by Judith Mehl
Maddy then whispered, “Maybe, by then, there was nothing she could do.”
“We can only hope the police will find something,” Kat said, straightening her spine. “Here’s what we do. I will renew my efforts to coax a memory of the bouquet from Agatha, who only saw it briefly. Meanwhile, continue searching for samples of Margaret’s handwriting so we can prove she didn’t write this.”
Maddy found a grocery list hanging on the refrigerator, and a memo to replace batteries in the fire detector next month. Combined with handwritten decorative tags for gift bags at the shop that everyone knew only Margaret wrote, they were certain they could rule out Margaret’s handwriting on the bouquet note.
Kat saw instantly the same thin loops on the ‘t’s and ‘d’s in all of the women’s samples. Margaret was someone motivated to give everything she had to her job, whatever it was. It didn’t surprise her to see the same formation even in her grocery list.
A noise by the front window caught their attention. Kat, who was closest, noticed it first. Lizzie, who was coming through the hallway from the bedroom, heard it last. She darted into the kitchen to join the others as the scratching sound penetrated. Kat determined it was someone rattling the front door, and turned to see Lizzie withdraw a huge revolver from her handbag, two-fisted, and clumsy at first, then steadier as the barrel freed itself from the paraphernalia.
Kat whispered as quietly as possible, “Lizzie, what are you doing?”
The armed woman turned her back to the others and faced the front door. She took a shooter’s stance as she whispered, “Quick, sneak out the back door before they see us here. If it’s the cops, we’ve got to scoot. I don’t have time for jail.”
Her long skirt masked her squat posture, but she sure looked professional as she held the heavy pistol straight and true towards the front room.
Amazed as much by the words as the gun, Kat motioned the others out the kitchen door. She wouldn’t leave the old woman behind. The cops were only one possibility. She didn’t want to consider the others just now. Maddy urged the stumbling Delia down the back walk while Kat reached for the gun-toting mama. Kat tripped on the shallow back step in her Perspex heel clogs and feared the gun would discharge in her face. She clutched Lizzie’s arm and implored her soundlessly to leave. Once outside and behind the empty herb drying barn, Kat almost lost her designer sandals but managed to hiss, “Do you have the safety on that thing?”
“Oh, pshaw, Kat, there’s no safety on this. It’s my dad’s old revolver. Kat studied it without touching it. “What is it?”
It’s a Smith & Wesson Model 1917. He gave it to me before he died.”
They all leaned against the back side of the barn to reconnoiter.
Lizzie continued, “Don’t worry, he taught me how to use it.”
Only a bit mollified as Lizzie stuffed the gun back in her carryall, Kat bit her tongue and attempted to remain focused, the gun incident temporarily shelved while she organized their escape. Delia had driven their old coupe and wisely parked it behind the second herb barn. It was near the rear of the property next to the overgrown, barely useable back drive. Delia managed to quietly ease out to the secondary road.
Kat and Maddy were less easily situated for escape. Once their elderly friends drove off, Kat leaned to sneak a peek around front and see who exactly scared them off.
“Don’t you dare,” Maddy hissed. Instead, they tiptoed through the nearest herb beds before veering toward the road behind cover of trees.
During their hasty departure they’d all agreed to meet back at the sisters’ house to discuss the handwriting clues. Kat also hoped to settle her mind about the gun.
She dealt with it head-on as she walked through the door. “Lizzie, is that gun loaded?”
“Of course, it’s loaded. What would be the point of carrying that two-pound gun around if it had no bullets in it?”
“Why are you carrying your father’s antique gun around?”
“In case someone walks in the front door and attempts to shoot me. Like almost happened a few minutes ago.”
Kat shook her head in disgust, denial, fear. She wasn’t sure which, but an eighty-year-old woman carrying a heavy handgun worried her.
“Can you shoot it?”
Lizzie frowned at Kat like she’d lost her senses. “Stupid to lug this around if I couldn’t. We grew up on a farm, Kat. Stop worrying. I could shoot since I was ten years old.”
Kat bit her tongue to avoid asking, “When was the last time you tried?” Fearful she’d hear something like fifty years, she refrained. Better not to know.
Chapter 5
A downward slanted ‘t’-bar can indicate a cruel and sulky being; one resentful and with a low opinion of others.
Kat adored Chief Burrows, her father’s lifetime friend, the favorite uncle substitute of her childhood, the father figure who wouldn’t appreciate her daring attributes and would never let her forget her foray into drugs.
She considered a move to collar her friend in his back room office, but cornering him would cause repercussions. Still, another life was at stake, and Kat organized a plan as she dragged out from under her cozy comforter, showered, and hugged Nick goodbye as dawn highlighted the mauve sky. First she detoured for a quick bagel stop, picking up an onion one for the detective, with his favorite vegetable cream cheese.
Kat quit smoking the day Burrows found a marijuana plant growing on her sun porch. A grateful student had honored her with it as a gift and conned her into thinking it was a cooking herb. She hadn’t smoked it. She naively cooked with it. Burrows saw the plant and razzed her so much she not only quit smoking, she didn’t cook for two months.
It was the residual aftermath that pulled her into a subservient mode one more time, even though both she and Burrows knew he would never publicize her error. But she needed to learn more about the possible murder of her two friends. Burrows would never come to her and share.
She marched fearlessly forward, knowing he’d once again resort to threats. The game had rules and correct moves and she could play the sorrowful supplicant one more time to scope out his mood and then segue into her requests.
Kat arrived primed for a fight, attired in her favorite German red ankle strap pumps for confidence. But the staccato rhythm of her heels provided enough warning that she saw him attempt to sneak out the back, probably not up to sparring with her this early in the morning. That move showed she had the upper hand for the moment, and she could only guess why. The man never knew when to stop revealing information. Only Kat could do that to him. She knew he cursed his dearest friend in the past for producing such a persistent daughter, and this time she would try to play the situation to her advantage.
She nodded to the nearest officer and they both stifled a laugh as they watched him tip-toe toward the exit. His escape was stymied by someone shouting his name, not knowing the detective was trying to slip out.
“O’Malley, you get a week in records for that,” he shouted to the bewildered man as he turned to face the train wreck named Katharine hurtling down the hall. He motioned her back to his office.
“So how’s it going, boss?”
“God forbid you would ever work for me,” he grimaced.
“Anything worthwhile come of Agatha’s flowers?” she asked sweetly.
“We are testing the flowers that Agatha received in case something is there that shouldn’t be. This doesn’t rule out the many normally poisonous plants found in bouquets,” he warned. “And poison in the flowers doesn’t prove that either woman died of poisoning or how it would have gotten from the plant to them.”
He waved her to a seat and feigned reluctance at taking the bagel bribe, yet devoured it in several bites. She watched as the ceremony played out. He always left one tempting bite for later, and he did again. Meanwhile he fielded questions and concerns regarding the two deaths and worries about the floral bouquets.
“Officer Bartello drove by Margaret’s home at the farm and thought he saw li
ghts,” he said, eyebrows raised. “The place was locked up when he stopped to check and he didn’t see any motion or lights when he looked in the window.”
He waited for a response, succumbing to the last bagel piece while he did.
Burrows dropped his stare in time to watch the last blob of cream cheese plop onto the report on his desk. He surreptitiously smeared it away with his thumb while Kat hid her smile and hedged on who might have been in the home. She didn’t quite admit that she and her friends were the ones the officer almost caught, yet espoused a belief that the house contents needed more inspection. “The police originally suspected that Margaret died of natural causes and, therefore, didn’t search her home, Right?”
“We will now.”
She conceded. “I have one key, and I’ve been there. I brought you this note.”
His eyebrows rose even further.
She almost stammered. “In going through Margaret’s things for Agatha, who asked us to check on the herb farm, we discovered that note that probably came with Margaret’s floral bouquet.”
She held it out, then let the note float from the envelope onto the desk without touching it. She showed him some of the violent characteristics in Agatha’s note after pulling a copy from her purse. She noted the oval letters that were thick, but open at the bottom, indicating possible lack of honesty in the writer, or signs of a crook or hypocrite.
Margaret's note appeared to be in the same handwriting as Agatha’s and conveyed more because of its length. She read a bit to remind him:
A bouquet for you in remembrance of past loveliness. In the bud of life you were as a camellia in and out, but you remembered me not, when love was needed. What you have rendered you cannot right. And your loveliness was insincere.
Kat pointed at some highlights in the handwriting. “See the nature of the writing? The violence is not as evident as in Agatha’s. The writing is very reserved and logical which shows preplanning possibilities.”
Burrows grunted and forced concentration. He learned from past experience that Kat’s analysis held important clues. They were difficult to follow without directing his focus. Kat underlined the lower case ‘t’s with her forefinger.
She explained, “The long downward slanted ‘t’-bar can indicate cruel and sulky; also the heavy pressure on the t-bar—means this person can hide brutality in the beginning but it can be prompted at a moment’s notice. This could be a resentful person with a low opinion of others.”
She continued. “The last part of the note is scary. ‘Hopefully, life has been as rich as desired; nothing lasts forever.’ Maybe she didn’t read it right away. She must have been frightened whenever she did. Why didn’t she call someone? Could the poison have killed her that fast?”
Detective Burrows reached forward as if to quiet her fears. “Kat, you’re jumping to conclusions. We are waiting for the toxicology report.”
“The note, itself, tells me that whoever delivered the flowers meant to kill Margaret.”
She pointed to it with a shaky hand.
“It sure sounds like someone she knew, and most likely someone from her past. Have you found anything about dangerous past acquaintances or family members?”
Burrows assumed his frown again. She knew he slipped it on like an invisible cloak to change his character. “We’re researching everything and everyone who associated with Mrs. Kinney and her husband before he died. The family has always owned the farm. Only recently had it included growing herbs and flowers for the Bittersweet Herbs shop. The shop and farm turn a small profit. No big bucks there.”
“So, no motive to kill her?”
He shook his head. “Nothing we can find so far. And we are investigating. You stay out of it.”
Kat settled back in her chair, a look of defeat on her face. She tried another approach. “Let’s review more about Agatha’s note so you can add the two profiles together and get a feel for the writer—or killer, if I may be so bold?”
He harrumphed and pulled the second note forward. She pulled up her chair and reviewed it again.
Agatha, you sat on the sidelines, but erred even then. Where was your support for one in need? Now you’re the last of three; is the third time the charm? Alone, to whom will you turn? May these flowers lead the way. Soon.
“The end strokes that curve up to left indicate a need to be noticed; someone who craves attention—even a deep emotional need to be noticed. This person could be a emotional wreck. His pressure and the filled in loops and ovals almost like they’re flooded with ink, could be a sign of sadistic tendencies.”
She stood up to show him the downstrokes on the ‘y’s. “His stress on the downstrokes and spearlike endings seem like a sign of strain rather than force. This with the disproportion between the width and height of a letter, see, like in this capital ‘M’, reveal the conflicts of a potentially disturbed person.” She beamed at Burrows. “From this it looks like it could easily be someone in her past.”
She glanced down one more time. “Look for someone unstrung.”
“Come on, Kat. We have a possible murderer of unknown method, who leaves violent and threatening notes with deadly flower bouquets. Of course he’s unstrung. Though I think ‘nuts’ would suffice.”
She ignored that and moved on. “Speaking of flowers, do you have a list of those from Agatha’s bouquet?”
The detective pulled the list Officer Bartello compiled from the top of the pile on the far right without even looking over there. She saw him hesitate before handing it to her. “I know your handwriting analysis stuff works. Even so, does it matter what flowers were in each bouquet?”
Kat explained that each flower held its own meaning and therefore, message. “Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a society poet in 1716, carried the knowledge about the meaning of flowers back to Europe from the Turkish Court, calling it a subtle and refined manner of imparting messages.”
Kat watched as he seemed unwilling to investigate flower meanings.
He handed her Agatha’s list and shuffled papers around his desk until he found another note. “Since Rosalin’s death was suspicious—that’s all I’m saying right now—they gathered up all evidence near the top of the stairs and down below where she fell. The bouquet was on the foyer table. It had included lilacs in the center and marigolds on the outside. In between there was a random assortment of columbine and phlox, and Celandine poppies, whatever they are.”
Kat asked for a copy of the list, eager to share it with the sisters. “Except for the lilacs and marigolds, they all seem to be native woodland flowers from around here, especially the Celandine poppy. Even though the bouquets appear totally different, I think we’re looking at the same person involved as the giver.” She added, “We’ve been trying to pinpoint someone from the messages in the flowers. So far we determined that the camellia from Margaret’s bouquet means perfection and loveliness. That ties in with the note. And it’s not poisonous.”
The next one might bother him because it involved superstition but she plowed forward. “The lilac from Rosalin’s just means bad luck. And we don’t know if there was a note that tied in with that.”
Burrows held up his hands, palms forward. “We’ve got some one over at Rosalin’s now doing a search.”
Kat finished, “The last point I want to make involves the poison hemlock, which is highly toxic And no antidote. However, it is difficult to poison someone from touching the plant.”
To cement his interest in the possibility of the same killer involved with both women, Kat told him what Agatha remembered that might matter. “She said that Rosalin kept the books for the herb farm—a solid connection between all three women and the two places of business.”
As she rose to leave, she tried to explain. “I’m just hoping to find a subtle message from the killer in these bouquets. They must have some purpose.”
Burrows agreed that bouquets for the three women, just prior to the death of two of them warranted further investigation. He reminded her that
the usual methods of investigation continued. “I’ll send someone around to talk with Agatha, again, soon.”
Chapter 6
Look for an uppercase ‘T’ that curls backward into a fetal position, reaching desperately toward the past. Such need, though often hidden in daily life, can explode.
A mustard smear obliterated some of the pertinent information, but to Irving there was no doubt about it. The obituary heralded the passing of Rosalin Bromfield—the same Rosalin Bromfield he’d threatened with a bouquet last week.
The diner noise faded to the background. What had been annoying him before as he read the newspaper was no longer heard. Only the voice in his head. “Oh no! She’d died three days after she’d received the bouquet and damning note. What had he said? Oh yeah.”
You inserted yourself and gained what was mine. Now it is time to leave before the summer heat wilts your resolve. Quick. Sun can be deadly.
Irving pulled the newspaper forward and studied the article. He tried to look as if his whole life hadn’t just flipped over and smashed him in the dirt. He’d had such great plans.
Focus! Focus! What exactly did the obituary say?
It wasn’t much. Looks like she didn’t know too many people. That’s good—no one to care. How did she die? He reread it twice. No clue.
Maybe it was just a normal ole heart attack. Could be. Would they find the note?
He shifted in his chair nervously and saw the waitress cock her left hip and heard the smack of her gum as she chewed around the irate question. “Do you want another refill on that coffee or not?”
He looked up for a second, saw the ornate name tag flaunting “Betti” like the woman didn’t know how to spell. “No!”
He waved her away like a nasty fly without another word. He couldn’t find one if he’d wanted to.
Betti jerked the coffee pot back to her chest and marched away. Before she could set it on the burner he heard her vent to the other waitress who stood by the counter wiping crumbs into her hand.