Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2004

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.

“It’s common procedure to have a stolen card denied,” I said, “or to be contacted by the credit card company if the transaction is unusual. Two days is a long time. I would have heard.”

“Maybe normally,” Whittig said, “but this isn’t normal.”

“Perhaps you’d better fill me in, then,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I have heard?”

“Because the cardholder is dead,” Barret said. “He couldn’t report it missing.”

I frowned. “Even so, the credit card companies monitor transactions. They should have noticed something unusual.”

“There’s nothing unusual about buying flowers from a neighborhood vendor,” Whittig said. “I’m sure someone would’ve noticed the card was missing if it’d been used more than the once. But it wasn’t. It hasn’t been used at all since two days ago.”

“So how do you think I can help you?” I asked. “Would you like me to look up the record? If the card was stolen, I probably won’t have much you can go on.”

Barret looked pointedly at my mirrors and the single camera hidden behind an extremely well-tended spider plant. “Maybe you got video of the person who used the card?”

“Two days ago?” I nodded. “I keep the tapes for months.”

“Holy Christ,” Whittig said to Barret. “Someone who actually follows the security company’s directions.”