A Rose From the Dead (7 page)

He didn’t look convinced. “Let me think about it.”

While he strode off to the men’s room, I hurried back to the doorway in time to hear Reilly ask the cops, “Any other witnesses?”

“Not that we noticed, but we got here only about fifteen minutes ago. The outside hallway was empty when we came in. We did a brief check of the restrooms and the kitchen right away. No one was around, but the back door isn’t locked, so anyone could have entered or exited through it. The techies will be here soon to process everything, the coroner is on his way, and the hotel staff has been advised of the situation.”

“Good. Anything else?” Reilly asked.

“That’s all we have.”

Maybe that was all they had, but I had more. I raised my hand like a schoolkid trying to get the teacher’s attention.

Reilly beckoned me over. “Do you have anything helpful to add? And please note the word
helpful
.”

“Yes, I do,” I said eagerly.

“Of course you do.”

He was being snide, but I ignored him. “I know how she died.”

“I can’t wait to hear it.”

And I couldn’t wait to share it with him. So, as Marco rejoined us, I laid out my theory, starting with my own experience with the Urbans up to our finding Sybil’s clothes on the dummy, watching Reilly’s expression turn from snide to skeptical to interested. “That’s
U-R-B-A-N,
” I spelled out for him. “Ross and Jess.”

Reilly wrote it in his notepad, then sent one of the cops to secure the booth with the mannequins.

“And one more thing that supports my theory on the Urbans,” I said to Reilly. “Delilah Dove told me that when she was down here around six o’clock this evening, Sybil appeared to be waiting for someone. So, guess who that someone—or someones—must have been.”

Reilly was still taking down the information. “Dove?” he asked. “As in the bird?”

“As in the Happy Dreams Funeral Home Doves,” Marco clarified.

“Oh, right. What was she doing in the storage room?”

I turned to point out Delilah’s decorated casket. “That’s her contest entry. She had to glue something on before the judging started. So, anyway, back to my theory—”

At that moment, Angelique rose and stretched her body like a graceful swan awakening from a nap. Gliding effortlessly around the caskets on the right side of the room, she approached Reilly, her expression registering no emotion. The only indications of her grief were the deep tear tracks down her cheeks. “I’d like to leave now. May I have my recorder, please?”

“The recorder is evidence, ma’am,” Reilly said.

“But I need it. I have work to do.”

“You can have it when the investigation is over.” Reilly motioned to another cop. “Take her to the kitchen and get a statement. And make sure she gets fingerprinted.”

The cop tried to escort her to the door, but Angelique drew away from him with a sharp,
“Scherzo!”

Reilly and the cop exchanged puzzled glances.

“It’s a musical term,” I whispered to Reilly. “Pretend you’re not impressed.”

“Ma’am, you’ll need to go with this officer,” he said. “We have to clear this room so the investigators can get in to work.”

“Not with
him,
” she said of the young cop. Using her index finger to point, Angelique swung her arm around, stopping at Marco. “Him.”

I nearly laughed at Marco’s stunned look, but Reilly wasn’t seeing the humor in the situation. “He’s not an officer, ma’am.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and turned her head away. “Then I won’t go.”

Reilly frowned at her, but she wasn’t paying any attention to him.

“You have to accompany the officer, ma’am. Now.”

Angelique did a pirouette, then sank to the floor beside a casket decorated like a TV remote control and wrapped her arms and legs around the stand, casting Reilly a glance that said,
Make me.

“Is she nuts?” Reilly whispered to me.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Sean,” Marco said, and motioned for Reilly to step out of Angelique’s earshot, as I tagged along. “Look, if it will help move things along, I’ll sit in on the interview.”

Reilly lifted his hat to scratch his head. “I know you’ve got the experience, Marco, but it’s not something we normally allow. And if brass gets wind of it…”

“Sean, it won’t be a problem. I’ll be there for support, and that’s the extent of my involvement. You know I can keep my mouth shut. But if you don’t want to chance it, that’s fine with me. I’m ready to go home. How about you, Sunshine?”

Before I could reply, Reilly said, “Hold on a second,” and signaled for the other cop to join the huddle.

While the three guys conferred, I took the opportunity to get another look at the body. Since the whole back row was now officially off limits, the best I could do was to stand between the harmonica casket and the miniature jet plane and lean over the yellow tape. Fortunately, the casket holding Sybil’s corpse sat on a low enough stand to give me a good view from that distance.

Don’t look at her eyes.
I focused on Sybil’s long mane of hair instead, then her ears, nose, and mouth, down her neck, over her body, and up again. I couldn’t see any signs of blood, wounds, or purplish marks on her throat that might have indicated strangulation, but by the way her mouth was positioned, it was obvious that she had been gasping for air when she died. She was lying on a good three inches of sand, and the silk lining inside the casket lid had been stuffed so full that, when shut, it would probably have pressed against her face, further terrifying her.

A hard shudder rippled through me as I imagined her struggling to get out, crying for help even as she fought to draw a breath. Meanwhile, in the exhibition hall, the Urban twins had been dressing the dummy and having a good laugh. I couldn’t fathom why they had put a heavy object on the lid. Leaving her naked in the storage room, her clothing on the mannequin in the hall for everyone to see, would have been embarrassing enough. Didn’t they realize she would run out of air?

My fists tightened in outrage. This was one prank the Urbans would
not
get away with.

“All right, ma’am,” Reilly said to Angelique as I rejoined them. “Mr. Salvare will accompany you, but he’s not allowed to advise you in any way. Do you understand?”

At her nod, Marco and one of the cops helped her up, each one taking an arm. But before they could usher her into the hallway, she broke free and twisted around for another look at the casket where Sybil’s body lay.

“Let’s go, ma’am,” the young cop said to her.

She had something soft balled in her palm and quickly tossed it high into the air. As the ball fell to the ground, it unfurled into Sybil’s black fishnet stocking. “Roses are red and violets are blue,” she called, as Marco and the cop took a firmer hold of her arms. “Find the petals and a killer, too.”

Reilly watched the three of them go, then said to me, “What was that about?”

“Sounds like a new twist on an old poem.” A thought suddenly occurred to me. I hurried to the back row to lean between the two caskets for another look at the corpse. “Sybil had a red rose in her hair today, Reilly, but now it’s gone. That’s what Angelique meant. She must think that whomever Sybil met here took it.”

“Couldn’t she have just said, ‘The rose is missing’?”

“You’re lucky she didn’t say it in musical terms. I wonder if she has an inkling as to whom Sybil met.”

As Reilly jotted more info in his notepad, I glanced toward the empty doorway. “May I go sit in on the interview?”

“Not on your life. I’m already bending the rules for Marco. Besides, I’ve got something better for you to do.” He pointed to the doorway. “Go home.”

“But I have questions for Angelique.”

“I think we can handle the questions, Abby.”

“Can I at least stick around long enough to see the Urban twins taken away?”

“No. Now, go home. That’s an order.”

At that moment, a contingent of crime scene investigators and the coroner descended on the storage room. Startled, I backed straight into the pointed nose of the jet plane. Luckily, every male eye in the room was focused on Sybil’s body, so my windmilling arms went unnoticed—or so I thought. But no, there was Reilly standing by the door, an amused look on his face. I straightened my skirt and made my way up the row of caskets, pretending nothing had happened.

Suddenly a booming voice from the hallway called, “Where is she? What happened to Sybil?” and in the next moment Colonel Billingsworth appeared, leading his troop of new judges. He tried to get into the room, but Reilly’s arm shot out to bar his way.

“Sir, please step back.”

The colonel turned left, then right, trying to see what was going on, but there were too many men blocking his view. “Has Sybil been found? Is she here?”

“Are you a relative, sir?” Reilly asked.

“Her late husband’s business partner. Did something happen to her?”

“Your name?” Reilly asked, flipping open his notebook.

“Walker T. Billingsworth, president of the Midwestern Funeral Directors’ Association. Why are the medics here? Did she have a heart attack?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Billingsworth, but she’s dead.”

The colonel blinked several times, mouth agape, as though the words wouldn’t register. “Dead?”

“Yes, sir.”

He let out a huge sigh. “Thank God.”

R
eilly stopped writing and the new judges looked startled. “Excuse me?” Reilly said.

The colonel looked flustered. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m not relieved she’s dead. I’m relieved she’s been found. She didn’t show up for the banquet or answer her page, and we—by that I mean the convention committee—were growing concerned. With good reason, as it turns out. Would you tell me the cause of her death, Sergeant?”

Reilly scratched his ear. “It’s unknown at this time. Do you know if the deceased has family in the area, Mr. Billingsworth?”

“We prefer to use the term
loved one
, rather than
deceased
, Sergeant, and to answer your question, Sybil has no family in the area. I believe there’s a distant cousin in Honolulu.”

“How did you know to come down here to look for her?”

“She was supposed to be here earlier to judge the entries for our casket contest, so this seemed a logical place to look.”

“Did you search anywhere else?”

“Her room and her booth.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Just after two o’clock, when she was making the rounds of the exhibit booths.”

Reilly finished jotting the information in his notepad, then pointed up the hallway. “Do you see that officer? Would you give him your name and a number where you can be reached?”

“Certainly, sir. I’ll help in whatever way I can.” He pointed to the Purple Heart medal on his lapel. “I served in ’Nam, Sergeant. I know how to get things done.” He saluted, did an about-face, and strode away, followed by his small group, who fell into a single line behind him.

Reilly glanced at me and sighed wearily. “It’s going to be a long night.”

It was almost ten o’clock when I left the storage room and went to see whether Marco was finished. But the only person in the kitchen was the young cop.

“Check for Salvare outside the building,” the cop told me. “He said he had to take a phone call.”

A phone call at ten o’clock on a Saturday night? That couldn’t be good news, especially since ninety-nine percent of Marco’s calls came from either a bartender at Down the Hatch complaining about a problem at the bar or a member of his family complaining about another member of his family. I started for the back exit only to have
my
cell phone ring. I checked the screen. Strange. My dad never phoned this late.

“Hi, Dad. What’s up?”

“Sorry to bother you, honey. Are you busy right now?”

I pushed open the heavy back door and saw my hunk-a-hunk-of-burning-love standing outside near the curb, his phone pressed to his ear. He glanced at me and shook his head to signal that things weren’t going well with his conversation.

“Marco and I are just leaving the convention center. Is there a problem?”

“Your mother is throwing clay, Abby. I don’t know what to do.”

There was nothing odd about her throwing clay. That’s what my mom called it when she sat at her potter’s wheel producing her weird sculptures. It was a hobby she’d started a year ago, although she’d since moved on to other media to produce her works of art, such as mirrored tiles and feathers. What
was
odd was how tense my dad sounded.

“Whatever she’s making can’t be worse than her Naked Monkeys Table,” I joked. Marco glanced at me with raised eyebrows.

“You don’t understand, Abby. She’s actually
throwing
clay—at the walls, on the floor…I don’t know how to help her. Listen. Can you hear that?”

In the background I could hear my mom shrieking, “I
hate
this clay. Hate it, hate it, hate it!”

“Let me talk to her.”

“I don’t know if I want to get that close.”

“Come on, Dad. This is your wife of thirty-five years.”

“No, this is an alien life form
disguised
as my wife. Hold on. I’ll give it a try.”

I waited while he maneuvered his wheelchair toward the spare room at the back of the house, where Mom had set up her art studio. My father had been wounded in the leg while chasing down a drug dealer, and while on the operating table had suffered a stroke that had left one side of his body paralyzed. Although he’d retired from the force, that hadn’t stopped him from living a full life.

“Maureen,” I heard him say, “your daughter is on the line.”

“Did you phone her?” the alien life-form snarled as she took the phone; then in a sweet voice, my mom said, “Hello, Abigail.”

“Mom, is everything okay?”

She let out a tinkling laugh. “Of course. Why? What did your father tell you?”

“That you, well, aren’t yourself.”

“How silly. Who else would I be?”

I didn’t dare mention my dad’s theory on the subject. “Then you’re feeling all right?”

“I’m perfectly fine.”

She certainly didn’t sound like the same woman I’d heard screeching moments before, but my dad wouldn’t have called unless he was truly concerned. “Are you working on a new sculpture?”

“I’m trying to finish a gift for Marco’s sister’s baby shower, but the clay isn’t cooperating”—she took a tense breath and let it out—“and naturally it has to be finished by next weekend, not to mention that I have to find a dress, and a pair of shoes, and my hair needs cutting and highlighting, and of course my stylist couldn’t get me in until Friday, and you know how I hate my hair the day after it’s been cut, so when am I going to do all that, huh?
When?
”

She was making a sculpture for Marco’s sister’s
baby shower
? Oh, no! How would I ever live down the embarrassment? Trying not to betray the lump of anxiety in my throat, I asked pleasantly, “So, you’re making something for Gina’s shower?”

“Isn’t that what I just told you?” she said churlishly.

I was determined not to let her irk me. “What are you making?”

“A lamp.”

I knew my mom’s creative tendencies. It might be an octopus-armed lamp with a snake scale–covered shade and an elephant-footed base, but it would never be
just
a lamp. With more than a little trepidation, I asked, “Do you want me to come over to see it?”

“Abigail, I said everything was fine. And the next time your father complains about me, you can tell him that he’s going to have to be a little more understanding of my artistic temperament. Now, go back to whatever you were doing before he interrupted you.”

Okay, then. Time to step back and let them duke it out. As I hung up, I noticed that Marco had shut his phone and was listening to my conversation. “Everything all right?” he asked.

“Depends on whether you ask my mom or my dad. How about on your end?”

“There’s a gas leak at the bar, and they’ve had to evacuate the building. I need to get over there.”

So much for salvaging the evening. I leaned into Marco, letting him wrap an arm around my shoulders. “I guess we’ll have to put our evening on hold.”

He kissed my forehead. “I’m sorry. This has been one hell of a day, hasn’t it?”

“And more fun to come tomorrow. I have to be back here at ten in the morning, assuming the convention hasn’t been canceled. I’ll have to call Delilah before I head out, just to be sure.”

“You still want me to help you pack up at five o’clock tomorrow evening?”

At my eager nod, he lifted my chin and gazed down into my eyes, a sexy little grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. “And afterward we can pick up where we left off tonight?”

“Which is?”

The little grin turned to a big smile as he pulled me close. “Here’s a sneak preview.” He kissed me then, hot and heavy, an intense meeting of our mouths, a melding of our lips. I twisted my fingers into his glossy hair and felt the rough stubble of his chin like sandpaper against mine and his firm chest pressing against my breasts. As his kiss deepened, my insides became all soft and gooey and my blood pulsed like molten fudge through every part of me.

I was just about to wrap myself around his body when someone cleared his throat behind us. Loudly. Twice. We broke our kiss and glanced around to see Colonel Billingsworth holding the door open. Inside, two cops flanked someone in handcuffs. Looked like I was going to get my wish to see at least one of the Urbans hauled off to the police station after all.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t Thing One or Thing Two who came through the doors. It was a limping, burlap-robed, wild-haired Eli Cotton.

“So much for your advice to Eli to picket across the street,” Marco said.

“What happened?” Marco asked the colonel as the cops hustled Eli toward a waiting squad car.

“Apparently, Mr. Cotton gave the police the slip and came back here. An officer found him crouched under a table at one of the booths. He claims he was only handing out pamphlets, but that’s hard to do from under a table, don’t you think? Makes one wonder what he was really doing here tonight.” The colonel paused to watch a cop pat Eli down. “In light of his clash with Sybil earlier, I told the officers to treat him as a suspect.”

As Eli was being tucked into the car, he twisted around to call, “I know you’re afraid I’ll steal your customers, Colonel, but you can’t stop free enterprise. I’ll talk to the press. I’ll call the media. I may be one little independent against the entire funeral industry machine, but who do you think the public will rally behind? You and your pompous committee can’t keep me out forever.”

Whether Eli was a suspect or not, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, because I knew exactly where he was coming from. Bloomers was one little flower shop against the big chains of the floral industry, with their endless inventory and enormous advertising budgets. It wasn’t fair at all, but I doubted that Eli would commit murder because of it. His ranting about taking his cause to the media didn’t sound like something a man who’d just suffocated someone in a casket would say. My gut told me he was innocent.

“Why wasn’t he allowed to rent booth space?” I asked the colonel. “If Chet Sunday can hawk Habitation Station’s Make-It-Yourself Casket kits, then Eli should be able to exhibit his burlap bags.”

“Abby,” Marco said quietly, “it’s none of our business.”

“I don’t mind answering,” the colonel said. “I agree with you, young lady. Neither one of them should be allowed to exhibit at our convention. Bringing Chet and his sponsors in here was all Sybil’s doing. I told her those kits were completely incompatible with the other companies who exhibit here, but when Sybil makes up—er,
made
up—her mind, there was no changing it. As for Mr. Cotton, Sybil and I and the other committee members agreed that his presence here would be completely disruptive. Take a look at the man. He is wholly unsuitable for this staid convocation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do, so I’ll bid you both good evening.” Giving us a polite nod, he turned on his heel and marched inside.

“I think Eli was right,” I said. “The funeral industry is afraid of him. Do you know how much money people would save if they used biodegradable body bags instead of caskets and burial vaults? Thousands of dollars. It would kill the casket industry.”

“All I know is that
my
ashes are going into a pickle jar,” Marco said.

“A
pickle
jar?”

“Dill, I think, or maybe sweet. I haven’t decided. We go through a lot of them at the bar.”

“You are
so
making that up.”

We headed for the parking lot, pausing to watch the squad car pull away, Eli’s long, sad face pressed against the side window. “They can’t seriously consider Eli a suspect,” I said. “Can you imagine him convincing Sybil to undress and climb into a casket?”

“How do you know he didn’t force her?”

“They patted him down, Marco. No weapon found…unless he held a garlic bulb to Sybil’s head.” I pretended to be Eli. “Get into that casket or I’ll stink you up good, lady.”

Marco hit the remote control to unlock his car doors. “Eli could have ditched the weapon. And remember, he was hiding when the cops found him. That makes him look a little suspicious, don’t you think?”

“Well, of course he hid when the cops arrived. He wasn’t supposed to be in the building. He probably got scared, ducked under a table, and waited, hoping he could sneak out later.”

“We’ll see if his fingerprints show up on the casket.”

“You get it that Sybil had her own reason for allowing Chet and his sponsors to promote their casket kits, but not Eli, right?”

“You mean, besides Eli being a wack job?”

“He’s not a wack job. He believes in his cause.”

“He’s wearing a potato sack and has a string of garlic bulbs around his neck. You tell me that’s not a wack job.”

“It has nothing to do with Eli’s mental state. Chet is a hot TV star. We saw Sybil putting the moves on him after his show, and guess where her booth is located? Right next to Chet’s. Gee, I wonder who was in charge of the booths? Let’s see. How about Sybil? What surprises me is that Chet has this reputation as a wholesome family man. Why would he jeopardize it?”