Corpse in the Carnations

by Dale Mayer

  “Life is too short,” she said.

  As she researched Fen Gunderson’s grandson, she checked the weather reports way back then. It would take a lot of research to get into the weather patterns from that time, just when they were starting to keep records and way before digital records were made. She wondered if the weather stations could help her.

  She picked up the phone and called the local station to ask for the weatherman. When she couldn’t get through, she got his email address and sent him a query. About an hour later her phone rang.

  “Hey, this is Charlie from the weather station. That’s a really interesting question you’ve got there. What are you into?” he asked curiously.

  “I was checking the weather for twenty-nine years ago in the months of May and June,” she said, not giving away too much information.

  “Are you hot on another case?”

  She groaned, realizing he already knew who she was. “Not really,” she said. “Just looking at the weather patterns for help in redoing Nan’s garden.” It was only half a lie because she certainly did want to know the weather patterns here.

  “We do have something digital here, but it’s not easily accessible. Let me go back twenty-nine years ago, since 1990 …” His voice trailed off as he clicked away on his keyboard. “Oh, wow. That was a really crazy summer with tons of flooding. The worst in one hundred years, I believe.”

  “Right. I heard something about that. Something about how the river rose to crazy heights.”

  “Yeah, absolutely. It was so strong that year that we had cars in the river.”

  “Were they ever pulled out?”

  “You’d like to think so,” he said, “but the river back then was very deep, and it flowed right into the lake, so it’s hard to say.”

  “How long did the flooding last?”

  “We had flash floods off and on for about three or four days because of the mountain’s snowmelt. Everything on top melted, came down, and we had a lot of heavy rainstorms at the same time too. Kind of like a perfect storm of various elements. We ended up with this massive flood that just didn’t quit. Is that what you’re looking for?”

  “Yeah, do you have anything you can pop into the email for me to refer back to?”

  “Sure,” he said. “If it brings up anything interesting, let me know, will you?”

  She chuckled. “Not sure what you’re talking about but will do.” She hung up.

  Now she had a pretty damn good idea what happened. And yet, she had to believe that the authorities and even the family members were checking on the weather way back then too at the time of the boys’ disappearances.

  She sorted through the years of weather, then realized she needed to ask Charlie one more question. She hit Redial.

  When he answered, he said, “Wow. Found something already?”

  “No,” she said. “I was wondering, considering that was a year with heavy flooding, have we had a year since then where it’s been incredibly dry? You know? Like, where the lake would be at its lowest point in one hundred years?”

  “This year,” he said. “It’s been one of the driest years ever. Our rainfall is way down. The mountains had almost zero snow last year. Remember how the ski mountains were in trouble?”

  She didn’t tell him anything about not having been local back then because she didn’t want to remind him how she had just arrived and was causing the current chaos. “So what does that mean in terms of the lake levels?”

  “It means, by the time we hit August, September, October,” he said, “it should be pretty darn low.”

  “Oh, interesting. Of course you don’t have any underwater radar or anything like that, do you?”

  “No,” he said. “But a bunch of stuff was done when people came looking for Ogopogo. A research company wanted to find critters in the lake, and I know they did all kinds of stuff, but I don’t think any of that is publicly accessible.”

  “Do you know what company it was?”

  “No,” he said, “but it shouldn’t be too hard to find. They were in the news quite a bit because, of course, everybody was taking bets on whether they would find the Loch Ness Monster of Okanagan Lake.”

  “Interesting. So you’re expecting this summer we should have the lake at its lowest level?”

  “This whole year was pretty bad. We had a lot of heavy snowfall, which means heavy flooding to come,” he said, “so the city opened the locks and let out water from the lake in preparation for the spring runoff levels. Then, when the heavy flooding didn’t materialize, the lake itself didn’t rise as much as was expected.”

  He explained it very well, but, for her, it was hard to process all the information. She nodded though, as if she understood. “Again, any chance of you putting that down on paper? Because that was a lot of information.”

  He laughed. “Sure. Sounds like I’m giving a history lesson to somebody from out of town.”

  “Well, I am partially,” she said. “I’ve been around Nan lots. But that doesn’t mean I remember all this stuff.”

  “Good enough,” he said with a smile in his voice.

  She hung up again, and, going off in yet another tangent, which was very unlike her, she searched for drought areas in town, realizing the entire Lower Mission area was a floodplain. So it was flooded with high waters whenever the water from the rivers and the lake went high, but then it became a drought area whenever water levels dropped even lower than normal. It made a lot of sense.

  But so did something else.

  She researched companies that had done any kind of deep water imaging of the lake. But she wasn’t getting any true hits for what she needed to find out. Then she remembered how Charlie had said something about bets and called Nan. “Have you ever placed a bet on whether they would find a Loch Ness Monster in Okanagan Lake?”

  Nan laughed. “Oh my,” she said, catching her breath. “I made so much money on that bet.”

  “Why would anybody bet on that?”

  “Because somebody here suggested they had seen a Loch Ness Monster and that it would be found with the new technology, so a lot of people were determined to agree because they really wanted to see it. Whereas, I was of the opinion that it didn’t matter how good the technology was, some things we were never meant to know.”

  Doreen happened to agree with Nan on that one. “Okay, so you bet against it. Why would you have made so much money?”

  “While I was sitting in a coffee shop,” she said, her voice lowered so nobody around could hear, “I heard a couple folks from the research crew discussing their project. They were running out of money, and they had until midnight the next night. So, as soon as I heard that, I knew exactly when to set my time for when the research company would call it quits. Midnight obviously. And I was right on, which paid with a heavy bonus.” She laughed. “Best bet I ever placed.”

  “Do you remember the name of the company that did the imaging?”

  “A science lab research thing …” she said, her voice thoughtful. “Oh, I remember, Oceanic. They came in with a minisub and some fancy radar machine.”

  “Okay,” Doreen said. “That’s something I might be able to look up.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Nan said. “Don’t hang up yet.”

  “That’s all I needed to know. Thanks, Nan.” And she hung up before Nan could ask any more questions.

  Then she deliberately turned off her phone so her grandmother couldn’t call her back. She didn’t want anybody asking questions she wasn’t ready to answer, and then she researched the corresponding articles.

  By the time she was done, she was exhausted. And as she looked at the phone, she realized it was already dinnertime on a Saturday evening. Yet she hadn’t even had lunch yet. She groaned. “If Mack knew that, he’d be all over me.”

  She turned her phone back on to see several messages. She sighed, checked them out, and, sure enough, two were from Nan, but one was from Mack. She called him back. “Hey,” she said. “I had the phone t
urned off. Things got a little crazy here.”

  “How did it go with the appraiser?”

  “It went very well,” she said. “Then I talked to Nan a bit more, and apparently the big set—couch, chairs, coffee table, my bed, night tables—were all part of a bedroom ensemble from way back when. So all the pieces are going to the auction house, if and when they want them. So we had to take photos, note the maker’s marks, any damage to the pieces, … you know, all that good stuff.”

  “Wow,” he said. “That sounds hugely positive.”

  She laughed. “It really does. I’m super excited. I know it won’t be enough to replace what I lost from a proper divorce settlement, but Nan was the one who suggested I might be able to invest some of it, so I get a little bit of a monthly income, at least enough to live on.”

  “That sounds like something you should seriously think about,” he said with surprise. “Nan sounds like she’s very astute when it comes to money.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “And she didn’t buy those particular antiques that make up that one big set. They were handed down to her by her grandmother.”

  “Well, there’s some of your provenance,” he said.

  “Some,” she said. “She’s trying to remember years and dates, and that’s a whole different problem.”

  “Sure, but if you get your great-great-grandmother’s name, you could do some research on that too.”

  She hadn’t even thought of that. She crowed in delight. “This will keep me busy for a few weeks.”

  “Of course it will,” he said.

  “Except for one thing. Did you know that the guy who supposedly committed suicide, Josh Huberts, was the grandson of the handyman accused of taking the missing boy, Paul Shore? That Josh Huberts is the grandson of Henry Huberts?”

  Dead silence came from Mack’s end of the conversation.

  Chapter 15

  “Where did you hear that?” Mack asked.

  “Nan,” Doreen said. “Once she heard the Huberts name, she was all over it. … And Linda, the librarian.”

  “I didn’t even think of that.” He groaned.

  He muttered away in the background, and she could hear the keys on his laptop clicking. “It doesn’t mean it has anything to do with the other though,” she said quietly.

  “No,” he said, “but the fact that we have a dead family member—and the license plate of course—always makes me very suspicious.”

  “Of course it does,” she said. “But it doesn’t have to be related. Just keep that in mind.”

  He chuckled. “Isn’t that my line for you? You’re the one always trying to make big bad things happen out of nothing.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But I have a lot to focus on right now.”

  “Speaking of which,” he said, “a couple buddies of mine were talking about the problem with your house. Two of them are on patrol tonight, and they’ll take a couple drive-bys once an hour while you’re asleep. I think you need to take extra care for the next few days, until we get this straightened out. But they will continue to keep an eye on your place. And there’ll be no charge. Just concerned citizens giving you a hand.”

  She smiled. “Thank you,” she said with heartfelt sincerity. “I really appreciate that.”

  “So you should,” he said with a chuckle. “And now you owe me one.” He hung up.

  Into the empty room she said, “Ha, you’re the one getting the credit for closing all these cases, so you owe me one. And, if my current theory runs true, you’ll be able to close yet another one.”

  But it was too early to crow about that. She still had a little work to do first. As such, she sat down and continued to read the articles on Oceanic. The company was out of Washington. She frowned, realizing it was already past business hours, and she couldn’t contact them tonight. But she sent an email, asking if they had done the study on Okanagan Lake within the last few years. She’d forgotten to ask Nan for the year this was done, and weatherman hadn’t mentioned it either.

  She rewrote the email so it didn’t mention a year. Just any of their research with imaging on the lake itself.

  Once she sent that off, she was done for the moment. She had so much stuff in progress that her head was spinning.

  At that moment, Goliath jumped onto her lap and insisted on a cuddle. She groaned, gratefully sank back into the couch, pushing away from her laptop, and just held him for a moment. But he wouldn’t have any of that. He kept butting his head against her chin.

  “Did I forget to feed you again?” she whispered. She could hear little meows in her ear. “Well, it wasn’t just you I forgot to feed. I didn’t get any lunch either.”

  She got up and went to check the animals’ food supplies, and, sure enough, all of them were out of food. As soon as Mugs heard her grab the dog food bag, he came running. She served him a generous portion, realizing the bag itself was getting a little low.

  “Mugs, we need money,” she said.

  Mugs barked, as if agreeing.

  She fed Thaddeus and gave Goliath a can of soft food. “If nothing else, guys, we’ll get paid if we work for Mack tomorrow. Thanks to Mack. That should help us a lot.”

  It wouldn’t be much but enough for her to get a few more groceries or alternatively get food for the animals. Depending on her own food supply as to which one would come first.

  Then she remembered the money she had in the bowl upstairs. When she had removed the pile of clothing to bring the chair down to show to Fen Gunderson, she’d put the clothing on top of the bowl, so it would be hidden when the appraiser was here.

  She wanted to just have a bath and chill for the evening. But she wasn’t at all sure about sleeping tonight. She needed it—she was really exhausted. She also needed some food. She went through her cupboards again and found it would be either cheese and crackers, which sounded deplorable because she was tired of the same foods, or a hot bowl of ramen. That won hands down.

  With yet another bowl of ramen while the darkness settled outside, she propped chairs up against the inside of the front and back doors, leaving a light on downstairs so others would think she was still up. She closed the curtains to project just a glimmer of light outside and headed upstairs. She kept her bedroom light on low as she looked at the big bed, wondering at the centuries—well, at least the decades—of use it had had.

  “Nan, you did a hell of a job taking care of this for your grandmother. You knew where it came from. And you wanted it to go to me, even if I sold it. That’s huge for me. It is so huge.”

  On that thought she wondered if the provenance folder was somewhere in this room. She looked under the bed, dismissed the night tables which weren’t even big enough for a folder, then she opened the closet doors and groaned. As soon as she did that, everything came cascading forward. She still had yet to get through even ten percent of the closet’s contents. Stacks of clothing remained everywhere.

  “This is a major job,” she said to the animals. “But, hey, we’re up for it. The payout is incredible.”

  She prepped herself for bed and hopped in. As she lay here thinking about the years and years that people had slept on this very spot, it made her smile. Something was so very comforting about that.

  The thought that she was sleeping on thousands of dollars was less than comforting. She’d become cavalier about money when she had lived with her husband. Since she didn’t get money—or so he said—he took care of the finances. She resided among so much opulence, but she had no idea of the costs or the brand names or where it all came from—a brand-new piece from a store or a family heirloom handed down? None of that had really occurred to her.

  Realizing that the bed she was now on probably was worth more money than her marital bed just astounded her. Her husband had been all about how much money he had spent on their furnishings, impressing himself more than Doreen. She would cheerfully have traded it in for a regular bed and used the money to help somebody in need.

  She hadn’t realized how many peopl
e were in need until she became one of them.

  Chapter 16

  So much was going on in her head that it was hard to calm down. She was excited over the potential sale of the antiques, panicked with worry that something would happen before she could cash in on them, and feeling guilty as hell because these pieces had been in her family for a century. How did that make her feel? They all had enough money that they could hang on to these pieces and enjoy them. The devil inside whispered to her, You don’t like the furniture anyway, so what the hell? Just get rid of it.

  But it was definitely a toss-up as to what she should ultimately do.

  Shaking her head, she also pondered the cold case she’d been working on. But she couldn’t get any more information to confirm or deny her hypothesis. She knew the townspeople would have gone looking for anybody missing in the floods. That was an obvious thing to have done. But where could the little boy and the handyman have gone? Apparently there had been no signs of them ever since.

  And that was strange too. Henry Huberts had family in Kelowna; he also had family in the nearby towns of Vernon and Penticton. So you’d think somebody there would have heard from him. But, if he’d done something absolutely horrible, then he probably would have walked away from everything he had known and never returned. She couldn’t imagine doing something like that.

  Then she stopped and drew herself up short. “Okay, so I’ve done something like that,” she said, “but I didn’t walk away from Nan—just my old life with my ex. Not that I had much choice. Besides, Nan was my cornerstone in this crazy new world.”

  Then she had to consider the intruder last night. Was he coming back? She was tempted to grab a blanket and sleep on the couch. At least then he would wake her up. Up here she might miss him.

  The more she thought about it, the more she felt that was a good choice. She grabbed her comforter and called the animals. “You guys might as well come downstairs with me,” she said. “You’ll be my alarm system.”