Ghostly Fright

by K E O'Connor

  “It looks like our work is almost done,” Helen said. “I bet when Gunner looks into Julius, he’ll find a huge list of criminal activities. We can add murder to that list.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I said. “He is a good fit in certain respects, but we need to figure out how he got those bees to sting Felicity or if he used something else. Zach’s theory about plant poison makes a lot of sense.”

  Felicity flapped her hands in front of my face. She jabbed a finger at my cell phone.

  “What’s wrong?” I stared at the cell phone, and my heart kicked up a gear. “Do you think Zach is right? Bee venom didn’t kill you?”

  She nodded, before zooming out of the living room and into my bedroom.

  “What’s Felicity doing?” Helen asked.

  “I’m not sure, but it’s got something to do with Zach’s theory about toxic flowers.” I hopped up and followed Felicity. I stopped as I walked through the doorway. The word friend was scrawled in eyeliner on my mirror.

  Felicity pointed at the word.

  “A friend killed you?” I walked closer.

  Helen and Flipper appeared in the doorway.

  “What’s she showing you?” Helen asked.

  Felicity scowled at me before writing the letter B above the word friend.

  “B friend?” Helen’s expression was quizzical. “Does she mean Barnaby?”

  Felicity flapped her arms in the air.

  “Oh! Bees are her friends. They didn’t kill her.” I looked at Felicity. “Is that right?”

  She dropped my ruined eyeliner pencil and nodded.

  “If that’s true, then what killed her?” Helen asked.

  “She had a greenhouse full of toxic plants. Take your pick.”

  “Then Julius must have poisoned her,” Helen said. “He wanted Felicity’s money, her share of the business, and to avoid paying back what she’d loaned him.”

  I scratched the end of my nose. He did look good for the murder, but other people had decent motives, as well.

  Helen looked at me. “What’s up? We’ve got ourselves a prime suspect. Shouldn’t we celebrate?”

  “It wouldn’t do any harm to look around the greenhouses. I didn’t notice locks on the greenhouse with the toxic plants in them. If that’s the case, anybody could have snuck in and gotten their hands on something poisonous to give to Felicity.”

  “Which is what Julius did,” Helen said.

  “We need to keep an open mind and consider everybody else. What if Julius doesn’t have a criminal record?”

  “I bet he’s got a record longer than my arm,” Helen said. “Or if he hasn’t, it’s only because he hasn’t been caught.”

  “We should still go take a look around, just the two of us. We might find something we missed when we were there with Julius. At the time, we weren’t thinking a plant poisoned Felicity. The murder weapon could have been under our noses and we missed it.”

  “I’m not touching any of the plants,” Helen said. “I don’t want to get accidentally poisoned by the same thing that killed Felicity.”

  I looked at Felicity. She pointed out the window, her expression one of frustration.

  I raised a placating hand. “I get it now. Bees didn’t kill you. I’m assuming you didn’t get the toxin on your skin by accident. You’re not waiting around to warn other people about the dangerous plants in your greenhouse?”

  She flew toward me and glared into my eyes.

  “I’m taking that as a definite no.” I took a step back, happy that Flipper had moved to stand between the two of us. Felicity had a horribly short fuse.

  “We’ll look but not touch anything. We can get photos and send them to Zach. He’ll identify anything suspect.” I grabbed my shoes, pulled them on, and opened the front door.

  Zara stood outside, her hand raised as if about to knock. “Are you ready for your first day? I don’t want to be pushy, but I thought we could get an early start. We’ve got a ton of work to get through. I’m trying not to panic but failing miserably.”

  I forced a smile and nodded. “That’s a great idea. We’re ready when you are.”

  I glanced at Helen and shrugged. Our investigation would have to be put on hold while I did the job I was actually being paid for.

  Chapter 8

  I sat back in my seat feeling tired but content. Flipper was curled by my feet, sound asleep. The day had been full, and Zara and I had worked non-stop as we pulled together the details for the Halloween event.

  The last planner had done a decent job, and there were no dramas to sort out, but there was a lot of last minute checking and confirming with companies and guests to ensure everything was still on track.

  I looked at the empty dog bed in the corner of the office. Miltonia had been missing all day. I’d helped Zara look around the grounds for her, but she was nowhere to be seen. I was worried about her. A sad, lonely little dog like that shouldn’t be on her own.

  “I thought we deserved a treat.” Zara walked into the office carrying a tray with a large Victoria sponge cake on it and a pot of coffee. “I could never have gotten through all of this today without you.”

  “We’re getting there, but it’s not over yet.” I gratefully accepted a huge slab of cake and a mug of coffee. “Everything will be delivered on time. All the important guests have confirmed they’re coming. Helen has even checked through the food order and added a few things. She even went out to buy some speciality bits. You can always rely on her to come up with exquisite food.”

  Zara nodded at the cake. “This is one of her creations. I don’t dare to bake anything so lovely. Whatever I make comes out looking crispy around the edges and has a soggy middle.”

  I laughed. “You just described my cooking efforts. Helen is the expert.”

  “She was suggesting costumes for me to wear at the party when I was in the kitchen.” Zara took a sip of her coffee. “We decided on a good old-fashioned witch. You can’t go wrong with a witch on Halloween.”

  I nodded as I sampled the sweet, light sponge. “I bet you’ll make a great witch.”

  Zara’s laugh sounded startled. “I’ve been called a few things in my time.”

  I blushed. “No, I didn’t mean that. I’ve had a good time today. I mean, you’re a decent boss.” I ate more cake to stop myself from putting my foot in it anymore.

  She grinned. “I’m teasing. I also think I’ll make an excellent witch. And I appreciate your hard work. You’ve fit in perfectly.”

  “I do love to plan. If everything has a place and a purpose, you can’t go wrong.”

  Zara puffed out a breath as she sank back in her seat. “The two of you are just wonderful. I’m convinced this event will be incredible.”

  I nodded as I took a sip of coffee. Despite accidentally suggesting she was a witch, I’d enjoyed working with Zara and was looking forward to the Halloween event.

  “Is this the sort of thing Felicity would have liked?” I asked.

  Zara lowered her mug, a wistful expression on her face. “She probably wouldn’t have noticed the party, even if she sat in the middle of the dance floor while everyone did a jive around her. If Felicity had her head in a project, that was all she thought about. I would sometimes have to drag her out of the greenhouse late at night. She’d forget to eat or sleep when something caught her interest. Everything else came after her plants. She even slept with some rare species in her bedroom. I’ve found her asleep in the greenhouse a time or two, her head resting on a petri dish.”

  “It must be hard keeping things going with your business partner gone, considering how dedicated she was to the plants.”

  “I miss her; that’s for sure. Felicity didn’t pay much attention to the business side of things, though. She was the ideas woman. I focused on the details. We worked well together.” Her gaze went to the window. “I was here in the office the night she was found in the greenhouse. I can’t believe what happened to her.”

  “Was it unusual to hav
e bees in the greenhouse?”

  “Yes, we have filters on the glass to stop them from coming in. Felicity used to get so mad if anyone left the door open on a greenhouse.”

  I ate more cake. I could play it safe and keep talking about bees or take a risk. I liked Zara, and she looked genuinely sad to have lost her best friend and business partner.

  “Was the coroner sure it was bee venom that killed Felicity?”

  Zara’s head jerked back. “Yes! I mean, it was obvious. She had several stings on her body. Bee venom was identified in her system. Why do you ask?”

  “It would have been horrible if she’d accidentally poisoned herself with a plant she’d worked on. When Julius showed me the greenhouse where Felicity worked, he warned me not to touch anything.”

  “At least that’s one sensible thing he told you.” Zara placed her mug down. “Felicity took risks, but she was a walking encyclopedia of plant knowledge. I can’t believe she’d make such a mistake. She was working on something top-secret, though. Felicity would sneak out of here, once I’d forced her to do some admin. She’d go to her greenhouse and work on this project. She told me it was a poisonous plant she was hybridizing. She knew her stuff.”

  “Did you see any reports on the bee venom that killed her?”

  Zara’s forehead wrinkled. “No, the police told the family the details. I’m not family, just a business partner, even though Felicity felt like a sister to me.” She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “I must admit I was worried about her before she died. A month or so before Felicity’s death, she started talking to herself.”

  “That’s not so unusual,” I said. “I do that sometimes.”

  Zara nodded. “Me too. But the few times I walked in on her doing it, she’d insist she was talking to another person. The trouble was, there was no one there. I called her out on it, and she snapped at me like I was the one in the wrong. I decided to keep quiet after that. If it made her happy and didn’t do anyone any harm, I couldn’t see a problem.”

  That wasn’t so normal. I would have conversations with myself in my head and sometimes talk aloud, usually to Flipper. What Zara described sounded more like a hallucination.

  “Do you plan to keep the business going on your own?” I asked her.

  “I have so far,” Zara said. She looked around the office and shrugged. “I don’t know though. There are so many memories here, and most of them include Felicity. It’s not the same without her.”

  “Sometimes the sad memories are too much, and you need a clean slate,” I said.

  Zara ran a hand through her hair. “Don’t mention it to anybody else, but I have been thinking about moving on. I love what we do here, but the joy has disappeared since Felicity’s death. And it felt right to live in the house when she was around. But now, it feels strange. I feel like a lodger who has overstayed her welcome. I know Horatio and Julius don’t mind. At least, they’ve never said anything to my face that makes me think I should move out. Even so, it might be time to move on. Try something new on my own. At least get a place of my own.”

  “I’m sure a business like this will get lots of interest if you do sell.”

  “It will. I’ve put out a few feelers to see who might buy it.” Zara sighed. “The trouble is, they can only buy a share in the business. I don’t own it outright, which makes it less attractive.”

  “Horatio mentioned that to me. He owns part of the business along with Julius.”

  “That’s right. We all have a stake in Fleur de Bloom.”

  “Why not sell to Julius or Horatio?”

  Zara’s nose wrinkled. “Horatio wouldn’t know a good idea if it bit him on the bum. He’s a sweet guy but totally clueless. Even Felicity had given up on him and refused to fund his latest ridiculous inflatables business. She had to get cross with him before he stopped asking.”

  “Doesn’t he have money of his own?”

  “Horatio and money never stay friends for long. He’s always buying the latest gadget or a new pair of designer trainers or some such nonsense. He goes up to London all the time and visits those over-priced cocktail bars. He picks up the tab every time. His friends must think he’s a sucker. He never has any money. He was always happy to mooch off his sister. Finally, she saw the light and turned down his last request.”

  “And Horatio didn’t like that?”

  “He hated it. They weren’t talking when she died. All because she’d said no to him. I heard them rowing one evening as I was finishing work. He was asking for a hundred thousand to invest in this new business. Felicity was always too indulgent with him. She kept saying that one of his ideas would work and that he couldn’t keep having terrible business ideas that lost everything she sank into them. The trouble was, he did.”

  “Felicity didn’t think the inflatables business would work?”

  “How could it? Besides, there are loads of companies like that already. Horatio, as usual, had no business plan. He simply went to a party where there were fun inflatables to mess around on and thought he could make money by offering them to his friends. Felicity had had enough. She told him no more money. They argued, and he stormed off like some spoiled child. Before they had a chance to make up, she was dead.”

  I tucked away that piece of information. Horatio had conveniently left that part out of his story when he’d told me about his business idea and the finances. “What about Julius? Perhaps he could take over your share of the business.”

  Zara snorted a laugh. “Julius is even worse than Horatio when it comes to money. He spends everything he makes and then some. You cannot trust him with money. If I sold my share of the business to Julius, he’d milk it dry and disappear leaving nothing but debts and a ruined reputation. He cares nothing for horticulture.”

  “Did Felicity share your concerns about him?”

  “No! Julius was Felicity’s favorite uncle. In fact, he was her only uncle. After her parents died, he took on a mentor role for Felicity and Horatio. He moved into the family home and helped out. They were only teenagers when it happened. I think Felicity was grateful for his help. It was a shock to lose both parents at such a young age.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “The trouble is, Julius took advantage of his new role. When Felicity first went into the horticultural business, he gave her terrible advice. She lost almost everything. If it wasn’t for me steering things in the right direction, we’d have gone under a long time ago. Thanks to Felicity’s brilliance with plants and my business brain, we now turn a tidy profit, but it was close to the wire for a long time. I wouldn’t dare sell my part of the business to Julius, seeing how he almost wrecked it once before.”

  It made perfect sense why Zara wouldn’t sell to either of them. “And Felicity couldn’t see Julius had a problem when it came to money?”

  “She had concerns about her entire feckless family, but she was distracted and focused elsewhere.”

  “On her plants?”

  “Of course. Her plants were a priority.” Zara leaned forward in her seat. “Felicity was getting close to a guy, though. Someone had pierced that plant-obsessed armor.”

  “Yes, Barnaby. I met him last night at dinner.”

  “No, it wasn’t Barnaby. I never saw him as a serious boyfriend for Felicity. He’s a party boy. Barnaby doesn’t take anything seriously. Felicity treated him like some cute puppy. Sort of annoying and exhausting but adorable. She couldn’t say no to him.”

  A tingle of anticipation ran through me. “There was somebody else in Felicity’s life other than Barnaby?”

  Zara bit her lip and looked away. “I shouldn’t say. Felicity hadn’t mentioned him to me. I might have gotten the wrong end of the stick when I saw them together.”

  “Who was it?”

  She glanced around the room. “Luke, our maintenance guy.”

  I dropped my cake in my lap. Flipper made short work of grabbing it and making sure there wasn’t a crumb left on my skirt. “Wow! I’d never have put the two of them
together. He’s so...”

  “Grumpy? Mean-spirited and rude? Definitely not a people person.” Zara grinned at me.

  “Yes to all the above. I’ve only met him once, and he was pretty surly. Although he was nice to Flipper.” I petted his head as he licked his muzzle to find any cake crumbs in his fur.

  “Luke can be a proper grump. One good thing about him is he knows his plants. It’s the only thing he had in common with Felicity. I remember when we interviewed him for the job. He instantly rubbed Felicity the wrong way by telling her the composting was in the wrong spot to catch the sun. It wasn’t until they got talking about heritage apples that they warmed to each other. They were always chatting about their shared love of plants, especially anything rare and exotic. It could be the reason they got close. Felicity was bored with her trendy guy friend and wanted someone she had something in common with.”

  “How serious was this relationship?” If Luke had been romantically involved with Felicity, it created a new motive, and a new suspect, for her murder. Barnaby could have found out she was cheating on him and did something about it. Or she could have rebuffed Luke, he took offense and killed her. He would certainly know what plant toxins to give her.

  “It could be nothing,” Zara said. “As I said, I saw them together once or twice. The second time, they were acting like more than just friends. It was the way he looked down at her and brushed her hair off her face. It was a sweet gesture, not the kind you do with your employer or someone who’s just a friend.”

  I nodded as I finished my coffee, possibilities swirling around my head. I’d just found a new suspect and a new motive for Barnaby wanting Felicity dead or perhaps even Luke wanting Felicity dead. I’d been hoping for fewer suspects after this conversation, not a new one.

  Before I tackled Barnaby, I needed to speak to Luke and find out what his feelings were for Felicity. Could a jilted lover have killed Felicity in a passionate rage? Or was it a cheated-on boyfriend who decided to get revenge?

  Chapter 9