Beware the Orchids (A Shady Acres Mystery Book 1) (11 page)

20

“Y
ou can go look at my bathroom now.” He scowled, arms folded over his paunch. “Pipe burst.”

Heath had succeeded. I grinned. “I’ll do that. Please leave the door unlocked.”

“I don’t know what you’re grinning about. It isn’t funny. I’ve been displaced.” He turned and waddled off, looking more like Mr. Toad than ever.

I couldn’t wait to tell Cheryl we had plans for that evening. I went back to the gardening shed and struggled with a bag of mulch until I got it into the wheelbarrow. Sometimes, even such a simple job required more muscles than I had.

“I’ll get that.” Officer Lawrence, in uniform, stepped forward and lifted the bag.

“Thank you.” I straightened and waited for the lecture I was sure to hear.

“Alice told me that she informed you she was helping me get information on a couple of the residents.”

I nodded. “I didn’t force her to. I found stolen files buried in the greenhouse. She saw them drying out in my cottage and decided we should join forces.”

“It’s bad enough that I enlisted the help of my niece, Miss Hart, but to endanger another civilian—”

“Sir, I’ve been asked by friends to solve Maybelle’s murder. I’m not doing anything dangerous, other than asking questions while doing my day job.” I crossed my arms. “Are you going to arrest me if I continue?”

He studied me for a moment. “I’d like to, but Ida would string me up by my toenails. Let’s compromise. You do nothing more than ask questions, then relay any information you find to me. Deal?”

“Deal.” I kept my arms folded. I couldn’t shake his hand and then snoop through Harry’s cottage later. I’d have to keep my promise to only ask questions after my snoop fest.

“Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

“That’s your prerogative.” I grinned. “Tell Grandma I said hello.”

“We’ll see you at supper.”

Uh-oh. That felt like he planned on keeping an eye on me. I’d need to find a way to sneak away without him following.

I watched him leave then hurried out to find Grandma. I’d need her help to get away from her boyfriend.

She was in my cottage giggling with Cheryl. “What’s so funny?” I asked, heading for the kitchen sink to wash my hands.

“Cheryl told me of Heath’s diabolical plan to get Harry out of his home. Genius.”

“Speaking of…I need your help tonight. Your dear Teddy is suspicious of me. I need you to keep him occupied the moment it gets dark so Cheryl and I can snoop in Harry’s place.”

She pouted. “Tough decision, sweetheart. I enjoy the man, I really do, but snooping through someone’s things is a big temptation.”

“Will you help me?” I wrapped my arms around her neck. “Please.”

“You know I can’t resist you. Yes, I’ll keep him out of your way.” She unfolded my arms from around her and stood. “I’d best go make myself look gorgeous. I’ll try to get him to take me to supper in town. That should keep him out of your hair until nine o’clock, but no later. That’s our bedtime.”

“It doesn’t get dark until nine.” I threw myself on the sofa. “We need a new plan.”

“He’ll be home getting ready for bed, I promise.” She kissed my cheek. “When he drops me off at home, let him see you in your pajamas. He’ll think you’re going to bed and not have a second thought about you snooping.”

It was the only plan we had. I could snoop in baggy shorts and a big T-shirt. I’d done it plenty of times. “Thank you. You’re the best.”

The rest of the day passed in a blur of weeding, pruning, and mulching. By the time night hit and Officer Lawrence saw me give Grandma a goodnight kiss while in my slumber clothes, I wished I were going to bed. Exhaustion weighed me down. Instead, I clipped a small flashlight to the waistband of my shorts and told Cheryl to hurry up.

“I’m tired.”

“Coming.” She stepped out of her room. She was dressed in black from head to toe. “You’d better change. Those white legs of yours glow in the dark.”

“Right.” I quickly slipped off the shorts and slipped on a pair of dark leggings and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. I immediately started to sweat in the summer humidity. “This is awful.”

“Stop complaining. At least you have boots to wear. I have to traipse through his flooded place in flip flops.”

“Remember, we’re trying to find something that convicts Harry and/or clears the other suspects’ names. Anything of interest to give to Officer Lawrence.”

“I know.” Cheryl held the door open, then closed it behind us.

We stayed behind the cottages and in the shadows as much as possible until we reached Harry’s cottage. Every door and window were open to help the place dry out. Still, at least an inch of water covered the floor.

“If he has anything to hide, it will be in a secret place.” I stepped inside, an area rug squishing under my rain boots.

“No, duh. I thought he’d leave it out in the open. Yuck. Something floated across my toes.”

“Stop whining and check the kitchen.” I headed for the master bedroom.

A desk that sat against one wall seemed the logical place to look. I opened all the drawers and searched for false bottoms. Books and television taught me something at least. I didn’t find any secret hiding places or files that generated my interest. In fact, I didn’t find anything with Harry Weasley on them, but I did find a Harvey Weston. Why would Harry have a letter with another man’s name? Was there a suspect in the murders we didn’t know about? I snapped a copy of the envelope.

After finding nothing else of interest there, I moved to the closet. The moment I opened the door I was assaulted with the strong aroma of Polo cologne. No surprise. I already knew he wore the vile scent. Still, did the man not do his laundry?

I rifled through the few items of clothing hanging on the rod, ignored the clothes in the hamper, then transferred my attention to the shelf. Plain brown boxes were lined up in a neat row. “Cheryl!”

The sound of splashing feet arrived before she did. “Find something?”

“I can’t reach these boxes.”

“Shorty.” She gathered the five boxes in her arms and placed them on the bed.

We each opened one. Store receipts. Every box was filled with store receipts.

“Someone needs to tell this man he doesn’t need receipts that are five years old.” Cheryl replaced the lid on the last box. “This search was fruitless. There’s nothing in the kitchen but dishes for two. Now who would want to share a meal with Harry?”

“What are you two doing in here?”

I gasped and whirled to see a tall, thin man dressed in black. His pale skin caught the moonlight through the window. The vampire! “I’m, uh, the gardener, and, uh, will be making a list of what needs fixing. Yeah.” I shoved the box in my hands at Cheryl. “Nothing to help us here.” I forced a smile. “Might as well put them away.”

“I think you two are looting a man’s home while he’s staying elsewhere.” Leroy Manning’s dark brows lowered.

“No, no, that’s not it. He, uh, asked us to get something for him.” I grabbed a book from the nightstand. One glance at the title chilled my blood.
Items Around The House That Will Kill You
. I bet rat poison was mentioned. “A bit of bedtime reading.”

“If you’re snooping into who Harry really is, I can tell you a few things.”

“Really?” I cocked my head. Could he be trusted? I knew virtually nothing about this man.

“Come out of here and take a walk with me. This is the only time of the day I can get my exercise.” Leroy led us out of the cottage.

“What if he’s leading us to our death?” Cheryl whispered. “He scares me.”

“Hush.” I clutched the book to my chest. It was the only weapon we had.

“I bet you’re wondering why I only come out at night.” Leroy chuckled. “I’m not a vampire. I have genetic disorder called Xeroderma pigmentosum. My skin cannot repair any damage done by ultraviolet light. Rather than suffer, I stay inside during the day.”

“Oh, we weren’t wondering.” I bit my bottom lip.

“Everyone else does.” He led us to the gazebo.

At least we were still on the property and out in plain sight of anyone happening by at nine-thirty at night. “You had information on Harry?”

“Sit, ladies.” He sat on the opposite bench. “I must confess to a bit of eavesdropping and a warning. If you’re going to have serious conversations, you really should close your windows.” His smile was more like a shark than a friend. “I’ve known of your quest for days.”

“Are you going to kill us?” I scooted closer to Cheryl.

“Of course not. I’m not a murderer, just a lonely man who wanders the property after most residents have gone to bed. The things I could tell you about everyone. But, we’re here to talk about Harry, right?”

“We’re open to hearing about William, the pharmacist, and Marvin, the wife beater,” Cheryl added.

Leroy chuckled. “Marvin cries at commercials. I doubt he could kill anyone. William, well, that man is two people in one body. Get him riled up and anything could happen. As for Harry, the man isn’t who he says he is.”

“We know that. Alice has told us some things. We’re trying to find out who he is.” I wanted to throw the book, I was so frustrated. “Could we not play verbal games?”

“I don’t want to make things too easy for you, Miss Hart.” He crossed his arms and his ankles. “What did you take a picture of?”

“How long were you watching us?”

“From the moment you entered the cottage.” He grinned again.

I swore his pointed canine teeth had grown sharper. “I took a picture of an envelope with someone else’s name on it. Are you saying that name is the key?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Good night, ladies.” He stepped from the gazebo and melted into the shadows.

“Creepy fellow.” Cheryl stood. “Let’s go research the name you found. What’s the book?”

I showed her the cover as we headed home. “Incriminating, don’t you think?” In my mind, we were down to two suspects. I agreed with the vampire. A man who cried at sappy commercials wasn’t a prime candidate to murder an old woman and a thieving fat man.

“What is that?” Cheryl pointed to something on the path, blocking us from returning to the cottage.

“A garbage bag?” I stepped closer and gasped.

Leroy Manning lay crumpled on the sidewalk, a pool of blood spreading under his head. I knelt next to him and felt for a pulse. “He’s alive. Call 911.”

Cheryl punched in the number on her phone. “I’m calling Officer Lawrence, too.”

I pulled off my tee shirt, grateful for the tank top underneath, and pressed it to the wound on the back of Leroy’s head. Someone had heard him talking to us and tried to put a stop to it. That someone could still be lurking nearby. “Cheryl, sit. You’re too big of a target standing up.”

She ducked. “You think his attacker is still here?”

“I’d bet my favorite pair of rubber boots they’re watching us this very minute.”

21

M
illipedes ran up and down my spine at the thought. What if they had a gun? A knife? One of my big gardening shovels?

Leroy moaned, the sound deep in his throat. It may have been a symbol of his pain, but to me it meant life.

“Hold on, Leroy. Help is coming.” I awkwardly patted his shoulder, still trying to keep my shirt firm against his wound and not think about the blood soaking the knees of my leggings.

“I don’t see anyone,” Cheryl whispered. “Maybe they left.”

“Or maybe they want to watch Leroy die.” I hissed the last word. “Keep looking.”

I almost cried tears of relief when Officer Lawrence thundered down the path toward us. Behind him, came two paramedics. I was finished playing nurse. I stood, my bloody hands held out to my sides, and prepared myself for another lecture.

Officer Lawrence pulled his infernal notepad from his pocket. “You know the drill.”

I sighed and filled him in on our conversation with Leroy. “He didn’t tell us Harry’s secret, though. He likes to play games.”

“Dangerous ones.” He snapped his pad closed. “That could be you lying there, Shelby. What would I tell Ida?”

“That I got real close to catching a murderer.” I wanted to cross my arms, but my bloody hands deterred me. The spaghetti strap shirt I wore didn’t need any decoration on the white fabric. “I
am
close. I can feel it. You need to focus your investigation on Harry, whatever his real name is, and William Jamison. Stop wasting time on Heath.”

“His glove and fingerprints were all over both crime scenes. We can’t rule him out yet.”

This was the main reason I agreed to do this for Birdie. Law enforcement were blinded by rules. “Whatever. Can I go clean up now? Oh, and please let me know how Leroy is doing.”

He nodded. “Keep Cheryl by your side.”

“I will.” She was leaving Sunday. If I didn’t catch the killer by then, I’d be a sitting duck without my Amazon friend to protect me. While she looked tougher and braver than she actually was, Cheryl was better than being alone.

I turned and stared at my visibly trembling friend. “Don’t fall apart until we get home.” I grabbed her arm and dragged her behind me.

“But he could have been killed! We could have stumbled on a dead body.”

“It wouldn’t have been my first one, unfortunately. Buck up.” I unlocked the door to my cottage and let her go in ahead of me.

“Eeew. You’re covered in blood.” She gagged and dashed for the bathroom.

I discarded on the way to my room, thankful to have the sticky clothes off me. The leggings went in the garbage. I adjusted the water in the shower and stepped in, raising my face to the spray. Not only because it was soothing, but so I wouldn’t see Leroy’s blood wash down my drain.

By the time the water cooled, I had regained most of my composure and hoped Cheryl had, too. I stepped out of my room and spotted Heath. He got to his feet and held out his arms.

I ran to him, wrapping my arms around his waist and laid my head on his shoulder. We didn’t need to speak. It meant enough that he came to check on me.

After a few minutes, he held me at arm’s length. “Are you all right? Cheryl is a mess.”

“I’m fine.” I forced a smile. Had he comforted her, too? Thinking that he had ruined the moment for me. I slipped from his grasp and fell to the sofa. “He was going to tell us a secret about Harry and a man named Harvey Weston. But, he laughed and said we had to figure it out. The next thing we knew, he was bleeding on the sidewalk.”

“It was awful.” Cheryl sat in a stuffed chair, holding a pillow to her chest. “Shelby was amazing, though. She used her shirt as a bandage and knelt right there in Leroy’s blood,” she made a choking sound, “and didn’t think anything about it. I was useless.”

“Not completely. You were there for a show of force and moral support.”

She rolled her eyes. “What’s our next step?”

“It looks like we need to find out what Harry and William are hiding,” Heath said.

“We’ve been saying that. I feel like a broken record.” I propped my feet on the coffee table. I took a deep breath. “We need to bait them.”

“No.” Heath shook his head. “If anyone does, it will be me.”

“It needs to be two people, together.” I speared him with a glance. “Maybelle and Dave were alone when they were killed. If we bait these men, make them believe we have something on them and that someone else also knows the same information, it will be safer.”

“You’ve gotten quite good at this,” Cheryl said, looking impressed. “What happened to my mousy little friend?”

“She stared death in the face.”

“All right.” Heath took my left hand in his. “We’ll do this. We’ll start spreading the word that you two, and me, know who killed Maybelle and Dave. Hint that we’ve gone to the authorities but that the physical evidence is hidden in a safe place. That should draw out the killer.”

“Then what?” Cheryl leaned forward. “Can we carry a gun in this place?”

I shook my head. “No, I do remember reading that in those papers on the table. If anyone has a gun, then it’s a safe bet they’re the killer.”

“Can we buy a Tazor then? I need some kind of weapon. I may be tall, but I can still be beaten, abducted, or killed.”

“Install the police siren app on your phone. You press that and everyone within a hundred feet will know something’s up.” I stood. “I’m exhausted. We’ll talk more tomorrow. Saturday night is the pool party. It would be wonderful if this was wrapped up by then.”

“You’ve been here less than a month. If you solve this by Saturday, you’re pure genius.” Heath placed a tender kiss on my forehead, tossed Cheryl a wave, and let himself out.

I grinned. Maybe he did care for me. Still, like he said, I hadn’t been here long. Anything could happen. Look at my almost wedding.

“Want to share a bed like old times?” The thought of sleeping alone after finding Leroy did not appeal to me in the least.

“Gladly.” Cheryl followed me to the master bedroom. Once we lay down, pulling the sheet up to our chins like we did after watching a scary movie as kids, she asked, “Who do you think killed Dave and Maybelle?”

“The logical choice is William, if Leroy is correct about the man’s vicious nature. It’s hard to imagine Mr. Toad as a brutal killer, but stranger things have happened in the world.”

“What if it isn’t either one of them? It’s possible we’re chasing a rabbit down a very deep hole.”

That’s what I was afraid of.

~

At breakfast the next morning, I studied the residents a bit harder than usual. One of them tried to kill Leroy last night. Funny thing. Neither of the main suspects were at breakfast.

The main topic of conversation was about me finding Leroy knocked out. Speculation ran from him falling down drunk and a serial killer running amok. Alice was also strangely absent. I didn’t know what to make of that. She hadn’t skipped a single meal since I started working there.

“What’s wrong?” Heath sat next to me. “You looked like you have something very unpleasant on your mind.”

“I’m wondering where Alice is. Since she’s helping her uncle, she might be the next target. She lives in an apartment upstairs, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Will your master key work on her room?”

“Of course.” He shoved a slice of bacon into his mouth. “Let’s go check on her.”

I grabbed a banana nut muffin, waved at Cheryl who had just entered, then left with Heath. I’d expected Cheryl to follow us, but she’d shaken her head and rubbed her stomach. Few things interrupted her from eating.

Heath opened a door that had a sign that said private. In front of us was a flight of stairs. “No elevator here.”

“I can handle one flight.”

Our steps echoed on the concrete stairs. A sense of foreboding came over me. I couldn’t help but feel as if the stairs led to something I’d rather not see. Normally, I chalked such feelings up to an active imagination, but the last two weeks had changed all that.

We stepped out of the stairwell onto indoor/outdoor carpet designed to hide any stain amidst its myriad of swirls and colors. One door was across from us with a brass placard that said, “Manager.”

I stepped back and let Heath knock. When he received no answer, he tried one more time, then inserted his key into the lock. “If she gets mad, we’ll explain that we were worried.” He waited for me to give him the go ahead with a nod, then pushed the door open.

Furniture lay on its side. Papers fluttered from a breeze through an open window. I glanced outside. A ladder leaned against the building. “Alice?”

“Stay with me.” Heath pushed me behind him and moved to the bedroom.

Blankets were puddled on the floor. The top mattress leaned against the bed. The closet door hung open revealing clothes pulled off hangars.

“Someone was looking for something,” I said.

“I wonder if they found what they were looking for.” Heath yanked open the bathroom door.

A wide-eyed Alice, her mouth taped and her hands and feet bound with duct tape, stared at us from the bathtub. She started shrieking behind the tape as I pushed Heath aside to get in.

I pulled open drawers in search of something sharp and found a pair of cuticle scissors. “Hold still so I don’t cut you.”

Her eyes cast daggers as she glared up at me. The moment the tape was cut away, she started spitting like a cat. “This is all your fault.” She held up her hands for me to cut away the tape.

“How is your getting tied up my fault?” I was tempted to leave her trussed up like a turkey.

“Because the person who did this said it was.” With her hands free, she started tugging at the binding around her feet. “They were going to kill me.”

“You saw who did this?”

“No.” She looked at me as if I were the densest person on the planet. “They hit me from behind. I didn’t come to until I was in the tub. As they were leaving, they yelled, ‘if that nosy gardener hadn’t of been telling people I knew things I shouldn’t, I wouldn’t have been involved.’ What did you tell who?”

“I didn’t…oh. I only mentioned your name in passing to Leroy. Who, by the way, is in the hospital. You should count your blessings rather than blame me.”

“I told you the things I told you in confidence.” She glanced over my shoulder. “Oh, hello, Heath. Thank you for coming to rescue me.” She held her hand out to him.

He gave me a wry smile and helped her from the tub. “Coming to look for you was Shelby’s idea. I didn’t realize you were missing.”

“True story.” I folded my arms. “When I didn’t see you at breakfast, I realized something was up. Brace yourself before leaving this room. It isn’t a pretty sight. Why didn’t they kill you?” The person didn’t seem adverse to extinguishing a life.

“Because one of the cleaning girls knocked on the door and scared them away.” She shoved me out of the way and darted from the room. She screamed and threw the one remaining unbroken item across the room. A lamp.

“What were they looking for?” Heath shoved the mattress into place.

“Those stupid soggy files, more than likely.” She kicked a pillow, then grabbed her toe.

I moved the offending item, then smiled at the sight of a large lead vase hidden there. It served her right for having a temper tantrum. “Those files are unreadable.”

“This could be exactly the bait we were looking for,” Heath said.

“What are you talking about?” Alice perched on the bed. “Where is my cell phone? She dug under the blankets. “Ah ha. I’m calling Uncle Ted.”

“We’ve decided to let the killer think we have something on him, or her.”

“That will draw the murderer out of hiding.”

I grinned. “That’s the plan.”