Final Arrangements Read online

  FINAL ARRANGEMENTS

  By Donna Huston Murray

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  You are invited to contact the author at http://www.donnahustonmurray.com

  Other Ginger Barnes Main Line Mysteries for Kindle:

  THE MAIN LINE IS MURDER

  SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS

  NO BONES ABOUT IT

  CURED …but not out of danger A Lauren Beck Crime Novel

  FINAL ARRANGEMENTS

  Copyright 1996 by Donna Huston Murray

  Revised 2011

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share it with another person, please purchase it as a gift. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  Chapter 1

  A bump in the road bounced Mother's chin off her chest and opened her eyes. She grimaced at the light thrown by my elderly Nissan station wagon.

  "Good morning," I said.

  "Umph," she replied.

  When she seemed alert enough, I said, "Tell me again. Why are we doing this?"

  A sigh. "You know Sylvia planned Alfie's retirement party months ago. I couldn't very well let her down."

  I steered into a curve.

  "That part I understand." For an early start, ordinarily Mother would have stayed overnight with Rip and me. The party meant I had to be at Mother's at 5 a.m., drive to Bryn Mawr to pick up her friend Winifred "Iffy" Bigelow, then hurry along to the Pennsylvania Convention Center so Iffy could do an entry in the world-famous Philadelphia International Flower Show. Apparently competition went on all week.

  "What I'd really like to know is why your friend Iffy offered us maintenance passes."

  "Because I don't drive, and I was sure you'd love to go."

  "No, Mom..."

  "I beg your pardon, you practically jumped at the chance."

  I wagged my head. "What I actually said was, `If you need me to drive, I'll take you.'"

  Mother stiffened. "Well, I'm terribly sorry to put you out. I thought you'd be delighted to avoid the crowds."

  “I am very happy about that.” I hated seeing the flower show an inch at a time. “But what I'm trying to find out is why we were offered not one but two maintenance passes. People who belong there have trouble getting them. Why did this `Iffy' person offer them to you?"

  "What do you mean, why?"

  "Why? W-H-Y. Why?"

  "Her car is in the shop."

  I braked a little hard for a red light. "Let me put this another way. Who the hell is Iffy Bigelow?"

  Mother blinked. "She came to the funeral." I understood her to mean my father's funeral since it was the only one we had attended together in the last decade.

  "Mom, nobody said more than a sentence to us that day. Sometimes less."

  "You'll remember.” She recalled details with ease. Since she considered me to be the new-improved product of Cynthia and Donald Struve, naturally I would retain whatever she had and more. "Iffy Bigelow," she prompted. "We were in high school together."

  Surely I wasn't expected to remember that! I stretched to make some connection, if only to finish the conversation.

  "Is her husband named Arthur, by any chance?" A few years back I took an investment course from a dry stick named Arthur Bigelow, until I caught on that you needed money to make money. Discerning my frustration, Arthur had invited me for coffee and suggested a couple ways to start a college fund for the kids. I thanked him, and we parted company. Nice enough guy, but stiff as starch.

  "That's right." Mother gloated.

  "Small world," I said, "but I still don't remember Iffy."

  "You will," Mother assured me. "You will."

  While my car coughed itself out in the driveway of the Bigelows' hulking Tudor, I squinted at the two women silhouetted by the front door light. Mother's friend had to be the short lump with the hat, but all I recognized was the set of her shoulders and the way her purse hung from her fist. She was loaded for bear.

  "Oh, good," Mother remarked. "I thought we might have to pick up Julia."

  "Julia who?"

  "Iffy's niece. We'll be looking after the girl while Iffy's busy with her entries."

  Before I could press for more, Mother began relocating to the back seat, leaving the amenities to me. I rolled my eyes and climbed out into the chilled March air.

  "You're late," Iffy Bigelow shouted with a voice that could singe paint.

  I glanced at my watch. Five twenty-two. According to Mother's schedule, we were early. "We're okay by me,” I told her when I got close enough. “Should we have synchronized watches?"

  "Don't get flip with me, young woman." Mrs. Bigelow ignored my outstretched hand, so I swung it toward the younger woman cowering behind her.

  "Ginger Struve Barnes," I said, maintaining my friendly expression. Not really the "girl" mother described, like me Iffy's niece was at least thirty, yet her ingenuous expression spoke of a sheltered life.

  "Julia Stone," she mumbled, accepting my handshake with a delicate hand. Little puffs of breath condensed and dispersed around us.

  I willed a little extra kindness onto my own face; adults just don't look that uncomplicated without a reason. Lord knows there were complications and undertones written all over her aunt.

  Winifred Bigelow tapped a foot, and Julia jumped to retrieve a cardboard box from the stoop.

  "Give that to her," Iffy commanded, efficiently insulting her niece and reducing me to a flunky with one succinct phrase.

  I accepted the carton with a sympathetic smile.

  Meanwhile, Iffy collected a bulky potted plant off the step. Its leaves were a fistful of splayed green belts. From the center rose a tall stalk sporting a pompon of orange trumpets.

  "It's a clivia," she announced, adding, "in perfect condition," as she cringed away from her niece.

  We all paraded toward Mother, who wiggled her fingers hello through the rear window.

  "Julia! Open that back door," Iffy barked.

  I practiced projecting saintly patience as I slid the open carton of arrangement equipment and padded plant materials into the rear of the car.

  Julia leaned close. "I'm just out of the hospital," she confided with pride. "My psychiatrist said I was ready for an outing."

  My eyes widened, and my smile went stiff. Clinical depression? Paranoia? Schizophrenia? You can't help wondering, but you don't dare ask.

  "Congratulations," I said, hanging onto that smile.

  We each climbed into the Nissan thinking our own thoughts.

  "No expressways," the blooming big shot commanded. A clue perhaps to why she felt we were late?

  I risked a questioning glance. No wink, no joke. She actually wanted a whistle-stop tour of the Main Line. This was developing into quite a morning.

  "You're the boss," I said. One time, I reminded myself. Once and done.

  I heard a rustling in the back seat as I backed the car into the street—mother sensing the tension between Iffy and me and itching to diffuse it.

  "All set, are we?" she asked, sounding ominously like a kindergarten teacher.

  Iffy's mind was elsewhere. "Cynthia. Have you seen a paper yet?" she asked my mother. "Ours didn't come."

  "Sorry, dear."

  A raised eyebrow queried me.

  I turned onto Lancaster aiming for the city fifteen miles away. "Not yet," I answered. At 4:30 when my alarm went off, not even the birds were up.

  "Coverage has been deplorable," Iffy complained. "They had a few photos last Saturday, a minimal spread for Sunday's off
icial opening, and then scarcely anything the rest of the week. The largest, most prestigious show in the world–and they treat it like, like it was nothing."

  "Well, it's Friday, dear. Maybe they ran out of things to say."

  I might have added "years ago" to Mother’s comment. The spreads I'd seen on the annual nine-day event reminded me of the desperate human interest pieces they’d done for a recent Olympics.

  Steering around a van turning into Dunkin' Donuts, I inquired, "Did they ever interview you?"

  Iffy bristled, so apparently not.

  "Now that would be a good article," Mother enthused. "Did I tell you Iffy won the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society's Grand Sweepstakes trophy last year? She earned more points in more categories than anybody else. Isn't that right, dear?" Iffy didn't respond, so Mother just kept talking. "She's making a run at it again this year, too."

  Under her breath Iffy muttered, "Watch out for that pothole."

  "Tell Ginger about that day when what's-his-name approved your container," Mother urged.

  "She doesn't want to hear that."

  "Oh yes she does." Mother punched my sleeve.

  "What happened?" I asked. Julia seemed to be asleep.

  "It was years ago." Iffy sighed and gazed through the windshield as if viewing a film she'd seen once too often. "My garden club was doing a table arrangement that year–do you know anything about them?"

  I did, from a friend involved with the show. They are simulated dining rooms, perhaps five or six spaced side by side on either side of an aisle. Different decors, but always with a floral arrangement as the focal point. Because of the expense, I had the impression they were mostly prepared by garden clubs with about sixty members.

  Iffy accepted my nod. "Well, I found a container that reflected the lines of a chair in the painting we had for our back wall. Miriam Snelling insisted that we use an atrocious antique vase. We argued–that is the five of us on the committee–until I noticed the chairman of the show walking by…"

  "Gin," Mother interrupted. "You have to understand the power this guy had. His endorsement could make or break a career."

  "…and I invited him over to give us his opinion." Iffy didn't appreciate the interruption, even if it did enhance her story.

  "What a chance you took!" Mother exclaimed.

  "Yes."

  "He picked your container?"

  "Yes."

  Mother again. "He raved about it, Gin. `Look how it reflects the lines of that chair,' he said. `It's perfect.' Made Iffy's reputation right on the spot. Isn't that right?"

  "Yes. That's true."

  "Really?"

  Iffy still seemed disinclined to speak to me, so Mother elaborated. "Yes indeed. One minute Iffy's the token newcomer on the committee and the next minute she's an authority."

  "Your club win?" I asked.

  Iffy snorted. "Miriam's gladiolus overpowered the design. I told them how to fix it for Wednesday–tables are judged Saturday and again Wednesday–but they botched it."

  I found the container, but they botched it. Yea, team.

  "You still in a club?" The question was out of my mouth before I realized it might not be tactful.

  Winifred Bigelow skewered me with her eyes. Not only had she caught my implied criticism of her people skills, my name was now in her permanent ledger. "Not at the present," she replied. Then she added, "Watch the road."

  Trying to seem unfazed, I spoke to Mother over my shoulder. "I had no idea people take the show so seriously." Naively, I always thought the perfection viewed by the public was of the whimsical, "Oh, your azalea is lovely–why don't you enter it?" variety. Apparently Iffy and her ilk were not the dabblers I had imagined. Rather they were deadly serious competitors clawing their way up a social lattice I never knew existed.

  My token display of interest delighted Mother. Leaning forward, she confided that one year Arthur wanted to take a vacation six months before the show, “but Iffy refused to leave her plants. Isn't that right, dear?" Poor Arthur.

  Iffy snorted. "Lots of people stay home to get ready."

  "And spend any amount it takes to win," Mother added.

  Another impatient sigh. "Of course. There aren't any limits. You can hire an army of professionals, or you can do it yourself. The judges only care about the final result."

  Mother was into it. "Once they drove some flowers four hundred miles across Africa on top of a bus at night just to fly them to Philadelphia for an exhibit. And they've hand-carried specimens down from the volcanoes of Hawaii, too. I saw it in the paper."

  "Not this year," Iffy muttered.

  Minutes later, with dawn's early light defining the hotels and apartment buildings, we arrived at the western border of Philadelphia. Mostly for the sake of the clivia, I bumped across City Line Avenue on yellow rather than stopping short. Julia woke up, and Mrs. Bigelow responded with a tight-lipped glower.

  Naturally, Mother felt it necessary to draw Julia out of her fog and into her circle of imagined warmth. "You're probably wondering why Ginger is driving instead of me," she said. Iffy's chin jerked.

  "The simple truth is I lost my license." Dramatic pause.

  "Lost it?" Julia repeated.

  "Can't find it anywhere."

  The young woman's self-conscious giggle was just what I needed to hear. Mother, too, because I glimpsed her smug grin in my mirror.

  The street soon ducked under an overpass and set us onto the tree-lined West River Drive. To our left across a brief swath of dead grass lay the Schuylkill River, black and swollen from last night's heavy rain.

  While we waited for a traffic light, a trash truck lumbered across a deep brick gutter to turn left in front of us. For a moment the top-heavy vehicle wobbled precariously over my tiny car.

  "Why did you stop so far into the intersection?" Iffy snapped. "Honestly, if I wanted to ride with someone this reckless, I could have taken a cab."

  Determined not to lose my composure, I inquired whether coffee would be available at the Convention Center this early.

  Iffy showed me the back of her head, and Mother leaned forward to whisper, “Stage nerves,” into my ear.

  The light changed. I shifted from first to second. My muffler blew. A scraping, dragging noise suggested a broken clamp. Iffy Bigelow grumbled under her breath.

  I parked under the nearest street lamp on a grassy spot between two gnarled trees. When I turned off the ignition, the silence was extreme.

  Instinctively, Mother filled the vacuum. "Need any help, dear?"

  Declining politely, I scrambled out of the car, but not quite fast enough to escape her next line. "Ginger's so capable–she can fix anything."

  With the aid of a flashlight and the duct tape I carry in the car, I did manage to wrap a crack in the burning hot pipe just in front of the muffler. After a censorious stare, Iffy consented to the use of her wire cutters and one of the two extension cords from her box of flower arranging equipment (I'd already borrowed some gloves without asking), and in about fifteen minutes I had the muffler tied off the ground. Nothing could be done about the roar, but at least we wouldn't be throwing off sparks.

  Wet grass stuck to my hair, my lined raincoat needed dry cleaning, and sometime in the very near future I would have to pay for the privilege of spending an hour on a plastic chair smelling stale cigarettes and reading old magazines and car repair jokes Scotch-taped to a plywood counter. I didn't care if Iffy Bigelow was defending her title as Big Shot of the Big Shots of the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society or the world. I'd heard enough out of her. I turned on my radio–loud. To an oldies station.

  Dumbstruck, Iffy stared at the horizon–presently pigeon-colored office buildings backlighted in pearl gray. On the opposite riverbank, dawn had dimmed the white lights that outline Boathouse Row.

  Checking in my mirror, I saw Julia twisting a strand of hair around her finger. She looked bewildered and frail, and the thought of such an apparently sweet person incapacitated by a mental illness made m
e count my blessings, one of whom was petting Julia's hand and beaming motherly trust into the back of my head.

  Figuring I had no Brownie points to lose, I turned up the radio. Julia added another notch to her forehead, Iffy squeezed another wrinkle into her collection, and Mother tapped in time with a free finger.

  For us and all the passing parts of West Philadelphia, Jerry Lee Lewis belted out "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On." Courageous programming for six o'clock on a Friday morning.

  I probably should have listened to the words.

  Chapter 2

  Spanning more than a city block, the Pennsylvania Convention Center looked like a raised office building with nowhere left to grow. I found the adjacent D Hall where exhibitors were allowed to park and unload until nine-thirty. Enclosed by cement, my muffler roared like all the souls of hell; we could scarcely hear the radio.

  "I think this is the Beatles," I shouted as if conversation were possible. Yes, it seemed to be their version of "Twist and Shout," done in one take to spare John's tortured vocal chords. Easing down an aisle of parked cars, I wondered once again how the British managed to sound so American the minute they opened their mouths to sing.

  Abruptly, Iffy punched off the music and threatened me with her face. I turned back to my driving just in time to brake for an obstruction. A creamy beige BMW containing a white-haired, wild-eyed driver squatted sideways across our path.

  "You idiot!" Iffy shouted. "You went the wrong way. You almost got us killed! You are the worst driver I have ever encountered." She hugged her houseplant and huffed.

  Judging by insurance rates, my driving was about average for Philadelphia. Plus I was almost positive there had been no directional sign. Maintenance passes or no, next time the old grouch could take that cab.

  "Just pull over there," she commanded.

  There happened to be thirty yards ahead, in front of a large, guarded elevator door. Iffy jammed a "HORT" tag on my rear-view mirror, then we all climbed out. Iffy also flashed her exhibitor button, and before she knew what was happening, the guard had lifted the hatch of my car, extracted her cardboard box, and delivered it into Julia's tentative arms.