Mums and Mayhem

by Amanda Flower

  I inwardly groaned.

  “You see,” Bernice went on, “there are reporters in the village, and I’m sure, since you were such an important figure in Barley’s life, that they would want to talk to you about the murder. We would very much appreciate it if—”

  “If I only said nice things about Bellewick,” Owen offered with a smile.

  I knew the smile wasn’t genuine. I knew it was just a warning.

  But Bernice did not know it, and she beamed up at him. “Yes, that’s exactly it. We would appreciate it so much.”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” Owen said. “I have spoken with Trina Graham from Action News and told her what an awful and disgraceful village this is. In fact, I told her she should tell her viewers never to come here.”

  Bernice gasped. “Well, I never …”

  “If that’s all, I must be going.” Without waiting for our answer, Owen stomped to his car, threw the briefcase in, jumped inside, and drove away. His tires spit gravel in our direction.

  Bernice’s mouth hung open. “What a terrible man.”

  I couldn’t have agreed more.

  She stared at me. “Can you believe what he said about the village? It’s just horrible.” She sniffled. “This is all my fault. I can’t believe this is happening. The reputation of the village in the county, if not all of Scotland, is ruined.” She started to cry.

  I gave her a hug. “Oh, Bernice, don’t cry. This will all blow over. Trust me. It won’t hurt the village. Bellewick is a fishing town. We were never going to become a tourist hot spot.”

  She sniffled and stepped back. “I suppose you are right.” She took a moment to remove a tissue from her purse and wipe her eyes. Some of her eye makeup smeared onto her cheek. “I must look a fright.”

  “You look fine. Just stop at the bathroom before you go back onto the floor of the jewelry store. It’s nothing that a little makeup can’t mend,” I said, and patted her arm.

  “Thank you, Fiona. You have been very kind.” She took a breath. “And I must say that you and your business have been a lovely addition to the village. Like a lot of the villagers, I had my reservations about an American coming to Bellewick, and even more so one taking over Duncreigan, but you have done a wonderful job of it. Your godfather Ian would have been so proud of the job you are doing and how involved you have become in the village. I know he wasn’t here often as an adult because of his service in the army, but he loved this village and always meant to do right by it.”

  I swallowed as the image of the dead garden at Duncreigan came back to me. I didn’t know how proud Uncle Ian would have been about that. If fact, all evidence pointed to the fact that I had failed in the mission he had left me to complete.

  “Do you still have the triskele necklace he had me fix for you?” she asked.

  When I moved back to the village, Bernice had given me a necklace that Uncle Ian had held for me at her shop. It was in the shape of a triskele, just like those etched on the menhir in the garden and the ones Carver Finley was so desperate to study.

  I touch the triskele at my neck. “I wear it every day.”

  She nodded. “Good. Ian would have liked that.”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  She clicked her tongue. “As for Owen Masters.” She shook her head. “He is one angry man.”

  I silently agreed with her. Owen Masters was an angry man, maybe even one capable of murder, but sadly his alibi was airtight, which left me with the suspects I’d had before the music manager showed his true colors.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I smelled the smoke before I saw the flames. That wasn’t all I smelled. I caught the scent of seawater too. I couldn’t see a thing. Was I trapped in the fire and blinded by smoke? I touched my arms. Nothing hurt. I wasn’t in the fire, only near it.

  Slowly I could see bits in front of me. It came in fragments. A burning boat mast. Fiery pieces of line falling to the deck below. Ewan and his friends staring openmouthed at a scene I could not fully appreciate. It was like I was caught in a dream within a dream, and part of my vision was taken from me.

  There was a splash. Something was in the water. More splashes. Someone was in the water.

  I sat up in bed and sent poor Ivanhoe flying. My T-shirt was soaked with sweat, and I was freezing cold. It was a dream, just a dream. Or a vision of something yet to come? The visions I had experienced in the past had either come when I touched the menhir in the garden or in dreams like this. However, those visions had been so much clearer. I saw everything, felt everything, smelled everything. It was all there. This was in fragments. Was it fragmented because the garden was dead? Perhaps it wasn’t dead completely if I could receive any vision at all.

  I threw back the blankets from the bed and put my feet on the floor. I winced when they hit the cold hardwood. The cottage was freezing. The fire I’d had going before I went to bed must have gone out. I had propane-powered heating as well, but I didn’t like to run it until it was absolutely necessary because of the cost. It seemed that the time had come that I could no longer avoid it. Honestly, I should have started using it at the end of October, but I was stubborn that way. Isla would have said cheap.

  I shoved my feet into a pair of slippers. The heel of one of the slippers was missing. Ivanhoe had chewed it off one day when I was away from home too long for his liking. In many ways he was more like a dog than a cat.

  I hobbled on the mangled slipper into the main room of the cottage. A beam of moonlight came in from the side window and hit the glass bowl with the still-yellow rose blossom inside it. The flower was as bright and yellow as it had ever been on the menhir. Somehow, without its stem and roots, it was still alive. I had no idea how long that would last. Logic told me flowers could not survive so long on water alone. Well, maybe some varieties, but not roses.

  Ivanhoe rubbed against my legs and mewed. He then walked over to his empty food bowl in the tiny kitchen. He mewed again. I looked at the clock on the small microwave on the counter. It was three thirty in the morning.

  “Ivanhoe, it’s not time for breakfast yet. It’s still the middle of the night.”

  He lowered himself on his haunches and mewed again.

  I rolled my eyes, and he flipped over on his back and waved his paws. I sighed and took the two steps into the kitchen.

  Knowing he had won, the cat jumped to his feet and purred.

  I fed the cat and went back to the bedroom. I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep.

  When it was first light out, I went outside and headed to the garden. This time I left Ivanhoe in the cottage. I bribed him with a second breakfast. The best way to distract Ivanhoe was always through his stomach.

  I didn’t run or hurry to the garden this time. I walked slowly because I carried the glass bowl with the rose blossom inside it. I took care not to spill a single drop of water. I went into the garden through the open door. The ivy on the garden wall was still dead, and the garden was withered too. There was no amount of sun or water that could bring it back. I knew the menhir was the answer. I just didn’t know how. I walked around the brown hedgerow. The menhir was just like I had left it. The climbing rose’s vine and stem were wilted to the ground. I could clearly see all the etched triskeles in the stone. This was what Carver Finley wanted to see. He wanted to study these markings. He found them particularly interesting because they were rare in Scotland. It was a more common Celtic symbol in Ireland. Would he cut the rose for a closer look at them? I thought he might.

  I touched the stone and closed my eyes. Nothing happened. No visions came. Frowning, I stepped back from the stone to see the fox, standing just a few feet away from me. I held the bowl in my hand, not touching the stone. Gently I set it on the ground next to the standing stone. The fox gave the slightest of nods, so slight that I might have imagined it.

  “Should I leave the blossom here?” I asked the fox.

  As usual, he said nothing, only stared.

 
; “I really wish you could talk. It would make things much easier for me.” I studied him. “But you are here.”

  He cocked his head.

  “That must mean there is still magic in this place.” I pointed at the bowl. “In this stone and in this flower. You couldn’t still be here if the magic was gone.”

  He straightened his head and stared at me with those bright blue eyes.

  I left the rose there. I didn’t know if that was the right thing to do or not, but it felt right. With the garden in such a state, it was all I had to go on.

  * * *

  In the Climbing Rose a few house later, Isla draped herself over the sales counter. “It was a rocky start, but I think Mom and Dad meeting Seth went well overall. I think they can see that he really has drive.”

  I was in the back room of the shop making flower baskets for a birthday party order. “Drive? That’s the word you are going to use for Seth?”

  She opened her mouth to protest, and I held up my hand. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m happy Mom and Dad weren’t too upset. I mean, after Mom fainted, everything seemed to go swimmingly.”

  She stood up and said, “I think so too.”

  I added a bow to the arrangement and stepped back. I was proud of how it had turned out. It was for an eightieth birthday party being held at Presha’s Teas this afternoon. The guest of honor was Maggie Grig. Presha had put in the order for the flowers because she wanted everything to be perfect for the party. I’d put extra effort into the arrangement because of everything Presha had done for me.

  I patted the purple satin bow on the front. “Perfect,” I said. “Do you want to take this order over to the tea shop or stay here and watch the shop?”

  “I’ll stay back at the store, if it’s all the same to you. Seth needs to come into the village to pick up construction supplies at the harbor and said he would swing by for a visit on his way back to the manor.”

  Yep, drive was what Seth MacGregor had, all right. Wisely, I kept my thoughts to myself.

  I put on my coat and picked up the heavy basket. I didn’t mind at all that my sister wanted to stay back. I loved any excuse to go see Presha, and I knew she would give me a scone or tea cake when I made the delivery. It was well worth the walk, even carrying a thirty-pound arrangement.

  I took care as I strolled the cobblestone streets to Presha’s Teas. Presha’s shop wasn’t on the same road as the Twisted Fox and my flower shop. It was one street over. When the tea shop came into view, I gave a sigh of relief—the basket really was heavy.

  When I opened the door to the shop, the welcome scent of baked goods, caramel, and chai hit me full in the face. I could have stood there all day just taking it in.

  “Fiona, that is lovely!” Presha floated toward me. One of her bejeweled scarves flowed behind her like a cape. “You really outdid yourself with the arrangement.” She took it from my hands. “Maggie, happy birthday.”

  A woman in a blue dress, stockings, and orthopedic shoes turned around. Her white hair was styled in pin curls, and there was a tiny silver barrette over her left ear.

  I blinked. Maggie Grig, the guest of honor, was the Tesco lady. She was the older woman I saw each morning making her daily walk to Tesco.

  She recognized me too and frowned. I had always thought, from the moment I came to the village, that the woman didn’t care for me. What she said next proved it. “You bought me flowers from the American?”

  “Now, now, Maggie. Fiona does beautiful work, and besides, hers is the only flower shop in town.”

  The door opened behind me, and six or seven more elderly ladies came inside. Each of them carried a wrapped box or gift bag and stopped to hug Maggie and tell her happy birthday.

  She smiled at them, and her whole face transformed. She was no longer the sad, sometimes bedraggled Tesco lady I saw each morning shuffling down the street. She was happy and loved, and I felt that even though I had never said more than hello to her, I owed her an apology for misjudging her.

  “Who brought the flowers?” one of the women asked. “They are gorgeous.” She leaned forward to inhale the flowers’ scent. “Lovely.”

  “They are from her.” Maggie pointed at me with a light-pink-polished fingernail.

  “You’re the girl from the flower shop. Your father is the one who killed Barley,” the woman who had smelled my flowers said.

  A hush fell on the tea shop, and every set of eyes turned to me.

  “Who are you?” I asked, trying to avoid their stares. I knew I should leave, but Presha hadn’t given me a scone yet. I wasn’t leaving without one. I had priorities.

  “Gertrude Bully. I’m a member of the BMGs. I’m the only local member we have. You would think there would be more in the village, since Barley was from here. People seem to forget the history of the village so easily.”

  “The BMGs are a bunch of women who have lost their minds,” Maggie said. “They waste their time and money going to all of Barley’s concerts in the UK and some even on the Continent. There are certainly better uses for their money and time.”

  Presha clapped her hands. “Everyone is here now. Please, ladies, take your seats, and we can start our tea to celebrate Maggie’s birthday.”

  “Are you staying?” Gertrude asked.

  “Why would she stay when you accused her father of murder?” one of the women at the table asked.

  It was a fair question, I thought.

  “I don’t think her father did it,” Gertrude said.

  “Who, then?” another woman said as she poured herself a cup of tea.

  “It was Kenda.”

  “Jealousy of a pretty, young, talented woman is not a flattering attribute,” Maggie said.

  “I’m not jealous, but Gemma certainly was.”

  “Jealous enough to kill?” another woman asked.

  “Maybe,” Gertrude replied.

  Chapter Thirty

  “We are supposed to be celebrating Maggie’s birthday, not discussing murder,” a woman at the table with straight silver hair said.

  “Talking about murder,” Maggie said, “is much more interesting than talk about my birthday. It’s my eightieth one. I know how birthdays go by now.”

  I inched toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Maggie asked.

  “I—I was just going to leave you to your party. I’m not going to barge in on your special day.”

  “You already have,” Maggie said. “Now, sit yourself down. It’s my birthday, which means you have to do what I say.”

  Silently, Presha added another chair to the table and winked at me. I sat. Presha went back to the kitchen, leaving me with the group of six women. I watched her go and did my best not to whimper.

  “Maggie, are you going to open your gifts?”

  Maggie waved her question away and folded her hands on the table. “We will get to that. Gertrude, why do you think Kenda did it, other than that’s what Gemma wants to have happened?”

  Gertrude gasped. “You think Gemma wants Kenda to be the killer?”

  “Of course she does. Then she will feel better about the fact that Barley never showed any interest in her. I’ve seen it before. Barley McFee may have been a small man, but he was handsome and charming. He was very popular with the young and old women in Bellewick when he was a lad.”

  The kitchen door opened, and Presha came out with a tray of tea sandwiches and cakes on two three-tiered plates. My mouth watered when I saw them. She set a small dessert plate in front of each person, including me.

  Several ladies reached for cakes and sandwiches. Since I was stuck there until I knew why Maggie wanted me to stay, I did the same.

  “You knew Barley when he was young?” I asked.

  “Oh my, yes, I knew him. I have lived in this village for eighty years as of today. There is little I don’t know about.” She sipped her tea and looked at me appraisingly. “People think all I do is walk to the grocery each morning, but I do much more
than that. I see things, and I know all the happenings in the village.” She looked over her teacup at me as if she wanted that statement to sink in to me in particular.

  I glanced over my shoulder just to make sure there wasn’t someone else she could be giving the beady look to. Nope, there was no one there. I was most definitely on the receiving end of that stare.

  Gertrude clapped her hands. “Now, why haven’t you told me you knew Barley when he lived here? You know how much I love his music.”

  “Did you know him?” I asked Gertrude. She looked like she would be closer to Maggie’s age than Barley’s, but I was smart enough not to say that.

  She shook her head. “I moved to Bellewick as an adult after I married my late husband. He worked in the shipyards. God rest his soul. He was a good man, and he loved a cheerful fiddle concert as much as any man did. We went to two or three every summer, but of course, Barley was the very best there was.”

  “Aye,” another woman at the table agreed. “That’s true.” She nodded to me. “I enjoyed his music but am not one for joining groups like the BMGs. I never was one for organized sports neither.”

  I nodded as if the comparison made sense.

  “I did not tell you,” Maggie said, addressing Gertrude’s question, “because it never came up. I can’t possibly know everything that you want to know.”

  Gertrude huffed and sat back in her chair.

  “Have a scone,” the silver-haired woman said. “It will make you feel better.” She held out the plate to Gertrude.

  Gertrude hesitated and then took two.

  I approved of her choice. I had always thought that two scones could cure what ailed any person.

  “Can you tell me about Barley McFee and his family?” I asked.

  Maggie looked at me through eyes so wrinkled I could barely see the blue of her irises. “Are you asking because you are helping the chief inspector again?”

  I pressed my lips together. “I was the one who found Barley. I want to know what happened.” I didn’t mention that my father’s involvement had brought me into the investigation at the beginning. I hoped I would get to hear what she had to say about Barley before bringing my father into it.