Slay it with Flowers (8 page)

“Jillian isn’t here yet,” Sabina informed me. “She had to wait for Claymore and she wasn’t happy about it.”

“Claymore is coming?” I asked.

“He vants to be involfed,” Ursula remarked from across the room. “He was feeling left out.”

“He’s a nervous wreck,” Sabina added. “I think he just wants to keep his mind off Flip.”

Speaking of whom, now was the perfect time to start delving. “How long have you known Flip?” I asked her.

Sabina glanced at Onora, as if asking for permission to talk, but Onora studiously ignored her. “I met him my senior year of college.” She leaned closer to whisper, “I dated Punch briefly, and Flip was always hanging around us. That’s how I got to know him.”

“Why are you whispering?” I whispered.

“Because Onora doesn’t like to be reminded that there were other women in Punch’s life. She’s very jealous.” Then, in a normal voice Sabina continued, “Flip is a really private person, always keeps to himself. He owns a rare and used bookstore in Chelsea. He wasn’t one to participate in clubs in college. He took photos, read literary stuff. Kind of a loner.”

“He has issues,” Onora muttered, her gaze never leaving her nails.

“Issues?”

She shrugged. If she knew more, she wasn’t telling.

Jillian breezed in and she was in a stew. “Sorry for the delay.”

“Where’s Claymore?” Sabina asked.

“He’s parking the car. Shall we get started?” Jillian signaled the saleswoman who had been hovering nearby, guarding the dresses Sabina had been fingering.

Sabina volunteered to go first, bouncing into the curtained dressing room to don the gown, after which she stood on a low stool in front of us, before a three-way mirror, so the seamstress could pin the hem. I took one look at her waspish waist and trim hips and made a quick decision to go last, hoping the others would leave before it was my turn to be embarrassed from three angles.

Claymore strode in looking pinched and pale. He saw Jillian perched on the end of the settee and went to stand beside her. Jillian turned her head away. Time to show him who was boss.

While Sabina was being pinned, I wandered over to the dress rack on the pretense of looking through it. Seeing so many pretty, solid-color dresses, I wanted to choke Jillian for having such deplorable taste, but since my main objective was speaking to the man standing behind her, biting his nails down to stubs, I suppressed my killer instincts and homed in on the fiancé.

“How’s it going, Claymore?” I said casually.

He stopped biting and looked around as if surprised to find me there.“Not well. Not well at all.”

“Which is why you should be home in bed,” Jillian said through clenched teeth.

“Still no word, huh?” I said.

“Nothing.” He looked faint. I thought I caught a twitch in his right eye.

“Did Flip ever go off by himself at school?”

“Sometimes he’d drive to the coast on his own. He loved to walk the beaches with his camera. He’s quite the photographer, you know.”

“He wrote poems there, too,” Sabina added brightly.

“Did he ever stay away more than a day?” I asked Claymore.

“Sure. He’d be gone for the entire weekend. His family always went to the ocean in the summer, so it was kind of his thing.”

“Then maybe he’s at the dunes now,” I suggested.

Jillian scoffed at the idea. “He doesn’t even know how to get there.”

Hearing that, Claymore started to hyperventilate. Jillian instantly pushed him down on the settee and fanned his face with a magazine. “What is it, precious?” she asked, suddenly concerned for his well-being.

“He knows the way. I took him there. To the dunes. Flip wanted to see the bird blind Pryce and I had made when we were kids. We all went out there.”

Bird blind. Right. Make-out spot was more like it. “Is that blind still there?” I asked.

Claymore nodded miserably.

As Jillian cooed over him I said, “But even if Flip did go there on his own, he wouldn’t have stayed the night, would he? It gets chilly up there at night.”

No one had an answer.

“Next,” the seamstress called. Ursula unfolded her long legs and glided off.

“Does Flip have any hobbies other than photography and writing poems?” I asked.

“That’s it,” Jillian said, still fanning. “He’s obsessed with nature photos. He’ll spend hours waiting for a perfect shot of a silly bird.”

“They aren’t silly, Jillian,” Sabina said, looking perturbed. “They’re beautiful.” To me she said, “He’s an excellent photographer. His work was always on display at the university.”

I paused to suck in my breath as Ursula came out. No way was I going to expose my abbreviated torso to these women. “Does Flip go to bars?” I asked Claymore.

He pushed the magazine out of his face. “Not that I know of. In college we took him a few times, but he didn’t enjoy it.”

“He knows a lot about wine, though,” Jillian said to Claymore. “I saw him admiring your father’s wine collection.”

“Next,” the seamstress announced. I pretended not to hear her, so Onora raised herself from the settee with a resigned sigh and drifted off. She was back within two minutes. The clothes must have just slid off her body.

“Does Flip have friends other than you, Bertie, and Punch?” I asked Claymore, as Onora took her place in front of the mirrors.

“I don’t know. Talk to Punch. They were friends before college, maybe as far back as elementary school.”

“Next.” The seamstress aimed a “gotcha” smile at me.

I sidled up to Jillian and said quietly, “Since everyone else is finished, why don’t you take the gang back to the Osbornes’ house and I’ll meet up with you later?” Like I would ever set foot in
that
house again.

She looked shocked. “And leave you here alone?” She put an arm around my shoulders. “I can’t ditch my little cousin.”

“Sure you can.” I put my arm around her waist and gave her a discreet pinch for calling me little. “In fact, I insist.”

“Ouch! Okay, fine. Come on, everyone. Let’s go back to Claymore’s house.”

I watched them file out and only then did I march resolutely into the dressing room to do battle with the garment. As I stood in front of the mirror peering at my reflection through eyes scrunched halfway shut—a secret I discovered that makes me look taller and thinner—my cell phone rang.

“Excuse me,” I said, holding up the partially pinned hem as I stepped off the stool. “I have to get this.” Ignoring the woman’s disgruntled glare, I grabbed the phone from my purse.

“Abby?” Jillian said excitedly. “We just got a call from Punch. He found Flip’s car at the dunes parking lot, but there’s no sign of Flip. We’re going there now to search for him.”

“I’ll meet you there.” I closed the phone, tossed it in my purse and dashed to the dressing room. “I’ll have to come back tomorrow,” I called to the seamstress from behind the curtain as I unzipped the outfit and shimmied out of it. “It’s something of an emergency. Ouch!”

“Be careful of the pins,” she called dryly.

Twenty minutes later I pulled into the Indiana Dunes State Park main entrance and drove up to the guard station where I was informed the park would close in fifteen minutes. I had to fork over the entry fee anyway.

In the nearly deserted parking lot I spotted four vehicles: one old VW Beetle off in a far corner by itself, its body spray painted in various colors to look like it had been tie-dyed; and three new vehicles, side-by-side. One was a navy Taurus, another I recognized as the big SUV Punch had driven the night before, and the other was Claymore’s silver Lexus sedan. I pulled up beside the Lexus and got out. Bertie was standing at the open trunk handing out flashlights.

“No word yet on Flip’s whereabouts?” I asked Jillian, as Sabina and Ursula sprayed each other with insect repellant. I declined the bug spray, sparing my sensitive skin the effects of the poison. I had on chinos anyway, so my legs were covered.

“Nothing.” Jillian shined a flashlight at the Taurus. “But that’s his rental car.”

The windows were open, so I stuck my head through on the driver’s side to look around.

“I already looked,” Bertie told me. “Nothing there.”

I turned around and did a quick head count. Punch, Onora, and Pryce were missing. “You’re three short.”

“We think Punch went ahead to search,” Bertie said, handing me a flashlight.

“Pryce had to prepare for a deposition tomorrow,” Claymore reported.

Gee. What a shame. “How about Onora?”

“She didn’t come back to the Osbornes’ with us,” Jillian answered. “She wasn’t feeling well.”

“She gets migraines,” Ursula explained.

“I tried to reach her on her cell phone after Punch called me,” Jillian said, “but she didn’t answer, so I left a message, not that it will do any good. She’d never find her way here. She has a terrible sense of direction.”

“That’s vat you said about Flip,” Ursula reminded her.

“This way,” Claymore called, heading across the parking lot.

“Where are we going?” Jillian asked, hurrying to keep up with him.

“To the bird blind. Punch said Flip’s camera was missing from the hotel room, so my hunch is that he went there to do some photography.”

“If something happened to him, I’m sure the park rangers would have found him,” I said. “They check these trails regularly.”

“They’d never spot him in the blind,” Bertie said in his charming lilt, falling into step with me, “unless they knew to look there.”

“You’ve been to the blind?”

“With Clay and Flip.”

We passed a ranger station and crossed a sandy beach area where a lone couple lay on a blanket, necking. Six people tramped past them and they never broke lip-lock. Now that’s concentration.

We followed the signs for trail number three and headed into the woods single file—Claymore first, then Bertie, me, Ursula, Jillian, and Sabina—our flashlight beams throwing circles of light in front of us so we could avoid low-hanging branches and the occasional gopher hole, not to mention snakes that might be slithering across the path. Ten minutes into the walk, Claymore turned off the trail and pushed through heavy brush to the left. Like a unit of soldiers we dutifully followed, fighting the thorn-covered branches that snagged our hair and tore at our clothing.

“Punch!” he called, his hands cupped around his mouth. “Flip! Can you hear me?”

I hoped they were the
only
ones who could hear him. Anyone else would think he was calling out acrobatic exercises.

We all began to call, following Claymore up a scrubby dune to the top, where through the tree branches I could just make out the glittering surface of the lake as the moon reflected silver on the ripples. It was a beautiful spot, well hidden and filled with the heavy fragrance of jasmine. It was a perfect meeting place for lovers.

“The blind is over here,” Claymore said, shining his light on a semicircle of thick shrubby plants in front of him. He circled around behind it and came to a sudden stop, staring down with mouth agape.

Bertie stepped up for a look and crossed himself.

I pushed between them. In front of me lay a man sprawled in the sand, his face turned toward the ground as if he’d fallen straight forward. The back of his head and the sides of his face were covered in blood, as was a blanket next to him, where he’d obviously bled out.

As Bertie crouched down to check the wrist for a pulse, I reached for my cell phone to call an ambulance.

“He’s dead,” Bertie said, looking up at us in disbelief.

“Who’s dead?” Sabina asked, coming up from behind, her voice rising steadily toward hysteria.

“Is it Flip?” Ursula asked, peering over my shoulder for a look.

“I knew something terrible had happened to Flip,” Jillian cried. “I knew it!”

Bertie moved the beam up to the face. “It’s not Flip,” he said. “It’s Punch.”

“T
hat can’t be Punch,” Jillian said adamantly as I opened my cell phone and dialed 911. She shined her light on the man’s bloody right ear, where a hole in the lobe was visible. “See? No punching-bag earring.”

“Oh, God! Someone bashed in his skull,” Claymore said, then clutched his stomach and staggered to a bush about two yards away, where I could hear him retching.

“Maybe it’s someone who looks like Punch,” Sabina offered hopefully.

“It’s him,” Bertie said. “Take a look at his hands.”

Five beams focused on his hands, thick meaty slabs with heavy fingers, three of which wore heavy gold rings that could very well have served as brass knuckles. “It’s Punch,” several voices said together.

“I’d like to report a murder,” I said to the dispatcher, turning away from the gruesome sight. I gave directions, then turned back to find Bertie poking around in the tall sedge several feet from the scene.