Читать книгу Cornwall and Redfern Mysteries 2-Book Bundle - Gloria Ferris - Страница 13

I left my face shield up on the short drive to Glory’s mansion, and the soft air cooled my flushed cheeks. It would be a perfect night to drive along the back roads outside of town, enjoying the smell of cedars, hearing the early summer sound of crickets in the grass. That’s the way I like to experience nature, whizzing by me on either side of a paved road.

Instead, Dougal ignored my instructions to keep his hands on the bars and relax his body to the rhythm of the bike. He sat rigidly upright and gripped my waist. There might as well be a 165-pound block of cement on the seat behind me. He wouldn’t shut up, either.

“I can’t do this, Bliss. Take me home. Do you hear me, turn this thing around now. It was a bad idea. I’ll have to think of some other way to pollinate my Thor. Maybe I’ll call Glory and try and set something up another way.” Since we were barely moving, I heard every word in painful clarity.

“Not a chance. We’re almost there, and you’ll live through it.”

“I don’t care. I want to go back home. I’ve changed my mind about the whole thing. Just turn around!”

A lone vehicle passed us and, as it glided by, I saw the familiar squat shape of a silver Volkswagen Beetle convertible. So the Belcourts were taking a night tour of the more upscale part of town. If they were looking at real estate in this district, they wouldn’t be interested in the Barrister property. I wasn’t disappointed, since the idea of a commission from a sale was a non-starter from the day Elaine handed me the listing.

With Dougal whining in my ear like a neurotic mosquito, I drove through Glory’s open wrought-iron gates and parked as close to the limestone steps as possible. Still, getting Dougal off the bike and up those steps to the front door was another challenge, and I ended up giving him a sharp kick on the calf to get him started. Thank God, Pan opened the door immediately. I shoved Dougal in ahead of me and stripped him of the helmet.

Pan and Dougal gazed at one another wordlessly while I divested myself of helmet and leather jacket, astonished to find I was still dressed in my black silk pantsuit. Not much protection if I dropped the bike on the way home.

Five minutes later, Glory and Dougal were squaring off in the middle of the Persian rug, standing six feet apart. Pan and I sat on one of the cream leather couches with a large bowl of popcorn between us, both of us reaching into the bowl without taking our eyes off the combatants. Simon had been fussed and cooed over by Glory for just under fifteen seconds, then tossed onto the teak coffee table. Simon squawked in protest but uttered no profanities. Yet. I slipped a magazine under his tail feathers just in time.

Hands on slim hips, shoulders back and head high in full battle mode, Glory was the spitting image of Joan of Arc’s evil twin. She wore a slinky pink tunic over matching wide-legged trousers. Pink toenails peeped out from three-inch gold sandals. Dougal, on the other hand, was still pasty and sweaty from his terrorizing minute-and-a-half ride. His buzzed hair was getting long on top, and I made a mental note to trim it, barbering being another of the personal services I provided.

Even before the agoraphobia, I doubted Dougal was a match for the hot-tempered Glory, but now I wouldn’t have bet a loonie on his chances. The thousand dollars was fading away like mist at sunrise. I jammed another handful of popcorn into my mouth and tried to make peace with that fact. But it didn’t work. I wanted that money.

“Okay, start talking and make it fast. You have two minutes to make your case, and then you can get out of my house.” Glory looked at her jewel-studded watch, tapped a shapely foot, and glared at Dougal.

Hold on. I was under the impression that I had already blackmailed Glory into co-operating with Dougal’s absurd pollinating scheme. But it appeared she thought the blackmail covered talking to Dougal only and not actually agreeing to the pollination swap. Watching Dougal’s mouth impotently open and close, struck dumb by his ex-wife’s fury, I believed a quick intervention was in order.

I stood up and walked around behind Dougal. Once I knew Glory could see me, I mimed a smoking action and winked at her. She got the message. Her eyeballs turned red as Satan’s ass, and I turned away before I burst into flames. I poured two glasses of white wine and gave one to Pan. I decided I better find that list of ladies who wanted their houses cleaned on Wednesday mornings.

Her chest heaving with rage, Glory again addressed Dougal. “Well? Are you deaf? I said start talking.”

“I wish I was deaf. Then I couldn’t hear you screech like Simon when he wants a cracker.” Ah, good, Dougal had found his voice.

“Listen, you worm. Just tell me what you want or Pan will toss you out on your pointy, stupid head. You and your backstabbing nitwit of a cousin.”

The diminutive Pan paused with the wineglass halfway to his mouth, looking a bit concerned that he could shortly be called upon to bodily throw us out the door. “As you wish, Miss.”

Glory looked at the two of us. “Are you drinking my Riesling?”

“The popcorn made us thirsty,” I said, and took another swig in case she took the glass away from me. Pan upended his own wineglass and poured the contents down his throat.

“Okay, Glory, here’s the deal.” Dougal managed to pull himself together, looking less pasty and sweaty by the minute. “We both have an Amorphophallus titanum. Both plants appear to be ready to flower. This is an historic moment, and if we can put aside our differences, we can cross-pollinate these magnificent specimens. Best case scenario is that both Titans will produce tubers, but there’s a good chance that at least one will. We share the tubers equally, no matter which one reproduces. How about it? Just think, Sif and Thor can give us lots of little ones.”

Pan and I looked at each other. Good grief, whatever would they name the babies?

As soon as Dougal started talking about tubers, Glory’s red eyes turned bottle green with envy. The woman was an emotional chameleon. Dougal knew he had her hooked and moved in to close the deal.

“You won’t even have to see me. As soon as the plants are ready, Bliss will transport the pollen between our houses. I’ll pollinate Thor, and I’ll show Bliss how to pollinate Sif.”

Dougal looked every inch the expert botanist.

“Never mind Bliss.” Glory spared me one brief, scornful glance. “Just supply the pollen. I’ll do it myself. Or Pan will. And if Sif does flower, Pan can collect her pollen and send it over to Thor.”

Beside me, Pan stirred uneasily. Probably not a plant biology major.

“Great. Now I just need to see Sif and take a few measurements.” From his pocket, Dougal produced a carpenter’s measuring tape. His eyes shone and he seemed willing, even eager, to make the trip to Glory’s greenhouse. Next stop in his recovery: Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up his own medications.

I glanced at Glory, wondering how she was going to get around Dougal seeing her pot plants. No problem, it seemed.

“Uh uh,” she told Dougal. “Tell Pan what you want and he’ll do it. Bliss can go with him to help. You stay here and cogitate on your sins, which are many if you recall. If you open your mouth even once, you can wait outside on the front steps.”

Take that, you agoraphobic.

Dougal gave us some directions on measurements, then whipped out a small digital camera and gave it to me with instructions to take a few overall shots plus several close-ups of the spathe.

“And don’t, whatever you do, touch the Titan. It’s so fragile. It could collapse at the slightest stress.”

Glory gave Pan a meaningful look and raked me again with her eyes. The irises had more or less returned to their normal sea-blue, so I gave her another wink and followed Pan. Hopefully, Glory wouldn’t eviscerate Dougal in my absence with her pink-tipped talons.

On the way to the greenhouse, I asked Pan, “Do you know what Dougal did to Glory? It’s strange that no-one seems to have any idea.”

He shrugged. “Haven’t a clue. Don’t forget I’ve only worked here since Miss Yates tossed your cousin out, and she doesn’t confide in me. It must have been something serious, though. If anyone mentions him, her eyes turn red.”

“I’ve noticed. He won’t tell me either. He just calls her names and looks scared.”

Pan pulled up a tall stepladder close to the concrete planter. With me holding one end of the tape measure to the soil, Pan climbed to the top of the stepladder and called down the number. I found a writing pad and pen on a small table and wrote it down. We did the same for the height of the frilly, red-rimmed spathe, but it was more difficult measuring the circumference without touching it.

Finally, I took the required pictures. Pan insisted on checking the digital images, and I had to delete one shot where a tiny piece of pot frond showed in a corner. I avoided even looking at the crop, figuring if the whole thing went bad and I had to testify in court, I could almost truthfully say I never saw any pot plants in Glory Yates’s greenhouse.

“Why is Glory growing marijuana in her greenhouse? I mean, there are a lot of plants here. Surely even the two of you can’t smoke all this. And she can’t be selling it.”

Pan looked at me sideways from his glittery black eyes. “Are you kidding? Can you see Miss Glory smoking anything?”

“I don’t understand. What does she do with it all if she doesn’t smoke it?”

Pan leaned closer to me. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but it’s Miss Glory’s turn this year to grow the pot. It’s for all her friends. And they don’t smoke it.”

“Then what? And, why?”

He leaned even closer. “They eat it. Because it makes them feel good. And because it makes them feel naughty to get away with it. You sure don’t know much about the pot subculture, do you?”

I dared a look at the potted euphoria. The plants were close to six feet, healthy, green and dripping with buds. Running to catch up with Pan, I asked him, “How do they eat it? Do you mean, like, baking it into brownies?” I couldn’t imagine Glory and her friends eating high-carb brownies any more than smoking.

But Pan was already opening the front door. We found Glory and Dougal sitting mutely on separate couches. Dougal was chewing his cuticles while Glory tried to bore a hole in his neck with her laser eyeballs. Simon hadn’t moved from the table but his head swivelled back and forth between the two. The magazine had collected a six-inch pile of birdie doo.

As I handed Dougal the camera and the paper with the measurements, Simon spoke up. “Anyone for a smoke?” he asked, sounding like a cross between Dougal and Robert DeNiro.

Glory rounded on Dougal. “Are you letting that bird smoke? Surely even you know how dangerous that is for his health. You worm!”

“Tobacco smoke has never entered his lungs,” replied Dougal with such an air of innocence that I almost believed him myself.

“Simon obviously heard that phrase on television. He watches Days of Our Lives and General Hospital regularly. He likes Law and Order, too.” Dougal managed to look both affronted and pathetic while positioning himself between the bird and Glory.

Simon wasn’t through, however. “Oh, baby, that was sooo good. Pass the joint, will you sweetie.” I didn’t recognize the voice this time, but Glory and Dougal — and Pan — all looked at me with varying degrees of horror.

“What?”

“Are you and Dougal having sex? That’s, that’s … it’s incest!” Glory sputtered and stepped way back from our unclean presence.

“Eeeww,” I replied in disgust, while Dougal said, “I’d rather hang myself,” at the same time. Pan snickered until Glory cast him a quelling glance with eyes turning bloody again. I figured it was time to retreat, and made for the entrance hall.

While I donned jacket and helmet for the ride down the block, Dougal was still talking, having never learned to quit while behind.

“He uses a voice he knows and puts words together. It’s a new thing. He doesn’t mimic verbatim.” Dougal tried to stick Simon inside his jacket and was having the same difficulty as the first time. The parrot’s scaly legs thrashed wildly.

“All I know is someone is smoking a post-coital joint in front of that parrot.” Glory’s glossy lips were pursed in disapproval. “If it isn’t you and your undersized cousin, then who is it?”

“I’d rather sleep with the bird,” I called to Glory over Simon’s furious shrieks.

“I told you. It’s the TV. Nobody’s sleeping with anybody or smoking a joint either,” Dougal shouted. I knew he wasn’t lying to save my reputation or even Melanie’s. He’d say anything to pollinate Thor.

“Just get out of my house.”

“I’m going. I’ll send Bliss over once or twice a day to check on Sif’s progress. She’ll have to take pictures as well. Both spadices are currently between six and six and a half feet tall, but it looks like Sif might flower a few hours earlier than Thor, so if you could collect the pollen, Bliss will bring it over to my place …”

“Do what you have to do, just get out now before I snap you in half and toss the pieces in the trash.” She could do it, too. Dougal was going to have to bulk up a bit if he wanted to defend himself against his ex-wife.

I stood on the second step of the curving staircase and buckled Dougal into his helmet. The parrot was having a tantrum inside the jacket, and I cautioned Dougal to unzip a little to allow Simon some air.

I figured I would have to boot Dougal out the door and kick him down the steps to my bike, and was rather looking forward to it. But at the open door, he halted so quickly, I hit him in the back with the peak of my helmet.

“Where did you get this?” he asked Glory, indicating an erect plant in a ceramic pot sitting beside the umbrella stand. About a dozen straight stalks rose several feet from the pot in a clump and ended in masses of frond-like leaves. I gave it a hard look to try to burn it into my memory cells. I’d be looking this up on the Internet later, as well as the ferns at my parents’ house.

Dougal continued, “It’s a magnificent example of Thamnocalamus tessellatus, but it needs a lot of direct sun.”

“I know what it is, you half-wit. An old friend from school just dropped it off. And I know how to look after a simple Berg Bamboo. Get out.”

“Who was it? Is it anyone I…?”

The door slammed me on the butt and caught the edge of Dougal’s helmet, propelling us both down the steps to the Savage. This time, I had no trouble getting Dougal on the jump seat. He was obviously bemused by his reunion with Glory. The growl of the motor and Simon’s muffled squawking sounded like music to my ears after Glory’s angry screeching. God, whatever Dougal did to get kicked out of her house and bed, it had been his luckiest day ever.

As we rode down the street past the woods, I saw the dark shadow of a vehicle pull away from the curb and fall in behind us. Headlights reflected yellow light into my mirror, effectively blinding my left eye. I attempted to move as far right as possible to allow the vehicle to overtake and pass. But the headlights behind me did neither, and, as I coasted under a streetlight, I dared a quick look in my mirror.

There was no mistaking the Beetle shape behind the glaring lights. The top was down, and I could see one narrow head. Chesley Belcourt was on a breakaway from Mum.

Enough was enough. Did the Belcourts want to buy the Barrister house so badly they were prepared to follow me after dark to close the deal? Not likely, but only one way to find out.

I turned the Savage around, planning to confront Chesley. I have short legs and, with Dougal squirming and twisting my jacket in a clenched fist, it took a few seconds to make the one-eighty. By the time I re-balanced and pointed in his direction, Chesley had shot past me and was speeding off into the night, probably making for the highway and the Super 8 Motel. This time, I didn’t try to turn the bike on the road, but drove over a lawn and double driveway. I was just a few hundred yards behind Chesley when he turned right onto the highway that bisected the town.

Ignoring Dougal’s bleating and the death grip he had on my stomach, I flipped my face shield down, leaned over the handlebars, and turned the accelerator toward me.

A surge of wanton recklessness suddenly washed over me and I forgot Dougal and Simon were on the seat behind, forgot even my own safety.

For a few enchanted moments, I wasn’t anything-for-a-buck Bliss Moonbeam Cornwall, rejected wife and trailer park dweller. I became Indiana Bliss, saviour of the world, hurtling through the night with 350 pounds of steel between my thighs.