Darci squatted down, her fingers sifting through the potting soil to see if she could salvage the hydrangeas and marigolds squashed underneath. Bells jingling from the front door drew her attention. Not the best time for a customer, but sales took precedence over cleanup any day.
The only plant that still sat on the straw was about half a foot from her head. The second she moved to stand, the flowerpot exploded. Bits of dirt and terra cotta hit the right side of her face and arm.
Too stunned to scream, frozen in place, she turned to stare at the broken pot. Maybe she had somehow managed to royally piss off the Ghost Lady and this was the poltergeist version of a hissy fit. She dismissed that idea when something pinged behind her as it bit a chunk out of the siding.
A scream left her mouth before she realized she was running full speed toward the front door.
Hoyt heard her holler and rushed up front from the work room, where he’d been busy breaking down boxes from a recent shipment of floral supplies. “What’s wrong? I-”
“Shit on a biscuit, get down!” Darci locked the deadbolt and dove for cover under the counter, yanking Hoyt along with her. “Some fool’s shooting at me!” Remembering the jingle, she poked her head out far enough so she could scan the room. “Where’d the customer go? I don’t know if insurance’ll cover somebody getting shot in here.” Her hands cupped around her mouth, she yelled, “Duck and cover, wherever you are. We’re under attack!”
“Nobody came in yet, Boss Lady.” Hoyt accomplished a near impossible facial expression; he frowned, brows raised over widened eyes. “You sure somebody shot at you?” Why was he staring at her face like that?
“Yes I’m sure, and don’t call me that. Would I ever in my right mind close the shop during business hours if it wasn’t an emergency? Oh hell, I’ve gotta lock the back door. Don’t move.”
Before he could say anything, Darci skittered to the rear door and back on her hands and knees.
“Hand me the phone, just don’t stand up all the way in front of the window. He could think it’s me and shoot you, and I won’t have you getting hurt.” Her voice broke on the last words.
She made it a policy never to call Max while he was on duty, afraid to interrupt him in the middle of some important police work. An email or text she knew he wouldn’t answer if he was busy, so that was fine. Normally. Today was an emergency.
Her godfather picked up on the second ring.
Sirens blared and blue lights flashed as Max arrived minutes later.
Hoyt let him in. Darci remained huddled under the counter. Her hands, fingers laced together, still protectively covered her head. She knew she must look like one of those people in a bomb shelter ad from the fifties, not that she gave a damn.
“You okay, Darce?” Max squatted down so he could see her. “Come on out so I can get a better look at you, make sure you’re all in one piece.”
“He’s trying to shoot me.” She shook her head. “Might be a good idea to stay under here for a while.”
“Everything’s gonna be alright. The shooter’s long gone by now.” Max extended his hand toward her. “Got a deputy by both your doors and a couple more checking out the tree line where you think the shots came from. I won’t let anybody get you.”
Darci took his hand and stood up facing him, her shoulders hunched.
“Hoyt, what say you make us some coffee.” Max’s soothing voice calmed Darci’s nerves. “Pull the shades in the kitchen, if you don’t mind, just to make us all feel a little safer. And find me some Band-aids. We’ll be there in a minute.”
“Sure thing, Sheriff.”
“Now, let’s see how bad you’re hurt.” Max tucked a strand of hair behind her right ear, then turned her chin to the left. His brow puckered, then he smoothed his face into a reassuring expression she’d seen many times as a kid, usually after she fell off her bike or found some other clumsy way to hurt herself.
“They missed, so I’m fine. Just shook up.”
“Uh huh.” He dabbed her forehead and cheek with his handkerchief, which he then balled up and tucked quickly back in his pocket. He poked a few keys on his cell phone, said numbers that made no sense to Darci, and put it back in his belt case. “Your arm got scratched up, see,” he said, gently touching the area above her elbow.
“Must be from when the flowerpot exploded.” Dirt specks dotted her arm. At least it didn’t look bad, just a few scratches, like he said.
“There’s a little gash on your cheek too, right here.” He plucked a Kleenex from the desk and dabbed her forehead again. This time she saw red stuff on it before he hid it in his pocket. “Nothing to worry about, though.”
“Little gash?” The room started to spin. “You sure it’s not a bullet hole?”
Max opened his arms and the next thing she knew, she was crying into his chest. The blood smear on his shirt when she pulled away made her queasy, but the tears took away some of the panic. She was going to be okay.
He led the way to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair for her, and stuck a bandage on her forehead before her butt hit the cushioned seat. The overhead light was on, since the shades blocked out the sunshine, and Hoyt had steaming cups of coffee for each of them.
“Now let’s get down to business.” Max took a memo pad from his shirt pocket, clicked his ink pen, then asked Darci and Hoyt to go over everything that happened that morning.
“So neither of you heard gunfire?” Both shook their heads as Max looked back over his notes. “Guy must’ve used a silencer. Okay. Now, you have any idea who pulled the trigger? Has anybody threatened you?”
“Nobody’s threatened me, but . . .” Darci fidgeted with her napkin, twisting it into a thin rope she wound around her finger. “I have a pretty good idea who shot at me. It has to do with what I wanted to talk to you about when I texted you yesterday.”
“Oh Darci, if you were in some kind of trouble all you had to do was say so. I’d’ve dropped everything in a heartbeat.”
“I know, but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, and I wanted to think things over before I told you who I thought was responsible for Cyril Maldonado’s murder.”
“Murder? We pretty much chalked his death up to accidental poisoning.” Max rubbed his freshly shaven chin. “What did you get yourself in to?”
She sent Hoyt to go get the seed envelope and papers from her desk drawer while she filled the sheriff in on her suspicions, starting with her midnight epiphany after her nightmare and the research on castor plants. When Hoyt plunked down the seed packet, she told Max about going to see Teresa Nolan the day before.
“The phone rang right as I left. Probably Roy, which is why I think he’s the one who tried to kill me this morning.” She shuddered, then took a sip of coffee. “Teresa must have told him about my visit, and about the seeds she gave me. Plus, his girlfriend Belinda could’ve heard Donovan tell me about the day in February when she came in smelling like bacon grease and vinegar. That’s why he’d think I figured the whole thing out.”
“I’m not quite following you on the smelly girl.” Max jotted something down in his notes, then flipped back a few pages. “That’d be Belinda Blanford, but what exactly does her bad hygiene have to do with this?”
“She works at the hair salon. Donovan’s friend Gwen saw Belinda hanging all over Roy by the stables, which is why she got to work late that day. Donovan was hungover because he’d celebrated Bradley’s birthday the night before, on the nineteenth. He sent Belinda home because he was already mad about her being late again, but the smell made him gag. She said she took lunch to her boyfriend and spilled some on her sweater. I don’t know if she’s in on the murder, but I think she must’ve brought Roy takeout from the diner the day he poisoned his business partner. We did a bunch of flowers for Cyril’s funeral, which my records say was on February twenty-forth.”
“Maldonado died February twenty-second. If he ate ricin-laced food three days before that, it fits in with the time frame the coroner gave me.” Max p
oured himself another cup of coffee. “Got to hand it to you, Darci. That explains the odd plant material found in Cyril’s intestines and how it ties in with the ricin poisoning. Like you said, Roy must have taken a handful of those mole bean leaves from his mom’s yard during his Sunday visit, cooked ‘em until they wilted, and then stirred ‘em into the greens in Cyril’s plate lunch. That man would eat anything you put in front of him, and I doubt he could’ve tasted any difference, what with all the bacon drippins they put in the greens over at the diner.”
“Or he might’ve used the beans. I guess he could have soaked his mom’s seeds overnight, boiled them, and added those to the pintos. Either way, all his symptoms match what I pulled up on the poison control website.” Darci held up the papers she’d printed out earlier, then passed them and the sugar bowl to Max. “His stomach pain, diarrhea, and his organs shutting down. Honestly, it took me a while to figure out the particulars. If Paxton hadn’t played around with Wade’s tools, I never would’ve seen that plant in the killer’s mom’s yard.”
“And here I was, feeling sorry for that Nolan bastard. Mae cooked him up a big batch of lasagna and had me take it over to him the day after Cyril died. The son of a bitch.”
“Since Roy thinks I’m about to figure out he killed Cyril, I think he tried to shoot me to shut me up before I could tell you.” Darci absentmindedly rolled the salt shaker between her palms as one more puzzle piece fell into place. “He must’ve knocked over the flowerpots, so he’d have a clean shot at me while I picked up the mess.”
“No doubt Roy knows we’ve figured it out for sure now, but he’s not stupid enough to sit around waiting for us to go slap cuffs on his wrists. He’s most likely on the run, but the good thing to remember is there’s no reason for him to hurt you now. I’m sure half the county already knows the law’s swarming all over Petal Pushers, and that you’ve been sitting here, talkin’ my ear off all morning.” Max squeezed Darci’s hand, then dialed one of the deputies.
Darci hoped he was right about Roy not having any reason to use her for target practice again. He was right about word getting around fast, but she hoped Paxton wouldn’t hear anything about it until she got a chance to talk to him after school.
“They found shells from a thirty ought six by the tree line, with a perfect view of your side yard. Eddie Miller saw a blue pickup spin gravel when it pulled out of the dirt road, a truck just like Roy’s.” Max saw how shaken Darci still was, then winked a twinkling blue eye at her. “If you ever get tired of hocking plants, I’ll deputize you on the spot.
He stirred more sugar into his coffee. “When we found that insurance policy, we thought it looked suspicious until Mrs. Maldonado told us it was Cyril’s idea.” The yellow mug, decorated with ladybugs and bumblebee motifs, looked small in his weathered hands. “Living through the war taught him that people could die any minute, and he wanted ‘em both to be prepared. When they went into business together, Roy and Cyril each took out a policy with the other as beneficiary, in case one fell off a horse and died, had a heart attack or whatever.”
“Why was Roy so desperate for money that he had to kill for it? Everyone said he thought of Cyril as a best friend and a father figure.” Darci couldn’t imagine killing someone for financial gain, especially someone who’d been as magnanimous as Cyril.
“Roy has a gambling problem, which is no big secret, and he usually loses. Horse races, craps, you name it. I won twenty bucks off him once myself, at one of Nick Hopper’s poker parties. Some thugs started asking around, looking for Roy a few months back, and word is he owed six digits.”
“Um . . .” Hoyt, a few shades paler than usual, cleared his throat. “You might want to ask Ashley Rosales about that.”
“What do you think she knows, son?” Max’s notebook was going to be full before the day was over.
“Well, Amber, my girlfriend, is her BFF, so she told her what she overheard in the stable a few weeks after Mr. Maldonado croaked . . . um, died, I mean. Ashley boards over at M & N. She was in the stall grooming her horse, but they didn’t see her.” Hoyt bit his lip.
“Go on. Who didn’t see her?”
“Her boyfriend Jordan told her not to tell anybody, because she might get added to the hit list.” Hoyt took a deep breath to steady himself. “Two big Neanderthal looking dudes were all up in Roy’s face, smacking him around. Ashley heard him say they’d get their money as soon the insurance paid off. By then, she was hunkered under a horse blanket in the corner of the stall.”
“Did she hear anything else?”
“Um, yeah. One of ‘em told Roy he’d better be quick with the moolah or his mom’s blood would be on his hands too, not just Maldonado’s. Said next time they’d do a lot more than just cut her brakes.”
“Oh my God.” Darci’s hand covered her mouth, but didn’t stay there long. “I saw Teresa Nolan at Cyril’s funeral, sitting next to Roy, with a cast on her arm.”
“That’s right. She was in a car wreck in January, not long after that big snow we had,” Max said. “Guess it was more to it than a slippery road. At least now we know what Roy’s motive was. He had to pay off on the gambling debt ASAP, or else they were going to kill his mother. I be damned.”
An EMT came into the kitchen carrying a medical bag. It took a second for Darci to figure out he was there to patch up her head. She shot her godfather a look that said calling an ambulance was going just a tad bit overboard.
“Not a word, Darci, just let the man do his job,” Max said, knowing full well she’d listen to him. He clicked his ink pen again and turned back to Hoyt. “What’s Ashley’s address and phone number? Don’t worry. I’ll talk to her myself, without the squad car, and we’ll keep her name out of it, but I have to get a statement.”
“Ow!” The medic peeled the Band-aid off her forehead, then dabbed the wound with something that stung like hell and smelled like turpentine.
Darci jumped when the phone rang. Her nerves were a mess, but nothing compared to Wade’s. His buddy at the auto parts store down the street called to let him know the cops were hunting for the guy who shot his wife, but that everything should be okay, since the sheriff was down at the flower shop with an ambulance.
Charlotte brought baby Cole by to visit Darci one afternoon near the end of the month. Darci held the baby, kissing his little nose periodically as they sat eating Krispy Kremes at the table.
“Are you sure you can make it a few more weeks without me?” Charlotte asked. “Ashley is all set to babysit, so if you need me to help out before September fifteenth, just say the word. Me and little Cole Thomas are feeling fine, but we’re tired of being cooped up in the house, aren’t we, baby doll.” She reached over to wiggle his teeny foot.
“Be glad you were home safe last week. Did I tell you about the bells?” Darci went on when Charlotte shook her head. “I think the Ghost Lady just might have saved me the other day. Hoyt was in the back and no customers had come in, but when I heard those bells jingle, that’s what made me stand up. The second I moved, Roy squeezed off the first shot. If it hadn’t been for somebody making that noise, he’d have hit my head instead of that flowerpot.”
“I’m just happy you’re alright. You wouldn’t believe how many people have asked me how you’re doing, and for all the details.” News in a small town travels lightning fast under normal circumstances, so all the buzz over the county’s first murder case since the Civil War sure wasn’t a big surprise. Charlotte gave her a big hug, then pushed a highlighted curl away from Darci’s forehead. “Think it’ll leave a scar?”
“I’m so happy my brains didn’t get blown out, I don’t even care. Glad I only had to have a butterfly bandage instead of stitches, though.”
“Have they caught that asshole yet, or have any leads about where he is?” Charlotte asked.
“They think Roy headed toward Indianapolis. When Max interrogated Belinda Blanford, she spilled her guts on everything she knows about Roy. According to her story, Roy asked her to bring
their lunch over the day he poisoned Cyril. He said he stopped by the diner, then had to run back to his house for something and ended up leaving the takeout on his kitchen table.”
“And the scuzzy little nitwit didn’t find that at all suspicious?” Charlotte rolled her eyes.
“Nope, she even zapped the boxes in the microwave, to make sure the food stayed warm. One carton was dented on the side, which is why she dribbled juice from the greens on herself. Max thinks the dent let Roy know which box was poisoned, but he can’t figure out whether he was planning to set Belinda up for the murder by having her bring the stuff over, or if he was so nervous that morning he really did run off and forget it.”
“Is she in jail?”
“Max could pretty much tell she didn’t know anything about the poisoning, or her boyfriend trying to kill me. The diner receipts show that Roy called February nineteenth for two orders of their special beans, greens, and cornbread, to go. And the times check out. He let Belinda go but confiscated her cell. Oh, Roy used his credit card to buy gas in northern Indiana. The farther he is from here, the better off I feel.”
“What did you tell Paxton about all this? I don’t want to goof up and say the wrong thing in front of him.”
“After dealing with Wade, Paxton was easy. We told him somebody messed up the Back to School display and used it for target practice, in case any of the kids in his class heard something about the shooting. Know what he said? That the bad guys must’ve ran away because they were afraid Uncle Max would kick their butts.”
“Smart kid,” Charlotte said. “Sure I shouldn’t come in tomorrow, give you and the ghost a little backup?”
“Don’t be silly.” Darci couldn’t resist smooching the baby once more. “You enjoy your maternity leave. The last thing you need is to overdo it too soon.”
“So how’s business?” Charlotte washed down a bite of chocolate donut with a glass of milk. She had to avoid coffee for another few weeks, until after she quit breastfeeding.
Poison, Perennials, and a Poltergeist (The Petal Pushers Mystery Series) Page 12