Dagger in the Dahlias

by Dale Mayer

  “No,” Nan said. “But then you never know.”

  A tiny birdlike voice called out to Nan from the inside of her apartment. “Nan. Nan.”

  Nan’s face turned thunderous. She lowered her voice and said, “Don’t answer.”

  Doreen raised an eyebrow and studied her grandmother’s face. “Why not?” she asked in a whisper.

  “She’s always bugging me,” Nan said. “Maisie is a pest.”

  “Maybe Maisie is lonely,” Doreen corrected.

  “Humph.” Nan snorted as she settled back.

  “Oh, there you are.” A tiny woman with a shock of lavender hair stepped through Nan’s living room onto the patio. She turned her bright face toward Doreen. “You must be the granddaughter.”

  “Yes,” Doreen said with a smile. “I’m Doreen.”

  Maisie caught sight of Thaddeus eating the bread. “Oh my.” Her smile fell away. “Isn’t that dirty?”

  “Isn’t what dirty?” Nan snapped. She stroked Thaddeus’s back and shoulders defensively. “Thaddeus is hungry. Why should you care?”

  Doreen was quite perturbed at her grandmother’s manner. She’d never seen her like this.

  “That may be,” Maisie said with a sniff, “but that bird is walking all over your table.”

  “Well, honestly, Goliath would too,” Doreen said with a laugh. “If we let him, that is.”

  Maisie looked horrified at the idea.

  “I guess you don’t have any pets?”

  Maisie shook her head. “No. I could never handle the hair or the dirtiness. Animals carry disease, you know,” she said in a conversational tone, as if thinking—and heaven only knew where she got that thought from—that the two women listening to her would share her point of view. “Animals are terrible that way.”

  Nan rolled her eyes toward Doreen, who was hard-pressed to keep the smile off her face. “Maisie, what did you want?”

  For a moment Maisie looked confused.

  Nan pointed back at her living room. “There’s a reason I didn’t answer the door, dear. I have company.”

  Maisie gave her a finger pointing. “Hardly. Doreen is family. That’s not the same thing at all.”

  Watching the play between the two women was fascinating. It gave Doreen a different insight into her grandmother’s life here. Doreen didn’t understand the relationship between the two women, but it looked obvious it wasn’t all that easy or smooth.

  “I’m pretty sure Joe is looking for you,” Nan said.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Maisie said blithely. “He’s in my room, resting.” She batted her eyes at Nan. “He does need his rest afterward, doesn’t he?” And then, with a sweet smile and a chuckle, she disappeared.

  Doreen gave a horrified gasp. “Did she mean what I think she meant?”

  Nan nodded. “The two of them are carrying on like they’re eighteen,” she said. “I don’t mind in the least, but it would be nice if they kept it to themselves. But Maisie is one of those shrieking partners.”

  “Oh, dear,” Doreen said, struggling to stifle the laughter threatening to pour outward. “Most people like that are attention-getters.”

  Nan nodded. “I couldn’t have said it better.”

  “So is it just Maisie who pisses you off?”

  Nan gave an irritable shrug of her shoulders. “Not really,” she said, “but Joe used to be my friend.” The emphasis was on the last word.

  Fascinated, Doreen studied Nan’s face. “Did Joe ditch you for Maisie?” she asked gently.

  Nan shrugged. “No, I ditched him first. But he sure didn’t take long to pick up with Maisie.”

  “I rather imagine it has a lot to do with the perception of time,” Doreen said. “When you’re here, I think mortality is a little more evident. Maybe you guys don’t wait the usual length of time that goes along with a breakup.”

  “Some men never wait,” Nan said with a sniff. “And Joe is one of them.”

  “That’s good to know,” Doreen said. “At least now you won’t make the mistake of going out with him again.”

  “Not too many men in here are any good anymore,” Nan said. “I do keep the blue pills in my drawer. But it’s kind of depressing when you have to give them to the men yourself.”

  Doreen sat back, choking on the words threatening to come out.

  “Don’t look so shocked, my dear,” Nan said drily. “You’d be a lot better off if you and Mack would get over the courtship part of your relationship too. A good old romp in bed would suit you two just fine.”

  Doreen laughed out loud. “Thanks for the advice, Nan,” she said cheerfully. “Not that I’m looking for any.”

  “Of course you aren’t,” Nan said. “Which is why it’s so much easier to give it to you. If you were to ask my advice, that’d be a pain in the arse. But the fact that you’re not means I get to comment as I see fit.” Then she broke into bright laughter.

  There wasn’t a lot Doreen could say to that. At least Nan was laughing again. “Did Joe or Maisie know any of the kids in the gang back then?”

  “I don’t know why they would,” she said with a curl of her lip. “They’re both newcomers.”

  “What does that mean?” Doreen asked with a laugh. “Have they only been here for twenty years?”

  Nan straightened her back and looked at her granddaughter. “I hear the laughter in your voice, but, until you’ve lived in Kelowna as long as I have, you don’t understand how the newcomers are so very different from all of us oldies.”

  “Well, if they are newcomers after twenty years,” Doreen said, “I must be in the toddler category.”

  “You’re my family,” Nan said. “And that changes things entirely.”

  “I’m sure Joe and Maisie have family too,” she said gently.

  “Whatever,” Nan said. Then she giggled. “But I did take fifty bucks off Maisie earlier.”

  “You what?” Doreen was afraid to ask.

  “I bet her about Joe and a blue pill.”

  “Oh, dear. Nan, I really don’t want to hear about this.”

  “It’s all right, but that’s why Maisie came over. She was trying to tell me, in her way, that he didn’t need the blue pill.”

  “So how did you earn fifty bucks off her?”

  “I bet he wouldn’t need it,” Nan said, “because I had given him the blue pill earlier.”

  “You gave him a blue pill so he could have sex with Maisie?” Doreen asked in shock. “And then you bet Maisie he wouldn’t need one when she went to bed with him?”

  “Now you got it,” Nan said.

  “I think that’s cheating, Nan.” But a part of her wanted to giggle out loud.

  “All is fair in love and war,” Nan said complacently.

  Chapter 15

  Friday Later Afternoon …

  “Okay, definitely time for a change of conversation. Do you know anybody here who is an oldie?” Doreen asked with a smile. “If so, maybe you could ask them about Johnny.”

  “I have,” Nan said. “But nobody appears to know anything.”

  “Well, it was a faint hope. But you did call me for something, didn’t you?”

  Nan looked at her in surprise, and then her face lit up. “Oh my, I completely forgot.” She hopped up, walked into her living quarters, and came back out. “I asked Richie because I know he’s been here since Kelowna was basically established,” she said. “Lovely man.”

  Doreen desperately wanted to ask if he needed blue pills but needed to keep the conversation straight and not let her grandmother go sideways.

  “He did say not all was well within the group.”

  “How does he know?”

  “The girl in question who died a year ago was his niece. His great-niece. And he said she had a lot of trouble with the gang.”

  “Gang, meaning all of them?”

  “Yes. Apparently she was a little too free and easy with her affections,” Nan said. “And her great-uncle didn’t like that one bit. But, when he questio
ned her about it, she said she stopped going out with Johnny because she found someone else.”

  “Any idea who that was?” Doreen asked, sinking back into her chair. “I don’t know that it matters at this stage, but it would be interesting to know who.”

  “I’m not sure,” Nan said. “But, if anybody could figure it out, it would be you.”

  “What’s Richie’s last name?”

  “Smithson,” Nan said. “He is a lovely chap.”

  “How old is he?”

  “I think he’s eighty-two, maybe eighty-three,” Nan said. “It doesn’t really matter though. His mind is as sharp as anything.”

  “Good,” Doreen said. “Maybe you could ask him some questions about the accident.”

  Nan reached across the little bistro table, pulled up her phone, and sent a text.

  “Did you just text him?”

  Nan lifted her face to study her granddaughter. “Are you having some memory problems, dear? You just asked me to question him about the accident.”

  Oh, dear. Another rabbit-hole moment. Doreen shook her head. “No, I was wondering if you were though because—just moments ago—you told me nobody here knew anything.”

  “Sure, but that’s not Richie. Richie is different,” she said with a wave of her hand. “He’s not anybody. He’s special.”

  And again the questions were itching to flow from her lips, but she dared not. Then she couldn’t help herself. “Special in what way?” she asked.

  “Not that way,” Nan said shortly. “No better way to ruin a friendship than having sex, my dear.” She lifted her head again from her phone, holding it, as if waiting for Richie to get back to her immediately. “You should remember that with Mack.”

  Doreen stopped and stared. “You’re the one who just told me that Mack and I would do well for having a romp together.” She snorted. “How does it figure that now you are telling me not to?”

  “Oh, my dear, I’m not telling you not to,” she said. “Absolutely go and do it. But, if it’s not for the right reasons, you’ll find you’re not friends at the end of it.”

  “Right,” Doreen said, shaking her head. “Did you hear back from Richie yet?”

  “No, not yet,” Nan said, waving her phone. “You’d have heard a ring, dear. Maybe you should go home and rest. You do seem to be a little off today.”

  Doreen snapped her lips closed. Somebody was off, all right. But she didn’t know if Nan was taking her down that weird and wonderful rabbit hole again or if she was just playing with her. Sometimes Doreen couldn’t really tell.

  Just then Nan’s phone warbled in her hand. “Richie says the two men who died were in Johnny’s car.”

  “But we know that,” Doreen said patiently.

  “So then why did you ask?” Nan asked in irritation.

  “Nan …”

  Her grandmother sighed and settled back. “I do appear to be a little irritable today.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Doreen said. “Maybe I’ll go home now.”

  “No, no, no, no,” Nan said with a smile, patting Doreen’s hand. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I guess Maisie upset me more than I expected.”

  “I’m sorry for that too.” Obviously her grandmother felt jilted that her lover had quickly found someone else. “Maybe Richie will have some other information tomorrow.” Doreen pushed back her chair and stood.

  Nan’s phone warbled again. “Ritchie says the accident was caused by another vehicle.”

  Doreen’s butt thumped back down on the chair.

  “Like a hit-and-run?”

  Nan was still reading. “Something like that. Car went over a cliff, and the cops never found the other vehicle.”

  “Then how would they know somebody ran them off the road?”

  “There was a witness,” Nan said, looking at her in surprise. “Didn’t I tell you that?”

  Doreen pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, you didn’t tell me that. Who was the witness?”

  “The girlfriend of course.”

  “So she wasn’t in the boys’ car, but she saw another car run them off the road?”

  Nan nodded. “That’s what Richie says. She was adamant another vehicle was involved.”

  “Why would she be so adamant about it?”

  Nan shrugged. “Who knows? It happened at that really bad corner on the outskirts of town. Big hairpin turn up in the Black Mountain area.”

  “Well then, maybe a vehicle didn’t run them off the road,” Doreen said, “if it’s such a bad corner.”

  “Which is also why the police didn’t necessarily believe her.”

  “Of course they didn’t,” Doreen said. “Because it sounds like she was making it up. And what was she doing there at that time? Because that makes even less sense.”

  “Apparently she was driving behind the guys,” Nan said. “And she’d tried to get help for them, but the vehicle was already on fire.”

  “So she called the police and told them that another vehicle had run them off the road, correct?” Doreen wanted to make sure she understood what supposedly went on.

  “Yes, exactly. And now she’s dead, so we can’t ask her anything.”

  Doreen felt like she was going in circles. Sometimes Nan’s mind seemed to be even more circuitous than usual. “Unless …” She leaned in and studied Nan’s face. “Unless the girlfriend wasn’t alone in the car.”

  Nan immediately picked up her phone and sent another text. They waited for a long moment; then Richie sent back an answer. “No, she wasn’t alone.”

  Doreen groaned; getting information was like pulling teeth here. “Who was in the car with her?”

  “According to Richie, Alan Hornby.”

  Chapter 16

  Friday Evening …

  As Doreen and her animals strolled home, she pondered through the muddle of information from Nan. Doreen didn’t know if Nan had been really tired today or just upset because of Maisie. But, either way, Nan’s mind had been definitely irrational. Was Nan getting Alzheimer’s? How she could possibly ask her grandmother to go to the doctor to get some testing done she didn’t know, because she would be more than a little horrified and insulted to hear about Doreen’s train of thought.

  But really, with all this muddling of conversations, it was harder to sort out what was true and what was false. Maisie had obviously hurt Nan with the affair with Joe. At least that was Doreen’s take on it. Still, her grandmother would get over it, like she’d gotten over many other breakups in her life. Maybe Nan was more upset that Joe had chosen Maisie as Nan’s replacement and not somebody else. It was amazing how many times people were okay with a lover going off and dallying with somebody else, as long as the previous lover approved of the someone else.

  Doreen wandered home, contemplating this Hornby character. When she got to her house, she found an unfamiliar vehicle parked out front. She walked around the back of the vehicle and took a quick photo of the license plate. As she walked up to the front door to see where he might be sitting or waiting for her, she found nobody there. She walked around to the backyard with Mugs sniffing heavily at her feet and found a late-middle-aged man sitting on her back steps.

  As she approached, he hopped up and gave her a big wide smile. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” she cautiously said in response. “What can I do for you?”

  “For one, you can stop poking into things that don’t have anything to do with you.”

  “Such as?” Her head tilted as she studied him. He had to be about fifty years old, maybe a little older.

  “I’m Hornby, Alan Hornby,” he said, “and you keep asking questions about me.”

  “Who would have told you that?”

  “You gotta understand the old folks’ home,” he said. “Richie told my aunt Velma that you were asking questions.”

  “I am,” she said, “because nobody has seen Johnny since he disappeared.”

  “What does that got to do with me?” he asked. “And Johnny disappeared dec
ades ago.”

  “Maybe nothing,” Doreen said. “I was trying to cross the Ts and dot the Is. Apparently you were in the car with Susan when you saw another vehicle swipe the two guys driving Johnny’s car. Is that correct?”

  He frowned, his head also tilting to the side as he studied her. “What business is it of yours? Where did you hear that?”

  “I heard it,” she said, “while I was visiting Nan. I think it came from Richie because that was his great-niece who was in the vehicle with you.”

  Hornby glared. “Man, I tell you. Those old folks, if they don’t have something to gossip about, they make up something to gossip about,” he said.

  “Isn’t that the truth?” she said. “But, so far, you haven’t answered the question.”

  “You’re right there,” he said, “because, to be truthful, I can’t remember anymore.” He tapped his head. “It was a long time ago.”

  “You don’t remember whether you saw two good friends die in a fiery crash of a stolen vehicle right in front of you? Talk about suspicious.” Not that she had proof the vehicle had been stolen, but there was also no proof Johnny had sold it either.

  She studied Hornby, looking for any signs of deceit. The trouble was, he had that big beaming smile that said he knew she had no proof and that, with the girl dead, nobody knew anything, so he could say whatever the hell he wanted.

  “Nope, my memory is not very good anymore,” he said. “Too much booze and drugs.”

  That was just possible enough for her to consider it. “It’s a little hard to believe you don’t remember any of it,” she said.

  “I remember Johnny’s disappearance,” Hornby said, “mostly because it was on all our minds for such a long time. We had absolutely no way of knowing what happened to him. And we all wanted to know.”

  “Did you though?” she asked. “Did you really?”

  He glared at her. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I don’t know what I’m suggesting,” she said honestly. “But think about it. Johnny disappears. You have two good friends die in a fiery crash in front of you in Johnny’s car. Followed by … by what? Who was driving the vehicle that ran them off the road?”