by Elise Sax
The pin changer was enormous, and it was easily twice the size of the bear trap. Tilly was carrying it in her spindly little arms. “Isn’t that heavy?” I asked her.
“Not for me, because I drink buttermilk. I’ve drunk a glass of it with every meal since I was two years old. Your generation doesn’t know anything about buttermilk. You think kale smoothies are going to do the trick. Well, from me to you, I’m here to tell you that kale smoothies won’t do shit. Buttermilk. Remember what I’m saying to you.”
I nodded, as if I was noting her words of wisdom down in my brain for posterity. “Buttermilk.”
Tilly walked away to set up her Rockwell trap, and I walked through the gate on my way to Goodnight Flowers. I should have put the kibosh on Tilly’s plan to trap Rockwell in a pin changer, but I was tired of telling everyone to leave my murderous husband in peace. He didn’t deserve any peace. Besides, just as Tilly didn’t think Rockwell would fall for a bear trap, I didn’t think he would fall for a pin changer trap, either.
The walk to the Plaza was a welcome relief from my day. The weather was cool and crisp with a chilly wind that made me pull my cardigan tight around me. I took in big gulps of the cold air, and it helped to revive me. My stomach growled, and I realized that I had relaxed enough to grow hungry. It was still technically breakfast time, and I decided to stop at the diner after dealing with the emergency at Goodnight Flowers.
A few minutes later, I arrived at the Plaza. There were a few people walking around, who were still wearing garlic necklaces, but for the most part, I gathered that word had gotten around that the ghost was really only a convicted killer who got released early from prison on a technicality.
The door to Goodnight Flowers was open, and I walked right in. The small flower shop was packed with Mabel and the reality show crew. There was no sign of Rocco.
“There she is,” the cameraman announced and swung around to film me. I waved at him.
Mabel stormed over to me with her hands on her hips. “What’s the emergency?” I asked her.
“A maid of honor is supposed to help the bride pick out the flowers for the wedding,” she scolded me in a sing-song way, as if she was all sweetness and light. But she spoke through clenched teeth. She had decided to ditch the fake eyelashes today, and her pancake makeup had melted on one side, gooping up under her left cheekbone.
“I didn’t know you were picking out the flowers for your wedding,” I said. “Is that the emergency? Flowers?”
Mabel stared at me and didn’t blink. I could see the rage build on her face, but she maintained her reality show smile. Either the struggle to maintain her composure or honest emotion made tears fill her eyes. She wiped at them furiously with the back of her hand before the tears could fall, but I noticed them.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Of course, I would love to help you with the flowers,” I said, honestly sorry that I had hurt her feelings. “What kinds are you thinking of? You want me to help you decide?”
Mabel’s tears vanished, and she put her hands on her hips. “I don’t need you to help me pick out my flowers. I’ve already picked out my flowers. What kind of bride do you take me for?”
I felt like that was a trick question, so I didn’t answer.
“The emergency is with this stupid flower shop!” she continued. A woman behind the counter seemed to shrink before my eyes, so I figured she was the owner of Goodnight Flowers.
“The shop screwed up the order and now they can’t get the flowers in time for the wedding,” the reality show director informed me. “So, we need some footage of you consoling Mabel and scolding the shop owner. And…action!”
“There. There,” I said, patting Mabel’s back. “This is not fair. What will we do?” The cameraman moved in for the close-up, and the sound man hovered the microphone over my sympathetic head. Suddenly, I got an idea. I backed away from Mabel and got out of the camera’s frame. “I think I might know how to fix this. I might be able to fix the order,” I told her and approached the shop owner. “Is the issue with your point of sale system?” I asked her.
“Don’t screw this up more, Matilda,” Mabel interrupted. “It’s way above your head. Just pat my back and tell me it’s going to be all right.”
“I really think I can help. I have a doctorate in floral management.”
“You what?” the director asked.
“She’s making that up. It’s not a real thing,” Mabel said.
In a perfect world, she would have been correct. It didn’t sound like a real thing. But I had three doctorates for things that didn’t sound real. I had never used any of them until I saved Tilly with one of them. “It’s a real thing,” I insisted. “I have a doctorate in floral management. I know a lot about point of sale systems.”
Mabel crossed her arms. “Likely story,” she sneered, forgetting to smile for the camera.
I walked behind the counter. “May I?” I asked the owner and checked out her computer. “Yep. This is just an issue with the product sales report. If I just do this…” I said, typing in numbers. “It should do the trick.”
A couple minutes later, I had fixed the problem. I was a hero; Mabel was going to get the flowers of her choice on her wedding day. The shop owner hugged me and shed a few tears, but Mabel refused to believe that I had fixed the problem. She made the owner walk her through the problem and my solution and then demanded a guarantee in writing that the flowers would be at her wedding.
The director required some more footage of me consoling Mabel, as if the problem still existed because that “makes for great reality TV.” As I patted Mabel’s back, I had a rush of euphoria. I had used my degrees for the second time in only a couple of days! It was like a little miracle in my life, and if I could find uses for my bowling technology and floral management degrees, then maybe I could solve all my problems.
That’s when Rockwell walked into Goodnight Flowers.
Chapter 12
Since I hadn’t seen Rockwell for a while, I had hoped that my friends had gotten rid of him or that maybe he didn’t exist at all. But here he was. My nemesis. My nightmare.
“There you are,” the director gushed in Rockwell’s direction. “Let’s film you coming in again, and when you see Matilda, shake your fist at her and maybe shed some tears. Can you cry on cue?”
“Sure. Why not,” Rockwell said.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Outside, there was a crash when Nora’s food truck ran into the flower display outside the flower shop. I ran outside to see if she was okay. She stumbled out of the truck and slammed her door shut.
“That time wasn’t my fault,” Nora said to me about her latest in a long stream of food truck accidents. “He distracted me.” She pointed up. On the roof of Goodnight Flowers, the mooner was back. “He jumped onto the roof from the other roof,” Nora explained breathlessly. “I was following Rockwell, just like we planned when naked Batman flew through the air. Nobody can drive safely after seeing that.”
Two sheriff cruisers drove up with their lights flashing and their sirens blaring. Wendy jumped out of hers with her gun drawn. “That’s it! I’m going to shoot him!” she yelled. Her eyes were wild, her hair had escaped her professional-looking bun, and she looked frazzled.
Adam got out of his car and ran our way, waving his hands at Wendy. “Don’t shoot him! Don’t shoot him!”
Wendy’s eyes spun around in their sockets. “Please let me shoot him! Please!”
“Wow, the sheriff’s department takes on a very different vibe without Amos around,” Nora said to me.
“White Castle hamburgers!” the mooner yelled. Oh no. Not this again. I looked at my phone. It had been nearly two hours since the hitchhiker had disappeared. I needed to get moving and check out where Amy’s body had been discovered, but first I needed to eat something or I was going to pass out. There was no food in Nora’s food truck today, since she was following Rockwell instead of selling burritos and tamales, so I needed to make a quick
stop at the diner. I didn’t have time to look at a crazy guy with a firm butt and no visible fear of heights. I didn’t have time to deal with Mabel’s flower issues and her reality show.
I had to save a girl, and on the double!
“Time is money,” the reality show director announced, marching out of the flower shop in her heels and tapping the watch on her wrist. “Get back in here, Matilda. We need to shoot the husband scene, pronto.”
“He’s not my husband. He’s my ex-husband,” I said in the most adamant tone I could muster. “And he’s a convicted killer, so you’d be wise to stay clear of him. He’s particularly talented at screwing up women’s lives.”
“Be careful, honey, you don’t want to commit slander,” Rockwell said, joining us on the sidewalk. He took the director’s hand in his and threw her his best I’m-a-wise-kind-man-with-a-big-heart look. “I warned you about her mental state. And of course, you know about her stealing things all over town.”
Nora and I gasped at the same time. If I had had a crowbar, I would have thrown it at him. “Me? It was you! You were stealing stuff all over town!” I yelled. “Are you going to believe him? He’s a criminal!”
The cameraman and sound man joined us and started filming again. Wendy stopped yelling about shooting the mooner, and the mooner took a break in order to watch what was happening on the ground.
“He’s the ghost,” Nora said, taking my side against my husband and the reality show director. “He’s been skulking around town. Those aren’t even his clothes. He’s wearing Boone’s clothes.”
Rockwell shook his head, as if he was so sad that my psychosis was contagious. “Poor woman. Matilda’s convinced you that she’s sane. You know, Matilda was in an institution. They had to medicate her and shackle her to a bed.”
“Because you gaslighted me!” I cried. There was nothing as frustrating than being maligned and lied about. “Does anybody have a crowbar? I really need a crowbar right now.”
“See what I mean?” Rockwell said to the director. “A very, very troubled woman. But I love her, and I’m devoted to her.”
“I’ve had enough of this crap,” I said.
Nora hugged me. “Don’t worry. Faye’s got something lined up for him but good,” she whispered in my ear.
I left everyone on the sidewalk and went to the diner. Despite all the stress, my stomach was rumbling, and I was starving. I was going to scarf down breakfast in a hurry and then get on with finding the killer and saving the girl.
The diner was packed. I couldn’t find an empty table or booth. “If you can squeeze in somewhere, that’s your only chance,” Leah McGregor, the part-time waitress, told me. Adele wasn’t there, and I assumed she was out plotting misdeeds against my husband.
“I just want a quick breakfast special,” I told her and sat at a table for four where there was only one person. “Sorry for intruding, but I have to eat in a hurry,” I told the woman sitting there.
“No problem,” she said, smiling. She pushed aside two jars of honey on the table to make room for me. “Got to keep my honey safe. Morris doesn’t sell it very often.”
“Morris sells honey?”
“He raises it himself.”
I didn’t know a person could raise honey, but I took her word for it. Morris was considered the best cook in town, and usually won the annual chile cook-off, much to Amos’s chagrin. Amos was a great amateur chef.
Thinking about Amos, I wondered if he was still locked up in his house, and my suspicions about him and the mysterious box returned. I had so many suspicions about so many people that I was exhausted from it. I really needed to eat something and rest a minute so that I could think clearly.
There were a lot of other diners who had bought honey, and their jars were on their tables. It must have been good honey because folks were pouring it over their food. There were other jars for sale on the kitchen window sill where the orders were placed. A handmade sign advertised them for five dollars a jar. If I weren’t in a hurry, I would have bought a couple jars.
I was served quickly, and the woman at my table offered me a spoonful of her honey for my eggs. I accepted, and she poured it on. It was delicious and gave me the boost I needed to continue with my day. I scarfed the food down and made a note to come back later for more honey. It would make a good present for my friends for helping me with Rockwell.
After I ate, I was finally on my way to Nora’s house to get my car. It was three hours since the hitchhiker had vanished. I could feel the clock ticking, like I was in a thriller movie. I walked as fast as I could through the Plaza. The reality show crew was filming Rockwell in front of Goodnight Flowers. By the look of him, he was telling the world about how patient and loving he was and how crazy I was. As my experience had proved, I knew that Rockwell would convince the town that I was a crazy woman who had stolen all kinds of things, including a bag of potatoes. It wouldn’t matter what I said. People believed Rockwell. Sociopaths were very convincing. The people of Goodnight probably wouldn’t believe that he had arrived earlier and had been snooping and stealing.
I stopped in my tracks. An electric current went through me with a new realization. It dawned on me that I didn’t know when Rockwell was let out of jail or if he was let out of jail, and I certainly didn’t know how long he had been in Goodnight. He could have been in town for months, ever since I had gotten there.
And who knew what he could have been doing here all that time. More than stealing potatoes, I assumed. Perhaps he had gotten a taste for murder and sated it in Goodnight.
Sated it by murdering girls?
It made sense. It was the only thing that made sense since I had started suspecting Boone, Amos, and Silas, none of whom made any sense as a serial killer. But Rockwell? That fit like a hand and glove.
I felt a surge of joy, thinking that Rockwell was the killer. It would solve so much. Of course, that meant he couldn’t have killed Amy, but maybe she had nothing to do with the other murders. I still had to go see where her body was discovered, but with my friends tailing Rockwell, I knew that he wouldn’t hurt the hitchhiker while I was away.
“I don’t care if he burns the whole town down, I’m going up there, and I’m going to pistol whip him,” Wendy was telling Adam when I passed by.
“We can’t pistol whip him. Remember the trouble we got into last year?” Adam said.
“But Amos isn’t here, and it’s better than shooting him. You won’t let me shoot him,” Wendy said.
“You have a point,” Adam said.
I walked out of earshot and arrived at Nora’s house a few minutes later. Lifting the garage door, I found my Nissan Altima safe and sound. I plugged in the GPS coordinates that Silas had given me into my phone, and I drove away.
Even though Amy’s body was discovered close to my house, I had to take the same road where I had seen the hitchhiker to get there. First the road, then a fire road, and then a hike. While I drove, I kept on the lookout for the hitchhiker, but she was good and truly gone.
I parked at the top of the fire road and started walking, following the GPS on my phone. I walked carefully through the forest so that I wouldn’t trip over branches, twigs, and brush that covered the forest floor. The air was thick with the sounds of wildlife, but those weren’t the sounds that scared me, and they weren’t the sounds that I was listening for.
There was no reason to assume that Amy had been one of the serial killer’s victims. I couldn’t imagine that she was hitchhiking when she disappeared, for example. But something told me that her death was key in discovering who the serial killer was. I didn’t want it to be true, because I really wanted Rockwell to be the killer so that he could be sent back to prison and the suspicion would lift off of Boone. But I couldn’t quell my conviction that the answer was here, that Amy was guarding the clues to lead me to the serial killer’s identity.
So, I was listening for Amy, and I was listening for the serial killer. As the forest gave way to a large clearing where I knew Amy�
�s body had been found, I heard another sound, the sound of a man talking to his dead wife.
The clearing was covered in low shrub and wildflowers that had lived through the summer and early fall. Amos Goodnight was standing in the center, talking to the ground. He was wearing his usual jeans, boots, and his sheriff coat. It was good to see him wearing the coat. Hopefully, it meant that he was feeling better and prepared to go back to work.
“I miss you so much, sweetheart,” Amos said to the ground.
I felt uncomfortable spying on his personal moment, so I walked further into the clearing and let Amos know I was there. It was clear that he was startled, but truthfully, so was I. I wasn’t expecting that he would be there. Was he merely mourning his lost wife, or was he returning to the scene of the crime?
“I was just out for a walk,” I lied, smiling at him.
“Liar,” he said and gave me a half-hearted smile. “I bet you think I’m a fool for not getting over all this and returning to my life.”
“No, of course not. I think it’s admirable that you loved your wife so much.” Unless you murdered her, and then I really don’t have any sympathy for you. “It must be heart-wrenching to know that Amy was murdered.”
“Murdered. Is that what you think happened?”
“Yes, of course. Why? Did you think it was an accident?”
Amos took off his cowboy hat and ran a hand over his face and head. “No. I mean, it’s never been proven one way or another what happened to her, but I’ve always been convinced that she committed suicide.”
I could have sworn that the wind stopped blowing and the air grew thick. I rubbed at the tightness in my chest, and I was having difficulty swallowing. I had never thought of suicide. I had heard it mentioned briefly, but it never stuck in my mind. Never.
“Why would a woman who had it all kill herself?” I hadn’t meant to ask it out loud. I had meant to only think it, but there it was, out in the open.
“She didn’t have it all. I didn’t deserve her,” Amos said, looking straight at me.
