African Violet Club Mystery Collection

by Elise M Stone

  The brownies clambered up from the floor onto the shelves and climbed in first. Then the fairies flew inside. There was much jostling and twittering until they all finally got settled, then Tam Lin looked up at Lilliana from inside the carton and gave a firm nod of his head. She shut the flaps of the box and carried it to the dining room, where her backpack waited for its precious cargo.

  After putting the box inside, Lilliana hefted the backpack over her shoulders, slid her arms inside the straps, and settled it down until it was firmly in place. Then, grasping a flashlight in her hand, she strode over to the patio door, opened it, and slid into the night, leaving the glass open just a crack so she could get back inside on her return.

  Starlight glowed over the landscape from the dark skies of southern Arizona. It was enough to see by until she was out of sight of the retirement community, climbing the hill that led to the cave. She turned on her flashlight to guide her way on the path, careful of the uneven desert terrain. It didn’t take her very long to reach the mouth of the cave, crawl through the low opening, and hike to the kingdom of Queen Esmeralda.

  When she opened the box again, the fairies flew out, while those surrounding Queen Esmeralda’s throne burst forward, greeting their long-lost cousins with tinkling laughter. Filled with joy, the fairies darted around in a kind of dance. Only Esmeralda remained in the niche, patiently waiting for her prince.

  The brownies stood off to one side, uncharacteristically bashful for a minute, then took part in the celebration, jumping into the air and turning somersaults in their glee.

  At last Prince Tam Lin stood still and gazed at his queen. The other fairies, noticing his posture, stopped their singing and dancing and stood respectfully while he approached her.

  “My queen, I present myself as your prince, along with my troop. Though we are small in number, we are mighty in spirit. May we serve you fruitfully all our days.”

  Esmeralda bowed her head. “I accept you and your troop into my domain. Together we will grow and prosper. Come, sit beside me.”

  Tam Lin ascended to the niche and took his place. Esmeralda reached for his hand as he sat beside her on the throne. The fairy queen turned to Lilliana with glowing eyes. “Thank you. I don’t know what we would have done without you. Any wish you desire is yours.”

  Lilliana shared the happiness of the tiny creatures. Her heart swelled until it pressed against the walls of her chest. “My only wish is that you will be happy, Queen Esmeralda. And that the fairies will be safe here in their new home.”

  “Are you sure?” Esmeralda asked.

  Lilliana nodded.

  “If you ever need anything,” Esmeralda said, “all you have to do is ask.”

  “Thank you. And now, with your leave, I’ll return to my home. I’m tired and would like to rest.”

  “Of course,” Esmeralda said. “I hope you will come to visit us in the future.”

  “I would love to.” Lilliana turned and started on her journey back home to the normal world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE next morning, Lilliana hurried to the dining room. After her late night excursion, she hadn’t awakened until half-past seven, much later than her usual time. She would have been up at least an hour earlier on a normal morning, taken a brisk walk to stimulate her appetite, and been seated at one of the tables in plenty of time. If she bothered to eat breakfast at all. Often she’d just have tea in her apartment. But she seemed to have used up all of last night’s dinner calories on her trip to the cave and back. She’d awoken with her stomach grumbling.

  She breathed a sigh of relief as she entered. The chafing dishes were still on the buffet. Willie, Lenny, and Nancy were still at one of the tables. She quickly made her way to the warming pans of scrambled eggs and bacon, took a plate from the stack, and spooned breakfast onto it. After putting two slices of wheat bread in a toaster, she took two individually-wrapped pats of butter and a packet of marmalade and put them on the edge of her plate. As soon as the toast popped, she put that on the plate as well and headed for her friends.

  “Good morning.” Lilliana put her plate at an empty place and added her tray to the stack nearby.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Nancy said. “You slept late today.”

  “I was tired after all the excitement of yesterday,” she said.

  “I noticed you weren’t with Chief Cartwright when he came to question me,” Nancy said. “Did he have you chasing down leads?”

  Lilliana shook her head. “I’m not sure he likes including me in his investigations.”

  “I thought he appreciated your help,” Willie said. He scooped up the last bite of pancake on his plate and put it in his mouth.

  “So did I,” Lilliana said. “But I think either Mayor Ackerman or Mr. Ellison must have said something to him. When I started to follow him, he told me he’d handle this murder on his own.” The rebuff still smarted. She’d thought she was doing the chief a favor. He hadn’t even bothered to thank her for being there after Ruby was killed. And now he’d tossed her aside. Oh, well. There was nothing to be done about that. She could still investigate on her own.

  Seeing Willie was done eating, Lilliana quickly spoke before he could leave the table. “I wonder if I might borrow your car again today.”

  Willie looked surprised. “More packages to send out?”

  “Actually, I have a package to deliver. While I was at the UPS depot, I picked up something for Pulaski’s Gourmet Grocery.”

  Nancy eyed her with concern. “Lilliana, the grocery is closed. Mr. Pulaski died.”

  “I know he died,” Lilliana said with annoyance. “The package is for Jaclyn... oh, wait. You don’t know about Jaclyn.”

  “Who’s Jaclyn?” Nancy asked.

  “Ted’s great-granddaughter. She’s going to reopen the grocery store. I met her while I was in town waiting for Mike to finish repairing the car.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful!” Nancy said. “I’ll have to make a list of things for her to order for me.”

  Lilliana could just imagine the kinds of things Nancy had in mind.

  “Don’t you usually walk into town?” Willie asked.

  “Yes, and I’d walk in this morning, too, but the box is too big for me to carry all that way. So, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to take your car.” As she waited for Willie’s reply, Lilliana got a little anxious. What if he wouldn’t lend it to her? However would she get the box down to the grocery?

  “Of course you can take the car,” Willie said. “Just remember to replace the gas you use.”

  “Oh, I will,” Lilliana said, thinking she now knew why Willie had hesitated. “I should have done that the other day. I’m sorry.”

  “I was joking, Lilliana,” Willie said. “About the short trip, and how you might use up a teaspoon of gas to get there and back.”

  “Oh,” Lilliana said. She didn’t always get Willie’s jokes. Come to think of it, there were more times than not that she didn’t get the humor in a joke anyone told. It wasn’t something she usually worried about.

  “So what is she like?” Nancy asked.

  “Who? Oh, Jaclyn.” She thought back to her brief, but pleasant encounter with the young woman. “She’s quite striking, as a matter of fact. She has lovely long auburn hair and kind of an elven look about her. She’s quite eager to make a success of the store.”

  “Did she say when it would be opening?” Nancy leaned forward in her eagerness.

  “I didn’t think to ask,” Lilliana said. “I’ll ask her today when I drop off the box. She had to throw out quite a lot of food. Even the gourmet chocolates.” Lilliana’s voice was wistful. She did miss those chocolates. And the man who had given her samples to try.

  “I could have helped her with the chocolate,” Nancy said. “There are tricks to making it look fresh again.”

  “I don’t care how it looks,” Willie said. “I just care how it tastes.”

  “Me, too,” Nancy said.

  “Well, t
ime for my torture session,” Willie said. He leaned heavily on his walker as he rose to his feet.

  “Torture?” Lilliana was alarmed.

  Willie grinned at her. “No need to worry. That’s just what I call my physical therapy.”

  Another joke she’d missed. She’d have to work on her sense of humor.

  “I’ll go along with you,” Lenny said. “Maybe I can help you practice in between sessions.”

  Willie groaned. “Just what I need is extra PT.”

  The two men left, leaving Lilliana and Nancy alone at the table. Lilliana picked up her second slice of toast and spread marmalade on it. “Lenny was awfully quiet at breakfast this morning.”

  “He’s taking Ruby’s death very hard,” Nancy said.

  “Oh? I didn’t think he knew her that well.”

  Nancy wrinkled her nose as if there were a bad odor in the room. “I think he knew her too well.”

  Did Lilliana detect jealousy? “What do you mean?”

  “They sneaked out to go dancing one night. Ruby said she missed dancing, and Lenny said he knew a place just outside of town they could go. After dinner, they said they were going to bed early”— Nancy’s mouth dropped open at what she might have implied—“not together, of course. But later I saw them creeping around the back of the building, all hunched over like two spies. It was obvious what they were doing.“ She scowled in disapproval. “Ruby was popping Aleve like candy all the next day. Served her right.”

  The bitterness in Nancy’s voice reminded her of how Nancy had had her eye on Lenny for a long time before Ruby came on the scene. And there was the applesauce, the same applesauce she had given to Willie to dissolve his Xarelto in. She’d been closest to Ruby after the stabbing, pulled the ice pick out, insuring Ruby would bleed to death before help could arrive. Lilliana had a hard time imagining Nancy as a cold-blooded killer, but all the evidence pointed in that direction.

  A little later, Lilliana pulled the big Lincoln into two parking spaces. Two because the spaces in the parking lot had been designed for compact cars, and the Lincoln was anything but compact. She wondered if her idea of using the car to transport the box of Scottish groceries had been such a good idea after all. She’d forgotten there was no parking on Main Street, so she’d had to circle around and park in the municipal lot that ran along the back of the stores. Now, after wrestling the box from her apartment out to where the car had been parked at Rainbow Ranch, she’d have to wrestle it around the corner to get it to the store.

  She got out of the Lincoln and opened the trunk. After hefting the box out and setting it on the ground, she closed the trunk and lifted it up again. Carrying it in her arms, she could barely see over the top of the carton and prayed she wouldn’t trip over any of the rocks Arizona was famous for sneaking into one’s path. Sometimes she thought the rocks moved on their own just to trip you up.

  As she came up to the door, Jaclyn saw her and hurried to open it.

  “Let me take that. You should have called me.” Jaclyn held out her arms for the box.

  “I can manage,” Lilliana said, not at all sure she could. “Just tell me where to put it.”

  Jaclyn hurriedly cleared a space at the end of the counter. Lilliana put the box down with a sigh of relief. She rubbed first one arm, then the other, trying to ease the ache out of her muscles.

  “Thank you so much for picking up my shipment,” Jaclyn said. She glanced at the box and her eyes widened at seeing the loose flaps. “Did you open it?”

  Lilliana had tried to secure the top of the box, but there was no hiding the torn tape and packing slip envelope. “Ummm...” She had to make up a story quick. “It might have been damaged in transit. I’ve heard that carriers are not always as careful as we’d like them to be. Perhaps on the ship. Or airplane. Or however it got here from Scotland.” She was not a very convincing liar.

  Jaclyn looked at her skeptically. “As long as nothing’s missing. I’d better check it right away.”

  She tore off the packing slip, unfolded it, and smoothed out the creases once she’d put it on the counter beside the box. Then she pulled the flaps up and started extracting the contents. Lilliana noticed Jaclyn didn’t bother to check it against the packing slip she’d made such a production of setting out. It didn’t take her long to unpack the cookies, tea, and puddings. She rummaged around in the brown paper that remained, making loud rustling noises. She looked up at Lilliana in dismay. “It’s not here.”

  Lilliana’s heart pounded. Had she not put everything back in the box before sealing it up again? “What’s not there, dear?”

  “A box,” Jaclyn said unhelpfully. “A special box.” Quickly she looked at the packing slip and ran her forefinger down the list of what was supposed to be inside. She stopped close to the bottom and looked up at Lilliana. “See, here it is.”

  Her finger had rested on a line that read Miscellaneous Items - Fragile.

  Lilliana knew what had been in that box. Did Jaclyn? “That’s rather a vague description. Do you know what specifically was in it?”

  Jaclyn hesitated. “It was something very special. My great-grandfather had written me a letter and told me he was ordering some unique items. For the store,” she quickly added.

  Lilliana decided it was time to stop playing this game of cat and mouse. “Would one of those items happen to have been named Tam Lin?”

  Jaclyn’s eyes widened. “You know about the fairies?”

  Lilliana nodded. “I do. And I’m glad you do, too, because it was getting rather difficult to hold a conversation.”

  “What happened to them?” Jaclyn asked.

  Lilliana told her about the message she’d gotten from Esmeralda and how she’d gone to see her and found out about the fairy prince. “And so I took them to the cave as soon as I could. I would have been here yesterday, but when Nancy found Miguel...”

  “I’m so relieved,” Jaclyn said. “I’ve been worried ever since I got here that I hadn’t arrived in time. That’s why I told my parents I had to come, even though they didn’t want me to.”

  Lilliana had a worrisome thought. “Does that mean you really won’t be reopening the grocery? You only came here because of the fairies?”

  “Oh, no,” Jaclyn said. “Everything I told you about the store and my wanting to run it is true. I just left out the fairies because, well, you know.”

  “Indeed I do. I wouldn’t dare mention them to anyone else for fear of people thinking I’d become addled in my old age, which wouldn’t do. No, that wouldn’t do at all.”

  “Does anyone else know about them?” Jaclyn asked.

  “I haven’t told anyone. I doubt your great-grandfather did either. He was very protective of the fairies and the cave.” Lilliana paused a moment and remembered Ted. Kind, gentle Ted. She wished she had been able to know him longer. But she hadn’t, and there was nothing she could do about that now. “Have you seen the cave?”

  “No, I haven’t. Before this week, I hadn’t been to Rainbow Ranch since I was a little girl.” Jaclyn looked thoughtful. “But you know... I just might have seen a fairy when I was visiting once. I’d gone outside to play on the patio in back of the ranch house. Great-grandma always had the most beautiful flowers there in colorful pots, and I used to show them to my Barbie dolls. One day there was a creature just a bit smaller than my Barbie, but it flew away as soon as it saw me. My mother told me it must have been a bird. But Great-grandpa Ted gave me a secret smile that my mother couldn’t see.”

  “I imagine you did see a fairy that day,” Lilliana said. “The fairies are very fond of flowers.”

  Jaclyn smiled. “I’m sure of it. Great-grandpa told me lots of stories about fairies, even when I got too old to believe in them. It was like a game we played, just the two of us.” Her smile faded and tears shone in her eyes. “He must have feared something would happen to him before the fairies could arrive, because he wrote me an email in which it was clear they would be coming to him in a shipment from Scotland.
Where are they now?”

  “They’re home now. I took them to the cave and Queen Esmeralda last night.”

  “Do you think you could show me the cave sometime?” Jaclyn asked.

  “I’ll have to check with Esmeralda, but I’m sure she will be happy to meet you.” Lilliana hoped so. Sharing the fairies and the cave with Jaclyn would almost be like sharing them with Ted.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE roar of a motorcycle greeted Lilliana’s ears as she stepped out of the Town Car. Two Harleys were pulling into the parking lot of the retirement home. Not something you saw often here. Octogenarians didn’t tend to ride motorcycles. But she did know someone who did. Her guess was confirmed when one of the riders got off her bike and pulled the helmet off her head. Kirstie. She whirled and stomped off toward the building. The second biker jumped off his Harley and ran to catch up with her. He grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

  “Don’t you walk away from me,” he growled.

  “I have to get back to work,” Kirstie said. “We’ll talk about this tonight.”

  “We’ll talk about it now.” He grabbed her other arm and tightened his grip on her biceps.

  “You’re hurting me, Tony!”

  Lilliana wondered if she should intervene. Tony must be the one who had given Kirstie her black eye.

  “I’ll hurt you a lot more if you’re not careful.”

  Alarmed now, she took a step toward the warring couple.

  Kirstie noticed Lilliana approaching. “Stay out of this, Mrs. Wentworth,” she pleaded.

  Tony’s head swiveled in her direction. “Yeah, stay out of it if you know what’s good for you, lady.”

  “See here, young man,” Lilliana began.

  “Please,” Kirstie said, her face pinched and anxious. “I know you mean well, but don’t.”

  Lilliana stopped, torn between wanting to help and not wanting to make things worse. She glanced anxiously from one of them to the other.