I never thought my gift would be used to terrorize someone.
My fingers were shaking as I sat behind the desk. My computer slept, the dark screen running the shop’s logo against a backdrop of lilies.
I used the mouse to wake up the machine, then I went into the day’s order files. I searched by recipient. My software was so well designed (thanks to a former lover) that I found Ruth-Anne’s order quickly, even though I’d had a very busy morning.
The information rose in front of me like a rap sheet. The flowers were ordered by a Dwight Rhodes, and he paid with a platinum American Express card. He lived in SoHo. I recognized the address as one of the newer co-ops that had sprung up in recent years.
There was nothing in his information that would have made me suspicious. I didn’t even wonder why he came to my shop, which was nowhere near his home. A lot of people walked past here on their way to work; I would simply have figured if I had even thought about it at all that he was one of them.
As a double measure, I checked Ruth-Anne Grant’s address. She lived in the Village, one of those twisty neighborhoods with funky apartments and a lot of local color. I wondered how Rhodes had first seen her — whether they worked near each other, or had stumbled into each other at some restaurant.
I checked the in-store window. Ruth-Anne was waiting by the counter now, leaning away from the roses as if they might poison her.
I scrawled his name down, then shut down the program before heading out front.
“Here,” I said, handing her the paper, not wanting to speak his name aloud. “This is the man who ordered your flowers.”
She stared at the paper for a long time. She had stopped shaking. In fact, she seemed calmer now than she had when she had entered the shop.
Outside, the couple shook their heads and walked on. A woman wearing black fondled the wisteria I had wrapped around a clay statue. A man leaned against a lamp post, drinking bottled water, and watched her examine the plant.
“Could you tell me anything else?” Ruth-Anne had looked up from the paper. The blotchiness had left her skin. Now it was just pale. I could see exhaustion in her features, exhaustion so deep I wondered how she could function from day to day.
“I just don’t feel right giving you anything else,” I said. “I’m not even sure I should have given you his name.”
“Just tell me this,” she said. “Does he live in Manhattan?”
I nodded.
“Near me?”
I figured I could give her that much. I shook my head no.
“Is he Uptown or—”
“I can’t,” I said. “Really. I’ll talk to the police. I’ll give them everything they need. Just send them in here, and they’ll take care of it.”
Her mouth closed, her lips tight over her teeth, almost as if she were physically holding the words back. She took a deep breath, obviously gathering herself, and then she extended her hand.
“You’ve been a lot of help. I’m sorry I was so upset when I came in.”
I took her hand. She was so thin that I could feel the bones beneath her skin. “Anyone would be under the circumstances.”
She nodded, then slipped her hand out of mine. She headed toward the front of the store.
I scurried around the counter and said, “Wait.”
She turned.
I grabbed a small pot of pansy starts. “Here,” I said. “Take this.”
Ruth-Anne frowned. “What for?”
“I just — don’t want you think of flowers as bad things. These’ll grow in your kitchen window or on your balcony. If you let them, they’ll take care of you all summer.”
She studied them for a moment, just like she had studied the paper. Then she took them from me.
“Thank you,” she said, and she smiled. The smile gave her a bit of life, made me see what she had been like before this entire ordeal started. “I had forgotten how kind people can be.”
And then she left.
I stood among the pansy starts for another ten minutes, just staring outside my shop. The misters came on once, caught me in their spray, and eased some of the heat. People wandered by on the sidewalk, sometimes touching, always admiring the plants.
The man, leaning against the lamp post, finished his bottle of water and went inside the deli next door. A teenager skateboarded by, leaping off the curb so that he avoided my display.
I went back to my arrangement, but my heart wasn’t in it. Instead, I grabbed the roses from the box, removed the damaged ones, and put them in a bucket of water.
I grabbed a sign from my desk drawer — FREE. TAKE ONE — and taped it to the bucket. Then I put the bucket outside.
As I did, a woman who looked wilted from the heat stopped in front of me.
“Free?” she said. “Really?”
“Really.”
She picked up the most perfect rose and rubbed it against her cheek, her eyes half closed.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you.”
And then she walked away.
I smiled, feeling better. Then I went back inside, feeling refreshed enough to give everything I had to finishing the funeral arrangement before my delivery guy showed up.
The police arrived two days later.
Rain had broken the heat, and spring had returned to the city. My shop door was open, like it had been during the heat wave, but now cool breezes blew through, albeit cool breezes smelling of auto exhaust and garlic-ginger from the Asian-synth restaurant on the corner.
I knew from the moment the two men entered the store that they weren’t customers. My customers browse. They touch leaves, sniff flowers, run hands lovingly on clay pots. These men strode in, coats flaring behind them. Plants trembled in their wake.
I watched from the counter, my finger hovering above the panic alarm I had installed after the teenager incident. If the men tried anything, I’d press the button and a siren would blare. I would use that moment to duck and run to the back, hoping I could make it out of the store before the men realized where I had gone.
They were both white with black hair and chiseled faces that would have been attractive if they hadn’t had such hard lines. Broad shoulders, muscular arms, and beneath the coats, the bulge of shoulder holsters that hid guns.
The taller one reached me first. He had a flare of gray at his temples that softened the hard edge. If I had met him in a bar, I might have bought him a drink, hoping for some conversation before we had a dance or two. But I could tell from his posture that he was the kind of man who would never dance with another man. The only way he would enter the bars I frequented would be by accident.
“Mr. Shelton?” His voice was deep, authoritative. I jumped in spite of myself.
My hand trembled over that button, even though I knew at that point that this man was not going to rob me. “Yes?”
He flashed a badge at me. I struggled to see it clearly. My finger remained near the button.
“I’m Detective Whittig. This is Detective Barret.” Whittig indicated the shorter man who had stopped behind him. They both stared at me.
My hand had moved away from the button.
“May I see your badge again?” I asked, glad that my voice sounded calmer than I felt.
Whittig opened the badge wallet and I peered inside. It looked official enough.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
“Two days ago, you ran a stolen credit card to pay for some flowers.”
I probably did that more often than I realized, but no cops had ever visited me because of it.
“No credit card company has contacted me,” I said.
“They wouldn’t.” The second detective, Barret, had one of those dry voices that sounded sarcastic even when he wasn’t trying to be.