Bones in the Begonias

by Dale Mayer

  “I didn’t say a death was involved.”

  “That would be even better,” she said. “Then I wouldn’t trip over any more bodies, at least not right away.”

  “I’d be totally okay if you wouldn’t trip over any more anytime,” he said.

  “Suits me,” she said. “I’m okay to not find dead bodies ever again.”

  “Besides, it’s not a cold case I wanted to talk to you about. I’ll think about that first.”

  “Damn.” She let out a heavy sigh. “So what is it then?”

  “I was talking to the city council. They want to redo the big sign with the garden as you enter the city limits. You know the Welcome to Kelowna sign surrounded by flower beds?”

  “Yeah, mostly begonias I think,” she said. “At least one of the rings around the sign are begonias.”

  “Ugh,” he said. “I’d be happy not to see any more of those anytime soon.”

  She nodded. “They’re nice to look after, and they don’t grow too crazy outside, so they don’t need a ton of maintenance. They’re easy for large gardens and make great borders or plots.” At the word plot she winced.

  He chuckled. “I can see that having you around will be a constant reminder of dead things and everything associated with them.”

  “Maybe. And what about the city council? What were you talking to them about?” Her mind zinged to her ever-dwindling pile of money, and she was deeply concerned about it. “Hope it’s important. And, if it involves money for me, the answer is yes.”

  He chuckled. “You don’t even know what it could entail.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m about out of the money I found in Nan’s pockets before donating and trying to resell some of her unwanted clothes. Which means I’ll be diving into that little bit of savings I have.”

  “And the gardening you did at my mom’s place? That’ll be a regular thing, if you’re okay with that.”

  “I am absolutely okay with that,” she said. “What you pay me will put food on my table.”

  “Speaking of food,” he said. “Did you turn on the new stove?”

  She pivoted and walked out of the kitchen. “What stove?”

  He sighed. “The stove you paid one hundred dollars to replace. A lot of people went to a lot of trouble to make sure you had something safe to cook on.”

  “There’s the trick,” she said, “the word cook.”

  “I’ll tell you what. How about this Monday I bring over the fixings for something simple for breakfast or lunch, and I’ll show you how to cook it.”

  “Simple would be, like, eggs,” she said, “and I highly doubt you want eggs for lunch, do you?”

  “Not an issue for me. I love eggs anytime,” he said. “Don’t you know how to cook eggs?”

  She pulled the cell from her ear so she could glare at the blank screen.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” he said. “Stop glaring at me.”

  She gasped. “How did you know I was glaring at you?”

  “I could hear it in the heavy silence of the phone’s speaker,” he said drily. “And eggs are easy. How about we do omelets? They are a little more substantial than plain eggs.”

  Her mind filled with the soft fluffy omelets her chef used to make for her. “With spinach and caviar and gruyere?”

  Mack replied with that heavy silence again.

  “Oh. Okay, so what do your omelets normally contain?” she asked.

  “Well, spinach is one possible ingredient,” he said, “but anything I have on hand. Like bacon, ham, leftover meat. You can put veggies in it if you want.” His tone said he really didn’t see the point. “Meat and eggs are a perfect combo. … Plus cheese.”

  “Well, ham and cheese omelets are good too,” she said. “Can we add mushrooms?”

  “Sure,” he said. “We can sauté a few mushrooms. So are you up for a cooking lesson?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. But she needed to ask him something, and it was kind of embarrassing.

  “Speak up,” he said in that long-drawn-out sighing way of his.

  As if he knew she was making a big deal out of nothing but needed to get it out first. “Am I paying you for it?” she asked in a rush.

  He laughed. “No, you’re not paying me for a cooking lesson. Not with money, not with gardening work, not with bartering or any other method.”

  She beamed. “In that case, I’m looking forward to cooking lesson number one coming up. Omelets it is.”

  “I’ll bring the ingredients. You’ll write down everything I do, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “And, on Tuesday, you’ll repeat the menu, on your own,” he said. “You’ll take a picture and send the final results to me, so I can see how you did.”

  She chuckled. “Probably better if you come back and watch me make it the second time, and then you can taste the results.”

  “Done,” he said.

  She frowned suspiciously, wondering if he hadn’t planned on that in the first place. “So you need to bring ingredients for two meals,” she said swiftly.

  He howled with laughter. “You know what? You might not know how to cook, but you sure know how to negotiate a deal.” And, on that note, he hung up.

  She grinned to herself, until she realized he hadn’t told her all about the city’s Welcome garden—or about the cold case. She called him back, but he didn’t answer. Then she sent him a text. What about the city?

  He sent her a map and a handout with his return text. They’re looking for suggestions about what to put in these two beds.

  She walked to her laptop, turned it on, and transferred the image and the PDF on her phone to her computer. There was the sign, Welcome to Kelowna. She could see the mature plantings around it. And the indicated beds were on each side of the sign. Suggestions for what?

  Types of flowers, why those flowers, money, as in a guesstimate for the cost.

  I haven’t a clue on the money, she typed. And, even if I do tell them what I would do, what’s that got to do with anything?

  They’re looking for bids. The winning bid gets to do the job and to make the money.

  She perked up when she heard that. Then she opened the PDF and read the one-page document. Okay, but it says to submit this by midnight tomorrow night.

  Yeah, he replied. That’s why I called you earlier this morning. So get at it.

  Getting at it was complicated. Doreen was in the third local greenhouse, checking out the prices of perennials, Mugs walking patiently at her side. She had all kinds of ideas from lipstick plants to carnations. She thought carnations would be gorgeous. But, to get the color she wanted at a wholesale price, that would be the trick.

  So far nobody she had talked to was interested in giving her a bulk-buy deal. She knew somewhere in the Okanagan region she could set up something like that, but she hadn’t done very well tracking that down. She wondered if she could put in a bid for doing the work and have the city pay for the cost of the flowers on their own. Surely the city gardeners had access to plants she couldn’t even comprehend and at bulk pricing.

  It made sense to her, but she didn’t know if that was the proper procedure or, if not, if the city would go for it. Still, she could try. But, at the moment, she was running out of ideas of where and what she could put together. She loved the idea of roses, but they took work. Carnations, not the superlong stemmed ones though, she could do in layers. Longer in the center and then shorter as they went out to the edge. That might look pretty cool.

  With ideas buzzing in her head, she wandered through the greenhouse, writing down notes. When somebody called out her name, she turned without thinking, and a camera flash went off in her face. She growled. “Stop doing that.”

  “You’re a celebrity in town.” The man chuckled as he turned and walked away.

  She sighed and slipped out the side entrance back to her vehicle, Mugs at her side. There she sat in her car for a long moment.

  Somehow she hadn’t associated getting out of the
house as also being her first step into the public eye after the latest news had broken on Betty Miles. Doreen had been so focused on escaping the house that she had forgotten what she’d be escaping into. But her exit had worked out better than she had thought. She’d forced the media crowd to part to let her drive away, and she wouldn’t return until she was darn good and ready.

  As she sat in her car, she watched an old couple arguing nearby, standing at another parked vehicle. They looked so comfortable, as if the calm complaints had been told many times over. When they finally got into a vehicle and drove away, she wanted to laugh and to cry.

  A loud engine had her turning to watch as a young woman drove up in a fancy scarlet Mini Cooper. Although what was mini about the new model, she didn’t get. It looked bigger than her Honda. She watched as the woman got out, perfectly coiffed top to bottom. Doreen recognized all the work that went into that look; yet she had absolutely no interest in looking like that again.

  She studied her currently close-cropped fingernails. They were clean, but her hands showed the ravages of gardening—no weekly manicures or special fingernail soaks to keep her hands perfect anymore. Just healthy outdoor work in Mother Nature’s glory. But still, Doreen needed to pick up some good hand cream. As she glanced back at the gardening shop, she wondered if they’d have a working hand cream—like, for professional gardeners. She was well-past using fancy hand lotions for her skin now. But the gardeners at her former home had small green pots of stuff they used daily. A drugstore might be a better option for that—and cheaper.

  Then she thought about making yet another stop and decided she’d check here anyway. She hopped back out of the car, held Mugs’ leash, and beelined to the far corner containing the walls of shelves for everything associated with gardening. Sure enough, the hand creams were on a triangle-shaped display.

  As she studied the different choices, she could hear somebody speaking in the background.

  A man said, “After what you’ve done, you’ll now do as I tell you to.” His tone was ugly.

  Doreen stiffened. Mugs shifted at her heel, tugging at his leash to sniff the flowers an aisle away. She looked around cautiously to her left but didn’t see anyone. She peered to her right, around the stand of hand cream, and saw two people around another corner. The man was large—six feet, maybe six two—glaring down at the stunning blonde Doreen had seen getting out of her car earlier. But, instead of being daunted, the blonde had shoved her face into his, and, in a hard voice, she said, “Well, with me or without me backing your decision, you’ll end up planted in the daisies. Not me.” The blonde turned in a huff and strode away.

  Doreen tried to get out of her way, but the blonde deliberately knocked Doreen sideways. The air rushed out of Doreen’s chest with an oomph. Mugs barked loudly, edging closer to the blonde.

  The blonde turned, looked at Doreen, and said roughly, “Mind your own damn business. And keep that chubby pooch away from me.”

  “I didn’t say a word,” Doreen replied. Then, unable to help herself, she snapped, “And he’s not chubby.”

  Just then the man came around the corner, towered over Doreen, and sniggered. “No, he’s fat. And you won’t say a word, will you?”

  She glared up at him. “You can go murder and plant all the people you want. Just keep me out of it. And stop insulting my dog.”

  He laughed. “Wow. You’ve got a hell of an imagination, don’t you?”

  But she could see the worry in his eyes. He walked away but not before she grabbed her phone and took a picture of his profile as he turned a corner. It was probably a shitty photo, but maybe somebody could figure out who he was, if need be.

  With her cream in her hand, she headed to the long line at the front counter. She watched the blonde ahead of her step out of the line, as if she couldn’t be bothered to wait, and, in a hurried stride, headed for the front doors.

  Doreen put down the hand cream on the counter, raced outside, and, with her phone, took a picture of the woman. As she walked to her car, Doreen snapped another picture of the Mini. She was getting damn good at using her cell phone at her hip to take images on the sly. She was pretty sure Mack wouldn’t be happy with her doing this. Neither would the people she’d taken pictures of. But it seemed like everybody else snapped cameras in her face. So what the hell?

  She wondered if it was safe for her to follow the woman. But that was an idiotic move. She had witnessed a minor tiff between two people who’d uttered empty threats. Nothing to do with Doreen. And hardly a life-threatening situation. She should just mind her own business …

  Until she watched the big bully hop into a huge black truck and drive off aggressively behind the Mini.

  Doreen chewed on her bottom lip indecisively, not liking the menacing growl of the truck’s engine. Those humongous trucks always seemed to be driven by asshats.

  At that term she grinned. Swearing wasn’t something she was terribly comfortable with, but the words slipped out more and more. And unfortunately Thaddeus heard—and repeated—most of them. She wanted to utilize forms she could say comfortably that would give the same meaning without lowering her standards. The internet was full of alternate swear words, but she didn’t want anything that just everybody used. Of course, asshats was a popular one. Still, she kind of liked it.

  She hopped into her car and drove out, following the truck and the Mini Cooper. She didn’t know why exactly. Was she that bored? It’d been three days since she’d solved the cold case of poor Betty Miles who’d been dismembered thirty years ago by her best friend, Hannah Theroux. Three days, that was it. What was she, some kind of a dead-body junkie?

  Still, the argument between the two people had seemed like a viable threat, now that she thought about it some more in light of the demanding man now following the woman. Not that the woman had seemed threatened by the man’s words. She’d given as good as she got.

  While following those two, Doreen realized she was heading in the direction of the Welcome to Kelowna sign. She perked up at having a viable excuse to give Mack for going in this direction. She really did want to take a look at the two beds the city was considering updating. Doreen should have done that in the first place because, without knowing the size of each, she would have no idea how to budget for her time or for the number of plants needed.

  It took another five minutes to reach that area. Both vehicles continued ahead of her. She frowned as they turned off and went around the corner and past the sign. She pulled in a small strip mall close by so she could park and walk to the sign the rest of the way up the road.

  As she hopped out, she studied the direction the other vehicles had taken. It looked like a dead-end street. Maybe, when she was done here, she’d take a look there. In the meantime, she grabbed her notepad, and, with Mugs at her side, she strolled over to look at the big garden, about fifty feet across, with the Welcome to Kelowna sign in the middle.

  She took several photos of the two smaller garden beds the city was looking for options on. The heart-shaped beds were pretty and could use something extremely unique. Her creative artistry piqued, she had almost too many choices to consider. As she wrote down more notes, she checked out the dryness of the soil, the type of mulch used, and saw how the city’s gardeners had used a cutting tool to create a shallow trench at the garden’s edge to keep the grass from encroaching. Which was smart because public-area maintenance requirements in a city this size were massive and expensive. Even though the city likely employed an army of gardeners, there was always too much to do and not enough man-hours to do it.

  Mugs lay down in the grass, happy to be on a field trip. He rolled over and snuffled along the ground, enjoying himself. She chuckled. “I should have brought the others with us. They’d love it here.”

  Of course, the cat and the bird were much harder to control. She returned her attention to the gardens. Her mind buzzed with various plant options. She wondered if they could keep rubber plants here because they were huge statements that coul
d be in the center of each of those heart-shaped beds. Not just one rubber plant but maybe four or five of them. She’d seen many big planters on the city’s sidewalks and in the malls using the same idea. It would tie together the inner-city landscaping with the outer-city designs.

  “Come on, Mugs. Let’s go.”

  After letting Mugs into the car, she hopped back into her vehicle. Rather than going home, she proceeded where the two vehicles had gone. Just a quick trip to make sure everything was okay. She went around the corner to find the truck parked a few houses down on the left. With her phone, she took a picture of it, getting the license plate number. The truck appeared out of place compared to the run-down house it was parked at, which in her mind looked like a crack house. One of the typical druggie houses seen in a big city that others avoided. They were usually pretty easy to avoid because they were generally clustered with more houses of the same in a particular neighborhood. Yet the houses on either side here looked more upscale. This particular derelict house was hardly a place she expected the blonde to go.

  Doreen was in the Rutland area of Kelowna, and Nan lived in the Mission area. Rutland was a poorer area, not low-class by any means, and the city was certainly doing a lot to revitalize the area. It had the lowest-priced real estate in town too. Great for enticing developers.

  As she drove slowly past the truck, she could see the bright red Mini Cooper parked beside it. That looked really incongruous with the decrepit house. Maybe those two were developers? Maybe they had bought the house and planned to level it and rebuild? She shrugged, wondering what their deal was, but knowing it wasn’t her business.

  She drove ahead to a cul-de-sac at the end of the road. She pulled around in the circle and slowly drove past the house again. She had absolutely no excuse for doing what she did next—nothing that would pass muster with Mack. But she didn’t even think twice about it.

  She pulled up to a nearby house and parked. In a pretense of taking Mugs for a walk, she got out on the sidewalk and headed away from the house, crossed the road, and strolled on the sidewalk opposite the house in question. She was being nosy, and she knew it. But she and Mugs were just taking an innocent walk. Not like she was on private property with No Trespassing signs posted.