Daisies For Innocence

by Bailey Cattrell

  “Oh. Right.” I reeled off my address. “It’s Scents and Nonsense, at the end of Corona.”

  The typing stopped. “Ellie? Is that you?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “It’s Nan Walton.”

  I pictured the big-boned woman who always ordered the prime rib when she came into the Roux Grill. She knew the bartenders there quite well. “Nan, it’s Josie Overland out front.”

  “Holy . . . okay, help is on the way,” she said, typing again at a furious pace.

  That was all I needed to know. I ended the call, grabbed my keys and phone, and ran back to Josie. Checked her pulse again, in case I’d missed something the first time.

  Please let me be wrong.

  But I wasn’t. If anything, her skin felt even colder. Looking up, I saw how hard it would be for anyone on the street to see her. I swallowed down the lump forming in my throat.

  I propped the gate all the way open with a rock and hurried to the back door of the shop. Unlocking the slider, Dash and I went through to the boardwalk and walked a few doors down to watch for the ambulance. Most shops wouldn’t open until nine or ten, but old Mr. Freti was sweeping in front of the hardware store down the street. A few people turned their heads as they drove by, and as I leaned against a vertical support for the covered boardwalk, a jogger pounded by me. He gave me a friendly nod, then did a double take before veering around the corner. At first, I thought he’d seen Josie tucked into the shadows, but, glancing down, I saw my feet were not only bare but now quite dirty. Also, I still wore my purple cotton pajamas.

  Which were covered with pink dancing poodles. I’d bought them on clearance in the girl’s department at Target.

  Great.

  The time on the huge round clock mounted above the library down the street showed eight thirty-eight. I had certainly slept longer than usual. My mind raced as I watched the minute hand tick by one, two, three minutes.

  How long had Josie been there? Had she come straight from work? Her shift would have ended around midnight. Had she been trying to get help?

  What had happened to her?

  Then I saw the lime green Ford Fiesta parked down the street in front of the Raven Creek Park. Josie’s car. She’d driven here. In the middle of the night? This morning? Why? Poppyville rolled up its sidewalks early. The Roux Grill and Sapphire Supper Club kept the latest hours, and both closed at midnight on weeknights.

  Flashing lights colored the other end of Corona Street, moving toward me with a roar of engines but no sirens. I hurried closer to where I’d found the body.

  A police cruiser pulled into the disabled parking spot in front of the shop, and a uniformed woman I vaguely recognized emerged. “Did you report an emergency?”

  “I did. She’s over there.” I waved toward the gate.

  In seconds there seemed to be people everywhere; police and firemen and medical personnel and others whose roles I couldn’t begin to guess. Two men immediately ran to Josie, and one reached for her neck, just as I had. He looked at his partner and shook his head.

  Then I saw a few drops of blood on the ground beneath her.

  “Excuse me,” a man in a jumpsuit said as he brushed by me and went into the back garden.

  “Come on, Dash.”

  We went back through the shop to the garden in order to stay out of everyone’s way—and to keep an eye on things. I moved to the north fence and fingered the silky petal of a Don Juan rose that twined up the cedar post. The warming sun teased out its deep floral tone, yet I felt cold to the bone.

  The back door of Scents & Nonsense opened, and Astrid stood on the threshold with a plate of oatmeal cookies in her hand. “Ellie?” Her hand flew to her chest in relief. “I saw all the police and thought something terrible had happened to you.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  But she was still talking. “They have a big tarp up, and the door was open, so I just came inside.” Her words tumbled over one another.

  She stepped down to the patio as I moved away from the fence. “Are you . . . Oh, my God!” Mouth agape, she stared through the open gate at Josie, who was now being photographed from different angles behind a makeshift tarp curtain.

  “Ma’am! I’m sorry—who are you? I’m going to need you to move.” A young officer gripped her elbow to hustle her back inside.

  She tried to pull away. “Ellie, what happened? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said again. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

  Within moments, others had invaded Scents & Nonsense. It felt like a violation, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Astrid was shown out to the boardwalk in front of the store and waved good-bye, mouthing “talk to you later.” I watched it all through the back window, unwilling to leave the garden.

  Or Josie.

  My cell buzzed in my hand. The display said Thea Nelson.

  “Are you the one who found her?” a woman asked.

  I thumbed IGNORE on the phone and turned to look at her. Unlike most of the people working around me, the newcomer was a stranger to me. She was petite, not much taller than I was, and slender. Shiny black hair brushed the shoulders of the navy blazer she wore over a crisp white blouse. Her dark eyes drank in the scene and me with it. Observing. Concluding.

  Judging.

  Heart hammering, I said, “Um, yes. Is Josie, um, I mean . . . ?” I felt tears threaten and swallowed, hard.

  Her eyes softened. “I’m afraid she is, indeed, deceased.”

  “Was she . . . ? I mean, did someone . . . ?” Apparently, I had lost the capacity to form full sentences.

  “She has at least two stab wounds,” the woman confirmed. “I take it you knew her?”

  Josie had been stabbed? How could I not have seen that? The idea that she was dead—actually gone, and at the hand of another person—seemed unreal. I took a deep breath and tried to marshal my thoughts. “Yes. Her name is Josie Overland. She worked for me. Sometimes, I mean. She worked for my ex-husband, too.”

  Her eyes flashed at that. “You’re Elliana Allbright. Someone told me that you opened this perfume shop after splitting with your ex.”

  She’s been in Poppyville long enough to access the small-town grapevine. . . .

  The woman looked around. “How’s that working out?”

  “Pretty well,” I said. “At least until . . .” I gestured helplessly toward Josie and swallowed hard.

  “I’m Detective Lupe Garcia. Is there someplace we can talk?”

  Gesturing vaguely at my attire, I tried a smile. “Can I change my clothes first?”

  A man behind her turned at my words. I recognized him immediately and nodded to him. “Hi, Max.”

  Max Lang. Detective Lang, actually. A longtime member of the Poppyville police force—and Harris’ best friend.

  Great.

  He looked me up and down, gray eyes unblinking beneath his neat straw-colored hair. He was hefty, but tall enough to pull it off, giving the impression of a military background I happened to know he didn’t have. “Ellie, why are you wearing—” He started to indicate my pajamas, then seemed to think better of it. “Where exactly are you living these days?”

  “There.” I pointed toward my house at the back of the lot.

  Detective Garcia’s eyes widened slightly. Her gaze took in the rough cedar-shingle siding, the door crafted of planks from a demolished barn, and the symmetrical four-paned windows on either side. Bloodred geraniums trailed from the window boxes among orange and yellow nasturtiums.

  “Harris told me you were living off grid, but you live in a potting shed?” Detective Lang sounded downright insulted by the idea. “You can’t be serious.”

  “It’s not a potting shed,” I said. “It’s a house. A very small house, granted, but still a house.”

  He frowned. “It’s not a house
unless it has a bathroom. You can’t just camp—”

  “It has a three-quarter bath, full plumbing, and power,” I assured him, doing my best to keep the irritation out of my voice. “Not exactly off the grid.”

  “It’s a tiny house,” Garcia breathed, and I knew she didn’t mean it was simply small.

  I smiled at her. “It’s my home.” I pointed at the storefront. “And Scents and Nonsense is my business.” I blushed as I realized how silly that sentence sounded, as if I was a character in a Dr. Seuss book.

  “To each his own, I guess,” Lang said. “You’ve met my colleague.” It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway. “So when did you discover the victim?”

  I stared at him. The victim? Josie had served him plenty of drinks when he was off duty, enough that they’d been on a first-name basis.

  “Right after I got up this morning,” I said. “I called nine-one-one right away. The library clock said eight thirty-eight.”

  “I see,” he said. Detective Garcia had taken out a small notebook and was making notes while her partner quizzed me.

  “And where were you last night, Ms. Allbright?” he asked, growing even more formal.

  “The Greenstockings—that’s the women’s business group I belong to—met here in the garden at around six fifteen. They were here for an hour.”

  “And after they left?” he prompted.

  I silently pointed at my house—my house where actual, grown-up clothes waited for me to change into them. I wondered if Lang enjoyed having me at a disadvantage. I squared my shoulders in false confidence.

  “You were inside all night?” he asked. “Before you discovered the victim?”

  “I walked the dog a little after ten. Before that, I was on the back porch for a while, watching the sunset. I went to sleep about ten thirty.”

  “And can anyone vouch for you?” His eyebrow twitched with sarcasm.

  “Well, if you put it that way . . .”

  “I am putting it that way.”

  I felt my lips thin. “Then, no.”

  Detective Garcia’s eyes cut toward her partner, then to me, then back to her notebook. I snapped off a rose hip and rolled it between my thumb and forefinger like a horticultural worry stone. Around us, the activity seemed to be waning. It felt awkward to be having this discussion huddled in the corner of the garden.

  Lang didn’t seem to notice. “Did you hear or see anything suspicious?” he asked.

  “No.” My throat closed over the word. Had I slept through her murder?

  “Did the victim visit you last evening?”

  “No.” I tried to regroup. “The last time I saw Josie was early yesterday afternoon. I left her tending the shop while I ran errands.” After she told me she was dating Harris. And I didn’t actually run a single errand. “She was gone by the time I got back. Had probably already started her shift at the Roux Grill.”

  Garcia broke in. “I like that place. Best steak tips I’ve ever eaten. It’s your ex-husband’s restaurant now, right? You mentioned that Ms. Overland worked for him, too?”

  “She sure did,” Lang answered for me. Something about the way he said it told me that he knew Harris had been dating “the victim.”

  Garcia spared him a quick look, but her face remained impassive. “It must have been an amicable divorce.”

  Lang snorted.

  I chose to ignore that. “Josie works . . . worked Mondays and Tuesdays at Scents and Nonsense, as well as the occasional hour here and there when I needed extra help. She’d tended bar at the Roux Grill for a couple of years. She was good at it, too—cheerful, efficient, handled the occasional obnoxious customer with a deft hand. She also cleaned houses, and sometimes she’d sell one of her photographs. You know how hard it is to make a living in Poppyville year round.” Without warning, I felt tears threaten.

  No. No crying. Not now.

  I straightened my shoulders again. “How can I help you find who did that to her?”

  Max Lang gave me a wry look. “I think we can handle it. Besides, you’re a suspect.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. “A . . . ? But why would I . . . ?”

  He smiled at me. It wasn’t a very nice smile. “She was killed on your property, and you don’t seem to have a very good explanation for that.”

  “But she was on the boardwalk,” I said. “Which is technically part of my property, but still a public area.”

  “Then why was her foot caught in your gate?” he asked with slightly raised eyebrows. I bit my lip.

  Garcia looked up from her notebook. “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm Ms. Overland?”

  “I . . . I can’t think of anyone,” I stammered. “I didn’t really know her all that well, though.”

  Lang’s gaze sharpened.

  “We didn’t socialize,” I clarified.

  “All right, then. We’ll be in touch if we have more questions,” Garcia said.

  Lang started to say something, but when his partner touched his arm he stopped, looked down at her, and nodded. “Right. We’ll be in touch,” he repeated.

  They turned to go. The muscles in my neck began to unclench, but then Detective Lang stopped. “Oh, and Ellie? Don’t leave Poppyville for the next few days.”

  “Why would I leave?” I infused the words with all the innocence I felt and then some.

  “Just don’t, okay?”

  “Okay.” I hated how timid I sounded.

  He strode away. Detective Garcia reached into the pocket of her blazer and retrieved a business card. She handed it to me. “Call me if you think of anything else.”

  Glancing down at the number, I wondered—if Lang was the bad cop, was Garcia the good one? I was disconcerted to realize I couldn’t tell. Usually, I was pretty good at reading people.

  I nodded. “I will.”

  She leaned toward me and said in a low voice, “Well, I think they’re cute.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Your pajamas.” A smile flitted across her face, and she turned to follow Lang.

  CHAPTER 5

  IT took hours for everyone to finish up. When they finally left, yellow police tape looped around a section of the boardwalk in front of the store. I had no idea what they were trying to preserve, since so many people had been all over the area. Back in the Enchanted Garden, the air smelled like lavender because someone had trampled the plant into the earth. Here and there, stems of cone flowers and Oriental poppies angled toward the ground, the victims of brusque professionals at work. Someone had stepped right in the middle of the sea glass pathway I’d just built and had knocked over an arrangement of miniature wicker chairs and tiny toadstools.

  At least I’d had a chance to shower and dress in shorts and a T-shirt. Dash had stayed out of the way as I’d commanded, but the low whine in the back of his throat didn’t stop until I’d put him inside the house. I’d kept the shop closed, ignoring the looky-loos peering in the front windows. I thought about lost business for a split second before reminding myself to keep some darn perspective. A bit less revenue was nothing compared to murder.

  I’d tried to call Astrid, but she was working a full shift at the veterinarian’s office. Surgeries were often scheduled on Tuesdays, so no matter how upset—and curious—she was, she might not be able to get back to me for a while. Then I’d spent an hour tidying the damage to the garden, which served as a kind of therapy. Now the afternoon loomed ahead of me. However, there were still all those errands I’d neglected the previous afternoon. I went into the office to get my keys, wallet, and the bank bag, then retrieved Dash from the house and took him out to the Wrangler.

  As I sat in the drive-through at the bank, I pondered the questions the detectives had asked me. Who could have wanted to hurt Josie? She was sweet and had seemed open and happy. Could she have stumbled into somethin
g illegal without realizing it? Was there another side to Josie I didn’t know about? And did Max Lang really think I was a murder suspect? My stomach twisted as I remembered the look on his face when he’d said it.

  I told myself to calm down. The police hadn’t even had a chance to investigate. Maybe Lang was just goading me. Had to be, because the very idea of me as a murderer was ridiculous.

  The plastic tube containing my deposit receipt popped into view, and the bank teller wished me a nice day over the speaker. Reaching through my window to retrieve it, I shook my head at myself. And the warning not to leave town? That was probably just a routine thing they told everyone who found a body.

  Right?

  Dash happily munched on one of his favorite cookies fresh out of the bag after we left Doggone Gourmet, and I headed over to Terra Green Nursery.

  Guiding the Wrangler around to the back, I parked next to the piles of bagged compost. I had a compost bin, of course, but the current batch was still percolating into rich, dark nourishment. I was considering my options when a door slammed behind me, and I turned to see Thea standing by her mint green step-side pickup. As I watched, she reached into the back of the pickup and lifted out a plastic pot containing a sad-looking hydrangea.

  “Hey, Ellie!” she called. “What can I do you for?”

  “Just need a bag of mushroom compost for the new herb bed,” I said.

  “Good choice. And I have something else for you.” She hoisted the pot in her hand.

  “That poor plant?” I asked as she approached.

  She looked down at the withering leaves. “If you save it, you can have it—and heaven knows you can save pretty much anything. This little guy needs a good dose of water and a bit of acid-based fertilizer to bring it around.”

  “Coffee grounds,” I said. “My grandmother always told me to use them if you wanted your hydrangeas to have blue blooms.”

  “She was right.” She squinted skyward, her irises reflecting the color above. “Of course it’s the aluminum in the soil that makes them blue, but acid helps the plant to absorb it.” She looked back down at me. “I think I like the blue flowers better than pink. You?”