Poisoned Petals (19 page)

Steve looked away. “I’m sorry.”

She briefly explained what Holles told her. “I have to tell someone before the memorial.”

“I know. I understood that last night at the nightclub when Darmus disappeared. You don’t have any choice.”

“I hate it!” She shoved a spade into the dirt, digging away until there was room to replant the begonia she’d taken out. “I hate knowing about it.”

He started to speak but only ended up opening and closing his mouth.

“But no one else knows. Holles isn’t going to come forward. It has to be me.”

He picked up her hand and kissed it, dirt and all. “I’ll be there with you.”

“Thanks.” She smiled at him and pushed dirt around the begonia’s roots. “At least I have good backup.”

“Always.” He studied her sun-flushed face for a long moment, then said, “That’s why everyone is there for you, Peggy. Because you’re there for everyone.”

“That was nice.” She kissed his cheek. “The kiss was nice, too. But now you’ll have to wash the inside of your mouth with antibacterial soap. There are germs in the soil.”

“I feel like living dangerously today.” He bent lower and kissed her lips. “Mmm. Dirt flavor.”

“I warned you.”

He stood up. “Can I help you get your stuff together? You’ve only got about an hour until the service.”

She grimaced. “You could help me get off this brick. I think I’ve been down here too long.”

He gave her his hand and pulled a little. “Okay? Want me to take the bag of potting soil?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You know this will only get worse, don’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“You and me. I’ll always be a little older, which may not
seem
so bad right now, but later—”

“Later, we’ll both be older.”

“But I’ll always be at the front of that race. My knees are going. I can’t get around as fast as I used to.”

“Thank God!” He rolled his eyes skyward. “I can barely keep up as it is! You’re a human dynamo, Peggy. Get older. Slow down. I don’t care. I love you. But you may not want to put up with me once you hear my terrible secrets.”

“What kind of secrets?”

“I’ll tell you when you get older. Maybe your hearing will go out first so you won’t know what I’m saying.”

She picked up her spade and discarded gloves from the warm redbrick courtyard, feeling a little lighter at heart. “Don’t tell me, you once killed a beagle.”

“No.”

“You once took money for killing a beagle but couldn’t do it?”

He stopped and stared at her. “What if it was something really bad, like Darmus? There might be something in my past that will come back to haunt me.”

She hugged him. “I guess if you can love me with bad knees, no teeth, and white hair, I can love you with your terrible secret.”

“No teeth?” He squirmed. “I never said anything about
that
! All the rest of it is okay, but no
teeth
? We have to have a talk about
that
!”

They laughed, and the moment passed for Peggy, lost in the sunshine and the sudden feeling of not being alone to sort out the mess Darmus had made of his life. She looked at Steve, and noticed how the corners of his brown eyes crinkled up as he squinted in the sun. She didn’t know how she got so lucky twice in a lifetime, but she thanked God for it. And it gave her strength to do what needed to be done.

Steve pulled out of the parking area behind the shop as she was locking the back door. She could hear church bells ringing sweetly in the quiet of Sunday in uptown Charlotte. A few joggers went by, breathlessly waving as they passed the shop on College Street.

Peggy was thinking about going home and taking a shower before she put on her deep purple Chanel suit and added her veiled matching purple hat and gloves. She might as well do this thing in style. She might even be on the news if any of the television stations chose to cover the event. Luther had invited most of Charlotte and large portions of North Carolina, not to mention a few of Darmus’s friends from other parts of the nation and the world. She might be speaking to a packed audience when she told the world Darmus had lied to them.

As she turned to get into her truck, a Toyota Prius pulled abruptly into the parking lot beside her. Holles jumped out. “Dr. Lee, you have to change your mind about this.”

“I can’t.”

“They’ll be looking for Darmus like a dog! Is that what you want?”

“Calm down, Holles. It may not matter to the Council of Churches that you worked with him. You’ll probably be fine.”

His handsome face turned red beneath his ever-present tan. “I’m not thinking about myself.”

“Of course you are.” She put her hand on the truck to open the door, and he pushed against the door to stop her. A chill went down Peggy’s spine. Why did she tell Steve it was okay for him to leave?

She took a deep breath and considered her situation. She was alone in the alley behind the shop except for the occasional jogger or a car going by in the street. Holles was bigger and stronger than her. He was agitated. She could tell because for once, his clothes weren’t perfectly matched. There was even a button in the wrong hole on his brown shirt. He might feel she was a threat to him. Certainly she hadn’t sounded like she was willing to compromise.

She couldn’t outrun him. Her kung fu was a little rusty. There were no handy tools to hit him with. Her knees hurt too much to consider kicking him. The door to the truck was still locked, so she couldn’t open it quickly, hit him with it, and escape while he was lying on the ground nursing his wounds.

Whether he was capable of doing something rash they would both regret was a question she couldn’t answer staring into his angry face that was so close she could see the tiny red capillaries in his eyes. Her heart bumped a little.

She recalled the training they gave her freshman botany class when they went to Yellowstone Park to study the native plants.
Don’t try to face any wild animal down. Act submissive or roll into a protective ball on the ground. Protect your face and eyes as much as you can. Stay quiet.
She never had to use that advice when she was at the park, but it might come in handy now. She hunched her shoulders a little and looked away from his eyes.

“What do you plan on doing, Dr. Lee?”

“I plan on speaking at Darmus’s funeral service,” she hedged. “I—I guess I’ll have to see after that.”

Holles moved his hand. “I think that’s for the best. It’s a good decision. Thank you.”

She still didn’t look at him, but she was thinking,
Just you wait until I’m in a better position to knock you flat, you big moose!

“I’ll see you at the memorial service then,” he said.

A thousand things went through her brain as he got in his car and left. She got in her truck quickly and sagged over the steering wheel
after
she locked the doors behind her. If only she’d been able to threaten him with something. A shovel or a rake would have been nice. If she’d had her father’s gun . . .

Now that was
too
much! She started the engine and quickly drove out of the parking lot.

 
WHEN PEGGY FINISHED DRESSING and started down the marble staircase, she found her whole family waiting for her. When she got to the bottom, she looked at them. They were all dressed in black, except for Aunt Mayfield, who was wearing a yellow sundress that looked particularly bad on her. “I thought you were going to the lake today for a boat ride.”

“We were,” her father confessed. “But we suddenly had this yen to go to a funeral.”

“He
was
your friend, Margaret,” her mother said, “even if he
is
still alive.”

“I don’t know why we’re not going on the boat ride,” Cousin Melvin complained, looking uncomfortable in his suit and tie. The suit barely fit him, and the tie was too short. He looked more like he was ready for Halloween.

“And I don’t understand how you can bury a man who isn’t dead!” Aunt Mayfield protested. “Anything goes in this day and age, I swear!”

Steve had gone home and changed into a dark gray suit and tie with a white shirt that looked like it just came out of a box. His dark hair was nicely combed, and he appeared to have shaved recently. He shrugged when she looked at him, but didn’t offer any explanation.

The front door opened, and Paul ran into the house, still tying his striped tie and pulling on his black suit coat. “I’m glad you didn’t leave yet. I thought I might be too late.”

“Not at all.” His grandfather put his arm around his shoulders. “We were waiting for you.”

“You’re looking particularly handsome.” His grandmother kissed his cheek. “You remind me of your grandfather at your age. He was quite a looker, too!”

Ranson’s wicked eyebrows raised and lowered a few times, and Lilla giggled.

“It’s too hot for a suit!” Cousin Melvin complained. “How far is this place anyway?”

“Not far.” Peggy kissed her son’s cheek, too. “Thank you all for coming.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Paul said.

“Steve told you, didn’t he?” Not that she needed any of them to confirm it.

“It’s the only way I know what’s going on in your life,” Paul answered. “Steve tells me everything.”

Peggy glanced back at Steve.
“Everything?”

Paul shuddered. “Okay. Not
everything
! I don’t even want to go
there
! He told me enough so that I knew you needed moral support at Darmus’s funeral.
You
should have told me!”

Ranson walked beside his grandson as they started out the door. “Did I ever tell you about that time your mother got a penny stuck in her ear and didn’t say anything about it for a month?”

Paul laughed. “I don’t think I’ve heard that Mom story.”

“It’s true.” His grandmother backed up the tale, making it gospel. “She had a terrible infection in her ear canal. She kept trying to dig the penny out by herself.”

“It’s the God’s honest truth,” his grandfather added, “may lightning strike me dead if it isn’t.”

The entire group glanced at the cloudless blue sky above them.

“Okay. That’s it.” Peggy stopped the reminiscing. “I’m not going with
any
of you in a minute! If this is moral support, I hope lightning strikes
me
dead!”

“I think we can all squeeze into the sheep van, right?” Steve took out his keys.

“We all went in it to the nightclub last night,” Aunt Mayfield reminded him sourly. “But it was a tight fit. And that nightclub was loud! And I think my ginger ale was watered down.”

“It might have had some whiskey in it.” Ranson got in and sat with her and Cousin Melvin in the backseat.

“’Shine?” Aunt Mayfield’s puffy face turned red. “You know I don’t touch the stuff!”

“Vile tasting!” Cousin Melvin declared. “But good for what ails you. I take a drop or two, just for
medicinal
purposes, from time to time.”

“Just drive,” Peggy told Steve. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get out of this van!”

More people showed up for Darmus’s funeral than Peggy would have imagined. The big lot at Mangum’s was full. So was the shopping center parking lot across the street. Women dressed in various dark shades were walking across the street in high heels, accompanied by men in brown and black suits.

“There’s the mayor.” Paul pointed to the man getting out of the Mercedes in front of the funeral home. “And the chancellor from UNCC.”

“Nice crowd.” Steve glanced at Peggy. “Sure you want to go through with this? You could always take it up with them later.”

“Once they bury Albert Jackson in Darmus’s place, it will take a court order to exhume him.” She clicked her pocketbook closed as he parked the van. “I think I’m up for this.”

She didn’t mention what went on between her and Holles behind the shop. She’d convinced herself it was mostly her overwrought imagination. Holles was the least threatening man she’d ever met. Just because he leaned on the truck door didn’t mean he was threatening her.

Holles and the funeral director met them at the back door to the chapel. Holles smiled in a grim, thoughtful way while the director explained to Peggy where she’d be sitting and when he’d ask her to speak. Holles nodded to Steve and Paul when the director asked them to go in the front door and find a seat while he took her in through the back of the chapel.

When she realized she was going to be alone with Holles again, even for a brief time, Peggy got a little nervous. Then she realized the funeral director, the UNCC chancellor, and the head of the Council of Churches would all be sitting with them beside Darmus’s elaborate coffin. Not that they were necessary. She’d included another letter opener and a can of mace in her pocketbook.
Let him try something now!

The enormity of what she had to do almost overwhelmed her when she saw the choir from Darmus’s church on the other side of the huge chapel. The room was filled to capacity. She could see Steve and her family sitting near the front door. The mayor was seated beside most of the city council. The governor was near one of the local state representatives, their heads close together.

The scent of thousands of flowers assailed her nose. Chrysanthemums, roses, white lilies, orchids. There was a net of white roses covering the top of the coffin, and huge pots of corn plants with the Feed America banner across them at either end.

Peggy looked at the men beside her who would also be speaking at the memorial service. Then she saw Naomi sitting in the front row. The girl gave a hesitant wave, then smiled.

It bolstered Peggy’s confidence, seeing that timid smile. She searched the crowd for Al’s familiar face but couldn’t find him anywhere. He was scheduled to be a pallbearer. He had to be in the group assembled there.

All three local TV stations had cameramen stationed near the front entrance. Peggy felt a fine sheen of perspiration forming on her forehead at the edge of her hat. She wished she could take it off and fan herself with it, but the occasion was too formal, too solemn. The handkerchief she’d used at the funeral home for her crocodile tears was still in her pocketbook. She took it out and dabbed at her forehead.