Corpse in the Carnations

by Dale Mayer

  Doreen wrapped her arms around her chest and rocked gently back and forth in the seat. Thaddeus crossed over to her shoulder and gently rubbed his cheek against hers. “Body in the garden. Body in the garden.”

  “We really need to add to your vocabulary,” she said softly to the bird. She reached up and stroked his feathers, loving how very affectionate he was. He rubbed up and down her cheek, catching the wet tear streaking from the corner of her eye.

  Goliath hopped across the seat and landed in her lap, as if expecting her to have nothing to do but pet him. She picked him up in her arms and squeezed him tight. And he let her. That was the surprising part. He didn’t even growl at the strength of her hug. He must have sensed that her crying meant he should allow it for now. She buried her face in his soft fur and whispered how much she had missed knowing him in his early years. He was such a blessing in her life.

  She had no sooner finished saying that when Mugs barked from the back seat. She chuckled. “Yes, Mugs. I love you too, buddy.”

  What she really needed was for Mack to get here before anybody else arrived. She did not want to be found alone with the body. But she felt she had to stay, to be protective, to watch over the poor woman.

  As if anyone could do anything else to hurt her now. … She was already dead. So sad. … People could be a nasty lot sometimes, and she didn’t want some heartless kids to come and take pictures to post on the internet.

  When a hard knock came on her window, she let out a shriek. Mugs barked furiously. Goliath reached up with his big paw, putting it against the window, his claws out. She hit the button, lowering the window, hearing Mack shouting at her.

  “You and that menagerie,” he said, his face grim as he took in the occupants of her car.

  “Hey, I only took Mugs last time,” she said. “Maybe I knew I would need the solace of bringing them all this time.”

  “You should be home, where I told you to go,” he said, “safe and sound, not out here again. What are you even doing here?”

  “I came to see what a large clump of carnations would look like. I was thinking of the Kelowna garden bed design. It’s hard to visualize carnations en masse. On Google, I found three large beds nearby. This is the third one. And that’s the woman I saw at the gardening center earlier this morning.”

  “The one you said had the fight with the driver of the black truck?”

  She nodded. “Yes. And then I followed her to that house where I found her red car parked. When I went home and did some research on the city bid, then came out here, I didn’t expect to see her at any of these three gardens. You can’t blame me for this,” she stated, raising both hands in frustration.

  Goliath, in a disgruntled temper because she’d stopped petting him, hopped over to the passenger’s seat and curled up in a ball. She pushed open her car door, smacking into Mack’s knee.

  “Ouch.” He stepped back, glaring at her as she hopped out, Thaddeus on her shoulder. “I didn’t do anything,” she said again.

  “I get that.” He pulled his hands through his hair, but his expression seemed intent on just pulling his hair.

  She snickered. “It’s not my fault you live in such a murderous town.”

  “Remember how you live here now too.” His gaze narrowed as he lifted a finger to point at her.

  “Point that thing at me again, and I’ll bite it off,” she said defiantly. “And how come you came alone?”

  “Because I had to make sure I wasn’t pulling the team together for nothing. Again.”

  “Hey, you had at team together already at Hawthorne. They just didn’t look hard enough there.” She stared up at him. “And are you really telling me that I don’t know what a dead body looks like?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, his fingers thrumming on his arm as he said, “Well, you haven’t seen very many when they still have flesh on them, have you?”

  She tilted her head to the side, then nodded. “Good point.” She closed the car door behind her, leaving Mugs inside. When he barked, she groaned, opened up the back door, and let him out. “Come on. Come on,” she said to Mack. “Let me show you.”

  “How about you just stay here,” he said, “and I’ll go look?”

  She leaned against the car door and crossed her arms over her chest in imitation of his previous pose.

  He shook his head and headed toward the carnations. “You’re impossible.”

  “Go all the way around to the other side,” she said.

  He reached up a hand in acknowledgment.

  How silly to even give him instructions. If he couldn’t see the body from here, it had to be on the other side. She studied the art piece in the center of the garden, a statue of maybe a husband and wife, with their arms wrapped around each other in a hug. The garden decorated the entrance to a large building, the Family Planning Center. She wasn’t sure what You, Me, and Us meant on the sign. Maybe marriage counseling? But the media would spin this in an ugly way to say that this relationship had ended in murder. Not the type of publicity anyone wanted.

  Speaking of publicity, she did not want to be here when the media found out about this. She watched as Mack stared down at the poor woman, his hands on his hips. She walked toward him. “See?” she said. “I don’t make up this stuff, you know.”

  “I wish you were though,” he said. “Just once. Her name is Celeste. Celeste Bingham. Her long-time boyfriend is Josh Huberts.”

  “Oh my. You knew her,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry. That makes it much worse. But at least you know where to start your questioning.”

  He nodded. “A lot of people knew her,” he said. “She’s an up-and-coming businesswoman. She won the award for top businesswoman entrepreneur last year.”

  Celeste’s body was rolled on her side, her legs crossed, her hands splayed out, one on either side, so her hip twisted over.

  “It doesn’t look like she’s been posed,” Doreen said.

  “Not sure about that,” he said. “That’s kind of a common pose, symbolizing joining hands around the world.”

  “No clue what that means,” she said. “I’m presuming the shots I heard earlier were for her.”

  “How many did you hear?”

  “I thought two at first and two more. But I don’t know that I heard them all.”

  “Well, she’s obviously been shot. It’ll take the coroner to figure out if that was the cause of death and to confirm how many bullets he finds in her body.”

  She shoved her hands into her pockets. “Any chance I can go home and get out of this upcoming crime scene with the cops and the media?”

  He snorted. “Apparently this is your penance for wanting to have more excitement in your life. And for not leaving your house as I asked.”

  “Hey, you told me to go home, and I did. You didn’t tell me to stay there. And I would love to be hiding out in my house again,” she said. “At least until the media crap dies down. They don’t need to know I’m involved in this one, right? But that won’t happen unless you let me leave now.”

  “Go on. Go home,” he said. “I’ll come by later and get a statement.”

  She could hear vehicles coming toward them. She rushed to her car. “Come on, Mugs. Let’s go before they get here.”

  But she wasn’t fast enough. Three cruisers pulled up just as she got into the front seat. Two officers waved at her; one frowned, then looked over at Mack.

  Mack just whistled to get their attention and said, “Forget her. The body is over here.”

  The men headed toward Mack.

  She backed up and turned her car toward home. She knew this scene would get uglier before it got any better. And, right now, the last thing she wanted to do was get caught at the scene of another crime. She hoped no one had seen her here, but she had been here during regular business hours on a weekday, so anybody from the Family Planning Center surely could have seen her from the offices. Although she hadn’t seen anybody going in or leaving the center. She frowned. She saw no
cars. The building didn’t seem to have any lights on.

  She shook her head. If she had a dead body in her front yard, she sure as hell would have called for help. And, of course, being her, she’d have been outside, figuring out what was going on.

  She drove home extra slow, making sure nobody would have any cause to look at her sideways. She didn’t want to draw even more attention to herself.

  Since she had all the animals, she decided to stop in to see Nan instead of going straight home. Besides, she could do with a hug. She pulled up outside the retirement home, where her grandmother lived, and parked. Taking the animals with her, she grabbed the leash, clipped it to Mugs’ collar, and walked down to the corner where Nan lived. She couldn’t take the animals through the building, and the gardener here seemed to think Doreen was a constant threat to his perfect blades of grass. Nan was lobbying to get stepping stones put in so Doreen could make her way into Nan’s apartment without disturbing either rule. But, so far, neither side was bending. So, as a consequence, Doreen had to continuously sneak into Nan’s garden patio area. Since she hadn’t warned Nan that they were coming, Doreen wouldn’t barge in. Nan was a character. As such, there were just some things Doreen didn’t want to know.

  She hopped onto the patio and called out, “Nan, you there?”

  When no answer came, she pulled out her phone, sitting at the small bistro table to call her grandmother. It rang and rang. Finally, on the tenth ring, as Doreen was about to hang up, Nan answered.

  “Oh, dear, how are you?”

  “I’m fine,” Doreen said humorously. “Where are you?”

  “We’re in the communal area.” Nan’s voice turned crafty. “I just picked up my share of the winnings.”

  Doreen groaned. “Are you getting into trouble again?”

  “No, no, no. I’m not in trouble at all. It was just a harmless bet.”

  “Sure it was. As long as Mack doesn’t find out about it. Again. I thought maybe I’d come for a cup of tea, if that’s convenient.”

  “Of course it is. Of course it is.”

  “Good,” she said. “Because I’m on your patio.”

  Nan gave a gasp and said, “Oh,” and the phone shut off.

  The next thing Doreen knew, Nan barreled out the glass doors, her arms open wide. Doreen chuckled, reached down, and gave her grandmother a hug. “I wasn’t sure if you were busy,” she said with a wink.

  Nan beamed. “Sometimes I am busy, but right now I’m not, so this is perfect.”

  Doreen shook her head and sat down again. “The animals are missing you,” she lied.

  “That’s nice of you to say,” Nan said. “But the truth of the matter is, I think they’re very happy with you. You’ve added a ton of excitement to their lives.”

  “Maybe,” Doreen said, “but that doesn’t mean they don’t miss all the cuddles and love you give them.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Let me put on the tea. I also have a wonderful carrot cake, if you’d like a piece.”

  “I’d love a piece,” Doreen said happily. “I missed lunch somehow.”

  She thought of all the places she’d been today, figuring out if it was worth it for her to put in a bid for the city landscaping job. She didn’t know what to do about it for certain and, at this particular moment, felt like it was all a waste of time. With her fledgling gardening business, she probably needed more experience and more time to deal with bidding on a city project.

  Nan returned with a plate of cake and half a sandwich on another plate. With a disapproving sniff, she put both down in front of Doreen. “You better eat this then. What am I going to do with you?”

  “I was just busy, Nan, that’s all.”

  “You haven’t been buying any groceries, have you?”

  Doreen smiled. “I have been. A lot of them. But I still haven’t figured out how to make that stove work.”

  “Your mother never did teach you anything worthwhile, did she?”

  “How to get a man apparently worked,” Doreen said snidely. “She was right. Everything else fell into place. The trouble is, she didn’t give me any long-term advice on how to keep that man.” Her voice became dry.

  “Do you miss it—being married or your former life? Do you miss him?”

  Doreen shook her head. “Absolutely not, and I’m not used to having a ton of food. Remember how he always said eating would make me fat? So I was never served a proper portion. Maybe it was perfect training for right now.”

  “No luck on a full-time job, dear?”

  “Not yet. But I am taking over Mack’s mom’s gardens on a weekly basis. That won’t pay much, but every little bit helps.”

  “That’s good news,” Nan said in delight. “And, of course, it’ll throw you together with your handsome detective more and more too.”

  Doreen knew she should probably tell Nan about the omelet-making lesson but didn’t want to get her hopes even higher that Doreen would attract such a handsome and decent and hardworking boyfriend. She did not want her grandmother to be matchmaking any more than she already was. And Nan didn’t seem to get that things had to happen in their own time—if anything was there to begin with. But her grandmother meant well, and she’d been a huge help these last few weeks. Things had been so chaotic since Doreen’s arrival that she hadn’t had much chance to find her new normalcy.

  “What you need is a new case,” Nan said. “Something to catch your attention.”

  And again Doreen had to hold back the words ready to blurt out. No way she could tell Nan about what Doreen had just found.

  “A day job would do the same thing,” Doreen said with a smile.

  “Did you ever check with Wendy at the consignment store regarding any sales?”

  “I’ve been avoiding hearing from her either way,” Doreen admitted. “If I did get money out of some of your things,” she said, “I figured it would be better to hold off collecting it until I needed it. This way, I keep really tight control of the little bit of money I do have.”

  “Too tightly controlled,” Nan said.

  “Hey, when there’s no money, there’s no money,” Doreen said with a smile. “But maybe I’ll stop on my way home from here, or, since I have all the animals with me, I could just call Wendy.”

  Nan nudged the plate with the sandwich toward her granddaughter. “Eat up.”

  “I’m not eating your dinner,” she said.

  “You better,” Nan said. “It’s salmon. So, if you don’t eat it, I’ll throw it in the garbage, and that’ll make Midge very upset with me.”

  Doreen knew how much Nan hated salmon. Doreen picked up the sandwich, and, sure enough, it was salmon with onions. She took a bite and gave a happy sigh. “Well, your loss is my gain. This is excellent.”

  “It’s also huge,” Nan said. “What do I want with a sandwich that big? And one made with salmon?”

  Doreen looked down and realized her half was, indeed, quite big. She ate happily while they waited for the tea to steep, and, when it was ready, Nan poured it and served her a cup.

  Doreen smiled and thanked her. “I can’t keep coming here for food,” she said.

  “You will adjust in time,” Nan said reassuringly. “And I will always share the food I have.”

  At that Thaddeus walked over to rub her cheek, but his gaze was on the carrot cake. Nan chuckled, picked up a piece off the corner, and put it down in front of him. Immediately he pecked away at it.

  Doreen grinned. “He doesn’t require much to keep him going,” she said. “That’s a good thing because—between the dog food, the cat food, and the birdseed—these guys cost more to feed than me.”

  “Nonsense,” Nan said. “They should not cost more than you. You should be eating much better than you are.”

  “I will do better,” she promised. “Let’s see what Wendy has to say today. I’ll be getting a little money weekly from Millicent’s garden, so that’ll make a difference too.”

  “Did you contact the garden center for se
asonal work?”

  She nodded. “I did, but something came up about the last cold case I was on.” She winced. “I guess the Theroux family wasn’t too impressed when I exposed Hannah for who she really was. I think the garden center has a family connection to the Therouxs.”

  Nan looked at her with a frown; then her face cleared. “Oh my, Oliver is part of that Lansdowne family. Being related to poor Betty, he might have had a say in that.”

  “Oh.” Doreen thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. “I was hoping for a job there, but, if they’re holding that Betty Miles case against me, well …”

  “It’ll blow over,” Nan said comfortably, settling back in her chair. “Did the detective give you a new case to look at?”

  “I don’t think Mack considers me on his team or that he should give me any cases.” Doreen picked up a chunk of carrot cake, took a bite, and moaned. “Oh my. This is good.”

  “Do you like it?”

  Doreen nodded. “It’s excellent.” She looked at it and then at Nan suspiciously. “Doesn’t have any marijuana in it, does it?”

  Nan went off in peals of laughter. “No, it doesn’t. I prefer the one that does though, you know.”

  Doreen sighed. Ever since marijuana became legal in the state, Nan didn’t seem to enjoy her pastime as much as she used to when it was a hidden secret. Something about doing what you weren’t allowed to do seemed to appeal to her. “Who made this?”

  “Midge,” she said. “She brought it over with the salmon sandwich.”

  “Nice neighbors,” Doreen commented.

  Nan nodded. “I’ve got another piece of cake you can take home for dessert, plus the other half of the sandwich can be your dinner. At least that way I know you’re getting some more food in your stomach today.”