Acts of Violets (10 page)

“Okay, Grace. What am I supposed to be telling you?”

“You shouldn’t suppose anything, dear. It causes all sorts of misunderstandings. But perhaps you’d like to share what it was that Marco needed from you?”

Aha! It was an apology in disguise. She wanted to gloat because her prediction had been right. But why make it easy for her? “Marco asked me to investigate Dennis Ryson’s death.”

“That’s certainly a serious matter. And?”

“And . . . I agreed to help.”

She lifted her eyebrows, waiting for the rest.

“You and Lottie were right after all.”

“Thank you, dear. When Lottie returns perhaps you’ll share the whole story with us.”

As she breezed out of the workroom I couldn’t help but laugh. Because of her regal bearing and London accent, no one ever suspected that Grace could be devious, but that was one of the reasons I liked her so much.

I took a sip of mint tea, then started on the second order, the ever-popular dozen long-stemmed red roses—we received at least one of these requests a day—which I was able to knock out in fifteen minutes. Before I could pull the third order, the bell over the door chimed and I heard, “Yoo-hoo. Anyone here?”

Oh, no! My mother had arrived—probably accompanied by whatever feathered sombreros hadn’t sold at the festival. I tiptoed to the curtain and peeked through. Yikes! It was even worse than I had imagined. Mom had wheeled in a dolly on which were stacked four cardboard boxes. Obviously, not much had sold at the festival.

I was contemplating slipping out the back door when I heard Grace say, “Maureen, how nice to see you. Aren’t you teaching today?”

Rats. I couldn’t leave Grace to face the feathers alone.

“Half day,” Mom replied. “So here I am. Did Abigail tell you about my new art project?”

I hadn’t! She’d be wounded. “Mom,” I called cheerfully, entering through the curtain, “you brought your hats. Isn’t that wonderful, Grace? Now you’ll get to see them close-up.”

“Marvelous. I can’t wait.” No matter what Grace said, she always sounded dignified, so there was no way to tell whether she was being sarcastic or not.

Mom began to unpack the boxes, pulling out big-brimmed downy numbers in a rainbow of hues. “These will be a big draw. You know how women love hats.”

Obviously not enough to buy them at the craft fair, even when they were standing in the direct rays of the sun. That should have told her something.

The last two boxes contained an assortment of feathered fans that looked as though the poor birds had been tie-dyed before being plucked, and furry picture frames in all sizes and mixes of colors. I tried to imagine a photo of Grace’s classically shaped face surrounded by tufts of teal and purple feathers, but somehow it wasn’t working for me.

“Striking,” Grace said with a straight face, although I saw her nose twitch. However, that could have been due to the feather motes in the air.

Mom glanced around the shop. “Now then, where shall we put the hats?” She eyed the wreaths hanging on one wall and headed straight for them. I glanced at Grace, but she merely put her finger against her lips, signaling me not to say anything, so I watched mutely as five wreaths came down and five hats went up. The rest of her projects went anywhere she could squeeze them in, against ceramic figurines, brass candlesticks, and silk flower arrangements in the armoire and on the display tables and shelves.

When she was done, the shop looked like a chicken coop that had been attacked by a fox wielding Magic Markers. Lottie chose that moment to return from lunch and had to bat her way through the floating down to get to us.

Knowing the first words out of her mouth would be,
What the hell happened here?
I quickly said, “Good news! Mom brought in her new feather art.”

Lottie blinked a few times to clear her vision. “Well,” she said, planting her hands on her hips as she swiveled to take it all in. “Well, well, well.” I knew what she was thinking:
How soon can we get these down to the basement?

The poetry society ladies began to stream in, one after the other, exclaiming in delight, “Oh, what lovely hats!”

My mother beamed in delight. She’d finally found her market.

 

Half an hour later, twelve newly bedecked poetesses were seated in the parlor, sipping hot beverages and sharing their odes, happy as, well, larks, although anyone passing by Bloomers who happened to glance through the big bay window into the coffee parlor would have thought more in terms of escapees from a tropical bird sanctuary. Now, if only we could find customers who’d take the frames and fans off our hands.

With feather particles still settling, my mother went home to start a new project, while Lottie stationed herself at the cash register and I stood in the workroom at the big table, a floral knife in one hand and a handful of daisies in the other, formulating my questions for Ed and Eudora Mazella. By four thirty, business had slowed so much that Lottie and Grace were able to join me so I could fill them in on Marco’s request for help and my fear that I would fail him.

“That’s why that little wrinkle on her forehead is back,” Lottie said to Grace.

“Of course you’ll be able to help Marco,” Grace assured me. “You’re quite a clever girl, really, and you have influential friends in town.”

“Like that cutie-pie in the prosecutor’s office.” Lottie wiggled her eyebrows.

Greg Morgan. Ugh. I’d rather have a mole removed. “The problem with Morgan is that he may be working on the murder case, and even if he isn’t, there’s no way he’d agree to help the defense team.”

“What about Sgt. Reilly?” Grace suggested.

“He’s on the other side, too. Besides, Marco doesn’t want me to bother him.”

Lottie made a clucking sound. “Since when did you listen to Marco? Baby, you gotta stop using law school logic and start using what God gave you.”

I glanced down at my chest.

“Not your boobs.” Lottie tapped her forehead. “Common sense. Figure out what it will take to get those fellas on your team and go after them.”

She had a good point, so I took my wrinkled forehead to the parlor for one last cup of coffee and some serious scheming.

 

At five o’clock we closed the shop and the three of us headed our separate ways, Lottie to her big, loud brood of teenaged boys, Grace to her cozy little house filled with fine English antiques and Elvis memorabilia, and me back to Ryson’s neighborhood. The wind had picked up, bringing a damp chill with it, so I slipped on the denim jacket I kept in the trunk.

I parked in front of Ryson’s house and walked toward the Mazellas’ tidy, white-frame two-story. A black tow truck was parked in the driveway that ran along the side of the house, and inside the open one-car garage in the rear I could see huge tools hanging from giant hooks on the back wall. I walked up the sidewalk to the front porch and rapped on the door.

My knock was answered by a tough-looking, thick-bodied, middle-aged man wearing an undershirt and blue Dockers that fit below his large belly. He stepped out onto the porch and scowled at me. “No solicitin’,” he said in a gravelly voice, stabbing a lit cigar toward a hand-lettered sign tacked onto the door frame.

“No problem there. I’m not a solicitor. Are you Ed Mazella?”

He gave me a wary glance, scratching the back of his thigh. “Yeah, why? Who are you? Are you from the newspaper?”

“My name is Abby Knight and I’m investigating the death of your neighbor Dennis Ryson.”

He took his cigar out of his mouth and peered at me with squinting eyes. “Who you workin’ for?”

“I work for myself.”

“A private eye?”

“Well, um, yes. Now, if you have a few minutes—”

He stuck the cigar back in his mouth. “Get yer butt off my steps.”

Well,
that
was definitely the wrong way to start a conversation. As Ed turned to go inside the house I decided to try appealing to his better nature—if he had one. “You know Trina Vasquez across the street?”

He puffed on his stogie, eyeing me suspiciously. “Yeah, I know Trina. What about her?”

“Did you know Mr. Ryson had been harassing her, following her to the grocery store, peering in her windows, frightening the children?”

He seemed to soften a bit at that. “Yeah. She told me. I even seen him over her way a few times, botherin’ her and those kids, so I called the cops on him, you know, tryin’ to help her out, poor thing.”

Ed grabbed his cigar in the V of two fat fingers, turned his head to the side, and spit a big wad of something gross onto his lawn. “I’ll tell ya what. It don’t bother me that someone clocked him. He was a real sumbitch. Good for whoever had the balls to do it, too, ’cause he deserves a medal for takin’ that scumbag out.” Ed stuck his cigar back in his mouth, the veins on the sides of his forehead throbbing. “I hope that sumbitch Ryson rots in hell.”

I sensed some really bad karma between Ed and Ryson.

There was a sudden movement in the doorway behind him, a flutter of white, almost like a giant dove had flown past. Ed didn’t seem aware of it. He shifted his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “So, you’re a friend of Trina’s, then?”

I was going to have to handle this one carefully, because my response would undoubtedly decide whether Ed cooperated any further. What was it Lottie had told me? I glanced down at the front of my jacket. Oh, right. Common sense.

“I’m a friend of every person who’s ever been harassed, Mr. Mazella. My goal is to make sure that the cops find the person who killed Mr. Ryson, for Trina’s sake, as well as for your sake and the sake of everyone else in town. After all, we wouldn’t want a murderer on the loose.” I crossed my fingers behind my back and hoped I’d threw in enough
sakes
to satisfy him.

Ed blew out a thin stream of blue smoke and squinted at me as if he wasn’t quite buying it. “What makes you think the cops won’t find the killer?”

“To be honest, Mr. Mazella, they’ve been talking to someone already—they’re calling him a person of interest—and I believe they’re targeting him unfairly. I want to make sure they get the
right
person, not just someone who’s convenient. You hear stories on the news all the time. Some guy spends his life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit while a murderer walks.”

Ed took another puff and blew it out. “What’s really in it for you?”

“You mean like money? Trust me, no one is paying me for this. I’m just big on justice. I don’t like to see anyone railroaded by the cops. Surely you can understand my feelings on that. Have you ever been ticketed for something you didn’t do and then tried to argue it? Did it get you anywhere? Well, there you go. I really,
really
hate that.”

He scratched his leg again, clearly moved by my impassioned speech. “So what d’ya want to know?”

Whew. I’d pulled it off. I dug in my purse for my trusty notepad and pen. “Did you notice if Mr. Ryson had any visitors the day he died?”

“Just that Salvare fella from Down the Hatch. Leastwise, he’s the only one I seen.”

“How did you know it was Mr. Salvare?”

“I see him all the time down at his bar.” Ed made an effort to hitch the waistband of his pants over his belly but it slid back down again. “They sure got into it, I’ll tell ya that.”

“Did you see Mr. Salvare enter or leave the house?”

“I seen him pull up in front of Trina’s house in that black and silver number, and later, after Ryson started his swearin’ and stuff, I seen him walk across the street and go into Ryson’s house.”

“So you heard Mr. Ryson cursing and you saw Mr. Salvare enter his house? What time was that?”

He scratched the front of his thigh. “I’d say around seven thirty, mebbe a little later.”

“Did you hear them fighting?”

“Heard it and called the cops. I knew somethin’ bad was happenin’ ’cause of the glass breakin’ and furniture hittin’ the walls.”

“Did you go over for a look?”

There was a nanosecond of hesitation; then he said, “Naw, I kept my distance from that place.”

“You didn’t go over at all, not even when the cops were there?”

Another tiny pause before answering. “Wasn’t none of my business.”

Hesitations, even slight ones, made me suspicious. What normal male wouldn’t have gone to see what had happened, especially once he knew the cops were on their way? “Did you see Mr. Salvare leave?”

“Yeah, he took off outta there pretty fast. He was all busted up, like that scumbag got in a few good licks of his own.”

He’d seen Marco arrive and leave—in bad shape—not good for Marco’s side. If only I could get Ed to admit to having a motive of his own. “What time did he leave?”

“Mebbe a little before eight o’clock.”

“Did you get along with Mr. Ryson?”

“You don’t
get along
with a scumbag. You keep your distance.”

“Did you ever get into an argument with him?”

“Like I said, I kept my distance.”

“Did he ever threaten you?”

Ed shifted his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “Me? Naw. Why would he threaten me?”

“I was told you had some issues with his motorcycle noise.”

“Everyone on the street had issues with that. He’d rev those engines for hours, late into the night, that garbage he called music blastin’ from those monster speakers in his garage. Who can sleep with that ruckus?”

“So you
never
tried to talk to him about it?”

“All right, one time I went over there, and that sumbitch had the nerve to come at me with a tire iron. So I called the cops. He didn’t like that, I’ll tell ya.”

“Then he
did
threaten you.”

“Naw. Like I said, why would he threaten me?”

Hmm. Ed apparently didn’t consider being attacked by a tire iron threatening. I made a note to ask Reilly about Ed. He sounded like one of those people who was always calling the cops, so there was bound to be a file on him. That was supposing I could convince Reilly to help—and not let Marco know about it.