by Misty Simon
Which meant Darla must have been killed in the last hour or so. Had it been after Letty left? That would have narrowed the window even further. Regardless of what had happened, I had to call the police. Now.
Darren would not fire me for reporting his wife dead. Would he?
Of course he wouldn’t. I probably should have called the police first, but I really had thought she had just gotten too drunk. It never had occurred to me she would be dead. Hurt maybe, but definitely not dead.
I was going to be sick.
I held it in, barely. My brain locked in on the caution I was given last night to not contaminate the scene and I was pretty sure puke would be rated as a contaminant. This was serious and I was right in the middle of it again.
The thought of having to report another incident after facing the chief of police last night and being told not to leave town was fresh in my mind too. There was no way Burton would think I had any reason to kill Darla. But I didn’t think he would have believed I had it in me to stun-gun my ex-husband either and yet, I’d been told I was a suspect. Hyperventilating now would not make things better, so I tried some deep breathing as I turned from the body to look at anything else. Once I focused on the far wall, I felt a little more in control. So instead of freaking out as I so desperately wanted to, I simply called Uncle Sherman.
“Darla Hackersham is dead. What should I do?” I said without waiting for him to say hello. Turning back to stare down at Darla, I tried to see if there was anything else around her to tell who the killer might be. Nothing.
I turned away again because people who were laid out on nice silver slabs and waiting for the last makeup job of their lives were one thing. This was something completely different. Between Waldo, the guy with the shiny shoes, Katie’s bad knot job, and now Darla, I was pretty sure I was reaching maximum capacity for out-of-the-norm experiences.
Give me a toilet with a poor aimer any day over this craziness.
The line crackled as he sighed. “What have you gotten yourself into now, girl? Where are you?”
I gave him Darla’s address while I tried not to turn around to look at her again. My brain just was not processing that Darla would not be trying to slip out of her bill anymore or hosting parties where no one could seem to aim at the hole in the toilet.
“I’ll call Burton and be right there. For God’s sake, don’t touch anything.” He clicked off and I couldn’t keep myself from turning again. With my phone in hand, I really looked at all of Darla as I hadn’t before when I was too focused on the shoes and the big butcher knife. She was dressed to the nines: Black pencil-thin skirt, a button-down blouse with swirls of red and blue, silver and purple, and those shoes. My eyes went to her throat, looking for her signature black pearls. Where the hell were they? She’d had them on yesterday and as far as I knew she never took them off.
Now that the closet door was all the way open and I knew Darla was in there, the smell of dead body was all but overwhelming, if only in my mind. Most likely there really wasn’t a smell, and I was just projecting. She hadn’t been dead long enough to smell. But in the window right across the way there was a new, beautiful arrangement of fresh flowers. I stuck my nose in them to keep the phantom smell of decay at bay and immediately got what amounted to a paper cut on my nose.
Snaking my hand into the arrangement of roses and lilies in pale and dark pink, I came out with a rectangle of thick paper with the distinctive logo of Monty’s floral shop. Before I could read it, Sherman came banging on the door, yelling he was with the police. At that moment, it occurred to me I might not be the only one in the house. If Darla’s killer was still here, I did not want to be alone. I whipped open the door fast enough for Sherman to almost fall in.
“What took you so long?” He trooped in with Matt and Burton following him. Actually, Burton was jockeying for point position, but Sherman just used one meaty hand to keep him behind him.
I pointed to the closet and didn’t say another word.
“Why am I not surprised at all to find you here?” Burton said as he walked past me.
* * *
I was escorted to Darla’s study where I’d sustained my rug burns the day before. Roaming the room did nothing for the feeling of being caged. I just wanted to get back to cleaning houses and get out of here, leave this all behind.
I couldn’t shake the image of how terrible Darla had looked with that knife in her chest. Normally, when the funeral home got bodies they were cleaned and sterile, not freshly killed. I shuddered as I stepped up to look through the back window. The room overlooked the pool house and apartment Darla had commissioned about five years ago. Two months ago she’d installed a pool boy for the pool house. I hadn’t seen much of him except in the garden a time or two. He had tried to talk me into a date the second time, and I’d stayed away from him after that. I was most definitely not in the market for anyone so shortly after finally getting out from under Waldo. I would have probably liked some companionship and I missed the sex, but was not interested in the man who walked around with a toothpick in his mouth and perpetually looked like he’d just rolled out of bed and into his Magnum P.I. Bermuda shorts.
I stood there for a moment or two until I realized the bottom of my sock was getting wet through the hole in my sneaker. Putting my hand down on the floor, I found it damp. Where had the water come from?
And then I saw the window was cracked and remembered there had been a storm earlier that morning. I’d have to bring it up to Darren so he could arrange to have the carpets cleaned and the window fixed if necessary. If I ever talked to him again. Who knew what he would do once he found out his wife, the runner of his house and life, was dead.
That thought was not one I wanted floating in my head, so I redirected myself. I could call my dad and tell him we had a new customer, but that would be crass and jumping to conclusions. In reality, I just wanted to leave. Except that Burton had made sure to say I needed to hang around for questions.
After another five minutes staring at the walls, I went looking for him. I needed to get out of here right now. So many emotions were bombarding me that I couldn’t think straight. I needed the routine of cleaning, the normality of rubber gloves and the familiar smell of cleaning products. Darla was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. I might not have been friends with her anymore, but having her life snuffed out and finding her like that, was too much to comprehend. So I focused on the fact that there were houses to clean. I found Burton hunched over the body. His broad shoulders blocked out the full length of Darla, but I averted my eyes anyway.
“Hey, can I talk to you, please?”
“Give me a minute here, Tallie. I’m in the middle of something.”
“Okay, then, I’m going to go. I have houses to clean and things to do. Can you just ask me your questions later?” I sounded a bit whiny, but didn’t care. I’d rather be anywhere other than here.
“Don’t go blabbing to everyone about all this until I know what I’m dealing with. And do not leave town. This is more than stunning your ex-husband in the gonads.”
My God. He could not think I had killed Darla. For what? Why? I had no reason to cause her harm, no matter how often I might complain about her. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I snapped my jaw shut when Burton pointed his pen at me.
“I highly suggest you think about where you’ve been all morning and when you last saw this woman. I know you cleaned for her, but how much did you hate it? How awful was she to you on a daily basis? Think about that before you say one word.” He turned back to the body.
“Fine.” My shoulders slumped. I knew Burton didn’t like me, but he couldn’t really think I would murder someone in cold blood. Could he? I gulped. “I’ll—um—be on my cell if and when you need me. And don’t forget the Hackershams had a live-in maid and a pool boy. You might want to check them out, though Letty said she was going shopping before I came back here. Also don’t forget to ask me about the guy with the shiny
shoes.” He totally could have killed her! If I only knew who he was, I’d hand him and his designer footwear over on a silver platter that I spit-shined myself.
“Look at you, already coming up with other people to pass the blame onto.” He shook his head as he eyed me from his position on the floor. “Oh, I’m going to need you, all right. I’m going to need you to talk. A lot. So keep that cell phone on and be ready. And no blabbing.”
“Got it.” I did everything I could to keep the tremor out of my voice, but I didn’t think I succeeded.
I ran out the front door of Darla’s house before he could change his mind. Pulling into Gina’s lot, I figured the news of Darla’s death and my role in finding her had not yet hit downtown. On the way, I’d used said cell phone to postpone my next house for a few days, citing a headache. No one should be looking for me for another hour or so. That meant I could drink some cappuccino and get myself under control. I wasn’t going to be the one to tell anyone about this new twist at this point. Especially since I appeared to be suspect number one. Again. My stomach rolled. The least I could do was follow Burton’s orders and Burton had ordered, so I was going to obey. Though I might be tempted, I was very close to a line I didn’t want to cross with him.
Fortunately, the news hadn’t hit, so I walked into the Bean without getting a second glance from anyone. For the last few months, I’d tried to fade into the background and do my thing after making such a spectacle of myself when I’d been Mrs. Walden Phillips III. I didn’t want the attention, now.
As soon as Gina saw me she whisked me into the back room. Her grip on my arm was far stronger than it needed to be, since I was moving right along without any hesitation. Did her grapevine extend even to the extent that she knew about the murder already?
“That guy with the flowers is sitting out there waiting for you. I wanted to grab you first.”
“But it’s not three yet.” In truth, I had forgotten all about that in light of what had happened a few hours ago. Who was this guy? And who the hell was sending me flowers? To Gina’s shop, no less. I had an apartment right across the street, for heaven’s sake.
I turned to march back the way we had come. Gina tightened her grip on my arm, effectively stopping me in mid-turn. “I think I know him, but I’m not sure. You’re going to want to be careful.”
Gina was not one to panic unnecessarily.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. He just doesn’t seem like the type to be delivering flowers, and he had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the beautiful baby’s breath in the arrangement.”
“Just because he delivers them doesn’t mean he’d know all their names.” Though that was weak. I couldn’t think of a single person who wasn’t at least aware of what baby’s breath was. It was a standard.
“You know how I am with this kind of thing. He’s giving me a bad vibe. I’m just saying.”
“Then should I sneak out the back? I don’t have to get the flowers today. You can direct him across the street and tell him I told you he can drop them there.” A thought occurred to me. “Ugh, that will thrill my mom, though, especially depending on who they’re from.” I had to think. “You know what? I’m just going to go get them and be done with him.”
“If you’re sure.”
“He delivers flowers, and I kind of, sort of, met him the other night outside the parlor. Then again at Darla’s this morning when he delivered flowers to her. Plus, I’ll be surrounded by a bunch of people. It’s not going to be a problem.”
But he looked different seated in the coffee shop. He still had that brooding thing going on and the shirt with Max on the pocket. However, there was something about him that struck a chord in me, like an old familiar song I hadn’t heard in years but could still sing the chorus of.
“You’re looking for me?” I said, stalking up to his table and towering over him as best I could. The plan had been to not give him room to rise from his chair and therefore keep the upper hand. But he nixed that plan, and seriously violated my personal space all at the same time, as he rose to over six feet in front of me, backing me up a step with his movement.
“Tallulah, you don’t remember me, do you?”
I swallowed at the way he said my name. No one but Darla called me that, not even my mother. “Of course, I do. You’re the guy who delivered flowers yesterday evening and then this morning at Darla’s.”
“But not before that?”
“No.” Was he a stalker?
“Think back.”
“Look, Max, I don’t know how far I’d have to think back, but honestly I don’t have time to play guessing games with . . .” And then it hit me so hard I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t toppled onto my butt. “Max Bennett? Are you that Max?”
A grin broke out on his face that was reminiscent of the one he’d had when we made a bike run for the candy store years ago. Fifteen years ago to precise, when I was eleven and he was just about to turn fifteen. I’d been the tagalong as he and my brother, Jeremy, were best friends that summer before he moved to Washington, D.C. Holy wow! Had he grown up or what? But what was he doing here?
“It’s been a while.” The smile stayed in place, then widened a little to include a dimple low in his left cheek.
Yeah, he’d grown up all right and in the best possible way. I ran my tongue over my lower lip to check for drool and was thankful to find none. I was also embarrassed to find his eyes watching the movement.
“Wow, so you’re back and delivering flowers?” I tried hard not to put any judgment into my words. Who was I to talk when I used to have a staff of four and now was the staff?
“Just for a bit until I figure things out.”
“Boy, do I get that. Well, it was nice seeing you, but you’d better give me my bouquet and be on your way. Monty does not like lingering deliverymen.”
“Actually, I was wondering if there was somewhere private we could talk.”
I hesitated in taking a step back from the intensity in his gaze. I might have known him fifteen years ago, and he was sexy as sin, but I’d had one of those already and look where that got me. Not to mention that people changed in fifteen years. Delicious or not, I wasn’t taking any chances with the weird stuff going on around here. “I can’t. Maybe we could have coffee some time, though.”
“I . . .” He started, then trailed off.
When I looked behind me, I saw Gina’s mom, Shirley, standing behind my left shoulder with a rolling pin in her hand. The expression on her face was one I wouldn’t want to see in a dark alley, and the answer as to what had stopped him. I didn’t know anyone who continued to speak after being given that look.
“Look, Max, for now, just hand over the flowers, and we can talk another time.”
He did not look happy in the least. Smart boy, though, because he also didn’t try to balk at my very pointed suggestion. He left the flowers with the small white envelope tucked into the blooms. It squatted on the small café table where the delicate scent of violets reached my nose. I loved violets. Now, who would send me this arrangement? I considered opening the card then and there, but whereas I hadn’t gotten a second glance upon entering, I was now the main attraction.
I hustled into the back before anyone could ask questions. I took the card out of the bouquet after catching another whiff of the violets. Lifting the flap of the envelope, I tried to think of who on earth would send me flowers and came up with no one. That was a little bit sad.
The card was simply signed Darla.
Reeling back with anger and fear, I ran through the front of the Bean. I had to find Max to ask him what in the hell this was and if he really thought it was funny. It sure as hell wasn’t to me.
He was nowhere to be seen. Frustration built as I realized I had no idea if he had walked or drove a delivery van. Either one could have had him disappearing down one of the many small side streets.
I whipped out my cell phone as I stood on the sidewalk. A few button presses la
ter, I put a call into Monty, my favorite florist and one of the few people who I had known as Mrs. Phillips III that I still wanted to know as just plain Tallie.
“It’s a great day at Floral Fancies,” Monty answered with a smile in his voice. The man was perpetually happy. I wished I knew his secret. But I was about to wipe that smile right off his face.
“It’s not going to be so great anymore unless you tell me who in the world ordered a bouquet of flowers for me sent from Darla.”
“Tallie, hon. What are you talking about? I can’t believe that bitch would send you anything but a phony check.”
“Well, your delivery guy Max just delivered a bunch of violets with my name on them and a card with your sunshine all over it. They were signed from Darla.”
“Max? I don’t remember sending him out with anything since this morning with flowers from Darla. She’d better pay her bill soon or I’m going to start holding the flowers hostage until she does.”
“Monty . . .” Now was not the time to tell him she was dead. I wasn’t allowed to say anything and truthfully I was trying to avoid that thought and the mental image that flew into my head as soon as I heard or saw her name.
“I know I shouldn’t speak ill of one of my best customers, but the woman still owes me almost a thousand dollars for flowers over the last two weeks. I sent her an invoice and called her, but she hung up on me this morning.”
Not so happy, now, was he? “Well, if you see Max, send him back my way because I want to know where these flowers came from.”
“You’re not alone. I had a delivery for him that I just texted him about. He hasn’t answered yet, so I’ll have Greg take it out. You know Greg? Maybe I’ll ask him if he had something to do with that bouquet from Darla, but I doubt it.”