A Blush With Death

by India Ink

  “How’d she take it?” Trevor asked.

  “You know that steamroller look she gets?”

  He grunted. Everybody in town knew when Auntie went on the warpath. When she was angry, nobody went up against her. Nobody until Bebe Wilcox, that is. “Yeah, so you guys on your way?”

  “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Both you and Sarah stay put until we arrive. We’ve called Kyle and he’ll be over in awhile.”

  I grabbed my keys and purse.

  Tawny waved me out. “Your aunt’s taken off already.”

  Sure enough, by the time I jumped in my Sebring, Auntie was already on her way, with Baby smoking up the road.

  As I pulled into the driveway, I noticed that Kyle hadn’t arrived yet. I headed around back, where I found Auntie, Trevor, and Sarah standing in the middle of the rose garden, staring at one of the bushes. Some of the roses had burnt edges on the petals, others looked good, but a faint crystalline powder was visible if you looked very close.

  Our rose gardens covered over two acres and were filled with all different colors, both antique and hybrids. We had been thinking of selling some at the shop, but that was out of the question now.

  I poked at the roses, frowning. “Have you had a chance to look through the other gardens to see if they’re contaminated?”

  Trevor nodded. “Yeah, but I can’t tell by looking at most of them. I’m hoping that if I can’t see residue, there won’t be any, but don’t go by my word. You need to have everything tested.”

  “Well, this just takes all,” Auntie said. “Trevor, take clippings from every garden on our land to your friend’s lab today. Tell him to run whatever tests he needs to and to run them stat.”

  “Already done.” He held up a box of baggies he’d tagged with labels showing what the plants were and where they were gathered from. “I also gathered soil samples from around the acreage. If you don’t want any contamination, there can’t be any residue in the dirt.”

  Auntie glanced at her watch. “Kyle’s supposed to be here any minute, but he’s late, as usual. Why don’t you run those over to the lab, then head straight back? The sooner we get the results, the better. We need to know exactly what we’re facing.”

  “Sure thing, Miss Florence.” Trevor picked up the box and took off.

  Auntie gazed at the roses sadly. “This is just horrible. Sarah, I need you to come in this weekend and help Trevor uproot every plant. We simply can’t take a chance of those chemicals leaching into the soil. I hate to think about it, but we’re going to have to replace every rosebush we own.”

  “That’s going to run a pretty penny,” I said.

  Sarah scuffed the ground with one of her Birkenstocks. “I know this isn’t the best time, but I have to leave tonight. I’m going to Chehalis this afternoon and won’t be around tomorrow. I’ll be back Sunday though.” At Auntie’s look, she added, “There’s a llama show, and I have to pick up some new breeding stock.”

  I sighed. Sometimes I rued the day Auntie had hired Sarah. She was a wonderful employee in many ways, but running her own business was starting to compete for her time. She was skimping on her hours and wasn’t even getting in twelve out of the twenty she’d promised to give us. It wasn’t that I begrudged her success, but it was becoming apparent that her loyalties were divided.

  One look at Auntie’s face told me she wasn’t pleased.

  “Sarah, we have to get rid of those roses,” Aunt Florence said. “And we have to do it before the weather changes. We can’t count on the sun. Why, if we had a good rain, it would make a mess of things. Trevor can’t do all the work by himself. If you skip out on us, Persia and I are going to be out here in the middle of the night digging up flower bushes. And I’m too old to be out here with a shovel.”

  Sarah grimaced. “I know I’m putting you in a spot—”

  Auntie interrupted. “Why didn’t you bring this up earlier? At least then we would have had prior warning.”

  “I would have,” Sarah said, blushing. “It’s just that…I’ve been having some problems at home, and I forgot. If I don’t go to the show on Saturday, all the best stock will be taken.”

  I squinted, shading my eyes from the light with my hand. The sound of a car in the front yard told me that Kyle had just pulled in. Either that, or we had unexpected company.

  Auntie let out a large sigh of exasperation. “Go then, if you must. But Sarah, you need to think about what your job with us means to you. We simply can’t make do with one gardener every time you decide you need some time off. I hired you part-time, on the agreement that you’d be here twenty hours a week. This week, you’ve logged about eight, according to Trevor.”

  Oh boy, Auntie was ticked. Sarah knew it, too, but she just ducked her head and nodded. “Thanks, Miss Florence. I’ll try to do better.” She stripped off her gloves and tossed them in the cart. “Let me know what happens with those tests!” Her voice trailed behind her as she jogged down the path toward the front of the house.

  I dared a glance at my aunt. Thunderclouds. Not good.

  Auntie crossed her arms. “What do you think we should do about her?”

  She was asking me? I grimaced. “I have no idea, though I’m tempted to say we need to replace her.”

  “The reason being?” she asked. I knew that Aunt Florence wasn’t being contrary. She was testing me and truly wanted to know my reasons. She’d been doing this more frequently as she handed over more control of the shop.

  I sighed. “I don’t know whether we can rely on her anymore. The problem has been getting worse as the summer’s progressed. I suppose…we could hire another part-time gardener and cut down Sarah’s hours?”

  Auntie shook her head. “You’d only prolong the problem. If Sarah truly isn’t pulling her weight anymore, what should we do?”

  My voice dry, I whispered, “Fire her?”

  “That’s what a good businesswoman would do.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t feel so bad, Persia. Sarah’s hinted to me that she’s thinking of expanding her business to full-time. I’ve been expecting a resignation any day now. Rather than fire her, tell her we need her to put in more hours. My guess is that she’ll gather her courage and quit. That way she won’t have a termination on her record. If she accedes to the extra hours, make sure she knows we expect her to be on the ball.”

  “Do you want me to talk to her?”

  Auntie gave me a gentle smile. “You are in charge of the gardens, so you oversee the gardeners. If this was Tawny, I’d do the dirty work, but I think you need to take the reins on this one.”

  I let out a long breath. “I’ll talk to her as soon as she gets back.”

  Just then, Kyle came striding down the path. “Sorry I’m late. I thought you were going to meet me in the backyard,” he said. “It took me a few minutes to figure out where you were.” He was covered with dust, and cobwebs clung to his back.

  “You seriously need a lint brush, Kyle. What the hell have you been doing?” I blurted out. “Creeping around in somebody’s basement?”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “You’re close. I was over at Mary Margaret’s house.”

  Mary Margaret was Gull Harbor’s official cat lady, and a recluse. She was also the sister of Eva, my ex-nanny, although I knew the two had endured some sort of falling out years ago, shortly before Eva left Gull Harbor to marry her sweetheart.

  Mary had twenty cats. All were well cared for, but she lived in a house that should have been condemned long ago. On the few occasions my aunt and I’d dropped over, stacks of newspapers had filled the rooms, along with boxes of unopened merchandise that blocked all but the narrowest of walkways through the high-ceilinged chambers of the broken-down Victorian.

  “Did Suzy call you?” Auntie asked. Suzy was Mary Margaret’s daughter, and every now and then she called Kyle when she hadn’t heard from her mother for awhile. Mary Margaret was a little touched in the head; she wouldn’t let anybody from her immediate family set foot in the hou
se because she thought they were out to kill her so they could inherit her “fortune.” My aunt and her friends took round-robin turns visiting, making sure Mary had everything she needed and that she was okay.

  Kyle glanced at Auntie. “Actually, Mary Margaret called me herself. I had to break in through the front door, then crawl through all that dust-laden crap in order to find her.”

  Auntie paled. “Is she okay?”

  He sighed, then shook his head. “Mary had a mild stroke. I called nine-one-one, and the paramedics took her to the hospital. She’ll probably be all right, but she can’t go home for awhile, and she’s asked me to find someone to look after her cats. I’m thinking this would be a good time to have the humane society take a look at the animals and make sure they’re all okay. I don’t think Mary’s a typical hoarder, but we want to make sure everything’s on the up and up.”

  Auntie leaned against one of the fence posts and fanned herself. “You might also call the health department to take a look at Mary’s house—she really needs some psychiatric help, Kyle. The woman’s a compulsive spender, and I’ll bet you she’s gone through her life savings buying crap from the TV shopping channels. I’m afraid there might be toxic mold in the house, or hobo spider nests, or something else equally nasty.”

  Kyle’s cell phone rang, and Auntie paused for a moment while he moved aside to take the call. In the sunlight that glimmered down through the trees and foliage, a bevy of jays let loose with a scolding chorus, and I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to find a little peace of mind for the day. Fridays were supposed to be good, but today had been a rotten way to end the week.

  When Kyle returned, he apologized for the interruption. “That was my office. We’re trying to line up help for Mary, but social services won’t act until they know her income, and she hasn’t a clue what her assets are.”

  Auntie nodded. “I don’t think you’re going to have an easy time finding out, either. I know the pastor of Mary’s church—Reverend Timothy Layton. I’ll contact him and see what they can do. Meanwhile, I suggest you call Nanny-Goat’s Pet Sitting Service for the cats. They’re reliable and bonded.” She gave him a rueful grin. “Tell them I’ll cover the cost if she can’t. At least for now.”

  Kyle jotted everything down in his notebook, looking relieved. “Thanks, Miss Florence. Now, what can I do for you?”

  Trevor appeared at the head of the trail, and we motioned for him to join us. Once we were all together, Trevor ran down what he’d found out about the roses, and I showed Kyle the lab report.

  “This has to be a malicious act. It destroyed our entire crop. In fact, we’re going to have to replace every bush we have,” I said.

  “You don’t think it could have been teens out for kicks?”

  “Using toxic doses of insecticide? Come on, Kyle. I could see vandalism from a group of bored kids if they had ripped the flowers off the stems, or if they’d TP’d the trees, but to deliberately apply a near-fatal dose of insecticide to our roses? That isn’t a prank. That’s downright dangerous, and fits right in with the other crap that’s been going on.”

  “What’s the ‘other crap’ that you’re talking about?” Kyle’s brow furrowed.

  We told him about Bebe’s Boutique and the rumors they’d been spreading about our shop. “And, Auntie doesn’t even know this yet, but today, Sharon Wellstone tried to steal me away from Venus Envy to go work at Bebe’s—the actual company, not the boutique. They want me to hand over my fragrance lines to their company. Sharon threatened that they had every intention of shutting down our store, whatever way it takes.”

  Auntie gaped. “I had no idea they’d go that far.”

  At her worried look, I reached out and patted her arm. “Well, I had a mouthful for her, believe me.”

  Kyle sighed. “I’ll see what I can find out, but I can’t promise much. We don’t have a lot to go on. Meanwhile, if I were you, I’d consider fencing in the rest of your property and getting a guard dog.” He flipped his notebook shut and shoved it back in his pocket.

  Auntie closed her eyes and let out a small sigh. Then, forcing a smile to her face, she said, “Thank you, Kyle. At least we’ve reported it. Meanwhile, since both you and Trevor are here, I want to invite you to a barbecue I’m planning for tomorrow evening.”

  Trevor licked his lips. “Sounds good to me. Would you mind if I bring Cindy Andrews? She and I are…we’re kind of seeing each other now. I’d be happy to pay for the extra food.”

  With a “Tsk, tsk,” Auntie shook her head. “Don’t you worry about the cost. We’d love to meet her.”

  Trevor flashed her a grateful smile. “I’ll be at the shed if you need me. I want to get started on digging up these flowers. I hate to do it, but you’re right, we have to get them out of here before any of the insecticide has a chance to leach into the soil.” He frowned, staring at the ground around the roses. “That is, if it hasn’t already managed to.” With a quick shrug, he took off, jogging down the path.

  Auntie turned to Kyle. “What about you? Can you make it to our shindig?”

  He grinned. “Wouldn’t miss your barbecued burgers for anything, Miss Florence. I’ll be here with bells on.” He took the bag of roses and the lab report for evidence and headed toward the front of the house.

  After he left, I glanced at Auntie. “You know I invited Bran tomorrow night. Those two will be butting heads all evening.” Kyle wasn’t happy about the fact that I chose to date Bran over him. First, he’d lost me to his cousin in junior high, and then hadn’t been thrilled when I’d politely rebuffed his renewed attempts after I moved back to Gull Harbor.

  Auntie shrugged. “You made your choice. Kyle has to live with it.”

  I sighed. Maybe it sounded simple, but the fact was that whenever the two were in the same room, sparks flew, and they weren’t the kind that made my knees weak. “Let’s talk about something else for awhile. Why don’t we go get some iced tea and cookies, and you can tell me about your lunch with Kane,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulder, and we headed back to the house.

  “Well, Imp, going to that lunch was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in a long while. I almost didn’t go in, but then I thought, Kane’s waiting for me, and I can’t just stand him up.”

  The refrigerator hummed as Auntie filled two glasses with crushed ice. I stirred the tea I’d made that morning, added sugar and lemon, and poured it over the ice. Cool beads of condensation trickled down my hand as I settled in at the table, waiting for Auntie to join me.

  “Are you okay?”

  She joined me, a pensive look on her face. “It was good to see Kane again. Even with all the intervening years, he still looks so much like Keola. At first it was hard, but after a few minutes it got easier. Kane is a fine man, but he’s not my Keola, and I was able to separate the two in my mind, and my heart, once we got to talking. We had a good lunch and caught up on the intervening years. He does make me miss the islands. But at first, when he walked through that door…Oh, Imp, it brought back all the memories.”

  I took her hand in mine. “You’ve never loved anybody else, have you? Not in that way.”

  With a little shake of the head, she said, “Never. With Keola, it was like tumbling off a tall building. I was afraid, but I couldn’t help it. The first day we met, I thought he was nice. The second, I thought he might make a fun date. The third, I decided I was going to marry him. It took him several months to catch up, but he did, and on our six months’ anniversary, he proposed. We were engaged for a year. Then it was all over, just like it had never happened. His family wanted me to stay in touch, but I couldn’t. Kane, though, he kept tabs on me. Eventually I began writing back.”

  “And you never met anybody else?”

  “No, not really. I dated, but nothing special ever came of anyone I met. And I didn’t need to get married. I’d inherited a tidy sum from my grandfather when he passed over, and I’d learned from my father how to make money work for me. I invested wisely and,
well, here I am. Sixty-four and suddenly facing a past that I had hoped to forget.”

  She stared at the table for a moment. “They say you can’t run away from your pain; I guess it caught up to me after all these years.” And with that, she smiled, and I knew the subject had been dismissed. “Tell me, other than the roses and Sharon, how did the day go? Did you get your speech written?”

  “Almost. I’ll finish it up tonight. Are you hungry? I was thinking of ordering pizza for dinner.”

  “Go ahead, child. I think lunch will keep me, and if I’m hungry later, I can make myself a sandwich. I’m going to call Winthrop and let him know what’s been going on. If we ever get to the point where we can file charges, he needs to know in advance what’s happened.” She paused on her way to the den. “By the way, I invited Kane to the barbecue tomorrow night.”

  I smiled, but she merely twitched her lip and left the room.

  Delilah woke me up at seven by tapping my face with her paw—her claws ever so gently extended—until I opened my eyes. She was quite the curmudgeon, and even though we’d finally made peace, she delighted in playing games with me that were more for her amusement than mine. The minute I opened my eyes, she bounced away, happy as could be.

  I rummaged through my closet. What to wear? Something cool but professional. I didn’t want to look stodgy or—worse—even remotely resemble one of Bebe’s Belles. I finally decided on a gauze skirt that fell about three inches above my knees and a mint green tank top with a matching sheer silk shirt over the top. Cool, and yet not overexposed. Flirty, but professional enough to get by. I slipped on three-inch spiked sandals, and packed a pair of black jeans and a crop top in my bag in case I wanted to change later, then headed for the kitchen, where I polished off the last of the cold pizza for breakfast, along with a pint of fresh strawberries.

  By the time I made it downtown, the streets were starting to fill out, but it was still early, and I managed to find a parking spot in front of the shop. Venus Envy was quiet. I glanced at the clock. Tawny wouldn’t arrive for another half hour.