Murder Most Floral Read online

  Murder Most Floral

  A Kat Everitt Handwriting Analysis Mystery

  By Judith Mehl

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Pennystone Books

  ISBN-13:978-09862766-1-3

  ISBN-10:0986276618

  Murder Most Floral

  Copyright © 2015 by Judith Mehl

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations. For information/permission contact the publisher, Pennystone Books, at www.pennystonebooks.com.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  To my children

  Graham, Ryan, and Kate

  The Mountain View Newspaper

  OBITUARIES

  Margaret Kinney

  June 12

  Margaret Kinney, 74, died unexpectedly Thursday at home. She was the wife of the late George Kinney, with whom she shared 45 years of marriage before he died in 2004. Born in Meisertown, she was the daughter of Corinne and James Hayford.

  She attended Mountain View High School and was co-owner of the Kinney Herb Farm with her husband until his passing. She inherited the farm from her parents and developed it into a supplier of herbal products. She recently shared in the ownership of the farm and the Bittersweet Herb Shop with her long-time friend, Agatha Hartman.

  Margaret served tirelessly at St. Therese Catholic Church where she was a member since birth. Her kindness will also be missed at the herb shop, where her lovingly handcrafted products were often custom made.

  Friends are invited to celebrate Margaret’s life from 2-4 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. Tuesday at the Posey Garden Funeral Home, 100 Main St., Mountain View. A Mass of Christian burial will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Therese Catholic Church, 200 Laurel Lane, Mountain View.

  Rosalin Bromfield

  June 19

  Rosalin Bromfield, 69, died Friday at home. She was born in Kensington, England, but was a long time resident of Grandham. Rosalin was the only daughter of Lorraine and Charles Hubbard in England, who preceded her in death.

  Her British background, reserved salesmanship, and cool demeanor served as a mainstay of the Bittersweet Herb Shop where she was the accountant for the last ten years. Prior to that she worked in sales.

  Rosalin steered the community toward the use of natural products throughout her life, contributing much more than accounting to the shop’s clientele. Her dry humor drew many followers.

  Friends are invited to celebrate Rosalin’s life from 2-4 p.m. And 7-9 p.m. Monday at the Posey Garden Funeral Home, 100 Main St., Mountain View. A Mass of Christian burial will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Tuesday at St. Therese Catholic Church, 200 Laurel Lane, Mountain View.

  Chapter 1

  Handwriting analysis reveals hundreds of characteristics of one’s personality. With it you can view aspects of the subconscious mind, intellect, energy, motivations, integrity and aptitudes.

  Kat Everitt kicked off her work heels. With a steaming cup of tea, she settled down to observe a butterfly feed off the phlox near her open sunroom window. When she swept a tumbling curl off her face she noticed a chipped finger nail, but ignored it, and continued to watch the butterfly. Its flight from flower to flower relaxed her after running around the Mountain View University campus all day.

  The jarring ring of the phone broke her intense scrutiny and scared the butterfly away. The voice on the phone shouted, “Death just arrived at my door. It’s in the guise of a bouquet of flowers, but I know death when I see it. I’m going to die. Please help.”

  Kat jerked upright as she recognized the wheezing voice of her older friend, Agatha. She struggled to wiggle her toes into her shoes without the aid of her hands. One hand clutched the phone. The other one grabbed for the spilling cup of tea.

  As a university employee, she’d heard pleas of help before. But this? Death by allergy, asthma, bee sting? What was Agatha afraid of and how could she help?

  “Agatha, are you okay?”

  “Yes, but you know my friends, Margaret and Rosalin, both died right after receiving bouquets. What if I’m next?”

  Kat tried to soothe Agatha with what she knew. “The police temporarily suspect natural causes for one death and the other followed a fall down the stairs. In neither incident was it judged ‘death by bouquet.’”

  She grabbed her trench coat and a hat from the closet while talking. “Did you touch the bouquet?”

  “I picked it up off my doorstep by grabbing the cellophane. It wasn’t even in a box. When I realized what I was doing I dropped it on the hall table in a panic. I called you right away.”

  “Agatha, I think you should call the police. Now. I’ll come over immediately, but they need to be told.”

  Agatha whined, “I’m scared, but the police won’t be able to do anything. What do I tell them? That I received a threatening bouquet?”

  “Call anyway.”

  Kat heard Agatha’s fear change to anger. “You know they’ll just laugh at me if I call.”

  “You ask for my friend, Chief Detective Richard Burrows. Tell him I suggested you call and let him know about the three bouquets. I’m sure he’ll come or send someone.”

  Ten minutes later, Kat contemplated the frantic woman’s plight as she drove through the Pocono countryside. She rode up the lane to Agatha’s older home on the edge of the quiet hamlet of Grandham, a quick drive from her place in Mountain View. A visual sweep of the surrounding area showed only wildflowers blooming on the edge of Agatha’s property, and a glimpse of her neighbor’s home through the trees.

  She left the car and slowed her pace to stroll up the walkway, wearing a disguise that she intended to swap with Agatha to defeat the prying eyes of anyone watching. The trench coat and floppy hat topped the quick find list, but certainly not the top ten styles list. She had hoped to appear like a nonchalant visitor and then spirit Agatha away from her home undetected. It would help if there were some storm clouds to authenticate her ensemble, but she proceeded with aplomb despite the lack of rain.

  Kat didn’t know the significance of the bouquet, but if it involved murder, safety was a priority.

  The gardener in her noticed the gorgeous parrot tulips lining the path beneath the oak trees with their new leaves. The sleuth spied no sign of anyone lurking.

  As she approached the door, the raucous sounds from WSBG pop radio puzzled her. The robust blasts ranked at the top of the charts, but Kat expected more sober strains from the home of this sixty-five-year-old woman shaken to the core by a supposed death threat. While she rang the bell, she saw a car pull into the driveway. Detective Fulton Hill stepped out of his unmarked police car. She waved to him and he strode forward.

  He looked her up and down. “Nice disguise. Do I need one?”

  She glared at him and he, without another word, took a discreet step to the side. They saw the door open a crack and the frightened eyes of the old woman peeked past the chain, only to vanish as she stepped back.

  Through the window Kat could see Agatha, her hair askew, frozen in place. She realized the woman saw two strangers on her doorstep. She flipped up the hat brim and said, “It’s me, Kat. Let me in, quick.”

  Agatha yanked open the door and stuffed trembling and gnarled fingers into her sweater pockets. Kat and the policeman scurried in. She introduced the man to her distraught friend.

  “Detective Fulton Hill, this is Agatha Hartman.” The
detective shook her hand and explained that he headed both investigations into the deaths of her friends. “When the chief told me about your call I came right away.”

  Kat nodded her thanks and turned to her friend. “Please, Agatha, explain about the bouquet and why it frightened you so.”

  Agatha spoke, facing Detective Hill. “When we talked yesterday about the suspicious nature of Rosalin’s death last week following right after Margaret’s, we didn’t discuss the bouquets they got. You know about both women, and you’ve been to the Bittersweet Herbs Shop where we all worked together. It’s our business. I, uh, mean was our business, but it was a warm and friendly place.”

  They settled in the living room with shades pulled to conceal them from passersby, and Agatha explained why she was so agitated now. She faced Kat. “I never gave their bouquets a thought. When this bouquet was delivered to me, I panicked.”

  Hill said, “In light of your bouquet, maybe we should discuss the others now. What do you know about the bouquets Mrs. Kinney and Miss Bromfield received?”

  Agatha shivered and stumbled over her words. “I know Margaret received one because there was one on the counter when I found her body. I called the police and stood there, kind of numb. I only remember the bouquet because it included flowers that couldn’t have come from her herb farm. The camellia, for instance, doesn’t grow around here. It’s not cold hardy.”

  Kat asked, “Can they be grown in a greenhouse?”

  “Yes, but we don’t use our greenhouses for anything like that. Just seedlings. The temperature wouldn’t suit camellias.”

  Scribbling in the notebook, the detective flipped back to earlier notes. Without looking up he said, “What about the other bouquet?”

  His pencil and pad were almost lost in big hands at the ends of long, bony arms. The chair he sat in, like all chairs, was a bit too small for him. Kat remembered him from the days when her dad was on the force. Hill was green then but he’d seasoned well over the last ten years. She knew that he would provide Agatha the deference that she deserved and the attention to detail that she needed.

  Kat answered his question. “Rosalin’s? We all heard about that one. She complained to anyone who would listen. Being English, the lilacs in the center frightened her. The folklore of lilacs sees them as a symbol of death.”

  They jerked their heads in simultaneous movement toward the newest bouquet. Wrapped in tissue paper with a foil doily, the threatening posy lay untouched on the sideboard near the door where Agatha dropped it. Kat walked closer, to be almost knocked over by Agatha, who jumped into her path.

  “Don’t touch it.”

  “Okay. I just wanted to see if I knew the flowers.” Seeing her friend’s fright escalate, Kat decided to log them later.

  Hill bagged the bunch of flowers with care and agreed to take the bouquet for analysis. “I’ll do it, but I’m telling ya the lab guys might laugh me out of the room.”

  Kat pointed out that it appeared some of these flowers were poisonous varieties, but not enough to kill. This bouquet, at a quick glance, held no lilacs like Rosalin’s bouquet.

  “The cause of death has not yet been determined?” she said, raising her eyebrows to the detective hoping to be contradicted. He placed a firm hand on her arm—he might as well have said out loud, “Drop the subject.”

  Kat did and turned back to her friend. She sensed real fear in Agatha, who’d suffered so much at the loss of her close companions.

  The woman appeared aged beyond her time, but recovered enough to pick up the accompanying note and hand it to the policeman. Kat was especially pleased that the note was handwritten. She held the reputation of an expert handwriting analyst and had solved several crimes in the area by seeking the propensity for evil in the written words of the corrupt. Anxious to study the note, she refrained from touching it but couldn’t resist a quick glance. “Looks like someone with violent tendencies.”

  Detective Hill placed the note in a clean paper evidence bag, sealed and labeled it. He promised her a copy of the note for further study. Even he realized that if the bouquets proved related to the deaths, the fact that the note was handwritten might provide more clues.

  “Did you recognize the handwriting at all, Ms. Hartman?”

  “No. And the note card was blank except for the handwriting—none of that floral type border like you often see. I’m not even sure if the bouquet came from a florist. I found it on my doorstep after the doorbell rang.”

  Kat wondered who could have delivered the flowers and disappeared before Agatha found the bouquet.

  The detective promised Agatha the police would give close consideration to a connection between the deaths of her friends, and Agatha’s worries. He recognized Agatha’s fear, but said they could not provide her protection. “At the moment, the only fact is that you’ve received a bouquet.” He’d been standing to the side of the front window while the women speculated as to the mysterious delivery. His hand barely touched the drapes to open a slit to peer out.

  “I don’t see anyone staking out the place. Still, we can send a patrol car to make frequent checks.”

  When he turned around he grimaced at Kat’s outrageous hat. “Why the disguise, by the way? You afraid the killer might recognize you?”

  “It’s not for me. It’s to swap with Agatha. She can get in my car and you can drive behind her. You can escort her to my house, right?”

  They discussed the swap as Agatha smiled her thanks to Kat for not leaving her alone. She stuffed a few day’s essentials in Kat’s empty oversized bag. The woman scrambled around to include some CDs and her portable radio/CD player. She spun and raced back to the living room where she sorted through the carryall on the floor near the recliner and threw some fabric scraps and needles from the end table. She hauled it over to Kat, eyes pleading. “We have to bring this, too.”

  Kat shed the trench coat and handed it over. Agatha always exuded nonconformity, in a little old grandmotherly way. She wore comfortable clothes yet styled her hair with the newest fads. Her head sported the blue and orange streaks that teenagers held in esteem. Her individualism appealed to many who hated to see the elderly all shuffled into one mold. Today, however, it wreaked havoc with the invisibility the conformist needed. Kat plopped the straw hat onto Agatha’s short-cropped hair. The hat alone successfully altered her appearance beyond recognition.

  “Take the shoes, too.” Rather proud of her designer shoes, Kat shucked the sandals with the chunky stacked heels. She gave a wistful sigh as she offered them to Agatha. “This will complete the disguise.”

  “Those are much too expensive. I couldn’t.”

  Kat insisted. She saw Agatha cover up the agony of stepping into the small shoes with the too-high heels. A reluctant thank you revealed her distress but Kat feared the elderly woman’s shoes would give her away.

  Kat had called her husband, Nick, to pick her up. They all waited the few minutes it would take Nick to arrive at the end of the alley. She borrowed some slippers and an old jacket from the back room.

  She sighed as she stuffed paper towels in the floppy worn slippers to keep them from falling off. As long as my friends don’t see me I’ll survive. I’ve done worse in the cause of my friends. Wait. I can’t think of anything right now, but I’m sure I have.

  She inched out the rear door hidden behind some overgrown rhododendrons. The other two exited the front door at the same time to distract anyone who might be looking. A quick twist of the spare key and a slip down the alley and she was at the spot where Nick waited.

  Once hidden in the relative obscurity of her husband’s car, Kat stretched over to smack a big kiss on his mouth. No one had seen her. Life was good.

  Nick inquired innocently, “So what made you think someone was watching her house?”

  “Aw, come on, Nick. She calls me about a killer bouquet. If she’s right, maybe they were waiting for something to happen.”

  “Okay, so maybe it’s not completely farfetched.”
<
br />   Nick’s sexy blue eyes hid behind a deep scowl.

  “You know, I take off work early to pick you up, picturing a nice romantic evening together and instead I get an old lady in bedroom slippers rattling on about a deadly bouquet.”

  She twirled her toes in the slippers, eyeing them for style. “You don’t think these are up to par with my normal selection?”

  Nick merely snorted and kept driving. The delight in her eyes at his response echoed her smile.

  As he drove, she speculated. Should she tell him now where Agatha would be staying for a while, or wait till after they met with the police?

  Instead, she explained about the other bouquets and that this maneuver with Agatha served to keep the killer away from her while they determined who it was. “Until now they thought Margaret’s death was natural causes. Rosalin’s set up red flags. It appeared she fell down the stairs, or was pushed. The police and coroner’s office are still investigating.”

  She swiveled to face him. “They haven’t announced a cause of death for Margaret either. Most of her friends knew about her congenital heart failure. I think we all assumed it was a natural death. The tox results aren’t back yet for a final determination.”

  She told how this third bouquet urged a review of both deaths and their possible connection. Kat figured that with Agatha’s description of the other bouquets maybe they could pinpoint the message they were to convey. “I can’t wait to study the handwritten note that came with the bouquet. I wonder if the other bouquets had notes, too?”

  Nick, co-owner of Petingill and Donnelly Security Agency, didn’t even flinch when she asked to go directly to the police station. She knew that his early career with the Defense Intelligence Agency had left scars, but provided him an acute radar to tell when someone’s adrenalin was pumped.

  Hers was. The scene at Agatha’s appeared calm on the surface, but she felt Agatha’s fear and sensed that the bouquet held more than a kindly message.