Slay it with Flowers (21 page)

“I’ve been meaning to get around to it.”

“I’ll bring one with me tomorrow night when I come to dinner.” He walked out shaking his head, muttering, “Females.”

“We can put our own lock on the door!” I called.

“Thanks for coming over, Marco,” Nikki said over my shoulder. “You’re an angel.”

She shut the door and leaned on it. “He has the sexiest swagger of any man alive.”

“He knows it, too. What an ego on that man.”

“I wouldn’t have called it an ego, but whatever, you’ve got to go after him.”

“Like I have nothing better to do. Come help me hang a blanket over my window.”

 

Nikki’s room was much quieter than my room.

I discovered that at three o’clock in the morning, after I’d gathered my sheet and pillow and sacked out on her floor. Her room faced woods, whereas mine faced the parking lot. But noise really hadn’t been the problem. I couldn’t fall asleep in there knowing those symbols were peering in at me—even with a blanket taped over the window. I kept wondering what evil they were supposed to inflict. But I slept at last and didn’t wake until late in the morning when Nikki tripped on me on her way to the bathroom.

“What are you wearing?” I asked, massaging my bruised leg. “Iron-toed shoes?”

She rubbed her eyes and peered at her alarm. “It’s ten o’clock in the morning. Don’t you have to be at the shop?”

“Grace and Lottie are working this Saturday because they’ll both be out of town next Saturday, which reminds me, what do you have planned for next Saturday?”

“Nothing. I can help you out. Wait. Scratch that. I have to drive up to Chicago. It’s my parents’ twenty-eighth wedding anniversary. Oh, no! If you work, you’ll miss their celebration.”

I rolled up my blanket, remembering many days I’d spent as a kid at Nikki’s parents’ house. The Hidukes had been like a second family to me, and Nikki’s mother had been even more bizarre than mine. It was another reason we were compadres.

“I’m sorry, Nik, but that’s what happens when you own a business. I’ll send a big floral arrangement with you. And that reminds me, it might be a good idea for me to take flowers when I visit Maria this morning, as an icebreaker.”

“You might want to give some to Mr. Bodenhammer, too. He’s not going to like having to clean black paint off that window.”

 

We were surprised to find the building superintendent working in the basement, since he usually managed to slip in some fishing on the weekends, but it turned out someone had a leaky pipe and he was having a devil of a time repairing it. We told him about the writing, and he said there’d been a ladder propped up against the corner for two weeks. He’d just taken it down that very morning, in fact, and wasn’t pleased he’d have to drag it out again. He hoped the graffiti was water soluble or he might have to charge us for it.

Yes, flowers for the super would definitely be a good idea.

We piled into the Vette for the quick trip to Bloomers. The only empty parking space was at the far end of the block, so I pulled into it and we got out. As we headed up the sidewalk toward the shop, I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see that hooded, wrinkled face watching me from some recessed doorway.

While I put together a bouquet of pink caspias, white daisies, and lavender in the workroom, Nikki, having nothing better to do, decided to keep Grace and Lottie company in the shop. It wasn’t until I was wrapping raffia around the stems of the bouquet that I remembered I hadn’t warned Nikki not to mention anything about the Emperor’s Spa to Grace.

I quickly tied off the trim, wrapped florist’s paper around the flowers, and dashed through the curtain—where Grace was waiting for me. By the expression on her face I knew that I’d been found out. Not by coincidence, Nikki and Lottie were nowhere to be seen, no doubt lying low in the parlor.

“I was going to tell you about it, Grace, honestly, but something always came up.”

“I’m not upset with you, dear,” she said calmly.

“You’re not?”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s in your nature to meddle, and for me to insist otherwise isn’t fair to either one of us. So go ahead, dear. Meddle till your heart’s content. I shall not try to deter you.”

“Thank you, Grace,” I said in awe, and gave her a grateful hug.

“You needn’t thank me, dear. But there is one thing you can do for me.”

“Anything,” I said gratefully.

“Have your will drawn up.” She pivoted neatly and marched back to the parlor.

Touché.

As Nikki and I put the flowers in the trunk of my car, I noticed that a fresh produce market had been set up on the courthouse lawn. Deciding that we were due for some nutritious food, we crossed the street and strode over to the sellers’ tables. I wandered around until I located a fruit stand, then I brown-bagged a few peaches and went looking for Nikki, who was at another table paying for a cantaloupe.

As I waited for her, I glanced toward the street and saw a black Ford Crown Victoria stop just behind the Vette’s back bumper. A man in a dark suit scooted to the passenger side, leaned out the window, focused a small camera at the back of the Vette, then slid back to the driver’s side and sped away.

“Did you see that?” I asked Nikki, pointing down the street. “Someone just took a picture of my car.” I picked up her brown bag and dashed toward the Vette.

“Maybe he’s a Corvette enthusiast,” Nikki called, hurrying after me.

“Corvette enthusiasts don’t do drive-by photo shootings. They get out and study the cars up close.”

We stopped to wait for a car to pass, then jogged across the street, coming to a stop behind the Vette. “What do you want to bet it was one of those men you caught on camera yesterday?” Nikki said, panting.

“This was a Crown Victoria, Nikki. None of the men yesterday had that kind of car.”

“Maybe he switched cars. Did you recognize his face from the photos?”

“I caught only a glimpse of his profile.”

“Why would he take a picture of the back of your Vette?”

We took a step back and studied the bumper.

“Could it be your license plate?” Nikki ventured.

That seemed the most logical assumption. But why would he need a photo of my license plate?

M
aria Mendoza lived in a neighborhood of small tract houses painted in various pastel colors. The street and sidewalks were brimming with kids skateboarding, riding bikes, and playing ball, so I parked the Vette as far away from the activity as possible, then Nikki and I walked up the block to a cream-colored house with a blue front door. A young girl answered my knock then yelled for her mother. A few moments later a short, frazzled, black-haired woman stepped to the doorway.

“Are you Maria Mendoza?” I asked.

She eyed us warily. “Why?”

I pulled the bouquet from behind my back and held the flowers out to her. “If you’re Maria, these are for you.”

She stepped back in alarm, as if I had something sinister planted amid the blooms, so I said the first thing that came to mind. “They’re from Todd at the New Chapel Inn.”

“Why would Todd send me these? I don’t work there no more. What do you want here?”

“I need to ask you a few questions.” She started to shut the door, so I quickly added, “I don’t mean you any harm. I’m a florist, and the flowers are from me. I own Bloomers, down on the square.”

Finally I had said something right. “You’re giving away flowers?” she asked, her hostility turning to amazement.

“It’s a long story and I’m sure you’re not that interested, so I’ll sum it up by saying that I’m supposed to do the flowers for my cousin’s wedding, but there may not be a wedding if I can’t find the person who murdered one of the hotel guests.”

Her eyes widened. “I didn’t murder no one.”

“I know you didn’t,” I assured her. “But you might have seen something that will help me find the one who did.”

“I don’t want to get involved. I got kids to think of.”

She stepped back, and I knew she was moments away from slamming the door, so I nudged Nikki, who blurted, “Abby wouldn’t ask you to do anything that would jeopardize your kids. She’s good that way. And see how nice the flowers smell?” She grabbed the bouquet from me and thrust them at Maria, who took them purely out of self-defense.

“Please, Maria. Just a few questions,” I said, and hurried to name them before she could argue further. “Do you remember the guest who was killed? His name was Paulin Chumley. Muscular guy, huge hands, short blond hair, wore a gold punching bag in his ear. You might have seen his picture in the newspaper.”

She buried her nose in the blooms, took a long whiff, then answered reluctantly, “I remember him.”

“Did you ever see him bring a girl to his room?”

“I never saw him with a girl,” she said quickly. A little too quickly to convince me she was telling the truth.

“Did you see him last Wednesday evening, the night of the murder?”

There was a long pause, and I could almost hear the debate going on in her head:
Should I tell or shouldn’t I?
“No,” she answered at last, but she wouldn’t meet my eye. A child yelled to her from somewhere in the house, and Maria turned to call back a reply in Spanish.

I glanced at Nikki to see if she had anything to add, but she merely shrugged, so I said, “Thank you, Maria. My card is taped to the paper. If you remember anything about that night, please give me a call.”

“Well, that was a bust,” Nikki said, as we walked back to the Vette.

“She lied to us, Nik. She saw Punch that night, and I have a feeling she saw him with a girl.”

“How do you know?”

“Did you see how she fidgeted when I asked her the questions, and how she wouldn’t look me in the eye when she answered? Those are sure signs.”

“Hey, you learned something from your law school classes after all!”

“Nope. Psychology. Undergrad.”

“How are you going to get her to tell the truth?”

“I’m hoping that as she’s putting those beautiful flowers in a vase, she’ll feel guilty enough to call me. And if that doesn’t work, you’ll think of something.”

“Me? You’re the one who was Nancy Drew.”

“You’re the one who claimed to be good with people.” I unlocked the car doors, and we got in. “On to the next problem, the dead bolt. When Marco comes over tonight, he’s going to find a shiny new lock on our door.”

“Have you ever installed a dead bolt before? Or any kind of lock, for that matter?”

“Instructions, Nikki. They always come with instructions.”

We stumbled around the hardware store until we found the lock section, then we stood in the aisle for at least ten minutes, reading the backs of the packages, trying to determine the best one for our door. Finally we were rescued by an older man wearing a red vest with an Ace logo on the pocket.

“This is the one you want,” he said, pulling a big package off a high hook. “This is the safest dead bolt we sell, and it installs like a dream.”

“Sounds like my kind of lock,” I said.

“Could you explain how to install it?” Nikki asked, smiling sweetly.

The man proceeded to lay out the steps for us, but when he started talking about drill bits, my mind started to freeze up. When he finished I said, “So all I need is the lock kit and a drill, right?”

“Oh, no,” he said with a happy face, reaching for another package. “You’ll need this attachment, too. See, it reams out the door so your lock will fit in.”

“Okay, so the lock, the drill, and this attachment.”

“That should do it. Also a chisel. And a bit. Do you have a hammer, by the way?”

By the time we walked out of the store, I had put ninety-three dollars on my credit card. My self-imposed limit for the month was one hundred dollars, so it was good that the month was almost over.