Dagger in the Dahlias

by Dale Mayer

  “You should get a leash for him,” Penny said. “I see more and more people walking their cats.”

  “I think Goliath would be walking me.”

  Penny chuckled. “Well, he is a cat.” As if that explained everything.

  “That would be an explanation for everything to do with Goliath.” With Thaddeus snoozing gently on her shoulder, tucked up in the crook of her neck, Doreen waved goodbye and headed back down to the sidewalk. “Goliath,” she called out. “Goliath.” But she got no answer. Heard no meow. She stopped, turned around, and looked. “Goliath, come on.” She was getting a little worried. “Where are you?”

  Just then he popped his head out of a huge dahlia bush in the front yard.

  “Oh, thank heavens,” Penny said. “I was afraid you’d lost him.”

  “Yeah,” Doreen said. “I couldn’t imagine.” She called him, but Goliath wouldn’t come toward her. “Come on, buddy. Come on.”

  But the cat was digging. Mugs barked and chased Goliath out of the bush. And then Mugs started to dig.

  “Uh-oh,” Doreen said a sinking feeling in her stomach.

  “Did he find something there?” Penny asked, a note of excitement entering her voice.

  “I don’t know. With these animals, you can never really tell. I swear to God, they think they’re some kind of amateur sleuths.” She unconsciously echoed what she had said about herself earlier.

  She yanked on Mugs’s leash, but he wasn’t having any of it. Instead the basset hound leaned in his shoulders and put all his weight behind him to stop Doreen’s efforts in dragging him back. Not wanting to hurt him, she walked closer and grabbed his harness, trying to lift him. He growled, and finally she let him go.

  “What’s gotten into you?” But inside she knew it was something important, and he wouldn’t let her stop him from finding out whatever this was. When she looked up, Penny came toward her with a shovel. Doreen laughed. “It’s almost like you think my dog’s found something.”

  “I’ve heard stories about these animals of yours,” she said.

  Just then Thaddeus, waking up from his nap, flew off her shoulder, landing on the big dahlia bushes. The stalks were thick, promising to be big with huge blooms.

  “These are beautiful bushes,” Doreen said.

  Penny nodded. “Dinner plate Dahlias. They are huge blooms. I moved some of the same plants from the back garden, where Johnny used to sit. They multiplied so much that I needed to divide them up.”

  “Oh, really?” Doreen looked at her, wondering how Mugs knew. “Do you mind if I grab that shovel then?”

  A pall settled over the two women as Doreen deliberately stepped in front of Mugs to push him away. And then, switching out the zucchini bread with the shovel, she gently wiggled the dirt in and around the base of the dahlias. When she thought she heard a metallic clink, she went down on her hands and knees, using her hands to dig deeper into the soil. When her fingers closed around something small, she pulled it up, brushed off the dirt, and revealed a medallion. She held it up, and the color drained from Penny’s face. “Do you know what it is?”

  “It’s a medallion Johnny got from their father,” she said in a shocked whisper, reaching out to touch the object. “Johnny would never have left it behind.”

  “Meaning that, if he ran away or walked away from you guys,” she corrected quietly, “he would have taken it with him?”

  “I mean, he always wore it. It was always around his neck.”

  “So then how did it get here?”

  “It must have happened when I divided up the bulbs and transplanted this group here.”

  “But I want to know how it came off his neck.” Doreen had a theory, but she didn’t know if she should say it out loud. When Penny stared at her, dread in her eyes, Doreen nodded. “It likely came off in a struggle.” She picked up the chain that hung from the medallion. She held it so Penny could see it. “It’s broken.”

  Chapter 13

  Friday Midafternoon …

  With the medallion and the chain wrapped up in newspaper from Penny’s recycle bin and in a plastic ziplock bag, and with her zucchini bread, Doreen walked back home. Lost in her thoughts, when her phone buzzed in her pocket, it startled her. She pulled it out to see it was Mack. “Hey,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I don’t know if something is wrong or not,” she said, “but it’s definitely something that makes me think.”

  “Explain,” he said, as if unsure what she was saying.

  “I went to Penny’s to ask a few more questions, but, instead of getting answers, we found more questions. Mugs and Goliath were both digging in her dahlia bushes. Dahlia bushes she had moved from the garden in the backyard years ago because the tubers had multiplied and became these massive plants.”

  “Stop,” he said. “I don’t need a gardening lesson. I need an explanation.”

  She sighed and checked that the road was empty before she crossed it, so she could hook back onto the path along the creek. “Well, when I dug around the plants, we found a medallion on a broken chain. Apparently Johnny’s, and he never went anywhere without it around his neck. I think he died the same evening he went missing.”

  Silence followed before Mack finally spoke. “Well, we don’t know that for sure,” he said. “Because you didn’t find a body … right?” His tone sharpened.

  “Nope, no body—at least not yet,” she said. “Just remnants of the life of a person who’s gone missing.”

  “I guess I can see how that would be upsetting, but that doesn’t mean Johnny is dead.”

  “No,” she said, “but it doesn’t mean he’s alive either. However … your mother told me that Johnny and his friends used to hang out in the Central City park, among the drug sellers and buyers. At first I thought that would be a viable lead, but, now, finding this medallion at his home, I don’t think so anymore.”

  Mack gave a huge sigh, which carried clearly over the phone. “Have you got the medallion with you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I figured he must have been involved in a struggle and lost it.”

  “That would indicate maybe somebody saw him in the backyard. And yet, you say George and Penny didn’t see what happened to him.”

  “Apparently,” she said. “And, yes, Johnny was in the backyard, but Penny was cooking dinner and was busy. She didn’t see him leave.”

  “Right,” Mack said. “So good timing on her part that she saw him when she did. That narrows down the timing somewhat.”

  “Which hasn’t helped yet.”

  “I’ll take a look at it when you get home,” he said.

  “I’m almost there. I’m walking along the creek, coming down the back again.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t walk there alone,” he said with an unhappy sigh.

  “What difference does it make?” she asked. “It’s still sunny out. Besides, I am not alone. I’ve got my dog and Thaddeus on my shoulder and Goliath walking beside us, quite put out that I wouldn’t allow him to keep digging.”

  “Of course Goliath found it.”

  “Well, he did.” She chuckled. “Then Mugs jumped him in the bush, chasing him away, and the dog started to dig. Then I took over.” She shrugged. “I’m at my little bridge now.” She walked across and headed to her house.

  “Is the alarm still on?”

  “I’ll find out in a second,” she said.

  “I’m glad your antiques guy is coming soon,” he said quietly. “I won’t stop worrying until those pieces are gone.”

  “Me too,” she said. “At least this case gives me something else to focus on.”

  “That’s nice,” he said. “I sure wish it wasn’t another murder you’re trying to sort out.”

  “I didn’t say it was a murder,” she objected. “I just said we found a medallion and its chain, and Johnny was adamant about keeping it close. It was from his father, who was dead.”

  “Ah,” Mack said.

  She walke
d up and hit the alarm code to undo the security and let herself in. Immediately she could feel herself settling, almost like a sigh.

  Chapter 14

  Friday Late Afternoon …

  Once inside the house, Doreen reset the alarms, put a tea bag in a cup, and put water on to boil in the electric teakettle. She still had Mack on the phone. “I’m inside, safe and sound. The alarm was set, and I’ve reset it.”

  “Good. You take care.”

  “Yeah, I will,” she said. “When are you coming for the medallion?”

  “I’m heading into the office right now.” His voice was distracted. “Depends on how late it is when I’m done.”

  “Well, it’s not late right now,” she said, “although, with that cloudy sky moving in now, it seems like it is.”

  “If I’m only about an hour longer at work, I’ll swing by afterward and grab it.” He hung up without saying goodbye.

  She wasn’t sure what was on his docket that he would go by the office at this hour, but he juggled a lot of cases.

  As she let her tea steep, she carefully laid the medallion on the kitchen table and studied it. Thaddeus immediately walked over for a closer look. Although it was dirty, the motif on the metal was clearly visible. She thought about a young man who had hung on to probably the only possession he had left of his father’s, and she thought about what circumstances it would take for Johnny to let that memento go. She kept coming back to the fact that Johnny wouldn’t have given up the medallion willingly. So potentially an argument at the bench where he’d been sitting.

  “It’s too darn bad,” she said to Mugs. She got up, seeing all the animals sitting here, staring at her. “Okay, okay. I see you guys haven’t been fed yet.”

  She puttered around the kitchen getting dinner for the three of them. It was past time for her to get some food too. But the fridge hadn’t been restocked, and she desperately needed to go shopping yet again.

  “How come shopping consumes so much of my time?” she asked. “It should be fast and easy.” She knew those newfangled delivery services were available, where she could order online to get the groceries she wanted. She wasn’t quite ready for that yet. Nor could she justify the delivery fee.

  With the animals happily munching away, she made herself a simple sandwich, with raw veggies on the side, and sat at the kitchen table to eat. Her gaze kept returning to the medallion. And her mind kept revisiting where it had been found, then took her to the patch of bare ground under the original site for the bench.

  Somebody could have buried the body on Penny’s property, but anyone other than George and Penny digging up the yard would have been seen and considered suspicious, so that narrowed it down to Johnny’s family. Penny wasn’t strong enough to manhandle a body, although she might have helped George.

  But then why would George keep up the pretenses of looking for his younger brother? He’d already know where his younger brother was. He could have just turned his back on the whole farce and ignored it. Although, if he’d killed his brother, he’d have tried to throw off suspicion by acting as the grieving brother.

  Doreen knew in her heart that Johnny was probably dead, and she figured Penny knew it too.

  When Doreen was done eating, she washed her few dirty dishes, then glanced around the house, ensuring everything was still where it belonged. After the same intruder had gotten inside her house twice—maybe that third time too?—she felt more than a little paranoid.

  As she prepared to go upstairs and to start in on Nan’s closet again, Mack pulled up. Mugs barked at the door but his tail wagged happily. She walked to the front door, undid the security, and held up the ziplock baggie for him.

  He looked at it and frowned.

  “It’s a nice piece,” she said. “Do you think it’s real gold?”

  He nodded. “Not only is it likely real gold, that could be a gem in the center. But I can’t be sure.”

  “Which means, if somebody saw it they would have most likely stolen it.”

  “Yes.” His frown deepened.

  “Maybe take it and see if any bloodstains are on it?” she asked hopefully.

  He just raised his eyebrows.

  She shrugged. “You don’t have anything else to go on. You might as well take a look at this. It was his possession. It was found at the place where he was last seen. Maybe he was injured there. There could be blood.”

  “I’ll take it back to the office, but it was his, so his skin cells would have transferred to his medallion. So that’s to be expected.” He pocketed the bagged-up item and stepped back, looking around the living room. “I’ll be glad when these expensive antiques are gone.”

  “Hopefully on Monday,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Now it’s like sleeping in a mausoleum. I’m so worried about anything getting damaged that I don’t sit on it, and I don’t use it. I just walk around and give each piece a wide berth.”

  “Sounds like the right thing to do.” He turned and walked down the porch steps.

  She watched him go, hating that sense of loss she often felt when he left.

  He gave her a wave as he got into his vehicle, backed out of her driveway, and drove around the cul-de-sac, disappearing from sight.

  With a heavy sigh she stepped back inside.

  Her grandmother called just then. “How is Doreen?” Nan asked. “And how’s that lovely Mack?”

  “I’m sure Mack is fine,” Doreen said, desperate to keep her voice neutral. “And I’m tired, but I’m good. I took the long way around, walking back from your place.”

  “My place?”

  “Sorry, I’m more tired than I thought,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I was over at Mack’s mother’s, doing the gardening, then ended up at Penny’s.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I was hoping to invite you for dinner.”

  “I just had a sandwich and veggies,” Doreen said in frustration. She’d have loved to have had dinner with Nan.

  “Well, how about cake then?”

  “I can always go for some cake and a cup of tea. Do you have a reason for calling?”

  “Do I need a reason?” Nan asked craftily.

  “No. But something else seemed to be in your tone,” Doreen said. “As if to say, you found out something.”

  “Of course I did,” Nan said firmly. “Do you have any idea how much information is tied up in all the crazy heads here?”

  “Which is one of the reasons why I asked you to talk to the residents,” Doreen responded in a dry tone.

  “It is still fairly early,” Nan said. “Why don’t you come on down? Maybe, by the time you get here, you’ll be hungry again.”

  Doreen chuckled. “I did work hard earlier today, so sure. Why not?” She gave in easily. “Hopefully you’ll have some good information to give me.”

  With the animals fed, they all wanted to lie down and sleep. She was of two minds as to whether she should take them, but it felt odd to go to Nan’s without them.

  Forcing them out again, and carrying Thaddeus, she walked slowly toward her grandmother’s place. When she got there, she found the remaining stepping stones were still in a row, leading from the sidewalk to Nan’s patio. She crossed over them, in case the gardener came out and told her off again.

  Nan was watching her. She chuckled with delight when she saw the whole crew cross the lawn.

  Mugs raced toward Nan to give her a bark of welcome and a kiss. Nan didn’t seem to mind the slobbery wet kisses Mugs delivered on a regular basis. Goliath, on the other hand, appeared to be jealous and hopped up into Nan’s lap and completely overwhelmed the space. Thaddeus was more concerned with the cake on the table. Although he had just eaten, he was working away on a corner of the treat.

  “I do love these animals,” Nan said. “They truly are a delight.”

  “They are, indeed,” Doreen said. She gave Nan a hug and sat down to see a pot of tea steeping.

  “And I like having you close,” Nan said with a big smile. She motioned at the teapot. �
��By the time I make it, you’re almost here.”

  “Perfectly steeped,” Doreen said. “It’s a bit longer than that, but who’s counting minutes?”

  “Exactly.” Nan leaned forward. “So what else have you found out?”

  “You mean, what else have you found out? Right?” Doreen asked.

  “Not a whole lot,” Nan said. “But you went to see Penny, and you also talked to Mack’s mom, so both of those ladies must have known something.”

  “Do you know anything about Alan Hornby?”

  “No,” Nan said, frowning. “He was another one of those young men in Johnny’s friend group, right?”

  “Yes, he was,” Doreen said. “More of a fringe member though.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Also found out that George helped identify the two boys killed in the car accident.”

  “Well, that’s interesting,” Nan said. “I wonder why he did that.”

  “I think to make sure it wasn’t Johnny,” Doreen said. “It was Johnny’s car the boys were driving when they died.”

  “Is there any reason why George would misidentify the victims?” Nan pursed her lips and stared across the green lawn.

  To Doreen it looked like Nan stared across the years. “I wondered that myself,” Doreen said. “But there wouldn’t be any reason to do so. He’d have to be hiding his own actions or trying to protect somebody else.”

  “Most of us would do a lot to protect those we love,” Nan said with a beaming smile.

  “True enough,” Doreen said. “But that still doesn’t explain why George would in this case. The boys were friends of his brother’s. I don’t imagine there was any great loyalty or attachment on George’s part.”

  “But, if George wanted his brother out of his life, then that’s a good way to do it,” Nan said with surprising insight.

  Doreen chuckled. “Sure. At least then George would know Johnny was gone, but nobody else would. However, according to Penny, George spent his life and a lot of money trying to track down his brother. So I can’t imagine George would have put that much effort into keeping up the pretense. Not after the first few years.”