Sunflowers and Sabotage Read online

  I stared down at my notes. There was a lot there and at the same time there wasn't much. At least not anything that would point out the murderer and say 'ah ha, you are guilty'.

  I got up from the table and carried in my cup of tea and the empty salad bowl. Nevermore had curled up on the couch for his fiftieth nap of the day. Kingston had finished his dinner and folded his beak under his wing to sleep.

  The late summer sun was starting to set, but there was still just enough daylight for a trip up Maple Hill to the Hawksworth Manor. I was bored and it was Saturday night. No better way to spend it than sitting in the dank, dusty gardener's shed combing through the old trunk. Fortunately for this detective, a rebellious teen back from Briggs' day in high school had broken the lock on the gardener's shed. He'd left it so that it looked locked, but the open side of the padlock did not engage, leaving it permanently unlocked.

  The Hawksworth property was dark and creepy, and the house was one bad storm from crumbling into a heap, but the town teens loved to hang out there. After living just a block down from Maple Hill for a few years, I knew the teens didn't travel up there until after dark. What was the fun of visiting a haunted house in daylight? Since I was more than a bit terrified of the dark, I was just as happy to travel up to the house while the sun was still smiling.

  With any luck, I'd find a new clue and something to add to my pile of scribbles and notes.

  Chapter 17

  Dusk had lowered its pinkish curtain on me before I'd even reached the top of Maple Hill. I needed to hurry before I lost the daylight altogether. Since my decision to hike up to the Hawksworth Manor had been last second, my only preparation for the evidence collecting adventure had been to put on sandals and pull on a light sweater. It was still warm outside, but once the sun was down, the ocean breeze could get chilly.

  I reached the vast lot that had once been the Hawksworth estate. It had, by far, the best ocean view in the entire town. The looming, dilapidated Victorian house looked older and more lonely every time I saw it. There were less dusty window panes and more pieces of plywood to cover the openings. A rather incongruous chain link fence had been constructed around the entire structure to keep people from sneaking inside. It wasn't much of a deterrent for a spritely teenager, or a curious twenty-something like myself. I had actually snuck in once and quickly found myself trapped on the inside by a broken door handle. My neighbor Dash had come to my rescue that damp, foggy morning. I hadn't stepped foot inside since. My short, scary tour of the home assured me that there was nothing stable about the ceiling, walls or stairs. The town kept the unsafe structure around for the visitors and curious tourists. People who visited the somewhat lackluster museum set up in the gardener's shed liked to finish their tour by strolling around the exterior of the house, a house that was, of course, rumored to be teeming with the ghosts of the Hawksworth family.

  I headed past the manor to the gardener's shed at the side of the property. With August slowly turning into a new school year, the largest swarm of visitors and tourists had already passed through Port Danby and its historical point of interest. A month ago, I probably would have run into people just heading back down to the town, but this evening, I was completely alone. The teens wouldn't be up at the site until dark. I had a good chunk of time where I had the place to myself. The only thing not on my side was the waning sunlight.

  I hurried to the door of the shed. A spark of concern hit me when I considered that after all these years the city might have fixed the lock. I gave it a yank, and sure enough, it dropped open. In truth, there wasn't much inside of any value, except the intrinsic value the town placed on its museum pieces.

  Even though many people had traipsed around the small interior in the past few months, it smelled dark and dusty inside. I startled at the taxidermy stuffed black crow sitting on the top shelf staring down at me with its black glass eyes. I'd expected the creepy thing, but it still always made me step back. It wasn't as if I'd never had a big black bird scowling down at me before. And right in my own kitchen.

  I crouched down next to my main point of interest, Bertram Hawksworth's trunk. No one else knew what was inside of it. I'd discovered, much to my chagrin, that no one had ever taken the time to try and open it. I'd been told they wanted to preserve the lock on the trunk, and since there had presumably been no key, they'd left the lock untouched. But Lola, who knew a great deal about old trunks and boxes, told me that often a key was hidden in a compartment under the trunk. That was exactly where I found the hidden key. Naturally, I'd kept the secret to myself. A good investigator never gave away her sources and methods . . . or her secret keys.

  Sand and grit pressed into my bare knees as I knelt and then leaned down to retrieve the key from its secret compartment. On my trek up the hill, I'd decided that I would go back to the account ledgers. I wasn't sure why or if it would bear any fruit but something about the account books intrigued me.

  I turned my head to sneeze away the century old dust that floated up from the decaying straw boaters and ascots. I pushed aside the three brittle letters that Button had written to Teddy and pulled out the second and last ledger that held the accounts of Bertram Hawksworth up to his death in 1906.

  The leather binding creaked as I opened the ledger. A man named Moore had signed off as the accountant in 1900, the first year in the ledger. Then Jane Price had apparently taken over the books. She signed off on the accounts for about a year. Since she left town the next year, it made sense that a different accountant took over after that. The third bookkeeper's signature was too hard to decipher.

  The light coming through the half open doorway was getting weaker by the minute. I pushed to my feet and carried the book outside to a small bench where visitors waited when the shed was filled to capacity. I opened the book further toward the back, wanting to get closer to Bertram's year of death. I ran my fingers down the columns. There were payments to creditors, city tax fees, tailors and dressmakers. The person who kept the books wrote down every name and even the address of each entry, along with the amount paid or received. By all indications, Bertram had a lot of money going out but not a lot coming in. He seemed to have been one of those typical wealthy Victorians whose bank account had been mostly built by inheritance and family money. The shipyard seemed to have been an ambitious attempt to increase the family fortune with an enterprise he could call his own and pass down to his children. Only that attempt was squashed by the town mayor.

  My finger passed over a strange entry that just read gift. There was no name of business or address or anything that could allow an auditor to know where the money went. It was a very specific sum of seventy-three dollars. Not a small amount for that time period.

  I flipped through, looking to see if there were any other 'gift' entries. A few pages over, I was at the next month, June 1903. I scrolled down and found the same entry. Gift was in the paid to column and the amount gifted was seventy-three dollars. Even though I was never a bookkeeper, it seemed someone had something to hide. Otherwise, at the very least, there would have been a footnote like birthday or anniversary. Only those were annual events, not monthly. I turned to July and ran my finger down the column. Another gift of seventy-three dollars. I flipped a few pages more and quickly found that Bertram Hawksworth was gifting someone seventy-three dollars on the tenth of every month.

  Laughter drifted up from below, signaling that teens were about to swarm the place. I needed to lock up the trunk and, with any luck, be half way down the hill before they arrived. I didn't want to spoil their fun. I also wanted to avoid some loose lipped teen asking why an old person was hanging around the place.

  As I hopped up from the bench, a piece of paper fell halfway out of the ledger. I stopped and opened to the back of the book where the piece of paper had slipped from its hiding spot, between the leather cover and the paper binding. I yanked it the rest of the way out and opened the handwritten note.

  "If I am dead, raven knows all. B. H."

  Readi
ng it several times didn't get me any closer to the meaning. There was no question that Bertram Hawksworth had written the note, but I had no idea what it meant. I pushed the slip of paper back into its hiding place. It seemed my jaunt up the hill had been worth it. If nothing else, I had a few more interesting facts to jot down on my scrambled notes about the Hawksworth murders.

  But Bertram and Jill would have to wait now because there was a new murder in town. I was certain it required my expertise. And I had a few ideas on where to start.

  Chapter 18

  Lola rushed into the shop as I finished trimming the last of a dozen roses. She leaned against the front wall, out of view of the door and window. "What a long weekend. Thought it would never end. I'm going to have to hide in here. My alien abduction plan never came to fruition. Stupid aliens. Where are they when you need them?"

  Ryder popped his head up from the potting bench. He shook his head but didn't say anything, which was probably a good decision. Unfortunately, Lola caught the slight head shake. She left her wall and half-skipped across the floor.

  "If you think they are so wonderful, then maybe you should adopt them as your family."

  "Uh oh," I muttered to the lustrous red roses in front of me. Ryder had mentioned that the dinner out was fine and that he got along very well with both Cynthia and John. I hadn't dug out many more details, deciding all had gone well and the tension was over. I hadn't considered the possibility that the night hadn't gone as smoothly for Lola as it had for Ryder.

  "I already have a set of parental units, thank you very much." Ryder put the pot he was holding down on the counter. "Look, I thought they were both being pretty cool last night. Your dad and I got along great, and your mom was fun. She has a good personality like her daughter." He winked sweetly, but I knew Ryder was too far in to dig himself out with a compliment and a wink.

  "Oh yes, my mom is fun," Lola said darkly. "So fun. Very, very fun. She is so fun that she is at this very moment going through all the shop receipts from the past twelve months to make sure I was calculating the tax correctly." A harsh laugh followed. "I mean, have you ever heard of anything so darn fun?"

  Ryder looked up at the ceiling. "You're right. Where are those darn aliens when you need them?"

  I swept out from behind the counter to come to my faithful employee's rescue. "Lola, I've got to head over to Chesterton. I want to check out a dog boutique. I'll buy you an ice cream, double scoop."

  Lola seemed to be considering my offer. I was certain the double scoop had pushed her over the fence to the yes side. "I suppose a double scoop of rocky road might make me forget that my boyfriend has now sided with my fun mom."

  "Come on, Lo-lo, you're not being fair," Ryder said.

  I tried to flick a little head shake his direction to let him know an ice cream and an hour away would probably wipe away her mood, but he didn't catch my hint.

  He walked toward her. "Would you have preferred it if they hated me? Maybe I should have acted like a jerk and tossed food around the table and cussed. I was worried about them hating me. I was relieved that they seemed to like me. But you—" he shook his head. "Never mind. There's no winning with you."

  I couldn't blame Ryder, but I wished he had quit at the 'you're not being fair' statement.

  Lola swept around and looked at me. Her mouth was pulled tight in anger. "Are we going for that ice cream or what?"

  "I'll get my purse." I headed down the hallway. "Gee, this should be the best ice cream trip ever."

  There was a frosty patch of silence for the first leg of our journey. My car puttered along Culpepper Road and onto Highway 48, the road leading to Chesterton. Lola leaned forward and messed with the radio until she finally landed on something that suited her mood, a heavy metal tune that was either terrible or I was getting too old to appreciate the clamor. But I decided not to complain. My friend obviously needed to cool off, and if heavy metal was good therapy, then who was I to stop it.

  After the discordant song ended, I glanced over at Lola. "Do you want to talk about it?" I asked, not knowing if I was even in the mood to listen but putting the offer out there anyhow.

  "Nope." She adjusted her cap. I noticed that since her mom had complimented her hair and made note of Lola being without a hat, my best friend had been donning every hat in her wardrobe, the more tattered the better.

  She fussed with the radio a few minutes and then turned it off in disgust when she couldn't find anything she liked. "Why are we going to a dog boutique when your only pets are a cat and bird?"

  I was relieved she broke her stony silence. A different topic would help ease her mood. "The murder victim at the dog show had been suffocated with a plastic bag. The killer tied the bag around her neck with a fancy dog collar."

  Lola crinkled her nose. "That is as creepy as it is sort of cool. I mean who uses fancy dog collars for murder? Someone who is either sick or an independent thinker."

  "Well, so much for me hoping the new topic would get you out of your dark mood." I turned onto the street where Viv's Dog Boutique was located.

  "You're the one who chose murder as your topic to lighten my mood." She rolled down the window and put her hand out. "I think it's hotter in Chesterton than in Port Danby. I guess they don't get the ocean breeze as much."

  I found a parking spot a block away from Vivian's shop. I turned off the motor. I knew I was getting myself into a sticky mess, but I decided to let my friend know where I came down on the whole last few minutes in the shop. "You know Ryder is right. He was so nervous that your parents wouldn't like him—"

  "Everyone likes him. I don't know why he was worried." She opened the car door. "I just wish my parents would like me." She shut the door and headed to the sidewalk.

  I climbed out and raced to catch up to her. "You don't seriously believe that your parents don't like you?"

  "Well, I guess my dad doesn't seem to dislike me, but my mom finds fault with everything I do. I'm surprised she hasn't come up with a way to criticize the way I breathe. I think that's the only thing left on the table."

  I laughed.

  Lola looked at me. "Thanks for all your support, chum."

  "I had to laugh because my mom hasn't even left that one on the table. She thinks I move my shoulders too much when I breathe. She used to tell me it wasn't ladylike and that I was breathing like a football player with big shoulder pads."

  Lola's belly laugh followed. "That's a good one. Good ole' Peggy Pinkerton."

  "See, when it's coming from my mom, it's hilarious," I pointed out just as I opened the door into the dog boutique.

  "I'll be right with you." Vivian was just climbing on a stepstool to stack a pillow on the back shelf. The wall had every size, shape and color of doggie bed.

  The shop was about half the size of my flower shop, but Vivian hadn't wasted one inch of floor space. One side of the store, the far more aromatic side, was stacked with bags of gourmet dog kibble. There were even separate bags specially formulated for certain breeds. A glass front refrigerator housed an assortment of fresh dog foods and treats. The other half of the shop was positively bursting with everything from dog car seats to specially designed steps that helped little dogs climb on the bed. The wardrobe racks were filled with every style, size and color, perfect for the fashion conscious pooch.

  Lola grabbed a collegiate looking sweater that was big enough for either of us to wear. She held it up against herself. "Do you think this color would look good on Bloomer? He was cold last winter. I think his bones are getting old and creaky." She hung the sweater back on the hook. "He's been happy having my dad at home."

  "That's sweet that he still loves him, even though Bloomer rarely sees your dad."

  Vivian stepped off the stool and turned around. She recognized me instantly and smiled.

  "Hello, Lacey, right? Or is it Pink? I was sort of confused because Elsie kept calling you Pink, even though you introduced yourself as Lacey."

  "It's Lacey. Some of my close friends call
me Pink. It's part of my last name. My shop is called Pink's Flowers."

  "Oh, that makes sense. I was going to ask you about it on Saturday, but I never got around to it. What can I do for you?" Her expression changed. "I nearly forgot you were the person who went in to help with Ellen. I can't believe she's dead. Did they ever find out what happened? I left before all the action."

  "It seems Ellen met with foul play. I don't know if the Chesterton Police contacted you—"

  Vivian put her hand to her mouth. "They haven't. Am I in trouble for leaving the park? My mother needed help. She is painting her den. I didn't want her to climb on a ladder, so I told her I'd come over and paint the harder to reach spots."

  "That's very nice of you to be so considerate of your mother." I smiled pointedly at Lola.

  "Look who's talking, football shoulders," Lola muttered from the side of her mouth.

  I walked to the counter where the sparkly collars were displayed. "You aren't in any kind of trouble. I just thought they might contact you because it seems the killer used one of your custom designed collars in the murder."