The apartment had originally been a floor-through cut up into studios, two per floor, by the building’s previous owner. Lucy’s plan was to knock down the dividing wall, restoring it to a larger one bedroom; but the renovation had hit a snag after she’d had an argument with her contractor. (Never sleep with your contractor until the work is finished or at least at the punch list stage.) Now the place looked like a deranged person had taken a sledgehammer to the wall or, in the words of Rolanda Knox, “an incendiary device” had gone off. It had been that way for months, and Lucy had turned it into a focal point.
I felt a powerful desire to climb into bed and pull the covers over my head, but knew that would only have me up and ravenous at 2 A.M. so I forced myself to stow the perishables and crack open one or two of the pint containers. I fiddled with the remote for five minutes before stumbling upon the magic combination and sequence of button pushing that turned on the television. Mission accomplished, I sank into the love seat with a teaspoon and a plastic bowl of chickpea salad. If good food took time, mine was all ready. I was watching an improbable garden makeover when my cell rang.
“Don’t you pick up messages?”
“Why would I want to talk to someone whose first words to me are a reproach?”
“You’re right. Hey, Paula, it’s been ages. Don’t you pick up messages?” It was Babe Chinnery. She’d been leaving messages on my cell and at my home in Springfield. Someone had been trying to reach the woman at booth 1142 at the flower show, and since Babe’s name was on the registration, whoever it was had dialed her number. Babe thought the caller might be a buyer.
“He said he met you at the convention center. I didn’t want to give him your number. If you’d wanted him to have it, you’d have given it to him, right? Getting his name was like pulling teeth. Garland Bleimeister. Do you know him?”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Hank Mossdale was in the diner tonight. I told him some young stud was tracking you down. I think he was jealous. Guy on the phone sounded young. Are you finally taking my advice and going for some young blood?”
I’d only met one young guy at the show. I wasn’t looking for a date and I didn’t know his name but I had his bag stashed under the cheap royal blue tablecloth at Primo’s booth.
Fourteen
The next morning I left a message for Bleimeister at the number Babe had given me. At the convention center Rolanda Knox was marginally more civil than she’d been the first few days. I thought of asking if she’d seen the young man who’d tried to sneak in, but I didn’t want to bring up a painful subject. I smiled, flashed my badge, and headed for my booth, threading my way through union workers still laying down carpet and hopeful contestants spritzing and pruning their floral entries.
I was expecting another delivery for the prejudged specimen plant categories and braced myself for the notorious trade show issue of drayage. A word that seldom crops up in most conversations. To cut short the six pages of convention mumbo jumbo, your boxes, like Elvis, may be in the building, but until some guy who looks like a member of ZZ Top says so, it’s anyone’s guess when you’ll see them. And new exhibitors were low men on the totem pole who had to dangle candy, free goods, and occasionally cash to light a fire under them. You made your peace with it and thanked them profusely when your merchandise arrived.
I stopped at the concession stand to refuel. The barista had just arrived and it would be five or ten minutes before the coffee was ready, so I took a spin around the floor. Nursery pots and electrical cables had been camouflaged with literally tons of pine bark mulch. Timed mistings kept everything moist, and consequently the entire building smelled like a national park or the woods after a spring rain. Incongruously, the air was also filled with the incessant beeping of service vehicles backing up. When had that become mandatory? If you can see the vehicle, you don’t need that hideous noise; and if you can’t, how will it help?
The beeping died down, first one chirping machine, then another, like quitting time at a factory. Then it stopped entirely and was replaced by footsteps and a flurry of activity. Two men with walkie-talkies materialized and sprinted to a set of escalators at the rear of the convention center. Rolanda and three other guards barreled past me, wearing their game faces and trying not to look alarmed. I followed at a discreet distance. Whatever it was, it was bound to be more interesting than waiting for coffee to brew. Had a deer been spotted? A vole?
A dozen or so onlookers were clustered at the top of the escalator. Below, near an exhibit of storage sheds, more gawkers stood outside a red ten-by-ten unit with faux gingerbread detailing and vinyl hanging planters on the windows. Thirty-seven hundred bucks—I’d talked a client out of buying one by telling her she’d also have to hire seven dwarves to go with it to get the full effect. The white resin planters outside the shed were slightly askew and a trio of smaller pots overturned.
When the guards reached the lower level, the crowd parted and that gave me a somewhat better view down the nonworking escalator. All I saw were two Timberland boots, feet splayed in an awkward pose that didn’t look comfortable and didn’t look healthy.
The convention center’s emergency staff, two handymen with a defibrillator, were quick on the scene, but they looked nervous, inexperienced, and in over their heads. Onlookers stepped aside to let them do their work, but when the real deal arrived in the form of a New York City emergency medical team, the Wagner staff was visibly relieved and moved on to crowd control, a role for which they were better suited. I bumped into Nikki on the way back to our aisle.
“What’s the hubbub this time?” she asked.
“Doesn’t look good. Someone collapsed or maybe had an accident on the escalator.” I considered telling her what I really thought—that the person was as dead as Connie Anzalone’s veronicas—but why jinx him if he was still alive? And why upset her if he wasn’t? I’d seen a man fall over dead during a keynote speech at another trade show once. It wasn’t that dull a talk. He was whisked away and the speaker went right on yakking. Most people didn’t even know about it until they read about someone who’d taken ill in the show daily the next morning. As heartless as it sounded, one monkey don’t stop no show. A brief announcement over the loudspeakers stated the rear escalators were not in service. No reason was given, but Nikki Bingham already had a theory.
“Connie’s husband probably found out who nuked her veronicas and had the person killed.”
Fifteen
“That’s a little harsh,” I said.
“I didn’t mean it. I guess I’m not feeling warm and fuzzy this morning.” I’d just met the woman two days ago. Please tell me she isn’t going to pour her heart out to me.
“Pay no attention to me,” she said. “Momentary lapse.”
We reached our aisle and Nikki got to work, rearranging everything she’d pronounced perfect the day before. David arrived bearing gifts—a Box o’ Joe from Dunkin’ Donuts and an aluminum-foil-covered platter that held a homemade frittata he’d warmed in the microwave in the members’ lounge.
“I could get to like this,” I said, helping myself to a slice. Nikki looked hurt. First I’d refused her crumb cake, then her attempt to get something off her chest, now I was scarfing down someone else’s culinary accomplishment. I’d have to remember to skip breakfast tomorrow and gush over whatever Nikki brought to keep the peace.