Swan for the Money

by Donna Andrews

  At least, bless her heart, she’d loaded all the trophies into my car and put on a pot of coffee before waking me, and then disappeared so I could be alone with my morning grouchiness. I filled a thermos full of coffee and drove carefully over to Mrs. Winkleson’s farm with who knows how many thousands of dollars worth of gold, silver, crystal, marble, glass, and wood rattling in my trunk and backseat.

  A deputy was still on duty at the gate.

  “You’re not going to keep people from coming in, are you?” I asked. “The exhibitors are coming this morning, and then the show opens to the public at two this afternoon.”

  “Don’t worry, ma’am,” he said. “We’re not here to keep anyone out, just to keep an eye on who does come in. Challenge anyone who doesn’t look like they belong. Maybe make Mrs. Winkleson feel a little easier after those two attempts on her life yesterday.”

  “Great,” I said. I didn’t point out that since whoever had tried to kill Mrs. Winkleson was almost certainly someone who belonged— either to her staff, her social circle, or the garden club— I wasn’t sure how useful his vigil would be.

  I unlocked the show barn, lugged the trophies inside all by myself, and then locked it up again. Sooner or later someone who knew what to do with them would show up or I’d wake up enough to figure it out myself.

  About five minutes after I unlocked the prep barn and plopped myself down at a table just inside, the first of the exhibitors showed up with a bucket of roses in each hand.

  By six-thirty, nearly every exhibitor was in place, hard at work. I leaned my chair back against the wall, closed my eyes, and tried not to jump out of my skin every time an exhibitor asked me for sharpies, or entry tags, or programs, or directions to the restroom, or just wished me good morning in a voice that showed they were much more awake than I was.

  I’d gotten a call from Michael, telling me that he and his fellow professors were about to set out for home. I’d made one more attempt to get him to bring home a pregnancy test, and then, when yet another rose grower interrupted me in mid-request, ended up asking him for some real New York pastrami and rye. If he brought back all the foods I’d asked for, we wouldn’t need to go grocery shopping for at least a week. Maybe a month.

  “Good morning, Meg!”

  There went another exhibitor, tripping into the barn and waving gaily as she passed my command post on the way to her prep table. This one, I noted, was pushing a grocery cart full of roses and paraphernalia. Roses, I’d learned, required as much specialized equipment as newborn humans. At least infants eventually learned to take care of themselves.

  Throughout the barn, nearly two dozen exhibitors had set up shop on the long cafeteria tables and were diligently preparing their blooms for the show.

  I glanced at the nearest table, where Mother was working on her entries. However often I’d seen this process, it never failed to astonish me.

  She began by studying the buckets at her feet, each holding a dozen or so varied blooms. She would toy with a bloom or two, frown, and finally pluck one lucky flower from the herd.

  Then she studied every inch of the rose and its foliage, both over and through her reading glasses and then with a magnifying glass, saying, “Hmm” a great many times. Sometimes she would eventually shake her head with a small expression of displeasure and put the rose in a water-filled bucket at the other end of her table. Given how perfect all the roses looked, I initially assumed she was displeased with these flowers because she was itching to do some grooming and couldn’t find anything they needed. After half an hour of watching, though, I realized that the shake of the head meant that even her skills were not enough to rescue the poor, benighted flower before her. But she placed them all very carefully in the discard bucket all the same, making sure their stems reached the water. After all, there was always the chance that the rest of the roses would be even worse, forcing her to return to a previously rejected rose. The chances of that were much higher given the rain and wind still besieging Caerphilly. Almost all of the exhibitors were muttering about weather damage.

  If a rose passed that first inspection, Mother would attack the leaves. Some she removed, while others she trimmed down to a smaller, neater size, using deckle-edged scissors, to imitate the natural serrations along the leaf edges. Any brown spots or irregularities were also snipped away with the deckle-edged scissors. Once she was sure the leaves were in optimal condition, she laboriously buffed each one until it shone like a freshly polished shoe.

  “Wouldn’t a little wax have the same effect with less work?” I’d asked once, while watching her practice this at home.

  “That’s illegal!” Mother had exclaimed— by which I assumed she meant against the American Rose Society’s rules. “You can take away from the flower, but you can’t add anything!”

  I was glad I’d asked the question when no one was around, not in a crowded prep room like today’s.

  Mother was now in phase two— cleaning up the rose itself with tweezers, tiny brushes, Q-tips, little sponge-ended makeup applicators, and a tiny bottle of compressed air.

  Soon, she’d nod with satisfaction and begin the final phase— grooming the petals. As with the leaves, some petals she’d pluck out entirely, but more often she would trim the edges of certain petals, using nail scissors or even a scalpel from Dad’s medical bag to remove discolorations, irregularities, or other blemishes completely invisible from six feet away where I sat. When all the petals were as perfect as art and nature could make them, she would begin teasing the flower more fully into bloom, again using her Q-tips, makeup brushes, and tiny bits of sponge.

  “Why don’t you just pick roses that are already open?” I’d asked Mother the first time I’d watched the process.

  “Because you can’t unbloom a rose,” she said. “You can coax a half open rose to open more, but if you pick them already open to the right degree, more often than not, they’ll be too fully open by the time the judges see them.”

  I knew from my work on the program that there was a category for open roses “with stamens prominently showing,” but Mother didn’t seem too excited about it.

  “You know why, right?” Rob had said, when I mentioned it.

  “Probably because the roses in the open category aren’t eligible to win Queen of the Show,” I said.

  “Nah, it’s deeper than that,” Rob said. “Aren’t the stamens what produce the pollen? It’s all about sex. The open rose category is like full frontal nudity for plants. No wonder she disapproves.”

  He might even be right. All I knew was that Mother saved her deepest sighs for when she had to consign a promising bloom to the open category.

  Apparently it wasn’t just Mother’s roses that needed major coaxing this morning. Around the room I could see at least a hundred roses sporting one or more Q-tips. Most held over two or three, but Mother was not the only exhibitor whose roses bristled with as many as two dozen. It reminded me of going backstage when Michael was directing Hedda Gabler and seeing the women in their elegant Victorian costumes sitting around with their hair in curlers.

  Mother had finished ten roses already, and had several dozen more waiting, either in small groups in buckets or already deposited in one of the identical glass vases my volunteers had set out on Friday. I glanced at my watch. No wonder she was so focused. Over half of the four hours of prep time had gone by already, and she had only done a fraction of her roses. I glanced around at the several dozen other exhibitors. She wasn’t alone. All up and down the aisles of tables, other anxious exhibitors were preparing their entries with the same obsessive precision, while around them waited enough roses to keep them grooming for hours. Maybe days.

  The cumulative effect was . . . well, intimidating. Here I was, bleary-eyed and caffeine deprived, watching the competitors spending more time grooming a single rose than I usually spent on my face in a week. Of course, I was a devotee of the sort of natural look you acquire not by artful application of makeup but by washing your face and applyi
ng a few smears of a hypoallergenic combination sun block and moisturizer. Wasn’t there a category for the most natural rose? I studied the program. No, not that I could see. That explained why the most neglected rose in the barn was receiving easily twice as much primping time as I’d bothered with the night of my senior prom.

  “There.” Mother pulled the last Q-tip from a deep red rose and nodded with satisfaction at the results.

  “Very nice,” I said.

  “I just might have a chance to get the Dowager Queen with that one,” Mother said, in an undertone.

  Get the Dowager Queen? After a few moments, I realized she wasn’t hatching some new plot to use the rose as a weapon against Mrs. Winkleson, only expressing her hope of winning the Dowager Queen trophy, given for the best bloom of a variety introduced prior to 1867. But it still sounded faintly ominous. I shoved the thought aside and tried to look suitably impressed with the rose in question.

  “Meg, dear, could you get a runner to take this one over to the show barn?”

  I looked around, but none of our runners were in sight.

  “I’ll take it over myself,” I said, turning back to her table. “I need to check how things are going over there.”

  “Thank you, dear.’

  Mother was busily tidying her work area, sweeping the little bits of leaf and petal into a trash bag and arranging her tools in perfect order before beginning to groom another batch of roses. I picked up the vase sitting on her table, making sure not to unsettle the rose it contained, and turned toward the door.

  “Meg, dear.”

  I turned back. Mother was looking from a red rose on her table to me and then back again, with a small frown on her face.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “This is the one I just finished,” she said, pointing to the red rose in front of her. “You picked up the one I was about to work on.”

  Oops.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can see that. I’m not sure what I was thinking. I guess I was on autopilot. Not quite awake.”

  “It doesn’t even have a tag yet.”

  Mother shook her head slightly, took the rose from me, and held out the one she’d finished. I took it, and lingered long enough to watch her begin peering at the next rose.

  I peered too. It already looked fine to me. No better than the one in my hand, but certainly no worse.

  Mother shook her head and began snipping vigorously with the deckle-edged scissors. Clearly I had no aptitude for rose showing.

  I made sure I had a good grip on the vase and headed for the door. Just as I was about to slip out, I heard a shriek from the other end of the barn.

  “Goat! Goat!”

  Chapter 37

  I whirled back and saw a small posse of shaggy black-and-white forms romping through the open door at the other end of the barn. Around me, rose growers were shrieking and cursing, grabbing buckets and holding them above their heads, throwing random objects at the goats, or just standing horrorstricken, with single roses clutched convulsively to their chests.

  “Don’t startle them!” Mr. Darby yelled, as he appeared in the doorway behind the goats.

  Too late, of course. The goats had keeled over as soon as the shrieking began. Most of them lay stiff-legged on the barn floor, well short of the nearest rose, but one had actually reached an unlucky exhibitor’s table before being startled. She’d knocked over several buckets when she fell and lay there, happily chewing one red rose while another hung out of her mouth by its stem. Fallen roses were scattered about her, including another red rose that almost looked as if she’d tucked it behind her ear. A pity we hadn’t startled that particular goat a little sooner.

  “She’s eating my black roses!” the rose grower shouted. “Stop her!”

  “Marguerite Johnson! You naughty goat!” Mr. Darby said. But he didn’t try to help the rose grower, who was frantically trying to pry Marguerite’s jaws open, while the dark red rose inched closer and closer to her mouth. Finally, Marguerite opened her mouth enough to fold in the blossom itself, and the rose grower fell back on the ground nearby and burst into sobs.

  “Bad goat,” Mr. Darby repeated. “Bad, bad goat.”

  I could see that some of the goats’ legs had begun to twitch slightly. I set the vase with Mother’s dowager rose on a windowsill that looked out of reach for even the tallest goat.

  “Drag them outside before they can move again,” I shouted, taking hold of one end of the nearest goat. “And shut that damned door!”

  Some of the rose growers and volunteers leaped into action, grabbing goats by the legs and tugging them toward the door. Mr. Darby picked up Marguerite— evidently one of his favorites— draped her over his shoulders, and carried her out. She was still chewing and eyeing the rest of the roses with interest as she sailed out the door.

  Mrs. Winkleson tottered out of the barn door just as we got the last of the goats outside. She looked pale and drawn. Clearly her ordeal at the hospital had taken its toll. I was about to ask how she was feeling and if she needed any extra help, but she opened her mouth and blasted my sympathy to shreds.

  “What’s going on here? What are you doing to my goats?”

  “Taking them out of the barn, so they won’t eat your roses along with everybody else’s,” I said. Everyone else was scurrying back inside, as if eager to avoid accusations of goat abuse. “I thought you took them up to another pasture to avoid precisely what just happened,” I said, turning to Mr. Darby.

  “I did,” he said, sounding uncharacteristically heated. “But someone left a gate open between the pastures. We can’t have all these garden club ladies and police officers running around leaving gates open willy-nilly. We have valuable livestock here!”

  “I doubt if any of the garden club ladies have been mucking around in the muddy pastures,” I said. “They’re too busy racing against the clock to get their roses ready. And most of the police officers grew up on farms themselves, and know better than to leave gates open.”

  “Then who let my goats out?” he said, in a slightly less belligerent tone.

  I shrugged elaborately, and then allowed my eyes to fall on Mrs. Winkleson’s boots, which were coated with red clay mud. I made sure he followed my glance before I looked away. As I suspected, he got the hint immediately. It didn’t hurt that Mrs. Winkleson, looking far less frail than she had a moment ago, was obviously trying to sneak up on a couple of the goats, with her huge black umbrella at the ready.

  “I’ll take them up to the back pasture,” he said. “Where they’ll be safe.”

  With a malevolent glare at his employer, he made a chirping noise and began striding away across the pasture. The goats scrambled eagerly after him, like rats after the Pied Piper.

  “I don’t want them interbreeding with the inferior stock up in the back pasture!” Mrs. Winkleson called after him.

  “They’re not interested in breeding this time of year,” Mr. Darby called back. Was it my imagination, or did I hear him mutter “stupid cow” under his breath?

  “Has Marston brought my roses down?” she asked, turning to me. “There’s no time to waste.”

  “If he has, they’ll be inside the barn,” I said. I strode back inside and didn’t look back to see if she was following.

  Three of the rose growers besieged me the minute I stepped inside.

  “We lost valuable grooming time!” one shouted.

  “That goat ate my darkest roses!” another wailed.

  “We need an extension!” the third shouted.

  I checked my watch.

  “Attention,” I boomed, in my loudest tones. “The goats are now being removed to a secure area. Due to the interruption, we will be extending the grooming time by precisely ten minutes. Entries must be completed by 10:10.”

  Most of the exhibitors looked content.

  “But what about my black roses?” It was the poor woman whose table Marguerite the goat had upset.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You ha
ve my profound apologies. Please give me a list of the categories in which you would have entered the roses you lost. If we discover that any of your competitors had anything to do with the goat incursion, we’ll disqualify them from those categories, if not from the entire show.”

  She seemed mollified. Mrs. Winkleson, who was near enough to overhear me, frowned, opened her mouth to say something, and then thought better of it. Good. I was more sure than ever that she had something to do with the goat invasion, and I hoped she was on notice that I was watching for any more tricks.

  She went over to the table where Marston was waiting with a two-level chrome bar cart full of roses and paraphernalia. More roses than paraphernalia actually. The cart had obviously been customized for rose show use. Both levels had been fitted with a black-painted wooden frame containing row after row of holes precisely the right size to hold the standard show vases. The bottom rack held Mrs. Winkleson’s roses, already parceled out into individual vases the same size and shape as the show vases, only made of black glass. The top rack was empty, no doubt awaiting the finished roses.

  It didn’t look as if the roses needed much finishing. The roses— all either white or deep, deep red— were arranged with regimented precision, and the black vases already carried the standard tags that had to be filled out for each entry.

  Two of the tiny maids stood nearby. One deposited a black metal basket on the table— Mrs. Winkleson’s rose-grooming tools, no doubt— then curtsied and hurried out. The other held a black wrought-iron lawn chair.

  “Don’t just stand there, stupid! Put the chair down!”

  The maid hurried to obey, and then scurried out as if afraid someone would strike her. Why did I suspect that if she didn’t have an audience, Mrs. Winkleson might well have done just that?

  Marston stood by impassively as Mrs. Winkleson seated herself in the chair and made a great show of arranging her tools.

  Then she stuck her arm out. He picked up a black vase containing a white rose and placed it in her hand. She brought the rose closer to her face and scrutinized it, though her inspection seemed to lack some of the intensity and passion Mother brought to her rose grooming.