Hyacinths and Homicide

After a busy day providing bouquets and pumpkins for a ten year high school reunion at the posh Chesterton Regency Hotel, Lacey Pinkerton is thrilled to have a nice romantic dinner with her boyfriend, Detective James Briggs. But when the reunion's class bully is thrown from the hotel balcony, Briggs is called to duty. Lacey soon finds herself involved in a complicated murder investigation where the evidence points in every direction and the victim has more than his share of enemies.

The store bell clanged behind me as I carefully placed the last potted hyacinth on the counter. The lush blue stalks had cost a pretty penny due to the fact it was late fall and the fragrant flowers were a good six months early for their natural bloom.

Ryder's coat rustled as he pulled it off to hang on the hook. "It's definitely big toe weather."

I pulled my admiring gaze from the flowers and cast him a quizzical brow. "Did you just say it was big toe weather?"

"Yep." He walked over to the work island and took a moment to breathe in the heady scent of the hyacinths before continuing. "My grandpa always knew when it was going to rain. He'd hang onto his gray suspenders with his thumbs—" He nodded. "Yes, he did that, cliché as it sounds and his belly was round too." Ryder stepped back, pushed out his stomach and hooked his thumbs around invisible suspenders. "He'd stand just like this and bellow, 'my toe's achin' so it's gonna rain, sure as I'm standing here."

"My dad always says his bones hurt when the weather is changing, but I don't know if I've ever heard someone predict weather with his toe. Was he usually right?"

"Spot on every time but that's not the crazy thing about it."

Kingston gurgled from his window perch to catch Ryder's attention. Ryder walked over and grabbed the crow's treat can and pulled out a peanut butter dog bone. "The crazy part about the story was that Grandpa didn't have any big toes." Ryder handed Kingston the treat and walked back to the counter. "When my grandpa was fourteen, he and a group of friends had gone off on a hike in the snow behind his dad's farm. They got lost for three nights. His work boots had so many holes, he ended up with frostbite. They had to cut off his two big toes."

"That's terrible. Poor guy. But then how did he predict the weather with them?"

"He claimed he could still feel the toes. You know how people can still feel their limbs after they've lost them? Same thing with toes, I guess. And he claimed that they'd be throbbing in his shoes when the weather was turning bad."

"He sounds wonderful. Is he still around?" I moved the hyacinths back farther on the counter so I could design the centerpieces for the high school reunion.

Ryder's shoulders dropped some. "No, we lost him to a bad heart four summers ago, but he had one of those personalities that just permeated our lives. Still does. That's why we always say it's bad toe weather when it's about to rain."

"I'm sorry to hear that. He sounds adorable and grandpa-ish."

"Yellow roses, right?" Ryder asked as he headed toward the refrigeration unit where we kept roses and cut flowers fresh for bouquets.

"Yes, thanks, and I'll get the vases."

Ryder and I met back at the work counter to create the arrangements. He took another whiff of the spike of bluish-purple flowers. "You know, I don't think these hot house blooms smell nearly as strong as the ones that bloom naturally in spring."

I leaned forward and ran my fingers gently along the petal laden stems. Each bloom resembled a tiny purple starfish packed snugly into clusters of waxy florets. Glossy green leaves framed the bottom of the stalk, providing the perfect contrast for the bluish-purple flowers. "You might be right about the fragrance. When I worked for the perfume industry, I spent a lot of hours with my sniffer poked into stalks of hyacinths. They're a popular fragrance for cosmetics. And as I recall, they always made me sneeze. These have a rich, heady scent but no sneezes. Of course, now that I said it, my nose is tickling." I rubbed it a few times to stop the tingle. "All I know is these forced bloom hyacinths cost four times as much as the blooming bulbs do in spring. But Debra Geppler, the woman in charge of the reunion, insisted that the centerpieces for the luncheon contain Blue Jacket Hyacinths and Bright Canary Yellow Roses. Supposedly the two flowers are a perfect match for the school's colors, royal blue and yellow."