The Walleld Flower

by Lorraine Bartlett

  “Yes, but it’s still only April—and it’s cold out! Aren’t you jumping the gun?”

  “Summer can’t come soon enough for me. I’ve already started tanning. I’ll be a goddess by June.”

  Katie rolled her eyes but refrained from commenting, let alone giving Crissy a lecture on the increased cancer risk of using tanning booths.

  “It looks like mostly bills today,” Crissy said, handing Katie the mail. “Not that I pay attention to such things.”

  Katie shuffled through the envelopes before turning her attention to the small box.

  “No return address—hand-canceled in Rochester,” Crissy said.

  Katie looked up at her. “Not that you noticed.”

  Crissy smiled and turned on her heel. “See you tomorrow,” she called as she headed for the exit, already sorting through her leather mail pouch for the next address’s mail.

  Katie worked at the tape sealing one end of the box. Peeling it back, she unwrapped the package—a videotape. She slipped it from its cardboard case, but there was no note inside. She examined the wrapping. Block letters, addressed to her personally, with no hint of who the sender might have been. She set it aside to study the old beta-formatted videotape. It did not appear to be professionally recorded, and had no label—although a gummy residue stuck to where one had been until recently.

  She was still turning the tape over in her hands when Rose and Edie returned from their lunch break. “Hey, I haven’t seen one of those in years,” Edie said.

  “My first video machine was a Betamax,” Rose chimed in, motioning Katie aside and resuming her post at the cash register. “A much better picture than VHS, if you ask me—almost DVD quality. Where’d you get it?”

  “It came in today’s mail. Do you still have your old beta machine?”

  “Oh, no. It died years ago. They didn’t make them anymore so I had to replace all my tapes. And now they have DVD players. Before we know it, Blu-ray will eclipse DVD and I’ll have to replace everything once again. I never seem to catch up.”

  “Who do you think sent it?” Edie asked.

  “I have no idea,” Katie said. She stared at the tape. “I wonder…”

  “Wonder what?” Rose asked.

  “Beta machines weren’t as popular, but were still being used when Jeremy Richards was a film student at the university.”

  “So?” Edie asked.

  “So what if his early work was done on video—not film? It’s a lot cheaper.”

  “Do you think this could be one of his student films?” Rose asked.

  “Who knows. We’d have to watch it to see.”

  Rose didn’t look convinced. “Why would someone send it to you?”

  “Maybe somebody in Jeremy’s entourage sent it,” Katie suggested, thinking about the man with the ponytail. “But why?”

  “That press conference was only yesterday. Somebody sent that tape out awful quick,” Edie said.

  “Katie’s name was in the paper on Tuesday,” Rose said. “In the story about finding Heather’s—” She paused, her voice catching. “About finding Heather.”

  Katie felt a pang of sadness for her friend as Rose pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her blouse, blew her nose, and dabbed at her damp eyes. “I’m sorry. Heather’s been dead for twenty-two years. I shouldn’t fall apart every time I say her name.”

  Katie stepped closer and touched her friend’s hand. “There’s no time limit on grief, Rose. If you want to cry, you go right ahead.”

  Instead, a wan, grateful smile crept across Rose’s pale lips.

  “Maybe you can find a place to rent a machine,” Edie said, which seemed to distract Rose from her grief.

  “I can sure try.”

  “But first, we’d better pin that dress up. Are you doing anything now?” Edie asked.

  Katie shook her head.

  “I’ll meet you in the vendors’ lounge,” Edie said, and paused to pat Rose’s shoulder before she trotted off.

  “Are you okay, Rose?”

  She nodded. “You go ahead. I’ll be fine.”

  Katie, too, patted Rose’s shoulder and headed for her office. She found Edie standing over her desk, perusing the list of official duties of a bridesmaid. “Are they kidding? ‘Take care of the emotional needs of the bride. Help her in any way you can to avoid the pre-wedding jitters’?” She shook her head in disgust. “I say slap Gilda upside the head and tell her to get on with it.”

  Katie refrained from saying so, but she felt exactly the same way. Or in retrospect, did she just feel cheated that she’d let Chad talk her out of some kind of celebration after their own wedding. After their marriage at city hall, they’d gone out to lunch. Their honeymoon was a weekend at their apartment, drinking champagne and eating cheese and grapes while making more plans for the English Ivy Inn on Victoria Square. They’d been so focused on that one aspect of their married lives that when Chad had impulsively taken their savings and invested it in Artisans Alley, their marriage had foundered.

  Katie didn’t like to dwell on that. But if she was honest with herself, a day didn’t go by that she didn’t think about her dream, and despite the reality of her situation, she still one day hoped to own that crumbling piece of property and bring it back to life.

  Edie placed the list back on the top of the desk. “Glad it’s you and not me who’s got all that work to do.”

  “You’ve already done so much. And now we’ve got to deal with this.” Katie indicated the dress still hanging from her file cabinet’s drawer pull. “This”—she shuddered—“dress seems to have been made for a basketball player. It comes down to my ankles, and I don’t think it’s even supposed to be a tea-length dress.

  “Why don’t you go into the ladies’ room and change into it. I’ll get my sewing box and meet you in the vendors’ lounge in five minutes,” Edie said, and scooted out the door.

  Katie looked at the purple horror and sighed.

  Five minutes later she met Edie, removed her shoes, and first climbed onto a chair. Edie lent a hand and she moved to stand in the center of the vendors’ lounge table.

  “Turn around,” Edie ordered, and Katie made a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn. Edie shook her head. “That is the most repulsive dress I have ever seen. And sleeveless at this time of year?”

  “I can’t imagine what Gilda was thinking when she picked it out,” Katie said, grateful there was no full-length mirror in the lounge. Worse, she was going to have to wear this monstrosity out in public.

  “Maybe the original owner has hot flashes. She’d keep cool in this number,” Edie said.

  “Well, I’m stuck with it. I’m just glad I’ll only have to wear it for a few hours and hope that Gilda doesn’t plaster her wedding pictures on any social networking websites.”

  Edie opened her sewing basket, withdrawing a little strawberry-shaped pincushion. “Let’s get started,” she said, and lifted the hem of the dress. “How short do you want this?”

  Katie shrugged. “Just under the knee, I guess.”

  Edie nodded. “Maybe I can fashion some kind of shawl for you out of what we cut off. You’re going to need something to keep warm.”

  Edie worked at a steady pace, using a measuring tape and leaving a trail of silver pins to mark the new hemline in the folds of fluffy chiffon.

  They’d been at it for about ten minutes, and Katie’s back was beginning to ache when she saw Polly standing in the doorway. The older woman straightened indignantly. Did she think she was the only vendor in Artisans Alley who could wield a needle and thread?

  “I hope you’re going to disinfect that table,” she huffed. “Your feet are probably full of germs, and many of us eat our lunches there.”

  “Of course we’re going to wash the table, Polly,” Katie said, quelling the urge to leap down and strangle the woman.

  Polly moved closer to inspect Edie’s work, walking around the table as though a nasty smell filled the air. She sniffed. “It’s crooked,” she s
aid of the pins holding up the dress’s new hemline.

  With a mouth full of pins, Edie didn’t bother to reply and concentrated on her work as Polly stalked over to the counter to pour herself a cup of coffee before leaving the lounge.

  “That woman,” Edie mumbled.

  “Ignore her. I’m sure she just said that to be spiteful,” Katie said.

  Edie took the pins from her mouth, stabbing them into her pincushion. “All done.” She offered her hand and steadied Katie as she made her way down from the table via the chair to the floor.

  “I hate to push, Edie, but when do you think you can have this ready for me?”

  Edie shrugged. “A couple of days. By the end of the weekend, at least.”

  “You’re a lifesaver.”

  “Eh, it keeps me busy,” she said, and seemed to deflate once again. Polly’s presence always had that effect on her. It had the same effect on Katie, too.

  “I’d better get out of this dress and back into my real clothes. I’ll leave it hanging on my file cabinet and you can pick it up before you leave for the day, if that’s okay.”

  Edie kept looking at the open doorway leading to Artisans Alley’s main showroom.

  “Edie?” Katie prompted.

  “Oh, yeah. Sure.”

  A wave of pity coursed through Katie. Edie had lost a lot of her confidence these last few weeks, while Polly had morphed into the sourest, most disagreeable woman Katie had ever met.

  She frowned. Perhaps her pity was misdirected. She ought to pity Polly more than Edie. What had Clarence the angel told George Bailey at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life? No man—or woman—was a failure who has friends.

  Right about then, Katie felt quite successful.

  Katie hit the enter key on her computer, e-mailing Gilda the prototype bridal shower invitation for her approval. She’d chosen Monday night for the event, as it seemed more of the participants could be free on that day and at that time. And what a nightmare it had been calling and asking for input. After that, she’d hit the phone book and started calling video stores, looking to rent a Betamax machine.

  It was slow going. She’d decided against calling the big national chains, instead concentrating on mom-and-pop stores. Most of them seemed to specialize in “adult” features, and none of them had beta video machines to rent. Although some stores still rented out the tapes, none would give out their clients’ names—not that she wanted to contact anyone with that kind of taste in entertainment; she just wanted to rent or borrow a machine.

  Katie glanced at the tape sitting on her desk. Obviously someone had meant for her to watch it, but why hadn’t they transferred the images to a more common format? A stall tactic perhaps? Maybe whoever sent it wanted Heather’s killer exposed—but not too quickly. Could it be the same person who left the pillbox necklace draped around Heather’s neck when she’d been sealed behind the plasterboard wall?

  Katie considered calling Detective Davenport about the tape. He could probably find a beta machine in no time flat—but then she’d never get to see what was on it. And who said this had anything to do with Heather’s death anyway?

  That decided, she turned her attention to the wall clock. It was time to give the twenty-minute warning that Artisans Alley was about to close. She pushed the legal pad aside, got up, and headed for the cash registers at the front of the store.

  Rose was handling a sale, with Edie wrapping and bagging the customer’s purchases. The other cash desk was empty.

  “Where are Anne and Joan?” Katie asked.

  “They had to leave about a half hour ago,” Edie said, pulling a length of tape from the dispenser and sticking it down on a piece of buff-colored wrapping paper.

  Katie stepped closer, bending so only Edie could hear her. “If you’re here, who’s been walking security?”

  Edie frowned guiltily. “Nobody. I guess we should’ve called you to come up and help. But there’s hardly anybody here. It’s been quiet as the grave.”

  Rose, who evidently could hear them, shot Edie a sharp glance over her shoulder. Edie blushed, and focused her attention on the blown-glass ornaments before her.

  Katie crossed to the telephone, punched the public address button, and gave her canned speech. “Thank you for shopping with us at Artisans Alley. We’ll be closing in”—she glanced at her watch—“eighteen minutes. Please bring your purchases to the front desk. Thank you.”

  As anticipated, several customers sidled up to the cash register. Katie reopened register two, handling a few of them herself, taking the money and wrapping the items. In no time at all it was four fifty-five and the lines of customers had thinned. Katie looked up to see Polly Bremerton enter through Artisans Alley’s main door as several customers exited. Polly glared at Edie before she headed up the stairs toward her booth.

  Rose leaned over the counter, looking down the aisle. “I don’t see anyone else. I guess we’re done for today.”

  Katie opened the cash drawer and withdrew the stack of bills from the rightmost partition, thumbing through the stack of ones, making sure they were all going the same direction. “Why does Polly come in so often? Surely she doesn’t sell enough that her booth needs attending twice a day.”

  Rose had already started emptying her till and was separating checks from credit card receipts. “She likes to make sure it’s tidy at the end of the day, and says it gives her an idea of what she needs to bring in to restock the next morning.”

  “If you ask me, it seems more like she hasn’t got enough to do to fill her days,” Edie said.

  Katie smiled. Edie was another vendor who came in daily and often worked four or five days more than the required two days per month, whereas it was difficult to get Polly to walk her scheduled security detail. She seemed to hover around her own booth, which couldn’t have been good for her sales. And she’d railed against learning how to use the register, saying it was menial work.

  “Well, let’s get her out of here,” Rose said, stacking the cash and rubber banding it. “The auction preview starts in an hour, and I want to have a good look at everything before the bidding starts.”

  “Don’t we even get time to eat?” Katie asked.

  “They have all kinds of food there,” Rose said. “That is, if you don’t mind pizza and greasy hamburgers.”

  “Oh, swell,” Katie said, cringing at the thought of yet more cheese and pepperoni.

  Katie emptied the rest of her own cash drawer. A hoarse scream cut the air. She looked up toward the stairs. “What the heck was that?”

  A flushed Polly suddenly appeared at the top. “It’s horrible,” she cried, her voice rising. “It’s just horrible.”

  Katie scooted from behind the cash desk and handed Rose the wad of cash, checks, and other receipts. “Please finish cashing out. I’ll go see what this is all about. Edie, could you lock up?”

  Both women nodded as Katie jogged to the staircase, then took the steps two at a time.

  Frightened and pale, Polly stood there, wringing her hands, not looking at all like the woman in charge that Katie was used to seeing. “How could someone do this? Why would someone do this to me?”

  “Do what?” Katie asked.

  “Come and see!” Polly waited and led the way, and Katie, with shorter legs, had a hard time keeping up. Polly abruptly halted, turned her face away, and pointed toward her booth.

  Katie gasped. Five of Polly’s handcrafted dolls, looking vulnerable with their clothes removed, hung from the ceiling on lengths of cord with tiny nooses around their little wooden necks.

  Twelve

  Katie stared at the incongruous sight. The once-charming painted smiles on the dolls’ carved faces now looked macabre. She did a quick recon of Polly’s booth. The locked cabinet’s glass door had been smashed.

  “I’ve taken all the harassment I intend to,” Polly said, her nostrils flaring with each snorting exhalation.

  “You don’t know it was Edie,” Katie stated.

  “Who else
could it be?”

  “Edie’s been working on the cash desk with Rose for the last hour.”

  “She could have done this earlier. Wasn’t she supposed to be walking security today?”

  Katie blinked but then remembered the worksheet she placed on cash desk one every day before opening, so that everyone who worked would know their assigned task. “Yes, but—”

  “I insist you do something about that woman—now!”

  Katie didn’t know how to respond. Instead, she turned and walked back to the stairs. She was met by Rose and Edie at the bottom.

  “What is it?” Rose asked, her eyes shadowed with worry.

  Katie spoke to Edie. “Would you take the day’s receipts and wait for me in my office?”

  Edie hesitated, then bobbed her head, taking flight like a frightened sparrow.

  “Rose, there’s broken glass in Polly’s booth. Would you get the vacuum cleaner and help her clean up? I’ll explain everything later. And don’t pay attention to a word she says.”

  Rose looked panicked. “Is she trying to get Edie in trouble again?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Rose nodded and hurried up the stairs.

  Katie swung around the banister and threaded through the warren of booths, aiming for the back of the first floor. She paused to survey booth fifty-six, taking note of its size, the placement of electrical outlets, and the lighting, before she turned to start back for her office.

  Edie still clutched the wad of cash and checks from the cash desks. She stopped pacing as Katie entered the confined room.

  “I don’t know what happened upstairs, but please believe me, I didn’t do it!” Edie cried.

  Katie studied Edie’s taut face and her gray eyes, dark with fear. “Please sit,” she said, motioning Edie into her shabby guest chair.

  With trembling hands, Edie handed Katie the money and perched on the edge of her seat.

  Katie stuffed the day’s receipts into the top-right desk drawer before turning to Edie. “This nonsense between you and Polly has gone on long enough. I have to put a stop to it.”

  “But, Katie—”