hope it never sees the light of day.”

“Thank you, Walker,” Grace said. “Now I believe Abby has some questions. Abby?”

“Okay, let me make sure I understand this,” I said to him, putting my cup on the table. “You didn’t kill Sybil?”

“Kill her?” The colonel barked, puffing up his chest like an outraged pigeon.

“I thought Grace said on the phone—well, never mind. I must have misunderstood.”

“Please be assured, young lady, that I had nothing to do with Sybil’s death.”

“Perhaps you should tell Abby about your conversation with Sybil yesterday, Walker,” Grace gently coaxed.

The colonel took a deep breath. “Last week Sybil called me to arrange a meeting for this weekend. It was set for yesterday afternoon at three o’clock in her suite, and I knew instantly that she was going to up her demands. So I told her that I was running out of funds and that I’d have to either quit paying and take my chances or pay her a lump sum in exchange for the DVD and be done with it. She wasn’t happy, but I held my ground, so she finally agreed to it. I think she sensed my desperation and knew I’d reached my limit.

“Yesterday afternoon, as she made her rounds of the exhibitors, she stopped to tell me that she had to change our meeting time. I didn’t think anything of it then, but looking back, she seemed very edgy. I didn’t see her again until her body was found.”

“Do you know why she changed the time?” I asked.

“No, and I didn’t ask. I could barely tolerate the sight of that woman.”

“Do you have any guesses about who might have killed her?”

“Several people come to mind—the Urban boys, Eli Cotton, and Sybil’s other blackmail victims, if they’re attending the convention.”

“Do you know who her other victims were?”

“Unfortunately, no. The only reason I’m certain there are more victims is because of a comment Sybil made. It hearkens back to when she first gave me her blackmail demand. I was in a complete state of shock, as you can well imagine. This woman had been my best friend’s wife. We’d dined together, vacationed together, and then she turned on me just like that. So I said to her, ‘How can you stoop to such a despicable act, Sybil? Thad would be deeply ashamed of you.’ And her reply was, ‘It gets easier with practice.’”

“Wow,” I said. “It sounds like she was a pro. You mentioned the Urbans as potential suspects. Is it possible she was blackmailing them?”

“Anything is possible. I wouldn’t have thought her capable of blackmailing me, but that proved to be a mistake. Who knows who else she targeted.”

“Do you know if she was having affairs while her husband was alive?”

“No, I don’t. It wasn’t until Thad died that rumors of her dalliances reached my ears, but as I said, anything is possible.”

“Did the rumors link her with younger men as a rule?”

“Sadly, yes.” The colonel sighed. “I wonder how much my old friend knew about the real Sybil. I never felt they were a good match. She’d lost her first husband under questionable circumstances, and it hadn’t taken her long after being hired to latch on to Thaddeus. I can only imagine her glee when Thad made his deathbed confession. What an opportunist she turned out to be. Although I may be damned for saying so, I’m immensely relieved she’s gone.”

While Grace murmured consoling words, I sipped my tea and thought over what the colonel had said. He didn’t know that I’d seen the DVD or knew of the existence of Sybil’s bankbook or the other video, but his story certainly fit with what I’d learned so far. I was satisfied he hadn’t killed Sybil, but if I ruled out the colonel, Angelique, Chet, and Eli, by process of elimination that left one of the Urbans. The final bit of proof had to be on that
Chester Cheater
video. It was my last hope.

I stood up, eager to find a machine to watch the tape. “I need to get going, but thank you, colonel, for your honesty and bravery in sharing your story with me. I appreciate how difficult that was for you.”

Grace walked me to the door and stepped into the hall. “Does this help the investigation, dear?” She already knew the answer, but she had to hear me say it.

“Yes, it does. Thank you, Grace.”

“Do you see now why I was flirting with Walker?”

“Yep.”

“Shall we discuss why you didn’t want me investigating?”

Nope
. I pointed to my watch. “I’d really like to, but time is flying, Grace.”

“Then I would think you’d want to be quick about it, dear.” She gave me a firm smile.

Go on. Let her see how selfish you are.
I drew a breath and on the exhale said, “I was afraid you’d solve the case before I did.”

“Yes, I thought that might be it.” Grace put an arm around me. “But you see, I was on the wrong path, wasn’t I? Don’t worry, love. With your tenacity and courage, you’ll solve it. You’re a natural. Now, off you go. Time is flying.”

A natural! “Thanks, Grace. You might have been on the wrong path, but you did help a lot.” I gave her a hug and headed toward the elevators, beaming. Grace’s opinion meant a lot to me. My phone vibrated. I flipped it open. “Hey, Houdini. How’s it going? Are you missing me yet?”

“I can barely function,” Marco drawled. “Listen, I just got your message. Did Billingsworth confess?”

“Yes, but not to murder, only to paying Sybil’s blackmail demands. I’ll give you the whole story when I see you, but in a nutshell he didn’t kill her. Now I need to find a Beta player.”

“No, you don’t. We’re done investigating.”

“What about your buddy in hotel security?”

“He doesn’t have one.”

I pressed the
DOWN
button. “Chet Sunday might. Remember the show he did this morning? I’m going to get the
Chester Cheater
cassette and head over to his set now. I hope his crew hasn’t dismantled it yet.”