Flower Power Trip

by James J Cudney

  With bulging eyes, I slanted my head and said, “I'll have you know, I run several times a week to offset everything I eat. I also speak three other languages and can tell you to 'pop a cork in it' in twelve different international tongues. Don't mess with me before I've had enough coffee, soon-to-be-prisoner twelve-oh-four-six-ninety-one.”

  Helena stopped on the second floor, turned completely around, and growled. “You're hot when you act all cocky. Is that how they're going to refer to me in jail? Hopefully, I don't get stuck wearing stripes. They don't look good on a girl with my curves.”

  If I was about to be arrested—whether or not I'd actually done the crime—I wouldn't be this flippant. “You aren't taking this seriously, are you?”

  “Look, Kellan. I've got nothing to hide. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That sheriff knows I'm innocent, but she's got to follow all the rules.” When we reached the third floor, Helena unlocked room three-oh-five with what appeared to be a master skeleton key.

  “Do you have access to every room?” I asked, thinking about finding a way into George Braun's recent residence. As she walked into the room, I peered down the hall at a door with a yellow sign that read 'Keep out. No access without permission from Mgmt.' in bold black print.

  “We're cleaning a room for a guest who just checked out. The one you're looking at across the hall belonged to the guy who bit the dust,” Helena said in a very matter-of-fact tone. “This key opens everything. What else do you need to know, Nancy Drew?”

  “Oh, you mean the dead guy whose body you were caught kneeling over?” I said with a hint of sarcasm as I walked into room three-oh-five and stood across the bed from Helena. I surmised the police had insisted no one access the other room while they were still investigating George's murder. “Have you been inside since it happened?”

  “Ewww… that's creepy. I don't have a lot of time to chat, even if the thought has crossed my mind how sexy you look in that body-hugging dress shirt and how much fun it'd be to take it off you. Maggie should never have given you up the second chance around,” she said while ripping sheets off the bed. “This would go a lot faster if you helped. I might even tell you what you want to know.”

  While we stripped sheets and I learned how hard maids work, Helena explained what she knew about George Braun. He was generally quiet and kept to himself, but he asked a lot of questions about the college, its executive administrative staff, and the costume extravaganza.

  “How'd he know about the event?” I asked as she emptied all the trash bins in the room. I wasn't sure why he'd attended given he'd just arrived in town and wasn't a wealthy donor.

  “Karen Stoddard invited him. She was here meeting with Maggie to plan the event. He'd been sitting downstairs in the lobby reading a book and having a glass of wine. We put out a small spread late afternoon and encourage our guests to mingle, you know.”

  That was the second possible connection I'd made between the Stoddards and George Braun. It could've been a coincidence he was from Chicago and they had moved from the Midwest, but this was beginning to set off alarm bells. “Didn't Maggie find it odd he was invited?”

  “Yeah, but Karen talked about his friendship with Millard Paddington and how George could cross-promote at the upcoming flower show to encourage additional contributions. Maggie bought into the idea.” Helena sashayed into the bathroom and turned on the faucet in the tub. “Care to join me?”

  When stepping into the simple yet elegant white-tiled room, I was reminded of a woodsy spa retreat. “I'm not cleaning the bathroom. I have limits when it comes to my research.”

  “Who said anything about cleaning? I thought we might get a little dirty before—”

  “Enough, Helena. I know you're joking around, but murder is serious. I'm also not going to flirt with my former girlfriend's little sister who, from what I understand, is already dating at least one other man named Cheney.” It was a good segue, as I needed to learn more about the guy before I visited his parents' restaurant that afternoon to inquire about their past.

  Helena marched to within inches of me and kissed my cheek. “Such an innocent. You need to have more fun in your life, Kellan. It must be boring and painful to act so straight-laced all the time.”

  I wasn't granting her the satisfaction of knowing her words rang truer than I could imagine. Except for the whole dead wife and mafia thing and finding a few dead bodies, I was kinda boring compared to my former life in Los Angeles. “Talk to me about Cheney.”

  Helena explained he'd moved with his parents to Braxton a few months ago. He was super excited to see his younger sister, Sierra, who'd just come home from her first year abroad at law school. Helena and Cheney had gone on a few dates, and she liked him a lot, but he could be possessive at times. “He doesn't like that I am a free spirit. Wants me to stop seeing anyone else, but I told him that's not gonna happen anytime soon. I just go with the flow. Peace is the way.”

  “Has he been too aggressive about it?” I asked, growing concerned for her safety.

  Helena sighed, then began scrubbing the pedestal sink. “Not really, I mean, like he hasn't gotten physical in a negative way with me, but…”

  When she hesitated, I leaned in closer to put a hand on her shoulder. “But what?”

  “Remember when I said I saw someone arguing with George Braun at the library?”

  “Yes, I know it was Cheney.” I became concerned about her potential next statement.

  “Cheney had grabbed George by the collar of his suit and was shouting at him. I stood in the hallway while they were in the courtyard.” Helena's cautious speech pattern showed her nervousness.

  “Did they know each other?” I asked, trying to deduce how they could be connected.

  “I don't think so,” she hesitated and tapped her foot against the tub. “But Cheney saw George and me arguing in his room the other day. He was flustered over the way George yelled at me. I had to stop Cheney from knocking on George's door that afternoon. Made him promise to let it go. Guests sometimes get difficult over how we leave their room or if we move things around.”

  Helena was giving me helpful information and potential suspects. “I have to ask you two things. Both of which you probably won't like.”

  “Besides my possible freedom, what do I get in return?” Helena pouted, but when she saw I wasn't biting, she continued. “Fine, what are they?”

  “Did you have anything to do with George's death?” I asked as our eyes connected in the mirror.

  Helena started dusting the furniture but stopped to look at me while she responded. “No, I swear. I've talked to the guy a few times at the inn. We had an animated discussion about his room, and I told him I'd leave it alone. He was completely nice again by the following morning, the day of the costume extravaganza. Then I saw him and Cheney arguing in the courtyard. When Cheney stepped away and appeared to calm down, I dashed off to the main party room to refill a few food trays.”

  “And how did you wind up back in the courtyard again? How many minutes had passed?” I asked, mapping the timeline in my head.

  “Twenty minutes, no more than that. I refilled two trays, dropped off the party favors in the main room, decided I needed a smoke break, and thought I'd verify whatever scuffle Cheney and George had gotten into was truly over. When I went back there, no one else was around. I lit my cigarette, and that's when I stepped on something. I told you the rest,” Helena said in a frustrated and whiny tone. “And before you ask, I talked to Cheney. He promised he left George alone in the courtyard and went back to tend bar. He'd been on a break and had to return before he'd get into trouble with his parents. You can confirm with them he was there.”

  It would be something I looked into, but I wondered how much of this the sheriff already knew. Helena said that once Cheney confirmed he had nothing to do with George's death, she conveniently neglected to tell the detective she'd even seen them fighting. “What does your lawyer say?”

  “I didn't tell him about Chen
ey. Finnigan is meeting with the sheriff right now to find out what evidence they have, or if anything came back from the tests they've run. I wore gloves, so my fingerprints won't be on the knife. Can they arrest me just for being near the body?” Helena, for the first time, looked worried about the whole ordeal of going to prison. “I guess this could be bad for me, but I've always believed if you didn't do anything wrong and you had nothing to hide, it'd turn out okay. You know, ignore the cops.”

  The girl was a dreamer and almost too naïve to realize that wasn't how things worked out. “You need to be careful. And you need to tell Finnigan about this, or I will. He must know everything to help you get out of this debacle. Maggie's worried about you.”

  “I'll think about it. I don't want to get Cheney into trouble. So… what's the second thing?”

  I gripped my hands together and seesawed back and forth on the balls of my feet. “Can you get me into George Braun's room?”

  Ten minutes later, I'd vacuumed room three-oh-five, cleaned its toilet with a nasty scrub brush, and replenished all the towels and toiletries. Helena casually sat on a chair blowing cigarette smoke out the window, then agreed to let me into the dead man's room.

  As I shut the door behind us, Helena laughed. “I feel his spirit in here. Almost like he's angry about something. I guess I'd be angry too if I was murdered.”

  “You need to spend more time with my sister, Eleanor. She's into all that stuff,” I moaned while scanning the room. The bed was turned down, there was a chocolate on the pillow, and everything seemed to be in tidy shape. “So, from the looks of it, George went to the library for the party after his room had been cleaned for the evening, but he never came back. Who attended to his room? You were at the party which means this isn't your handiwork.”

  “Yuri Sato. She's a student at Braxton but has a part-time job with us when we need extra help,” Helena noted as she opened dresser drawers. “The police have been through here with a fine-tooth comb already. Something about it being rather funny how I was found with the murder weapon in my hands and the victim was staying at my family's inn.”

  “Yep, certainly more than a coincidence,” I said, rolling my eyes. I remembered meeting Yuri a few months earlier at Paddington's Play House during the King Lear rehearsals. I could ask her if she saw anything odd in George's room on the day of the party. “Did George meet with anyone while he was staying here?”

  Helena sighed. “A couple of people, I guess. Millard Paddington was here once. Some other woman came in all dressed up to the nines. He was chatting with her in the front parlor. Something concerning the upcoming flower show, I think.”

  I assumed that could also be the person George worked with to stalk Ursula. When I asked Helena to describe the female visitor, she couldn't remember anything about her. “How about paperwork? Did you see anything lying around? Names? Dates? Something that might tie him to his killer?”

  “That detective asked me the same questions. You know, you're kinda good at this investigation stuff.” Helena ran a finger across the night table and laughed. “Oops, Yuri missed a spot.”

  “That's unfortunate,” I said with indifference. “How about you answer the question?”

  “Nope. George was very neat, never kept anything out for me to find, but he did ask me about the wall safe,” Helena gleefully shared.

  “Wait, did he put something in there?” I thought I was about to catch a break, but I knew we needed to get out of the room quickly before someone realized we'd entered it illegally. I also needed to get back on campus to teach today's class about honesty in writing publications and reporting news. Isn't irony grand?

  “Nah, George thought it was too risky, which is why I showed him the secret hiding spot under the mattress.” Helena lifted the bedspread and pointed to a floorboard near the top side where the pillows laid. “And before you ask, no, I don't know if he actually kept anything in there. I also didn't tell the detective about it.”

  “But why?” I scowled. “This could be something to help the sheriff look at other suspects!”

  “The detective didn't ask, nor did I think of it at the time.” Helena dropped to the floor, rolled onto her back, lifted a loose piece of floor board, and reached her hand into the dark space. When she popped out from under the bed and angled her head to me, she was smiling.

  “I didn't ask about it either, but you told me it was there. Wait, did you find something?” I asked with exasperation. Helena was truly the opposite of Maggie in every way possible.

  “Feels like a folder full of newspaper clippings and other assorted papers,” she said as she withdrew her hand from under the bed and tossed her discovery on the throw rug near my feet. “I told you because I like you.”

  As it slid across the floor, a picture of Ursula landed on my shoe. I briefly flipped through the folder and saw many photos of her and others, as well as a copy of the news article about the explosion in 1993. The last document was a handwritten note with an inventory of things to do. The first item on the list read 'Find my sister.' The second read, 'Get revenge.' Jackpot, it might not be scientific proof, but it certainly seemed like George Braun was really Hans Mück who'd stumbled upon his long-lost sister after many years.

  Just as Helena was about to grab one of the documents from my hand, we heard footsteps in the hallway. I couldn't see anyone through the peephole, but we didn't want to get caught in the room. We gave it a few more minutes, and when we verified the squeaking of the staircase, we snuck out of George Braun's room, rushed to room three-oh-five, and closed the door. “I would love to look through this entire file, but I should probably turn it over to the police, right?” I asked.

  Helena walked over to me and looked directly in my eyes. While she spoke, she unfastened all the buttons on my dress shirt and lifted its tails from underneath my belt and pants. Then she spread the shirt open. “I knew you had at least a six-pack hidden under there.”

  I shivered as her fingers touched my abdomen and chest. “Ummm… what are you doing?” The words barely escaped my hesitant lips as I tried not to let my mind wander.

  “Don't you trust me?” Helena traced a finger across the small dip between my pecs, ran her long red-stained nail down my stomach across a few patches of dirty blond hair, and stuffed the bottom of the folder into my waistband stopping short before we were about to enter a danger zone. It had been the first time in two years I'd taken off my shirt in front of a woman. Helena patted the folder, so it laid flat against my chest, then pulled my shirt closed and refastened the buttons until I was fully clothed again. “See? That's the best way to sneak out of the inn with this file, so you can check it for any evidence that might help my case. If my parents knew you had this folder, they'd insist we turn it over to the Wharton County Sheriff's Office and to Finnigan Masters right away. They follow the law, unlike us.”

  “Um, that's illegal, and I always follow the law,” I said in a weird staccato pattern of speech. I think I was still flustered that she'd placed her hands on my shirtless torso seconds before. Did I enjoy it, or was that temporary shock? “I can't take this off property. It doesn't belong to me.” I grunted at myself for being a good guy and not caving to my instincts.

  “Too late. Your fingerprints are probably on it. I've watched enough crime shows to know how this is done, Kellan. Take it home to read.”

  “Besides crossing a few too many lines, how does that help us with the cops?” I shook my head at her and closed my eyes.

  “When you're done, wipe it clean and bring it back. I'll put it in the space between the two floors again, tell the detective I remembered my conversation with George Braun, and suggest that he check under the bed. Voila!” Helena looked like she'd done this before. She also proved she was a lot smarter than I'd given her credit for in the past.

  Once Helena kicked me out of the room, I finally succumbed to the risky plan and cursed myself for knowing how wrong it was. I decided to take the folder with me, but before I dug any further into
the details, I needed to consider the options. There were lines I was willing to cross, but I didn't want to interfere with an ongoing investigation. On the other hand, this could help me prove Helena's innocence and solve Ursula's stalker problem.

  When I sat in the car, I transferred the newly found evidence to my briefcase, drove to campus, and taught my two-hour class. I felt both dirty and electrified over what I'd done. It had been a while since that kind of thrill had tempted me. I had no idea what to do about the sudden change in my attitude and actions. Was Helena going to be bad news for me? Did Maggie know her sister could be so devilish? And if she could steal and lie, how much further away was murder?

  Chapter 8

  Three hours later, I finished teaching my class and made a call to Dean Mulligan's office. His secretary quickly transferred me when I said it was urgent. “Thanks for taking my call,” I began.

  “What's the problem? I have a meeting with Ursula momentarily.” Dean Mulligan's voice was gruff and distant. “I don't have time to deal with everyone's complaints today.”

  Someone was grumpy. How could I get him to reveal what he knew about George Braun or the disagreements between him and Anita Singh? An idea began to formulate in my head. “Do you know who will be helping with the Mendel flower show now that George Braun passed away?”

  “I never should've agreed to it. That man has done nothing but given me grief since the day he showed up! Are you asking to take his place? What do you know about botany and science, Kellan?”

  Nothing, and that wasn't my intention. “No, no. I meant Millard Paddington has a lot on his plate right now, and I'm worried about his health. Just trying to look out for him. Was anyone working closely with George Braun? Maybe I could ask them to take a bigger load off Millard's plate.”