Flowertown

by S. G. Redling

  Ellie took the can, not meeting her eye. “No, I’m good. Thanks, though.” It was Olivia who had instructed her not to take the red pills. At least she thought that’s what the note said. She had no note, no proof that she had been to the med center, and now she couldn’t even prove that Olivia existed.

  “It’s important to follow the instructions when you get your meds. God knows I’ve followed them to the letter and I’m still here.” Annabeth settled back on her stool and began leafing through an old gossip magazine. “Make sure you listen every time you go, because the instructions can change and that can throw you off. Did you get any new instructions?”

  Ellie stared at Annabeth, at her relaxed shoulders and casual hands leafing through the glossy pages. Then she saw the way the old woman’s foot tap-tap-tapped against the bottom of the stool. She knew that move. She did it herself whenever she was nervous or trying to hide something. What the hell, she thought, here goes nothing. “You know, now that you mention it, I did. Maybe that’s why I feel so weird. I’m not on the same twice-a-day dosage.” Ellie took a deep drink of her root beer and covered her nervousness with a soft belch. “They told me I could take all I want.”

  Annabeth made a little “huh” sound and flipped the magazine closed, looking up at Ellie with an easy smile. “Well, that’s probably what’s ailing you. Change can be hard to adjust to sometimes. Takes a little while. You know what might help?”

  Ellie glanced around them, wondering if she were going to pull a weapon or a secret clue out from under the counter. Instead the old woman pulled out a copy of “the local,” the Flowertown newsletter, and turned it to the back page. “There’s a recipe in the back of this issue for a soup that’s supposed to fortify your immune system. Carrie Madison put it in there. It’s so important this time of year to make sure you’re getting your vitamins.” She pushed the little paper across to Ellie. “Pretty simple, not sure how it tastes, but it sounds good. Just be sure to follow the instructions. Especially the cooking time. Carrie Madison may be meaner than a raccoon, but she’s a whiz in the kitchen. You can count on her timing.”

  The two young men came to the counter with a basket of groceries, and Annabeth turned to them with a smile. Dismissed, Ellie folded the newsletter up and tucked it between the files and the oyster crackers she still clung to. She grabbed the can of soda and headed for the door. Before she made it out to the street, Annabeth called out to her.

  “And Ellie? If I meet anyone named Olivia, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.”

  “Clearly I am losing my mind.” Ellie clutched the bundle to her chest and headed for East Fifth. She talked out loud to herself, not worrying how it looked to the few people she passed. That levelness she had felt upon waking was disintegrating fast, and if she couldn’t be calm she could at least be high, so she hurried toward the apartment. More than calm, more than weed, what she really wanted was to talk to Bing. This was no time for pride. He was right about her. She wanted him to make this all okay, and she was prepared to beg if she had to.

  She waited for a short convoy of army trucks to pass before crossing the final intersection to Fifth Street. Quickening her pace, she made a list of the things she needed to do: get high, text Bing, open the files, get higher, and try to figure out why Annabeth wanted her to read a recipe for soup. Was that everything? Ellie nodded to herself as she climbed the two short steps to East Fifth and then let out a cry.

  “Bing!”

  He was just rounding the corner from the opposite direction, and for a horrible moment Ellie was afraid he was going to ignore her. She called out his name again and he jumped, snapped from whatever reverie he was lost in. He saw Ellie and held out his hands in supplication. Ellie jumped off the steps and ran to him. They spoke over each other.

  “Ellie, God, Ellie, I’m so sorry.”

  “Bing, I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “It’s just that what you said about me talking big about the conspiracies when I don’t really know what’s going on—”

  “Listen to me.”

  “I felt like such a dumbass. I didn’t mean those things I said. I just—”

  “Bing!” She grabbed him with her free hand. “Stop! It’s me, remember? I don’t care about that right now. Please, let’s go inside. I’ve got so much to tell you.”

  “So do I.” They headed inside the building and started climbing the stairs. “I felt like such a jackass after I left you. And then I realized you were right and I’ve been talking out my ass for so long that I went to look for Torrez.”

  “What for?”

  “To see if I could get some more information on the ‘all you want’ thing.”

  “That’s exactly what I was trying to do.”

  Bing let Ellie into her room first. “You went looking for Torrez? I didn’t see you.”

  “No, I was in Dingle’s.”

  “Looking for Torrez?”

  “Forget Torrez!” Ellie threw her bundle on the bed and flopped down beside it. “I thought I saw someone. It’s a long story, but while I was there I thought I’d say something to Annabeth Dingle about ‘all you want.’”

  “Why would you do that?”

  Ellie realized she hadn’t told Bing about the bullets she had seen under the curtain in the store. It was too long a story to go into, so she waved it off. “It’s not important now. What matters is that she definitely reacted. At least I think she did. I can’t tell if she was sending me a message or if I’m just Binging out. No offense.”

  “None taken.” He rested his chin on the wooden back of the wobbly chair he straddled. “Let me guess. She gave you a recipe for soup.”

  “How did you know?”

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded copy of “the local.” “Because Torrez gave me one too.”

  “Well, that can’t be a coincidence.”

  “No, it can’t.” Bing unfolded the paper and scanned through it. “It doesn’t mean it’s an answer, though. Not if we can’t figure out what we’re looking for.”

  Ellie slid her copy out from between the box of crackers and the newspaper-wrapped files. She had to tell Bing about the files but decided they would take one problem at a time. “She said something about the soup recipe. Here, on the last page: hearty potato leek soup. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Sounds good. But then according to you I eat ass soup.” He looked up at her with a smile. Then she could see in his eyes the memory of the last time they had discussed the foul-smelling soup and the carnage that had followed. “It’s probably not about the taste, though.”

  Ellie climbed back against the wall and crossed her legs beneath her, propping the page up on her crossed ankles. “When I saw Annabeth, she was at the potato bin. It was empty. She said she hadn’t seen a potato in two weeks. Could that be something?”

  Bing gnawed on his fingernail. “And maybe leek isn’t really leek, like the vegetable, but l-e-a-k, like something leaking out. Like that stupid movie that’s opening up about terrorists getting out of Flowertown.”

  “So what does that mean? Someone’s leaking potatoes out of Flowertown?”

  “Or maybe leaking them in. Maybe this is about the supplies being cut off.”

  Ellie leaned over the paper, staring at it, demanding it reveal its secrets. “But what does that tell us? Why would both Annabeth and Torrez give us this if we don’t know anything about sneaking things in or out of Flowertown? Annabeth said to pay attention to the cooking instructions. I guess this Carrie Madison is a master chef or something.”

  “Is that what she said?”

  Ellie shrugged. “Something like that.”

  “Not something like that, Ellie.” Bing tapped the pages. “If this is a secret, the details matter. What exactly did she say? You’ve got to start paying attention.”

  “I was kind of distracted, thank you. I was trying to break into a secret society. That’s your forte, Bing, not mine. And you’re so observant, what did Torrez say
?”

  Bing scratched his head, squinting at the paper. “Somebody was coming up the steps. He just jammed it in my hand and said, ‘Time to cook.’ Then he left.”

  “Cooking time. That’s what she said.” Ellie slapped her hand on her thigh. “She said that Carrie Madison was meaner than a raccoon but a whiz in the kitchen. I think that’s what she said. Then she said that you could count on her. Count on her cooking, count on her timing, something like that. What’s the cooking time?”

  Bing scanned the recipe. “Uh, sauté leeks until soft and semi-transparent, add butter, blah blah blah, potatoes, cream, blah blah blah, cook uncovered thirty-seven minutes. That’s pretty specific for potato soup.”

  They stared at each other, trying to find the answer in the other’s face. Neither moved when Rachel slipped between them and lay down on her bed. Ellie nodded with an idea. “Rachel, how long would you cook potato soup?”

  “Ugh.” Rachel grabbed her stomach and rolled onto her side. “Tell me you’re not going to make soup. Please make it somewhere else. I never should have had that chili yesterday.”

  Bing and Ellie both turned to the girl who, while not as sick as she had been, was definitely under the weather. Bing reached out and rubbed her foot. “I thought you were feeling better. I thought they gave you a shot.”

  “They did. I guess it’s wearing off. I’ve got to go back tonight and get my final papers. Then I’m outta here!” Her cheer seemed forced as she pulled the pillow tight to her cheek. “What are you guys doing? I didn’t know you read ‘the local.’”

  “Well, we don’t usually.” Bing met Ellie’s glance, asking her to go along with his story. “It’s this stupid thing a guy from work is doing. You know, since we have no work for the time being, what with our building blowing up and all. It’s some kind of scavenger hunt that he said is hidden in the paper.”

  Rachel yawned and curled up tighter. “But your place blew up yesterday. ‘The local’ came out Monday. Next one comes out tomorrow. Is it like an ongoing thing?” Bing nodded, obviously relieved for the out. “Let me see it.” He handed her the paper.

  “It’s got something to do with the cooking time in the soup recipe.”

  Rachel read the recipe, then pulled herself up to a sitting position and reached over to the crowded nightstand beside her bed. She pulled out a puzzle book and pen. “Thirty-seven minutes. That’s the clue? Do you know what you’re looking for? Like, a place or a thing or a date, or what?”

  “We don’t know.” Ellie shook her head at Bing. She didn’t want to involve Rachel in whatever it was they were getting into. “It’s really no big thing. This guy is a total ass.”

  “No, no, no.” Rachel flipped through the pages, her brow furrowed. “I’m really good at things like this. We used to do this at 4-H camp, hide messages in the camp bulletin, use secret codes to sneak out at night.” She looked up at them and laughed. “No chance this is a secret code to get us out of here, is there? Ha!” She chewed on the end of the pencil. “Thirty-seven minutes has got to mean something. Is there a map involved? Like coordinates?” Bing and Ellie shook their heads, uncertain, but Rachel wasn’t paying attention. “Nah, that’s too hard. You’d have to give everyone a map to make it fair. Assuming it’s fair, of course. Thirty-seven minutes. Maybe it’s a word code, like the thirty-seventh word.”

  Ellie and Rachel began counting words on the first page. They both tapped along, counting out loud, then looked up and spoke.

  “Catalog,” Rachel said.

  “Every,” Ellie said. “Did you count the headline?”

  “No. Did you count all the little words like ‘a’ and ‘but’?” She shook her head. “That can’t be right anyway. Too complicated. Nobody would want to count that far, not unless the prize really is a ticket out of here. It’s got to be something more manageable. I know Mrs. Madison. She’s not that smart.”

  Ellie lifted her gaze from the paper and let it drift to the view outside her window. She didn’t have Bing’s sweeping view of the street. Her window was just a few feet above the hardware store beside it, and all that was visible was an expanse of oily tarpaper, but Ellie wasn’t seeing it. Half of a thought swirled through her mind, looking for form. “She’s not that smart.” Ellie whispered to herself. “She’s not that smart, so maybe…”

  She turned back to the paper and scanned through the four pages of the local newsletter until she found what she wanted. “Do you have the last edition, Rachel? The one that came out on Thursday?”

  “Yeah.” Rachel rifled once more around the crowded nightstand, pulling out a crumpled newsletter like the one she held, only this one had several coffee cup rings on it. “I don’t know why you guys don’t read this. I mean, I know it’s not the New York Times, but it is local.”

  Bing passed the paper to Ellie. “Trust us. We’re converted.”

  Ellie looked back and forth between the papers until she found what she was looking for. She smacked her fingers against the page. “Corrections.” She read aloud from the newer edition. “The correct cooking time for Carrie Madison’s Pecan Sandies is fifteen minutes, not forty-two as printed on Thursday. We apologize for any inconvenience this error might have caused.”

  Ellie held the paper out triumphantly. Bing glanced at the equally stumped Rachel. “And this is good news because…?”

  “Because,” Ellie waved the pages, “Carrie Madison is not responsible for the clue. She puts the right cooking time in. Whoever is sending the message changes the time to send the signal. See, in the last edition, the correction reads, ‘The correct cooking time for the Prune Crumble is twenty minutes, not sixty-four as printed.’”

  “So they have a lousy proofreader,” Bing said. “And what the hell is a prune crumble?”

  “No, you’re not hearing me. It has to be the incorrect number. The messed-up number is important in every edition.” She ran her fingers down the columns of Rachel’s stained copy. “Here. Here it is. ‘In the last edition the cooking time was mistakenly printed at forty-two minutes.’ Here on the second page is an article about Danny Glock’s forty-second birthday. Now in this one,” she picked up the new edition, “the cooking time is thirty-seven minutes. And here, on the third page, is a fascinating article about Katie McGill’s thirty-seven-pound dog.”

  Bing and Rachel continued to stare at her, waiting for more, until Rachel raised her pencil at her and started pointing. “The clue is in the article. There are all kinds of numbers in the paper. Addresses and times. The cooking time tells you what article to look at.” She turned to the correct article and circled it with her pencil. Then her expression darkened again. “But what are we looking for? Is there some connection between Danny Glock and Kelly’s ugly dog? By the way, I’ve seen this dog and it’s a flea-bitten mutt. It doesn’t weigh thirty-seven pounds soaking wet carrying a cat.”

  “It doesn’t?” Ellie asked. “You’ve seen the dog?”

  “Yeah,” Rachel said. “It’s not like there are so many dogs left around here. It’s a mutt. And last I heard it was on its last legs.”

  Bing rapped his knuckles on the chair. “But that’s the sort of thing only a local would know. Only a local would catch.”

  “Well, duh,” Rachel said, “only locals read this. Why would a Feno-fuck bother?”

  “Hey.” Bing slapped her foot. “What kind of language is that, young lady? You’ve been spending too much time with Potty Mouth Cauley over here. You’re too pretty to talk that way.”

  “I’ll ignore that.” Ellie flattened the paper out on the bed. “So what is it about thirty-seven that makes this article important?”

  Rachel ran her fingers along the type quickly. “It’s not long enough for it to be the thirty-seventh word. It would be a short message.”

  Ellie leaned back and squinted at the recipe. “Maybe it’s not thirty-seven. Look at the type.” The type for “the local” was blurry and mismatched, the lines crooked and awkward. On the cooking instruction line, several letters
were blurred. “Look at the numbers. It’s not typed thirty-seven. Someone typed it three and seven. Believe me, I’ve proofed enough ads to know a type space when I see one.”

  “Three and seven.” Rachel took her pencil and began to scan the lines of the article. “Third word and seventh word…uh, gibberish. What about the first word on the third and seventh lines?” She and Ellie marked those as well with no better results. Bing sat quietly, his eyes darting from woman to woman, not wanting to break their impressive concentration. “Wait, Ellie, is this it? Third line, seventh word. ‘Wednesday.’ Three lines down, seven words in…’seven.’ That’s weird.” She and Rachel continued the pattern, counting three lines down, seven words in, and as Rachel read the emerging message, Ellie and Bing tried not to react.

  “Wednesday — seven — evening — church — back — door — food.”

  Rachel looked to them to see their reactions. “Maybe it means you’re supposed to find some food that’s left behind the church at the back door. The back door leads down to the cellar of the church where they keep the school lunches, so that makes sense.”

  “That’s probably it.” Bing nodded, flashing Ellie a look of caution. “And Wednesday is tonight, so we can just head over there tonight and pick up whatever it is we’re supposed to pick up. Rachel, my dear, you are a genius. Who else could have figured that out?”

  “Probably lots of people, if they know the game is going on.” Rachel held up the paper and pointed to the title bar. “The paper is called Words and Lines.”

  “Oh my God.” Ellie slapped her forehead at this obvious clue. “Bing, if stupid were a color, we would be its deepest shade.”