A Rose From the Dead (10 page)

As though she was aware of our scrutiny, Angelique turned her head slowly toward us, glared for a long moment, then went back to her string plucking.

“She certainly is an odd duck,” Grace commented quietly.

“Make up your mind, Gracie,” Lottie said. “Is she an angel or a duck?”

“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck,” I said, repeating one of Grace’s sayings, “you can be reasonably sure it’s a duck.”

“Either way, she’d have wings,” Lottie said, sending us both into gales of laughter.

Grace put her hands on the table and leaned forward to scowl at us. “You two,” she said sternly, “are really—quacking me up.”

At that, all three of us dissolved into giggles, drawing curious looks from the people passing by. We immediately donned sober expressions, and Lottie jumped up to talk to a couple who were admiring the floral arrangements.

“Are you ever going to try that scone in your hand?” Grace asked me.

“Yes. Right now.” I took a big bite just as, at that same moment, I spotted Ross and Jess walking past the end of our aisle, arguing and shoving each other. In my eagerness to point them out to Grace, who had never met them, I swallowed the bite too hastily. “Urban”—
cough
—“twins,” I said, jabbing an index finger in their direction.

She glanced around at the very moment that messy-haired Jess delivered a hard punch straight into Ross’s gut and stalked off, leaving his brother doubled over in pain.

“Good gracious,” Grace remarked. “I wonder what brought that on.”

There was one sure way to find out. Ask.

I put down the scone and wiped my fingers on a napkin. “I’ll be right back.”

“B
astard,” Ross swore under his breath, tucking his polo shirt into his pants where it had come loose from the impact of his brother’s punch. He was neatly dressed in a gray UMS shirt, black slacks, and tasseled black loafers, his hair carefully styled.

“You took quite a hit,” I said, laying on the concern. “I hope you’re all right.”

Ross winced as he touched his stomach. “Not a problem.”

“Brothers,” I said, shaking my head in sympathy. “What a nuisance. So, what provoked Jess?”

“It was nothing.”

“
Nothing
doesn’t get you sucker punched.”

“I’ve been a sucker all right,” Ross muttered, glaring after his brother.

A sucker? That was an interesting comment, and much too juicy to let slide. “You want to talk about it?”

He made a scoffing noise. “What are you, my shrink?”

“Fine. It’s your loss. Too bad, though, because I’m a good listener and I know what it’s like to have annoying brothers.”

Ross’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you being so friendly all of a sudden?”

“I’m always friendly, Ross, except when idiots pull dangerous stunts on me. Then, not so much.”

“It’s old news, Red. Get over it.”

I was going to take exception to Ross’s use of the
Red
moniker but decided I’d better grab his attention quickly and ignore the irritating nickname. “There sure is a lot of gossip going around about your buddy Sybil’s odd demise.”

“My
buddy
? What are you talking about?”

“What do you guess it would have taken to convince Sybil to strip down and climb into a casket right before her appearance at a banquet?”

“What is this, a quiz?”

“More like a news bulletin. Flash! Abby Knight locked in coffin. Flash! Sybil Blount locked in casket. See what I mean? The similarities are almost too coincidental, wouldn’t you say?”

“Are you hinting at something, Red?”

“Well, gee, Ross, let me think. I didn’t lock myself in that phone booth, and I’m betting Sybil didn’t shut herself in that coffin, either. How’s that for a hint?”

He thrust his face close to mine, giving me a strong whiff of musky men’s cologne and a close-up view of the large pores on his nose, which was not at all flattering. “I don’t like hints, Red, so why don’t you say what you mean? You think we locked Sybil in that casket?”

I gave him a shrug. “If the fishnet stocking fits…”

Ross smirked, being his usual smart-ass self. “Here’s a hint for you, Red. Prove it.”

“I’ll let the detectives take care of that.” But if they didn’t—and I wasn’t holding out much hope—I was going to take great pleasure in nailing him.

Ross gave me a smug smile. “Hate to disappoint you, Red, but the cops are done with me. I’m in the clear. Mr. Cool’s no fool.”

“Did your daddy hire a really smart lawyer for you, Mr. Cool?”

Ross’s smile dissolved. “Get bent,” he said, and turned to walk away.

“Is your brother in the clear, too?”

“Couldn’t tell ya. I’m not my brother’s keeper.” He snickered, apparently amused by his witticism. His cell phone began to play “SexyBack,” so he pulled out a razor-thin phone and answered it as he sauntered off toward the Starbucks counter.

Laugh now, Loafer Boy.
Ross might think he was in the clear, but he had no idea how tenacious I could be. When I was on a mission, nothing could stop me. I was the Little Red Engine Who
Did.

I waited until Ross was in line for his order; then I hurried to the next aisle and darted up it, hoping to find Jess at his family’s booth. I hadn’t yet seen the UMS exhibit, because, frankly, I hadn’t cared to, and now it brought me to a stunned stop. Their elaborate display occupied half of the right side of the aisle and was undoubtedly the largest and splashiest booth at the convention.

Designed to resemble the inside of a cozy country chapel, complete with stained-glass windows and an old-fashioned pipe organ, the booth had ornately crafted caskets lined up like rows of pews and a marble-topped altar topped with an array of expensive crystal urns. Burial clothing hung on antique hall trees at the back, a collection of pearl and diamond jewelry glittered in long, glass-fronted cabinets along the side, and enormous flower arrangements on gilded risers were scattered throughout. Presiding over all were a bevy of eager salesmen wearing cleric’s collars. But no Jess.

I bypassed the salesmen and headed for a genial-looking woman in a gold choir robe. She was standing at the front end of the mock chapel handing out samples of something from a basket over her arm.

“Would you like to try our new fragrance, hon?” she asked pleasantly, spraying a strip of white paper with essence from a glass bottle shaped like a coffin.

I waved away a cloud of pungent mist. “UMS sells perfume, too?”

“No, hon. Funeral fragrances.” She leaned close to add, “You know how unpleasant some of those funeral odors can be.” She offered me the scented paper. “This is Mortu-Airy, a lovely blend of gladioli, rose hips, and disinfectant. It’s part of our Urban’s Decay line.”

Urban’s Decay?
Ew!
“I don’t think so. Thanks, anyway.”

She fished another bottle out of her robe and sprayed a sample onto a fresh piece of paper. “Try some of our original scent—Crema-florium. It has just a hint of ash touched with a smoky pine scent and a splash of lily of the valley.”

“No, really, that’s okay. I’m looking for Jess Urban. Have you seen him?”

“He came by a few minutes ago.” She glanced around. “You might try the Internet café. It’s right next to Outer-Space Burials in aisle four.”

“Thanks.” I started to walk away, but when her words registered, I stopped and turned back. “Did you say
outer-space
burials?”

“Exciting concept, isn’t it? They offer two choices—Shoot for the Moon, which is their budget line, and A Space Odyssey, their deluxe design. I believe UMS is looking into offering them next year.”

“Okay, just so I understand the concept, when a person dies, the body is jettisoned into outer space?”

She laughed as though I had cracked a joke. “They don’t send bodies, hon. They send the ashes in a memorial capsule.”

“Right. Okay, then, thanks for your help.” An outer-space burial—death’s final frontier.

I found Jess the Mess in his usual wrinkled shirt, paired with khakis today, hair sticking up at odd angles, playing a computer video game at the Cyberary Café. The seat next to him was unoccupied, so I sat down. “Hello, Jess.”

“Hey,” he said absently, his gaze glued to a screen where race cars were screeching around a track, crashing into barriers and each other and exploding into fireballs.

“How’s it going? Punched anyone lately?”

He glanced my way, then did a double take. “Yo, little dudette. What are you doing here?”

“Looking for someone.”

Jess must have sensed something was up, because his expression quickly grew wary. “Good luck with that.” He returned to the game, and I could hear his silver tongue stud tapping absently against his teeth as he worked the controller.

“Maybe you’ve seen him. Young, nice looking, able to lure women into coffins, sometimes with their clothes off.”

“Don’t know anyone like that. Sorry.”
Click, click, click.

“What a shame. I’d really like to chat with him about how Sybil ended up in a casket.”

When he ignored me, I leaned closer to say, “I’m staying right here until you talk to me, Jess. Don’t think I’ll be the only one to see the coincidence between what you and Ross did to me yesterday morning and what happened to Sybil. It’s just a matter of time until the police catch on.”

Jess tightened his jaw, and his stud clicking grew faster, but he made no comment. He probably thought if he stayed silent long enough, I’d go away. Too bad he didn’t know that only made me more determined. I’d have to see whether I could push some guilt buttons to get him to confess.

I paused while a man in a blue suit took a seat at a computer station on the opposite end of the long counter; then I said quietly, “I know Sybil had been after you, Jess. I know what kind of woman she was, always preying on younger men. And I heard that she propositioned you this weekend, so I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to embarrass her so she’d leave you alone. But if you played a prank on her and it went wrong, you’d better speak up, because by keeping quiet you make yourself look guilty of murder.”

He smacked his hands on the keyboard and swiveled his chair to face me. “Why do you keep saying
you
? I have a brother, you know. Did you ever think of that?”

Jess had latched onto that
you
pronoun awfully fast. That was worth poking with a stick. “I just talked to your brother, as a matter of fact. We had an interesting little conversation.” The
little
part was true, anyway. “Seems Ross was cleared by the cops. The puzzling thing is that he wouldn’t say the same for you.”

“What are you telling me? That Ross said I had something to do with Sybil’s death?”

I shrugged. Jess could take that to mean whatever he wanted.

“He wouldn’t do that to me,” Jess said defiantly.

“Are you sure? He was pretty smug about it.”

“Ross knows I have a solid alibi.”

“Gee, I wonder why he wanted me to think otherwise.”

Jess pondered my question a moment, then shrugged it off. “It doesn’t matter. The cops have a videotape made by the hotel’s security camera that proves I was at the bar yesterday evening, right up until it was time to go to the banquet.” He pulled out his cell phone and tried to hand it to me. “Here. Call the cops. They’ll tell you.”

A security camera caught him?
Damn.
It was a solid alibi, all right, not to mention that it threw a major wrench into my case against the Urbans. What was odd was that Ross hadn’t offered up
his
alibi.

“That’s okay. I have a phone. So, was Ross with you at the bar?”

Jess studied me guardedly as he put his phone in his pocket, probably realizing he’d done more talking than he should have. “Didn’t he tell you where he was?”

Oops. Bad move, Abby.
“Well, sure, but I’d like to hear your side of it.”

“Yeah, right.” He gave me a look of disgust, then swiveled back toward the screen.

Okay, so Jess the Mess was shrewder than I’d thought. Still, I wasn’t about to give up, especially because his cautious reply made me more suspicious. Maybe I could appeal to his ego to get more answers.

I leaned closer so that the man at the other station wouldn’t overhear. “If you were at the bar, Jess, then Ross must have met Sybil in the storage room alone. As far as pranks go, he pulled a good one—coaxing her into the casket and making off with her clothes. I’m surprised you weren’t in on it, though. You were the one who suggested getting her again.”

“Go away,” he muttered, his thumbs vigorously working the game controller.

“Really, Jess, I’m truly amazed that Ross managed to pull it off without your help. I hadn’t figured him to be that resourceful, but I guess I was wrong, because it would take quite a salesman to convince a vain woman like Sybil to ditch her clothes and lie down in a sand-filled casket right before she had to be at a banquet.”

Jess glanced at me slyly, and I caught a spark of interest. Hoping I was making headway at last, I kept up the chatter. “Naturally I don’t condone Ross’s prank—the woman died, after all—but I can appreciate the ingenuity behind it. I’ve played a few tricks on people myself. So, tell me how Ross did it. How did he convince her?”

Jess played with his tongue stud, twisting it with his fingers, watching me. Then he wiggled his index finger, beckoning me nearer, until I was close enough to hear him whisper, “You seriously think I’d rat out my brother?”

If Conrad Urban was fostering a rivalry between his sons, pinning the prank on Ross would be exactly what Jess should want to do. But maybe he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. So how could I get him to spill the beans? “You know, Jess, I seriously think your brother might beat you to it.”

He leaned back and swung his chair around to face the monitor. “You are so full of it. Ross isn’t going to say jack-shit about anything.”

“Is that why you punched him? To make sure he doesn’t say anything?”

“I punched Ross because he took money from my wallet. Now, get lost. I’m busy.”

“Sorry, Jess. I’m not leaving until I get some answers.” I folded my arms across my chest and waited.

“You’re wasting your time, Red,” he said as he resumed his game. “What are you going to do, follow me around all day?”

“If I have to.”

“What’s in it for you? You working for the cops or something?”

“I’m a florist who likes to solve puzzles. But I can’t piece this one together without more information.”

“Gee, I’m all broken up over that.”