Roses and Revenge

by London Lovett

  "Nothing. Probably nothing."

  Hilda knocked on the door and walked inside with a paper. "Sorry to interrupt but we just got this from the lab." She was still beaming about her cookies. I showed her that I was still holding the little treasures in my hand.

  "Silly me, you need a napkin for those." Hilda disappeared and scurried right back with a napkin.

  Red and pink sprinkles littered the office floor as I wrapped the cookies in the napkin. Hilda walked out and closed the door behind her.

  I turned back around to find Briggs reading the lab work. His brows looked stern as he read down the page. I could only assume it was the lab work from Jasper's autopsy, and I could only assume that they'd found something of interest.

  Briggs put the paper down on the desk behind him.

  "You don't have to tell me what's in the report."

  "All right," he said with that aggravating calmness he was so good at.

  I kept my foot from stomping like an angry kid. "No, come on, tell me. Please. I'll keep my lips zipped." I turned the invisible key.

  He pushed off from the desk. "It seems that Jasper had a lot of sedative in his blood. It lines up with what his coworkers had told me."

  "Yes, Jasper struggled with insomnia."

  "It seems so." He put up his hand up to stop my next question. "It wasn't enough for a suicide if that was what you were about to ask. It was still death by suffocation. It just means he was probably out cold when the pillow was pushed down over his face."

  I released a disappointed breath. "I see. I just thought maybe . . . Wait. That means that the murderer didn't have to be stronger or bigger than Jasper. It could have been anyone."

  "True. But if these socks that I just collected from Jacob's belongings turn out to have the same dirt on them as the soil sample from Maple Hill, I think we have our 'anyone'."

  "Socks? Now this I know for certain. Jacob Georgio would not go walking around outside in socks. Especially not when he's sick."

  "Except that the witness, namely, Miss Nola, noted that in her official statement. When she saw Jacob walk past her trailer, he was only wearing socks. No shoes. She thought it was odd too."

  "This just keeps getting more impossible to believe." I tilted my head politely. "Can I please just run Samantha past that cigarette again?"

  His confusion cleared quickly. "That's right. I forgot you settled on a name for your partner." He tapped the side of his own nose.

  "Actually, I believe you came up with it, comparing my nose twitch to Samantha on Bewitched. If only I could produce a little magic with that twitch. Then I'd erase this whole week from the calendar."

  Briggs checked his watch. It was one of those chrome and black sporty man watches that looked extremely nice on his wrist. "I've got ten minutes. Let's go to the evidence room."

  "Really?" In my excitement, I crushed the dry cookies in the napkin. We both watched as crumbs cascaded onto the floor. "Oops." I walked to his desk and grabbed the napkin off his plate of cookies and wrapped it as a second layer around the broken cookies in my napkin. "There. Hilda won't know the difference."

  I followed Briggs to the evidence room, a stale smelling, utilitarian room that was kept cold to preserve evidence.

  "Brrr, I hope I can even smell in this icy atmosphere."

  "Do you want to skip it?"

  "No, continue. This will only take a second."

  He carried the bag with the clove cigarette over to the exam table and handed me the latex gloves. I shoved my napkin full of cookie dust into my coat pocket and pulled on the thin plastic gloves.

  "What exactly are you looking for?" Briggs asked as he pulled on his own gloves.

  "I'm not totally sure."

  He unzipped the bag and reached in for the clove cigarette. The brand Jacob smoked were thin and black with a tiny red band near the mouth end. I took it gently between my fingers. The end had been lit but very little of it had been smoked, if any. It seemed highly probable that Jacob had, out of habit, lit the cigarette, taken one good puff and been quickly reminded that his throat was too raw to smoke.

  I ran the cigarette past my nose. With something as fragrant as cloves, it would be hard to smell anything else. But then my hypersomia had earned me a hefty amount of respect in the perfume industry for the very reason that I was able to discern many scents from one bottle of perfume. The cold room and the curious gaze of the man standing next to me made it hard to concentrate. I closed my eyes and twitched my nose to wake up my highly sensitive olfactory receptor cells. I moved the cigarette beneath my nose as if I was breathing in the fragrance from a glass of wine. I could smell the clove and the singed end of the cigarette and possibly one other earthy scent. Most likely another compound in the cigarette. But the thing that was most interesting to me was the scent that was conspicuously absent. "Menthol," I said succinctly.

  "Menthol." Briggs immediately reached for his notebook. He flipped it open and clicked his pen. "You smell menthol." He began writing before I could answer.

  "No, I don't smell any menthol."

  Briggs peered up at me and started to scratch out what he'd written.

  "No, don't cross that out. Just add a big no to the front of it. Because there is no menthol smell."

  His stubble covered jaw moved back and forth in a sort of impatient fashion. "I suppose I could start a list of all the smells that aren't on the cigarette, but I've only got a few minutes."

  "You won't need to. Menthol is the only important absent smell."

  It always took him a few minutes to catch up to my line of thinking. I could see a metaphorical light bulb turn on over his dark head of hair. "The throat lozenges. Jacob eats those things like candy."

  "Right. And he was taking them before the murder because I ran into him outside the Corner Market on Monday. If he had lit that cigarette, I'm sure I would smell the menthol from his lozenges on the end. But I don't." I handed him the cigarette to return to the bag.

  "Miss Pinkerton, before you get too excited about your latest revelation, don't forget there is other evidence that still points to Jacob. And as hard as it is to connect concrete evidence together to solve a crime, it's much harder to use evidence that should have been there to solve it. If that makes sense."

  "It does. I guess our minds are still synching up like a couple of seasoned partners."

  He shook his head but with a smile.

  "I'm just going to keep this nugget locked up in my mind. You never know when it will come in handy." I looked back toward the shelf where the rest of the evidence for the case was stored and looked back at him with a pleading grin.

  He started his defense before I even got the question out. "You said the cigarette. And I have work to do."

  "Just two seconds with the pillow. That's all. Two sniffs. Two seconds."

  A low grunt followed as he acquiesced , it seemed, against his better judgment. He walked with extra hard steps to the shelf and pulled down the pillow. He pointed to the box of gloves. "New ones so there's no cross contamination."

  "Make sense." I pulled off the first pair and dropped them in the trash can. Then I stuck my hands into the second pair. They were a perfect fit for his hands but my fingers were swimming in them. I held up my wrinkly hand. "Definitely couldn't do surgery in these. They'd likely slip right off and end up in some body cavity." I laughed at my joke, but Briggs had a decidedly less amused reaction.

  He pulled the pillow sharply from its bag. "Two seconds and I'm starting now with one."

  I grabbed the pillow and pressed my face close to it. The front side or the murder side was stained with the pink clay mask that Jasper had been wearing. Most of the substance had dried and some of it had fallen off, leaving behind a powdery residue. The killer would have had to hold both edges of the pillow. I ran my nose along the trim of the pillow. My heart sank as once again I recognized the distinct scent of Jacob's cologne. I turned the pillow over and as my nose raced over the fabric to the other side, I detected an o
dor, the same earthy odor I'd smelled on the cigarette. I couldn't quite place it. I didn't know all the compounds they put in clove cigarettes, but something about it was familiar.

  Briggs held out his hand. "Two."

  I handed him the pillow.

  "Anything significant?" he asked.

  I shook my head. "No, unfortunately."

  He put the pillow away and back in its place on the evidence shelf, then walked me out. "Miss Pinkerton, try not to get yourself in a knot about this. We'll get it sorted out, and the real murderer will face his . . . or her . . . day in court."

  I walked out with heavy steps feeling more depressed than ever.

  "Let me know what Ryder thinks of the cookie," Hilda called as I walked through the gate.

  Chapter 31

  "If it's all right, boss, I'm going to take pictures of the Valentine's bouquets and post them on Instagram."

  "Good idea." I finished washing the potting soil off my hands.

  Ryder carried his three Valentine bouquet examples to the island. Kingston, aware that something riveting would be happening in the center of the store, lifted off his perch and caused a black feathered ruckus during the short flight to the work island.

  "I'll lure him back to his perch with some seeds." I hurried over to grab the coffee can of crow treats.

  "No, wait. I think having a tame crow in the picture will get more likes." As soon as he suggested it, Kingston pulled a rose leaf off with his beak. More petals fluttered down behind it. Ryder laughed.

  "Are you sure you don't want me to move my pushy bird?"

  "Nope, I'm sure. I'll try and get one with him eating a rose petal. In fact . . ." Ryder picked up a fallen petal. Kingston's head turned left and right with interest as Ryder placed the red petal on top of the crow's shiny black head. He quickly snapped a picture before Kingston realized he was wearing his favorite edible flower like a hat. He puffed up and gave his feathers a good shake, dislodging the treat right where he needed it—at his feet.

  "I'm going to go into the office to place some orders. Let me know if Kingston gets too obnoxious."

  "We'll be fine."

  I sat down at the computer. The early morning visit with Jacob and then the follow-up visit with Briggs still had gears spinning in my head. It seemed impossible to think that the cigarette wouldn't have the smell of menthol on it with the way Jacob had been sucking those lozenges down for his sore throat. It was as if he'd somehow lit the thing without actually putting it in his mouth.

  I spent twenty minutes on mind-numbing paperwork to help me kick all the other thoughts from my head. Surprisingly, it had helped. I was in full office mode and picked up my list for a purchase order when Ryder called down the hallway.

  "I posted some pictures on Instagram. Check them out and see what you think. The ones with Kingston are already racking up likes."

  I picked up my phone and scrolled through the images. I beamed like a proud mom at the picture of Kingston standing with his black eyes peering out from a wall of yellow and white daisies. "These are great," I yelled back to him. "My bird is a ham," I yelled again just as Ryder came around the corner. "Oh sorry, didn't know you were right there. I love these. You are a talented photographer. And I think my bird has a future in modeling."

  Ryder laughed. "I agree. Hey, I'm going to head out for the day. I'll open tomorrow."

  "Sounds good. See you in the morning. Oh, wait."

  Ryder's face popped back into the doorway. "Yeah?"

  "I'll be a little late tomorrow. I nearly forgot that my neighbor, Dash, is taking me on a flight along the coast."

  Ryder stepped into the office as he pushed his long bangs away from his rounded eyes. "What? How cool. Lucky you."

  "I'm excited and a little nervous too. I've never been in a small, two seat plane. But it should be fun, and my phone shows nice weather. I don't want to keep you. I'll be here before noon tomorrow."

  "Have fun." I heard Ryder thanking Kingston for his help while he pulled on his coat and gloves. A few seconds later, the door opened and shut.

  The pleasant diversion had swept my mind off work and the void was immediately filled by the investigation. The one person who I hadn't given enough thought about was Jasper. I'd been so caught up in trying to find reasons why Jacob wasn't the murderer, I'd given little thought to the poor victim, in this case a vibrant, talented man who had a stunning future in front of him. I was never close with Jasper, and he could be arrogant and self-centered on occasion. Still, it was wrong not to give him some consideration. I remembered that he had a very active and sometimes entertaining Instagram account.

  I searched for Jasper's profile and his pictures popped up. It felt a little eerie looking at his pictures and posts, especially the selfies where he looked extremely happy and alive. Most of the pictures and posts were of friends and himself, a short narrative of his life cut way too short. My thumb rolled the next row of pictures up. I was about to move on when a familiar face caught my eye. It was Hazel. She was behind her desk located outside of Jacob's office. She was concentrating deeply on a report. It was easy to know that she was unaware Jasper was taking the picture because the poor woman had her finger in her nose. Jasper's comment read; Hazel showing us all how to multitask. The picture had well over two hundred thousand likes.

  I put down the phone. It felt as if all the energy drained out of me at once. I had never seen the picture, but I could only imagine how hurt and embarrassed Hazel had been. She was someone who put a great deal of importance on people liking her and thinking well of her. It must have been nothing short of devastating. It made me feel a touch less guilty about not giving Jasper enough thought. It had truly been an evil stunt.

  I hadn't seen Hazel since Thursday. I felt bad about not having more time to spend with her. I'd even brushed her off briskly several times. I picked up the phone and texted her to see if she wanted to meet for some coffee. I had no plans to bring up the picture. I just wanted to be a more supportive friend. The picture incident happened after I'd left Georgio's. Which was fortunate for Jasper because if I had been there I would have given him a large piece of my mind. It was disappointing to think that Jacob hadn't stepped in to tell Jasper to delete the picture. Although, it was entirely possible Jacob didn't even know about it. He was never big on social media, and Hazel was most likely too ashamed to bring it up to him. There I was again, working hard to defend Jacob.

  Hazel's text came right back. "I can be there in twenty."

  "Sounds good." Maybe Hazel would have new updates on the investigation.

  Chapter 32

  The moment I'd finished firming up the coffee date with Hazel, I had a small rush of customers. I texted Lester and the wonderful man was kind enough to deliver two of his special cinnamon lattes.

  Lester, who rarely ever seemed to be cold, was wearing one of his signature Hawaiian shirts, a bright turquoise and yellow number that looked wholly out of place in the dead of winter but looked completely right on Lester. The only concession for the cold weather was a thin, long sleeve shirt that he'd put on beneath the summery shirt.

  I had just finished up with my last customer as he placed the two coffees on the island. "Two of my cinnamon spice lattes. I topped them with whipped cream and cinnamon candy hearts. I put them on your tab."

  "You're the best."

  Lester looked around. "Don't tell me the crow is drinking lattes now. That bird really does think he's human."

  "He does, but even I draw the line at letting him drink coffee. He's snarky enough as it is without caffeine." Kingston cawed loudly and shook his wings as if he knew we were talking about him.

  I decided not to wait for my first sip. "Hmm, so good and spicy. How's Elsie? I haven't seen her today."

  Lester leaned his forearm on the counter. "Between you and me, she's gotten herself in a bit of a bind with that ridiculous flyer and that British actor. I don't know what she was thinking."

  I looked sternly at him. "Uh, you don't? Could
n't have anything to do with that extravagant table set up you've got going in front of the Coffee Hutch?"

  "I bought furniture. She told the world that a famous actor was coming to have tea and cookies with them on Valentine's Day. Now who's going over the edge on this? My sister or me?"

  I took another sip of coffee to let him know I was staying out of the sibling table war.

  Lester laughed. "Guess that's what they call 'saved by the latte'. Well, I need to get back to the shop. It's a slow afternoon, so I started the task of sanitizing all the counters. Now that I've started, I've got to finish, otherwise the un-sanitized half will contaminate the clean half and I'll have to start from square one."

  "Thanks for the delivery service."

  Lester stopped and held the door open for Hazel who swept in with far less aplomb than usual. In fact, she looked depressed with a sullen expression and a slow paced walk.

  I reached for her coffee and held it up, assuming she needed it. As I pulled back my elbow, I sent Ryder's basket of dried sage clusters to the floor. It turned out not that many people were into the holistic properties of burning dried sage.

  "Enjoy while I scoop up the mess." I stooped down with the basket and picked up the clusters. I stood up. Hazel was taking a long sip of the coffee. I used the time to zip over and wash my hands. Otherwise my coffee would taste like sage instead of cinnamon. Fortunately dried sage wasn't nearly as fragrant as fresh.

  I headed back over to the stools where Hazel had perched herself with her latte. I joined her on the next stool.

  "What's wrong? You look rather glum. Although, I'm not sure I can take another bout of bad news."

  Hazel took another long drink from the coffee and sighed at the end of it. "No news. I guess the events of the week are finally catching up to me." She touched her throat. "Plus, I think I'm getting Jacob's cold."

  "That's awful. Feeling down and being sick on top of it." That statement took me back to poor Jacob. What a week he was having. "You'll need to get better fast. You've got big life changes happening soon."