Cover
CORPSE
FLOWER
A Cornwall and Redfern Mystery
Gloria Ferris
Dedication
For my special loves:
Olyvia, Talia, Dante, Aimee, Rowyn, and Lennon
Chapter
ONE
From noon Saturday until he was found late that night, Julian Barnfeather lay toes up in the Good Shepherd Cemetery. The ideal place for a corpse, except he was sans casket in the tool shed.
When Chief Redfern learned that I, Bliss Moonbeam Cornwall, spent the day not fifty metres away, he zeroed in on me like a shark eyeing up a sun-baked tourist. How was I supposed to know Julian was dead? I assumed he was in the shed, because he rarely went anywhere else. I thought he was drinking booze-laced coffee and thumbing through his stack of hard-core magazines.
Except for Julian, I liked my Saturday job well enough. There are worse ways to make a buck than raking pinecones and pruning bushes in a quiet cemetery. But, Julian was a four-hundred-pound disgusting pig. A greasy mullet thatched his moon-sized head and his features disappeared into folds of flesh. Between his breath, his sweat-stained shirts, and the odours of whatever else he did in there, my stomach flipped every Saturday morning when I gathered my tools.
That morning was no different. I held my breath and squeezed past his chair. He looked and smelled no worse than usual, certainly no better. He made a few suggestive remarks, as always, his satisfied mirth rumbling out the door behind me. I threw a “fuck you” over my shoulder, and he laughed even harder.
I had to put up with him. If I charged Julian with sexual harassment, the Cemetery Board would find a reason to terminate me. I was a seasonal worker, contracted from April to November, while Julian was a long-time, permanent employee of the Town of Lockport. He was not required to show up on Saturdays, but he always did.
Suing Julian wouldn’t help, either. Even if I had the money, there wasn’t an ambulance-chaser in town who would represent me. All were colleagues of my ex-husband, Mike Bains — or “the Weasel,” as I had come to think of him.
I carried my rake, hoe, and clippers to the newer plots close to the wrought-iron fence surrounding the cemetery. Rows of pines and maples hid the shed from view. I tried to forget about Julian, and relaxed in the tranquillity of the grove, my emotional balance temporarily restored. Julian was really the least of my problems.
The wet southwestern Ontario spring had finally given way to the sunny, mild temperatures perfect for early June. As I worked, I amused myself by reading the words on the epitaphs. “He Loved Too Well” adorned one grave. One had to wonder how he died. Another gravestone read “Another Place, Another Time.” Was that a threat, or a promise?
Around four, my BlackBerry chirped, drowning out the birds in the overhead branches. I had been ignoring it all day, but now I pulled it out of the bib pocket of my overalls. I swiped my dripping hairline and checked the display.
Yes, it was Dougal wanting something. What a pain. There was no point putting him off any longer, so I settled myself on Alistair Parks’s flat, raised gravestone, 1902 to 1989, and leaned back. The chill from the granite helped to lower my body temperature.
“Bliss? Finally! I’ve been calling all day. Why didn’t you answer?”
I sighed as I squirmed to relieve the knots in my back muscles. “Can I do something for you, Dougal?”
“We can do something for each other, dear cousin. Just wait till you hear my proposition.”
Dougal was sounding way too cheerful and calm for someone with his condition. Just last week he had called in a panic, saying a rat was chasing the songbirds in his backyard. I didn’t find any rat, but a possum was hanging from the feeder outside his kitchen windows, scooping up the sunflower seeds and smirking at us through the glass. It was more than enough to shake a tightly wrapped thirty-four-year-old ex-high-school teacher who was the centre of his own fast-spinning universe.
“How’s the therapy going?” I picked a twig off Alistair’s stone and dropped it into the pyramid of pinecones on the ground.
“Really good. Today, Melanie and I went into the backyard. We only stayed a few minutes, but it’s the first time I’ve been outside in months. The sun felt great.”
“Wonderful. You’ll be taking a vacation in Costa Rica before you know it.” Melanie was a therapist who made house calls, which was fortunate since Dougal insisted he couldn’t go to her office. But, hey, that’s agoraphobia for you.
“Yes, but that’s not why I called. I have a job for you. Thor is going to blossom, within days, and I need you to help pollinate him.”
I had never heard of a Thor, and I knew it would be next to impossible for me to pollinate anything. And, as a plant expert, Dougal should know how to do it himself.
After a moment, I responded, “I don’t know what medication you’re on now, but you better look up the side effects. Have you tried some deep breathing exercises? Do you want me to call Melanie?”
“This is Saturday, isn’t it? It’s past four o’clock now, so come over when you’re done work and I’ll explain. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars. That should boost your Indict the Weasel Fund.”
I bolted upright. “Who do you want me to kill?”
“You’re hilarious, Bliss, but that’s not the smartest thing to say on a cellphone. I’ll tell you exactly what I want you to do when you get here. At the rate Thor is growing, sexual maturity will occur any day.”
“I’ll be right over.” The reference to sexual maturity worried me a bit, but still, a thousand dollars? Despite Dougal’s tendency to dramatize every mundane event, I was intrigued by his offer to pay me mega bucks to pollinate something — how hard could it be, really?
Chapter
TWO
At quitting time, I dropped my armful of tools outside the shed door to avoid another confrontation with Julian and sprinted to my red Savage. The 1996 650 single-cylinder Suzuki Savage motorcycle was my gift to myself, purchased after I pawned my engagement and wedding rings. It was the best exchange I ever made. From mid-April until late November I was able to ride to my assorted jobs around town, and I could afford to fill up the tank once a week.
Lockport, population 7,021, has the usual mix of well-to-do and poverty-line citizens. Dougal belongs to the former, and so did I until my divorce two years ago. That situation flung me quickly into the latter category. I didn’t like it, and I wasn’t going to stay there.
Yes, I learned the hard way. Never marry a lawyer while in university, support him through law school, then expect him
