Poison, Perennials, and a Poltergeist (The Petal Pushers Mystery Series)

by Hayes, Tina D. C.

  “It’s too bad she doesn’t get one red dime for all the time she spends helping other people,” Charlotte added. “Laura DeMoss just does it out of the goodness of her heart.”

  “We’ll fill her prize basket with stuff she can use to pamper herself for a change. I’m thinking lotions, cushy slippers, and,” the wheels in Darci’s head spun out of control, “we need to make a mall run.”

  Later that afternoon, Hoyt left to deliver Ms. DeMoss’s prize, one of the best Darci and Charlotte ever put together. A fluffy lavender robe and matching slippers filled a huge wicker basket, with lotions, oils, bubble bath, and two lilac-scented candles nestled inside. Charlotte tied a wispy raffia bow to the handle and Darci tucked two small ceramic guardian angels between the folds of velvety fabric. Well worth the effort for someone who so clearly deserved it.

  Darci balanced the books at the end of November, reminded once again of her fast-approaching deadline. Would this New Year’s Eve be the worst day of her life or mark a milestone in her career?

  The black ink penned in the ledger gave her cause to hope. If December went as well as the previous two months, with no unexpected losses, Petal Pushers would show a profit. She fidgeted with a rubber band, afraid to get her hopes up, terrified to think about the consequences if she didn’t make it. This shop was a dream come true, not just a way to earn a living. She needed to prove herself capable of financial independence, since her biggest fear was for history to repeat itself. How had her mother found the strength to fight a losing battle against poverty when her husband died, leaving her with a daughter to feed and a mountain of debt?

  Darci crossed the fingers she’d nearly worked to the bone, and prayed for a reason to celebrate.

  Petal Pushers’ Plant of the Month for November is

  Impatiens

  Impatiens wallerana

  Annual

  Common name: Everyday Bloomers, Busy Lizzie, and Jewelweeds

  Brief description: Impatiens are my all time favorite bedding plant, and I do believe Bernice from Golden Days Retirement Home mentioned they’re her favorite, as well. They grow from eight to twenty inches tall and have cute little flowers that bloom nonstop from early summer until the fall frost. The flowers come in a variety of colors and combinations.

  Symbolism: motherly love

  Trivia: Most people buy these as bedding plants, but an interesting and little known fact is that impatiens can, at times, produce pods that scatter seeds up to twenty feet when they pop.

  Growing instructions: Everyday Bloomers thrive in full shade, but can do pretty well in more sun. These wilt if they dry out, so keep them watered in the summer heat.

  Uses: Impatiens make wonderful additions to flower beds, in containers and hanging baskets, planted under trees, and as houseplants. They add a nice splash of color wherever you need it.

  Tools & Tips: Don’t forget to plant bulbs now for pretty flowers in the late winter and spring. Plant bulbs for tulips, daffodils, crocuses, etc. about six weeks before the ground freezes. How the heck will you know when that is, you ask. It’s usually right after the first heavy frost, or when the night temperature stays between 40 and 50 degrees.

  Chapter 12. December

  Earth laughs in flowers.

  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  “Business is a boomin’,” Darci told Charlotte over the din of shoppers. The holiday season kept a constant stream of customers flowing through Petal Pushers in search of Christmas décor and gifts.

  Wade and Paxton did their part to help out, with truckloads of pinecones and fresh boughs from their biweekly trips to the woods. Sometimes they found mistletoe, the only problem being that it grew so high up in the trees. Darci wondered if she could sell the sprigs of mistletoe for a dollar more if she advertised that real live woodsmen shot it down from a tree.

  She and Charlotte turned the pine branches into swags, mantle sprays, and wreaths. Decorated to fit every style imaginable, each wreath type had its own unique name, to avoid confusion with online orders. ‘The Minimalist’ was a circle of greenery with a big red bow on the bottom, while ‘The Standard’ referred to wreaths with glass balls and a smaller red or green bow. Charlotte made dozens of her favorite ‘Jingle Bell’ wreaths with assorted sleigh bells strung on sturdy lengths of wire, looped into a circle that donned a red ribbon and raffia bow. They whipped up ‘After School Specials’ with tiny Santas, snowflakes, and a few crayons for added color.

  “Internet sales are through the roof.” The printer spit out the latest orders while Darci updated Petal Pushers’ website with new pictures of their Christmas creations. The five pages devoted to wreaths racked up the most hits. Online orders had Hoyt running to the post office a couple times a day, sending packages all over the country. “I knew it was a good idea to specialize in something particular and go heavy on the advertising.”

  “You’re a regular marketing whiz.” Charlotte patted her cousin on the back. “Between the newspaper ads, eBay, and those fliers you paid Hoyt’s girlfriend to put on windshields, we’re busier than a pack of prune fed cats covering up kitty turds.”

  “This is a team effort, don’t forget. You and Hoyt came up with ideas for those novelty wreaths that fly off the shelves.”

  ‘The Gothic’ featured black bows and tiny silver snowflakes, their delicate presence adding a classic feel anyone who wore black lipstick could appreciate. Japanese figurines peeped out of the ‘Manga’, inspired by the Asian craze in comics and cartoons. For the ‘Sports Nut’, little baseballs, basketballs, footballs, and soccer balls mingled with coach whistles spray-painted gold. Hair salons snatched up ‘A Curly Christmas’, made with multicolored perm rollers from the beauty supply store. ‘John Deere’ wreaths decorated with a green and gold bow, red glass orbs, and miniature tractors were one of the hottest items. Their ‘Pet Wreath’ assortment featured dog biscuits and squeaky toys, catnip filled mice and feathers, or bird treats and millet, designed to be taken apart and fed to lucky pets after the holidays. Darci’s stomach growled each time she put together ‘Sweet Tooth’ wreaths, jam-packed with mini Hershey bars, gold and silver foiled Kisses, and candy canes, topped off with a bow made from red licorice vines.

  “I still can’t believe the ‘Nympho Deluxe’ you came up with.” Darci’d laughed at that sight until tears spilled over her lashes, but she flat out refused to let Charlotte sell it. “Something is definitely wrong with you.”

  “Oh, come on, Darce. Prophylactics and pasties might draw in a more diverse crowd.” Charlotte flashed her mischievous grin. “Okay, so I’m a closet pervert, what can I say. Jimbo liked it though. I hung that one up in our bedroom and not ten minutes later he-”

  “Oh, no no no,” Darci interrupted, shaking her finger in her cousin’s face. “You promised I didn’t have to hear any details about that. Y’all keep going at this rate and little Cole will have a house full of brothers and sisters, not to mention his sex-crazed parents.”

  When Darci opened the shop one morning, she found something strange. Far beyond the Mac Daddy of all weird coincidences, this could only be solid proof of Miss Addie’s ghostly presence.

  The same book had, once again, fallen off the shelf and landed front cover up on the floor. An empty space between the other volumes marked the absence of Garden Art Mosaics. She squatted to retrieve it, but drew her hand back to cover her mouth instead.

  Positioned on the center of the book, a shard of china dared her to deny its existence. Darci couldn’t bring herself to touch it.

  She darted to the workroom and the broken plate. Everything was as she’d left it, the pieces still positioned like a worked puzzle. The shard that should occupy the center was missing even though all the others remained exactly as they had been.

  With shaky hands, she pulled her camera from a drawer. She routinely photographed her arrangements and centerpieces to put in an album customers could flip through to see examples of her work. Now she took a picture of the plate pieces, then a shot of the shar
d lying on the garden art book, still untouched on the floor.

  She knew Charlotte would believe her, and Hoyt, since he’d been pale faced and pretty shaken last week when he saw “some damn disappearing old chick”, then swore he wasn’t on anything. The pictures were more for her own peace of mind, for later, when she might look back on this morning and doubt her sanity. She also hoped they might help convince Wade she hadn’t hallucinated.

  She put away the camera and turned the sign in the front window around so that ‘Open’ greeted the front porch. Back behind the counter, she stared at the book on the floor for a while, then, holding her breath, moved it onto the counter. She poked the antique pottery shard with the tip of her index finger, halfway expecting it to spin through the air like something from The Exorcist.

  Darci screamed, jerking her hand away as she jumped backward. She tripped over the office chair and landed on her ass.

  “Damn phone! Nearly scared me to death.” The caller ordered flowers for a relative recuperating from gall bladder surgery while Darci rubbed the seat of her pants, sure she’d have one hell of a bruise on her butt cheek. She hung up the receiver and shifted her thoughts back to the matter at hand.

  A fragment of Miss Addie’s favorite possession, an heirloom brought to this country from Ireland when her family immigrated, sat atop Garden Art Mosaics, the same book that kept mysteriously jumping off the shelf. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the ghost was trying to tell her.

  “Well, Miss Addie,” Darci said to the room, empty but for herself and an invisible apparition. “I take it you’d like me to use your broken Belleek to make something pretty.”

  She looked around the room, wondering if she’d get an answer. Nothing happened, except Daisy started to chirp. A knowing smile tugged the edges of Darci’s mouth.

  “Sounds like a great idea to me.” She tilted her head in thought. “We’ll make something indestructible, so you won’t have to worry about your mama’s china.”

  Darci put the shard back with its counterparts in the workroom, afraid someone might accidentally throw it away if left on the counter out front. Seated at the desk under the back window, she flipped through the book full of instructions on creating mosaic pieces for the home and garden. Page after page held so many beautiful photographs, she didn’t know how she’d ever make up her mind.

  A bead of water plopped onto the open book. “What the hell?” The glistening droplet seemed to stare back at her from the glossy page.

  A glance at the dry ceiling above ruled out a drip, plus it hadn’t rained for the past week. A cold chill settled around her and drove another possibility through her brain.

  “Um, Miss Addie? Is this another sign from you?”

  Her eyes scanned the shop for anything out of the ordinary, perhaps a ghostly figure in a Victorian dress. She laughed at how stupid the idea seemed.

  Bells jingled, drawing her attention up front where she expected to see a customer stroll in. Her gaze met a closed door instead, the bells attached to it still jingling away.

  “Okay, I get it.” The ringing stopped. Darci swiveled her chair back around to her desk and studied the damp page. “Great idea, Miss Addie.”

  Hoyt picked up the supplies she asked for at a craft store on his way to work that afternoon. After reimbursing him for the expense, Darci got busy on the project.

  The mosaic process was a lot of fun, like working a puzzle made from bits of porcelain. With the pieces arranged on the worktable, there was virtually no way to mess up the grouting. Darci fought the urge to take it home to show Wade, but the project needed to set and dry overnight.

  “Oh my gosh. You made that!” Charlotte exclaimed when she came to work the next morning. “It looks like something you’d pay a fortune for at an art show. I can’t believe you put that together using a bunch of broken junk. Amazing.”

  “It does look pretty nice there, doesn’t it? Just what the wall needed.” The only logical place for it was where the original plate had hung, just above eye level on the shop wall, between the porthole and the shelving. Darci stood back to admire her handiwork, pretty proud of herself. More importantly, she knew Miss Addie would approve.

  Customers raved about the new clock, and a few offered to buy it. “Oh, no,” Darci answered each time. “That’s our new family heirloom.” Pride swelled her heart at the thought of Miss Addie passing it down to her.

  The clockworks in the center nearly faded into the background of the mosaic. The pewter hands and numbers stood out against the dark cream base. Around the apple-sized faceplate lay the focal point of the clock-the pieces of Belleek china. Nipped to a uniform size, the fragments arranged on the clock base measured a bit larger in diameter than the original plate. Grout a shade darker than the pewter numbers filled in the blank spaces.

  “Guess what I used for a border around the outer edge?” Darci asked Ashley when she complimented the new clock. She’d stopped by Petal Pushers on her way to babysit Cole, to post a new SADD poster in the shop window. Charlotte lucked out when she hired her.

  “Marbles maybe? Or beads?”

  “Nope, not even close. It’s pea gravel,” Darci said, watching for her reaction. Addie Brown’s rose garden had been gone for decades, but the tiny stones remained, buried beneath mud and grass. “Dug it out of the ground with a trowel, soaked ‘em in bleach, then scrubbed ‘em clean until the original luster shined through.”

  “You’re kidding.” Ashley leaned in for a closer look at the clock. “My art teacher would so drool all over himself if he saw this. What made you think to use pea gravel?”

  “It just seemed like the right thing to add a little detail. I think they look kind of like little pearls lined up around the edge.”

  Darci ran her fingers over the mosaic each afternoon before she locked up. To her, it symbolized Miss Addie’s timelessness, her ability to link the past to the present and future. The pewter hands ticked minutes away into infinity. The antique china was a link to the past and Addie’s Irish roots. The rose garden pebbles represented the earth they’d been a part of for thousands of years. Yep, she thought as she gazed at the clock, Miss Addie would love and appreciate the piece, and hopefully realize it stood as a tribute to her, as well.

  A cold spot settled over the room like a chilly hug. The Ghost Lady still haunted the shop even after her plate was back in one piece, so Darci ruled out her coming around for unfinished business. She believed Adelaide Brown wanted to stay in the home she loved so much, the building she seemed to make sure fell into Darci’s hands to become Petal Pushers. Miss Addie would likely remain as much a permanent fixture as the roof, the staircase, and the tribute clock.

  Daisy chirped.

  “You’re just oozing confidence, Hon.” Wade watched Darci gather sketches of floral arrangements off the foyer table and sling her purse across her shoulder.

  She’d shrugged off the compliment, but pecked a kiss from his cheek before she headed to work. Now she stood behind the counter at Petal Pushers, thinking back over all she’d accomplished during the past year. Wade’s words might just hold more truth than flattery.

  Darci always tried her best to do a quality job on a professional level. The first two months after the grand opening, she rushed to the store worried over whether or not she’d sell anything she’d invested so much time, energy, and cash into making.

  Somewhere between Labor Day and Thanksgiving, something changed. The alarm clock no longer triggered a rush of panic. She greeted the day with a smile, eager to eat breakfast and open the shop. Enthusiasm replaced anxiety each time she flipped the sign in the shop window to ‘Open’. She looked forward to her workdays like some people looked forward to a vacation or the first cocktail at the end of a busy week.

  Dread of bills and mortgage payments slipped away, which let her spend more time planning advertisements and specials. She did the dishes after supper daydreaming about what might go on in the shop the following day, who may come in, or
what type of arrangements she could whip up next.

  The biggest change she saw in herself, however, was confidence that she wouldn’t screw everything up. Darci grinned at the realization. She looked forward to placing orders for plants, fresh flowers, and supplies. Indecisive as ever about choices over which varieties in which colors and how many to purchase, the selection process now went the way she really wanted, rather than which were on sale.

  Charlotte boosted Darci’s confidence to another level after she watched her make a sale one afternoon. “Do you realize how much your approach to customers has changed?”

  “What do you mean?” Darci leaned against the counter, waiting for a punch line.

  “Well, the chit-chat and small talk always did come easy for you,” Charlotte said, looking Darci in the eye. “You’re just more self-assured and relaxed now. You used to be like, ‘The yellow roses would be pretty, I think, unless you’d prefer the red or pink. Any of those would be good choices. What do you think? Is the yellow a good pick for you?’”

  Darci smiled at the imitation, knowing the timid sales pitch was probably accurate.

  “But now you’re all like, ‘Since you’re looking for roses, I’d suggest these beautiful yellow ones. Here, give ‘em a sniff. Heavenly, aren’t they? How many would you like in that bouquet?’”

  “You might have me confused with Martha Stewart.” Darci beamed, and couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Darci sat down to balance the books in the middle of December. She reached to take a pen from the holder and knocked over an old bottle of antacid tablets. She used to pop those things by the handful when she got sick at her stomach from paying bills, something she now viewed as a simple task she could do with Daisy singing on her shoulder. Calculator in hand, she started crunching numbers.