“You know, they’ll smother him with kindness, and he’ll keep hitting the bottle,” Tony said, as they waited in the drive-through line at Timmy’s.

Neil paid for their lunch. “He’ll sober up pretty fast when he’s sitting on the curb with his squirrel-girl drawings and his outdated audio equipment.”

“Where are we going now?” Tony sunk his teeth into his honey-mustard chicken sandwich.

Neil drove with one hand on the wheel, while bolting down his BLT. “We’re going to the Belcourt greenhouse.Cornwall will be there. You can ask her what those cone-shaped objects in the photo are. Because, fucked if I know.”

CHAPTER

seventeen

Neil grunted in satisfaction when they turned off Concession 10 into the greenhouse parking lot. “We’re in luck. That’s Fang Davidson’s truck beside Cornwall’s Matrix.”

Tony set his feet carefully onto the slush-covered pavement. “There’s nothing taped to her roof. Who’s your money on if they’re in there slugging it out for custody of that tacky mirror ball?”

“Cornwall, hands down. She won’t be thwarted by an old classmate who’s in legal possession of a sparkly object she covets.”

The main greenhouse door opened into an anteroom, which, in turn, led into a foyer. The top of a marble table held one small blooming plant in a black pot. This was Rae Zaborski’s desk when she worked as receptionist. Two dirt-filled, four-foot-high containers took pride of place in opposite corners.

Tony looked down at the label on one of the pots. “Titan arum. What the hell’s that? There’s nothing in here. Big tub of dirt is all.”

“They’re dormant, or the seeds are growing, something like that. It’s also known as a Corpse Flower, and we’re lucky it isn’t blooming. It flowered last summer and take my word for it, a five-day-old corpse smells better. One of these jungle plants stunk up the whole east end of town.”

“Sorry I missed that,” Tony said and a smile tugged at his lips. “Where is everybody?”

They moved forward into a corridor. One side looked out on a vista of rooms separated by transparent walls. In the distance, a worker operated a spraying machine while in another room two people wearing lab coats, hats, and masks bent over a bench. Sharp instruments hung from their gloved hands.

Neil noticed the red tendrils of hair spilling from the cap of the taller figure: Glory Yates. When Tony raised his hand to rap on the glass, Neil stopped him. “We need to find Fang and Cornwall. Let’s try the offices along here.”

“This place reminds me of a fuckin’ funeral parlour, it’s so quiet.” Tony rolled his shoulders. “I can hear those friggin’ plants growing. And are those crickets, or frogs?”

Neil listened. “Sounds like frogs, but I wouldn’t bet on it around here. Come on.”

A group of small office cubicles with opaque walls lined the far end of the corridor. In the middle office, Dougal Seabrook tapped frenetically on a laptop. A grey parrot perched on his shoulder, ribbiting like a pond full of bullfrogs. The bird turned its beady black eyes toward the two men in the doorway and croaked, “Boys, it’s the fuzz. Hide the reefers!”

Seabrook had taught the bird to react at the sight of a uniform, any uniform, including the hydro meter reader and the UPS driver.

Tony’s loud guffaw caused Seabrook to glance up, but his fingers remained on the keyboard. “Afternoon, Neil. If you’re looking for Bliss, she’s around somewhere.”

According to Cornwall, her cousin was working on his second novel, another steamy mystery about murder with a nineteenth-century setting. Seabrook’s gaze moved over Tony without curiosity and then dropped to his keyboard again. “Try the atrium. Unless she left. She works fewer hours than a banker.”

“How can you tell an atrium from the rest of this place?” Tony asked, looking up at the vast, clear ceiling above their heads.

Neil shrugged, picking up the thick, heavy scent of wet earth. His nose itched.

“How come there are so many rooms?” Tony indicated the vista of plants. Every hue of the rainbow was represented in the blossoms, and every shade of green in the leaves and stems.

“Maybe some plants need more light and humidity than others,” Neil guessed. He knew little about exotic plants, and cared even less. He sneezed. Fungi spores were airborne, weren’t they? He picked up his pace but halted when he heard voices ahead.

Rain drummed on the panes and slid down the walls. The atrium dwarfed the rest of the structure. The enclosure had glass walls and a door like the plant rooms, but lowered screens hid the interior from their view. The space stretched the length of the greenhouse.

“Just a little more, Fang. That’s it, to the right, just a little. Now you’re getting it,” Cornwall’s voice encouraged.

Male groaning accompanied Cornwall’s urging. “Come on, Bliss. I can’t stay in this position much longer. This thing is forty inches across.”

Tony looked at Neil. “Man, are you sure you want to go in there?”

Neil pushed past his friend and opened the door.

Cornwall had her arms wrapped around the bottom supports of a twenty-foot stepladder while she strained her neck to look up.

Fang stood on the uppermost rung, reaching up with pliers in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other.

They approached quietly, not wanting to startle Fang. “He’s a dead man if he falls from that height,” Tony mentioned casually.

Fang spotted them and called down, “Can you arrest her? I came to deliver some parcels, and Bliss acts like I’m her slave. She made me help her unload all the Christmas junk from her car, then I had to give her the motor and electrical cord she forgot to steal last night along with my ball and tarp. Now, I’m risking my life setting this up for her. She’s bossier than my wife.”

“He has four children,” Cornwall called over her shoulder. “Isn’t that careless of him?”

Neil pulled Tony aside. “Get Fang off that ladder. See if you can get him talking about his sister’s life before she disappeared. I’ll take one for the team and ask Cornwall our burning question of the day.”

Cornwall wanted assurances from Fang that the motor was rigged up before giving him permission to descend. She flicked the switch beside the door, to ensure the glitter ball revolved.

“It works!” Then her smile receded. “Wait a minute. What happened to the spotlight, Fang?”

“It didn’t work, so I threw it out. Get Chico to donate a new light or, here’s a thought, buy one.”

“But you’re still going to come back and take the ball down after the benefit, right? And hang it in my garage?”

Neil took Cornwall’s hand and pulled her to one side, leaving Fang to Tony. “Never mind that right now. Tell me what those two cone-shaped objects are.”

“First, tell me where you found them.” Cornwall never played games, except sometimes in the bedroom. But blackmailing came as naturally to her as breathing, even if she considered it negotiating.

“I’m the one who asks the questions. You answer them. That’s the way it works.”

“Well, pardon me. How about this, then? I’ll guess and you tell me if I’m right.” She didn’t wait for his agreement. “You found them in the locker room close to the body.”

It took effort to keep his face neutral. She guessed again.

“Or else they were actually in the locker with Faith. Both of them.”

He gritted his teeth before recalling his dentist’s advice about grinding and enamel loss. Relaxing his jaw, he looked down at Cornwall’s head. “All right! They were in the locker with the bones. Now, what are they?”

She offered up a dazzling smile. “Six-inch cones. Imagine them wrapped with green tape. And filled with a lovely floral arrangement of red roses and babies’ breath.”