African Violet Club Mystery Collection

by Elise M Stone

  Jaclyn stopped at the door. “Drat!”

  “Is there a problem?” Lilliana asked. Then she followed Jaclyn’s gaze and saw the UPS notice on the door. Final Delivery Attempt.

  What was that doing there? Was it for a different package? Or had her instructions not been followed? What would she do if Jaclyn opened the box?

  “I thought we’d be back before UPS came. I found one of these on the door when I first got to the store and didn’t worry too much because it said he’d be back today. But now I’ve missed him.” Jaclyn frowned. “I guess I’ll have to stop cleaning up the store and drive into Sierra Vista.”

  Providence was definitely on Lilliana’s side. “You know, I have to make a trip into Sierra Vista this afternoon myself. I could pick up the package, and you could keep on with your work.”

  “Oh, could you? If it isn’t too much trouble, that is.”

  “No trouble at all.” Lilliana had to keep herself from laughing out loud with relief. Here she’d been trying to figure out a scheme that would allow her to pick up the package with the fairies without raising too many questions, and the solution had fallen right into her lap.

  Lilliana practically danced her way to Mike’s Garage. Everything was working out better than she’d hoped.

  “The car’s ready, Mrs. Wentworth,” Mike said when she walked in the door. “Good as new.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. How much do I owe you?” She held her breath as she waited for the number.

  “Not a penny. Mr. O’Mara called yesterday and gave me his credit card number.”

  She let out the breath. “How nice. Would you mind filling it up with gas? I never did get the hang of these self-serve pumps.”

  Mike smiled. “Already done. Mr. O’Mara made me promise that you wouldn’t have to do a thing when you came by other than drive away and go on about your business.”

  She’d have to thank Willie when she got back to Rainbow Ranch later today. She was so happy she’d met him. Other than ditzy Nancy, he was her one true friend. For the second time today, she found herself missing Ted. There had been so much promise there, even though he’d been over a decade older than she was. He was young at heart, and that’s all that really mattered.

  Lilliana found the Lincoln parked next to the garage, the keys in the ignition and ready to go. The car started right up, and she put it into drive. Cautiously, she pressed on the accelerator and turned onto Main Street. She needn’t have worried. Apparently driving a car was like riding a bicycle. You never really forgot how to do it. Within a couple of miles, she was totally at ease behind the wheel.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  HER trip to Sierra Vista had been uneventful. She’d had to wait at the depot for the UPS truck to return with the undelivered package, so it had been after dark by the time she arrived back at the retirement community.

  She wrestled the package up onto her dining room table. Lilliana hadn’t expected it to be so large, and it had been quite a feat getting it from the car, then through the lobby, and then to her apartment without attracting attention to herself—or the package—in the process. She went over to the sliding glass doors and pulled the vertical blinds closed. It wouldn’t do for prying eyes to spy what she was about to do.

  She returned to the table and stood with her hands on her hips, wondering how to attack the project. Brown tape with threads running through it sealed the flaps of the carton, and there was a plastic envelope on top which held the shipping and customs documents. In the upper left corner was a cute cartoon of a man in a kilt and tam o’shanter.

  Enough time admiring the box, Lilliana, she told herself. Time to open it and see what’s inside. She got a knife from the kitchen drawer and carefully sliced along the seam of tape. Putting the knife down, she pulled open the flaps and found crumpled brown paper, which she pulled out. There were several boxes of oat cookies, tins of Edinburgh Earl Grey tea, and three boxes of plum pudding. In the center was an unlabeled box, an eighteen-inch cube, with the words Handle With Care drawn on it in black marker. That must be the one, thought Lilliana.

  She lifted the plain box out of the carton and set it gently on the table. She didn’t hear any sounds, neither of voices nor movement. Her stomach did little flip-flops. The last thing she wanted to do was open a box filled with dead fairies. But, if they weren’t dead already, they’d be sure to die if she left the box closed. Steeling herself, she edged the knife under more of the packing tape, only this time instead of cutting through it, she lifted it from the cardboard until the edges of the flaps were free. Now or never, she told herself, and lifted the flaps.

  Out of the box rose a flurry of fanciful flapping wings in all colors of the rainbow. The creatures swirled around her head, darting closer, then farther away, like hummingbirds. Lilliana ducked, not sure if she was being attacked or greeted. Several of the fairies darted down the hall and into her bedroom.

  “Come back!” Just as she was about to take off after them, she heard tiny voices coming from the box. She peered down inside and saw six tiny men, each about ten inches tall, all dressed in brown, without wings. If the flying creatures were fairies, these had to be brownies.

  “Let us out!” they cried. “We’re starving!”

  Of course they’d be hungry, after spending who knows how long shut up in the box. “What do you eat?” Lilliana asked.

  “Do you have any porridge?” one of them responded.

  Lilliana tried to remember. She didn’t often eat breakfast in her apartment. She did seem to recall a box of oatmeal she’d bought from Ted because it had come from Scotland, and she’d been curious to see if it tasted any different than Quaker Oats. “I believe I do.”

  “Can we have some?” the same one pleaded.

  Lilliana’s head jerked up at the sound of a crash that came from the bedroom. “In a minute,” she responded, then ran down the hall to see what had happened.

  She whimpered in dismay when she saw the state of her bedroom. The fairies had somehow managed to get a dresser drawer open and had flung most of her underwear all over the room. Her jewelry box lay on the floor—explaining the crash she’d heard—with earrings and rings and bracelets scattered around it. One fairy was poking at a box of tissues she kept beside her bed and, as she watched, started pulling them out and flinging them over his shoulder.

  “Stop that!”

  The fairies halted their destruction and turned in her direction. One, larger than the rest, flew toward her and hovered in front of her face. “Where is Esmeralda?” he demanded.

  Lilliana had never seen such a beautiful man. He was only eight inches tall, but he had the most delicate features she’d ever seen. Curly brown hair framed his face, barely covering his pointed ears and tickling the back of his neck. He was naked, except for a pair of skin-tight tan breeches, which she tried not to stare at. His well-muscled chest was as hairless as a boy’s, and his yellow wings emitted a faint humming sound as they kept him in place.

  “Esmeralda is waiting for you.” Lilliana didn’t want to give him too much information, afraid that he’d take off on his own to find his queen. “You must be Tam Lin.”

  “That I am,” he replied, “and I’ve come a long way shut up in a box to meet her. You must take me to her right away.”

  His imperious tone set Lilliana’s teeth on edge. She wasn’t used to taking orders from anyone, much less a fairy she’d just met. He might have been more polite, given that she’d just rescued him and his troop from the UPS depot. However, she could understand his impatience. She knew how she felt after spending hours on an airplane. How much worse it must be to be inside a dark box for days or weeks before you arrived at your destination. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, but we won’t be able to go to her until tomorrow morning. If we go out now, there’s too much chance of being seen.”

  Tam Lin made a tapping motion in the air with his foot, even though there was nothing to tap against.

  Remembering the brownies’ hunger, she though
t she might have something that would appease him. She’d done research on fairies after meeting Esmeralda. “Would you like some honeyed milk?”

  The other four fairies, hearing this, stopped what they were doing and shot toward her, pausing to array themselves with two on each side of Tam Lin. They waited while he made up his mind. Finally he nodded.

  “Wonderful!” Lilliana said. “If you’ll just follow me, I’ll be glad to warm some milk for you and make some oat... porridge for the brownies.”

  “Very well,” Tam Lin said and flew toward the door.

  Lilliana hung back so she could make sure the door was shut. Hopefully the fairies wouldn’t figure out how to open it. But where would she contain them overnight? It would be cruel to close them up in the box again. But having them loose, flying around the apartment and possibly escaping into the hall, just wouldn’t do. First things first. She’d get them busy with porridge and honey with warm milk and, hopefully, have a few minutes to think.

  Tam Lin, who had flown into the dining room, swung around and darted back toward her. “Well? Are you going to stand there all day?”

  Esmeralda had been so pleasant, Lilliana hadn’t been prepared to deal with an obstreperous consort. She hurried down the hall and into the kitchen. She measured oatmeal and water into a bowl, added a dash of salt, and put the bowl into the microwave to cook. Then she pulled out a small saucepan and poured a cup of milk into it. She kept a careful eye on the pot to make sure the milk didn’t come to a boil and scald while she pulled some demitasse cups from a cabinet—the smallest thing she could think of to serve the oatmeal in. Now what to use for the milk? She supposed the cups would serve for the milk as well. It was a set of eight, after all. Besides, there was nothing else of a suitable size. She hadn’t ever planned on feeding fairies.

  The microwave beeped, letting her know the oatmeal was done. It needed to sit for another couple of minutes, so she found the small jar of honey she sometimes put in her tea and stirred a spoonful into the milk, then poured the mixture into the demitasse cups. She brought them to the dining room table, where the brownies were jumping up and down inside the box and the fairies were flitting around the room, too agitated to wait quietly. They darted toward the table as soon as they smelled the milk. Prince Tam Lin sipped first at the middle cup.

  “This will do quite nicely,” he said.

  Lilliana breathed a sigh of relief as the other fairies started drinking from the remaining cups.

  “What about us?” one of the brownies asked plaintively.

  “Just one moment,” Lilliana said. She hurried back to the kitchen and scooped the oatmeal into the remaining cups. She had no idea what she could use for spoons. Even the demitasse spoons would be too large for the brownies to manage. They’d just have to use their hands.

  As it turned out, the brownies managed on their own. It probably helped that they hadn’t eaten in several days. The food they’d brought along with them had been gone long before they arrived at the depot, and they were literally starving. No one had anticipated Ted’s death.

  Lilliana looked at the clock. Eight o’clock, long past dinnertime even if she had been willing to leave the fae creatures alone in her apartment—which she wasn’t. Heaven knew what trouble they’d get into given free run of the place. Speaking of which, what was she going to do about that? She knew she wouldn’t sleep a wink with them loose. Fortunately, Prince Tam Lin unknowingly provided the solution.

  “The meal was almost perfect,” he said. Now that he’d eaten, his temper was a lot more even than it had been. “Thank you for it. You wouldn’t happen to have any nectar, would you?”

  “Nectar?” Lilliana thought of the fruit nectars she’d seen in the supermarket and wondered how the fairies had discovered them. Also how they managed to drink out of the huge cans.

  “Yes, nectar,” Tam Lin said peevishly. “You know, the thing that comes from flowers.”

  “Flowers!” Lilliana exclaimed. Immediately she thought of the shelves filled with African violets in her second bedroom. Not a great many flowers yet, since the new plants had only recently arrived and were still adapting to their new environment, but certainly enough for tonight. “It just so happens I do. If you’ll follow me...”

  She rose and headed toward the plant room. Graciously she swung wide the door. The fairies spotted the flowers and headed toward them. Quickly she shut the door behind them and made sure it was secure. That would take care of the troublesome fairies for the night. Now to take care of the brownies.

  When she returned to the dining room, the brownies begged to be left free. They promised not to cause any trouble overnight. They seemed so sincere, and Lilliana was so tired, she decided to believe them. Knowing she would need to leave very early in the morning in order to avoid being seen, Lilliana headed off to bed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  LILLIANA’S eyes sprung open at first light. She turned over in bed to see what time it was. Only four-thirty. What a relief. She was afraid she’d overslept. Something had awakened her during the night. At first she was afraid the fairies had escaped and were causing more mischief, but then she’d heard Miguel’s voice outside her window. He hadn’t sounded upset, so she’d assumed whatever had happened and whoever he was talking to, the situation was under control. She’d gone back to sleep and not thought anything of it.

  However, she had better get out of bed and get dressed without further ado. She skipped a shower, thinking she’d do that after her excursion, since there was a good possibility of getting muddy and sweaty on her trek into the cave. Feeling sluggish, she headed to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

  And stopped dead in the doorway. The kitchen sparkled. She’d been so tired she hadn’t bothered to clean up the bowl and cups from the fae folk’s meal last night, instead leaving them in the sink to deal with this morning. All were washed and put away (she checked the cabinet to make sure they hadn’t disappeared entirely), the counters wiped down, and nothing remained from the night before.

  “Good morning, ma’am.” One of the brownies came out from behind a canister, scratching his head and yawning.

  “Did you do this?” Lilliana asked.

  “Of course, ma’am. In payment for our supper last night.”

  “Why, thank you.” She wondered if she might convince Prince Tam Lin to leave a couple of the brownies behind. They appeared to be even better at cleaning than Shirley, the housekeeper.

  She put a tea bag in a mug full of water and stuck it in the microwave, then pressed the Beverage button. While the water heated and the tea brewed, she went back to her bedroom and got dressed. Grabbing her backpack from the hall closet, she headed back to the kitchen. The microwave beeped just as she entered. She dipped the teabag in the water three times to make sure it had released enough of its essence, then removed it and threw it away. Usually she’d wait a few minutes before attempting to drink her tea, but she was in a hurry this morning. She wanted to get the fairies out of her apartment and safely tucked away in the cave long before any of the residents were up and about. Lilliana blew on the surface of the liquid and was just raising the cup to her lips when there was a loud pounding on her front door.

  “Lilliana, Lilliana, come quickly,” Nancy’s voice shrieked from the other side.

  Reluctantly Lilliana put the mug down on the counter and went to open the door.

  Nancy stood in the hallway, looking like a Pepto Bismol bunny in her fluffy pink robe and slippers. Her silver-blonde curls corkscrewed around a face twisted with emotion.

  “What is it, Nancy?” Lilliana resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to make sure the brownies weren’t in sight. Of course, even if they were, Nancy was so upset she probably wouldn’t notice.

  “It’s Miguel.” Nancy grabbed her hand and pulled her up the stairs to the second floor. She opened the stairwell door. Lilliana almost ran into her as Nancy came to a sudden stop.

  The prostrate form of the handyman sprawled across the floor a few
feet away, just outside the door to Nancy’s apartment.

  Lilliana gently moved Nancy aside and sprinted down the hall. She knelt beside Miguel’s body, narrowly missing plunking her knee in the pool of blood surrounding him. A dagger pierced the center of Miguel’s chest, right in the middle of his breastbone. She didn’t need to feel for a pulse to know that he was dead.

  “I’ll call Chief Cartwright,” Lilliana said as she rose to her feet. Several doors had popped open to allow curious eyes to see what the disturbance was about.

  Pieter Joncker started toward her. “What’s going on?”

  “Stay back,” Lilliana cautioned. “Miguel’s been stabbed.”

  Mary’s voice came from a doorway halfway down the hall. “Is he...?”

  Lilliana nodded. “I’m afraid so. Please, everyone, don’t come any closer. We have to preserve the evidence for the police.”

  Nancy’s face had turned white, and she clasped a hand to her mouth. Just as Lilliana was thinking that she looked on the verge of collapse, Nancy’s knees started to buckle.

  “Pieter, help Nancy.”

  Pieter turned toward Nancy, then realizing what was happening, quickly grabbed her elbow and propped her up.

  “What do I do with her?” Pieter asked.

  Since Miguel was lying in front of her door, Nancy couldn’t very well lie down in her own apartment. “Mary, could Nancy wait in your apartment for a while?”

  Mary nodded and opened the door wider so Pieter could carry Nancy inside.

  Lilliana hurried back to her apartment to get her cell phone and call the chief. And also to calm her nerves. Since it was too early for DeeDee to be in, she got the Cochise County dispatcher, who covered the small town’s emergency calls during off hours. She quickly explained the situation.