Violet Tendencies, page 11
part #2 of Rose City Mystery Series
Gloria picked up a galvanized-tin bucket. “I have a few more of these on the supply cart. We can weight them down with sand and pebbles and stick the branches in. Then we can hide them under greenery. I’ll go ask around and pilfer whatever supplies and materials I can from the other floats. I’m sure that given the circumstances, the other designers will gladly lend us anything they’re not using. I’ve already had at least five crew chiefs come by to offer up extra volunteer hands.”
“Yes!” Elin clapped.
I tossed Tomo a spool of twine. “How are you with knots?”
He flexed his muscles. “They used to call me ‘knot man’ in high school.”
“Sure they did.” I laughed.
“Hey!” He pretended to be injured by my words. “I’ll have you know that I was on the varsity crew team three years in a row.”
“Well, knot man, I stand corrected. Let’s see you put those tying skills to the test. We have work to do.”
For the next hour we worked without speaking. Everyone concentrated on the task in front of us. Not only did each of us have days’ worth of intricate floral arranging to pull off in less than forty-eight hours, but it was easier to keep our focus exclusively on creating grapevine trees and ignore the chatter of police officers nearby.
Pete’s voice shook me from the task. “Miss Johnston, I need a minute of your time to take your official statement.” His tone was all business. He motioned for Tomo to come join us, and pulled out one of the folding chairs in the pigpen. “Have a seat.”
Tomo whipped out a notepad and ballpoint pen and stood next to Pete.
Pete waited for me to sit. Then he removed his suit jacket and hung it on the back of a chair before taking a seat. “Walk us through exactly what you saw this morning.”
“Don’t leave any detail out,” Tomo added, his pen eagerly awaiting my words. “We find that it’s most beneficial to include anything and everything you remember. You never know what might be important or will trigger another memory.”
“Got it.” I nodded and repeated everything that had happened since I arrived at the float barn. Nothing new popped into my mind, but I was careful to tell them about Nicki’s reaction and the fact that she had been the only other person at the scene.
“What about violets?” Pete asked, staring at our float. “Do they have special meaning? Could the string of violets around Sham’s neck have significance?”
I thought for a moment, trying to pull up a mental picture of the violet section from my flower bible. A flower bible is an essential guide for any florist. Mine contained notes on growing conditions, rare stems, and photos with extensive research on the history and various meanings for each flower. In Victorian times, nearly every household kept a guidebook for the language of flowers. Understanding the symbolism for each stem became a popular pastime. From the color of a particular varietal to how bouquets were delivered (handing flowers to someone with the right hand meant giving the recipient a yes answer, whereas handing them from the left meant no) was well studied and thought-out. How a ribbon was tied, or the fullness of the bouquet could convey well-wishes or profess love. Flowers had their own secret code, like the bitterness of an aloe plant or rejection sent in the form of a yellow carnation.
“Violets, like all flowers, have a variety of meanings,” I said to Pete. “White violets represent innocence, and purple violets are often given as a token of love. Folklore offers many interpretations though. Violets have been used to express devotion, loyalty, and faithfulness.”
“Hmm.” He considered my words.
Was he on to something? Could Sham’s killer have been sending meaning through flowers? The violets around his neck were purple. Maybe his death wasn’t connected to the parade. Maybe it was motivated by a lover scorned?
Pete cleared his throat. “Thanks, Miss Johnston. I appreciate the insight. If you think of anything else that might be helpful, please let us know. Otherwise, we’ll be in touch if we need anything further.” A hint of a smile tugged at his cheeks; otherwise he had treated me with the utmost formality. Trying to figure out what he was thinking was making me dizzy.
While I returned to my work, they called Elin and then Gloria over for questioning. I knew that it was standard protocol to interview as many potential witnesses as soon as possible. People tended to forget details or have their memories altered by other people’s stories the more time elapsed.
I watched Pete question Gloria and noticed that she appeared nervous. She kept removing her reading glasses and cleaning them on a tissue.
I shrugged it off to the stress of the fact that a dead body had been only a few feet away from where we were working only a short time ago. If we wanted to participate in the parade, we were going to have to work around the clock to redesign our float. After tying dozens of branches together and intertwining them, with twelve-inch dowels to hold them in place, we were ready for the ultimate test—would the grapevine tree stand in Gloria’s bucket of sand?
Once Pete finished his interviews, Elin and Gloria filled the galvanized tin halfway with sand. Tomo and I lifted the prototype tree into the bucket.
“Here goes nothing,” Gloria said as we placed the end into the sand. The tree stood at nearly twenty feet.
I held my breath and bit my bottom lip, fully expecting that the tree might topple over in the process of trying to hoist it upright. Tomo held one side and I secured the other while Gloria and Elin poured sand and heavy rocks up to the lip of the bucket. Once we were allowed onto the float again, we would have to cinch the tree to the base of the float with heavy fishing line.
“What do you think?” Elin asked, camouflaging the tin with bows of evergreen branches and pinecones. “We can hide the buckets with organic material that you find on the forest floor.”
“Definitely.” Gloria arched her back. “Let’s drag it to the far wall. We don’t want it to topple over on someone.”
Elin and Gloria steadied the bucket. Tomo and I shuffled toward the wall. The tree was surprisingly heavy. Once we had propped it against the wall, we stood back to get a better look.
“What do we think?” I asked.
Tomo shot me a thumbs-up. “Honestly, Britta, it looks great. If I didn’t know otherwise, I would have thought you had planned it this way.”
“You’re just saying that to be nice.” I nudged him in the arm.
He shook his head and crossed his finger over his chest. “Scout’s honor. I swear it looks awesome. No one will ever know.”
The top of the tree began slipping to the side. Tomo raced over and caught it before it crashed on the ground.
“I think we better tie it off,” I said. Elin was one step ahead of me. She was digging through the supply shelves.
“The last thing we need today is to take someone out with a fake tree,” Tomo agreed.
Elin tossed me the fishing line. I was about to cut off a ten-foot piece of the translucent line when I noticed a thick black smudge on the bottom of the spool. It was a fingerprint.
“Elin, do you have glue or anything on your hands?” I called, careful not to touch the bottom of the spool.
“No. Why?”
I held it out for Tomo. “You better take this.”
He kept one arm on the tree. “What is it?”
“Look at this smudge.” I pointed out the spot on the bottom of the plastic spool. “That’s a fingerprint. A very clear print.”
He nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
“Maybe it’s nothing. We’ve used fishing line for other things, but what if the print belongs to the killer? I don’t remember seeing a smudge like that last night. Sham had a string of our violets around his neck and we used this exact line to tie the violets together.”
Tomo glanced around the float and waved to one of the police officers. “Do you have a paper towel or napkin?” he called to Elin.
“We have napkins. One minute,” Elin replied.
Gloria came up to my shoulder and stared at the spool of fishing line. “That print could be from anyone. These spools have been used by half the volunteers in here.”
Elin handed Tomo the napkin and took his spot, holding the tree to the wall.
Gloria scowled. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Dozens of volunteers have used fishing line in the last few days. There’s no way to know who that could have been from.”
“True, but forensics can run it through the system.” Tomo wrapped the spool of fishing line in the napkin. “You never know. It’s worth a shot.”
“But my prints will be on it, and Elin’s and Britta’s,” Gloria said, tugging on the strings to the hood of her faded Rose Festival sweatshirt.
“We can cross-check prints with the people assigned to your float.” Tomo waited for one of the officers to get an evidence bag. “I better take this to Detective Fletcher.”
Gloria shook her head. “Waste of time, if you ask me.”
I wasn’t sure why she was so against having Tomo run the print. She did have a fair point that any of our fingerprints might show up, but what if it matched the killer’s print? This could be a major clue in the case. Could there be some other reason Gloria didn’t want Tomo to take the spool? Did she know that the only thing he would find would be her fingerprint?
I found myself watching her as we finished potting the trees. What would her motivation for murder be? She was one of the Rose Festival’s most dedicated volunteers. Like Priscilla, Nick, and Ted, she had a deep affection for the parade. Could sweet little Gloria have killed Sham? I couldn’t imagine it, and yet I couldn’t rule it out either. Everyone associated with the parade seemed to have a reason to want the leader of Dark Fusion dead. I hated considering my fellow volunteers, but I had to face reality. I could be working side by side with whoever had killed Sham.
Chapter Twelve
As I returned to work on the trees, I couldn’t get the image of Sham’s purple face out of my head. Why did it have to be violets? Our violets. Violets were known to represent innocence. I felt as if my innocence had been shattered. This should have been a time of celebration with the frenzy of last-minute preparations, but instead the float barn had become a crime scene. We had to work around caution tape and evidence markers. Police milled around the float barn, keeping careful watch and casting an aura of tension.
Our float remained off-limits until the police finished their examinations. Gloria and I worked to secure our test tree with a new spool of fishing line.
I noticed that Detective Fletcher had pulled Ted aside near the cutting station. He stood with his one arm casually resting on a sawhorse while Tomo stood next to him with a pen and notebook in hand. I turned to Gloria, who was gluing striated yellow and green Japanese maple leaves onto the tips of a branch with a hot glue gun. “Do you think that Ted could have done it?”
“Done what? Killed Sham?” She looked up from her work and stared at Ted. Did he ever leave the house without his Royal Rosarian’s cape?
“Yeah. After last night, I just keep wondering if he could have reached his limit with Sham and Dark Fusion. The police seem to be pretty focused on him.”
She nodded. “I suppose it’s possible. But I can’t imagine Ted risking his reputation. He’s been in constant contact with the authorities. He told me that he was close to getting Sham tossed in jail. Ted is a former mayor and the leader of the Royal Rosarians. He wouldn’t do something that drastic. He would, and has, followed the necessary steps through the proper channels to bring justice to these radical groups.” She pressed a tube of glue into the gun.
“True.” Fishing line dug into my skin as I tied a long string to the edge of the pigpen. “But what if the police told Ted there wasn’t anything they could do? Like you said before, he’s taken this personally. It’s almost as if he believes it’s his quest to ensure that the parade goes off without disruption.”
“It is his responsibility. He’s the grand marshal.” Gloria gave me a strange look. “Britta, why are you suddenly fixated on Ted?”
I could feel my cheeks begin to warm. “I’m not. I mean, I’m not focused solely on Ted. Maybe it’s because I’m the one who found Sham. I guess I feel responsible for wanting to know who killed him.”
Gloria’s face slackened. She put a sticky hand on mine. “I understand. I’m sorry that you had to witness something so awful.”
“Thanks. I’ll be okay once this is all over.”
“You are Elin’s niece. I don’t doubt that you’ll come out of this just fine.” She returned to gluing leaves on the grapevines. “You know, if you’re looking for suspects, I would suggest that you look elsewhere.”
“What do you mean?” Was she protecting Ted? She nodded toward Nicki, who was showing one of the volunteers how to use the industrial shop vac in the wood shop. The wood shop housed a variety of power tools, including chainsaws, Dremel rotary tools, and sanders for cutting larger tree limbs and more refined wood-sculpting. “I’m not convinced that Ted had anything to do with Sham’s death,” Gloria said, lowering her voice. “However, I wonder about Nicki.”
“Really? Why?”
Gloria’s demeanor had shifted. She set down the hot glue gun. “I saw them together last night.”
“Who? Ted and Nicki?” I snipped off the end of the fishing line.
“No. Nicki and Sham.” She raised her eyebrow.
I nearly dropped the spool. “When?”
Gloria glanced around us to make sure that no one was listening. “Near the end of the dinner. I was going to go inside to get my things, but then, as you know, everything exploded into chaos. I saw Sham and Nicki sneaking off down the riverfront. It wasn’t long after Ted and Sham exchanged, well, shall we say, heated words.”
Heated was an understatement. But I nodded for Gloria to continue.
“You’re going to think that I’m a nosy little old lady, but I followed them. I didn’t set out to follow them.” Her tone was sheepish.
“Since I’m peppering you for information about Ted, I can’t really blame you for following Sham and Nicki.” I offered her a look of solidarity. Apparently I wasn’t the only one snooping.
“True.” Gloria smiled. “Does that mean we’re both nosy sleuths?”
“Guilty as charged.” I raised both hands in the air.
“In any event,” Gloria went on in a conspiratorial tone, “at first there was nothing interesting. They walked about a half mile down the waterfront path together. Past the Hawthorne Bridge. I thought that Nicki was telling him off, but then they got to the point where the path splits. Right before the Steel Bridge.”
“I know the place you mean.”
Gloria nodded. “They stopped. Again, I thought that Nicki was trying to get Sham out of the float area and had walked him as far away from the barn as possible. But then something strange happened.”
“What?” I was holding my breath with anticipation.
“Sham yanked a large envelope from his leather jacket. He thrust it at Nicki and then he ran off.”
“Really? Any idea what was in the envelope?”
Gloria shook her head. “I wasn’t close enough to see, and after Sham gave her the envelope, Nicki turned around and headed back my way. I didn’t want her to think that I had followed her, so I ducked behind some trees and waited for her to pass. Whatever it was, it must have been important, because she read it quickly and then stuffed it into her purse. I tried to follow her back to the barn, but she was too fast for me. By the time I returned she was gone.”
“I wonder what it could have been?” Suddenly my fingers felt tight. I looked at my hand. While we had been talking I had unknowingly wrapped fishing line around my fingers. They were turning blue at the tips. I quickly unwound the line.
Gloria shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, but there was something very suspicious about their exchange.”
“Right. Why would they walk half a mile away to have a conversation? Or for Sham to give her the envelope?” I thought aloud.
“I have no idea.”
My mind tried to connect the dots. Nicki had been frantic since the first time I met her. I had assumed it was because she was frazzled by a myriad of details organizing the parade, but what if I had pegged her wrong? Maybe she’d been working in conjunction with Dark Fusion. Could she be a double agent? What if Dark Fusion had planted her as an insider and she was actually working with them? What if she had set off the firecrackers last night and been responsible for the float damage? She was the only person who had full access to the float barn twenty-four hours a day, except maybe Ted. She had been the only one here this morning when I arrived.
As I considered the possibilities, my throat began to tighten. Had I been alone with a killer this morning? What if the envelope was payment? Had Sham paid Nicki to sabotage the Grand Floral Parade?
“That reminds me. In all of the craziness this morning, I forgot to tell you that I brought in my old Rose Festival scrapbooks for you,” Gloria said, pointing to the rolling cart. “They’re in a bag marked with your name. I thought you would enjoy looking through them.”
“Thanks.”
Gloria continued to glue golden-toned leaves onto the grapevine. I tried to concentrate on bundling a new set of branches, but my thoughts kept returning to Nicki. If she had secretly been working with Dark Fusion, what would her motive be for killing Sham? Had he not paid her enough? Or could he have been blackmailing her? Maybe he had something on Nicki and had forced her to work with him. What if she refused? Could she have lured Sham into the float barn alone? Called a private meeting and then killed him?
I thought about it for a minute. Gloria’s information had definitely set me on a new course of questioning, but there was only one problem. Did Nicki have the physical strength to kill Sham? Could she have tied the noose of violets around his neck? Yes, I had heard that in times of intense stress, humans could perform otherwise insurmountable tasks. But Sham was a big guy.
