Death Dangles a Participle (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series) (19 page)

“We’re outta milk.”

I moved a blank piece of paper and a pencil into position. “Tell me what you need. I’ll pick up some things at the supermarket.”

Martin protested, but weakly. After I assured him that I’d retain the receipt so he could reimburse me, he proceeded to enumerate some basics.

“That meatball chunky soup, milk, a couple cans of chili, the store brand’s okay. A half-dozen boxes of macaroni and cheese, the blue kind, like on TV. That should do it.”

Fresh fruit and vegetables hadn’t been mentioned, but I mentally resolved to add some bananas, apples, and carrots, and pay for them myself.

With a can of root beer in his hand, Martin again retired upstairs, and I began to prepare to leave. J.T. stood when I did. He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Um. Miss—Mrs.—um, would you go one other place for me? For me and Dus? I got money I can give you.” He reached in his back pocket.

“Go where, J.T.?”

He stepped close to me and whispered, almost inaudibly, “The flower shop, you know, the one next to the supermarket?”

“Blossoms by Nathan?” I said aloud.

“Shh!” he admonished me sharply, and whispered, “It’s kind of a secret.” He fished in his pocket and extracted some crumpled bills and an assortment of change. “Here’s, um, sixteen, no, seventeen dollars and a little more. I need you to order a couple of corsages for the ice dance. But don’t say it’s for us, because they might not do it.”

“But, J.T.,” I protested, whispering, “are you saying you’re actually going to the dance? It’s only a few days away.”

He looked at me a long minute, then shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe. It’s something to look forward to, y’know? I mean we didn’t do it, y’know? And we got this lawyer guy who’s supposed to be good. Maybe we’ll get to go.” He turned his gaze back to me. “You see what I mean?”

I did see. The corsages represented a normal future. I couldn’t bring myself to squash any hope they might feel, no matter how tenuous.

“But to whom are you giving the corsages?” My grammar was correct, I knew, but even to myself, I sounded stuffy.

J.T. didn’t seem to notice. He slid his eyes over to the back door. “Well, you don’t have to have a date to go, y’know. We can go stag.” He rubbed the tip of his nose with the back of his wrist, a subtle sign he was prevaricating, and looked at me. “But we need the flowers just in case, sort of.”

Just in case. Right,
I thought.
And the Gervais twins will just happen to show up
. He and his brother were up to something, for sure, but it probably wasn’t criminal. At least, I didn’t think so.

I thrust the money in my jacket pocket. “All right, J.T. I’ll order them in my name and have them delivered to Chez Prentice. If things go well for you, they’ll be available the night of the ice dance.” That’s all I needed; more secrets to keep.

As I buttoned my coat, J.T. looked at me and sighed. “I thought it would be fun, but it’s not, you know?”

“What’s not fun?”

“Bein’ famous.”

“Seventeen bucks and change for two corsages?” Chuck Nathan of Blossoms by Nathan squinted down at me skeptically. “Including sales tax?”

I nodded, prepared to add a few dollars of my own if necessary.

His gray sweatshirt, bearing the words “Do Your Part—Recycle!” hung loosely on his gaunt form. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose and shrugged. “Well, I suppose I could do it for twenty, plus tax. They’ll be carnations, though. Most kids are ordering Gerberas this year,” he said, nodding to a huge sheaf of brightly colored daisies behind the glass door of a nearby cooler and added, “Gerberas are extra.” His big, pale and watery blue eyes regarded me as balefully as Alec’s
Megachasma pelagios.

“I’m sure carnations will be fine,” I said, pulling the extra money out of my wallet. “In the school colors, please. And if you’ll deliver them to Chez Prentice the afternoon of the ice dance.”

“Okay, if that’s what you want.” He slapped an order pad on the counter and began writing.

I took a deep breath. I loved the smell of a flower shop, a combination of sweet-scented blooms underscored by a kind of mossy tone. Lily liked to say that Nathan’s shop smelled like a funeral. I preferred to look at the other way around: Funerals always smelled like a flower shop.

“School colors, no problem,” Chuck said, writing vigorously. “You ordering these for your guests over there at the hotel?”

He was clearly fishing for information. His glasses slid down his nose again, and I noticed that they were broken just over the nose and repaired with green florist’s tape and that his 60’s vintage ponytail was fastened by florist’s wire. Chuck was our town’s genuine, unreconstructed hippie and clearly followed the instructions on his shirt.

“For friends,” I countered evasively as I handed over the boys’ money.

He deposited the money in the vintage NCR cash register and handed me a carbon-copy receipt. My order was impaled along with a dozen others on a long desk spike. “You want to make out a card to go with the corsages?” he asked, indicating the tall desk where there were a variety of tiny decorated cards for all occasions with tiny, blue-and-white striped envelopes to go with them.

“That’s not necessary.”

A short, white-haired woman stood on tiptoe at the desk, writing. I wasn’t sure, but from the back, she looked familiar.

“Well met, Amelia!” said someone from behind me.

I turned and beheld the amiable mass that was Professor Alexander Alexander.

“Alec, likewise!”

“My, ye look bonnie today!” He laid a large hand on my shoulder and scratched the side of his face with the other. “Let me have a look at ye. There’s something there. Can’t put my finger on it, but it’s like there’s a candle within.”

I know I blushed, because I could feel the heat on my cheeks. “Oh, Alec, what a flatterer you are—”

“No, no, it’s something.” He shook his large and shaggy head. “Never mind, my dear. Suffice it to say you’re looking especially lovely. Excuse me a moment—” He turned to Chuck Nathan. “I’ll need a nosegay for a lady. Make it small pink rosebuds with baby’s breath, surrounded by a kind of doily rigmarole, all in a vase, for delivery tomorrow.”

He handed Chuck a credit card, glanced at me and caught my quizzical look. He looked away and mumbled into his beard, “Miss Lily’s birthday.”

Chuck placed the credit card on an old-fashioned card imprinter, fixed a carbon-copy form on top and ran it across with a metallic rattle.

“Oh, Alec.”

I felt a variety of emotions: compassion for him and sadness at the futility of his cause, but most of all, alarm that I had totally forgotten the occasion myself. Lily and I usually exchanged birthday gifts. Would our estrangement mean an end to that pleasant custom? I decided not.

“Chuck? Do you deliver gifts too?” I asked, gesturing at the shelf of dusty china knickknacks.

He glanced up from his order pad and took a swig from a nearby can of cola. “Yeah, no problem.”

I selected a pretty gilt-edged teacup and saucer painted with pink rosebuds, dusting it discreetly with a tissue from my pocket. It was outrageously overpriced, but charming, and Lily would love it.

When Alec finished giving instructions and retired to the nearby desk to make out a card, I stepped up and arranged for the cup to be gift-wrapped and sent to Lily’s address too.

The woman at the desk finished her writing, quickly slid the card into a tiny envelope, and sealed it. As she licked the envelope, she turned, our eyes met, and I recognized Mrs. Daye.

“Hello!” I said, surprised.

“Uh, hi.” Looking vaguely startled, she walked over to Chuck and handed him the envelope. “There.”

“So you’re sure you want just the one, now?” Chuck asked her, scratching the top of his head with a pencil. “It’s cheaper per flower if you get half a dozen, no problem.”

“No thank you,” she said, glancing at me. “Just the one.” Without another word, she turned and walked out.

“Get her.” Chuck turned away mumbled, “I was just making sure. Gotta get the orders right. Especially odd ones like that.”

I wanted to ask him which was odd, the woman or the order but decided that a person’s flower order was probably confidential, a kind of florist-client privilege.

Besides, it was apparently time for Chuck’s break. Without further pleasantry, he turned away from us, pulled a metallic lunchbox from beneath the counter, and retrieved a large bag of potato chips. These he began munching cheerfully, alternating chips with sips of cola, ignoring any rules of etiquette.

My stomach growled a little. It would have been nice if he had offered me some chips. I would have declined, of course, but it would have been nice nonetheless.

I filled out the card for Lily simply: “Happy Birthday from Amelia.” There seemed nothing else to say under the circumstances.

“May I give you a lift somewhere?” Alec asked.

His manners were always impeccable. It was one of the many things I liked about him.

I declined with thanks. “I’m headed to the newspaper office. It’s not far.”

“I understand some students of yours are in a good deal of trouble,” Alec commented, holding the door open for me as we exited.

I sighed. “Yes, but I just don’t believe they could do such a thing, kill a man in cold blood, like that. Accidentally, perhaps, but never on purpose.”

“I feel a certain responsibility for their predicament,” Alec said as we reached his car and he turned the key.

“Responsibility? What do you mean?”

He ran a big hand over his face and looked down at me. “I’m a witness, Amelia, for the prosecution. I was driving along the lake shore and saw the fellows—or at least their car—nearly run another car off the road on the day in question. They were driving in a very dangerous manner. That giant grape-on-wheels of theirs is pretty easy to spot. I felt it my duty to step forward and give the information to the police. ”

“Then when they go to trial, you’ll be, um . . . ” I paused.

He sighed. “Called to the stand? Yes, I believe I will. I feel terrible about it, but what can I do?”

We both stared at the ground for a moment, silent. It was then the inspiration hit me.

“Alec?” I said at last. “I need to solve this mystery. How would you feel about being a sidekick?”

Slowly, he lifted his eyes to mine. As he did, his back seemed to straighten. He gave his beard a stroke and burst into a beaming smile.

“I’d love it. When do we start?”

Blossoms by Nathan was the next to last shop in a row of tiny stores on Brinkerhoff Street, between the Raisin D’être Bakery and True Wines (slogan:
In Vino Veritas)
and only a few doors away from the newspaper office.

Alec and I adjourned to a corner table at the bakery where he had coffee and I had milk. We shared a Danish, and I filled Alec in on the basics of the situation. He was eager to start immediately.

“One thing, though,” he said, “aware as I am of your aversion to modern technology, I still must insist you carry a cell phone.” He cut short my objections. “I’ll get you one, sign you up, everything, but I will brook no argument on this, Amelia.”

I sighed. “Well, Gil has been wanting me to get one.”

“It’s agreed, then. Come along,” he ordered, gathering up our foam cups and paper napkins.

“I have a number of avenues I’d like to explore,” Alec said as we said goodbye on the front steps of the newspaper office. We agreed to meet again soon and share what we had found out, and he ambled away, humming “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

“It sure doesn’t look good for them,” I heard Gil saying on the telephone as I entered his office.

“What doesn’t look good?” I asked as he hung up.

He swiveled in his chair and grinned at me. “Hello, sweetheart! How long have you been standing there?”

“Don’t try to deflect my question. Were you talking about Vern or the Rousseau boys?” I leaned down to kiss him.

“I could have been speaking of many things,” he said, pulling up a chair for me. “Terrorists, the immigration problem, smuggling, politics in general. But you’re right. My source in the police department tells me that the case against the Rousseau boys is—and I quote—‘a sure thing.’ Vern’s situation is a little less grave, according to the lawyer I called. I got him an appointment for this afternoon.”

I frowned and sat down. “What do they have on the Rousseaus?”

“My police source couldn’t tell me much, but—” Gil leaned across his desk, retrieved a steno pad and read from his notes, “—the police know that the Dustin and J.T. had the shattered window in their VW repaired.”

“That isn’t necessarily incriminating,” I said.

“True, but the boys claim that they were shot at.”

So they had told the police that, at least. “Doesn’t the repair substantiate their claim?”

Gil nodded. “It would, only a neighbor saw one of the boys smashing the back window. It looks a lot like they were trying to fake evidence. Remember, no bullet was found in the car. And no gun at the scene of the crime.”

We both sighed.

I raised a shaking hand to my mouth. “Gil,” I muttered through gritted teeth. “I could use a cola—no, make it a bottled water; would you, please?” The pamphlet Dr. Stout had given me said to be careful of caffeine.

He leaned in, his face filled with concern. “Are you still having trouble with your stomach? I thought you’d seen the doctor about that.”

My response was muffled. “I did.”

He thrust his hand in his pocket and pulled out some change. “But you seemed so much better. Didn’t he give you some medicine or something? I’ll be right back.” He headed down the hall to the soft drink machine.

Should I take this opportunity to tell Gil about my pregnancy?

No, nothing good would come of just blurting out the news, especially considering the dire situation with Vern. I still needed to find the proper time, proper place and, most important, the proper words. All of these had so far eluded me. I closed my eyes and waited for him to return.

“What exactly did he say?” Gil asked as he put the bottle down on the desk. “The doctor.”