by Joyce Lavene
His husky, blond wife nodded. “She must have told you plenty about us already, right?”
Peggy’s father was at a loss, but his smile didn’t waver. “I’ll bet she has! Could I have one of those sticky buns? I love those things.”
“Of course, of course!” Sofia gave him a sticky bun and a napkin. “We try to find Peggy the right man, you know. She’s always alone in that big, expensive house. She needs a man to take care of her. Maybe you can convince her. My brother, Stefan, is in town this week. They could have dinner together.”
Peggy’s parents looked at her. She sailed into the fray. “I don’t think Steve would like me to have dinner with another man. Thanks anyway.”
“Oh him.” Sofia waved her ring-heavy hand. “He’s a nuisance, isn’t he? Does he have money? My brother, Stefan, is an investment broker. He sells things to people.”
“What kind of things?” Ranson asked.
“Mostly hogs. But sometimes sheep. They are very popular on the market today.”
“Well maybe Steve and Margaret could have dinner with him.” Her father beamed with his solution to the problem. “Steve is a fine boy. I’m sure he’d like Stefan, too. And Steve knows plenty about animals.”
Peggy walked away from the jumble of conversation that followed the suggestion. Her mother was rocking in the hardwood rocker that always became part of her seasonal display. For late spring, it included a dozen potted pink and white azaleas and a real, old-fashioned lilac bush whose perfume filled the shop. Selena had put little felt bluebirds on the bush. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” Lilla didn’t look up.
The rapid front and back motion of the rocker told a different story. How many times had a much younger Peggy waited to find out what her punishment was going to be for whatever her youthful folly while her mother rocked this way on the front porch? “You don’t like the Potting Shed?”
“I like it just fine. But I’m disappointed in the owner. She could do so much better.”
Was there ever a time a parent’s opinion didn’t matter? Peggy glanced at Selena, who was trying to work through a long line of customers. “We’ll have to talk about this later. I can’t leave Selena to fend for herself right now. Please don’t judge me yet. You know I’ve given years to teaching. This is something John and I planned. It’s very special to me.”
Her mother frowned. “You’re right, Margaret. We’ll talk about it later. Your father wants to go to that big Bass Pro Shop over at the mall. Steve said he’d take him. I think I’ll just go along and look for a few things.”
Peggy sighed. “All right. I’ll meet you at home later. I’m glad you like Steve.”
“Not like we had much choice.” Her mother pushed herself out of the rocking chair. “He told us he was ‘the man in your life.’ Even as young as he is, I assume he knows what that means. I hope you know what it means, too.”
In other words, Peggy’s mother liked Steve just fine. But not as a possible son-in-law.
Not that they were even close to that kind of relationship. They had an understanding between them, but that was as far as it went. They spent a lot of time together. Maybe they appeared closer than they were. Why did Steve tell her parents he was the man in her life?
“Steve!” Peggy’s father hailed his arrival from across the crowded shop. “I’m ready to take a look at that Bass Pro Shop.”
He sounded like a man whose life raft just sprang a leak twenty miles out to sea. Peggy smiled as Steve waved to her father, then came through the crowd to kiss her. It was barely a peck on the lips, but she could feel her mother’s disapproving gaze straight through her backbone.
“Are Emil and Sofia trying to marry your father off to a cousin?” Steve asked.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Peggy answered. “Thanks for taking my parents to the mall. We’re going to be slammed here this afternoon. Maybe you could keep them out until dinner?”
“Not a problem. I don’t know what your mother will do, but your father and I can find plenty to look at in the Bass Pro Shop.”
“She always has something to buy. I’m sure you’ll come back with a car full.”
“I’d like to take all of you out to dinner tonight. I was thinking about Italian. What do you think?”
“That sounds okay. Thanks.”
He looked at her carefully. “Is something wrong? Something besides your parents making you a nervous wreck?”
“No. That’s about it.”
“Peggy!” Selena’s voice carried above the crowd. “Help!”
“I have to go.” Peggy squeezed Steve’s right arm. Her mother couldn’t see that side. “I’ll talk to you later.”
She watched Steve walk out of the Potting Shed, talking to her father. Her mother was silent but cooperative. When they were gone, she put on her green apron and concentrated on her customers.
Sales had been picking up since mid-April. It was the end of May, and the trend showed no sign of reversal. She knew it didn’t mean they wouldn’t have some slow time over the long, hot summer. But she hoped the new contracts they negotiated for landscaping services would carry them through. She wasn’t desperate, but she was still a little worried.
The Potting Shed was still a toddler. She knew the first five years were critical to a business, just like a child. She didn’t want to rush into early retirement from the university only to feel the pinch of financial strain.
But there were only so many hours in the day. The Potting Shed was taking up more and more time. She loved her work there as well as the side projects she took on for various friends and associates in her field. She believed those, plus her speaking fees as a poisonous plants expert, would carry her through. But that didn’t do anything for the large butterflies in her stomach.
Emil and Sofia disappeared out the door after her parents, but they returned at three with bagel sandwiches and tea. The shop had cleared out by then, leaving Peggy and Selena straightening up and replacing stock. The Balduccis glanced around as they entered through the heavy glass and wood door. “Where is everyone?”
Peggy looked up from trying to remove some gum from a box of fertilizer spikes. Small hands probably put it there while the child’s mother or father was browsing. “The lunch rush is finally over.”
“Thank God!” Selena sighed from behind a shelf of plant stakes.
“No. Your parents,” Sofia explained. “Where are they?”
“Probably still at the mall.”
Emil and Sofia exchanged meaningful glances. Sofia rolled her expressive eyes. “You think that is such a good idea? After all, they didn’t take to Steve too well, did they?”
“I think it will be fine.” Peggy refused to let them make her any more paranoid than she already was. “The food looks good!”
Emil and Sofia both sighed heavily, and Sofia crossed herself. “Did I ever tell you about my great-aunt Baba? Heaven forbid you should end up like her.”
Selena whispered to Peggy, “Here we go again.”
“My great-aunt Baba on my mother’s side was very independent. She owned a big house and a fine vineyard.”
“It’s true.” Emil validated his wife’s story. “She even had a big car. I think it was a Buick.”
“Baba only had one fault. She couldn’t pick a good man. Time after time my family watched her pick the worst of the bunch. Until finally my uncle Savio on my father’s side said, ‘Baba I will pick out a good man for you.’ That’s all it took. Sometimes we can’t see what’s best for us, Peggy. Sometimes we have to rely on our family and friends, you know?”
The phone rang, and Peggy ran to get it, grateful to get away from yet another parable that closely resembled her life.
“Don’t leave me here!” Selena ran after her. “I’m sure you need help answering the phone.”
Sofia crossed herself again. “May none of us know a death alone.”
Selena shook her head, blond/brown curls bouncing from her
ponytail. “I’m going for a little walk, Peggy, before they launch into the next story. This is too weird for me.”
Peggy wished she could go with her, but already two new browsers were in the shop. Sofia began her new tale of woe. Peggy hoped her browsers would become buyers before she had to run screaming from the shop as well.
At four, Peggy put in a call to her friend, Detective Al McDonald, on the Charlotte Police Department. She didn’t plan to tell him everything, but she had to start somewhere. She needed some answers. There were pockets of questions in her mind before she talked to Nightflyer. Now that she knew Darmus wasn’t in his coffin, there were whole chasms.
She could only speculate on what happened until she had some firm answers. It looked like the man she rescued from the burning house was made to look like Darmus. Someone, wanted him to be mistaken for Darmus.
And what about the police? They weren’t going to like the fact that a mistake was made in Darmus’s identity. How far were they supposed to go to identify a man who was clearly who he was supposed to be? And who was the dead man she dragged from the house?
Peggy fingered Darmus’s ring in the pocket of her jeans. Was Luther going to give Darmus his ring back the day he was killed in the garden? Could the two brothers have been working together?
Luther acted strangely that day in the hospital. She couldn’t help but recall his speech in Albemarle. With Darmus’s death, a man of God had become the head of Feed America. Could Luther somehow have influenced Darmus to fake his own death so Luther could run Feed America?
If so, it was short-lived. Now Luther was dead, too. Was he killed because he’d taken Darmus’s place? How much money was involved in Feed America anyway? And who would take Luther’s place?
7
Peppermint
Botanical: Mentha piperita
Family: Labiatae
Greeks and Romans crowned themselves with peppermint at their feasts. The herb was used in ancient Egypt. It came into usage in the western world in the middle of the eighteenth century. Used medicinally for indigestion and to dispel ill spirits.
DETECTIVE AL MCDONALD, a broad-faced black man who’d been her husband’s partner for twenty years on the job, finally stopped in to see her a little after five. Selena was gone for the day, taking extra credit classes to add to her engineering courses for fall.
“Peggy!” Al embraced her and smiled down into her face. “How’s it going?”
“Good! My parents are up for a visit. How’s Mary?”
“Still waiting for me to retire.” He chuckled, talking about his wife of many years. “I might have my time in, but I don’t see anything else waiting for me up the road. I’ll probably stay where I am until I can’t get around anymore and they kick me out.”
She laughed. “Can I get you something to drink? I think I have some Coke in the mini-fridge.”
“No, that’s fine.” He planted his large frame on a stool behind the counter. “I got your message. What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure.” She told him what Nightflyer said about Darmus.
He groaned. “Not that weird guy on the Internet again! Peggy, how would he know if Darmus is dead or not? Have you asked yourself that question? I mean, was he in the hospital or something?”
“I don’t know.” She didn’t want to tell him about her excursion to the funeral home. There might be some unpleasant repercussions. Was it illegal to open a sealed coffin? Even worse, he might not believe her. It would be better to convince him to check it out on his own. “All I do know is that he knows things. He has ways of finding things out.”
“Like what? I mean, what does he think happened?”
“He thinks Darmus might have faked his own death.”
Al’s thick black brows raised above skeptical dark eyes. “That’s ridiculous! You and I both know what kind of man Darmus was. He wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“But—”
“And even if he would, don’t you think someone would’ve noticed? A doctor saw him at the hospital. The ME examined him at the morgue. The mortician has him now. Wouldn’t someone have noticed the dead man wasn’t Darmus Appleby?”
“He was badly burned.”
“They checked his dental records! The man we’re about to bury was Darmus Appleby!”
Peggy’s forehead knitted together. “Don’t you think I’ve argued with myself about this? But there are a few things that bother me.”
“Like what?”
She told him what she recalled about Darmus feeling cold when she tried to move him. “And he was supposed to be buried with his wedding band. Why would Luther have it in his hand at the Community Garden when he died?”
“Maybe he was taking it to the mortician to have it put back on Darmus. Did you ever think about that?”
“No.” She bit her lip to keep from spilling what she found in the bronze coffin. She needed to talk to someone, in a roundabout way, and find out how the law felt about opening coffins. She wanted to find Darmus, but she didn’t want to go to jail.
“Think about it, Peggy. You told this Internet guy those things, and he fueled that overactive imagination of yours!”
“Thanks.” She frowned and moved to the other side of the counter, shifting seed packages and pot stickers shaped like fairies.
“I’m sorry,” he relented. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yes. You did!”
He looked down at his shiny black shoes. “Look, Peggy. Is there any scrap of real evidence that us normal mortals can understand?”
She started to blow him off. He wasn’t listening anyway. But she knew this might be her only chance to get more information. “I think there may be. Darmus wasn’t himself since Rebecca died.”
“That’s true. But that doesn’t mean he ran away and pretended to die.”
“The corpse in the house was disfigured. Anyone could make a mistake.”
“Dental records don’t lie.”
She couldn’t argue with that and pressed on. “Nightflyer thinks it may not have been an accident that Luther died. I don’t know, Al. I just have this feeling that he’s right, and something is wrong.”
He closed his eyes. “I don’t want Darmus to be dead either, Peggy. But trust me, someone would’ve noticed during the long chain his body passed through. Maybe he wasn’t Elvis or someone instantly recognizable, but this kind of thing doesn’t happen. There was blood work, dental work. The dead man is Darmus Appleby, sad as that may be. We have to accept the fact.”
“I suppose you’re right.” She sighed and glanced around the familiar walls hung with old garden signs and antique farming implements. Oh God! I’m going to have to tell him the truth. Then she thought of something else. “I suppose it doesn’t make sense. But for my own peace of mind, could you get me a copy of Darmus and Luther’s death certificates?”
“Peggy!” He rolled to his big feet as he shook his head. “I can’t get those for you. They haven’t been released for public record yet.”
“Could you at least find out what Luther died from? Holles Harwood was Darmus’s and Luther’s assistant. He said Luther was having some heart problems. Luther didn’t say anything to me about it, but Holles saw more of him than I did.”
He looked at his cell phone that was buzzing loudly. “I’ll check into what killed Darmus and Luther. But that’s all I’m doing.”
“Thanks, Al.”
“Have you thought any more about the ME’s offer to hire you on contract? I know it would only be as needed, but since you’re thinking about giving up your job at Queens, I thought you might want to consider it.”
Peggy wasn’t sure what to say. The unexpected job offer to work as a contract forensic botanist for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department was still rolling around in her head. “I’m still thinking about it. But right now, the Potting Shed is pretty busy. I have to keep up with it. And I’m not sure if I like the idea of working with dead bodies. It seems a little strange for a botanist who deals wit
h life to help the police sort out facts about dead people.”
Al looked skeptical. “You seem to like to do that fairly well on your own! Anyway, think about it. I’ll talk to you later. Say hello to your parents for me.”
“I will.”
“I’ll let you know when I find out what the ME listed as COD for both brothers.”
“I appreciate it. Are you going to Darmus’s memorial service?”
He hugged her in his massive arms. “I wouldn’t miss it. Want to drive over with me and Mary?”