Flower Power Trip

by James J Cudney

  “Your Aunt Deirdre is trying to locate them,” Nana D offered as she took her seat.

  “I've booked a flight to London tomorrow. Deirdre's letting me stay at her place before I fly to Judy's new home to surprise her, assuming the detective can locate her. It's her first love, you know, and at our age, it's quite difficult to catch a man,” Lissette said sneaking a quick glance at Millard.

  If Lissette and her sister were about Aunt Deirdre's age, she was also in her late forties or early fifties—odd that neither sister had married before. I also realized Lissette might be after Millard, despite his being old enough to be her father, because Judy's departure left her all alone. “I wish you much luck in finding Judy. I'm confident Aunt Deirdre will locate them. As queen of the romance novel, she's bound to unearth two lovers hiding from everyone while they begin a new life together.” An odd thought crossed my brain that Judy and my aunt were secretly together, but I let it drift away quickly.

  After everyone sat, Nana D said a quick grace. While we all dug into our rich, home-cooked meal, we began chatting about the mayoral campaign. Lissette assured us she was supporting Nana D and provided a few unknown pieces of gossip about Councilman Stanton. We might be able to use them to get Nana D the lead she needed in the home stretch.

  After a scrumptious black cherry pie and our guests' departure, I squinted sideways at Nana D. “Was I imagining it, or was Lissette possibly flirting ever-so-faintly with Millard?”

  Nana D spit out her mouthful of wine. “Oh, I hope so. I would love to see those two get into a little spat once Millard tries to smother her with his insistence she stay home and cook his meals. He's never lost that warped sense of a woman's responsibilities. A very antiquated man despite his worldly ways in most other matters. “I'm done with that farkakte foray into the past.”

  “Is Aunt Deirdre coming home anytime soon?”

  Nana D laughed. “Last time we spoke, my daughter promised she'd be back before summer. That's only a few weeks away. Maybe she'll find Judy and bring her and the new guy to town.”

  I hugged Nana D and walked to my guest house. My phone vibrated as I unlocked the door.

  Ursula: It's done. I told the sheriff what I knew and that George is most likely my brother, Hans.

  Me: I know you were worried, but she needed to find out. What's she going to do now?

  Ursula: She wants to see both of us in her office tomorrow morning. Apparently, you have a folder that she needs to retrieve?

  I opened my briefcase and confirmed it was still inside. I would leaf through it before bed to determine if it had anything important prior to handing it over to the police.

  Me: Yes. I just got hold of it a little while ago. What about the knife?

  Ursula: I'll look after our meeting to see if it's the one I brought to my office.

  After going home, I checked on Emma who was thrilled to have a sleepover with my parents at the Royal Chic-Shack. While she loved spending time at Nana D's farmhouse and setting up our new home in the guest cottage, my parents had a huge game room and every movie channel. They'd watched a new Disney flick and stayed up much later than I would've liked. But my mother would be the one to rouse Emma when it was time to go to school, not me. Emma had inherited her intense dislike for the early morning from me.

  * * *

  By seven thirty, I left to meet Ursula at The Big Beanery on South Campus for a prep session. Since I'd spent most of the previous evening reviewing all the paperwork in the folder Helena had found, we wanted to catch up before our scheduled appointment with the sheriff in an hour. I needed to be back on campus to teach my morning class, and the sheriff had promised Ursula she'd be expedient. As I grabbed the open briefcase, I banged my elbow into the console. A few minutes later, once my funny bone stopped torturing me, I gathered everything that fell to the floor of the passenger seat and went inside. What was I in store for next? Something told me it was going to be a dreadful day.

  “Anything valuable in the folder? If it's my brother's stuff, I might recognize something,” Ursula suggested as I placed two coffees and bowls of whole wheat cereal with almond milk on the table. She insisted on buying breakfast but also demanded it didn't include anything sugary or full of carbs, citing my normal obsession with desserts. I compromised only because she was my boss and had mastered the look of someone ready to throttle you if you'd disagreed with her.

  “Have a gander.” I pushed the folder across the table. “I'll tell you the key things I noticed.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Besides a handful of photos and articles from the explosion, there are extensive clippings from multiple newspapers. He's tracked your entire career in the last few months. My guess is George, or Hans, whatever you want to call him…” I said, stopping to verify she was handling the news calmly.

  “Go with George for now. We don't know he's definitely Hans.” Ursula sipped her coffee.

  “My guess is George didn't know anything about you until he found out about your appointment to Braxton's presidency earlier this year. Given the newspaper clippings are well preserved and smell fresh, he probably gathered all these articles recently. He's got copies of things such as your wedding announcement to Myriam, your graduation from Columbia, and pictures of your current home.” I sat back in the chair and paused to let her absorb the news.

  “He's angry with me. I can tell by some of the notes he's made in the margins. I don't understand why he would hide all these years,” Ursula said, pounding her fists against the table.

  “Look, we need to give all this to Sheriff Montague. She'll have more access to his records than we do. I'm sure she's planning to get Interpol files of George's time in that Swiss institute. My research noted he was employed there, but I'd bet money that's where he had his reconstructive surgery.”

  “I think you're right.” Ursula was about to say something else, but Myriam abruptly stopped at the side of our table and cleared her throat so loudly that Shakespeare himself could've heard it.

  “I've been patient. I've been open-minded. I've even been quiet about the amount of time you two have been spending together. But tell me, 'How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?'

  In the entire three months I'd known Myriam, not once had I ever seen a hair out of place, a tiny quake in her composure, or a twinge of jealousy in her voice. I'd now seen all three and confirmed she wasn't wearing a wig! “Morning, boss.”

  “What are you doing here? I thought you were meeting with Dean Mulligan this morning?” Ursula said, reaching for her wife's hand. I turned away at their moment of intimacy to be respectful of their privacy. “Kellan, would you mind giving Myriam and me a minute to—”

  Although I stood, Myriam raised her gloved hand in my direction and with the gentle press of one finger pushed my shoulder down until I was sitting again. “The three of us are going to have an honest and highly diplomatic conversation about what's been going on. If we do not, Kellan will find himself with the worst possible class schedule this fall. I'll assign him to the freshman writing center, so he's forced to correct grammar all day long.”

  There were very few things I abhorred. Other than Myriam, of course. Freshmen were the bane of my existence. At least the ones forced to take a writing course in order to satisfy Braxton's general requirements for all graduates. “You wouldn't!”

  “Absolutely, I would. If you think Desdemona was the downfall of Othello, think again. He couldn't take the simplicity of everyone around him and thus caused his own demise. That'll be you working with all the little brats who can't tell the difference between me and I. Myriam dragged a chair from a nearby empty table to ours and scowled. “Start talking!”

  I looked to Ursula, but the defeat in her composure was already apparent. So, we conversed as peacefully as three frustrated and suspicious people could. Myriam explained she'd begun putting odd details together and learned Ursula's secret weeks ago. She hadn't revealed her discovery hoping he
r wife would choose to come clean of her own accord. Unfortunately, someone at the sheriff's office called their house that morning to remind Ursula not to be late to an important meeting. That's when Myriam decided to rip the curtain off the charade and step in to save the day.

  “Obviously, you need proof this man is your brother before we do anything further,” Myriam directed at her wife. “Let's forget how furious I am with you both for a moment. We must focus on how to prove you had nothing to do with his death.” Myriam glared at me and took a spoonful of Ursula's leftover cereal. “As for you, since I've known you, Mr. Ayrwick,” she said, pausing as a drop of milk splashed on my chin when she raised the spoon in my direction, “you are nothing but a nosy, interfering, non-stop questioning, painful wart on the tip of my pinky toe that has aggravated me beyond any reasonable expectation. You're also, I hesitate to acknowledge, the perfect solution to this problem.”

  Ursula and I turned to one another with puzzled expressions. “Come again?”

  “Isn't it obvious? He works for you. He works for me. The man is compelled to investigate anything from an unplanned change in the wind's direction to the exact time a speck of dirt clung to his shoe with a desperate need to find something inaner than itself.” She settled into her chair, crossed her legs, and made a noise like everything had been agreed to between us. “I expect a daily report. Make that twice a day. You have seventy-two hours to find the person responsible for this entire horrid affair and to keep the love of my life from getting arrested or being killed by this vulture. I don't need to ask if I am being clear because that's a fact.”

  Sometimes I can be a little reticent to acknowledge a warped version of a compromise. Other times I can be a little dense if I haven't had enough coffee. That was not the case right now. “Ummm… don't you think that's why Ursula and I have been meeting so much lately?” I said, darting my eyes to the floor. Before the snakes had appeared in lieu of Medusa's hair, people thought they could trust her. I didn't want to make the same mistake as the ancient Greeks by staring directly at Myriam.

  “Now you've got me involved, so best be on your toes.” Myriam stood and shot an obsequious smile in my direction. “I've got work. Don't be late for the sheriff. I expect a full report as soon as you both get back.” Myriam bent down to peck her wife's forehead. “I'll deal with your lack of trust later tonight. Be home by five o'clock. I wouldn't suggest being any later. The bell currently tolls for thee.” Then she turned to me. “Do this properly, and you'll have only the best course schedule this fall. Fail me or my wife, and let's just say… George Braun's death won't be the only suspicious loss of life in Braxton this week!”

  Chapter 10

  Once Myriam left and I regained my wits, I leaned over the table. “She wouldn't really do anything to me, would she?”

  Ursula shook her head. “I wish I could be certain. I've never seen her behave this way. Usually when she's upset, she screams lines from Chaucer at me. At least you get Shakespeare as her muse. I don't think I've ever seen her be this nice to you. I'm a little petrified right now, if I'm being honest.”

  That was her being nice? We agreed to move on and flipped through George's folder marking the important items for the sheriff to follow up on. While we waited at the Wharton County Sheriff's Office, I prepared for my second dress-down of the day. I still hadn't fully interpreted what'd happened with April in her office the previous day when our fingers accidentally brushed against one another.

  “Ah, if it isn't two examples of the most perfect, upstanding leaders of Braxton College. Tell me, are you proud of yourselves? Do you think this is how a college president and a supposedly well-liked professor and mentor to graduating students should behave?” April tore the folder from my hands, pointed at the two chairs across from her desk, and slammed the door shut.

  After we listened to April's tirade about the need to protect evidence, the stupidity of trying to determine on our own who'd been stalking Ursula, and a litany of crimes that she was tempted to arrest us both for, she popped a glazed donut in her mouth. “Talk to me. What do you see as our next steps?”

  I eyed the last donut knowing I shouldn't reach for it. April would probably shoot me, so instead, I offered to summarize what we'd learned to date. “George Braun is most likely Hans Mück. We need to find any proof that he changed his name after surviving the explosion. We don't know why he was trying to hurt Ursula, but if he hadn't done anything other than stalking her, it's probably because he still had a deal he wanted to make with his sister. Someone killed him, and we think he had a partner who was helping him with whatever sinister plan he'd concocted.” Now I fully understood his choice to wear a Dr. Evil costume.

  “We need to understand what he'd planned for his special exhibit in the Mendel flower show,” Ursula suggested. If he'd been planning to expose her, there might be evidence we're missing. So far, it looked like he'd been focused on unveiling his latest research on how bees were the potential solution. He planned to stress the importance of saving them from rapidly declining numbers.

  April said, “People don't realize how much of what they consume requires bees to thrive and transport pollen.”

  I glanced at her with a curious eye. “I didn't know you were so knowledgeable.”

  “I have several hives in my backyard. I'll invite you over to see them one afternoon,” she replied.

  Ursula cleared her throat. “I'm sure my brother was planning to hurt me. He held grudges when we were younger.”

  “Do you wear a full bee suit?” I asked unable to picture April in one.

  “I do. I have a spare for when Myriam helps,” April replied ignoring Ursula's presence. “You should check out the Indigo Acres Apiary website. Lots of cool stuff.”

  “As interesting as this bizarre connection is between you, and as much as this train wreck fascinates me, can we get back on topic?” Ursula said. After the sheriff and I complied, Ursula shared everything she could remember about the assistant who'd worked in the lab years ago. A couple of new suspects had risen to the top and warranted further investigation.

  April confirmed they hadn't been able to find Anita Singh's missing lab coat, but she'd interview the chairman of the science department the next day to find out exactly when it disappeared. April was also going to interview Dean Mulligan at three o'clock that afternoon to clarify the crux of the disagreements with George about his research presentation at the Mendel flower show. “While these are all valid angles, my primary one right now is determining where the knife came from.”

  When she brought up its image on the screen, Ursula gasped. “That's definitely the Mück family crest. And it's my knife, or it was the knife my father kept in our house as a reminder of his ancestor's battles against French invaders in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. When I ran away after the explosion, I took it with me for protection.”

  “Are you telling me with certainty the murder weapon belonged to you, Ms. Power?” the sheriff said in an accusatory voice. It made Ursula look as guilty as Helena who'd been caught with the knife.

  “I kept it in a drawer at the office but didn't know it was missing. I haven't looked for it in a long time,” Ursula noted. Her eyes filled with worry and nostalgia over the death of her parents and her complicated past. “One of the Stoddards must have broken in and taken it for display on the wall at the restaurant. It doesn't make any sense why or how Hans got hold of it.”

  “You don't know it was a Stoddard or Hans. All we know is that's what was used to kill your brother. Someone else might have found it and brought it to the costume extravaganza,” I added.

  April made a noise that sounded like she disagreed. “Based on the preliminary work-up of how George Braun, possibly Hans Mück, died, it was definitely from a knife wound to his abdomen. Actually, he was stabbed twice. The killer knew exactly where to cut George for maximum pain and almost immediate death. Oddly enough, only Braun's prints were found on the weapon. I might be going out on a limb, but I think
he stole the knife from you because he planned to kill you with it that night. Perhaps he saw it as a fitting way to get revenge. It seems someone else got to him first.”

  The sheriff went on to indicate that because there were no other prints on the knife, it meant the killer either wore gloves or wiped it clean. Hans had likely tried to pull the knife out of his own abdomen but died in doing so, which explained why his bloody prints were found on it. I couldn't imagine how it felt to rip the blade from my own flesh and know I was about to bleed to death.

  “If we're to believe Helena Roarke, she stumbled upon Hans moments after the killer escaped and Hans tried to remove the knife to save himself. Helena picked it up, but since she wore gloves as part of her costume, there wouldn't be any prints,” the sheriff noted, flipping through a report on her computer screen. “Helena Roarke witnessed George Braun arguing with Cheney Stoddard in the courtyard at eight twenty-five. Multiple people will verify Cheney returned to the bar by eight thirty. Helena had already left to fill several food trays for the party and didn't return to the courtyard until eight forty-five. This suggests that George was killed between eight thirty and eight forty-five. Tell me again where the two of you were?”

  Ursula said, “I found the note just before eight thirty. I was nervous and rushed behind the silk draperies near the doors to the private back office area in the library. I needed to decide what to do next and hid there for about fifteen minutes. That's when Kellan came rushing by me, and I grabbed his arm to show him the note.”

  “That's all true,” I confirmed recalling the stain on her shawl. Should I believe her that it was only sauce? “I remember looking at my phone at eight fifty when I left Ursula to search for someone in a white costume.”