Acts of Violets (29 page)

“Someone is in trouble in room three,” I panted, digging for my cell phone with my free hand.

His feet swung down, he grabbed a ring of keys from a back wall, and he followed me as I sprinted for Violet’s room, still hunting for my cell phone. Where was the darn thing?

I found the phone and flipped it open just as the manager inserted a key in the lock. I stopped to punch in 911, then followed him inside, where I saw a double bed, a ratty wooden table and two chairs, and a small TV on a Formica-topped credenza opposite the bed, but no Violet.

The manager glared at me, clearly perturbed. “There ain’t no one here.”

Then the scream came again and he bolted for the bathroom. I dropped the bouquet on the bed and followed as he swung open the door.

Inside, a naked man jerked around to gape at us. “What do you think you’re doing?” he shrieked, grabbing a purple towel to cover himself.

He was so skinny his ribs stuck out, and his head was as bald as a lightbulb. He had one foot perched on the side of the small, rust-stained bathtub, and inside the tub, just visible over the rim, was Violet—or at least the top of her curly head.

“Perverts!” the man raged, turning toward us. “Get out of my bathroom this instant!”

His
bathroom? Wait. Was he wearing eye shadow? My gaze dropped to his hand, where I saw a long strip of hair-coated wax. On the floor beside the bathtub were several more. He was waxing his legs?

“This is nine-one-one,” the operator said in my ear.

“Just a minute.” I peered over the rim of the tub and there, at the bottom, on a white stand shaped like a human head, was a brown wig. I turned to gape at the man. “
You’re
Violet?”

“You’re on your own, toots,” the manager said, and fled.

The naked man, who apparently
was
Violet—a very
angry
Violet—stamped a bare foot on the cracked linoleum floor. “I said
get out
!”

“I’m so sorry. I heard a scream and thought someone was hurt. I’ll leave now.” I backed through the doorway and pulled the door shut.

“This is nine-one-one. Hello?” the phone squawked in my ear.

“Never mind. False alarm.” I gave the dispatch operator my cell phone number, explained the situation, and apologized profusely. Then, as I shut the phone and dropped it back in my purse, I glanced around the cheesy room and spotted the bouquet I’d dropped on the bedspread.

“Um, Violet? I have a flower delivery for you.”

There was a long stretch of silence; then she said with reluctance, “Fine. Just a minute.”

A few moments later she appeared in her wig and a purple satin bathrobe, looking exasperated yet curious. I held out the bouquet.

“Purple lilies—oh, they’re my absolute favorites.” She took them from me and immediately ripped away the paper. “I don’t see a gift card.”

“They’re from Bloomers. From me, actually. I was hoping you’d answer some questions about Dennis Ryson.”

“You have some nerve.” She shoved the bouquet at me and fled back to the bathroom. “Go to hell.”

“Wait, Violet,” I said before she slammed the door. “I really think you should talk to me.”

“What I should do is call the cops.”

“You know what? That works for me. And when they get here, you can explain that broken stilt in your car.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That piece of wood in your backseat. Did you know the police are looking for a murder weapon, possibly a long piece of wood?”

“And you think that broken stilt is it? Honey, you’re crazier than I thought. I broke that stilt months ago. I use titanium now. They don’t break.” She sashayed to a narrow door against the back wall and opened it, where I could see dresses hanging on wire hangers, and shoe boxes on the floor. She reached inside, fished around in the back, and brought out a pair of long, brushed metal stilts. “This is what I use now.”

“So you wouldn’t mind giving me that broken end in your car to have the fibers tested?”

“I’ll do better than that.” She dug through the boxes again and produced the other end of the stilt. “I’ll give you both pieces.” She thrust it at me, then picked up a set of car keys and headed outside.

As I followed her to the Mustang I said, “What about your relationship with Dennis? Are you going to deny that you were seeing him?”

“What relationship are you talking about? We did a few clown gigs together.”

“But you were seen visiting his house several times. His neighbors described your car and even identified you from a photo.”

She laughed as she shoved away a mound of trash on her backseat and found the broken end. “I was at his house to teach Dennis how to ride a unicycle. We used his basement to practice. You want to call that a relationship? Honey, be my guest.”

“Can you account for your whereabouts on Sunday night?”

“Who are you, Nancy Drew? I was at the theater. Check with the director if you don’t believe me.” She handed me the jagged piece, snatched the flowers from my hand, and flounced back into the motel.

Fine. I’d check with the director, but I wasn’t going to believe her story until those stilt pieces had been analyzed. I placed the two ends in the trunk of my car, then got into the driver’s seat and dug out my cell phone to call Dave Hammond.

“Hey, Dave,” I said a moment later, “I have samples of wood that need to be tested for traces of blood and scalp. Who should I take them to?”

“It’s too late for that, Abby,” he replied dejectedly. “I got a lab report about an hour ago. The wood fibers in Ryson’s scalp came from his coffee table.”

“So no weapon was involved?”

“He was either pushed onto or fell onto the end of the table—and that may or may not have been the cause of his death. Ryson could have been dead before he
hit
the table. In any case, you’ve probably guessed what that means.”

I rested my forehead on the steering wheel. Marco was still their man.

“
W
e’ve got three and a half days before the grand jury meets, Dave, and the only suspects I have now are the couple who lived next door to Ryson—but I don’t have a single way to link either one to the murder scene. Is there anything at all in that report that I can check out? Time of death? Ryson’s health? Something?”

I heard him shuffle papers. “No, it’s pretty much what I told you before, Abby.”

I closed my eyes, wishing I was on a tropical island with an umbrella drink in my hand, sand under my feet, and Marco on the lounge beside me, instead of in my car in the parking lot of a seedy motel. What was I going to tell him? That he never should have trusted me? That I’d told him so? A lot of good that would do him. At the end of the day, I could go back to my flower shop. Marco was the one who would pay for my failure.

“Wait a minute,” Dave said.

My head came up with a jerk. I pressed the phone tighter against my ear. “You found something?”

“This report says Ryson vomited shortly before he died. But here’s the interesting part. It mentions pieces of undigested flower petals stuck to the front of his T-shirt.”

“He vomited flower petals? What kind of flower petals?”

“Dark purple is all it says. We’ll need the toxicology report for details.”

I had a sudden vision of a cake with dark purple violets on it. Violets weren’t toxic for most people, but for someone who was highly allergic and didn’t know, they’d find out when it was too late. Could that have happened to Dennis Ryson?

I immediately saw a problem with that theory. Ryson had been eating Eve’s cakes on a regular basis. Surely he’d encountered violets before . . . unless she’d added something to those particular flowers. What had she told me?
“With the crythtallithation protheth they’ll latht up to a week, but mine latht longer becauthe I add thomething thpecial.”

Could that something have been poison? Did I have any reason to believe Eve would want to harm him? No, I didn’t. But then something Reilly said popped into my mind.
“I don’t remember any family members in that case.”
Marco, too, had seemed surprised to learn about her existence. Where had she been when Ryson was arrested for robbery? Wouldn’t an outraged mother have been somewhere in the picture? My antennae were up and quivering.

“Okay, Dave, bear with me a moment. The prosecutor is claiming that Ryson’s death came as a result of a blow to the head that triggered his fall onto the coffee table, or that he was pushed against the table and hit his head, causing his death. Now the report says he vomited purple flowers. What if he fell because of what he ate, not from a blow to the head?”

“Are you talking about an allergic reaction?”

“Or a poisoning.”

“Where did you come up with the poison angle?”

“It’s a hunch. I’ll tell you about it after I check it out. Do we know what Ryson ate before he died?”

“I don’t see that on the inventory, so probably not.”

“The detectives noticed that he vomited but didn’t think to check his food supply?”

“They must have been satisfied that he became nauseated as a result of the blow, but you’re right. It should have been investigated.”

“How long before you get the toxicology results?”

“Not soon enough to help our case. Two weeks, at least.”

“Can you ask Darnell to stall the grand jury vote until we get the lab reports back?”

“Abby, come on. You know a grand jury is a prosecutor’s tool. He convenes it when he wants an indictment, and right now Darnell has his sites set on Marco. The only way to get him to delay the vote is to have something credible to show him. A hunch isn’t going to do it.”

Damn. My forehead went back against the steering wheel. How else could I find out whether those flowers were toxic?

Wait a minute. Grace had been a nurse. She might know. I promised Dave I’d get back to him; then I quickly dialed Bloomers and told Grace the situation.

“We could always ring the hospital to see if they’ve admitted anyone for food poisoning in the past week,” she said. “I’d be happy to make that call for you.”

“Super. And would you also use your librarian skills to find out everything you can about Eve Ryson, aka Eve Taylor?”

“I’ll get right on it.”

Yes! The investigation was moving again, and I even had a plan. First up was a call to the Icing on the Cake bakery, where Sharona was kind enough to put me straight through to Eve.

“Hello, Abby,” Eve said, as though pleasantly surprised. “Do you have newth for me?”

“Actually, there are a few things I’d like to review with you. Would you have time later this afternoon?”

“Oh, my heaventh, I have
tho
many caketh to do today. If you don’t mind me working while you’re here, why don’t you thtop by at three o’clock?”

“I’ll be there.” I parked the Vette just off the town square and punched in Reilly’s cell phone number as I headed toward the police station. “Hey, Reilly! How’s the ultimate police sergeant doing today?”

“What do you want, Abby?” he said impatiently.

“I have to talk to you. I’m almost at the door of the station now, so if you can get away for just a few minutes—”

“I can’t do that right now. Just tell me.”

A squad car pulled up in front and a cop got out and strode toward the door, so I moved several yards away. “I have to get inside Ryson’s house to check his refrigerator.”

He laughed.

“I’m serious, Reilly. The grand jury convenes
Monday
. Will you at least hear me out?”

There was a pause. “Go ahead.”

I glanced around to be sure no one was listening. “I’ve got this strong hunch that it wasn’t the fight Ryson had with Marco that killed him. It was something he ate that caused him to black out and hit the table. If I’m correct, there should be a partially eaten cake in Ryson’s refrigerator that has toxic flowers on it. And if that’s true, Marco is off the hook.
That’s
why I need to get inside Ryson’s house.”

In a whispered voice he said, “What do you expect me to do? Steal the key from the evidence box? What don’t you understand about the word
illegal
?
Pension
?
Rules
? Give me a break.”

“No, give
Marco
a break, Reilly—your buddy Marco, whose life is hanging in the balance.” I paused, hoping that would trigger something, but all I heard was silence. “Okay, fine. Forget I asked. I don’t need your help.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked warily.

“Figure out a way to get inside. Of course, I could always use a helpful hint, such as if the screens are loose, or if there’s a broken basement window, a spare key under the mat . . . I mean, you
have
been out to Ryson’s house, after all.”

I heard a muffled groan. “You’re determined to do this, aren’t you?”

“Like you really need to ask.”