Flower Power Trip

by James J Cudney

  I arrived at two thirty which would be after the lunch rush. As soon as I was inside, I heard shouting. “You've been disappearing for hours ever since we moved to this town. And you never have an explanation! What is going on, Karen?” Doug yelled in an aggravated voice from behind the office door.

  I was going to knock so they knew I was in the building, but I thought I might learn more by listening to their argument. I stepped toward the restaurant section and hid behind the reception desk wall where I wouldn't be seen. It appeared they'd been closed for lunch today.

  “I'm with prospective clients trying to drum up more business for us. What's gotten into you lately? You've gotten so jealous ever since we moved,” Karen responded in a high-pitched voice. She must have slammed a file cabinet drawer shut as I heard the metal vibration.

  “I'd believe you except you vanished in the middle of the costume extravaganza for over thirty minutes last weekend. What was that all about? I've tried to ignore it, but you're up to something,” Doug complained. He was incredibly angry but also asked rational questions. “Ever since that George Braun character hired us to oversee the Braxton stop for the Mendel flower show, you've been secretive and short-tempered with me. Are you having an affair?”

  “What? No! I'm busy focusing on making a name for us, so we can stop worrying about the future. Don't we want to be successful here? We don't need more problems like we had in Chicago. Cheney's been through enough already,” Karen said in a softer voice. It sounded like she was trying to calm her husband down. “I was talking with Maggie about the success of the library event. I spoke with a few people about new catering job opportunities. I never disappeared at the costume extravaganza.”

  Was Karen and Doug's marriage on the rocks? Had the sheriff known Karen disappeared for thirty minutes? If she was lying to someone about where she'd gone, could she be hiding something important? Listening to their conversation had also given me some key information about the problems they had with their son before moving. While I considered everything I'd just learned, the door opened.

  “You suggested we move to this isolated place, Karen. I only agreed so we could give Cheney an opportunity to start fresh where no one knew about his past. I'm going to the store to get some last-minute supplies we need for this weekend's dinner events,” Doug said as he stepped into the vestibule to grab his coat. “We need to fix this marriage, if you still care about me.”

  “I'll go. I need to meet with Fern Terry about her son's engagement party. Give me the list. I'll pick everything up on the way back,” she said before clearing her throat loudly. “Maybe if you weren't focused on opening up your expensive restaurant, we'd be able to spend more quality time together.”

  Karen left without any additional conversation or even saying goodbye. If she was trying to fix whatever spat they'd been having, she would have kissed her husband or at least apologized. She was in a hurry and definitely had something to hide. Doug must have returned to the office as I heard chair wheels rolling across the floor. I was grateful he didn't walk into the restaurant and find me standing there listening to their conversation.

  I quietly snuck into the main vestibule and opened and shut the door so he would hear someone entering the building. “Hello, is anyone around?” I called out preparing myself to play a new role.

  Chapter 14

  Doug stepped into the vestibule. “I'm sorry, we're closed for lunch today, but we'll be open for dinner in two hours. Oh, wait, I know you.”

  After I reintroduced myself, Doug offered to make me a cup of coffee as he was having one for himself. I followed him into the server's side station where he brewed a new pot. It was hidden behind a large movable screen that kept diners from seeing the prep area. “Thanks again for the great comments you left on Yelp about the place. We appreciate it. What brings you back again so soon, Kellan?”

  I had to think on my feet. Now that I knew he suspected something occurring between his wife and George and that there was an issue with their son in the past, I had the ideal path. “You're welcome. I was looking for Cheney. I need to speak with him about something that happened recently.” I glanced away to make it look like it was a difficult topic for me to bring up to Doug.

  “Oh, no… has he done it again? Look, I'm so sorry. Cheney's basically a good guy, but he's got a bad temper and shoots his mouth off. What happened this time?” Doug grabbed two cups from the top shelf and sat them on the counter. “Milk, sugar?”

  I nodded trying to keep my responses to a minimum so he would keep talking. “I didn't mean—”

  “Did he cause any damage? We'll pay for it. We moved here so he could start over again. I'd appreciate your help in keeping it quiet,” Doug said while he poured coffee into both cups.

  “I think I've given you the wrong impression. I needed to talk with Cheney about his relationship with Helena, but now you've got me worried. Is there something I should know before anything gets too serious with those two? I'm very good friends with the Roarke family and don't want anything bad to happen to them.” I sipped some coffee as we sat at a nearby table.

  Doug hesitated at first, but then he ultimately gave in. “When my daughter Sierra left for college, Cheney fell in with the wrong crowd back in Chicago. She'd kept him in line even though she was younger. He was lost on his own and tried to prove himself with a troublesome group of guys. Last summer, he got picked up for breaking and entering into a couple of houses in an affluent part of town.”

  “Has he been in prison?” I asked, wondering if Helena knew anything about it.

  “A couple of months. The judge gave him a light sentence as a first-time offender. We needed to get him away from the negative influences,” Doug explained. Cheney had gotten kicked out of college after he failed two classes and had an incident on campus with aggravated assault. The college had agreed not to press charges if Cheney dealt with his anger management issues. Doug and Karen thought he'd matured until he started hanging out with a gang in Chicago, which is what ultimately led to his arrest.

  “I'm sorry to hear it, but you made the best decision to get him out of there. Is that why you chose to move?” I'd overheard Doug and Karen say that was why, but I needed the rest of the details.

  “Yes. We were looking at a few smaller cities on the West Coast. I thought the nicer weather in California might help Cheney relax more. Karen and I had always wanted to open our own restaurant, but we couldn't afford to at the time.”

  “It's great she wanted to support you. Why'd you end up choosing Braxton?” I asked.

  “Karen met a scientist who was running the Mendel flower show and made the arrangements. She'd come up with a brilliant plan to open the event management arm of the business, so we could be a full-service company.” Doug offered to refill our cups, but I'd already had too much for one day. My hands were getting jittery.

  When his cell rang, Doug stepped away to answer it. I didn't want to push my luck when I'd already gotten a bunch of helpful information. I needed to know how Karen had really met George Braun but decided it might be better to talk to her separately. It seemed she was the one lying to people. If Doug didn't know much, and he told Karen I'd asked questions, she might clam up around me.

  Doug returned to the table. “Sorry, it was Karen. She couldn't read something I'd written on a shopping list and wanted to verify it with me. I do need to get ready for tonight's dinner seating.”

  “Oh, right. Sure. Listen, I appreciate you sharing what you did about Cheney. I won't tell anyone, but if you see him, can you ask him to give me a call?” I wrote my number on a napkin. “I want to look out for Helena.”

  “I understand. I think they're growing closer, but he does need to take things slow. I want my son to get his life in order before he settles down with a girl,” Doug added.

  I guess he hadn't realized that Helena wasn't looking to be in a committed relationship right now. “We have a deal. I'll keep what you told me about Cheney quiet and try to convince Helena to ta
ke it slow for a while. Maybe you shouldn't tell Karen what you told me about the past.”

  “I think that's a good idea. Karen can be high-strung at times. She doesn't want anyone to know about Cheney's problems. She's afraid it could set him back again if people started talking,” Doug said as he stood from the table to escort me to the front door.

  “Oh, one more question,” I said upon noticing the German knife that'd been missing from the display in the vestibule was suddenly back. “Didn't I see an empty space there the other day?”

  Doug pursed his lips. “You're an observant fellow. Yes, you did.”

  “I didn't know you were such a fan of hunting weapons until Cheney mentioned it,” I noted.

  “I had to clean that particular knife. I noticed a smudge the other day and took it down. With everything going on, I finally got around to it.” Doug couldn't usher me out the door quick enough.

  I left the Stoddards' restaurant after amassing a great deal of new information, but how did it fit together? Doug's knife wasn't used to kill George, but the display clearly showed his advanced skills. April had mentioned whoever killed George knew exactly where to stab him for almost immediate death. I put a call into the sheriff's office on the drive to the elementary school to pick up Emma.

  “Officer Flatman speaking, how may I assist you and keep crime down today?” the wannabe detective said with an overly cheery greeting and newly polished customer service skills.

  “This is Mayor Grosvalet. I must urgently speak with Sheriff Montague about a cat stuck in a tree,” I teased and lied to the junior cop hoping to unnerve him enough to cause a slip of his tongue about the case. “That Braun murder solved yet?”

  “Oh, good afternnnoonnn… Mayor, sir… I… ummm… she's not here. Sheriff Montague is out making an arrest right now. I can call and track her down immediately for you,” Flatman anxiously spit out. “Ummm… what's wrong with that cat, sir?”

  Upon hearing of the arrest, I'd forgotten about the lie I'd just made up. “No bother. I'll climb the tree myself.” I hung up worried who'd been taken to jail. Where should I go first—to see Helena or Ursula? Which one had April planned to take into custody?

  I parked the SUV in the guest lot across from the school. Since Emma would bring Rodney home today, I couldn't wait in the normal parental pick-up line. She couldn't carry his cage and supplies on her own, so I met her inside to collect the rabbit. I remembered Fern had an administrative meeting with Ursula beginning in a few minutes, so I texted her to see if the meeting was still on. If Ursula had been arrested, the meeting would've been canceled. As Emma and I left the elementary school, Fern replied that the meeting was about to start, and Ursula was standing in the doorway speaking to her assistant. I told Emma we needed to make an unplanned stop at the Roarke & Daughters Inn and cut through a few side streets to avoid downtown traffic.

  When I pulled up to the front part of the circle driveway, I looked for the sheriff's motorcycle or any police vehicles in the main lot, but there were none present. Since I was parked right outside the front door, I told Emma not to move from the car and asked her to wait five minutes for me. I could see her from the front parlor of the inn and only planned to run in for a moment to see if Helena was okay. I hopped up the stairs, entered the screened-in porch, and opened the front door. When I stepped inside, Helena and her mother were setting up for the daily afternoon cocktail hour. “Hey, sexy man. Finally decided you couldn't get enough of me?” Helena said as she planted a kiss on my lips. “Why are you all flushed? Do I make you nervous?”

  Lucy Roarke gave her daughter of disapproving look. “Leave your sister's friend alone. Kellan is trying to help you, now stop being such an instigator, young lady.”

  I might have skipped a run or two, but the mad dash up the stairs knocked the wind out of me. “Mrs. Roarke, you look lovely as always,” I said, then turned to her daughter. “Helena, you sound as silly as always. I'm here to save you from the sheriff.” Both women looked at me like I had flies swarming around my head. “Has anyone tried to arrest you today?”

  Helena laughed. “As if. I told you, she can't arrest me because I didn't do it.”

  “That's not how the law works. I'm sure Finnigan told you this already,” I reminded her. Had Officer Flatman been mistaken when he said the sheriff was out making an arrest?

  “My lawyer probably mentioned it, but I wasn't paying much attention to his words. That man is dreamy!” She shrugged her shoulders. “He might be almost a decade older, but that wouldn't stop this girl from saying yes to a date with him.”

  “I thought you were still dating Cheney,” I began, but her mother interrupted.

  “I can't listen to this nonsense, Helena. Finish setting up the tables and quit acting so juvenile. I need to get the cakes and pastries ready for our guests,” Lucy ordered her daughter. “If I remember correctly, Kellan, you loved my shortbread cookies. I'll bring you a few extra, love.”

  When her mother left the room, Helena latched on to my arm. “I thought she'd never leave. I need to run to the store to get a birthday present for Cheney's party tomorrow night. He'll be twenty-five. I guess being three years older than him is okay, right? It's acceptable in modern times even though my mother thinks he's way too immature for me.”

  “I believe you have that backward, Helena. She probably thinks you're too immature for him,” I scolded her. It was too much to accept the combination of Helena's flirtatious ways, her inability to stick to one guy, and her focus on Cheney who I'd come to learn had quite a past. “How much do you know about Cheney's life before the Stoddards moved to Braxton?”

  “You're making way too big a deal, Kellan. I'm too young to settle down. I talk a big game, but I'm not all that crazy when you think about it,” Helena sulked. As she laid out napkins and wine glasses, a loud siren began wailing on the street.

  I felt my stomach begin to turn over. I needed to check on Emma, my five minutes were close to up. I'd suddenly made a connection with something Helena had said. “Wait, when does Cheney turn twenty-five?”

  “His actual birthday is tomorrow. I'm having dinner with him, his sister, and his parents. That's how he wanted to celebrate.” Helena stepped toward the front door, walked onto the porch, and turned as white as a ghost. “That siren is coming from a police car pulling into the parking lot.”

  Helena's second statement about the cop car hadn't registered. I was too busy calculating the math in my head. If Cheney turned twenty-five tomorrow, it meant he'd been born in Chicago roughly nine months after Hans and Ursula's family's lab had blown up. It couldn't be a coincidence that Cheney was conceived within days of the explosion. If Karen and George had known each other, was she the assistant who told the news outlets all about Ursula's involvement? I began to wonder if it meant George, formerly Hans, could be Cheney's father. If it were true, I might have found a reason why he'd been killed. I could see motives for several members of the Stoddard family lining up.

  “It's the sheriff, Kellan, and she's walking toward Emma,” Helena shouted.

  I raced out to the parking lot to limit my daughter's exposure to the situation. She and April had chatted a couple of times before, but Emma did not need to see anyone being arrested. “April, what's going on? When I didn't see you at first, I wondered whom you were going to arrest. But now you're here. How did I get to the inn before you?”

  “I've tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, Little Ayrwick, but you show up wherever there's a murder or an arrest happening. It's like you've got radar detection for whatever crime's about to occur in Wharton County,” April growled at me. She nodded in Helena's direction and handed one of her cops an official looking piece of paper. Once he went to arrest Helena, April turned back to me. “How is it you guessed I'd be coming here?”

  I knew as soon as it'd left my mouth, I'd said too much. “Just visiting, I needed to borrow a cup of sugar from Helena's family and—”

  “You shouldn't lie in front of your daughter,”
April said with a stern and judgmental frown in my direction. “Now it makes sense.”

  I shook my head back and forth, then peeked my head into the passenger window to tell Emma to sit tight for a few more minutes. “I'm not sure what you're talking about.”

  “Since Emma's here, I'll be brief. Officer Flatman called me as I was leading my team here to arrest Miss Roarke for the murder of George Braun. Mayor Grosvalet supposedly called the sheriff's office to interrupt whatever it was I'd been doing. I found it odd because I'd only spoken to him and Councilman Stanton two hours earlier when both urged me to make an arrest in this case.”

  Why was Marcus pushing for an arrest? It had to be something he wanted to tout as a win for his mayoral campaign before next week's election. “But I don't understand what it has to do with me.”

  “Flatman is a very good beat cop. Do you think our heavyset, north of seventy-years-old, asthmatic mayor can climb a tree? Flatman needs to learn how and when to call bulls…” April said as she glanced at Emma. “To call baloney on a prank caller. Given you knew I was about to make an arrest and that ridiculous story about a cat, I'm quite certain you were the caller. As soon as you heard, you rushed your whiny little behind over here to be the knight in shining armor for Miss Roarke.”

  I whistled for ten seconds and avoided eye contact with the sheriff. It often felt like the Looney Tunes cartoon where she was the roadrunner and I was Wile E. Coyote. I needed to turn the tables on her, so I didn't constantly feel like an underdog who always lost the race. “Since we both know you have something more important to do right now, perhaps we can ignore Officer Flatman for the moment. It seems neither of us thinks he's got anything important to say.”