by Ella White
“Man, she really didn’t like the contest results, did she?” she asked, chuckling a little at Meredith’s crinkled nose.
“Not at all,” Lydia confirmed.
“How many times did she have the judges recount the votes?”
“I lost count sometime after seven.”
Melvin meowed as if in agreement with Lydia’s annoyance. He then started pawing at a few more of the pictures, scratching a few of them and pushing others all over the place.
“Melvin!” Lydia exclaimed. “Cut it out!”
A few pictures flew off the table. As Gwen bent down to pick them back up, she spotted that one of the photos was of Lydia’s winning arrangement. It wasn’t the official picture that was used in the paper, because there were plenty of things in the background that normally wouldn’t be in a proper contest photo. In the background was another image of Meredith, and Lydia couldn’t help but be a bit annoyed at the fact that her competitor showed up again in a picture of her flowers. She really ruined the beauty of the plants just by standing near them.
Next to Meredith was a blurry form that could be outlined as a person, but the identity of the person was distorted to the point where it was mostly unrecognizable. The only distinguishable thing about this person was that he or she was wider than Meredith, although Gwen knew this could just be due to the blur of the photo, and that the person wore an extravagantly colored outfit. Gwen groaned.
“Arg, another blurred picture! That’s the sixth one on my film roll,” she proclaimed. She hated when that happened. “I really liked this one too. It has such great lighting for the flowers!”
“What happened with that?” Lydia asked, pointing to the blurred figure.
“That occurs when I take a picture when someone is moving,” Gwen explained. “I really need to put some money into buying a digital camera. I wouldn’t waste film so much.”
“So this person was walking away when you snapped this picture?” Lydia asked.
“That’s right,” Gwen responded. “And based on Meredith’s face, this person was moving away from her really fast.”
“Yeah, Meredith didn’t seem happy to speak with this person either,” Lydia deduced based on the angry expression on Meredith’s face. “Maybe they had a fight…”
“I might’ve gotten the killer in this picture and not known it!” Gwen announced. “Maybe this time a waste of film was worth it!”
“That’s definitely possible,” Lydia agreed, ignoring the gripe. “I wonder who it is…”
“Whoever it is,” Gwen concluded, “he or she really likes bright colors.”
The two women continued their search for anything suspicious in the photos while Melvin made himself comfortable on the table again. Eventually, underneath Melvin’s paw, Lydia came across a picture of Meredith and one of her arrangements. In the background was another woman, maybe roughly Meredith’s age, with deep brown eyes, glaring daggers at the back of Meredith’s head. Lydia stared at her for a moment. Gwen noticed that she had stopped looking through different pictures, and she glanced over to see what it was.
“That’s Nancy, right?” Gwen recalled. “Nancy Hartshorn?”
“Yeah,” Lydia confirmed. “She took third place in the contest.”
“Because you and Meredith tied,” Gwen said, looking for more pictures of Nancy. It seemed that every photo with both Nancy and Meredith in it involved the former glaring at the latter. “Looks like Nancy wasn’t very happy with Meredith.”
“Not to say I was a fan of her either, but what would Nancy have against Meredith?” Lydia pondered out loud. “Do you think she was mad about taking third? Or could it be about something else?”
“Why don’t we ask her?” Gwen suggested.
Chapter Three
Lydia stared up at the sign for the florist, which read “Flowers by Nancy.” Simple and to the point, but not exactly memorable. This flower shop was smaller than either Lydia’s or Meredith’s, but it had a humble sort of ambiance that made it feel rather welcoming. Lydia also noticed that although the flower arrangements were still lovely, they were also much simpler than some of the arrangements she herself had designed.
Well, I guess simpler is sometimes better, depending on what the client wants, Lydia admitted to herself.
She and Gwen headed inside, listening to the nice little bell that rang as they opened and closed the door. There was a young man there, probably somewhere in his late teens or early twenties, who looked up from the horticulture magazine he was reading and smiled as he saw the two of them.
“Hello, Miss White,” he greeted, putting down the magazine and standing up. “Congrats on the win yesterday.”
“Thanks, Jeremy,” she returned. She didn’t feel like she wanted to correct him about her winning the contest, given the circumstances, and she appreciated the statement regardless. “Is Nancy in?”
“Yeah. She’s in the back,” Jeremy replied, pointing to a door that Lydia supposed led to an office. He must have seen a worried look on Lydia’s face, because his smile turned into a frown. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, no worries,” Gwen answered for her. “I’m Gwen Parker, of the Rose Gazette. I was hoping I could talk to Nancy about the contest.”
“Of course. You can head on back,” Jeremy allowed with a nod. “The door’s always unlocked.”
The two ladies thanked him and headed for the office. Lydia gave a few good knocks to the door, and when there was a call for them to come in, she opened it.
Nancy was about the same age as Lydia’s mom, Barbara, although she seemed to look younger. This may have been because she kept her hair from going gray by coloring it dark brown, or it may have been that her square-frame glasses were practically invisible given their thinness. Still, Nancy’s appearance was like her shop: simple yet elegant, and friendly. She smiled as Lydia and Gwen stuck their heads in through the doorway.
“Hello, Lydia,” she said. “And you’re…Gwen, right? The news reporter?”
“That’s right,” Gwen answered. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you about the contest yesterday. I’m sorry about that.”
“That’s okay,” Nancy replied, although her tone showed her disappointment. “I’m sure you needed to focus on the actual winners of the competition.”
“And that’s why I’m here,” Lydia stated. “I wanted to say…good competition. I really liked your submissions. I didn’t get a chance to tell you yesterday.”
“Thank you. Yours were lovely too,” Nancy replied. “And thanks for coming and saying that.”
“Even if it’s a day late?”
“Even if it’s a day late,” she verified. “That’s more than Meredith would ever do.”
Lydia laughed, trying to keep the conversation light. “Meredith always took things too far.”
“Yeah. Your rivalry with Meredith is practically legendary,” Nancy teased.
“Well I don’t know if it was legendary,” Lydia answered.
Gwen, all the while, was writing down notes in her notebook, both for actual information and to make it look like she was writing things down for her report.
“Doesn’t sound like Meredith was very popular,” Gwen supposed.
“She wasn’t, and I don’t think I need to ask for that to stay off the record,” Nancy answered, directing the last statement to Gwen. Gwen simply smiled at her.
“No worries. I’m not very fond of Meredith either,” Gwen admitted, though she did feel a little bad talking about a woman who was found dead earlier that day. “She didn’t even give me an interview after the competition.”
“Yes. I noticed there wasn’t a statement from her in the paper this morning,” the other florist deduced. “She really seemed to make enemies everywhere she went.”
“What do you mean?” Lydia asked. “I mean, I know Meredith and I never got along, but was she really like that with everyone else?”
“She completely snubbed me when I asked for an interview,” Gwen announc
ed.
“And she’s been breaking off a lot of partnerships lately,” Nancy shared openly. “For instance, Bethany Reed came to me the other day, trying to find a replacement flower arranger. The Purple Petal dropped her a few weeks ago.”
“Bethany Reed?” Lydia echoed.
“Owner of Perfect Day Weddings,” she explained. “She said Meredith didn’t like the price she was getting for the amount and the complexity of the arrangements she was making, so she cancelled their contract. Bethany’s been looking around for another florist.”
“I haven’t heard from her,” Lydia added. “Never even heard of her, for that matter.”
“Maybe she thought you were in the same league as Meredith? And couldn’t afford you? I don’t know,” Nancy proposed, shrugging her shoulders. “But I don’t mean to speak badly about someone during an interview.”
“What interview?” Gwen joked, smiling at her. “We’re just gossiping here.”
“Right.” She grinned. “Let’s just say Meredith walked over and threw away a lot of people and leave it at that.”
“Let’s,” Gwen agreed. “I’d much rather ask you about yesterday.”
“Yes, about the competition. What did you want to ask?”
“Just a few simple questions,” the journalist said. “What is your inspiration for your arrangements?”
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I like to keep things simple,” Nancy replied. “It’s nice to have elaborate flower designs, but sometimes you just need a touch of something small to be elegant.”
“I won’t argue with you on that,” Lydia concurred. “Sometimes a design can become so complicated that the actual beauty of the flowers is lost, and that’s what should be the focus of the design.”
“Absolutely right,” Nancy said with a nod. Gwen was furiously writing down nonsense. “But you, Lydia, you know how to balance complicated with beautiful. That’s why you won the contest.”
“Well, Meredith and I tied…” Lydia decided to add.
“As far as I’m concerned, you won that competition,” Nancy insisted.
Lydia couldn’t stop the heat from flushing her cheeks. “You flatter me.”
“Do you think we could have dinner sometime?” Nancy suggested. “I would love to exchange ideas with you.”
“I think we can do that,” Lydia agreed, and Gwen put down her notebook. Her idea of an interview was clearly not necessary. Nancy was sharing information left and right. “Any place you like to eat?”
“I went to a nice Irish restaurant last night,” she answered. “Kind of like a pub, but it had its own little bowling alley.”
“A restaurant with a bowling alley?” Gwen repeated.
“A miniature version, anyway,” Nancy told her. “It’s a lot of fun, and quite addicting. I spent pretty much all night there after the competition was over.”
Lydia and Gwen looked at each other. So Nancy was at this Irish restaurant at the time of the murder, huh?
“That sounds good to me,” Lydia stated. “I’ll call you later so we can arrange a day, okay?”
Nancy smiled and nodded while Gwen’s phone started to vibrate. She picked it up and looked at the caller ID.
“It’s the paper. Sorry, Nancy, I have to take this,” she explained. “We’ll have to get back to this another time.”
Nancy just waved her hand, gesturing for Gwen to head out. The reporter did, and Lydia stood to join her.
“It was nice talking with you, Nancy,” Lydia stated. “And thanks for your time.”
“You’re welcome, Lydia,” the other florist replied. “Stop by to visit anytime.”
Lydia gave her one last wave before leaving the office and following Gwen out of the building. Jeremy gave them a smile as they left before returning to his magazine.
Outside, Gwen was holding her cell phone up to her ear with her other hand blocking the opposite ear. She watched as Lydia left the building and walked over to her.
“Okay. Thanks, Harper. Talk to you later,” she said into the phone before hanging up. “That was the office. They just got a report from the police. The autopsy report on Meredith said that she died from pesticide poisoning.”
“Pesticides?” Lydia repeated.
“Like the kind used in gardening,” Gwen continued. “Makes sense I guess, since she worked with plants all the time.”
“So it wasn’t suffocation?” Lydia asked. “The police thought it was based on the bruises on her neck.”
“Yeah. Apparently the coroner thought those happened postmortem,” Gwen clarified. “They think she was dragged to where her body was left, by your shop.”
“Dragged? By the neck?” Lydia echoed, and she shook her head in astonishment. “But the actual cause of death was pesticides?”
“By ingestion,” Gwen resumed. “Apparently she drank a bunch of PestBeGone.”
Lydia thought for a moment, rubbing her chin. “Well, Meredith might have been a jerk, but she knew her plants, and she certainly wouldn’t have drank gardening pesticides like PestBeGone of her own free will.”
“I hate to say it, but it does point to you again,” Lydia’s friend mentioned. “After all, you would know what kind of pesticides would be dangerous for a person to drink. No offense.”
“None taken, and you’re right,” Lydia acknowledged. “Someone’s setting me up, and I don’t like it.”
“Well, who else besides you and Nancy would have a reason for wanting Meredith dead?” Gwen pondered. “That Bethany person certainly would.”
“Nancy said she runs a wedding company,” Lydia confirmed.
Gwen suddenly got a clever smile on her face. “How do you feel about going undercover a bit?”
Chapter Four
Lydia was not sure she had ever seen so many white ruffles in her life.
Perfect Day Weddings was really the epitome of a wedding planning business. The company took up a huge building, with multiple partitioned areas. Lydia would be more inclined to call the whole thing a warehouse if it hadn’t been for the separation of all the different aspects involved in a marriage. There was one section for wedding gowns, one for bridesmaid dresses, one for tablecloths and napkins, one for flowers arrangements, and one for cakes, just to mention a few.
As far as the organization of the warehouse went, Lydia greatly approved. It wasn’t hard to find the desired section, and everything was exactly where it was labeled to be. It was precisely how she would have organized such a warehouse. What good was a store if the customers could never find what they were looking for?
What she didn’t really agree with was the color scheme, or the lack thereof. Except for the flowers and a few details on the wedding cakes, the entire place was covered in white, although Lydia knew from experience that some of the shades were more specific kinds of white, such as bone, ivory, snow, and eggshell. Her mom had been more concerned about that kind of thing for her wedding cake designs, but she had chalked this up to her being a control freak rather than actually being concerned about the colors. In any case, she felt like her eyes were being bleached by all the white.
A perky voice brought Lydia back to the present.
“Welcome to Perfect Day Weddings!” a larger woman with blue eyes announced as she left her desk and approached Lydia and Gwen. “I’m Bethany, owner and wedding planner. How can I help you today?”
“Hi. I’m Gwen…” she answered, keeping her tone a little shy and glancing around timidly. “I’m, uh…”
“A new bride-to-be?” Bethany finished for her. “Of course. Well you’ve come to the right place!”
“She’s looking around for some information for her wedding,” Lydia informed, purposely speaking for Gwen. She kept her chin up and glanced around, channeling her inner Meredith. “Looks like a lot of things here, but are they what we are looking for? And at the right price?”
“I assure you, madam, I employ only the best seamstresses, the best bakers, the best caterers, and the best florists,” Bethany declar
ed, pushing her blond hair out of her face, although a fancy hair tie held most of it back. “If I don’t have what you’re looking for, I will search for it myself.”
Lydia honestly thought Bethany should look for another set of clothes; her brightly-patterned floral dress was quite an eyesore against all of the white in her surroundings.