Roots of Murder

by Janis Harrison

  A piece of paper was near Hodges’s hand. I inhaled deeply of my scent and leaned over. The letterhead read: Barker Brothers, Inc., Marketville, Ohio. The contents of Hodges’s stomach had blurred parts of the wording, but the gist of the letter was that Barker Brothers would be very much interested in Mr. Hodges’s mutation. He was urged to contact them again when he had several blooming specimens.

  I quickly reread it, trying to commit the words to memory. I was almost finished when I heard a moan from the back of the trailer.

  I’d forgotten Bubbles.

  “Bubbles?” I called. Another moan.

  I hurried out of the kitchen and was almost through the living room when I saw the empty cage. It was five feet long and made of Plexiglas. The screened top was hinged. The floor of the cage was covered with a scrap of carpet.

  Was this Arnie’s home? I looked around uneasily. Did Leray have other snakes?

  “Help … me.”

  I turned from the cage and walked cautiously down the hall to a room with a decor that was a fat woman’s worst nightmare. Even this former fat woman cringed.

  Mirrors—hundreds of silver-backed pieces of glass that never hid the truth. The walls and the ceiling were covered with reflective tiles. It was a slipshod job. The mirrors ran uphill in places. Some didn’t match; others were chipped or cracked.

  An elaborate chandelier hung from the low ceiling. The dozens of lighted bulbs seemed to make the room vibrate as the mirrors picked up the illumination and tossed them back into my eyes. Black velvet drapes covered the windows. The water bed was a tangle of twisted emerald satin sheets and a leopard skin spread.

  Bubbles was sprawled on the floor. She was dressed in a black negligee shot with gold threads. She looked like a bumblebee that had been swatted. I knelt at her side. Her eyes were open, her skin gray.

  I quickly assured her that she was going to be fine, and that I would go for help.

  In a hoarse voice, she said, “Water.” When I hesitated, she pleaded, “Please.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do, but I stepped across the hall into the bathroom. Dried vomit ringed the toilet and had splattered the walls like colorful confetti. I did the number again with my nose under the neck of my blouse. It was the only way I could stand the odor.

  I ran an inch of water into a glass I found on the sink. In the bedroom, I carefully raised her head. She drank some, dribbled most of it. When the water ran down her bare skin, she shivered. I covered her with the leopard spread, then got a washcloth from a stack on the toilet tank. I ran cold water on it, squeezed out the excess. When I applied it to her forehead, she stirred weakly.

  “I’ll go phone for an ambulance,” I said.

  “No!” She made a grab at my arm, but her fingers didn’t have any strength. “Stay. Scared. Arnie loose.”

  “The snake?”

  “Hates me.” She swallowed awkwardly, then went limp. I thought she was dead. I felt for a pulse and found a weak beat. I wanted to tell her Arnie was the least of her worries, but she was unconscious.

  In my car, I wasted precious seconds trying to decide where to go to call. Not the library. Not the café with all the gossipy coffee drinkers. I finally settled on the funeral home. It wasn’t far. I headed for it.

  A few minutes later, I pulled up in front of the chapel. I jumped out and ran up the front walk. An old woman in the yard next door stopped what she was doing to give me a strange stare. I guess she’d never seen anyone go eagerly through these doors.

  One car was parked in front. On the side drive, the black hearse sat like a giant vulture waiting for its next victim. I assumed it was there for a funeral, but that it was too early for the service.

  I jerked open the front door, hurried down the hall, and surprised Margaret in her office. She took one look at my face and whispered, “I have a family here. What’s wrong?”

  “I need a phone.”

  She nodded to her desk. I didn’t offer explanations. I dialed 911 and stated what I’d found at’ Hodges’s trailer. A man dead. A woman unconscious.

  There were questions, but I had few answers. After I’d said, “I don’t know,” several times, I ended the conversation with “I’ll wait at the trailer,” and hung up.

  “What are you doing in Woodgrove, anyway?” Margaret asked.

  “I had a few loose ends to tie up.”

  “Loose ends? Was finding Hodges’s body one of them?”

  “No.” I chuckled weakly. “That was an added bonus.”

  Margaret pursed her lips. “It seems to me—”

  “Not now,” I said, brushing past her. I wasn’t in the mood for any more of her pop psychology. “I have to go back to the trailer. When I left, Bubbles was alive.”

  Margaret followed me to the door. “Bubbles?”

  “Melvinna from the café. We called her Bubbles in high school. Hodges fixed a regular feast. It turned out to be his last supper.”

  A man and a woman stood in the corridor outside the slumber room where Myrtle Rankin rested peacefully. The woman was wiping her red-rimmed eyes. The man’s arm was draped around her waist.

  Margaret turned her attention to them with a sympathetic smile. As I hurried away, I heard her say, “Memories of your mother will sustain you in the difficult times ahead. Take comfort that she is with our Lord.”

  As I got back in my car, a speck of something clogged the wheels of my brain. I hesitated, tried to get the machinery in motion again. Whatever it was, it was gone. And so was I.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I’d told Lois I’d be back to the flower shop by noon, and I almost made it. It was just after one before I pulled into the alley. My throat was dry from talking, my brain scrambled from a multitude of questions fired at me.

  Hodges had been taken to the River City morgue. Bubbles was in River City Memorial Hospital, her chances for recovery good. Sid had raised Cain with everyone. Surprisingly, I’d come through the inferno of his blistering attack merely singed around the edges.

  I climbed from the car but only made it as far as the loading dock before my knees began to wobble. I sat down and leaned my head against a wooden post. I gave serious thought to butting it a couple of times. Maybe I could knock some sense into it. My head, not the post, though at this point, one was about as thick as the other.

  I wanted to tell Sid about Isaac’s plants, but the sheriff hadn’t been in the mood to listen to any of my what-ifs.

  What if … Isaac had been propagating a mutation?

  What if … the plant was worth a bundle of money?

  What if … a car had been parked behind Sam’s property?

  What if … those boys had swerved to miss it?

  What if … I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about?

  Sid thought Hodges had been murdered and was ready to conduct the investigation in that direction. The county coroner, Walter Porter, thought otherwise. On the surface, it looked to him as if Leray Hodges had died by misadventure and damned fool ignorance.

  Walt, an old country boy, had taken one look at the peelings and dried leaves in the sink and declared the “parsnips” Hodges had cooked hadn’t been parsnips at all. The coroner surmised that Hodges had eaten water hemlock, a plant that grows wild along Missouri ditches and waterways. Its white roots resemble parsnips, even taste like them, but they’re deadly when ingested.

  The coroner felt that Hodges had simply made a mistake. That’s when Sid had gone ballistic. He roared at his men to look long and hard for proof that this was foul play. His men, under the gun, so to speak, had torn the trailer apart. A young deputy had found a wadded-up sack in the trash. To his credit, he’d opened the bag and found a typewritten note inside. I’d gotten a brief glimpse of it before it was tucked away as evidence. It read:

  Here’s the parsnips from my garden. Enjoy.

  No name was signed. Sid had jumped on that note like a duck on a June bug.

  Two deaths: Isaac and Hodges. It wasn’t any w
onder Sid had lashed out at everyone. Five murders if you counted those boys. I hadn’t dared voice that theory.

  The killer had knowledge of water hemlock. Knowledge of Sam’s place. Knowledge of Hodges’s snake. Knowledge that I was asking questions. Knowledge of the surrounding countryside.

  In my ear, I heard Carl’s voice. “Obvious, old girl.”

  But I still didn’t see it.

  The door creaked open behind me. I looked around and saw Lois hesitate on the threshold. Her shapely eyebrows arched inquiringly.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Saw you pull in. Kept waiting for you to come inside. When you didn’t, I thought I’d better check on you.”

  I stood up and flipped the dust off the back of my skirt. “I’m okay.” I grimaced. “Or as okay as anyone can be who’s discovered a body.”

  Her jaw went slack, then she declared, “You’ve got to get a new hobby, woman. If you want bodies, try a live one.”

  Smiling, I followed her into the back room. A shipment of fresh flowers had arrived. She’d been cutting the stems and putting them in water. I grabbed a pair of nippers and picked up a bundle of carnations.

  “Been busy?” I asked, stripping away the foliage that would be below the waterline in the bucket.

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  We worked in silence. Suddenly, Lois gave a disgusted snort. “Well,” she demanded, “are you going to tell me whose body?”

  “Leray Hodges.”

  She squinted. “Rings a bell, but I can’t place it.”

  “The guy who trucked Isaac’s flowers to Moth.”

  “Hmm,” she murmured. “Plot thickens.”

  “Like a bowl of week-old gravy.”

  “So. Tell me.”

  It was an invitation I could’ve ignored, but with Lois I didn’t have to hedge. While we cut flowers, I laid it all out and added my two cents worth of deciphering the facts. I’d gotten to the part about mutations when the delivery van backed into its customary spot at the loading dock.

  “Damn,” Lois said. “It’s Lew.”

  “Don’t say anything,” I whispered as the door opened and Lew Mouffit sauntered into the room.

  Lew’s a charmer to the customers, but a royal pain to the rest of us. At thirty-eight, he has a fringe of black hair around his shiny bald head. He’s never been married, lives with his mother, and he knows something about everything. His main goal in life is to educate us lesser beings.

  There are times when I’d like to replace him, but Lew knows this town and its people. He’s meticulous in handling the bouquets. The real plus comes when we’re busy. He can tie a florist bow swiftly and expertly.

  “Hi, boss,” he said. “Glad to see you back. Morning deliveries are done.” He leaned against the door and watched us work. His eyes followed my movements.

  I knew that look. He was about to offer advice.

  “You women are a strange breed,” he said.

  I glanced at Lois, who crossed her eyes. I hid a smile and played along. “How’s that?” I asked.

  “You go at everything back assward.” He pointed to the box of flowers. “You keep reaching around each other to get another bunch of flowers. Wasted motion. Then you walk to the sink and fill one bucket. Again, wasted motion. You need to be more efficient. Fill several buckets. Put the flowers within easy reach of you both.”

  “Why don’t you fill the buckets for us?” suggested Lois. “Then we’ll get done even more efficiently.”

  He shrugged and went to the sink. When he’d turned the water on, Lois said, “He’s the most irritating man. He knows the easiest, the best way to do anything. I bet he even knows how to pass gas more proficiently.”

  I shook my head at her, then turned and thanked Lew for the bucket. I plunged liatris, snapdragons, and delphiniums into the warm water.

  “Should you put all those flowers in the same …” began Lew, but seeing the gleam in my eye, he stopped, cleared his throat and jovially stated, “Well … so … you’re back from Amish country?”

  Obviously. I bowed my head over the flowers and said, “Woodgrove isn’t exactly—”

  He interrupted to pontificate. “Take the Amish—”

  “Buggy or car,” murmured Lois.

  Lew ignored her and continued, “a unique sector of our society. People think of them as freeloaders, but the Amish pay taxes and don’t take Social Security or a welfare check. They’re a gigantic family who look after each other.”

  We didn’t comment. Lack of audience participation didn’t stop Lew. It usually made him try harder.

  “Bundling has gone out of style. Too bad. I thought it a very useful custom.” He caught our blank stares. In a condescending tone, he explained, “With the consent of the parents, a courting couple would go to bed to get to know each other better.”

  Sex. A topic to delight two lascivious women. Lew had us, and he knew it. He elaborated. “A folded quilt would be laid between the couples. No serious hanky-panky. Just a bit of touchy-feely and conversation across the bundle. Hence the term, ‘bundling.’”

  “A different form of birth control,” I said.

  Lois mused, “I wonder if a folded quilt in the back of a fifty-seven Chevy would have made a difference in my life?”

  “Very funny,” said Lew. “I suppose you find shunning to be a real kick?”

  Lois answered with a retort. I was busy trying to figure out her age. A fifty-seven Chevy. Chad, her oldest son, was … Then Lew’s words registered through my calculations.

  I interrupted him to ask, “Shunning or stunning?”

  He gave me a haughty stare. “I said shunning.”

  Edna had told me she thought the person arguing with Isaac had said “stunning,” but what if she’d misunderstood? What if it were “shunning”?

  Lew was saying, “ … shunning should have gone by the wayside with bundling. At least with bundling, no one is hurt.”

  Lois said, “You make it sound evil.”

  Before Lew could speak, I said, “From what I understand, it can be. Shunning is a form of punishment the Amish practice when a member of their group doesn’t conform to the rules of the district. The offender is ostracized by his own people.”

  “And they still do that?” asked Lois.

  Lew, not to be outdone, said, “I’m sure they do. It’s a very horrifying fate to be shunned by your family and friends. Imagine what it would be like to be ignored day in and day out by the people you hold most dear. The long-range effects are psychologically inconceivable.”

  The serious lecture tone disappeared from Lew’s voice. “Well,” he said, “I had too many deliveries to take a lunch break. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  He left. Lois went up front to wait on a customer. I was rooted to the spot. I must have looked odd—my elbows askew, the nippers in one hand, a bunch of stargazer lilies in the other.

  Mentally, I gave myself a boot in the butt. Why hadn’t I caught the similarity in the words?

  Stunning. Shunning.

  Thoughtfully, I mouthed the words. I tried them aloud. Had Isaac been threatened with shunning? Only’ an Amish person would use that as an inducement to stop growing the flowers.

  Bishop Detweiler?

  Evan?

  Cleome?

  Or, what if … it was Rosalie?

  Slowly, I put the flowers in water and laid the clippers aside. No. Was it possible? Was this the obvious?

  I didn’t want this to be the answer. Who had the most to lose, outside of Isaac, if he were shunned? His wife. His family. Their entire way of life would be blown to pieces.

  “Bretta?” called Lois. “Dan Parker is on the phone. He wants to know if you have a plant order for him.”

  Reluctantly, I switched gears. “Have you made a list?”

  “Yeah. I knew he’d be calling today.”

  I took her light reprimand without comment. I had it coming. “Go ahead,” I directed. “Give him your order.”

  Dan P
arker—owner of a large commercial greenhouse on the outskirts of town. Grows huge numbers of wholesale potted plants. Good friend. Grows chrysanthemums.

  “Wait!” I shouted. I needed information. Dan Parker was a professional grower. “I want to talk to him.”

  Frowning, Lois plunked the receiver on the table. “The list is by the phone,” she said. “I’ll finish the flowers.”

  “No, stay. I want you to hear this.” I called him.

  “Dan,” I said, “Bretta here. Lois will give you the plant order. But first, I want to ask you something.”

  “Shoot,” he said.

  “It’s about plant mutations.”

  “Oh?”

  “Do you know what I mean?” I asked, then had to hold the phone away from my ear as he let me know what a dumb question that had been. “Okay, okay.” I sighed. “So you know about mutations. What would you do if you found one?”

  “I’d develop it. Take cuttings. Watch it. Chart its growth.”

  Isaac had been following all those steps. “What next?”

  “What kind of plant is it?”

  I wanted information, I didn’t want to give it. “Does that matter?”

  His sigh of exasperation whistled in my ear. “Yes, Bretta. It matters.”

  Reluctantly, I said, “A chrysanthemum.”

  “Then I’d call my Barker representative.”

  I made a grab for the worktable to steady myself. “Barker?” The name was difficult to say around the lump of excitement that swelled in my throat.

  “That’s right. That company’s one of the biggest mum developers in the United States.”

  “Could I call your man myself?”

  “I guess so.” I heard papers rustle. “Here’s his number.” He rattled it off. I wrote it down. “Call him after eight in the evening,” advised Dan. “That’s your best bet in reaching him.”

  “How much would a mutation be worth?”

  “Depends on how unusual. How true the strain is.”

  This was getting into a sticky area. But if I didn’t ask the question, I wouldn’t know if I was on to something. “What if it’s red?” I inquired softly.

  “Red as in burgundy?”