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It was Allen White – lying dead in his own bed of roses.
Chapter 5
Allen White’s rigid form hypnotized me for a full minute as the world swirled around my body, clinging to the wrought iron fence. His dark brown eyes remained wide open, staring glassily toward the blue summer sky. The crowd undulated with shock from Mr. White’s death. This was big news for a town like Uriville. Besides the random traffic ticket or domestic dispute, nothing bad ever seemed to happen here.
Until now.
He hadn’t seemed frail this morning in my shop. Thinking back, there wasn’t a moment or even the tiniest hint that this man could bite the dust in the matter of an hour. It just didn’t make sense. How could a perfectly healthy, somewhat elderly man go out like this? Someone should’ve seen it coming.
Angie Pine’s soft and meaty arm bumping into mine pulled me back to the present. The crowd had grown thick, even as police officers attempted to wave everyone back. Butch leaned far over the fence a few feet from me, his pimply face struck by a gleeful curiosity. A few high schooler football players in their team shirts surrounded him, pretending to vomit into his tiny backpack strapped tight over his shoulders. I saw Michelle Dackery in her nineteenth century get-up, a few of the ride monitors, and even the town mayor gawking at Allen’s body. No one had any respect. We were all spectators at a zoo and Allen was the exhibit.
It was then that I spotted Ian in his official blue uniform and hat. He had been sitting in one of the cruisers, talking over the radio. Shutting the door behind him, he left the car and went to whisper to one of his coworkers. I wondered what he thought about this whole thing – the body, the crowd, the spectacle. He looked up from his conversation and his gaze met mine. It only took him staring at me for a moment before he leapt into action and ran back to the cruiser. Pulling a white sheet out of the trunk, he draped it across Allen’s body.
I nodded. There, at least Mr. White could keep a little of his dignity. I wouldn’t want the whole world staring at my decomposing corpse. The crowd must’ve disagreed with my sentiment because they hummed with disappointment.
“If you ask me, old man Allen’s been working his way up to a heart attack for years,” Angie was saying next to me. Her short graying and curly hair was frizzing in the morning humidity. “That man carried a lot of bad juju.”
I couldn’t disagree with her. Allen White’s constant feuds could’ve led his heart to fail. He seemed to carry around a lot of stress. It made sense.
Mrs. O’Brady stood on the other side of her, her sleek brown hair pulled back tightly into a bun which accentuated the handsome curve of her cheekbones and jaw. One of Aunt Piper’s closest friends, I’d met her and her brood of 5 children a few times. She’d been widowed 2 years ago and ran a tailoring business out of her home to support her rowdy family. She lowered her head and made the sign of the cross. “Wherever he is now, at least he’s no longer suffering.”
“Hmph,” Angie replied with a snort, her nostrils flaring wide. “I think it’s more likely Allen White ended up in a different place, don’t you? The land of brimstone and fire?”
I had the sudden and inappropriate urge to burst out laughing. What kind of person joked about that, standing just five feet from the body? Mrs. O’Brady’s cheeks colored, but she didn’t reply.
“I wonder what’s going to happen to Allen’s prize roses…” Angie said more to herself than to anyone else. “It’d be a shame to let them all die.”
Our attention was immediately drawn to the rear of Allen’s two-story colonial style mansion where a thin woman dressed in a crisp white blouse and black skirt had just exited. She screamed and threw herself down the stairs, racing toward the garden. Police officers blocked her path, so she resorted to sinking to her knees on the plush green walkway.
“Poor Laura,” Mrs. O’Brady whimpered. “If anyone’s going to suffer now, it’s her. What’ll she do without her housekeeping job?”
I’d never met Laura Blight, but after Aunt Piper’s latest dream adventure, I probably knew her better than I wanted to. She was the only housekeeper Allen had managed to keep for longer than a year. Whether they quit or he fired them, housekeepers didn’t last long. I couldn’t blame them.
“She should do a jig and count herself lucky she didn’t have to kill the jerk herself,” Angie shot back. The shocked expression on Mrs. O’Brady’s face didn’t even phase her. “Oh, come on. Working for that man had to be worse than rolling naked in a field of prickly pear cacti. She should count it as a blessing.”
Again, Mrs. O’Brady crossed herself. I made a mental note never to make Angie mad. She would really be a buzzkill at my funeral. Probably pop open a cold one and tell my family they were better off. Luckily, I didn’t have much need for her frilly floral arrangements or candy bouquets. Those were for people stupid in love or too in love to know it was stupid. Not happening here anytime soon.
That dreadful feeling in my stomach that had begun back at my shop hadn’t gone away, despite the small relief that Grammy Jo was still somewhere alive and kicking. In fact, the feeling grew with every passing moment. Call it intuition or call it a witchy sensation, but something wasn’t right here. Foreboding filled my bones, causing a shiver to run through my body that left me clammy in the already eighty-degree morning. I crossed my arms over my chest and rubbed the bare skin of my upper arms, hoping for a bit of warmth.
“Make room, make room.” Blythe’s high-pitched voice sounded behind me.
I turned to see her squirming through the crowd, Raven in tow. As soon as people caught sight of the tall olive-skinned woman dressed all in black, they made room.
Blythe smiled victoriously and skipped up to my side. She scanned over the yard and the numerous police officers, turning to me. “What’s going on?”
I pointed to the sheet that covered Allen’s body. How could I explain it? “Allen. Dead.”
Her smile dissolved like snow on a radiator. “What? I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it. I saw his body before the police covered it up. Definitely dead.”
Raven pushed to my other side, despite Angie’s protests, and placed a hand awkwardly on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, Hazel dear, you’re ghostly pale,” Blythe added. “Do you need to go lie down?”
/> I shook my head. Nothing was going to make this foreboding go away until I had some more information. Leaving my cousins at the fence, I pushed through the crowd and maneuvered closer to the half-dozen police cars parked up Mr. White’s driveway. Skirting alongside the black and white Dodge Chargers, I crept up to the open garden entrance and scanned the grounds for my target.
Sure enough, Ian was standing in a group with four other officers. As I waved my hands to flag him down, a large black van pulled onto the street. It had Douglas County Coroner stamped in bold white letters on the sides. Four men in blue jumpsuits jumped out of the van with large duffle bags and ran toward Allen’s body. The crowd of onlookers buzzed with their arrival. Something definitely had to be wrong for the cops to pull in the big guns from the city.
