Pushing Up Daisies db-1

by Rosemary Harris

  "It may give someone a motive, but I know it isn't Hugo. He's one of the sweetest men I've ever met. He says he's innocent, and I believe him."

  "Touching. What do the cops say?"

  "Nothing. I don't think any of them has made the connection yet. Fraser said Yolanda didn't know the Peacocks. She didn't know many people at all—that's why the original investigation hit a dead end."

  Chappell looked at the pictures again.

  "He also gave me this." I whipped out Gerald's letter to Mrs. Rivera and showed it to Jon.

  "That hotel still exists," I said, pointing to the address. "I spoke to the current manager, Jaime Gutierrez, this morning. Celinda Rivera, Yoly's mother, did work there years ago, and he thinks she's still alive. He didn't know where she was, but he said he'd ask around. I told him to call collect if he found her."

  "Not bad. So what is it you think I can do for you?"

  Was he dense? I chose my next words carefully. "I don't believe no one knows what happened to that girl. Maybe they didn't think anything of it at the time, or maybe they knew exactly what was going on. If you wrote a story on Yoly, it might jog people's memories."

  There was no response.

  "What? Why are you looking at me like that? This is a good story. Are you too busy working on the sequel to the walnut feature? THE DARK SIDE OF HAZELNUTS?" I said, exasperated.

  "Relax. I'm just jerking your chain. Aren't gardeners supposed to be patient? Of course I'll write the story. That's what I do. We just have to think how we're going to play this."

  He took out a small tape recorder. "Start with the day you found the body."

  When I finished, Jon said he needed copies of my research, so I suggested a drugstore about three blocks away that I knew had a copier. I scooped up my papers and shoveled them into my backpack.

  "Want to walk?" he asked.

  "And miss the chance to ride in that snappy vehicle? No way."

  "Top down?"

  "Of course." The car was a Sunbeam Alpine, white with a red leather interior. I waited while he collapsed the top and tucked it away.

  He turned the key in the ignition, and, after a few false starts, the car sputtered to life.

  Ehrlich's was an old-time pharmacy. A small sign in the window, next to a glass urn filled with colored liquid, read ESTABLISHED 1872. A woman who could have been one of the original cashiers told us the mimeo machine was located in the back, near the pharmacist's window. While Jonathan figured out how to use the copier, I nosed around.

  The store looked as if it had been frozen in time. While most drugstores today carry flash drives, copy paper, and rainbow-colored condoms, Ehrlich's still sold individual hairnets in blond, black, and brown. Hair dye, shoe polish, yellowed greeting cards—everything looked old even if it wasn't. One display did look familiar—Bach Original Flower Remedies. My health food store had the same green wall rack.

  Dr. Edward Bach was a general practitioner in London in the 1920s. By 1930, he'd left Harley Street to devote himself full time to research on natural remedies, identifying thirty-eight ailments and the thirty-eight plants and flowers he claimed could alleviate their symptoms. I'd heard about him from a dancer friend who swore by his essences to calm her nerves before performing.

  I stood there reading about the different floral essences and how they were used—gentian, for feelings of discouragement; olive, for lack of energy; walnut, to help adjust to a new situation. Bach remedies had been around for seventy years. With more people turning to alternative medicine, I guessed they were seeing a resurgence.

  "How's that copying coming?" I yelled to Jonathan, still reading. "Do you have a future as a guy Friday?"

  "Don't break my concentration, I'm on a roll."

  I felt a tap on my elbow and heard a faint, childlike voice behind me.

  "Paula? I thought that was you."

  "How are you, Mrs. Stapley? Are you getting excited about the fund-raiser?"

  "Oh, yes. So many RSVPs. Richard's had me order more food and party supplies. He's enjoying the fuss. He refers to it as troop movements."

  "Sounds like you're doing a lot of the work," I said.

  "I was very fond of Dorothy. Richard, too. You know he built the stone wall there. No mortar," she added proudly.

  "I didn't know that."

  Chappell finished his copying and joined us at the cash register.

  "Who's next?" the cashier asked.

  I motioned for Margery to go first. She had just a few items, so basic as to make me think they were a cover for her real purchase—two small brown bottles of Bach Flower Essences—honeysuckle.

  "I was just looking at those. Do they really work?"

  "Yes, they do. I'm a firm believer in floral and herbal remedies," Margery answered, her chin lifted. She sounded a little defiant, as if she expected me to contradict her.

  She put the two small bottles in her purse while the clerk bagged the other items. "Well, children, I'm off. More errands to run. Richard's bicycle is in the shop. I may surprise him and pick it up."

  "There's a sweet lady," I said to Jon, as she left.

  "Husband's kind of a prick, though," he whispered. Once she'd gone, he continued. "He was in the war, Korea. The way he parades around you'd think he'd stormed the beaches at Normandy."

  "What did he do before he retired?"

  "Big-shot lawyer. He was a partner in Russell, Jenkins and Stapley."

  The cashier painstakingly counted out the copies, twice, as if fifteen cents one way or the other would make a huge difference in the day's take. "You two probably never even heard of a mimeograph, have you?" the cashier said.

  "Sure—some kind of Flintstonian copy machine," Jon said, putting his change and his receipt in a separate section of his wallet.

  I kicked him on the way out.

  "Look who's calling someone else a prick," I whispered on our way out. "What'd Richard ever do to you?"

  "He squashed a couple of good stories. Didn't squash, really, but he was aggressively unhelpful."

  Chappell told me that two years ago there was a heated controversy in town about extending the downtown sewer system. Most residents were against it, except for those who stood to make a profit from it. Stapley helped both sides reach a compromise, but it opened the door for increased development, which had yet to materialize but was threatening.

  "Rumor had it Stapley had a silent interest in one of the companies looking to build, and he adamantly refused to be interviewed on the subject. I don't ordinarily hold a grudge, as you well know, but I made an exception in his case."

  "Well, you said yourself most people don't like to talk to the press."

  "There's a difference between personal stuff and community affairs. The public has a right to know," he said with a straight face.

  "Catchy. You make that up?"

  "Chiaramonte was probably happy about the sewer deal, too. That run-down nursery of his must have tripled in value—he doesn't need to sell another . . ." He struggled to think of a flower.

  "Honeysuckle," I prompted.

  The honeysuckle reminded me of something.

  "Hold on a sec." I ran back to the drugstore.

  When I returned, Jon asked, "So, what's it for? The Bach's honeysuckle?"

  "To help 'stop yearning for the past.' And the poor dear needed two bottles."

  CHAPTER 33

  Despite the efforts of Felix's high-powered lawyer, Hugo Jurado was still in custody, considered a flight risk. Anna Peńa dutifully brought him clean shirts and socks. And empanadas, which the Springfield cops let him heat in their micro wave since she brought plenty for them, too.

  The last word from Felix was that he had a scheme to find Yoly Rivera's mother, but that had been two weeks ago. Since then, I'd heard nothing.

  Jon Chappell was also missing in action, but clearly he'd made more progress than either I or Felix. His first article had caused a sensation. And he followed it up. Like a determined terrier he'd dug up any scraps of i
nformation on the missing girl and had not let up.

  Jon's biggest score had been finding a copy of one of Celinda Rivera's letters to Chief Anderson, which he published on the eve of the Historical Society's party. The story of Guido Chiaramonte's stabbing was relegated to the inside pages, and after thirty years, Celinda and Yoly Rivera were finally front-page news with the not-too-subtle headline WHERE'S MY DAUGHTER? A MOTHER'S ANGUISH. Chappell's editor seemed to be caving in to the younger man's tabloid tactics. I guess it was hard to argue with newsstand sales and with the results—it was all anyone in town could talk about.

  The crowd at Penny's Nails was abuzz with gossip and theories. Penny's had six manicure stations and four pedicure stations, and there wasn't an empty seat in the house. The phone was ringing off the hook, and waiting clients were stacked up like airplanes at O'Hare. All in anticipation of that night's soiree at the Springfield Historical Society.

  Among those getting buffed and waxed pre-party was Caroline Sturgis. She wiggled a paraffined hand in my direction and smiled before leaning in to whisper to a friend.

  I would not have been there, perched in a vibrating pedicure chair with my pant legs rolled up and my whiter-than-white calves exposed, if Lucy Cavanaugh hadn't dragged me in. My heel marks were still visible in the parking lot.

  "Real gardeners don't get their nails done between March and October. Between digging in the dirt, moving rocks, and washing up fifty times a day, what's the point?" I said. It made no impression on my well-groomed friend. The night before, Lucy had tossed her bag in the backseat of my car, given me the once-over, and shaken her head in disgust.

  "If we had more time, I'd do something about the hair. At the very least, you're getting a manicure and a pedicure. You'll thank me later."

  "It's a small-town event. With all that's going on here, I think I can safely say my toes will not be the hot issue."

  " 'Mother used to say you could always tell a lady by her hands,' " she quoted reverently from Gone with the Wind. "You don't have to look like a field hand. Besides, potential clients will be checking you out. Maybe you should wear a hat. Don't garden ladies wear dramatic hats?"

  I nixed the hat but agreed to the mani-pedi, though few things filled me with as much trepidation as having my little piggies manhandled by some stranger. It ran a close second to going to the gynecologist, and usually required a glass of wine first to loosen me up. Hands and feet splayed, only the stirrups were missing, when Mike O'Malley walked by the salon.

  "Oh, great."

  "What's the problem?" Lucy whispered.

  Mike tapped on the glass as if we were puppies hoping to be adopted.

  "Which one is that, anyway—number two or number three? It's so hard to keep track of your turnstile romances. I can't believe all the trouble I go to to meet men, and you just stay home and they come to you," she said, eyeing him through the window. "He'd be cuter if he had a little more definition."

  The bells on the front door jingled as Mike came in, and the young Korean proprietor fussed over him, giggling as if it were hysterical for a man to be in a nail salon. At least that's what I think she was laughing about; for all I knew he was here every week, getting his knuckles waxed.

  I hid behind a magazine and pretended to be immersed in an article on how to wear green eye shadow tastefully. It didn't work.

  "Afternoon, ladies."

  I hadn't seen him since the night at my place. If he'd learned anything new, he hadn't shared it with me, and I was just as happy to keep my distance from the police station. Like two fighters, we'd retreated to neutral corners.

  I peeked over the top of the magazine. "Sergeant O'Malley. What a surprise. Manicure or pedicure?"

  "Or bikini?" Lucy added.

  "I couldn't get an appointment. I'll be reduced to handling my own grooming," he said, spreading his fingers. "What do you think—cut cuticles or push back?"

  "Push back," Lucy said, aghast.

  "We haven't seen you in a while." He slipped into the royal we, so I did, too.

  "We've been busy at the house."

  "We?" he asked.

  With Hugo languishing in jail and Felix still in Mexico, there was no we, but I wasn't sure O'Malley knew Felix was out of the country, and I didn't want to be the one to tell him.

  "Neil MacLeod has helped out. And Lucy," I said, recovering quickly. "We're almost finished, but there may be more we can do if we get any additional contributions. Richard's anticipating a few last-minute surprises to night."

  "Looks like your little side investigation is also starting to bear fruit," he said, holding up a copy of the Bulletin.

  "And there's more," Lucy added. "Tell him what Felix has been up to."

  "Do tell," Mike said.

  I pushed a button on her vibrating chair and sent her shaking like a washing machine on spin cycle.

  "He-e-e-ey." She fiddled with the controls and returned herself to gentle cycle. "What was that for?"

  Mike turned to me. "Anything you'd like to share with the group?"

  "Nothing yet. I'm still recovering from the psychological letdown of my candy fiasco. When I know something for sure, I'll be sure to let the proper authorities know."

  It came out snottier than I'd intended. Like a good pal, Lucy broke the icy silence that followed. "So, will we be seeing you at the big bash to night, Sarge?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "And will you save a dance for us?" she flirted.

  "I don't think there's going to be any dance music. I can bring my accordion if you like."

  The young Korean girl tapped my toes and motioned for me to put my feet in the whirl pool bath. I couldn't possibly hold a conversation while I was getting a pedicure; I squirmed too much, and I was starting already. Tactfully, O'Malley turned to leave.

  "Well, I'll leave you ladies to your ablutions. See you to night, then."

  "I may want to revise my initial comment." When he was safely outside, Lucy added, "Do you think he really plays the accordion?"

  "Why? Are you suddenly developing a taste for ice-skating music?"

  She leaned in. "How many men do you know who can move their fingers and push in and out at the same time?"

  CHAPTER 34

  Richard Stapley's silver hair gleamed under the crystal chandelier. I could almost hear the cash register ringing inside his head as he grinned and posed for the videographer who was chronicling the eve ning's festivities.

  Poster-sized before-and-after pictures of the garden were displayed around the grand wood-paneled room, as was an early portrait of Owen Peacock. The walk-in fireplace was filled with fresh flowers; I was camped out in front of it when Richard sidled up to me.

  "I don't think we'll have a problem getting you anything else you need for that garden, Paula." He looked around the Historical Society's crowded gallery, doing a silent head count. "I do believe we may even have something left over for that bonus I mentioned." Bending down closer to my ear, he added, "We should have charged fifty dollars."

  As it was, for a modest thirty-five-dollar contribution anyone in town could dress up, drink nondescript jug wine, and gossip to their heart's content—and feel civic minded while doing it. They came like locusts— community activists, avid gardeners, and the just plain curious.

  Hillary Gibson and Gerald Fraser were there. So were Caroline Sturgis; the thrift-shop ladies; Richard's wife, Margery; and a couple hundred others I didn't know. The mayor was in attendance, but no one turned more heads than Babe Chinnery and Neil MacLeod. Anyone who thought she lived in jeans and a leather bustier had another think coming. She was elegant in a slinky tuxedo suit, tats hidden, and he was striking in a suit that could have been Zegna. They might have been going to the Grammys.

  "I've got to hand it to your development people. This is a fantastic turnout," I said to Richard.

  "I wish we could take the credit for it," he said, surveying the crowd and occasionally acknowledging someone, "but I think we both know it was those articles in the B
ulletin. I believe you know Jon Chappell?" He knew I did.

  Jon was standing with a group of people I didn't know, and probably didn't want to—granite-faced corporate types who'd clammed up the minute he joined them. He excused himself and came over to us.

  "Jon, I was just telling Paula this is mostly your doing. I suppose I should thank you." Richard gripped him tightly on the shoulder.

  "Some people thought you might postpone the party, sir, in light of what's happened," Jon said, praying for a slip of the tongue that he could print.

  "What's happened?You mean Chiaramonte?" Richard seemed genuinely surprised, but it had occurred to me, too. "I'm sorry, of course, but he has nothing to do with the Historical Society. He's not even a member. And we have our own responsibilities—don't we, Paula?" Richard finally released his hold on Jon's shoulder and left us, to welcome Congressman Win Fifield and his entourage.

  "No thanks necessary, sir," Jon called after him loudly, for others to hear. He rotated his shoulder. "Quite a grip.

  "You clean up nice," he said to me.

  I'd taken an old Nicole Miller out of mothballs, one of those little black numbers that'll look good forever; and since no amount of sunscreen keeps all the sun off a gardener, I had a little color.

  "Thanks. Please tell me I haven't created a monster."

  He pretended not to understand.

  " 'A mother's anguish'?"

  "Give me a break. A month ago, the biggest news around here was the invasive hogweed story. I've earned this. We've earned this. I've got my editor eating out of the palm of my hand thanks to you." He gave me a little toast and downed his drink.

  "We're sniffing someone out, I can feel it," he said, reminding me I was his coconspirator. "Don't play innocent—you called me, remember? Besides, a little press—it's got to be good for your business."

  "Right—landscaping, water gardens, exhumations. I can hear the phone ringing now."

  "I'm getting another." He snorted. "Want one?"

  "Sure. Red wine."

  Jon walked to the bar, and I was briefly alone. I looked around for Babe or Lucy, who'd dropped me off, then gone to park the car. As I scanned the gallery I couldn't help but feel that if we interviewed everyone in the room, we'd have all the answers to the baby mystery, Yoly Rivera's disappearance, and the stabbing of Guido Chiaramonte. I felt someone behind me. I turned, expecting to see Jon or Lucy. Instead it was Mike O'Malley.