Snipped in the Bud (28 page)

“Police! Fire!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, wrestling to get free, hoping someone, anyone, was downstairs.

He clamped a hand over my mouth, so I clawed at it, but my short nails didn’t even break the skin. I tried to kick his shins, but he only lifted me in the air, his arms squeezing my ribs so tightly I couldn’t breathe. Finally, I went limp, making myself dead weight, slipping through his arms like a bag of wet sand.

Before he could react, I sprang to my feet and backed away from him. “Kenny, stop,” I cried as he came toward me, the pencil a dagger in his hand. “You can still work out something with the prosecutor. Extenuating circumstances. Mitigating factors. A crime of passion. Don’t make it worse by killing me, too.”

He wiped sweat off his upper lip. “I was thinking along the lines of temporary insanity.”

“For two murders? You can’t use the same defense twice. It’ll never wash with a jury.”

No reaction. He wasn’t thinking clearly. What would it take to get through to him?

“Kenny, listen to me. Do you know what your father will do when he finds out you’ve committed murder? He’ll come to your defense. He’ll be at your side every step of the way. If he gets you off with an insanity plea, you’ll be indebted to him for the rest of your life. Or maybe you’ll get life without parole, and then he’ll come see you every week to remind you what a screwup you are.”

I didn’t know where those words were coming from, but they were working. Kenny used the back of his hand, with the pencil still in it, to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. “Then my father wins again.”

“You can’t let that happen. You’d better think of a new plan.”

His eyebrows drew together as he considered my words, giving me the distraction I needed to dash for the staircase, nearly tripping in my haste to descend. But before I could reach the bottom he tackled me and we rolled down the last three steps, landing in front of the glass doors. I scrambled in the opposite direction and raced up the hall just as a ding sounded and the elevator door slid open. And there stood Puffer.

I gaped at him in surprise. He’d been upstairs the whole time—while I’d been defending my life.

Puffer grabbed my arm and dragged me inside just as Kenny lunged for me. Pushing me aside, Puffer shoved him hard, sending him staggering backward, then he shoved him again, until Kenny hit the wall and slid down, a stunned look on his face.

At once, the front doors burst open and cops poured in, with Reilly in the lead.

“Here’s your man,” Puffer thundered, as a mass of blue shirts moved forward.

I spotted Marco trying to get through, and, as much as I wanted to run to him, I had some unfinished business with Puffer to take care of first. “Professor, your light was out. I thought you’d left.”

“As usual, you thought wrong,” he snapped.

“You must have heard us struggling. Why didn’t you step in sooner?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a minirecorder. “The man was confessing. Why would I interrupt that?”

“How about to save my life?”

“I did save your life,” he said gruffly.

Which was amazing, now that I thought about it. Could there be a little softness under that crusty shell after all? Impetuously, I put my hand on his arm. “You’re right. You did.”

He glared at my hand until I removed it. “Well, someone had to do it. You were clearly incapable of doing it yourself.”

I took the insult with my lips pressed together, then forced out the words that had to be said. “Thank you.”

“You want to thank me? Stay the hell away from me.” He turned to talk to Reilly.

“I’d be more than happy to oblige, Professor,” I muttered. For a moment I just watched him—this harsh man who had caused me so many sleepless nights—and suddenly I realized that my fear of him had vanished. I wasn’t afraid anymore. What an incredible feeling of freedom!

A hand on my back made me turn, and there stood Marco, looking good enough to eat. I threw myself into his arms and buried my head against his solid chest. “My phone call worked!”

“You bet it did. And I recorded the whole thing. Good job, Sunshine.”

“Go, Abby,” I muttered against his shirt, starting to tremble from my ordeal.

“Take it easy,” he breathed into my ear, stroking my hair. “You’re safe.”

Yes. I
was
safe—from Kenny as well as from a fear of Puffer that had plagued me since I’d left law school. For some odd reason I started to giggle, and that turned into a guffaw, and then I was hanging on to him, laughing my fool head off as I tried to impart the hilarity of the situation. A dragon had rescued a Knight!

Marco held me away, searching my face in concern. “Are you laughing?”

I nodded, then burst into tears. Reilly came over to see what was going on, and Marco said, “I need to get her home. She’s a little stressed.”

“Understandable. I’ll get her statement tomorrow.”

That was the best thing anyone had said all day.

Because Marco had hitched a ride with Reilly, I let him drive my car home, which was especially helpful since my hands wouldn’t stop trembling. Not only that, but I couldn’t stop talking. It was like my brain was on fast-forward as I recounted my harrowing afternoon, describing how Reed’s murder had unfolded, and how I had remembered too late that Kenny had been alone in Puffer’s office with Reed’s body.

I wrapped up my story just as we stopped at the China Cabinet to get some takeout. While Marco was inside the restaurant, I checked my cell phone and saw that Connor Mackay had tried to reach me. Connor! Oh, no. I hadn’t canceled his appointment with Jillian. If I didn’t do that quickly I’d ruin my plan. I checked my watch and saw that it was just a little after five o’clock—plenty of time to call it off.

“Hey, Connor, this is Abby,” I said to his voice mail. “If you want the scoop on the murder, get over to the jail now. The killer has been caught. Oh, and Jillian said she can’t see you tonight after all. Something came up. She’ll call to reschedule. Bye.”

That would keep him away for the evening. Then I called Nikki. “Hey, Nik, I need a favor. First of all, don’t ask questions. Second, would you pretty please leave the apartment right now so I can have a few hours of private time with Marco? Third, you may hear some crazy stories about me being trapped at the law school with Reed’s murderer, but don’t believe them. I’ll give you the real story tomorrow.”

“Abby, oh my God! You were trapped with a murderer?” she cried.

“No questions, remember? I’m fine. Marco is getting some takeout and we’ll be there in ten minutes. Thanks, Nik. Love you.” I hung up just as the car door opened and Marco slid in, looking handsomer than any man had a right to. What was it about that dark, curly hair and five-o’clock shadow that made me want to eat him up?

He gave me a puzzled look. “Is everything okay?”

“It is now,” I told him, putting away my trusty phone.

Back at the apartment, Nikki had left us a bottle of Yellow Tail with a note that said,
Enjoy!
Marco opened the wine while I spread the cartons of food out on the coffee table, then we sat cross-legged on pillows to eat.

As we chowed down on beef fried rice smothered in sweet-sour sauce, monk’s delight, and cashew chicken, I said, “Okay, you’ve heard my story. Now it’s your turn. Tell me what you found out from Reilly.”

“There’s not that much to tell. You and I had turned up the same information the cops had. In fact, they had already cleared Bea and Jocelyn and were in the process of eliminating Puffer when they got the lab results back on the phone. I told Reilly I thought you’d said that Kenny had been alone in Puffer’s office. That’s what we were discussing when your call came in. Then, of course, I heard Kenny confirm what I’d begun to suspect.”

“Thanks to some quick thinking by yours truly. No applause, please.”

Marco rolled his eyes. “Are you going to share that rice or do I have to give you a standing ovation first?”

I passed him the carton, then used chopsticks to pick up one last hunk of chicken. It immediately fell into my lap, while Marco deftly maneuvered a bite of rice with his. Why hadn’t I ever been able to master those implements? Oh, well. Fingers worked just as well. “Who would have ever guessed that Puffer would come to my aid? I’m still trying to decide if it was just a knee-jerk military action or if he actually wanted to save me.”

“This is Puffer you’re talking about, Abby. Don’t over-think it.”

“Can you believe that Kenny’s father bribed Professor Reed to keep his son from getting that clerkship? How low is that?” I sat up suddenly. “Damn! I forgot to tell Reilly that Kenny was stealing pets for Dermacol. You’ll never guess why. To ingratiate himself with Reed. Do you believe that? Honestly, Marco, Kenny showed no remorse whatsoever about the pet theft or the murder. What kind of person can steal someone’s pet or take someone’s life and show no emotion?”

“It’s your classic sociopath, Sunshine. I saw too many like Kenny when I was a cop. But you don’t have to worry about the pets any longer. The photos I took plus the license number you supplied led the cops straight to Dermacol, where a suddenly cooperative Marvin Brown tried to pin the whole thing on Reed. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the lab permanently shut down.”

“That’s terrific news!”

“The people from animal control went in this afternoon to rescue the animals, and pet owners are being contacted as we speak. And I believe he said they’d also found a little Chihuahua with an ID tag that said
Peewee
on it.”

“Oh, Marco, that’s wonderful! Mr. and Mrs. Sample will be so excited. See? One person
can
make a difference. Think how happy all those people will be when they get the good news.”

“Ms. Knight,” he said, as I settled beside him once again. “have I told you what an amazing woman you are?” He put down his chopsticks and raised his wine. “To you, Sunshine, for making a difference.”

I touched my glass to his and took a sip, gazing at him with appreciation. His opinion meant a lot, as did Marco himself. No matter what happened, I knew he would always be there to watch my back, and that made me one very lucky woman. And how cool was it that a man with his combination of courage, integrity, and sensitivity could admire
me
? I lifted my glass again. “To you, Marco, for making a difference in my life.”

We had barely taken a sip when the doorbell rang. I put down my glass and jumped up. “That must be Claymore.”

“Jillian’s Claymore?” Marco asked, following me up the hallway. “The truant groom?”

“He wasn’t truant. Jillian has been lying about who left whom on the honeymoon. But don’t worry. I’ve arranged a little surprise reunion for her.”

“I have to see this.”

I opened the door, and before Claymore could say a word, I grabbed his wrist and led him toward Jillian’s apartment, with Marco following behind. “Good news, Claymore. Your wife is no longer missing in action. In fact, she’s waiting for you on the other side of this door.”

Cautioning him to keep quiet, I moved him off to one side. Then I rapped twice and called, “Jillian, your customer is here.”

There was the click of heels on tile, then the door swung open. “Send him in,” she said, stepping back, looking very sexy in a black silk pantsuit and bustier.

I propelled Claymore forward and quickly pulled the door shut behind him. “That’ll teach her to mess with me. Now, Mr. Salvare, I believe there are two fortune cookies waiting for us back at my apartment. And after that? Who knows.”

Marco poured more wine, then we settled on the pillows with our backs against the sofa. I gave him one of the cookies and took the other for myself, then we snapped them open and removed the little slips of paper. “This is amazing, Marco. Listen to what it says.
Even a dragon fears the knight.
” I turned to gaze at him. “Isn’t that
cosmic
?”

He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Not half as cosmic as mine.” He cleared his throat and read, “
Beware of short, busty, redheads.
”

“It doesn’t say that,” I said, laughing as I snatched it out of his hand. “Here’s what it says.
A friend will bring you luck.
Hmm. Do you suppose that friend is me?”

Marco gave me that provocative, half-lidded gaze that always turned me into a puddle of melted raspberry jam. “Let’s find out,” he said huskily, then tossed the slip over his shoulder and pulled me into his arms for a slow, steamy kiss that sent me soaring into the clouds.

Almost at once, Marco’s phone rang, followed shortly by mine. “Now,
that
,” he said, sending both phones skittering across the carpet, “is cosmic.”

Read on for an excerpt from the next
Flower Shop Mystery

Acts of Violets

by Kate Collins

Available from Signet in early 2007

“You think that was funny? You think I don’t know you did that on purpose? Well, I’ve got your number, shorty, so let me tell you something. Paybacks are murder.”

Paybacks? Murder? Shorty! Hugging my purse against me, I gaped at the bad-tempered buffoon as he gathered his cucumbers, climbed onto his unicycle, and rode off to join his troupe. You wouldn’t expect that kind of behavior from a clown named Snuggles.

Was it my fault he ran over my purse and fell off his perch? No, it was the bozo’s behind me—pardon the clown pun—who was too busy stuffing his face with a bratwurst on a bun oozing pickle relish and mustard to notice the short redhead with an even shorter fuse standing in front of him. This was a small parade. He was a big guy. Did he have to be in the front row? And who eats brats at ten o’clock in the morning?

I turned my attention back to Snuggles, who was once again juggling cukes from his seat-in-the-sky as he pedaled up the street. My policy was to stand up to bullies—and that snarled threat was certainly bullying behavior—but before I could give him a piece of my mind (I was thinking along the lines of recommending a place to store those cucumbers), I was yanked back onto the sidewalk by my best friend/roommate, Nikki Hiduke, an X-ray tech at the county hospital, who had shared many childhood adventures with me and lived to tell about it.

“Abby, are you all right? You look dazed.”

“Nikki, that clown threatened me! As if I elbowed myself off the sidewalk.” I cast a glare over my shoulder at Mr. Oblivious, who had finished his bratwurst and was slurping mustard off his fingers. I was amazed he wasn’t also talking on a mobile phone. Oh, wait. Yes, he was. He had an earpiece on.

“Snuggles the Clown threatened you?” Nikki stared after the troupe—three acrobats, two unicyclists, one stilt-walker, and the last (my favorite because of the huge purple violet atop a long green stem waving from her bonnet), a baby-doll clown pedaling a giant purple tricycle. “But he looks so harmless.”

“Don’t let that goofy smile deceive you.” I scrubbed the black tread mark off the tan leather purse that I’d almost gone into hock for. “Beneath that grease paint is a nasty temper and a voice that would make a polar bear shiver.”

“Abby, you have mustard on your shoulder.”

Wonderful. I took a tissue from my tire-engraved purse and blotted the yellow stain on my white shirt. Why had I even bothered to come? It was a sunny Saturday morning, and although my flower shop, Bloomers, was open on Saturdays, this was my one weekend a month to sleep in. But no. Attending the annual Pickle Fest Parade was a family tradition, and to break that tradition was to incur the wrath of my mom, Maureen “Mad Mo” Knight.

Speaking of whom, where was she? I’d never known her to miss the start of the parade, when Peter Piper led his merry band of Pickled Peppers up Lincoln Avenue to the strains of a John Phillip Sousa march.

I scanned the crowd lining both sides of the street. Today was the start of New Chapel, Indiana’s, fall Pickle Festival—a weeklong celebration of brine-soaked vegetables, attended by thousands of people from all over the state, some from as far away as Chicago, giving the local newspaper,
The New Chapel News
, fodder for headlines such as
Visitors Relish the Pickle Fest.
I had a hunch it wasn’t so much the pickled produce as it was
getting
pickled that was the actual draw.

All four streets around the courthouse square had been blocked off to accommodate the huge crowds. Restaurant owners set up tables in front of their establishments to sell beer, hot dogs, bratwurst, dills, pickled beets, pickled tomatoes, pickled watermelon, and, yes, pickled peppers, to the hungry visitors. For the truly desperate, pickled herring and pickled pig’s feet were also available. Shoe shops, gift boutiques, and clothing stores put out their wares, and even Bloomers had a display of mums, roses, asters, and greenery for sale.

Then there were the ever-popular arts-and-crafts booths that dotted the huge lawn around the big limestone courthouse in the middle of the square. Beneath the shady maples and elms, brightly colored canvas tents housed ceramicware, watercolors, oils, clay sculpture, silver jewelry, quilts, pottery, toys, metal sculpture, and even marble birdbaths.

My mother would have her work on display somewhere in that mix. In addition to being a kindergarten teacher, Mom now fancied herself an artist, having received a pottery wheel for Christmas last year. Before she grew bored with clay, she had produced a variety of weird sculptures such as the infamous “dancing male monkeys table,” or the “human footstool.” She had since moved on to mirrored tiles, with which she’d covered nearly every object in her house, making a washroom visit a truly frightening experience. I didn’t know what craft she was into this week, as she often changed on a whim. My father would only say, “It’s a tickler.”

“Do you see my family?” I asked Nikki. Being a head taller (even more if you added in her cute, spiky blond hair), she had a height advantage. She also had a body advantage—slender, long-legged, and small-breasted, something I had aspired to from the age of thirteen. My brothers, both doctors, insisted that people stopped growing when they reached puberty, but they were only half right: I had never gone beyond my five-foot-two-inch frame, but I had gone
way
beyond my training bra.

“I don’t see any of them,” Nikki said, holding up her hand to shield her eyes.

Normally, they weren’t hard to pick out, since Jonathan and Jordan had the same flame red hair and freckled skin that my dad and I had. My mother’s hair was a soft brown, lucky woman, and my sisters-in-law—Portia and Kathy—had also escaped the curse of the red.

“There’s Marco,” Nikki shouted in my ear as the New Chapel High School marching band passed by. She pointed between green-coated band members to the opposite side of the street, but I had already spotted him. How could anyone miss a dark-haired, virile-bodied, extremely hot hunk like Marco Salvare, a former Army Ranger/ex-cop, who now owned the Down the Hatch Bar and Grill—as well as my heart?

“Who’s that woman talking to him?” Nikki asked.

I eyed the attractive girl beside him. “I don’t know. She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

“Pffft. No way. Ew. And would you look at those split ends?”

“Nikki, you can’t see split ends from here, and besides, it’s okay to agree with me. I don’t feel threatened by the woman. I’m not the jealous type.”

She burst out laughing.

Ignoring her, I narrowed my eyes at the pair, watching as Marco tilted his head toward the woman to catch something she said. She couldn’t have been a day over twenty-five, and had an oval face with delicate features framed by long, thick black hair and a perfectly proportioned body. She was talking animatedly and pointing to something or someone up the street. The Pickled Peppers? The clown troupe? Someone in the marching band?

“Abigail, there you are!” my mother called. I turned to find her parting the crowd so the humongous feathered hat on her head could fit through. Normally she wasn’t one to wear hats, let alone feathers, but she did have a way of surprising me. “We’ve been looking all over for you. Why aren’t you in front of Bloomers?”

“Because we always meet here by the Clothes Loft. Where are Dad and the gang?”

“By your shop, which is where I thought you’d be.”

“It’s hard to see the parade from Bloomers, Mom. You know it doesn’t go down Franklin. Besides, we always meet here. If you wanted to meet elsewhere, you should have told me.”

“I would have told you if I thought there was a need to tell you. But since you’re a shop owner now, I really didn’t see the need.”

I started to argue that my being a shop owner had nothing to do with it, but Nikki nudged me and coughed. That was the signal we used when one of us was expecting a family member to be rational.

“Shall we go get everyone and bring them back here?” Mom gazed at me from under the wide feathered brim of her hat even as her eyes scoured me for signs of illness or distress. Like a hawk, she instantly homed in on the yellow splotch on my shoulder. “How did you spill mustard on your shirt?”

“Ask him,” I said, hitching a thumb toward Mr. Oblivious, who was now giving a running commentary to whoever was on the other end of his phone line. “He pushed me into the path of a clown.”

“Well, thank heavens it was
only
a clown. It could have been that team of horses.” She pointed toward the two grays hauling a circa-1860 fire wagon. Seated on a bench beside the driver was a giant inflatable cucumber dressed in an old-fashioned red fire hat and yellow slicker. Every entry in the parade had to incorporate something pickled, which could have gotten racy except that entrants also had to go before a review panel of six somber senior citizens.

“But
this
clown threatened me, Mom.”

“A clown threatened you?” asked a familiar husky male voice from behind me.

My heart skipped a beat as I turned to see the owner of the voice, Marco (minus the pretty woman), looking extremely macho in his tan Down the Hatch T-shirt, slim-fitting blue jeans, and dusty brown boots. He’d managed to cross the street between floats and was now holding a strawberry ice-cream cone, unaware that he was being ogled by every woman within a ten-yard radius.

Marco wasn’t handsome in the movie-star sense of the word. He didn’t have a straight nose, or baby blue eyes, or a wide, perfectly even smile. What he
did
have were deep, dark bedroom eyes, a masculine nose, a firm mouth that curved devilishly at the corners when he was amused, and an olive complexion that was rarely without a five o’clock shadow. He was tough and quick-witted, but amazingly sensitive to my moods and feelings. Maybe that was why he brought me the cone.

He held it out and I took it. Ordinarily I don’t eat ice cream before lunch, but after being shoved and threatened and stained with mustard, I felt a strong need to soak my irritated nerves in butterfat. Once they were thoroughly saturated, I’d ask him about the woman.

“Morning, Nikki,” he said with a little nod in her direction. “Mrs. Knight, new hat?”

“Yes. Thank you for noticing, Marco.” Throwing me a
shame on you for not noticing
look, Mom gave him a hug. She gave everyone hugs. It was part of being a kindergarten teacher.

“Tell me about the clown,” Marco said, watching me with that intense expression cops get when interrogating a witness. I knew that because my father had been a cop, and throughout my high school years my dates had been subjected to both the expression and the interrogation.

“He was just your standard bulbous-nosed, orange-haired, cucumber-juggling unicyclist with an attitude problem,” I said between licks, “who mistakenly believed I threw my purse in front of him to knock him off his cycle. Who then went on to snarl something about paybacks being murder, as if he wanted to get even with me for tripping him. Go figure.”

Marco rubbed his jaw, staring up the street after the departing fire wagon. “Not your typical clown behavior.”

“His name is Snuggles,” Nikki put in helpfully. “It’s on the back of his costume.”

“Snuggles,” Marco repeated, as though storing it away for future reference.

My mother gazed at me sadly. “I’m sorry, honey. You’ve always liked clowns.”

I swallowed a big glob of ice cream, nearly choking. “Mom, I’ve never liked clowns. I’ve had a fear of them since I was five years old, when a clown with bad teeth tried to toss me into a burning building. You must remember that.”

“We were at the circus, and it was part of their act,” she assured me. “If there had been any danger involved, your father would never have let your brothers volunteer you.”

“They volunteered me?” I sputtered.

She handed me a tissue to wipe the cream off my mouth. “When Abby was little,” Mom explained to Marco, and to anyone else who cared to listen, “she had imaginary friends who were clowns.”

“They weren’t my friends, Mom.” I rolled my eyes at Marco.

“Then why did you play with little Jocko and Bimbo? Hmm?” To Marco she whispered, “That’s what she named them. Jocko and Bimbo.”

“I played with them because I’m a firm believer in the keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer philosophy. It was purely self-protective.”

“You were such a cute little girl,” she said, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. Mothers were forever tucking and straightening and—even worse—licking their palms to flatten hair that wouldn’t lie down. Mom-spit, my brothers called it. My brothers the traitors, that was. I’d long ago made a vow to never inflict that kind of torture on my kids—if I ever had the urge to have any.

“Well,” she said with a satisfied sigh, “shall we go? Marco, you’re coming with us, aren’t you?”

Of course he was coming with us. He’d promised to watch the parade with my family. Then he and I were going to hang out together the rest of the day and enjoy the festivities.

“Thanks, but I have some business to attend to first.” He put his mouth close to my ear and said huskily, “I’ll catch up with you later.”

I started to complain, but he was staring past me with a perturbed frown—the same frown he’d worn the time he’d cautioned me not to attempt the rescue of a young, captive Chinese woman, which I did anyway, then was nearly drowned in a hot tub. Or the time he warned me not to go back for the funeral rose I’d delivered to a dragon of a law professor, which ultimately led to my being the prime suspect in a murder case. It made me wonder what kind of business he was talking about now.