The Final Arrangement

by Annie Adams

  “It looks like you guys have been busy,” I said.

  “Indeed we have,” K.C. said. “I decided I should be able to help around the shop and not just do deliveries. I’ve been washing buckets and keeping things stocked. I thought I might be able to start arranging flowers soon, or at least learning how. Allie here showed me how to do a bud vase with a rose and baby’s breath.”

  “Really?” I said. “How did she do, Allie?”

  “She was great for a first-timer.”

  "Oh pah-lease. Boss, I owe you two an apology. I thought to myself ‘K.C., how hard could this be?’ and now I know. This is hard stuff."

  "Don't worry, it takes time. We can practice a little every day. You'll get the hang of it." I said.

  “Quincy, if you don’t mind I’d like to take off soon,” Allie said.

  “Sure, no problem. Are you going to go help Mom get ready for her book club group?”

  “How did you know about that?” Allie asked.

  “She left a message for me last night inviting me to come. She’s invited Ned Bunchkin to be there, I’m sure it’s in hopes of setting us up.”

  “Eww, Nasty Ned from down the street?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Who is Nasty Ned from down the street?” K.C. asked.

  “He’s this guy that lives in his parent’s basement in our old neighborhood,” Allie said. “He’s six years older than our older sister and he plays video games all day. He used to have a booger collection he would show to all the neighborhood kids.”

  I shuddered at the thought of sitting on the loveseat at my mother’s house next to Nasty Ned.

  “I somehow doubt that Ned has taken a sudden interest in “Diary of a Pioneer Wife,” I said. “She thinks she’s helping me find a husband. You didn’t have any part in this great idea did you, Allie?”

  “No, I swear. In fact, I was going to tell you I want to leave because Brad called. He’s coming home early and we’re going to go out shopping together.”

  “Oh, great. Have a good time.” I said. It wasn’t a gleaming endorsement, but I wasn’t going to fight with Allie about Brad, especially since she had come in early to work for me.

  “K.C.,” Allie called from the back door, “you were excellent today! You’ll be our head designer in no time.”

  “Thanks, Kiddo.”

  The ringing phone interrupted us and K.C. went into the back room.

  “Rosie’s Posies, this is Quincy.”

  “Oh good, Quincy, it’s you.”

  I recognized the voice of Linda, from the mortuary.

  “What’s up Linda?”

  “Are you somewhere private?”

  “Um…yeah, let me move into my office.”

  “Quincy, I’m calling you from home.”

  “Why?”

  “I couldn’t risk anyone overhearing me. Besides, I left the mortuary. I can’t go back there,” her voice cracked on the last word.

  “Linda, what’s wrong? What happened?”

  “It’s Doug, my boyfriend. I caught him with someone else yesterday.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know why she was calling me about this, but I didn’t mind.

  “If it hadn’t been in our regular spot it wouldn’t have been so bad. But I walked in on them in the embalming room.”

  Eww. I shuddered involuntarily at the thought of anyone doing anything there, but especially it, and at the thought of walking in on someone doing it there and I shuddered again at the thought of someone calling the room their regular spot—for it.

  “Linda, I don’t know what to say.” That was no lie.

  “I guess I’m just telling you this because I don’t have anyone else to tell,” she cleared her throat, “and because I know who he had up on that embalming table.”

  Ahhh!

  Linda’s voice was not so sobby anymore. Now, it was steeled with anger. “That whore Lucinda Powell was giving it like a porn star when I opened the door.”

  “Linda!”

  “Quincy, when I passed you earlier today in the parking lot, the other woman that was leaving was the whore. They were just flaunting their relationship in my face today. Yesterday, I had just bought a new tie for Doug on my lunch break and I put it on to surprise him, you know…”

  Oh please don’t tell me the rest.

  She continued. “Gaylen had gone to lunch, so I turned off the hall cameras and snuck downstairs, and then I took everything off and tied the tie around my neck. I wanted it to be like I was a big present all wrapped up in a bow.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said feebly, knowing she wasn’t going to stop.

  “So I opened the door,” her voice got shaky again, “and I yelled ‘untie this package hot stuff,’ and,” her voice cracked and she bawled out the rest almost unintelligibly, “there they were. He stood with his bare ass facing me with a pair of naked legs and sensible shoes wrapped around him.”

  “Linda, this is awful.” Awful to listen to. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Quincy, I called you because you came around before and asked me about the mortuary’s involvement with Derrick. I’ve just had it with all of them. The only reason I didn’t tell their secrets before is because I’ve been protecting Doug. I thought we had a future together.”

  He was twenty years younger than Linda and it sounded like he boinked everything in sight, but she thought they had a future together. Foolish woman.

  “You’ve always been good to me and my family, and you’ve put up with a lot of crap from that mortuary, so I’m going to help you out.”

  “Linda, I appreciate your wanting to help me, but I’m confused. Why are you telling me about your boyfriend?”

  “Well, I’ve heard about the trouble you are in, Quincy.”

  “What trouble?”

  “The arrest and how you’re in trouble because of Derrick and his car and the argument.”

  So she knew a few things about me. I shouldn’t be surprised. For some reason the people at the mortuary know everything about everyone. They probably had my mother and her network on the payroll as consultants.

  Linda went on. “Well okay, there are a couple of things that I haven’t told you. First of all, my boyfriend…I mean my ex-boyfriend Doug works for the mortuary. I didn’t want to tell you this then, but when you came before, he and I had just been…together. But he had to leave to take care of an emergency.” The afternoon tryst, I remembered it well, cringing at the memory of my unfortunate groping incident apparently occurring at the same time as Linda’s much more invited groping incident.

  “Anyway, Doug went to school with Derrick Gibbons, and Derrick’s father always knew Greg Schilling very well. A few years ago, the mortuary opened their little secret business and they made Doug the manager. He and I had been seeing each other for about four months then. He used to work here in Hillside with me and then they transferred him up there to manage that location, just when we were starting to get to know each other.”

  “Wait, which location was he transferred to? The secret business?”

  “It’s a discount mortuary that caters to people who don’t have a lot of money for services.”

  “Isn’t that most of the people who live in Hillside?” I asked.

  “Well, the Hansens don’t really advertise, they mostly just refer people there when they know people aren’t going to be able to pay the regular rates for services. They basically provide a pine box and a small room where the next of kin can say goodbye for an hour. There’s no graveside service or viewing or music or anything like that.”

  “So the mortuary wasn’t satisfied with being the only gig in town, so they decided to use the new place to provide services that they would have provided for almost nothing in the past, but now they charge enough to run another location.”

  “Pretty much.” Linda said.

  “Where is this place? I never knew they had another location.”

  “Like I said, they don’t advertise it. It’s about three miles
south of their main location in Ogden, on the same side of the road.”

  “They’re on the same street? That seems bizarre. Why wouldn’t I just stop in at the cheaper mortuary if I lived in Ogden?”

  “It’s not named after the Hansens, its called Lawson’s. And that’s all that’s printed on the sign. Nothing else. Like I said, they only work with referrals. Most people don’t even know it’s there.” She had a good point, I’d driven past there a hundred times and had no idea it existed.

  Lawson’s? Why did that name sound so familiar? “Why Lawson’s?” I wondered out loud.

  “It’s Doug’s biological father’s last name. The Hansens let him name the business since he would be running it. He doesn’t run it anymore though. His jerk stepfather demoted him. I was going to go be Doug's secretary, but his stepfather said they needed me more here. Not that I care anymore, the lying little prick.”

  “Who is Doug's stepfather?”

  “Greg Schilling,” she said as if I should have known.

  “Isn't Doug’s last name Lawson? That's why he named the new business Lawson's…right?”

  “No. Doug’s mother always used her maiden name for the family until she married Greg. Greg Schilling is Doug's stepfather,” she said impatiently. “The Hansens take care of their family, even if they’re not blood related, or if they don’t like them very much. Greg hates Doug, but he tolerates him. In fact, I’m thinking that’s why they stuck him in the new location at first. They probably wanted to get him out of their hair, but Greg’s wife makes sure that Doug still has his hand in the family business.”

  “How is Greg Schilling related to the Hansen’s?”

  “His mother is a Hansen. She’s a daughter of the original founder.”

  “I'm confused. So, do they provide flowers at the new discount mortuary too?”

  “No.”

  Argh! “So what does this whole extensive genealogy chart have to do with Derrick?”

  “Oh yeah, the reason I called was to tell you about Derrick. I wanted to tell you earlier, but I couldn’t because I was afraid someone would overhear me. Anyway, now that I don’t care if I lose my job, I’m going to tell you. About a year ago Greg had a staff meeting with all of us. He told us we were supposed to recommend Derrick’s flower shop and no one else’s period. If we were caught recommending someone else, we would be fired.”

  After talking with Gaylen I knew why. It must have been part of Derrick’s blackmail deal.

  “After you left that day, I got to thinking about things, and I remembered something I saw one time. I got to looking through some of the files and found a large deduction in the new location’s bank account right about the time that Derrick opened his shop. I don’t know this for sure, but I think maybe the mortuary provided the startup money for Derrick’s business.”

  I didn’t want to reveal everything I had learned from my conversation with Gaylen, so I played along until I learned more. “But you would think Derrick would be paying it back somehow, especially with a percentage of his sales.”

  “I thought of that, Quincy, but I can’t find record of payments anywhere. And believe me, I’ve looked.”

  Derrick hadn't been giving a percentage back because of his blackmailing deal. The connection between the mortuary and Derrick’s murder appeared to be growing more obvious. The mortuary was sick of paying Derrick to keep his mouth shut about Doug—Linda's boyfriend who was also schtupping with the politician's wife and who was the stepson of the mortuary's main manager—so they just got rid of Derrick. I might actually have figured it out.

  “Linda, I had just finished a meeting with Gaylen when I passed you coming out of the mortuary earlier. He told me they worked out a special arrangement with Derrick for flowers.” I didn’t tell her it was due to Doug’s dalliances with Mrs. Powell, Linda would have had a melt down.

  “Oh Quincy, don’t you believe a word that comes out of that fathead’s mouth. He still thinks he’s next in succession to take over any new manager positions that come up. The Hansen’s keep it in the family and Gaylen refuses to see that. He’s an ass-kisser and he’ll say whatever Greg Schilling tells him to.”

  I expressed my condolences to Linda about her boyfriend’s infidelities and thanked her for all of the insider information. After hanging up I was left with more questions about the mortuary than had been answered. And now I had two different versions of the story regarding Derrick and his flowers. I tended to believe Linda, since she was willing to give me all the gory details, whether I wanted them or not, but I had made Gaylen squirm enough that it seemed he was giving me details he would have preferred to keep to himself.

  It was time to take a look at the ledger I had borrowed from Derrick’s box of leaf shine. I walked to the bathroom and opened the little closet where I kept an extra supply of toilet paper, tampons and paper towels. This seemed like the place least likely to be explored by a certain male detective that might make up another reason to arrest me and search my shop while I sat there waiting to be rescued.

  I opened the ledger, and stuck to the front page was the little sticky note with the phone number from Derrick’s designer.

  “That’s it!” I was so excited at remembering the forgotten connection I couldn’t help saying it out loud.

  “Hey Boss…you okay in there?”

  I had forgotten about K.C.

  “Stanwyk. L.D. Stanwyk,” I said as I came out of the bathroom. K.C. looked at me with concern.

  “The D. stands for Doug! He owns the flower shop; it’s on the corporate papers that my cousin looked up for me.”

  “Boss, I’m old and batty as a belfry, but I think you just might have passed me up in the cuckoo of the year contest.”

  I explained what I had been told about Derrick’s flower shop and who owed what to whom. She nodded her head in understanding.

  “So, this frisky young buck used money from the business he was running to pay for Derrick’s flower shop, and nobody has made any type of payments back to the mortuary?”

  “Right.”

  “It sounds to me like someone was made to pay up.” K.C. gesticulated while she spoke and the bucket brush she still clutched bounced through the air. “Derrick couldn’t pay back the bill to his friend, who risked being kicked out of the family business. I can see where the friend might take offense to that situation.”

  “Linda told me there was a large withdrawal from the business Doug was running. It happened around the same time as Derrick opened his shop. I thought Derrick was getting the referrals from the mortuary to help him have enough money to pay back the investment in the flower shop. But according to both Gaylen and Linda, Derrick didn't pay anything back. Why would any business person, smart or not, just give the money to someone to finance a business, without receiving any payments?”

  “He was a charitable guy?” K.C. said.

  “Doubtful,” I said.

  “Blackmail?”

  “Probable. That's what Gaylen Smith said." I helped stack the clean, dry buckets on a shelf. "K.C. what do we know about Derrick?”

  “Let’s see. He was a buddy with the guy that was sleeping with the secretary and the real estate developer’s wife.”

  “The real estate developer who is also a powerful politician,” I added.

  “Derrick was also sleeping with the politician’s girlfriend,” K.C. reminded.

  “Did the politician know that his wife was doing the deed with someone?” I asked.

  “That’s a good question. If I was that mortuary I would try to keep every thing that stallion did in the stable. It wouldn’t be good to have the guy who’s in charge of everything in this state mad at you. The guy is a real estate tycoon. If there’s anyone who pulls the strings in this town it’s the guy who controls the land.” She put her wrists against her hips with elbows out and scratched at the ground with her “hoof” while making neighing sounds.

  “K.C., you're right,” I said through my laughter, "a little strange, but right
."

  "You're probably right about that, Boss," she winked and laughed along with me.

  I called Linda back. First I asked her what Doug’s mother’s maiden name was and she confirmed it was Stanwyck. I also asked her if the mortuary was involved in any real estate ventures. She told me they had been working on a plan to build a brand new mortuary and a cemetery somewhere on the east end of Hillside, whenever the right piece of land came up. She said the drawings were beautiful if they could ever get the right zoning to go through.

  “Linda, I have to apologize ahead of time for this, but it would really help me to figure something out. Do you think Landon Powell knew anything about his wife and Doug?”

  “Well I didn’t even know about it, Quincy, so I can’t imagine he did. I’m sure she told him she was going to some church meeting every time she met up with Doug. I’ll tell you one thing I do know. Doug was an embarrassment to Greg. Greg did everything he could to push Doug into the background and hide him from people.”

  I thanked Linda again and apologized for bringing up such a delicate subject. She was very gracious, but made it clear she wouldn’t be talking about Doug Stanwyck Lawson Schilling ever again.

  I gathered some jewelry tools and sat at the back design table cutting lengths of decorative wire that I would later curl into funky shapes for use in the gala arrangements. K.C. grabbed a towel and some window cleaner to polish the few remaining pieces of new glassware she had unpacked. “Well?” She blurted out.

  “Well, what?”

  “What did you find out?”

  “Oh, sorry. I got lost in thought about what Linda told me. Doug was Derrick’s buddy. Gaylen told me they were two peas in a pod. They must have bragged about conquests to each other. We can probably assume Doug bragged about sleeping with two cougars at once. Linda, who would have been a great conquest for him because he was sleeping with his stepfather’s secretary who knew everything about the entire mortuary’s business, and Mrs. Powell, who is married to one of the most powerful men in the state.”