African Violet Club Mystery Collection Read online

  He thumped on the microphone to make sure it was live, then said, “Ladies and gentlemen.”

  The visitors quieted and turned their attention away from the displays. Most of them started to gather in the open space between the tables. The club members tensely waited at their positions for the results. Mary stroked the side of one her tiny pots. Frank straightened his pile of business cards. Lilliana flicked a spot of soil from a leaf. The only one who didn’t seem tense was Bette. She stood calmly behind her table checking her lipstick in a compact mirror.

  Ellison cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he repeated. “I am pleased to announce that the judges have made their decisions. In the category of best species plant, third place goes to Sarah Higgins.”

  Sarah, a nondescript woman in her early eighties and president of the African Violet Club, hurried, in a relative sense, up to the judges’ table and accepted the yellow ribbon from Mr. Ellison with trembling fingers. When Lilliana first joined the club, Sarah had taken almost every blue ribbon in the shows she entered. However, it was more difficult for her now since she’d developed Parkinson’s disease. She had good days and bad days. On the bad days, she often forgot about tending to her plants. On the good days, the tremors made it difficult for her to do the delicate work of trimming and potting them. Lilliana wasn’t looking forward to the next ten years. You never knew what infirmity would sneak up on you once you reached a certain age.

  Sarah wobbled back to her table between Bette and Frank on the opposite side of the room.

  “And, for second place in the best species plant category, Lilliana Wentworth.”

  Surprised for a moment, Lilliana almost forgot to retrieve her red ribbon. She’d been so focused on the hybrid category, she’d forgotten she was an entrant in the species category as well. She accepted the ribbon with a mumbled, “Thank you” and quickly went back to her table.

  “And the first place ribbon for best species plant goes to...” Ellison paused for dramatic effect. “Leonard Rothenberg!”

  Lenny’s face lit up like a kid at Christmas. Lilliana was happy for him. While not the most expert grower, Lenny was an enthusiastic one. And he was one of the few members of the club capable of lifting things when they needed things lifted.

  The editor of the Rainbow Ranch Gazette was snapping pictures with a digital camera. Lilliana hadn’t seen him come in. What was his name again? Sam something. She was having such trouble remembering names lately. Horn. Sam Horn, that was it. He’d been to the retirement home before to write articles for his six-page weekly newspaper. He usually called her after a softball game—when she could field two teams—to find out the score and who won for the sports page. The show would probably take up a full page of those six this week. That reminded her...

  She scanned the room and finally spotted the television cameraman off to the side, camera perched on his hip and the film—or tape, she supposed—rolling. Biff Buckley, the reporter, seemed to have disappeared. This didn’t surprise Lilliana. In fact, she was amazed he’d stuck around as long as he did. Covering a tiny flower show at a remote retirement community wasn’t exactly a plum assignment.

  Ellison picked up another blue ribbon from the judges’ table. “In the category of semi-miniature plants, first prize goes to Mary Boyle.”

  Mary reached up to her head as if to straighten her hair, but all she did was succeed in putting more of the gray-streaked locks askew. She rose heavily and maneuvered her walker into position as the crowd applauded. And kept applauding as she made her way to the front of the room, albeit with waning enthusiasm. By the time she reached the front and accepted her ribbon, only two people were clapping. The applause picked up again as she turned and headed back to her table but didn’t last long. It was replaced by the shushing of her walker over the carpet and the intermittent squeaking of the wheels. The shuffling of feet as the crowd waited for her to get back to her place. Someone coughed.

  Ellison turned back to the judges and picked up the last sheet of paper with the prize winners’ scores. “And now,” he said, turning back to the mic, “in the prestigious category of best original hybrid, third place goes to Pieter Joncker for his beautiful variegated”—Ellison pronounced it ‘varagated’—“blushing pink violet.”

  More applause. Lilliana had passed Pieter’s table several times today, but she hadn’t realized he had a hybrid entered as well. That decreased her chances, but she still felt that the real contest was between herself and Frank. Her breath came in rapid, shallow pants, and she forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply.

  After Pieter returned to his table, Ellison continued. “The second place ribbon goes to Frank Bellandini for his Criminally Red hybrid. A fitting match to the color of the ribbon,” Ellison quipped.

  Lilliana’s heart was racing. Could she really have won first place with her first attempt? It seemed to take hours for Frank to walk to the microphone and accept his red ribbon. Hours with her pulse pumping in her ears. Her hands fluttered over her plants, briefly brushing the petals of the True Blue African violet.

  Ellison picked up the last ribbon on the table, the first place blue for best hybrid. “And the first place ribbon for best original hybrid goes to—“ Another dramatic pause.

  Lilliana could barely stand the suspense.

  “Bette Tesselink for Deep Blue Sea.”

  The crowd erupted in appreciative applause as Bette attempted to float up to the mic like a queen. Given her bulk, the queen would have been Victoria and floating was out of the question. The outsiders clapped, but not the members of the African Violet Club. Most of them were looking at Lilliana with sympathy in their eyes.

  She couldn’t believe it. How could they award the ribbon to Bette when she’d told them Bette had cheated? The new judge might have been swayed to believe her, but surely Joan knew better. Lilliana looked down at her True Blue violet and felt tears welling in her eyes. She blinked quickly to clear them.

  “Now, if all the blue ribbon winners would meet with me in front of the building, Biff would like to interview you for the late evening newscast.” Ellison stepped away from the mic and headed toward the entrance where Biff Buckley had magically reappeared, just in time to get in front of the camera again. Once Ellison reached him, the two of them turned toward the front door, most of the crowd trailing behind to watch—and possibly appear in—the television interview.

  “Tough luck, Lily,” Lenny said.

  “There was no luck about it.” Her mouth tasted bitter, filled with the acridness of alum. Her eyes met Leonard’s. “She cheated. She cheated both me and Frank. If I didn’t win the blue ribbon, Frank certainly should have.”

  “Maybe it’s something we could take up at the next meeting,” Lenny said.

  “Perhaps,” Lilliana said. Then her eyes narrowed. “And maybe it’s something I can take up right now.”

  Lilliana marched off in the direction of the judges’ table where the two Tucsonans were gathering up their papers and packing them into briefcases. She had to try one more time. “Joan, could I have a word with you?”

  Joan looked as if she were about to protest, then turned to Jim and said, “Why don’t you take these things out to the car. I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

  As soon as Jim stepped out of earshot, Joan said, “What is it Lilliana? We already discussed your objection to Bette’s plant and decided we had to accept her word on the fact she bred her Deep Blue Sea cultivar.”

  “But what if I brought you my plant log, showed you how I pollinated the mother plant, the dates I planted the seeds, and how I made sure they were from my own hybrid seeds? It would just take a minute to get it from my apartment.”

  Joan sighed. “Frank had his log with him. As did Bette. Without evidence to the contrary, we have to accept that Bette’s log is as valid as Frank’s—or yours. And, in our determination, Bette’s hybrid was the best entry.”

  “But you know Bette Tesselink,” she pleaded. “Has she ever developed a
hybrid of her own before, much less two of prize-winning quality?”

  “The case is closed, Lilliana.” With that, she firmly closed her briefcase, punctuating her remark. “And now I have to meet Jim at the car. It’s a long drive back to Tucson.”

  Lilliana watched in frustration as Joan hurriedly left the room. There must be something she could do. She wasn’t the kind of person to take things lying down. She’d go on the Internet, check the AVSA rules for showing plants, even though the club didn’t technically follow them. There must be some way of, if not winning the ribbon herself, at least taking it away from Bette.

  As she turned back to her table, she noticed Sam Horn standing a few feet away, a thoughtful look on his face.

  “Trouble in African violet paradise?” he asked.

  “How long have you been standing there?” Lilliana asked. “I would have thought you’d be outside with the TV people getting the story for the Gazette.”

  “Oh, I have plenty of pictures for a story. Besides, it looks like there might be a better story in here.”

  Lilliana considered telling him all about it. The idea of Bette Tesselink being exposed in the Rainbow Ranch Gazette held some appeal. But claiming that Bette had stolen her plant, and thus the blue ribbon, would sound petty without a reversal of the decision by the judges to back up her story.

  “No story,” she said. “At least for now. I’ll let you know if one develops.”

  Sam looked at her skeptically for a moment, then turned and left the room.

  MOST of the exhibitors had returned to their tables once the television people had gone. Mary wearily pushed her walker back to her place. Lilliana’s heart went out to her. With all the excitement and stress involved, she wondered if Mary would be able to hold up for a second day.

  Lilliana’s pants had slid down on her hips again, and once again she reached under her blouse to hike them up. This time, she slid her thumb around to the front and found the cause of the problem: she’d lost the button. She scanned the floor around her feet, turning around to make sure it hadn’t fallen down behind her.

  “Lose something?” Leonard asked as he stopped rearranging his table to make room for his prize ribbon.

  “My button. I’ve been wondering why my pants couldn’t seem to stay up today.” She glanced down at the floor again and wondered if it would be too lacking in decorum if she got down on her hands and knees to look under the table. Maybe not, since the tablecloth would hide her from the dwindling crowd in the center of the room, but there might be another problem. With the arthritis in her knees, getting up again might be an issue.

  Lenny joined in the hunt by looking on the floor behind his own table. “Are you sure you lost it here?”

  “No,” Lilliana said. “As a matter of fact, it could have been anywhere from my bedroom to the patio outside.” She sighed. “I suppose I’ll just have to see if I have another one like it in my sewing box later. Meanwhile, I think I have a safety pin in my equipment bag. If you could watch my table again for a minute...”

  “Not a problem,” Lenny said and scanned the room. “It’s not like there’s a big crowd right now.”

  “Thanks so much,” Lilliana said. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  She hurried down the hall, anxious to get the safety pin and return to the show. She’d expected to find some of the crowd out here, but it appeared that after the award ceremony most had followed the television people out the door and not come back. The hall was empty except for the sound of an I Love Lucy rerun blaring from the entertainment room. Had Wayne been in there all day?

  Lilliana shook her head. She’d go batty if she watched as much television as some of the retirees. She’d much rather spend her time playing softball, walking around the grounds, and tending her African violets.

  And there were always books. She loved books—mysteries, romance, adventure stories, poetry. New books and old classics. It was almost time for her annual reread of Shakespeare’s plays, a summer tradition she’d started when she found children used the library a lot less often when school wasn’t in session. She never tired of reading Shakespeare.

  As she got to the end of the hall, she noticed that the door to the storeroom was open. She was sure she’d closed it when she left. With visitors from town—and out of town—she’d wanted to keep the honest people honest and not tempt them into stealing something by having it visible from the hallway. Who could have left it open?

  She was sure it wasn’t one of the housekeeping staff. At least, pretty sure. They all seemed conscientious and trustworthy. Maybe someone else had decided to put some personal belongings in the room during the show and neglected to close it behind him or her.

  An odd smell came through the open door as Lilliana neared it. Not the odor of cleaning products she’d noticed before, but something fetid and foul. It reminded her of a not-very-clean public restroom. Strange. She hoped an animal hadn’t gotten inside and marked its territory. If it had, she’d have to notify someone to come and clean it up. But, when she pushed open the door to allow her to enter, the room didn’t contain an animal or its excrement.

  On the floor, her deep blue dress pushed up above her chubby knees, was Bette Tesselink, a blossom of red spreading from the roots of her hair. Her body was twisted as if she’d tried to avoid the blow. And beside her, covered in blood, was Lilliana’s softball bat.

  For a moment, everything stopped. Lilliana couldn’t take her eyes off the body, couldn’t force herself to breathe. Even her heart stopped beating. At last she took a breath, and her heart resumed its tha-thump in her chest.

  Lilliana kneeled next to the body, pushing the bat out of the way so she could feel for a pulse. She grasped Bette’s wrist with bloodied fingers and watched her chest for the slightest rise and fall. Bette’s chest didn’t move. The skin underneath Lilliana’s fingers was already beginning to cool. It was clear Bette Tesselink was dead.

  “Is there a problem?” a familiar male voice asked behind her.

  Lilliana turned and saw Russell Ellison standing in the doorway. His face paled as the blood drained from his cheeks. “Is she...?”

  Lilliana nodded. “I’m afraid so,” she said as she painfully got to her feet.

  “What have you done?” Ellison’s pallor had been replaced by shock and outrage.

  “Done?” For a moment Lilliana was puzzled, until she realized what Ellison meant. He thought she had killed Bette. “I haven’t done anything. I just found her here.”

  “Come out of there immediately,” Ellison said, then glanced down the hall as if looking for someone or something. “Miguel,” he called out, using the name of the facility’s handyman, “call 9-1-1.”

  Ellison seemed flustered. Well, who wouldn’t be, thought Lilliana. While this wasn’t the first death at the Rainbow Ranch Retirement Home, the others usually happened while the resident was in bed. A heart attack or stroke or just old age. Nothing of the magnitude of—she might as well use the word—murder.

  Ellison kept glancing at her, then looking away when she noticed his stare, as if afraid she would grab the softball bat and bash his head in, too. There had been times she wanted to do that, but this wasn’t one of them. She felt sick to her stomach, wondering who could have done such a thing. And why? Bette, while annoying, hadn’t deserved to be murdered.

  “Didn’t I tell you to come out of there?” Ellison’s voice rose in pitch. He was probably thinking that after engineering so much good publicity for the home, it would all be undone once news of the murder got out.

  Lilliana took a few steps toward the door, noticing the murmur of conversation coming from the hallway. Apparently the news had already started to spread. By the time she reached the door, the hallway was filled with octogenarians trying to get closer to the doorway for a glimpse of the body.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AN interminable amount of time oozed by while waiting for the police. Lilliana was sure that once an experienced law enforcement officer arrived, Russe
ll Ellison’s ludicrous accusation would be seen for what it was.

  Eventually muttering and shuffling and the sound of a man’s voice saying “Excuse me. Clear a path, please” broke through the murmur of retellings and speculations. The crowd humped and swayed as the voice grew closer. The sea of humanity parted and revealed a young man in a blue police officer’s uniform. Under the cap, his face was so dewy fresh Lilliana wasn’t sure he was old enough to have graduated from high school.

  “Good to see you, Chief Cartwright,” Ellison said.

  Chief? This boy was the chief of police? Lilliana hoped he had some experienced detectives working under him.

  “We have a situation here,” the retirement home owner said.

  The boy’s eyes bugged out as he stared at the body. “Is she dead?”

  “Of course she’s dead,” Lilliana said.

  The chief turned his attention to Lilliana. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Lilliana Wentworth. I came here to get a safety pin from my bag and found Bette just as you see her now.” Well, not quite the way she lay now, Lilliana remembered. She had moved the softball bat to check to see if Bette was alive. Then she’d lifted her wrist to take her pulse. She couldn’t remember whether she’d replaced Bette’s arm in the exact same position or not. Lilliana put her bloody hand behind her back.

  Cartwright pulled a pad and pen from his shirt pocket and started making notes. “What time was this?”

  “About fifteen minutes ago,” Lilliana said.

  “And I arrived here right after that,” Ellison said. “It’s a good thing, too. Otherwise Mrs. Wentworth might have gotten away with it.”