A Blush With Death Read online

  I stared at the sink, suddenly feeling ungrateful. Here I’d been blaming my aunt for punishing me, when she actually was paying me a compliment. As I watched, a single drop of water dripped onto the skillet and carved a rivulet through the drying egg. I turned on the water, lightly scoured the pan, and stuck it in the dishwasher.

  “I never thought of it that way.”

  She gave me a gentle peck on the cheek. “Sometimes, all it requires is a slight shift in perception to make the world seem a whole lot brighter.”

  I noticed that she was wearing one of her prettiest mu’umu’us, and then remembered: Kane Jimenez. “You ready for your lunch date?”

  She paled slightly, then straightened her shoulders. “As ready as I’ll ever be. I’ll be gone when you get to the store, but I should be back around two or three. That is, if traffic’s light.”

  For a small city, Gull Harbor had a tremendous gridlock problem during summer, thanks to the tourists. Most of the residents just took it in stride. A small but vocal percentage of the population depended on those tourism dollars to see them through the rest of the year. Locals took the back roads in order to avoid the biggest traffic jams, knowing enough to plan out their trips in advance.

  I put my arm around her and squeezed, leaning down to kiss her head. “Auntie, you’re wonderful. At least the two of you share a bond through the memory of someone you both loved. That’s something not everybody has.”

  She wiped her eyes and leaned her head against me. “Imp, you are such a treasure. Now go on, scoot, and don’t worry about me. I’ve seen enough of life’s storms; I think I can weather the little squalls.”

  “Okay, then. I’m off. And I’ll remember what you said about the speech. That’s the only way I think I can make it through!” I grabbed my handbag, laptop, and keys, and headed toward my car. I’d left the top down, and after stowing my gear, hopped over the door into the driver’s seat, taking care not to catch my skirt on the gearshift.

  I decided to beat the traffic and turned right off of Beachcomber Drive onto Deer Tail Lane. The narrow street wound through some pricey homes that were nestled behind thickets of cedar and fir, and with the top down on my car, the scent of freshly mowed grass assailed my senses, making me want to stop and go wandering through a meadow somewhere. Vowing to get in a walk, if not a swim, before dinner, I took the S curves with ease, coasting to a halt at the stop sign near Johnson’s Grocery & Gas.

  I glanced at my gas gauge and pulled up to the island. Climbing out of the car, I adjusted my skirt, making sure it wasn’t caught in my underwear as it had a couple of weeks ago, and wandered into the tiny food mart. The Johnson sisters had opened up a burrito and taco bar in the store, and the smells were incredible, even at this time in the morning.

  I paid for fifteen dollars’ worth of gasoline. Mae Johnson leaned against the wall, wiping her hands on a grease rag. She was an incongruous sight, nearing seventy, with blue-silver curls and a grandma’s face, and yet dressed like a grease monkey. She looked happy, though.

  “Persia, right early this morning, aren’t you?”

  I nodded, tucking the change in my purse. “I have some errands to run and thought I’d take the back route to avoid the tourists downtown. How’s your sister?”

  Mae shook her head. “Emma hasn’t been feeling too good lately, but I think it’s all that crap she eats.” Mae had no trouble calling things as she saw them. “But I told her, ‘You go to the doctor, and this time you listen.’ She’s there right now,” she said, glancing at the clock.

  I pumped my gas, pulled out my shades—the sun had fully topped the tree line and was promising to chase away the wisps of night clouds that lingered in the sky—and headed for the library.

  Two stories high, the Gull Harbor library was, for a small town, extremely well-stocked. The building itself was white brick, sturdy and weatherworn, even though it was barely ten years old. The town planners had voted to keep a coastal feel to the architecture of the city buildings, and so in one way or another, City Hall, the police station, almost every official building resembled a lighthouse or a cove cottage.

  I pulled off my sunglasses as I reached for the door. A rush of cool air swept over me as I entered the foyer, and the hushed sounds of turning pages and gentle conversation rustled through the stacks. I inhaled slowly; the scent of ink and paper from long-forgotten volumes swathed me in a dusty embrace. If I let myself dwell on the fragrance, it was almost as if I could smell the words, the knowledge locked within the volumes.

  One wall consisted of floor-to-ceiling windows, the clerestory allowing the natural light to flow in through the building and diffuse the artificial fluorescents that glimmered from the ceiling. A row of carrels lined the back wall, but I chose a table near the window, where I could look out onto the lush lawn dotted with islands of wild-flowers and roses.

  I settled myself and pulled out my laptop. If I was lucky, I’d be able to knock out the speech by the time I was due at Venus Envy. If not, I’d be working on it this evening as well.

  Auntie was right, I decided. Maybe I could offer a few nuggets of real knowledge along with the T & A advice. I plugged in my notebook and opened it, waiting while the machine fired up. Aunt Florence had just bought me the computer a few weeks ago, and I still wasn’t used to it, considering most of my writing was limited to entries in my daily journal and my fragrance journal, both of which I wrote in with a Waterman’s pen that I bought at the local Barnes & Noble. Neither one of us was comfortable with computers yet, though my friend Jared kept prodding us to take a layman’s class at the community college. We kept meaning to, but hadn’t got around to it yet.

  As I stared at the computer, trying to compose my thoughts, a shadow fell across my screen. I glanced up. Elliot, my ex, was standing beside me.

  “Go away,” I said, not bothering with niceties. At least he looked sober and reasonably clean, two qualities that, as of late, he had been sorely lacking.

  He leaned on the table and tried to read over my shoulder.

  I blocked his view by closing the screen.

  “Not very friendly, are you? That’s no way to greet your long-lost lover,” he said, giving me a cow-eyed look.

  Great, he was going for the gag-me romance lines today.

  “You’re not lost, you’re no longer my lover, and every time you bother me, you’re one step closer to a restraining order. Ding, three strikes, you’re out.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Miss Hoity-toity aren’t we? All I wanted to do is ask you to come with me to a picnic next week. I’ve been invited by the guys at work and thought you might want to hang out, have a beer, talk about old times.”

  He really thought I’d say yes? His logic eluded me. However, I’d discovered the best way to get rid of him was to avoid asking more questions. “Not in a million years. Now, I repeat: Go away.”

  He leaned in so close I could smell his breath—not a good thing. Though he appeared sober, I could smell the residue of stale beer. “Still playing the bitch, aren’t you? I hear you’re seeing that spook guy, Bran Stanton? Got news for you, honey. He’s never going to measure up to me.”

  Unable to stomach his presence another moment, I shot out of my chair, throwing him off balance. Elliot sprawled on the floor, narrowly missing hitting his head on a trash basket. Glaring, he picked himself up and brushed off his jeans.

  “If by that, you mean Bran’s never going to be an embezzling, lowlife, son of a bitch, then you’re right,” I said cheerfully. “He won’t measure up to you in that way because guess what? He’s not pond scum! Now get the hell out of my sight.” I pulled out my journal and began to record this little interaction, a procedure that Kyle, the chief of police with whom I had a vaguely uneasy friendship, had recommended I do.

  “By the way,” I said, jotting down notes. “This is warning number five: Don’t bother me again. Don’t talk to me. Don’t come near me. I think we might be getting nearer to that restraini
ng order, don’t you agree?” I flashed him a snarky smile and, without a word, Elliot turned on his heel and stomped away.

  As I watched him go, I wondered what I’d ever seen in him to begin with. But this side of him hadn’t surfaced all those years; at least not in ways so I would have recognized it. After he disappeared out the front door, I returned to my computer, about to begin typing, when my cell phone rang. I snatched it out of my purse before other patrons could shoot me nasty looks, and flipped it open. It was Trevor, one of our gardeners from Moss Rose Cottage.

  “Hey Trev, what’s up?”

  “We have a problem with the roses,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Can you meet me at the shop? It would be easier to explain there. But I’m afraid we may lose the entire harvest. I’m not even sure we can save the garden itself.”

  Oh, hell. That didn’t sound good. We depended on our rose garden for the petals with which we distilled rose water so pure it could be used in cooking. Venus Envy’s Rose Water Essence was a consistent best seller at the shop. We couldn’t afford to lose an entire crop. I told him I’d be there in twenty minutes, packed up my laptop, and headed out of the building.

  Trevor better be exaggerating, I thought as I pulled out of the parking lot and zoomed down the road toward Venus Envy. If not, then our financial worries had just gotten worse. And right now, money woes were the last thing we needed.

  From the Pages of Persia’s Journal

  Evening in Summer Oil

  When I think about summer fragrances, long walks on dusty evenings come to mind, when dusk is just hitting the shaded lanes. Birds are settling down for the night, and the slight chill of our northwest autumn hasn’t quite arrived, but the tang is there, on the horizon, waiting to take over.

  And so I came up with Evening in Summer, a custom blend that makes me think of lovers strolling in a garden, of honeysuckle creeping over a gazebo, of ice cream cones and laughing children in the distance.

  Plan an outdoor midsummer’s eve party. Invite close friends to stay up and watch for the faeries with you.

  Use Evening in Summer to scent potpourri, and keep several bowls of it around the patio. Use citronella candles to keep mosquitoes away; their fragrance won’t interfere with the potpourri and won’t add a chemical tang to your party like other insect repellents.

  Decorate with hanging lanterns and luminarias—decorate paper bags with stars and sparkles, fill with sand, and set protected votive candles inside to provide lighting around the edge of your patio. Always keep water on hand for any unexpected emergencies of the fiery kind.

  Serve a late tea—watercress and cucumber sandwiches with cream cheese, strawberries dipped in chocolate, salmon mousse and crackers, pâté, sparkling water, champagne punch, and if you are feeling extravagant, caviar.

  Play light classical music that inspires thoughts of drowsy evenings and faerie barrows.

  Encourage each guest to bring a poem or excerpt from a book that relates to the theme of the party—W. B. Yeats is a good place to start.

  Blend and store this oil (as with all oils) in a small, dark bottle. You will need a bottle and stopper or lid, an eyedropper, and the following:

  1/4 oz. almond or apricot kernel oil (a good unscented base)

  50 drops silver fir oil

  50 drops rose oil

  25 drops white camphor oil

  15 drops sandalwood oil

  10 drops lemon oil

  10 drops French vanilla oil

  10 drops sweet orange oil

  OPTIONAL:

  dried rose petals (2, torn in half)

  a small piece of garnet or peridot (you can use a chip off a gemstone chip necklace)

  Using an eyedropper, add each fragrance oil to the apricot oil, gently swirling after each addition to blend the scent. After adding all the oils, cap and shake gently. At this time, add the rose petals and garnet or peridot to the bottle for added energy, if so desired.

  Garnets promote passion and vitality, while peridot is reminiscent of warm summer evenings in a tree-shrouded grove. Keep oil in a cool, dark place—if left in the sun it will lose potency. As always, remind customers to avoid eating or drinking this oil, to check for allergies before using, and to keep it out of reach of children and animals.

  Chapter 3

  TREVOR WAS WAITING at the shop for me, seated on one of the mahogany benches scattered around the store. Venus Envy was a study in tranquillity, with sea green walls and mauve and gold trim. Even the furniture matched the gentle elegance that Auntie had established within the shop.

  In his early twenties, Trev was a handsome young man, and a sweetheart, but today he wasn’t sporting his usual good-natured grin. As I hurried through the front door, he jumped up and hurried toward me, holding up a paper bag.

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t want to open it out here,” he said. “We need to talk, and it better be in private.”

  Taken aback by his abruptness, I nodded for him to follow me and led him back to the office, where I shut the door behind us and turned on the fan. Hell, I’d forgotten to bring the extra fans I’d promised Tawny. The shop was going to be toast today; the temperature was already climbing into the mid-eighties. “Listen, after you’re done, can you run out and pick up three sturdy standing fans and bring them back? Tawny’s sweltering out there.”

  “Sure, but the heat’s the least of our problems,” he said.

  “What’s up?” I said. “You said there’s trouble with the roses?”

  He sighed. “You aren’t going to be happy about this, I can tell you that. Where’s Miss Florence?”

  “She’s having lunch with a friend, and I doubt if she’ll be back before three, so you’re stuck with me, babe. Spill it.” I slipped into Auntie’s soft leather chair and leaned forward as Trevor opened the sack and withdrew a smaller plastic bag from within. The bag was filled with rose petals. He set it on the desk in front of me. I started to reach for it, but he shook his head.

  “Leave it shut, or you’ll be sorry. Whatever you do, don’t handle those petals,” he said.

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Look at them, but don’t open it up. Do you see anything suspicious?”

  I squinted as I picked up the Ziploc and peered at the roses. There—a thin, white powder crusting some of the petals. “What’s on them?”

  “Organophosphates. At a dangerously high level. Somebody doctored the entire rose garden with pesticides—probably some form of insecticide. If you used these roses to make rose water, you could make your customers sick.” He shook his head. “This wasn’t an accident, Persia. Nobody accidentally spills that much pesticide on a plant. Besides, Miss Florence doesn’t allow any pesticides on your property.”

  Pesticides? Auntie had worked for years to build up a natural environment for our flowers that both nurtured them and kept away the pests. We never used sprays of any kind. Our rose water was safe enough to use in baking, if people so desired. This was unthinkable.

  “Who the hell did this? Auntie’s going to be furious when she finds out.”

  “That’s not the half of it, Persia. You’re going to have to report this. And when word gets out…it’s not going to be pretty. You also need to find out if the pesticides have seeped into the soil. At that level, it could taint the dirt for quite a while. I’m pretty sure that all the bushes are affected. After I stopped to get the results this morning, I went back to Moss Rose and had a look at the rest of the rose garden. I’m almost certain that the entire crop was doctored.”

  He looked sick. Trevor took great pride in his work; he was a wonderful gardener, and both Auntie and I valued his contributions to our store. Without his help, we wouldn’t have half the bulk herbs and floral waters that we sold.

  “Well, hell. Auntie is going to be beside herself. She worked her butt off to make those gardens what they are. You should know, you worked right
along beside her.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, and that’s why I know this was deliberate. While I was there today, I did some checking. There’s not a single container of this crap in any of the sheds, so whoever did it took the evidence with them.”

  I sighed. “How did you find out?” Or rather, I thought, Thank heaven he’d found out. If we’d gone ahead and processed the roses without knowing, we would not only have ruined our reputation, but we would have endangered customers. Or worse.

  He opened his notebook and tossed a paper on the desk. “Here’s the official analysis. I have a friend who works in a lab in town. When I was harvesting the floribundas two days ago, I noticed that my eyes and hands were burning. And then I saw a crystalline residue on some of the petals. I thought something was up, but didn’t want to worry you until I knew for sure. So I asked Dave to examine a sample from several rosebushes, and he had this waiting for me this morning. Organophosphates, in a high concentration.”

  I picked up the report and studied it, grateful for my background in botany. Organophosphates were highly toxic to humans and animals, and most often found in insecticides and pesticides. A number of them were under review by the EPA, but the government worked so slowly that it would probably be years before the majority were phased out. In high enough concentrations, they were deadly. And the levels that Trevor’s friend Dave had found on the roses was dangerously high. If we’d processed these petals into rose water and somebody used it in their baking, we could have been looking at a disaster, both for whoever ate it and for our store. Even skin contact at this level was bound to cause irritation.

  “Christ, this is bad,” I dropped the report on the desk and glanced over at Trevor. “Are you okay? You handled those flowers.”

  He nodded. “I went to the doctor. Though I’ve got a rash and some burning, I was lucky. I stopped once I noticed the residue. But Persia, if the roses were tampered with, what about the rest of the grounds? We’re going to have to go through every single garden to find out if anything else was touched. Including the herbs.”