Roses are Dead My Love

by Penny Clover Petersen

  Rose said, “We had a fire in the dog house.”

  “It’s out. Thank God it wasn’t much. Come on in, Tom. I need a little relaxer,” said Daisy.

  They had just sat down in the living room and Tom had his notebook out when someone started pounding on the front door.

  Daisy groaned, “Will this night never end?” and went down to answer it. She came back with Ron Tucker, their oldest neighbor in all senses of the word, in tow.

  Mr. Tucker said, “Sorry to barge in, but I heard all the ruckus and wanted to make sure you gals were okay. Glad to see you here, Tom.”

  Angela came in from the kitchen with a tray of tall glasses filled with an orangey concoction. “Thank you, Ron. So sweet of you to check on us. A little fire in the dog house. No harm done. The girls and I are just having a little cocktail. Would you like one?”

  Angela was standing there, tray in hand, in a flowing caftan looking like a hostess from the sixties. She had piled her blond curls on top of her head, brushed on some make-up and slipped about ten strands of beads around her neck.

  Daisy and Rose looked at each other’s damp hair and soot-stained faces.

  Daisy whispered, “How does she do it? You and I look like refugees from an orphan’s pajama party.” Daisy was wearing an old red tank top and Joe Boxer sleep shorts. Rose had on a faded green nightshirt and her running shoes.

  Rose whispered back, “Had I known I was going to be running around the yard and entertaining the neighborhood, I’d have worn my best jammies.”

  Ron Tucker said, “Oh, no thank you, Miss Angela. I’ll be getting back. I need my beauty rest. Ha, ha! I’m just glad you’re okay. Good night, all.” Daisy walked him down to the front door.

  A moment later as she was coming back up the stairs, she shouted, “Peter, what a surprise!”

  Rose quickly made her way to the back staircase just as Peter Fleming walked into the living room with Daisy, trailed by Abby Wentworth now wearing a gauzy sundress.

  He was saying, “I just wanted to see if everything is all right. I heard the alarm go off.”

  Angela stepped up with her tray and said, “How nice of you. Rose will be down in a minute. Abby, you’re here too? My goodness, we’ve got quite a little party, don’t we?

  “Care for a Fire Cracker? I was saving them for the Fourth, but this night has been a bit much.”

  “Thank you, Angela. That sounds good.” She handed Peter a glass and he took a large sip. “Oh my God,” he choked.

  Angela smiled, “So glad you like it. That rum really does the trick.”

  Daisy tasted hers and croaked, “The Bacardi 151? Holy hell, Mother. How much did you put in?”

  “A goodly splash. It’s all on the top. Abby, what can I get you?”

  Abby simpered. There was no other word for the coy look she was giving Peter. “Nothing, thank you, Mrs. Forrest. I’m afraid it might be too strong for me.”

  Angela beamed at her and whispered, “Nobody likes a goody-two-shoes, dear.” She turned to Tom and said, “Yours is just orange juice. I know you’re driving.”

  Tom smiled and said, “Thanks, Angela. Mr. Fleming, what are you doing here at this time of night, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Not at all. I’ve been taking inventory at the store. I want to open by July Fourth and need to have it finished.”

  Rose walked into the room wearing a clean magenta tee shirt, white shorts and sandals. She had brushed the ashes out of her hair and swiped on a bit of lip-gloss. She looked at the group and said, “Well, isn’t this something? Peter. Abby. What are you doing here?”

  Peter started to say something, but Abby jumped in with, “The fire upset me so much. I just knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. So when I saw your lights still on, I came on over.” She tried the simpering damsel act on Tom Willis, but he ignored her. Then she turned to Peter again, but he was looking at Rose.

  They all sat down and sipped their drinks. Daisy kept yawning. No one said much. Even Angela was having trouble staying bright. She wondered out loud, “I can’t think how the igloo caught fire. Thank God the dogs were in the house tonight.”

  Percy jumped up on her lap and dozed off. Daisy looked at him enviously.

  Peter put down his almost untouched glass, looked at his watch and stood up. “I didn’t realize how late it is. I’m so glad you’re all right, but I’d better be off. We’re keeping you up.”

  Rose said, “Yes, I think it’s time for bed. And you have quite a drive, Peter.”

  “Actually, I’m camping out at the shop.”

  Abby tittered. “I can’t imagine you camping, Petey. Do you have a sleeping bag and a tent?”

  He looked at her as he would at one of his more intellectually challenged students. “No. It’s just an expression. I bought a daybed for the attic. I like working at night and it’s easier this way. Rose, I’ll see you Saturday. Good-night all. I can see myself out.”

  Abby jumped up, grabbed Peter’s arm, and said, “Wait, Petey. I’d feel safer if you could walk me home.”

  Peter looked annoyed and Daisy said, “Of course you would. Good night Peter. Make sure she gets home in one piece.”

  Finally Tom found himself sitting alone with Daisy, Rose and Angela. He opened his notebook again and said, “Okay, ladies, what is going on? You just happen to find a body. You just happen to run into a burglar. And now you just happen to have a fire in the backyard.”

  Daisy and Rose looked at each other.

  Rose said, “We don’t know what’s going on, Tom. But it wasn’t an accident. Someone started that fire on purpose.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Daisy said, “Because whoever it was made a regular little camp fire in the dog house. You can see the remnants of the charcoal they used.”

  Rose said, “And I can’t imagine why someone would do that. None of this makes sense.”

  Tom closed his notebook and stood up. “Okay. Well, it really is late, so I’ll let you get back to sleep. I’ll come by on my way home in the morning and take a look around the yard, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure. Just don’t wake me up. I think I could sleep for a week!” said Daisy. “Thanks, Tom – for keeping an eye on us.”

  Tom left. Angela, Daisy and Rose finished the Fire Crackers and trudged off to bed.

  The smell of freshly brewed coffee woke Rose about nine. She stumbled into the kitchen followed slowly by Daisy to see her mother sitting at the table enjoying coffee cake and reading the paper.

  Angela said, “I was just about to get you up. I’m so excited. We’re in the paper!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look. Here we are on the front page. The three of us.”

  She held up the front page of the Bostwick Bulletin. Under the headline, ‘Bostwick Postmistress Murdered’ and a picture of the post office was a short article about the murder. But in the column on the right was a sidebar heading, ‘Forrest Girls Find Body – Again!’ and a picture of the three of them being escorted into the police station last December. Daisy grabbed the paper, “Jeff Moody is an absolute idiot! He did this on purpose because we wouldn’t talk to him. Girls? Since when am I a girl? It’s insulting.”

  Rose was reading over her shoulder and said, “That’s what you’re mad about? Look at the picture! Read the article! He makes it sound like we know all about the murder. And that picture makes us look like we committed it!

  “If the real murderer thinks we know all about him, we could be next on his hit list. I’d like to put Jeff Moody on that list.”

  “You know, I still think he might have done it. Anyone asinine enough to call us girls could easily kill someone. Well, what do we do now?”

  Rose said, “We go to work. We’ve still got a business to run. We’ll talk to Sally tomorrow and hope something turns up.”

  Angela said, “I’m going home. I’ve got an appointment with Lolita. She’s going to read my aura and do my nails. And then, I think, a nap. This living on t
he edge is a bit tiring. Call me if you need me.”

  Chapter Nine

  “We can pick up the mail after lunch with Sally. I assume the post office will be open today. It’s driving me nuts that I haven’t been able to get into our box for two days,” said Rose as she and Daisy hiked back to their house early Friday morning from their routine walk.

  “The mail? That’s what’s driving you crazy? Rose, we’ve got murderers, arsonists and streakers on the loose and you’re worried about the mail?”

  “Yes, I am. I love the mail. It’s like opening Door Number Three. You don’t know what you’ll find - could be nothing or it could be a million dollars. It’s the thrill of the unknown. Besides, I want to get a look at the new guy and see what damage the burglar did. Did you get anywhere with Charlie Taylor?”

  Daisy sighed, “No. That phone number is to a pizza place. And a Leonard Wilkins apparently lives at that address with no phone number listed.”

  “So the whole break-in thing was pointless.”

  “Not really. We know that the blackmailer was looking for something, too.”

  Rose said, “We don’t know if that guy was the blackmailer or the murderer or just some random burglar. Or if the blackmail and the murder are connected. Or if the murderer suddenly turned to arson for a change of pace. We don’t know anything.”

  “Oh come on! All this stuff has to be connected. The thought of, what, four different bad guys running around Old Towne is nuts.”

  “Four?”

  “Don’t forget the streaker. I know he seems like comic relief, but he could be in this up to his doo-dads.”

  They had just dressed and were having a cup of tea in the sunroom when Tom Willis came by.

  “Hi. I thought I’d check on you before I went off duty. Everything okay?”

  Daisy smiled brightly. “We just saw our friendly neighborhood bobber!”

  Tom ground his teeth. “I can’t believe we can’t catch this guy. Where was he?”

  “Coming down Market toward the bike path. He saw us and ran like the wind toward the trees. He’s quite speedy.”

  “At least your mother wasn’t here. I’m afraid she’s going to try to catch him. She could get hurt.”

  Rose said, “I know she’s a little crazy, but I really think she just wants to use her new toy. She wouldn’t get close to him. Mom’s actually very sensible when it comes right down to it. And she’s taken a self-defense course for women. She showed me some of the moves – how to grab privates and gouge eyeballs.”

  Tom shook his head. “I sure hope she’ll never need to use them. I’d hate for anything to happen to her.”

  Daisy asked, “Did you find anything when you checked the yard yesterday?”

  “Nope. No drug paraphernalia. No beer cans. I think you’re right. It wasn’t kids partying. Someone set that fire on purpose and I’d like to know why.”

  “Me, too. Things were creepy enough and now we can’t even let the pets out at night.”

  Tom looked pointedly at Daisy and Rose. “Probably best if no one goes out at night. I’m going home now, but call me if anything else comes up.”

  Rose said, “We will. When are you off nights?”

  “Now. I have forty-eight hours off and then I’m back on days.”

  “Tonya will be happy about that.”

  “I will, too. Not just because I miss seeing Tonya. Too much strange stuff happens on the nightshift. I’m ready to get back to boring.”

  At a quarter to one, Daisy, Rose and Sally Henderson were sitting in a booth munching onion rings.

  Sally looked worse than the last time they had seen her. Her eyes were red and hair needed washing.

  “Sally, you’re not okay, are you?” Rose asked.

  She started crying. “No, I’m not. I shouldn’t have come. I’m not fit company right now.”

  Daisy held her hand and said, “It’s all right. We think we know what’s wrong and we want to help.”

  Sally sat up in her chair with a startled look. “You can’t know. Oh my God, this is a nightmare.”

  Rose said, “You’re being blackmailed, aren’t you?”

  She gasped, then nodded and the tears started flowing again.

  Rose said, “Sally, you’re not alone. There are other victims.”

  Sally wiped her eyes and said, “Others? You?”

  “No. But we know of at least one more person.”

  “How did you know about me?”

  Daisy said, “Really, we guessed. I mean, Rose and I know there’s a blackmailer doing business in Old Towne and you seemed so distressed.”

  “Then you don’t know why?”

  “No. And we don’t need to know.”

  Sally put her head in her hands and sighed, “I might as well tell you. It’s bound to come out now. If I had just never tried to hide it, I’d probably be fine. But the whole thing snowballed and now I seem to be in this mess and I can’t get out.”

  She took a deep breath, blew her nose and took a sip of her iced tea.

  “When I was eighteen I was doing a semester at the University of Edinburgh. It was my first time away from home. I’d been a pretty wild teenager and I think my parents were hoping getting away would calm me down.

  “But of course, it didn’t. It was pretty intoxicating being completely on my own and I made some bad friends. I ended up getting arrested for possession of a small amount of marijuana and sentenced to a year in a Scottish jail.”

  Daisy said, “Wow!” and tried not to look as astonished as she felt.

  “Wow is right. Well, that did it for me. I was so ashamed and embarrassed. I grew up really quickly, behaved myself in jail and was let out after six months. I came home, moved back to my parents’ house, cleaned up my act and started a new life. When I applied for my small business loan, I lied and said I’d never been arrested. I guess no one checked back that far and I got the loan.”

  She sighed and looked out the window wistfully. Finally she said, “About five years ago I got a crank letter in the mail asking for twenty-five dollars. I just threw it out. I figured it was just one of those letters like the ones you get all the time in your email.

  “But the next week another letter came. Same printing. This one said ‘I know about Scotland. Leave $25 in a brown paper bag in the grey trash bin at the farmers market on Saturday morning’. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to pay it, but I was afraid. I wasn’t sure how much trouble I’d be in if the SBA found out I had lied. Not to mention how embarrassing the whole story would be. My fiancée doesn’t know anything about it. My father doesn’t even know!”

  “What happened next?”

  “Well, the letters kept coming every couple of months. But they never asked for much – twenty-five, fifty dollars.

  “Then about two years ago the letters changed. They were typed, and they were nastier and were asking for a lot more money. I mean, they wanted five hundred or a thousand dollars at a time. And I had to mail it to this address in Vienna. I’ve been paying, but I can’t keep it up. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” She looked at Daisy and Rose and said, “If he’s not going after you, how did you find out about the blackmail?”

  “We got an envelope of money in the mail by mistake. It seems this blackmailer is right here in Old Towne.”

  “Here? How do you know? I thought he must have moved since I had to mail the money now.”

  “Because the envelope we got was forwarded from Vienna,” said Daisy. “You know how Peggy was really doing a number with the mail. Everybody was getting the wrong stuff and we ended up with an envelope full of money.”

  “And Peggy ended up dead!” said Sally. “Do you think she was the blackmailer?”

  Daisy considered for a moment. “No. She wouldn’t have put that envelope in our box.”

  “What do you think I should I do now? I’m sitting on pins and needles waiting for the next letter.”

  Rose said, “Let’s see what Daisy and I can find out. In the meant
ime, you shouldn’t send another cent to this guy. Tell the whole story to a lawyer. And your family.”

  “You’re right. I should have done that in the first place. I know this sounds strange, but I’m glad you know. It’s been so hard hiding it all.”

  They swung by the post office on the way home and got the mail out of their box. The place looked the same as always. But instead of an old lady reading a smutty romance behind the counter, an old man sat reading You and Your Prostate.

  He smiled. “Hi. I’m Don Frazier. I’m sitting in until the powers-that-be decide who’ll get this job permanently.”

  “I’m Rose Forrest and this is my sister, Daisy.”

  “You’re the ladies who found her, aren’t you?”

  “We are, unfortunately.” Rose was looking around the office. “Everything seems back to normal. You’ve been busy.”

  “It wasn’t too bad. Had cleaners in yesterday. Then we had the alarm hooked up and fixed the security camera. Someone had disconnected it. Not to speak ill of the dead, but it seems like the lady who was killed wasn’t too particular about things.”

  “She was getting old.”

  “I hear she was always a little off and pretty nasty to boot.”

  “She did have her moments. So you won’t be here long?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m due to retire in September. I was working in Greenbelt breaking in my replacement. But when that lady got herself killed, they figured I’d be of more use here.”

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you. We’ve got to get going, but we’ll probably be seeing you a lot.”

  As they were walking home, Daisy said, “He didn’t seem too bothered about the murder and the break-in. I don’t think I’d want to work there right now.”

  “Me neither. He also seemed like he might be a world-class gossip. That could be helpful. Well, what do we do next? I wish we could talk to Bill.

  Daisy thought a minute. “I’ve got it! We could tell him that you were being blackmailed. We could make up something really sordid like an affair with a drug kingpin named Bubba Macintosh.”

  Rose said, “Bubba Macintosh? Really? He’d never believe that. No, we’ll have to hold off until Mattie or Sally wants to go public.”