Murder in the Rose Garden: A Scent with Love Cozy Mystery (Scent with Love Cozy Mysteries) (9 page)

Beth and
Chase
returned to her guest cottage with a large red cabbage in a grocery bag on the
floor of Chase’s pickup truck. Chase came around, opened her door and lifted
her out of the truck, went around back and opened the tailgate for Lola who had
been riding on the back.

Beth hurried
into the kitchen and immediately got to work. She put the kettle on and chopped
the cabbage into small pieces, placed them in a large mixing bowl and added the
boiling water from the kettle. After ten minutes, the water had turned a deep
purple/red color. Beth poured the contents of the bowl over a strainer,
collecting the red cabbage water in a measuring cup. Chase rummaged under the
wash basin for an empty spray bottle and filled it with the cabbage water.

They sat
down at the table, took out the documents and stacked them in two rows, side by
side on the kitchen table. Beth took the bottle, adjusted the spray nozzle
setting and sprayed red cabbage mist over the pages. Within a few seconds words
appeared on the pages in bright red ink, the words “Winslow-Dunne” stenciled
across the pages in a repeating pattern. Chase looked at her questioningly.

“Any idea
what that means?”

“I’m not
sure but someone called Mr. Dunne left me two messages at the shop in the last
week. I forgot to return his call.”

Chase looked
excited. “Do you have his number?”

Beth
rummaged in her handbag on the chair next to her and pulled out a blue Post-it
note. Mr. Dunne’s contact details were scribbled on it in Hannah’s messy black
handwriting.

“I sure do!”
said Beth. She reached for her phone, punched in the number and waited
anxiously.

“Hello, Mark
Dunne speaking—”

“Hello, Mr.
Dunne. It’s Elizabeth Andrews, you left me two messages last week. I am just
returning your call.”

“Miss
Andrews, I am so glad you contacted me. I have been trying to get hold of you
regarding your mother’s will.”

Beth wasn’t
sure what he was talking about. “My mother’s will has already been finalized,” she
replied.

Mark Dunne
spoke in a lowered voice. “Miss Andrews, I am not sure what you know but I am
an associate at Winslow-Dunne, the largest law firm in Boston. I have your mother’s
final will in my possession. She came to see me the week before her untimely
death. You were named her sole heir. Her assets are quite substantial.”

Beth took a
deep breath, trying to calm the sickly feeling in her stomach. Mark Dunne
continued on the other end of the phone.

“I have an
associate at a local law firm in Big Bay. I will send her a copy of the will.
When are you able to meet with her to go through the details?”

“This is all
rather sudden. Big Bay is a thirty-minute drive from Bartholomew Bay. I would
be able to see her later this afternoon,” Beth replied.

“Fantastic,
I will contact her and make arrangements. Her assistant will be contacting you
shortly to confirm a time. Goodbye, Miss Andrews,”

“Goodbye, Mr.
Dunne.”

Mark Dunne
hung up the phone. Beth, who had stood up and started pacing nervously during
the conversation with Mark Dunne, flopped into a chair at the kitchen table and
turned to Chase. Her face was pale, her eyes brimmed with tears and her mind
stung in confusion.

Chase got up
and put the kettle on
.
“You look like you need a strong cup of coffee.
What did he have to say?”

Beth smiled
weakly.
“Coffee would be great, thanks.”
Beth proceeded to tell
Chase about the second copy of her mother’s will, a copy which was more recent
than the will Jack had on file.

Chase placed
a cup in front of her. “I know that this is difficult for you but this is good
news. This does explain a lot of things. Your mother was obviously hiding her
assets from Bernard. I found it very strange that she left the cottage to him.
The whole town knew about his affair; I am pretty sure your mother knew too.”

“It does
explain a lot, and will surely solve the mystery of my mother’s missing money
but it still doesn’t explain who killed her.”

“We still
don’t know who killed her but our pool of suspects just got a little larger. We
should definitely take another look at Bernard. If he found out that your
mother had excluded him from her will, he would have been very angry—sounds
like a pretty good motive for murder to me.”

~

The sight of
the sprawling ocean against the backdrop of white wispy clouds and rocky cliffs
would have captivated Beth on a normal day. But finding her mother’s killer was
all she could think about on the drive to Big Bay. Chase was at the wheel, deep
in thought as they travelled the winding coastal road from Bartholomew Bay to
the neighboring town of Big Bay.

They pulled
up in front of a large white building on the main road at three-thirty in the
afternoon. Chase helped her out of his truck and walked with her into the
reception of the one-woman law practice run by Melinda Walker. A petite girl in
her mid-twenties with auburn hair and black round-framed glasses greeted them
and asked them to wait in the visitor’s reception area.

They had
barely sat down before the high-pitched sound of a woman’s voice erupted in the
hallway. Melinda Walker breezed past Beth and walked over to Chase, greeting
him with a warm embrace.

“Chase Crawford,
what a pleasant surprise! It has been ages since we last worked together.”

Chase got up
and greeted her. She responded like a viper, darting quickly into a choking
embrace. Chase grinned at Beth from behind Melinda’s shoulder and rolled his
eyes apologetically at Beth. Melinda let go of him, brushed her hands across
the front of her black dress and greeted Beth with a perfectly manicured hand.

“You must be
Elizabeth Andrews.”

Beth got up
from her chair. “Yes. I have an appointment scheduled for three forty-five.”

“Yes indeed.
Mr. Dunne sent over a copy of your mother’s will. Please follow me to my office
where we can discuss it in more detail.”

Melinda
escorted Beth to a sunny office at the back of the building and proceeded to
take her through the details of her mother’s will.   

It took
twenty minutes to go over the details and Beth walked out of Melinda’s office
convinced that she knew who had killed her mother. 

Chase drove
them back to Bartholomew Bay and headed straight to the flower shop. It was
just after five and Hannah had already closed up. Beth opened the door and
hurried to the back of the shop. She turned on the light in the stock room and
gasped at the sight of the empty shelf at the very back of the room. The twenty
large porcelain pots which had been stored separately from the rest were gone.
Chase was standing behind her. She had told him all about her mother’s antique
Chinese porcelain collection on the drive back to the shop.

Twenty intricately
decorated pots, vases and jars dating as far back as the seventeenth century
with a combined value of more than three million dollars. The shape, pattern
and markings on the bottom of each piece were recorded in a detailed list in
her mother’s will. Beth had a copy of the list in her handbag and had hoped to
be able to compare the vases and pots she had seen in the stock room to those
listed in her mother’s will. The sight of the empty shelf confirmed to Beth
that the pots and vases in the stock room were indeed those her mother had
mentioned in her will.  

Beth went to
the front of the shop and tried calling Hannah. The phone rang a few times
before going to voicemail. Beth paged through the order book, scanning the list
of recent orders. The last order was placed by Mrs. Blackwood and marked for
collection which she found strange as Mrs. Blackwood usually asked for her
orders to be delivered. She turned to Chase.

“We need to
find Hannah.”

Chase brushed
her arm softly. “Calm down, pretty lady. I know how all of this may seem but I
know Hannah and she would never harm anyone. As for the missing pots I am also
quite sure that she would not have stolen them.”

Beth agreed.
“We need to find Hannah because I am concerned about her safety. I am convinced
that Mrs. Blackwood killed Mom and stole the vases from the stock room. She
placed an order for collection this afternoon. I think she used it as an
opportunity to get her hands on the vases.”

Chase’s eyes
darted to the back of the shop, scanning the desk for the keys to the shop’s van.

“Did you
leave the keys to the van with Hannah?”

“Yes, she
needed the van to make some deliveries this morning,” replied Beth.

“I don’t see the keys
anywhere; I think that Hannah is missing along with the van.”

“I think you may be
right. We need to get to Blackwood Estate!”

Chase grabbed his keys
and ushered Beth to his pickup. The engine roared to life, the sound of
screeching rubber filled the air and they raced off in the direction of
Blackwood Estate. While Chase focused on the road ahead, Beth called Sheriff
Hunter, filled him in on the latest developments and asked him to send backup.

Blackwood Mansion
stood proudly within a large landscaped garden overlooking the ocean. The stately
double-story house was painted white with painted wood shutters and a dark wood
front door.

Chase
stopped his truck at the main gate, which was adorned with an intricate web of
black trailing vines, and pressed the buzzer. There was no answer. Chase scaled
the 10-foot stone wall and began fiddling with the gate motor. It wasn’t long
before he had managed to pick the lock, open the maintenance panel and open the
gate using the manual override function.

The drove up
to the main house and stopped next to the Scent with Love flower shop van which
was parked at the main entrance. The doors to the van were open and the back
was empty. Beth and Chase bolted from the truck and ran up to the main house.
The large wooden front door was open and a bulging leather suitcase stood next
to the table in the entrance hall at the bottom of the stairs. Beth ran over to
the table and picked up a folder containing a first-class ticket to the
Maldives in Hannah’s name.

She turned
to Chase, who was standing at the top of the stairs.

“We need to
find Hannah. Her life depends on it.”

“There is no
sign of anyone upstairs. I don’t know how much time we have!”

~

Eleanor
Blackwood climbed the last step of the spiral staircase and emerged from the
floor in the old servants’ quarters, behind the kitchen, which had been
remodeled into a patio and bar area for entertaining. She closed the trap door
to the wine cellar and covered it with an old grass rug. She tucked a strand of
gray hair behind her ear and walked towards the door. Her hair was cut in a
neat short style with long strands at the front framing her face, which she
preferred to tuck behind her ears. She had never been fond of her late
husband’s hair-brained ideas and the wine cellar had always seemed like an
unnecessary expense. Since his death she had never been down to the cellar but
she was suddenly very glad he had built it, as it was the perfect place to hide
a body.

Eleanor had
injected Hannah with a lethal dose of snake venom and placed her in an empty
wine barrel, alive, but not for long. On Monday she would call Jim, the grounds
man, and have him seal the floor with a truckload of concrete. The wine cellar
had really never been much use to her.

She hurried
out of the bar and past the sparkling blue lap pool that ran the length of the
house, back towards the main building. It was twilight and the outside lights
were about to come on. They were on a timer and came on at six-thirty every
evening. As she approached the stairs to the main house, she spotted movement
in the kitchen window. She froze and turned to run just as the backyard lit up.

Eleanor
heard Beth shout, whirled around and took off across the lawn with Chase in hot
pursuit. He caught up with her, tackled her to the ground, pulled her hands
behind her back and handcuffed her with a zip tie. Chase spun her around and
shook her shoulders.

“Why,
Eleanor? Why on earth would you kill Mary-Ellen, steal from Beth and kidnap
Hannah?”

“Oh please,
don’t judge me. Do you have any idea what it takes to keep a place like this
going? I am drowning in debt and I can’t afford to keep all of this up much
longer. I stumbled upon Mary-Ellen’s little gold mine quite by accident.
Imagine my surprise when an antique dealer friend of mine spent a weekend here
a few months ago and commented on how shocked he was to see that I was keeping
my flowers in a two-thousand-year-old porcelain vase. A vase worth more than
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. After his visit I went to the shop and
snooped in the store room. It didn’t take me long to do the math and figure out
that the antiques in the stock room were the answer to all my financial
troubles.”

Chase could
hardly believe his ears—the slim woman in front of him was the picture of grace
and sophistication. She looked nothing like a murderer, dressed in designer
clothes, black wool slacks and a navy blue button-down shirt with a bright
patterned scarf draped loosely around her neck.  Her nails were perfectly
manicured and her makeup was applied with an artist’s precision. She smelled of
rosewater and spoke in a soft voice which was becoming more animated and
maniacal by the second.

“I was naïve
at first, thought Mary-Ellen didn’t know what the pots were worth so I made her
an offer on the shop but she declined. When that didn’t work I tried
blackmailing her into giving me the pots but she didn’t seem worried about the
police finding out about her little marijuana business. She left me no choice.
I had to kill her to get my hands on those pots. After her death I approached
Jack, offered him a large incentive to make sure that Beth sold the flower shop
to me. I never expected her to take on the role of amateur detective; we have
enough incompetent law enforcement officers in this little town already.”

Two officers
came sprinting across the lawn and took Eleanor Blackwood into custody. Sheriff
Hunter arrived a moment later.

“Eleanor,
where is Hannah?”

“I think I
have said enough. I will be spending the rest of my life in prison; I see no
reason to make this any easier for you.”

Walt spoke
into his radio. “Search the premises, we need to find Hannah King before it’s
too late. Eleanor is not cooperating. I don’t know how much time we have!”

He turned to
Beth. “My guys will turn this place upside down, and we will do our best to
find her in time. Can you think of anything you saw or heard that may give us a
clue as to where Hannah is being held captive?”

Beth was
trembling. “I um…I didn’t really see much before the night lights came on but I
think I saw her coming from the direction of the swimming pool.”

Chase came
up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Walt, I am almost certain she
came from the patio and bar behind the swimming pool.”

Walt Hunter
took off towards the building behind the pool, signaling two nearby officers to
follow. Beth and Chase followed close behind.

They scanned
the room for any signs of life or possible clues but found nothing. Walt
unclipped the radio from the belt of his jeans and called for expert
assistance.

“Rob, please
send Milo over to the bar building.” He turned to Beth and asked her if she had
any item of clothing belonging to Hannah on hand.

Beth
shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know…Hannah did use the van a lot, perhaps
there is something there that belonged to her.”

Within a
minutes an officer ran over with a floral patterned scarf in hand.

“Does that
belong to Hannah?” asked the sheriff.

“Yes, I
think it does. I remember seeing her wear that last week at the shop.”

          Walt held the
scarf out in front of Milo, who sniffed at it a few times and began pawing on
the grass rug in the middle of the room. 

Three more police
officers raced up and a few moments later Officer Rob climbed out from the wine
cellar with Hannah cradled safely in his arms. She was alive but unresponsive.

          Walt yelled
into his radio. “We have her, I need medical assistance ASAP.”

Two
paramedics raced up and took over. Hannah was rushed to the hospital; the sound
of the ambulance siren could be heard for miles and a swirl of blue and red
lights swarmed the scene. The grounds were crawling with law enforcement
officials who were busy putting up yellow tape and securing the scene.

          Beth was glad
that Hannah had been found but there was still no sign of the missing antique
pots and vases.

           “I am pretty
sure that Mrs. Blackwood was not acting alone. She definitely had an accomplice—Jack
Reynolds. I overheard them talking about Pots the afternoon of the drug bust at
the warehouse. At the time I thought they were talking about Piper Pots but
they must have been talking about the antiques in the shop. That also explains
why Jack was so intent on pushing me into selling the shop. They wanted to buy
the shop so that they could get their hands on the treasures my mother had
hidden in the stock room.”

          Chase nodded
his head in agreement. “Yes, Eleanor Blackwood admitted to most of it when she
was arrested a little earlier.”

Walt
immediately got out his cell phone and called the station.

“I need you
to get officers over to Jack Reynolds’ place ASAP. I have a strong feeling that
he is about to skip town with a large shipment of very fine Chinese antiques.”