Yew to a Kill

by Kim Smith

She nodded, drawing a deep breath.

  “Apparently Bubba died from poison,” Dwayne told her, relaying the information I had been given from Sal. “They don’t know what kind yet, but the autopsy results are getting deciphered at SLPD. Detective Ramirez probably called to tell you what he told us.”

  She shut her eyes, assimilating the information.

  “Listen, Carrie, we want to get involved somehow. A friend of a friend told us that he thought the contest was a good starting place. If we want to know who Bubba was working with the last few days of his life, we have to start with this contest.” I hoped she was listening through the pain of her grief.

  She opened her eyes and wiped tears away. “Yes, I guess so. I haven’t gotten the funds together yet to repay you for the entry fee, but—”

  “Don’t fret about that,” Dwayne assured her. “We’ve taken care of it. We don’t want you to pay us back.”

  She was genuinely surprised. “You don’t?”

  “No. All we have to do now is make the best damn casket spray in town and win that contest. I’ll bet if trouble is afoot in tulip-land, our getting deep into that contest is gonna till up some garden grubs,” he declared.

  Small wrinkles appeared at the corner of her eyes and I did my best to keep a straight face. It was downright difficult when Dwayne said things as sincerely as he had just done.

  “Carrie, what help can you give us on the gift cards from the funeral? I went to scoop them up afterwards, but they were all missing. Did you get them?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. My father and mother took care of that. I promised them I would help them address the thank-you notes. I can’t seem to bring myself to do it yet, though.”

  “Would you mind if we went through the pile? We might see a name or two that means something.”

  She gave me a gleaming smile. “Not at all. In fact, why don’t you come by this evening about seven and I will be sure to have them ready.” She grabbed a gift card nearby and wrote her telephone number on it. “That’s my cell. Call when you’re on the way and I will give you the address to GPS.”

  I took the card and tucked it in my purse. I’d wanted to check out Bubba’s parents one more time. Maybe in their home they would let their guard down and I would be able to see deeper inside their true feelings about him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  We left the flower shop a short while later just as the skies opened up and poured. We ran to Betsy and simultaneously slammed our doors.

  “You think I’ll get arthritis or bursitis or some of them old-age diseases in my arm or shoulder now?” Dwayne asked, holding his hurt arm close to him.

  “Nah, that’s only if a bone is broken,” I assured him.

  We took off for the fresh flower distributor in Memphis. Carrie had given us a list of flowers we needed to order for her to build the casket cover. While we drove, we discussed what Sal had said.

  “What the hell did Shelly have to do with the casket thieving,” I mused.

  “Well, like old Sallie said, she was the inventory control girl. She probably knew boxes were missin’ and she started getting nosy. Ding! Someone did her in.”

  “But doesn’t that tell you something?”

  He turned his head and looked at me. “Yeah. Nosiness will get you killed.”

  “No, silly. It tells me that the whole casket thing is an inside job.”

  “How’d you figure?”

  “Who else knew when they could be moved? How to get them in place and make them available? Someone who works there. Maybe even Shelly herself. Jason said she was working on those very items in the inventory.”

  “You think Shelly was involved in the heist?”

  “She could have been. She would have been the best choice in my opinion. But she wasn’t the mastermind. But why not? Why wasn’t she the ringleader?” Now I was off in my own head, wrestling with the whole idea.

  Dwayne followed along with my train of thought. “Because all we ever saw were men. And they all were dangerous lookin’ dudes, with guns, if you recall,” he answered, holding up his arm for emphasis. “She didn’t strike me as being the kind to associate with bad-asses.”

  “What? She struck you as a Girl Scout leader type?”

  “Well, yeah, sort of. She was a really quiet-spoken, Christian lady. The total funeral working type.”

  I turned into Flowers, Inc. and put Betsy into park. “That’s the worst sort, Dwayne—the genius silent type. They’re always the mastermind of deviant organizations. You need help getting out?”

  He shook his head and twisted his body until he could shove himself forward and into an upright position. When we were elbow-to-elbow, walking into the warehouse, he said, “I can’t believe that about Shelly. You’d have to have been around when I met her. She served us tea, for crap’s sake. And besides, if Shelly’s the mastermind and she got iced, who’s responsible for that?” He shook his head. “No, it’s more like she got in the way. If she found out who was takin’ those body boxes out back, she would be directly in the line of fire.”

  “So they killed her to shut her up?”

  “Maybe.”

  We entered the building, a long warehouse with tall ceilings. A door opened across the wide open room behind a counter where we now stood. A man dressed in a stained butcher’s apron started toward us.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  I smiled and produced the list. “We’d like to order these.”

  “We only sell to retailers.” He hesitated. “What’s your business called?”

  “The Delicate Petal.”

  I watched his face go from bland interest to something akin to fear.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” he said, eyes darting to the back and the door from which he had come. I wondered who he expected to come through the door. Or was it that he wanted to escape?

  “Nope, no kidding. We’re from The Delicate Petal. The new owner, Carrie Thames, has requested this list to be ordered so she can get to work on her contest entry. The big one all you florists are so busy with right now.”

  Now he truly looked scared, and I noted Dwayne’s brow furrowing as he watched the guy shuffle from foot-to-foot.

  “Well, I’ll have to get someone to help you. I’m new here,” he stammered. Then he practically ran back in the direction he’d come from. An older man, wearing an even dirtier butcher’s apron, came out of the door just as the frightened man got to it. They stood and talked for a few moments. The older man kept glancing at us, ran a hand through his steel-gray hair.

  “Damn. Something’s not right here,” I whispered to Dwayne.

  “Yep, somethin’s stinkin’ around here, and it ain’t cow manure.”

  We stood our ground until the man finally shook his head and paused to collect his thoughts by looking at his feet, hands on hips, and the younger man went back through the doorway. When he strolled toward us, I had a bad feeling we wouldn’t be getting our order today.

  His face looked as black as the clouds outside. “Paul told me you people were out here demanding special treatment,” he began.

  “Hold up, dog. We ain’t lookin’ for no special treatment,” Dwayne assured him in his best Randy Jackson voice.

  “This contest is ruining the whole industry. I swear to God, it’ll be a relief when it’s over,” he said. “What do you want?”

  I pointed down at the list. He looked it over, snatched it up and mumbled, “Come back tomorrow.” Then he turned away and stomped off.

  I gaped at Dwayne.

  “Don’t ask,” Dwayne answered in response to my open mouth. “Let’s go. He ain’t gonna get those flowers to us no sooner.”

  While Dwayne marched ahead and shoved open the doors with his good hand. I quickly memorized every nuance of Flowerman’s face. His unhappy eyes were full of hatred. He was at least part foreigner, but I discounted him for my Ninja visitor. Too old to be as nimble as the guy who accosted me.

  Disappointed, I joined Dwayne in
the car and we headed back to Bubba’s shop, The Delicate Petal.

  “We definitely hit some nerve. That was weird.” I said, glancing at the sky.

  “Yeah, everybody is all pissy about this contest. I can’t figure it out. Apparently there is a shit-ton of competition going on.”

  “Or everyone is hiding something about it that we need to know.” I turned on the wipers. “It’s going to rain buckets.”

  Dwayne remained mute, focusing on his own thoughts.

  Carrie greeted us at the door, where she had been weather-watching. “The storm prediction center has promised a nasty night, too,” she told us as we ran in, shaking off water like yard dogs.

  “Great,” Dwayne sighed. “So much for my plans. I ain’t getting out to parade around in this mess for nobody.”

  While we dried off with paper towels, I gave Carrie the lowdown on Flowers, Inc. “Do you know the people over there?”

  “A little. Bubba usually dealt with our vendors, but I guess I may have talked to someone on the phone briefly, or said hello to the delivery guys who sometimes bring stuff by to fill an order.”

  “Oh, so they are used to accommodating y’all? How very strange because, well, I was totally not impressed with them. They were rude, in fact. You might want to find a new supplier.”

  Nonplussed, she said, “Don’t know if I can do that. There’s not a boatload of distributors locally.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe they’re having a bad day.” Or maybe the head honcho decided getting Bubba out of the way didn’t make any difference in the eligible contestants?

  We trooped back upstairs, sat down, and watched her spread out a bundle of babies’ breath, dividing it into groups of good and bad pieces.

  While she worked, she talked. “If I’m not mistaken, Bubba has had an account with Flowers, Inc. since he started. Maybe they are having a bad day. I’ll call later and check on the order. Oh, and I called that cop back, what’s his name? Ramirez?”

  “Yeah, Salvador Ramirez.”

  “It goes without saying Bubba didn’t poison himself, so I guess he met with a violent end not of his choosing.” She yanked viciously on a tangled bunch and small white blossoms flew everywhere.

  I jumped, startled.

  “Oh! I’m sorry,” she apologized, scooping up the flowers under the table on our side. “It’s just so hard. I don’t know who would’ve done such a thing. He was a great person—”

  Dwayne and I got down on all fours—well, he was on three--to help her. He grabbed her hand, making her stop her flurry of activity. “Stop. It’s okay. He’s gone, but you’re fine. We’re gonna find out who did this and the SLPD will throw them in jail for a long time.”

  She sniffed as if tears were on their way. “Thank you.”

  After the petals were swept up, she resumed work at the table. I began to be a little antsy over the weather and went back downstairs to look out at the rain.

  Storms spooked me. If it was going to thunderstorm or worse, I wanted to watch for it. Sort of like airplane rides in the friendly skies. You always want the window seat so you can help the pilot fly.

  “Do you have a radio or television set?” I called out after seeing more black clouds than I thought was safe.

  “There’s a radio in the office,” she answered. “Under the stairs.”

  On the right side of the room, a set of stairs led up to an area filled with local art hanging on the walls. Underneath the stairs, a door was barely visible in all the colorful painting of the wall. A sea-foam colored ivy vine had been painted weaving its way among the bright flowers all the way from the floor to the top of the rail around the upper area.

  I found the recessed handle and gave it a tug. The door opened with a rubbing sound. Feeling around for a switch and finding none, it took me a few moments to realize the bare bulb in the ceiling had a pull string. I yanked on it and sixty-watt light brightened the small office, cramped from a dark painted desk, matching chair, and piles of papers and ledgers.

  I didn’t see the radio at first because a stack of files lying on top of a four-drawer metal filing cabinet caught my eye and distracted my mission. I scooted around the chair and started going through the files. If anything at all told me about a person, it was their files.

  These appeared to be customer files Bubba had kept on his clients. Apparently some people bought regularly and some even had tabs due to the large-scale nature of the event needing his services.

  Scott’s Funeral Home was one such customer. Flowers, Inc. was another. “How’s it going?” Dwayne asked, sticking his head in the room.

  “Haven’t found the radio yet,” I said with a sigh.

  “What’s that?” he asked, pointing at a manila folder I stuck under my arm.

  “A good lead.”

  “How so?” He squeezed in the small area, and looked over my shoulder at the papers that I showed him.

  “Customer account files. This one is for Jason Scott. Apparently, they are a regular customer. Of course, being the biggest game in the funeral business in our small town, they would be. But, Bubba made several trips there the last few weeks before he was killed, as is noted here and here,” I pointed out the columns. “My question is, if he went to certain places on certain days, say, on Thursdays, then where did he run into trouble? Who killed him? Was it on his route?”

  Dwayne’s face became a mask of musing and he took the file. “He was killed here, wasn’t he?”

  “Was he? We don’t know. Just because you found his remains here, doesn’t prove anything. Maybe Sal needs to divulge some more info about this case. Maybe you can wheedle it out of him.”

  “What? You must be crazy. That man wouldn’t go for none of my brand of wheedlin’, believe me.”

  I sighed. “Be serious.”

  “Okay. Ramirez needs ranklin’ I got it.”

  . “Well, it would be nice to know if Bubba found trouble along the way back to the shop or if it came in on its own, if you follow my drift. Oh, and those people over at Flowers, Inc. have a reason to be pissy. Bubba was into them for several thousand dollars,” I told him, passing over another folder for the vendor. “Maybe we should enlighten Carrie.”

  He gave me a worried look. “Naw. Not right now. She’s having a bad day, you know, with the poison news and all.”

  I jumped when a loud clap of thunder pealed overhead reminding me of why I was even in the office. I scrambled around the tight space looking for the radio just as tornado sirens began wailing from atop the fire station down the street.

  My heart stopped and started in odd little jerks as I recalled another stormy day in the late eighties in Oklahoma. My parents were whisked away like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, leaving me an orphan. I had always feared I would meet a similar fate.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Shit!” I yelped, digging through the disaster on the desk. Then I glanced at the floor and saw a cord. I pulled on it and the radio came flying out from under the desk, smacking me painfully in the shin. “Damn it!”

  Dwayne laid the folders back on the filing cabinet and gently took the radio from me, hooking it in the wall outlet just outside the office door.

  “Shannon.” His voice sounded a little far away, and I gazed at him, comprehension eluding me. “Look at me.”

  “T-t-turn that thing on and find out what’s going on.”

  I pulled out the desk chair and sat down hard. My breath was coming in great gulps and I couldn’t stop it. It was like someone had sucked all the air out of my lungs and I was working overtime to get it back.

  I heard Carrie come up behind Dwayne. “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “Do you have any paper bags? I think she’s gonna need one in a minute. She gets a little panicky over storms.”

  “B-b-bull-” I stammered in defense. Followed quickly by, “C-can’t breathe.”

  “Shush. Calm down. Can you hold your breath?” He knelt in front of me and patted my shoulder. “In fact, put your head down,
like in the faint position. Focus on somethin’ else now.”

  I wanted to ask him how the hell I was supposed to do that with the heart-rending screech of the sirens going off, but I couldn’t speak. The room spun. I closed my eyes and tried to hold my breath.

  The world became a whirl of colors and sounds faded. I opened my eyes when Dwayne handed me a small brown sack. I stuck my face in it and breathed.

  The radio crackled as a DJ interrupted the music to tell us a tornado warning had been issued for our area and warned us to get to the lowest floor of the building. Seeing as how the building we were in was formerly a cotton gin and the loft overhead was the flower prep room, I supposed we were on the lowest floor.

  I still wanted my Aunt Nancy and Aunt Tillie. They had been getting me through tornadoes since I was ten. I felt safe with them and so far, no tornado had hit us. Call me superstitious, but as far as I was concerned they were my good-luck charms.

  “Call Aunt Tillie,” I managed to say.

  “Your aunties are just fine. Breathe.”

  I looked up at Carrie, her face full of concern, then took the bag away, feeling foolish. “Carrie, come in here, this is probably the sturdiest place in the building because of the stairs,” I said, moving aside to let her get in the small room.

  She smiled. “I’m not afraid. I love storms.” And to prove her point, she walked to the glass door and looked out.

  “Glass is bad, glass is baaad,” I told Dwayne, pointing at the door and replacing the bag over my nose again.

  “Unless you hear a roar soundin’ like a train, you do not remove that damn bag again,” he instructed me as he got to his feet.

  Carrie came strolling back toward us. “It doesn’t look that bad outside to me.”

  I took the bag away and breathed deeply, eyes closed, prayer on my lips. The sirens abruptly quit.

  “All clear, see?” Carrie told me with a smug smile as she whirled her dainty skirt on her way back to the loft to finish her work.

  I wanted to slap her. “Yeah, that’s great.”

  What I really wanted to say was, so the Doppler radar missed it, so what? Could still be an F4 out there with my name on it just waiting to—