Dougal leaned back and stretched his lanky legs farther out on the chair. He was still smoking and looking unusually relaxed for an agoraphobic whose Titan Arum was about to embark on sexual maturity with no nubile mate in sight. Although he was a foot taller and had at least sixty pounds on me, I sometimes felt like Dougal’s mother. Not that I had any experience as a parent.
“What’s a Sif? I know Thor was some mythical god, but …”
“Thor is a Germanic god of war, and Sif is his wife. At the time, Glory and I thought it was romantic. Are there any other questions before I continue?”
“I guess not.” Although, considering what happened between Glory and Dougal, naming the plants after a war god and his wife had turned out to be more prophetic than romantic.
“Right. Since you clean Glory’s house, you have an excellent opportunity to find out if her Titan is ready to bloom. If it isn’t, well, no harm done, and no point even mentioning it to her.”
“Dougal, I clean Glory’s house on Wednesday mornings. This is only Saturday. I can’t go over there uninvited. We aren’t exactly social equals anymore.”
“You can’t wait until Wednesday — Thor might bloom before then! And Sif could be even farther along in development, or behind. I need to know so I can plan. You’ll have to find some excuse to go over there.”
“But I’ve never seen anything like your Titan in Glory’s house. You can’t miss something that resembles a gigantic …”
“Look in the greenhouse at the back of the house. That’s where we used to keep the pair.”
“Glory never leaves me alone in her house. I’ve never been in the backyard, not even when you two were married.”
“Damnations, Bliss! I’m trying to pay you a thousand dollars. Can’t you show a little initiative?”
I was about to tell him where he could stick my initiative. Then I stopped and sniffed. My olfactory sense was second to no one’s, at times to a fault. “Something smells funny in here. How old are those cigarettes?”
“Are you going to do it or not? Remember your Indict the Weasel Fund.”
As of today, an emergency root canal would wipe out the Fund. “Okay, I’ll try. I guess.”
“Your enthusiasm is inspirational. No time like the present, so go now, my little minion.”
“I can’t. Tonight’s the only night I have free to do my laundry. And don’t call me a minion.”
“You can use my washer and dryer later tonight, after you see Glory.”
“I’m really tired. I’ve been working at the cemetery all day.”
“Then go tomorrow, but that’s leaving it a little late.”
“Can’t. I have a real estate client tomorrow. I’m showing the Barrister house in the afternoon. And you can’t expect me to visit Glory on Sunday morning.”
Before he could say anything, I continued, “And I’ll be working at the library Monday and Tuesday, and teaching yoga Tuesday night, so I really can’t get to Glory’s until Wednesday morning.”
“Wednesday might be too late. If you want the money, you’ll have to get over there right away.”
I stopped listening. Something had been niggling at the back of my mind for the past half-hour. The straggly plants in the solarium, the smelly cigarettes without filters …
I pictured the fern-like plants in their plastic pots, the separate little branches and the clusters of buds …
“Damn it, Dougal!” I shoved his legs off the chair and kicked him on the ankle, hard. “You’re growing marijuana!”
Chapter
THREE
An hour later, I felt my way through the woods that surrounded three sides of Glory’s property. It was silent as a cathedral except for the burbling sound of a small stream. I slapped at the black flies swarming my head and wondered, not for the first time, why the hell I just didn’t give up hope of suing the Weasel for my half of our marital property. I could live with my sister in Toronto and work on my master’s degree in library science. Blyth even had a job waiting for me as a co-op student at one of the University of Toronto libraries, where she was head librarian. And I wouldn’t be crawling around in a bug-infested forest, trying to find a greenhouse. In my opinion, raw nature is greatly overrated.
“Mike will never surrender a dime,” Blyth repeatedly told me. “How are you going to beat him on his own turf — the courtroom?” I didn’t know how, but I wasn’t going to give up everything I helped acquire during the eight years of our marriage.
I finally resorted to inching along on hands and knees. My ex-cousin-in-law, Glory Yates, owned the most expensive real estate on Arlington Mews, a neighbourhood where Donald Trump would feel at home. The pine trees that separated her from her neighbours grew so densely, I soon lost all sense of direction and staggered from tree to tree as the black flies insinuated themselves under my hairline and up my sleeves.
It was ink-black in the woods, and a menacing shadow lurked behind every tree. This was no place for an established coward with a vivid imagination. I chastised myself for not bringing the flashlight from the saddlebag of my bike. It would have been prudent to wait until morning, but Prudence was not my middle name and, once I decided to take the job, I wanted to get it over with. Any conversation with Glory that didn’t involve the state of her toilets or the alleged cobweb in the corner of her ten-foot parlour ceiling was bound to be uncomfortable. Before I rang her doorbell on a day other than a Wednesday, I needed solid evidence she was harbouring a fecund Titan Arum.
I found the greenhouse only because it was lit up like a centenarian’s birthday cake. I followed a faint glow that grew brighter until I glimpsed steel beams and glass walls blending seamlessly into the forest.
Even before I peeked through the glass, I felt confident I would find a Titan Arum. Although Glory was undeniably rich, she didn’t spend a penny more than she had to unless it was on her hair or body. She paid me minimum wage and hadn’t given me so much as a box of cheap chocolates for Christmas. Even though, during my former life, we had played tennis together for years at the Lockport Country Club.
So there had to be a good reason why the greenhouse was artificially lighted after the sun went down. I crawled up to the wall and raised myself high enough to peer into the interior.
My mouth fell open. After spitting out either an oversized black fly or an early mosquito, I closed it again and pressed my nose against the glass to get a closer look.
Then I plunked back down on the damp, spongy ground and muttered out loud, “Jee-suz.” I batted at the insects and stood up for another look. Still there.
Glory was making no pretence of growing orchids or geraniums or any other normal plant in her greenhouse, which was at least twice as big as Dougal’s solarium.
Oh, there was a Titan Arum in there. It sat in the far corner of the greenhouse in a pot identical to Dougal’s. The spike reached up, way up. The spathe-thing was barely visible over the rim of the pot and appeared to be at about the same stage of development as Thor.
But, it was the rest of Glory’s crop that drew my attention. Weed, pot, Mary Jane, grass. She had twenty or thirty pots of them, far more than Dougal. I almost felt ashamed of myself for yelling at him about his paltry dozen.
While moisture from the soft earth soaked the seat of my overalls, I replayed my heated discussion with Dougal before I left his house.
“Many people, including you obviously, don’t know that it’s legal to grow marijuana in Canada for personal medical reasons,” he told me.
“Dougal, the government has a list of people who are allowed to buy or grow marijuana for specific illnesses, and I don’t think agoraphobia is one of them. You can’t grow your own unless you’re registered, you idiot.”
“Well, let me put it this way, you little freak. The cops aren’t going to come knocking on my door looking for pot. And, since I find it’s the only drug that helps me, I sure the hell am going to keep using it, so mind your own business.”
“I wonder how an agoraphobi
c like you will fare in a nine by nine prison cell. I can just see the police dragging you out of your house, screaming and clinging to the door frame with your fingernails. But you aren’t bad looking, so I’m sure you’ll find comfort in the arms of a burly Hells Angel. You can be his new bitch.”
The conversation went south at that point. Neither of us changed our stance on the subject of home-grown weed, so I had grabbed my lasagna from his fridge and marched out the door. After stowing tomorrow’s dinner in my saddlebag, I drove the block and a half to Glory’s property and tucked the bike under a towering maple, well away from the streetlights that were blinking on and casting long shadows onto the street.
Now, deep in the bush, the only light came from Glory’s grow house. In places, the pines grew tight against the glass, and I was betting the artificial lighting shone during daylight hours as well as the night, so the sun-hungry pot plants could get the energy they needed to mature. I hoped that pilots wouldn’t mistake this shining beacon for the small airport west of town. I hugged the walls, forehead to the glass, until the concrete planter was directly in front of me.
Up close, the Titan Arum appeared to be slightly taller than Dougal’s, seven feet perhaps. The spathe was beginning to unfurl and the faintest blush of pink showed on the inside.
A pinecone bounced off my head and rolled across my shoulder as I leaned against the greenhouse wall. I took a minute to reflect. My cell was in the saddlebag of my bike with the flashlight, so I couldn’t call Dougal and describe Glory’s Titan. Should I go back to his place and tell him what I found, or should I try and broker a deal with Glory right now? She hated Dougal, so there needed to be something in the deal for her. With a last glance into the greenhouse, I followed the flagstone path along the side of Glory’s Tudor mansion and ended up at a locked gate. I shinnied over it and climbed the stone steps to the front door.
Glory answered the ring, a glass of white wine in one hand and an exquisitely waxed eyebrow arched in surprise.
“Why, Bliss.” Her sea-blue eyes widened and she shook her mane of red waves in sudden understanding. “I forgot to pay you on Wednesday, didn’t I? Well, wait right here and I’ll get your money. I’m so sorry.”
“You paid me, Glory.”
“Well, then … I don’t understand. It’s Saturday evening.” She gazed down at me as though she suddenly found the Easter Bunny on her doorstep on Christmas Eve.
“I’m here to discuss business. Botanical business.”
“Botanical? Business? You’re acting very strangely, Bliss, but come in if you must.”
She drifted through the foyer toward her living room of gleaming oak floors and artfully placed furnishings, with me following behind like a stray cat.
She draped herself over a cream leather couch and took a sip of wine. I plopped myself down, uninvited, on a matching loveseat facing her and watched her wince when I planted my soiled runners on her Persian area rug. I remembered my wet, muddy butt and hoped I wouldn’t leave a stain on the leather.
“What have you been doing, Bliss? You look more like a hobo than usual.”
“Well, let’s see. I spent the day tending graves at the cemetery. You do know I work as a groundskeeper in the cemetery on Saturdays, don’t you?”
She answered with a slight wrinkling of her nose.
“Then I went to Dougal’s, where I ate supper and he offered me a very interesting proposition. Want to hear what it is?”
At the mention of Dougal’s name, Glory’s face underwent a transformation, like from a human to a werewolf. I suddenly saw, not the socialite who spent her days playing tennis and lunching with her peers, but a primal creature with claws and teeth. And I distinctly saw the whites of her eyes turn red. What had Dougal done to warrant this reaction from his former wife? Nobody seemed to know, but it must have been nasty.
Her fingers squeezed the stem of her glass so tightly I expected it to shatter and splash wine over her turquoise silk trousers, but it remained intact.
“I think you know, Bliss, that I have no interest in anything relating to that worm, Dougal Seabrook. And I wish you would tell me why you are here.”
“Yes, well, I don’t disagree that Dougal can be a serious pain, but since I was married to a weasel, I think I have the edge on bad marriages. At least Dougal didn’t leave you flat broke and living in a trailer in Hemp Hollow.”
“I had my own money, don’t forget, and that bastard couldn’t get his hands on it, not that he was brainless enough to try. Spit it out, Bliss.”
“Okay, then. Dougal’s Titan Arum is about to blossom, and he thinks yours might be at the same stage. For some reason, he’s keen on pollinating his Titan and getting the seeds or whatever happens when two plants mix up their pollen.” I still wasn’t sure about the mechanics of the whole scheme but, since Glory had the same plant biology degree as Dougal from the University of Waterloo, I figured she would get the idea.
“What makes you think I have a Titan Arum?” Glory got up and poured herself another glass of white wine. She didn’t offer me any and I licked my parched lips.
With a sniff, Glory gazed at a twig sticking out from the top of my tee-shirt. Pinky in the air, I pulled it out and placed it carefully on the teak coffee table. Most of my hair had exploded from its ponytail and, given that it had been over a year since I’d seen the inside of a salon, I knew I looked like I had just stepped away from a weed whacker.
“I picked up some brush crawling through your mini-forest. Before disturbing you, I wanted to see if you had a Titan Arum in your greenhouse and, hey, what do you think? You do. So how about it? Would you like to trade pollen with Dougal’s Titan?”
Glory shook her glass, but it was empty again. She slammed it down on the coffee table and again it didn’t break. Had to be Waterford.
“I hardly know what to say to you, Bliss. You admit you have been sneaking around like a spy? And now you want me to do something that will make Dougal happy?”
“You could say that.”
“I can’t believe it! I should fire your ass right now. I don’t accept disloyalty from my employees.” I wondered how many glasses of expensive Chardonnay had passed those glossy lips before I arrived. I really itched to slap her Lancômed face.
“Go right ahead. I have a waiting list of women who would die for me to clean their houses on Wednesday mornings.” We both knew I was right. I could clean two houses a day, five days a week, and not make a dent in the list.
“Well, I just think it’s rude, that’s all.” Glory wasn’t going to pursue my ass, as in firing of.
“Look, Glory, I don’t know anything about these enormous ugly plants, but if they’re as rare as Dougal says, wouldn’t you like to get some seedlings or saplings from the mother plant you’ve had for so many years?”
“Tubers,” she said absently, tapping her long pink fingernails against the empty glass. “They’re called tubers, or corms, once the seeds have matured enough to start growing the plants. And I wouldn’t mind having a few new specimens of Amorphophallus titanum in my greenhouse, but I don’t see why I should do Dougal any favours.”
“Okay, so he’s a jerk, but if both plants are pollinated, you’ll both benefit. Think about it, lots of little tubers, enough to go around.”
She sat silently for so long I thought she had nodded off into a drunken coma with her eyes open. I was ready to get up and pour her another glass of wine to revive her when she glared at me and said, “No, I’m sorry Bliss, you can tell Dougal I’m not interested in his proposition.”
“Are you sure?”
“What’s the matter with you? Are you deaf or something? I said no deal.”
“I know you don’t respect me, Glory, because the Weasel dumped me for a politically connected woman five years older, and I ended up with barely more than the clothes on my back. But don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m stupid.”
“Well, you should have seen it coming and raided the bank account.”
We w
ere off topic. And she was pissing me off.
“Here’s the thing, Glory. I’m smart enough to know what marijuana looks like. If you co-operate and let me do the cross-pollination, I won’t tell anybody about the grass growing in your greenhouse, setting a very bad example for Sif.”
Glory’s reaction to blackmail was spectacular. I backed away to a safe distance, wishing my old BlackBerry had a camera feature to capture the Kodak moments as they unfolded.
Chapter
FOUR
Dougal’s face was bloodless. “I can’t go over there! That woman knows I can’t go outside. Why does she want to talk in person anyway? I’m paying you to handle it, so go handle it.”
He kept shaking his head and backing away like I was threatening to drag him bodily over to Glory’s. Although it might come to that.
“I don’t know why, but she wouldn’t budge on that point. You have to go there tomorrow evening at eight o’clock, or no deal.”
Watching Glory throw a tantrum was the most fun I’d had all day. It was the first time I had witnessed someone drumming her heels on the floor while tearing at her hair and shrieking she was going to kill herself. After killing me, Dougal, and, I believe, the Pope for good measure.
Her screams brought Pan on the run, white coattails flapping. Pan was her butler, houseboy, and all-season gofer. Only a few inches over five feet and almost as slight as me, Pan coddled Glory like the goddess she believed she was, pouring and serving and fetching, and God knows what else. He didn’t clean though.
Pan gave me a hard look as though he blamed me for the tantrum. I never could figure out how old he was, maybe thirty, or sixty? Splitting the difference, I thought of him as mid-forties. His black hair was brushed back from his face and secured in place with gel. His agate-hard eyes looked like they had seen it all, which was possible working for Glory. But unless he was a martial arts expert, I believed I could take him in a down-and-dirty.
Corpse Flower: A Cornwall and Redfern Mystery Page 2
