“Wow,” Roy murmured out of the side of his mouth. “So hippies still exist.”
I knew who she was. In fact, she was pretty much the thorn in my side these days, though I’d never spoken to her personally. It seemed she was making my Aunt Bebe’s life a living hell and I was getting the tales of woe by the hour.
Even worse, I knew she was ready to make my pain more direct. As Activities Director, I was about to take charge of things where the Spring Flower Show was concerned—and Starflower Moon—yes, she actually claimed that was her real name—would be going head to head with me instead of Bebe.
“From what I’ve heard, she’s more a hard-hitting business woman in hippie clothing than a real star child,” I murmured to him, watching her. “Remember to beware of books and covers.”
At that moment, her gaze fell on me and she brightened, heading right for us.
“You!” she accused, pointing at me as she arrived at our booth. “You’re the new Director of Activities, aren’t you?” She drew her cape around her own shoulders so energetically, I was afraid she was about to take off, like a Bohemian Mary Poppins. “You’re Bebe’s niece, too.”
“I am,” I admitted. “And you are Starflower Moon.”
“Yes!”
“Good. Now that we’ve got that straightened out….”
“Not so fast,” she cried, slapping the flat of her hand down on the table. “I’ve been planning to contact you. I want to call a meeting of the Destiny Valley Cut Flower Association. I’m charging your aunt with corruption and favoritism. I want her impeached.”
That got my attention. “What?”
“Certain preferred growers get special favors. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I’ve got evidence she’s been taking money under the table. I’m going after her, hammer and tong.”
I knew Bebe was having problems with the woman, but this was so over the top. I was about to tell her what I thought of her accusations, but someone else beat me to it.
“You better have some pretty solid evidence before you go around making charges like that, lady.” A handsome fortyish man in snug jeans and a fitted polo shirt had jumped up from his seat at the bar and come over to meet Starflower’s challenge. “Bebe Miyaki is a wonderful chairman of the Cut Flowers Association, and a darned nice person, too.”
It was Fred Carver, another grower in our valley. A bachelor, he was known as a pretty active ladies man, and he looked the part, with his dark brown hair cut short and sporting a silver streak--and his wide shoulders. The way he and Starflower were glaring at each other made you think there might actually be some history there.
“Hey, come on Star,” he said through gritted teeth. “We’ve got to put on a flower show. Let’s try to get along at least for now.”
“Get along? Sure, we can get along. Just as soon as we cut away the element that’s destroying everything we’re working for.” She tossed her hair around and glared at me. “I think we all know what that element is.”
It was tempting to join the fray and start telling the woman what I thought of her and her accusations, but I swallowed that back and tried to remember that I had a responsible position with the town and needed to keep things calm and above board.
“Listen,” I offered instead. “If you think you really have a compelling case to make, why not show up at the town council hearing tomorrow afternoon and make a formal presentation? That way your charges can be assessed by the council and….”
“Oh yeah. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then all your little buddies would be lined up against me and…”
“Either you’ve got a case or you don’t,” Fred noted, and she turned on him once again.
“You know what she does. You know how she takes money from the big growers and leaves us middle-sized people in the lurch. A bunch of us have had it with her. We’re going to take her out.”
“Oh yeah?” Fred responded, thrusting his chin out at her.
“Yeah,” she cried back, her own chin jutting.
“You and what army?”
Unfortunately for Fred, he hadn’t noticed that Star’s own private army had just come in from the parking lot. There were three of them, one male and two females, all about nineteen or twenty, and they were gathering behind her right about then.
I’d heard about this bunch. Starflower had a pretty extensive apprenticeship program running at her flower fields. It was a partnership with the local university, which had a first class agricultural department. There were some who claimed she did it to avoid paying full time employees decent wages. Others thought she was very generous to give so many young people a chance to learn the business from the bottom up at a successful operation.
Whatever her motives, a few of her favorites got picked to help her run the program and those lucky few seemed to follow everywhere she went, like little farmer bodyguards. The gang had just arrived and looked perfectly willing to back Star up in any fight she wanted to pick.
Fred finally noticed them and he looked startled. Starflower smirked and the three behind her smirked too. Roy cleared his throat and came to his feet, flashing his badge.
“Alright, folks,” he said calmly. “Fun’s over. Let’s all quiet down, go to our separate corners, and have our drinks in peace.”
Fred raised his hands like a cowboy showing he wasn’t going for his guns and said, “No problem, Officer.” He turned to Starflower and added, “Mele’s right. If you’ve got a real beef, you should show up at the meeting tomorrow. Put it to a vote. I’ll be there, ready to vote against you every time.” One last disdainful look and he headed for the door.
Meanwhile, Starflower gathered her minions about her and after a triumphant glance my way, she took them to a booth far enough removed that I could relax a little.
Roy had done his job with ease and expertise, but he didn’t return to his seat. He hesitated just as a roll of thunder shook the building. Or was it a big truck going by on the highway? Hard to tell.
“There’s a storm coming,” he said, looking at me as if this was supposed to be a surprise.
“Isn’t there always?” I shot back. I could tell he was about to leave. “It’s just a matter of when it will get here this time.”
“You’re a cynic, Mele Keahi,” he said, then shrugged. “Break time’s over,” he added with that mysterious smile. “See you later.” He glanced across the room at our recent visitors. “And let me know if that drama queen gives you and Bebe anymore trouble. Okay?”
I nodded and gave him a wave, though I was pretty sure I was going to have to establish a direct line to his phone if I was going to keep him up on all the problems we were going to be having with Starflower.
Watching him go, I sighed. He was so very hunky. More missed opportunities. But that was for the best. Wasn’t it?
Chapter Three
I got home to find Michael Archer sitting in the kitchen, watching my aunt Bebe fix dinner. They were laughing when I came in, so I assumed their relationship was steadily warming again.
They’d been adorable together when I’d first moved in, but that quickly faded as he seemed to develop a thing for Sherry Jones, a beautiful blonde flower bundler who worked for Bebe. That had been all over for awhile, but my cute little aunt was in no hurry to go back to the way things had been “B.S.”, as she called it. Before Sherry.
“Hey guys,” I said cheerfully as I dropped my packages to the floor and sank into a chair at the table with a sigh. “I met the dragon lady tonight—and she was breathing fire.”
Bebe turned and looked at me, blowing back a stray tangle of hair that had fallen down over her eyes as she rinsed her hands at the faucet. “Are you talking about my favorite lady? Miss Starflower Moonbeam or whatever her name is?”
“That’s the one.” I grinned at her as she made a face. “Boy does she have it in for you. She wants to call a special meeting and have you impeached.”
“Oh yeah. She’s been threatening that for days.” Bebe’s shoulders sagged.
“Yeah, she’s a piece of work,” Michael said. “I’ve known her for years. And it’s funny, because her sister is such a sweetheart. She sends me fudge brownies for my 4H kids when we have fundraisers.”
“Is she named like a fantasy cartoon too?” I asked.
“Her name’s Margie. Margie Miller. She and her husband Norm run an almond orchard over in the valley. Really nice, down to earth people.”
“Meanwhile, Starflower is like some outrageous urban fairytale,” Bebe said. “She’s been needling me for years, but once they named me chairman, she got out the big guns and has been trying to shoot me down.” She sighed. “Tell you the truth, I’m really tempted to give the job up. It’s such a pain dealing with people like her.”
“How did you end up with it, anyway?” I asked, picking up a carrot stick from an arrangement she’d put on the table for Michael to nibble on. “It seems like one of those things that you would normally avoid like the plague.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was the one with the weakest excuse when they were looking for someone to dump the job on. Believe me, I didn’t ask for it. It’s thankless.”
I nodded. I’d heard at least her side of some of her recent phone conversations—and I knew a bit about the background of all the anger. Nobody likes to feel they’ve been cheated and lots of the growers were harboring hard feelings about what they considered a lack of attention to their problems during the last Spring Flower Show.
Since I was about to take over this year’s planning, some of them had already come to me to explain how they felt. Emotions were riding high because the flower contest was a big deal. The winner got a feature in the slick Clearly Coastal Magazine and got treated like a local potentate for most of the year to come. There were six major flower growers in the valley and a number of minor players as well. Each had a different strong suit. Bebe’s was her special line of wild flowers mixed with standards in flower bouquets selling in supermarkets—the Natural Look, she’d named it. Starflower had a lock on the Spring Flower market, tulips and snapdragons. Fred’s place grew prize-winning long-stemmed red roses, especially around Valentine’s Day and Christmas. The others ranged from Asiatic lilies to white orchids—anything that bloomed. Every one of them was sure his own fields produced the best flowers in the valley—and each wanted to make sure the debacle of the previous year didn’t happen again.
“It was horrible,” Bebe explained. “I was as upset as anyone. We all felt so helpless. It’s no wonder it made some people a little nuts. And that was one reason I didn’t fight too hard against taking this position. I did want to make sure someone was paying attention this time.”
And now we two were in the middle of the storm. Lucky us.
I glanced at Michael. He was looking awfully comfortable as he lounged there, watching Bebe. For just a second, I let my natural instinct to protect my aunt surface and I resented how casually he seemed to think he could come and go in her life. But when you came right down to it, it was Bebe’s call, not mine. Besides teaching biology at the local high school, he was an advisor to the 4H Club and used one of Bebe’s warehouses for their meetings and projects. And he was a pretty good guy, all in all. So I smiled at him and got up to feed the cats.
We have two of them. Sami is the original. He’s a beautiful black beast who’s been Bebe’s for a long time, and his nose is a bit out of joint in that he now has to share the place—and our affections—with Silver, a huge cat and very cuddly, who I adopted from a victim of one of the murders I accidentally got involved in—the same person who once owned the parrot I could now hear squawking from his aviary in the back yard. I supposed I was going to have to go out and feed him, too.
Silver came the moment he heard the can opening, his eyes gleaming and his purr loud as the thunder I thought I’d heard earlier.
“Where’s Sami?” I asked him, but he flicked his tail disdainfully and didn’t seem to want to discuss it.
Sure enough, once I went out back to check on the parrot, it had started to rain. I scanned the area, looking for Aunty Jane, but didn’t see her.
Where does a ghost go when it rains? I wondered. And for that matter, where the heck was Sami?
“I haven’t seen him all day,” Bebe said when I went back in. She frowned. “He usually comes around for a belly rub at least six times in the afternoon, but he didn’t show up. I guess he’s got business somewhere else.”
She gave me a look and I took it to heart. We hadn’t seen Sami for over twenty-four hours and she was beginning to think he might be gone for good. That would be a tragedy. I pushed the thought away and began to go through drawers, pulling out mats and silverware to set the table for dinner.
We had a delicious taco salad, full of cheese and seasoned meat and tomatoes and crunchy chips. Good food and a little wine--we talked and laughed all through it. But it was obvious that our minds kept going back to Starflower Moon and her angry opposition. I could tell Bebe was nervous about the coming confrontation at the town meeting.
“Hey,” I said when she’d brought it up for about the fourth time, “I’ll be there with you.” I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “I’ll back you up.”
Michael looked concerned. “Do you want me to come, too?” he asked her.
“Oh no, of course not.” Her laugh sounded tinny but I could tell she meant it. “This is business. Mele and I both have reasons we have to go, but you don’t. We’ll be okay.”
“Though we are going to risk being beat up by Star’s army,” I noted ruefully.
Michael made a quizzical face and I explained about the apprentices.
“They are fiercely loyal to her,” Bebe chimed in. “They follow her everywhere. They just adore her.”
I begged to differ. “I don’t think it’s true love so much as true greed,” I said. “She is the source of all good things for them: a cool place to live, jobs, recommendations, money.”
“The good old payoff has its place,” Michael agreed.
“Sure. But that means she can get away with a lot of strong arm tactics most of us can’t.”
“Exactly,” Bebe said. “And the rumor is, she uses those people to invade other growers land and do nefarious things.”
Michael looked surprised. “Such as?”
Bebe sighed. “Well, okay, I might as well say it. Most people think she was behind what happened last year. There are those who think she got her people to infiltrate and poison some of the best plants of her competition. She definitely won the flower show with her amazing tulips. But she didn’t have much opposition. Everyone else’s best show flowers went sickly that day. Including mine.”
“Wow.” Michael stared at her, amazed. “Couldn’t you pin it on her?”
Bebe shook her head. “There wasn’t any proof.” She looked worried. “There’s been some talk of hiring guards this year. Only most of the growers want us—the organization, that is—to foot the bill, and we just don’t have the funds.”
I wrinkled my brow, thinking hard. “What we need is our own little army to counter hers.” I looked up at Bebe, struck by a great idea. “Why don’t we use some of your bundler girls to patrol the fields at night? Or Michael’s 4H kids!”
Bebe’s laugh was humorless. “Armies that clash in the night?” she murmured.
I nodded. “Sure. It could be like the Crips and the Bloods, the Jets and the Sharks. Yes! We need our own gang.” I flashed some gang signs so she would know I was serious.
But she was shaking her head. “You’re crazy.”
“No, listen to me….”
“You listen to me. We can’t do that. We can’t put children in jeopardy. Believe me, whoever poisoned the plants last year was ready to do harm to anyone in their way. You could tell. And it seems to most of us to fit the image of Star to a T. Are you going to ask one of Michael’s little innocent angels to go up against that?”
I sank back, frustrated. “I guess not.”
“We’d have to hire real guards. And tha
t is just not in the budget.”
Michael was pulling on his jacket. It looked like the evening was over. Bebe offered to walk him to his car and I smiled, guessing there was going to be some kissing in the rain, if that was still happening.
Right after they went outside, the phone rang. I picked it up.
“Let me speak to Bebe,” the voice said coldly, and though I’d only talked to the woman once, I knew it was Starflower.
“Just a moment please,” I said, meaning to go out and call Bebe in. But then I hesitated. Why should I make Bebe miss out on all that kissing just for this? So I didn’t go anywhere. I listened, though.
“Yeah,” she said to someone else in the room with her. “Don’t worry. This will be a piece of cake. I can handle it.” There was silence for a long moment, and then she began to hum.
I frowned. I’d heard that tune before, and recently. What was it? Oh yeah. A Strauss waltz. Now where had I heard that?
Bebe came in before I remembered. I assumed the kissing had been sparse to none judging by her timing. I gestured toward the phone.
“Starflower,” I mouthed at her as I handed her the receiver.
She looked pained, but she began talking in tones both measured and polite. I waved at her and headed for my room. I was ready for bed. A few minutes later, Bebe’s angry voice brought me right back. I arrived just in time to see her slam the phone down.
“You okay?” I asked, surprised. Bebe never lost her temper like that. I’d never seen her so angry.
“Oh! That woman!”
“What did she say?”
“I… .” She just shook her head and began to pace around the room.
“Did she threaten you?”
“Of course. She always threatens me. But this time, she went too far. She got a little too personal and I could just…. Oh!” She let out a muffled shout and kicked the plastic trash can that stood near the sink. It went flying across the room. Luckily, it was empty.
A Ghost in Time (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 3) Page 2