by Nic Saint
“Whoever murdered her did the world a giant favor,” I said.
Mrs. Peanut gasped. “Don’t say that. It’s bad luck.”
“Well, it’s true,” I said. “Don’t you agree?”
She shrugged. “It’s not up to me to judge Mrs. Peach. She’s with her maker now. I’m sure she’ll reap the rewards or punishment she deserves.”
“My sisters and I are kinda helping the police solve the crime,” I said.
“Oh? You mean like Nancy Drew? That’s so sweet.”
I grimaced. “More like Veronica Mars. Veronica Mars is cool.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” she admitted. “But I definitely wish you good luck. I can’t imagine it must be easy to solve a crime like this.”
“No, there are a lot of suspects,” I said, giving her a keen look.
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, you mean I’m a suspect?” She laughed. “I see now what you’re doing. You’re interrogating me under the guise of having a friendly neighborly chat! Very clever, Edie. Why didn’t you just ask me straight out if I killed Leann?”
“Do you think I should have? I mean, I’m kinda new to this stuff.”
“Well, I wouldn’t advise you to use this strategy on everybody,” she said with a smile. “Some people might take offense. But we’ve known each other for so long I don’t mind.”
“So? Did you kill Mrs. Peach?”
She laughed again, then leaned in, and whispered conspiratorially, “No, I did not. Though I didn’t like her very much, I would never kill her. That’s a big no-no for me, karma-wise.”
“Okay,” I said, pleased with how well this was going. “So do you have any idea who did?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, honey. Though I’m sure there are plenty of suspects. Leann wasn’t well-liked. Over the years she rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.” She gave me an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
“Yeah,” I said, starting to feel a little discouraged. “Looks like we have.”
“Oh, you’re not doing this alone?” Then she nodded sagely. “Of course. Your sisters are along for the ride, huh? Like the Hardy Girls.”
“Yeah, something like that,” I admitted, and took my leave.
Chapter 11
I walked into Floret & Bloom to see my two sisters seated behind the counter, both busy on their phones. No customers in the store, no customers checking the store display window, and definitely no customers paying for flowers. In fact, since we hadn’t even bothered putting out our placard this morning, the store looked kinda… drab.
“I see you have a hard time keeping up with the customers, huh?” I asked as I joined them.
“Yeah, it’s very quiet,” Ernestine admitted.
“And here you were worried we were turning people away,” I said.
“Well, maybe we did,” she replied. “Maybe there were dozens of customers and now they’re all gone and they told other customers not to bother shopping at Floret & Bloom because the store is always closed.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, sinking into a chair. “I think we need to pretty up our store if we want to attract customers.”
“I think our store looks pretty,” said Estrella. “We have a gorgeous display window. And I would know, because I did it myself.”
And it showed. The dominating color was pink, not coincidentally Strel’s favorite color. I wasn’t sure all customers were on board with her choice of color scheme, though.
“No, I mean we should pretty up how the store looks from the outside. Like put a bunch of flowers and potted plants in front of the store. Make people want to come inside to take a look. Make us look… inviting.”
I wasn’t a specialist on how a flower shop should look, but I knew from the few flower shops I’d visited they looked a lot prettier than ours.
“You mean put flowers outside?” asked Ernestine with a frown. “But won’t people steal them?”
“We’re here,” I said. “If someone tries to steal them we’ll notice, won’t we?”
“I guess so,” she said dubiously. She was no flower shop specialist either, and neither was Strel. In fact amongst the three of us we had absolutely no experience in how to run a business like this. That had never stopped us before, of course, but still. I suspected Gran expected her store to turn a profit at some point, and if it didn’t, she’d probably take a long, hard look at her investment and perhaps decide it wasn’t worth the aggravation and shut us down again. And what would we do then?
“So how did it go with Mrs. Peanut?” asked Estrella.
“I don’t think she did it,” I said. “She’s much too nice.”
“Even nice people can be killers,” said Ernestine. “Especially when driven to the edge. Was Mrs. Peanut driven to the edge?”
“Well, she did take the beetle incident pretty hard,” I admitted. “I mean, for someone on a raw food diet to have their raw food eaten by a bunch of beetles is a pretty raw deal. But I still don’t think she did it.”
“And why is that? I mean, you’re not exactly an ace detective,” said Estrella.
“I have a gut feeling about her,” I said.
“If we’re going to be detectives we need more than gut feelings, though,” said Ernestine. “We need cold, hard facts.”
“And we need a name. We need to establish ourselves as something,” Estrella said.
“Mrs. Peanut called us the Hardy Girls,” I said.
“I like that,” said Estrella appreciatively.
“Over my dead body,” I said.
“And mine,” Ernestine chimed in.
The doorbell jangled and Renée Reive walked in. “Oh, hi, girls,” she said when she saw us all staring at her. “What? Never seen a client before?”
Well, it had been a while. “We were just talking about the case,” I admitted.
“What case?” she asked as she crouched down to check a bucket of delphiniums.
“Duh. The case of the murdered Mrs. Peach,” said Estrella. “What other case is there?”
“Oh, that case,” said Renée, absentmindedly sniffing the pretty blue delphiniums. “Frankly I completely forgot about that already.”
“How could you forget?” I asked. “It’s only the most exciting thing that has ever happened on our street.”
She rose to her feet and crossed over to the counter. “Well, I guess if you’re three young sleuthhounds like yourselves murder is pretty exciting.”
“Sleuthhounds? Is that what we are?” I asked.
“Well, what else are you? Your grandmother tells me you’ve really sunk your teeth into this case and you won’t let go until you catch whoever did it.”
“Gran told you that?” I asked.
“But how does she even know?” asked Estrella.
Renée smiled. “Your gran always knows. She’s a very wise woman.”
“A very nosy woman,” Estrella muttered.
“Why don’t the three of you start your own neighborhood watch?” asked Renée, picking up one of the greeting cards that we had on display.
“Neighborhood watch?” I asked.
“What’s a neighborhood watch?” Estrella asked.
“A bunch of neighbors who patrol the streets and make sure no crimes are committed,” Ernestine said knowingly. I swear she swallowed an entire encyclopedia. Or maybe one fell on her head when she was little.
“That doesn’t sound like us,” said Estrella, looking at me. “Does it?”
“Well, it kinda does,” I admitted.
“And you could liaise with the police department,” said Renée. “Many neighborhoods have them now. It’s basically neighbors helping neighbors keep the streets safe, report on suspicious activity, discourage vandalism, littering, advise people on how to keep their homes secure, stuff like that.”
“I don’t know,” said Estrella. “I don’t want to cruise around the neighborhood twenty-four seven trying to catch a bunch of vandals. I’ve got more im
portant things to do.”
“Like what?” asked Ernestine.
“Like… launching my singing career.”
“You can launch your singing career and still keep the neighborhood safe,” I said.
She wavered. “I don’t know…”
“You could solve Mrs. Peach’s murder,” Renée said with a smile. “That’s what you want, right? To figure out who murdered Leann Peach?”
“Well, yes,” Estrella admitted. “She wasn’t a nice person, but that doesn’t mean someone just had to go and kill her. I mean, what if this same person doesn’t like me? Are they going to start dropping huge-ass crosses on me, too?”
Ernestine regarded her sternly. “Don’t use the word ‘ass’ and the word ‘cross’ in the same sentence, Strel. It’s blasphemy!”
“I don’t know what blasphemy is but I’m sure that’s not it,” Estrella said breezily.
“You’re right,” I said. “Not about the blasphemy but about the murder. Mrs. Peach may have been a nasty old woman, but it’s not right that someone would murder her. They just might come after us next.”
“So,” said Renée, arching an eyebrow. “Start a neighborhood watch, register it with the precinct, and go out and catch yourselves a killer.”
I kinda liked the idea. It would give us something useful to do besides selling Gran’s flowers. I mean, it wasn’t as if we had anything else going on in our lives at the moment. Strel had her singing thing, but I didn’t see that going anywhere fast. I love my sister to pieces but it’s a fact of life that she can’t sing. And I know there are many singers out there that can’t sing and are raking in the millions but I didn’t see that happening for her. As for me, I’m a baker who can’t bake, and Ernestine is a failed lawyer. So maybe Renée’s suggestion wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
“You will have to run it by Cassie first, though,” said Renée. “She’ll have to give her blessing.”
“Uh-oh,” I said. “That might be a hard sell. Gran doesn’t like us going off on our own to… do stuff.” Which was why she’d taken away our powers.
“I’m sure she won’t mind,” said Renée. “I know she’s dying for you girls to find your destiny, the same way she found hers. And maybe this is it.”
“Neighborhood watch committee,” Ernestine said thoughtfully. “It does have a nice ring to it.”
Renée leaned in and dropped her voice. “You could be Haymill’s very first neighborhood witch committee.”
Chapter 12
The rest of the day passed by uneventfully, with precious few customers disturbing the peace and quiet of Floret & Bloom. So when our cousin Busby walked in, looking as buff and fit as ever, I was actually relieved.
“Are you guys ready for some heavy-duty gym time?” he asked.
We all groaned. I’d completely forgotten about that. Good thing Gran hadn’t, and had packed us all a gym bag with some gym clothes. Busby, a fitness coach, had offered to give us all some one-on-one time at the gym, to ‘whip us into shape,’ as he called it. I’d responded that I was in perfect shape, which had elicited such a big laugh from him I hadn’t spoken to him for three days.
The only one who seemed genuinely interested was Strel, but then she’d always had a thing for sports. She likes to go running in the park a couple of times a week, and has been into yoga and Pilates and who knows what else.
So we locked up the store, and stepped into Busby’s Nissan sports car. He’d bought the Porsche lookalike with the money he’d earned while working in LA, and was particularly proud of the sleek yellow speed machine. Ernestine and I squeezed into the back, while Estrella got to ride up front.
“Hold on tight!” Busby yelled. “Get ready for the speed machine!”
Promptly he pushed down on the accelerator. Stien and I were kicked back against the headrest as the car launched itself into traffic like a rocket. Exactly thirty seconds later we were stuck in traffic, though, crawling along at ten miles per hour. So much for the speed machine.
“So where are you taking us, Busby?” I asked.
“Planet Fitness,” he said, tapping his steering wheel while he scowled at the traffic jam, hoping to make the other cars disappear with the power of his steely gaze. “I’ve got a subscription, and I arranged for you guys to have a trial session. I’m going to go light on you, so don’t worry. Just want to give you a taste of the hardcore sports life of a genuine athlete like myself. And if after this you want more, I can get you a nice discount.”
“Thanks, but that won’t be necessary,” I said. “I’m not into sports.”
“Well, you should be, Edie,” he said. “It’s important to stay in shape.”
“I am in shape. In fact I’m in the best shape of my life.”
He directed a critical look in the rearview mirror but refrained from commenting. I think he’d learned his lesson. “What about you, Stien? Wanna feel the burn?”
“Mh?” Stien asked, looking up from her smartphone. She was reading a Stephen Hawking book. “What burn is that?”
“Muscle burn, baby. Best feeling in the world. Apart from sex, of course.”
Ernestine adjusted her glasses. “I wouldn’t know about that,” she muttered, and went back to her book.
But Busby wasn’t to be deterred. “You don’t know about the burn or you don’t know about sex?” he asked.
Ernestine looked up again and blinked. “If sex burns, Busby, you’d be well advised to consult a physician. Sex isn’t supposed to burn. If it does, it means you did something wrong. Or, rather, you did someone wrong.” She returned to Stephen Hawking.
We arrived at the gym and the three of us went into the ladies’ dressing room while Busby took a right turn and disappeared into the men’s changing room.
“Oh,” said Estrella, her nose wrinkling in disappointment. “No communal changing rooms?”
“And a good thing, too,” I said. “I’d hate to change in front of a bunch of sweaty naked muscular men.” I caught Estrella’s eye. “Then again, maybe I wouldn’t.”
“You know what we should do? We should do like Barbra Streisand and pretend to be guys. That way we could ogle the sweaty naked muscular men.”
“I didn’t know Barbra Streisand did that,” I said.
“She did in the movie Yentl,” Ernestine said knowingly. “Though to my recollection she didn’t do it to ogle sweaty naked muscular men. She did it to learn more about Judaism.”
“Same thing,” said Estrella with a careless wave of the hand.
I dumped the gym bag on a bench and opened it. Out came three identical form-fitting leotards. They were purple. They were tight. They were horrible.
“I can’t wear this,” I said, holding one up. “I’ll look like a sausage.”
“This isn’t gym wear,” Estrella said. “This is for ballet class or something.”
“We might as well stroll in there naked,” Ernestine agreed.
Lucky for us, Gran had also added three fleece sweaters and three pairs of shorts. We quickly put everything on and when we checked ourselves burst into laughter. This wasn’t exactly the way I’d pictured this gym trip to go.
“I don’t think Gran understands the concept of a gym,” I said.
“No, she doesn’t,” Estrella agreed.
We walked into the gym, much to the amusement of the other fitness fanatics, but the interest soon faded as everyone was too busy with their own stuff to bother. Busby stood waiting for us and made no effort to suppress his guffaw. “I mean, they’ve got a pretty strict dress code here but you guys are taking it to extremes!” I opened my fleece jacket to show him the leotard and he quickly piped down. “Oops. Yeah, you’re probably right to keep the jacket. Though you’re going to sweat like crazy in those.”
“Which is a good thing, you guys,” said Estrella. “We’re going to benefit so much more this way. We’re going to sweat to shred!”
“If I shred any more I’m going to disappear,” said Ernestine.
“Yeah,
and you can’t risk to shred a lot either,” Busby told Estrella. “Edelie on the other hand…” I flipped him the bird, and he guffawed again. “So I’m going to set you up with your own personalized program,” he finally said, clapping his hands. “Just a quickie, as we don’t have the time. Though if you want we could come back tomorrow and schedule one-on-ones that will benefit you a lot more.”
“No, thank you,” I said acerbically.
“Right. Then let’s do this, ladies!”
We hit that gym pretty hard, and when it was all over, I’d become aware of muscles and parts of my body I hadn’t even known existed. I was hurting all over, and my mood had soured to such a degree that at a certain point I contemplated dropping a dumbbell on my cousin’s head, just to make the torture stop. He made us ride a bike for twenty minutes, keeping our heart beats within a specific range that seemed entirely too optimistic. He had us pulling stuff that didn’t need pulling, pushing stuff that didn’t need pushing, and generally making us do a lot of stuff that made absolutely no sense to me. Once again it brought home to me the fact that fitness clubs were very possibly the antechamber of hell.
“That was… interesting,” said Ernestine as she got out of her sweaty clothes. She winced when she bent down to untie her sneakers.
“I liked it,” said Estrella, chipper as ever. “Busby knows his stuff. I think he’ll make a great fitness coach.”
“And I think he’ll make a great torturer,” I said as I tried to remove my jacket but failed miserably. Finally, my sisters helped me and when I lay on the bench, completely exhausted, I wondered why I’d ever agreed to this craziness.
“Hey, I think you lost some weight already, Edie,” said Estrella, poking a finger in my pudgy midsection.
“That’s impossible,” I said. “Nobody loses weight that fast.”
“No, it’s true. You look thinner,” Ernestine agreed.