Murder in the Rose Garden: A Scent with Love Cozy Mystery (Scent with Love Cozy Mysteries) (6 page)

 “Now I am
sorry, but I have another appointment to get to,” said Jack as he showed her
out and hurried back to his office. When Beth left the office she noticed
Olivia standing, listening in the hallway.

Beth got in
her car and headed back to the flower shop with the document her mother had
given Jack tucked safely in her handbag. Beth had looked at it twice and it was
blank, just like Jack had said.

What if Jack
was lying? What if he had replaced the original documents with blank papers?
What if it was Olivia? Surely she would have had access to the documents Jack
kept in his top drawer.

As she was
driving Beth started to think about the conversation she had overheard between
Mrs. Blackwood and Jack. Beth was certain she had heard her mention Piper Pots.

When Beth
got back to
the shop, Hannah had just gotten back from doing the delivery rounds. Hannah
was quite flustered after having an altercation with Mrs. Blackwood, who was
unhappy about the fact that her flower arrangements were not delivered in the
usual pretty blue-and-white porcelain vases. She had thrown the white ceramic
vase at Hannah and demanded that she bring a replacement in one of the blue-and-white
porcelain vases. It was four-thirty and Beth needed to make some calls; she
didn’t have time to discuss Mrs. Blackwood’s mood swings. She told Hannah to
leave early.

After Hannah
had left, Beth made some calls. She called the lead reporter at the
Bartholomew
Bay Tribune
. Rebecca Redham politely answered all Beth’s questions about new
developments in the Bay area. Rebecca was not aware of any planned developments
in town; the only development that had been approved was a block of holiday
apartments close to the harbor.

After
talking to Rebecca, Beth searched the Internet to see if she could find any news
articles about new developments in Bartholomew Bay but she only found a large
article about the holiday apartments Rebecca had mentioned. It appeared to her
as if Chase’s theory about Jack blackmailing her mother so that he could buy
the shop and get the land was a bust.

By the time
she was finished making calls, it was time to close the shop. Beth fetched the
remaining buckets of flowers on the sidewalk and cashed up the register. Beth’s
stomach was a ball of nerves and she couldn’t shake the feeling that Piper Pots
and the sheriff were in danger. She took out her purse and searched for Chase’s
card, picked up her cell phone and punched in his number. She waited
impatiently as his phone rang a few times before going to voicemail.

“Hi, you
have reached Chase Crawford. Please leave your name and number and I will get
back to you.”

Beth was so nervous she
almost felt a pang of relief at the sound of his deep husky voice on the other
end of the line.

Beth hung up
the phone in frustration and went to search by the telephone for the number of
the police department. She found a list of emergency numbers pasted up on the
side of the telephone cabinet next to the phone. The number for the Bartholomew
Bay Police Department was at the top of the list. She picked up the phone and
dialed the number.

A shrill
female voice answered. “Hello, Bartholomew Bay Police Department, please state
your emergency.” Beth gulped down the panic in her throat.

“Can I speak
to Sheriff Hunter please?”

The female
voice sounded annoyed. “Is this an emergency?”

“I need to
speak to Sheriff Hunter urgently regarding his sting operation at the harbor
this evening,” replied Beth.

“I’m afraid
he is not in at the moment. I am not sure what you mean by sting operation; he
left early today to make preparations for an important dinner function this
evening.”

“Could you
call the sheriff on his cell phone and ask him to call me back please. It’s
Beth Andrews from the Scent with Love flower shop.”

“I’ll give
him your message,” the woman replied but Beth got the feeling that she hadn’t
taken her seriously at all.

Beth put
down the phone and looked down at the desk. There was another Post-it note with
a message for her:
Mr. Dunne called again, please call him back
.

Beth stuck
the Post-it in her purse and promised herself that she would phone Mr. Dunne in
the morning. Beth closed up the shop and drove back to the guesthouse.

~

When Beth
got to the cottage she took a shower and made herself a bowl of grilled chicken
salad. She still could not shake the feeling that the sheriff and Piper were in
danger. She had no idea what time the drug boat would be coming in but she
figured it would be after seven because that was when the last of the fishing
boats usually came in.

Beth called
Chase again but he still wasn’t answering his phone so she left him a message.

“Hi, Chase,
now I know you are not going to like this but… I overheard a conversation
between Jack and Mrs. Blackwood today that has led me to believe that the sheriff
and Piper are in danger. I tried calling the sheriff to let him know but the
woman who took my call didn’t take me seriously so I am going to the harbor to
try and warn him. Call me when you get this. Bye.”

Beth got
dressed in black jeans, a long-sleeved black polo neck and a black woolen hat.
She put on a pair of comfortable sneakers in case she needed to make a quick
getaway on foot. She had a small pistol Andrew had bought her to use for
protection when he was away on business. Beth had never used it and she was
hoping she would not be needing it tonight but she tucked it into her sock
anyway. Just in case. Beth filled a thermos with warm coffee, got into her car
and drove out to the marina.

Beth drove
past the marina located next to the Fisherman’s Wharf hotel and restaurant
building and drove on towards the industrial part of the harbor with large
rusty warehouse buildings and the working dry dock. There were hundreds of
shipping containers stacked in rows, one on top of the other. The dark
silhouette of the shipping cranes stood idle with no one on the evening shift
to operate them.
This looks like the perfect place for a sting operation,
thought
Beth
, just like in the movies.

She parked
her car in an alleyway between two large warehouse buildings, turned off the
lights and poured herself a cup of hot coffee from the thermos flask. The
industrial part of the harbor was quiet, which was a stark contrast to the busy
waterfront marina next to the hotel which was lined with sail boats, yachts,
rusty fishing boats and restaurant patrons enjoying an after-dinner stroll
through the marina.

By ten p.m.
Beth was getting impatient—there was no sign of a drug boat and the five cups
of coffee she had drunk meant that she was desperate to find a bathroom. Beth
scanned the dock for any sign of activity but it was just as quiet as it had
been for the last three and a half hours. Beth couldn’t hold on any longer so
she got out of the car and went in search of a toilet.   

The first
two doors Beth tried were locked. The pressure on her bladder was growing more
intense by the minute and she was convinced that there would be a toilet inside
one of the warehouse buildings. She was in a hurry to get back to her car, in
case she missed the drug boat.
Shit,
she thought,
I need to make this
quick.
She tried a third door at the back of the building; it was also
locked. Beth was frustrated. She looked at the rickety wooden door, which
appeared to have grown soft, and decided to give it a kick.  Her foot landed on
the door with a large thud. Her leg hurt but she did notice the door had moved
an inch. She had to give it two more kicks before the door burst open. Beth was
impressed with herself.
Wow, who says stuff like this only happens in the
movies?

Beth entered
a dark narrow hallway at the back of the building. The sound of running water was
audible in the distance and there was a dank smell in the air. Beth headed off
towards the sound of water, judging each step carefully in order to avoid
stepping in the dark gaping holes in the floor. Thin slivers of light from the
security lights outside streamed in through the boarded-up window boards and
Beth could make out a restroom sign on a door a few feet away.

“Thank
Goodness,” she whispered under her breath. The toilet was not very clean and
the washbasin was covered in a thick layer of dust. Beth finished up, washed
her hands and dried them on the back of her pants before heading back out into
the hallway.

She was
halfway down the corridor when she heard the sound of voices coming from the
eastern wing of the building. The knot in her stomach turned to panic when she
heard the sound of a roller door, the screech of tires and the sound of a
woman’s voice followed by a gunshot. Her first instinct was to hot foot it out
of there as fast as her comfy sneakers would take her but a little voice inside
kept telling her that she had better go and see if anyone had been injured. Beth
worried that Piper Pots may have been shot—if so she would need urgent medical
assistance.

Beth sprang
into action. She ran down the hallway, darting and jumping to avoid the holes
in the floor. She ran towards the part of the building that the gunshot had
sounded from, trying to stay in the shadows to avoid being seen. At the end of
the hallway she saw a large open storage space. She slowed down and crept
behind a large container to assess the scene playing out in front of her.

A thin woman
in her mid-twenties with a head of wild curly blonde hair stood chatting to a
plump older woman with a mop of bright red hair as three young men in black
clothes unpacked black plastic bags from a white minivan with the words “Al’s
Diner” written on the side in bold lettering. Beth gasped. She did not
recognize the young woman with the blonde curly hair but she had no doubt as to
the identity of the second woman. She recognized Allison Landon’s plump stature
and red hair immediately and the words “Al’s Diner” on the side of the minivan
were a dead giveaway. What on earth was Allison Landon doing in a deserted
warehouse at the harbor at this time of night?

Beth scanned
the floor and she could see no sign of anyone with a gunshot wound but there
were two mean-looking men with big muscles and machine guns standing on either
side of the roller door. Only then did it occur to her that the sound she had
heard was probably the sound of the minivan backfiring and not a gunshot.
Damn
.
Beth stood frozen behind the shipping container and watched the two women
carrying on, talking as if it was the most normal thing in the world to be
unpacking a minivan filled with drugs in a deserted warehouse late at night. One
of the young men took the last black bag out of the van and packed it in a
shipping container before signaling for the men to finish up. Allison Landon
went over to inspect the packed container and called for the curly blonde to
follow her. Beth peered out to try and get a closer look, craning her neck
around the side of the container only to see the biggest spider she had ever
seen crawl across her hand. It was a large silvery spider with legs banded in
black and yellow and Beth had just placed her hand through the center of its giant
silken web. A stifled scream sounded from her lips before she could stop
herself.

Allison
Landon signaled to the two muscled thugs at the door and before she had the
chance to run, they were dragging her out from behind the container. They
dragged her to the minivan, where Allison stood waiting with the curly blonde
at her side.

“What shall
we do with her, Big Al?” asked thug number one.

Allison had
a look of annoyance on her face. She patted Beth down and found the pistol
tucked into her sock, which she took and placed in her purse.

Allison
looked worried. A frown spread across her face as she looked around the room at
the three young men, the two armed thugs and finally her eyes settled on the
curly blonde.

 “Piper, do
you know anything about this?” she asked angrily.

The blonde
didn’t say a word, simply shook her head. Allison turned to the men who were
looking at her wide-eyed.

“Do any of
you know anything about this?” she yelled and pointed a chubby finger at Beth.
They all shook their heads in unison.

Beth cleared
her throat and said, “I was just looking for a bathroom, I needed to use the
toilet.” Big Al laughed hysterically and squinted her beady blue eyes at Beth.

“That’s the
oldest excuse in the book. Don’t patronize me, dear.”

Big Al
scanned the room again, looked over at the two armed thugs and signaled in
Beth’s direction with a small jerk of her head. “Tie her up,” Allison barked, then
looked over at Piper and said, “her too.”

Thug number
two tied Beth and Piper together back to back with their feet and arms bound
together and secured their feet to the overhead crane that was normally used
for lifting and stacking shipping containers.

“What do you
want us to do with them, boss?” asked thug number two as he hoisted the two women
into the air using a hand-held crane remote.

“Get rid of
them,” replied Allison, before walking towards the minivan. Beth started to
panic and started screaming uncontrollably. Thug number one came over and hit
her hard over the head with the back of his gun, causing her to pass out.  Piper
dug her chin down and spoke into the microphone between her breasts.

“Mayday…Mayday…I
require an evacuation, ASAP!”

Within
seconds the warehouse was engulfed in flashing blue lights and a SWAT team had
banged down the roller door. The two armed thugs looked bewildered and stood
frozen. Big Al whipped Beth’s pistol from her purse and started firing wildly
as she raced to the minivan. Beth came to just in time to see Lola
the
ex-police dog jumping up to bite Allison on the arm, disarming her instantly.

The police
managed to get the situation under control and all the gang members were taken
into custody. Chase Crawford ran over and lowered Beth and Piper to the floor,
before engulfing Beth in his strong arms.