Bloom and Doom (23 page)

“Not that she gave him the time of day,” Mrs. June added, “after Derek started coming to call.”

Which gave my former dance partner a hint of a motive, if he’d been spurned by Jenny and supplanted by Derek. He had the strength. And as a mortician, he’d be well acquainted with the carotid artery. When we talked at Derek’s viewing, he was rather enthused by spatter patterns.

But I couldn’t see Derek allowing Little Joe into that expensive car of his and risking getting formaldehyde stink in his leather seat cushions.

Mrs. June had been scanning the report as she talked. She shook her head. “No record of any penguin in the report.” She flipped through a series of photographs. “But”—she slapped one photograph down on the desk and pointed to a spot on the bed—“I think that might be your little feathered friend right there.”

I leaned over to take a closer look. There was Pippa, lounging on Jenny’s unmade bed.

Our conversation broke up as Bixby walked in. He gave the flower arrangement I’d set on Mrs. June’s desk a wide berth, almost hugging the walls as he made his way to his office, then shut the door.

Mrs. June winked at me. “Thanks for the flowers, Audrey.”

“I might just stop by and bring you some more often. They brighten this place up.”

• • •

Mrs. June’s words
echoed in my head as I drove over to Jenny’s apartment. If Grandma Mae would have had a fit if one of her granddaughters took up with a mortician, I wondered what she would think of me walking around Ramble pretending to be some kind of detective. I hoped she’d understand I was trying to help a friend. Grandma Mae was all about helping people.

I eyed the flowerpot critters on Jenny’s front porch and wondered if Sarah had replaced the key. But I was not to find out, because she yanked open the door at my first knock.

“Oh, Audrey.”

“Hey, Sarah. I just visited Jenny.”

Sarah stared at me from the crack in the door and shrugged.

“And she wanted me to pick up something from her room.”

Sarah just shook her head. “Even if I wanted to let you into my apartment, which I don’t, Jenny’s mom came and picked up all her stuff today.”

“Today? That’s quick.” I was surprised Ellen had been sober enough. “I wonder why the hurry.”

“I asked her to. If you must know, I’m looking for a new roommate. Jenny sure isn’t going to pay her share of the rent in jail with no job—not that I feel comfortable with her anymore. And her mother had no interest in paying, either. I mean, I’m not sure I could quite afford the rent for this place by myself, even with what I make at the health club and from my private clients.” She eyed me up and down. “You wouldn’t be interested in a personal trainer, would you? Or an apartment?”

I let the offer of a private trainer pass without a thought. If I wanted someone to torture me, I’m sure I could find a wacko to do it without expecting to be paid. But I considered the apartment for a moment. A roommate would help me save money faster, and maybe some of Sarah’s healthier habits would rub off on me.

But I couldn’t imagine taking Jenny’s apartment or living with someone so cold as to move her roommate out just because she’d spent a few days in jail.

Then I caught myself. Lots of people wouldn’t be comfortable sharing an apartment with someone accused of such a violent crime.

“I’m afraid not,” I said.

“If you know of anybody, let me know.” The door shut in my face.

I checked the time on my cell phone. Ellen wouldn’t be home yet, so I went back to the shop and filled in Liv and Amber Lee on my visit with Jenny and my shorter visit with Sarah.

“That poor girl,” Amber Lee said.

“Which one?” I asked. “Jenny or Sarah?”

“Both, really,” Amber Lee said. “It would be terrible for Jenny if she found out she did kill Derek, even if she did it in her sleep. Can you imagine the guilt?”

The thought caught in my throat. Hypothetically, I didn’t think people should be held responsible if they weren’t conscious. Although, if something similar happened to me, I’d hold myself responsible. A double standard, I’m sure.

“I don’t know Sarah well,” Liv said.

“I don’t think anybody does,” Amber Lee said. “She moved here when they opened the health club. I mean, she has friends, but no close ones. No boyfriend.”

“But she’s a very pretty girl,” I said.

“Pretty is as pretty does,” Liv reminded me, repeating one of Grandma Mae’s old axioms.

“What does that even mean?” I asked.

“It means personality does count,” Amber Lee said.

“Fat lot of good it did Jenny,” I said.

“Hey.” Liv came up behind me and put an arm around my shoulder. “That didn’t sound like it was about Jenny or Sarah. The pretty girls get picked for the cheerleading squad and get the hunkiest dates to the prom. That’s high school. But we’re adults now. Being in a relationship isn’t an achievement earned by being pretty—and if guys choose their mate that way, they get what they deserve. A miracle happens when two people suited to each other—maybe even made for each other—meet, let down their guards, and then commit to a relationship. And that can happen to the homeliest person alive and can elude even the most beautiful of women. It’s a mystery.”

I did mention Liv was an idealist.

Amber Lee seemed to take her side. “And Sarah is a pretty girl, but she’ll always be the bridesmaid and never the bride until she learns to be kind. Shoving Jenny out of the apartment isn’t kind. And good guys will see through that.”

“Just as the right man will appreciate you for who you are,” Liv said.

“I thought that was where I was getting with Brad,” I said.

Liv stroked her chin thoughtfully. “Brad appreciated you, and I think you were well suited. But he obviously just wanted something different.”

“Who?”

She shook her head. “Who says it’s a who? I think he just wanted out of Ramble. Small-town life isn’t for everybody. I mean, lots of people grow up in small towns and just want to shake the dust off their feet and move to the big cities.”

“And folk in the big cities,” Amber Lee added, “want to leave the rat race and become farmers and vintners. Mark my words. Brad will get his fill of the big city and be back.”

“I won’t be waiting for him,” I added, wondering how we’d gotten so far afield of Jenny and Sarah. I glanced at the clock and put the finishing touches on a small vase arrangement before hanging up my apron and gathering my purse.

“Mind if I head out a little early?” I asked. “Ellen should be home by now, and I want to see her before she . . .”

“Starts drinking?” Liv suggested. “Good idea. Is that for her?”

I looked at the small arrangement of purple anemones. “I knew she liked the flower from the bridal appointment, but I wanted the color to be different enough not to remind her of the bridal flowers.”

“It’s perfect,” Liv said. “Want some company?”

“I can close up,” Amber Lee said, obviously enjoying her new status in the shop.

“Sure.” I smiled.

• • •

I can’t say
I was still smiling when Ellen opened her door. She’d managed to start her drinking early. She swayed as she took in our appearance, gaze flitting from the flowers to my face to Liv’s without ever focusing on anything. But she pushed open the door and let us in without a word.

“Hi, Ellen. How are you feeling today?” Liv said. “We brought you some flowers.”

Ellen plopped down on the couch. Good thing. At least we wouldn’t have to catch her today. She wore lime green capris with a brown blouse and no shoes. Her nails were pink and her toes natural. In some way, her normal monochromatic look worked for her, at least better than her “untidy drunk” ensemble.

She scowled at the flowers.

I set them on a table near the sofa, and Liv and I slid onto a matching floral love seat without waiting for an invitation.

“I went to see Jenny this morning,” I said.

She stared into space for a few moments. “How is she? How’s my baby?”

“Doing a little better. But she’s confused.”

Ellen nodded. She whisked a tissue from a box on the end table, near a pile of used tissues.

“She might appreciate a visit from her mother,” I added. “She’s worried about you.”

“About me?” She searched my eyes. “Why would she be? Oh. You tell her?”

“That you were drinking again? I didn’t have to. She figured that out on her own.”

“Don’t give me that,” she said, the belligerent drunk oozing out in her voice. “Always sticking your nose in. How does knowing that help Jenny or me, huh, smarty-pants?”

“It doesn’t,” Liv started.

“Which is why I didn’t tell her,” I finished. “But would you rather she believed you’re just too busy to go see her?”

She screwed up her face. “Always sticking your nose in.”

“Which is why I’m here. She asked me to get something from her room. I went by her apartment, and Sarah said you’d been by to collect her things.”

“I thought Princess Sarah had more class than that. Jenny sure can pick friends, can’t she?” Ellen rolled her eyes. “Not gone but a few days and she calls me up demanding that I get Jenny’s stuff out of there. As if I don’t have enough to do. Maybe if I hadn’t been doing that all morning, I could’ve visited Jenny myself.”

“That’s right,” Liv said. “But you can always go tomorrow. Would you like me to go with you?”

Ellen pushed herself up in her seat. “That’s right. I couldn’t go today because I was moving her junk and cramming it all in her old bedroom. I’ll set her straight on all this drinking stuff. Tell her it isn’t true. Maybe I had a little—a moment of weakness. But who doesn’t?”

“I’m sure she would find it comforting to know that what happened hadn’t set you back,” Liv said. I’d give her an A in diplomacy.

“She’s a good girl, Jenny is,” Ellen said with a hiccup. “Isn’t she?”

“Of course.” I forced a cheerful smile. “She didn’t do this thing. I’d like to help her by finding out who did.”

“She’s a good girl. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.” And she burst into tears again, bypassing the tissues by throwing herself down and crying directly into a satin throw pillow.

Liv rushed over and rubbed her back. I watched as wracking sobs became slow, rhythmic breathing. Ellen cried herself to sleep, probably not for the first time in the last few days.

I rose. “Ellen?”

Liv hushed me. “Poor dear,” she whispered.

“I’m going to check Jenny’s room. Want to join me?”

“Is it all right to do that?” Liv asked, then lowered her voice. “What if Ellen wakes up and catches us?”

“Jenny said I could look through her stuff. Her stuff is here.”

“How about if I just tidy up for Ellen a little?”

“Chicken.”

Liv then made a squawking noise like no chicken I’d ever heard.

Ellen stirred, rolled over, and began snoring lightly.

“Okay, then just consider me your backup on this mission.”

I tiptoed to Jenny’s room. Cardboard boxes rose to chest level, leaving only a narrow walkway. Sarah must have laid claim to the furniture. I pulled one of the new shop knives from my purse, glad that Liv was in the other room so she wouldn’t see that I’d absconded with it, and slit open the first box.

Clothes. I shuffled through it, making sure there was nothing else packed inside, and found a scarf I’d lent her, years ago. I wrapped it around my neck, then thought better of it. Although it belonged to me, I didn’t want to appear like the vultures descending on an estate sale. I hoped Jenny would be out of jail soon, running around town, even if she was wearing my scarf.

I shoved it aside and opened the next box. More of the same. It wasn’t until the fourth box that I found some of Jenny’s more personal things, mainly knickknacks and photos. I leafed through a small photo album she must have started back when we used to pal around, because my own face graced some of the opening pictures. Then I suddenly disappeared, as did Jenny’s waistline. Carolyn and Jenny and Sarah at the health club, Jenny in a funny strongman pose. Then a photo of Jenny and Little Joe dancing. She might have warned me. Although, it looked like their dance was a little more controlled and refined than the jitterbug he treated me to.

A bunch of pictures of Jenny and Sarah followed: paddling in a canoe, bundled in heavy ski suits, dressed as Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz for a Halloween party. I swallowed hard. Jenny’s smiling face made it obvious she counted Sarah as a friend. For a split second I thought of it as cosmic payback. Sarah had dumped Jenny just as Jenny had dumped me. But I stifled that thought. I had missed her, but at least I hadn’t lost my fiancé, been accused of murder, and gotten thrown into jail.

I continued thumbing through the album. The next pictures focused on a budding relationship: a snapshot of Jenny and Derek double-dating with Carolyn and her fiancé (now new husband)—a dinner at the Ashbury. Jenny’s engagement picture. And another shot of Jenny and Derek smiling between Jonathan and Miranda Rawling. It was funny; though they were all smiling, none of them looked exceedingly happy. Or maybe recent events were making me see something not there. I closed the book and kept digging.

At the bottom of the next box I found Pippa the Penguin, splashed with Jenny’s strawberry-scented conditioner, the open bottle haphazardly tossed into the box. I found the compartment hidden underneath and pulled out a small plastic bag of pills.

The plastic bag gave me pause. It didn’t suggest prescription to me, unless something had happened to the original container. And I didn’t recognize the pills. Then again, it had been a long time since I’d taken pharmacology, and new drugs and generic versions of old ones came out all the time. I could look it up online at the shop to double-check.

“Um, Audrey?” Liv’s voice startled me. “Someone just pulled in. I think it’s Pastor Seymour.”

I shoved the plastic bag in my pocket. “Is Ellen awake?”

“Stirring a little.”

Right then the doorbell rang.

“Why don’t you see about making coffee,” I said, “and I’ll answer the door.”

By the time I returned to the living room, Ellen was trying to fight her way off of the sofa cushions, the imprint of an upholstery button engraved on her cheek.