Acts of Violets (3 page)

“Fine. If that’s what you want to believe, then he’s looking for that woman, but if that’s true, then it must be for a private investigation he’s working on.”

Or so I hoped.
Although I’d known Marco for four months, dated him for three, and had even tracked down several killers with him, he was still very much a mystery to me. In fact, what I knew about him could fit into a single paragraph.

He’d been an Army Ranger, went to College on the GI Bill, joined the New Chapel police force, then abruptly quit a few years later to buy the bar and do some private eye work on the side. He’d grown up in the next county, had a mother (whom I’d never met) who had recently moved to Ohio, a father who was deceased, two brothers and a sister scattered across the country, and a younger sister nearby who had a little boy named Christopher.

Everything else I knew about Marco I’d gleaned from watching him and, trust me, he was a pleasure to watch—broad of shoulder, narrow of hip, with well-developed muscles and a sexy swagger that melted my mascara. But that wasn’t all there was to him. He was also fearless, bright, and fun, and had more integrity in his little toe than most people had in their entire bodies—a rarity in a world where good qualities were in short supply. He was also perfect husband material, if either one of us ever felt inclined to get hitched.

But right now Marco seemed to enjoy his bachelor life. Although I didn’t mind being single and
relatively
carefree, either—no one could be totally carefree if they were mortgaged to the eyeballs—one day I hoped we’d both be ready for the whole white-picket-fence and baby-diapers scene. For now, I was happy just to hang out with him whenever our schedules allowed. Today was supposed to be one of those days, but right now it wasn’t looking promising.

Plowing through a crowd, ninety-five percent of which was taller than me, I quickly lost sight of Marco and had to rely on Nikki. One block later, she came to a sudden halt and I smacked into her. “Let’s go back,” she said, turning me by the shoulders and giving me a forward push.

“Why?”

“Don’t ask questions. Just go.”

“Don’t ask questions? And you’ve known me how long? Tell me what you saw.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Nikki, if you don’t tell me this minute I’ll start singing the national anthem right here in the middle of the crowd.”

She gave a violent shudder. She had been in the seventh-grade glee club with me. “It’s Marco,” she said regretfully. “And he’s with that woman.” She hitched a thumb over her shoulder.

I leaned to the right to peer around her. “Where?”

“Standing in the doorway of Pipsqueaks.”

I shifted my gaze to the front of the children’s clothing store and found them. “Damn.”

“Okay, maybe it’s not as bad as it looks. Maybe it
is
just PI business.”

Considering that Marco had his hands on either side of her face and was gazing intently into her eyes, I had my doubts. Marco said something to her, then turned and rejoined the crowd, while the woman watched him go with naked longing. Her shoulders moved up and down with a heavy sigh. Then she headed in our direction.

I was just about to step in front of her and ask what her business was with Marco when Nikki blocked my path. “Let’s go meet your parents and watch the rest of the parade.”

That was her gentle way of telling me to knock it off, and I knew she was right. Marco and I didn’t have an exclusive agreement. If he wanted to see someone else, then he was free to do so. And I was going to become an astronaut and fly to Saturn.

“Let’s just see where the woman goes, Nikki. Also, what kind of car she drives and what her license plate number is.”

“Seriously, Abby, your mother will send out a search party if we don’t get back there.”

“You’re right. Let’s go.” Because I just couldn’t help it, I peered around Nikki again, but the woman was gone.

 

A big cheer went up as the 1967 Cadillac convertible carrying the Cucumber King and Queen came into view. Dressed in a dill green gown, with a silver tiara on her head, Ms. Cuke waved enthusiastically, while Mr. Cuke, in a red pepper-patterned jacket, tossed out wrapped candy and gold foil chocolate coins. I dodged a coin with barely an eye blink, my thoughts still on Marco.

“What’s the matter, Abby?” my dad asked, gazing up at me from his wheelchair. “You’re usually fighting for those chocolate coins.”

“It’s that nasty clown incident, Jeff,” my mom said. “Abigail, why don’t you ask your father to speak to one of his friends on the force about it?”

“Abby is twenty-six years old, Mo,” my dad said. “She doesn’t want me fighting her battles.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I patted his shoulder. “Mom, it was just a rude comment. Trust me. I’ve already forgotten about the clown.”

My father, Jeffrey Knight, had been a sergeant on the New Chapel police force until three years ago, when a felon’s bullet hit his leg and surgery to remove the bullet had caused a stroke that put him in a wheelchair. For a man who was used to being independent and in charge—and a terrific dancer, I might add—it had been a terrible blow. But, as he did with everything else he encountered, he dealt with it. I tried to model myself after him, but it didn’t always work, such as now, when I couldn’t get the sight of Marco tenderly stroking another woman’s face out of my mind.

At least my brothers and their wives hadn’t joined us. I wasn’t keen on having Jon and Jordan tease me mercilessly about bringing down a cucumber juggler. I could just imagine the kind of cracks it would spawn.
“Was he workin’ his gherkin, Abs?”

When the last float had passed—a giant jar with people inside dressed to look like dill slices, sponsored by the New Chapel Savings and Loan and bearing the slogan, DON’T GET YOURSELF INTO A PICKLE. COME SEE US FOR A LOAN—we crossed the street and headed toward Bloomers, located directly across from the old limestone courthouse.

On the four streets surrounding the courthouse were the typical assortment of family-owned shops, banks, law offices, and restaurants. Five blocks east of the square marked the western edge of the campus of New Chapel University, a small private college where I would have graduated from law school if I hadn’t flunked out. It had something to do with the law professors not liking the way my brain functioned—
when
it functioned. Apparently, I was supposed to use things like legal precedence, not common sense.

With Nikki forging a path through the crowd and my mother pushing Dad’s wheelchair, we made our way up the crowded sidewalk on Franklin, past the Down the Hatch Bar and Grill—Marco’s place. At a table outside, two of Marco’s waitstaff were selling grilled bratwurst, hot dogs, and beer by the plastic cupful. Through the big picture window I could see Chris, the head bartender, standing behind the long, polished walnut counter, chatting with a row of customers as he worked the taps.

Two doors down was Bloomers, with its two bay windows and its old-fashioned yellow framed door with beveled glass center. Bloomers occupied the first floor of a deep, three-story, redbrick building. On the right side was our Victorian-inspired coffee and tea parlor, complete with white wrought-iron tables and chairs, and china cups and saucers in an old-fashioned rose pattern—a great find at the antique mall.

On the other side was the sales floor, where customers could browse the glass-fronted display cooler for fresh flowers; or the shelves of old bookcases and an antique armoire for silk floral arrangements and small gift items; or even the walls, draped with swags and wreaths and decorative mirrors. For me, though, the real delight lay behind a curtained doorway in the back—my own little slice of paradise, the workroom.

It was a tropical garden-like space filled with fresh blossoms, dried flowers, heavenly aromas, and glass vases and pottery containers of all sizes. It was in that room that I could open up my soul and let it sing. Holding those dewy petals in my fingers, smelling the sweet fragrance of the beautiful blossoms, I was lifted away from the everyday problems and stresses of life and transported into a zone of tranquility.

I had always loved the old redbrick building on the square, but I never dreamed I would own a business in it. After my disastrous year at law school and my breakup with my fiancé, Pryce Osborne II, I didn’t think I had any dreams left. Then my former employer, Lottie Dombowski, made a startling suggestion: buy her flower shop.

She hadn’t really wanted to sell the quaint little shop, but her husband’s enormous medical bills had wiped out her cash reserves. I wanted to help her out—I had worked as her assistant, delivering flowes and helping with arrangements—but what did I know about running a business? Nothing. Still, the only things I’d ever had luck with were plants, so six months ago I used the rest of the trust fund my grandfather had left me to secure a mortgage; then I immediately hired Lottie as my assistant. It had worked out beautifully for both of us.

When we reached Bloomers, Lottie was out front assembling a bouquet for a waiting customer, while Grace was inside, handling the shop and coffee parlor. Business was usually dead on the festival’s opening day, so we used the table outside to lure customers from the arts and crafts fair across the street.

While Mom took Dad inside for a cup of Grace’s famed chamomile tea, and Nikki went along for a cup of espresso, I stayed to chat with Lottie.

“How’s business?” I asked quietly.

“Starting to pick up now that the parade is over.” She handed the wrapped arrangement to the customer, then glanced at me. “All right,” she said, folding her arms over her bounteous bosom, “you want to tell me what’s causing that wrinkle in your forehead?”

I tried to erase the crease with my index finger—as if there was a way to hide anything from the mother of seventeen-year-old quadruplet boys. “I’m just feeling a little bummed.”

“Abby saw Marco with another woman,” Nikki said, standing in the doorway with a cup and saucer in her hands.

“A
pretty
woman,” I corrected her.

“She had split ends,” Nikki whispered to Lotti, who merely clucked her tongue at me.

“Sweetie, if you’re gonna get your nose bent out of shape every time you see your man jawin’ with a female, you’d better sign up for some plastic surgery.”

That was one of the things I loved about Lottie. She didn’t mince words. She had a generous amount of what she called “Kentucky horse sense,” even if she did wear a bright pink satin barrette in the brassy curls above her left ear. Her philosophy on life was “Stuff happens, so suck it up.”

“Now,
there’s
the guy you should go for.” Lottie pointed across the street to where deputy prosecutor Greg Morgan was giving an interview to a reporter and posing for the TV cameraman from WWIN, the local cable television station. “My, my. Isn’t he a looker?” Lottie heaved a wistful sigh.

“And doesn’t he know it,” Nikki said with a snort.

Lottie belived Greg Morgan was the handsomest man she’d ever seen, and that he and I were made for each other, even though I’d explained to her many times that Morgan gave new meaning to the term
stuck on himself
. In high school he’d kept a hand mirror, hair spray, and dental floss in his locker and had joined as many clubs as he could squeeze into his schedule so he could get his photo in the yearbook more times than anyone else.

“Sweetie, all men are just big lumps of clay that you gotta mold into an acceptable form,” Lottie had once opined. “So why not start out with his form and see where it takes you?”

“The only place it would take me,” I’d retorted, “is into therapy.”

As if he could sense us watching, Morgan glanced over and waved. Lottie waved back, while Nikki ducked into the shop and I pretended not to see him. Naturally, he came striding over, flashing the hundred-watt smile that highlighted the blond glints in his chestnut hair and the sparkle in his angelic blue eyes.

Morgan wasn’t tall—or all that smart—but he was always well dressed, which was probably why Lottie admired him so. If any of her boys were to show up wearing something other than ripped, baggy jeans, an old T-shirt, and laceless shoes, their hair sticking out at every angle, she would have called a press conference.

Today Morgan was sporting a light blue denim shirt tucked into a pair of dark blue jeans with a crease carefully ironed into them. “Are you ladies enjoying the festival?”

“We are now,” Lottie boomed in her big voice, nudging me. At that moment, three women came up to ask her advice on flowers, so she turned to wait on them, leaving me to handle The Ego alone.

“Abby, I’m glad you spotted me,” he said. “How about being my date for the charity luncheon in the pickle tent? Proceeds are going to Haven for the Homeless, which I organized, FYI.”

Ordinarily, a free lunch would be right up my alley, but I’d endured enough meals with Morgan to know that it was an experience I suffered if and when I needed information that only he could provide. Otherwise, I’d rather have an enormous water balloon fall on my head. Repeatedly.

“Thanks, Greg,” I said, trying to look both admiring and regretful, “but my parents came downtown for the festival and I’d hate to abandon them. They’ve been looking forward to spending some quality time with me.”

At that moment, my mother breezed through the open doorway, pushing my dad, and called, “We’re off to the booths, Abigail. See you later.”

Feeling Morgan’s gaze on my face, I blinked rapidly, trying to fire my brain cells into action, because the only thing I could think to do now was run away, and I was a little too old for that. I glanced at Lottie for help, but she was still talking to the three women.

“Coffee break is over, Abs,” Nikki said, stepping through the doorway. “Let’s go pig out on elephant ears. Oh, sorry. Hello, Greg. Did I interrupt something?”

That was Nikki’s attempt to rescue me.

“We were just making lunch plans,” Morgan replied. “Want to join us?” That was Morgan’s attempt to surround himself with women; the more the merrier.