“I have no idea. I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup.”
“That’s because you have the hots for Hollis.” Maggie stood, stretched until her spine popped audibly.
I could try to deny it because she was probably right.
Maggie went to go dig through her fridge for something that wasn't cold coffee, tossing a final thought back over her shoulder. "Just be careful with it, okay? If somebody really did build a weapon, they're not going to love you turning over rocks to find out why."
“I will be.” The thought settled into my stomach after I said goodbye and stayed there the whole drive home, probably past the eleven allegedly haunted bed and breakfasts.
Ten
I didn't go straight home from Maggie's, even though I was curious what my guests were doing this afternoon.
My curiosity about Hyacinth Maxwell (there was a twist I hadn’t seen coming) outweighed any concerns about dissatisfied guests.
Instead I headed toward Perrault's Flowers on Magazine Street, close to my old apartment where I’d lived for three years before inheriting Midnight House. I wanted to order flowers for Evelyn Carrington’s services and Dorothy Perrault was the woman to order them from. She had chaired the flower committee for the Society for eleven years running and had never in that entire time met a piece of gossip she didn't want to share.
So yes, I was being polite and appropriate in ordering the flowers. While also being nosy. I wanted to know if Dorothy had heard anything about the investigation or any gossip pertaining to what might have led to someone rigging a straw to kill Evelyn.
Perrault's smelled the way it always did, like wet stems and floral blooms. Dorothy was behind the counter wrist-deep in a bucket of ranunculus when the bell over the door announced me. She looked up and beamed like Christmas had come early and no one had recently been murdered.
"Harper Bergeron. That was something else last night, wasn’t it? Tell me what you know and don't you dare give me the sanitized version you gave the newspaper."
"I didn't give the newspaper any version. I didn't talk to the newspaper."
"Well, somebody did, and it was boring." She wiped her hands on her apron and came around the counter.
“I came to order flowers for Evelyn’s service. I know the details aren’t out yet, but I was in the neighborhood so I thought I’d stop in. I wanted to offer condolences as well. I know you and Evelyn have known each other forever.”
"Uh-huh." Dorothy straightened, and wiped the smile from her face. She shook her head. "It's just terrible. I still can't believe it. I keep waiting for her to call me about the invoices for next year and then I remember there isn't going to be a next year, not with her running it anyway."
"How long did you work with her? On the committee, I mean."
"Oh, gracious, twenty years if it's a day." Dorothy picked up a pair of shears and went back to her ranunculus, the way people did when they wanted to keep their hands busy while their mouth did something harder. "She ran a tight ship. I'll say that for her. Everything had to be exactly right, down to the ribbon width on the programs. Some folks found that exhausting. I found it restful, honestly. You always knew where you stood with Evelyn."
"She was definitely honest. Judgmental."
Dorothy gave me a look over the top of her glasses, the specific look of a woman who had seen her fair share of curiosity. “Did she have a thing or two to say to you?”
I shrugged. “Nothing major. She just corrected my etiquette a few times. My aunt thought it was funny. It kind of got under my skin, I can admit it. I still remember it a year later.”
“It was her delivery. She made people feel bad. No sugar from that woman.”
I nodded. “Exactly.” Since I couldn’t think of a clever segue to Hyacinth I just launched into it. "So Hyacinth Maxwell said something to me the night of the gala that's been sitting with me. I asked her a question, and she got cagey, and then she told me it had been so long since school that I don't really know her anymore.”
It had been sarcasm and we’d never been close but it was all I had.
“Hyacinth? That one.” Dorothy gave just the slightest roll of her eyes. “What about her?”
“It got me thinking about how well anybody actually knows Hyacinth these days. Including Evelyn, I guess. I know they've worked together on the catering committee."
"Oh, those two went way back. Evelyn and her grandmother were thick as thieves before Lilac passed a decade ago. Evelyn took on the role of surrogate grandmother.”
Hyacinth had a grandmother named Lilac. Because of course she did.
“Evelyn got her onto her first committee before she was even done with college, introduced her to Robert McClintock at one of Evelyn's own dinner parties, if memory serves, and they were married within a year. There was a stretch of years there where you didn't see one without the other. Evelyn used to call her 'my girl,' like she'd made her out of whole cloth."
To be honest, I hadn’t even realized Hyacinth was married. I guess she was Hyacinth Maxwell McClintock. Which was a pretty darn good name, I had to admit. If she’d taken his name.
