Shoots to Kill
A Flower Shop Mystery
by Kate Collins
ISBN: 0451224744    Signet

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Last I heard, being a five-foot-two, green-eyed redhead wasn't a crime. But that's precisely why I, Abby Knight, was yanked out of my car by a state trooper, handcuffed, and thrown in jail.

This isn't your average case of mistaken identity.

Eight years ago Abby babysat Elizabeth Blume, a teen who seemed intent on making Abby's life miserable. Elizabeth imitated Abby's dress, pored over her diary, and sabotaged her love life. Now Elizabeth is back in New Chapel, and she soon adopts a new look: Abby's. But when Libby comes between Abby and her hunky boyfriend Marco, imitation becomes the sincerest form of trouble, and that's before Abby is accused of murder. Is Abby's devious double the real killer? Or is there a more sinister suspect in town who's using them both to cover his evil crime?

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PROLOGUE 

As far as I knew, being a five feet two inch green-eyed redhead wasn’t a crime.

“Matron? Can you hear me? There’s been a mistake.”

Yet there I was, jailed for being a five feet two inch green-eyed redhead. At least that was what the state trooper had told me when he yanked me out of my beloved old Corvette, slapped handcuffs on my wrists, and stuffed me into the back seat of his squad car.

“Hello? Is anyone out there?” I pressed my ear between the steel bars, listening for a reply. With all that clanging metal and cacophony of female voices ping-ponging against cement block walls, it was a little hard to hear.

“I need to talk to you,” I shouted up the hallway. At least a dozen women responded with comments that weren’t helpful, but were pretty colorful.

“Baby, you’re wastin’ your breath,” came an easy voice from behind me. “You got to wait till breakfast is over. They eatin’ now.”

“Someone has to be up there,” I muttered. “They wouldn’t leave the post unattended.”

“Post?” Hearty laughter followed. “Baby, this ain’t no army base. This is lock-up.”

Lock-up. I clasped my fingers around the bars and held on as a shudder shook me. I’d seen the lock-up once before, but from the other side during one of my dad’s “educational outings,” designed to scare the bejeepers out of my brothers and me. It was part of my father’s on-going effort to keep us on the straight and narrow. He’d been a cop with the New Chapel, Indiana, police department at the time. It had worked well. None of us had ever been on the inside -- until now.

“Hey!” I called up the hallway again. “I need to speak to Sgt. Sean Reilly. Tell him Abby needs to see him right away. He’s a good friend of mine. Seriously. He’ll want to talk to me.”

“Will you shut up?”someone behind me snarled. “You’re making my head pound.”

“Matron, please?” I called softly. I waited another few minutes, then leaned my aching forehead against one cold, thick bar. Damn it, where was Dave? I’d used my only phone call on my former boss – now my soon-to-be attorney -- and had gotten his voice mail. Didn’t he check his messages?

Then I remembered that Dave had gone out of town last week for a legal conference and wasn’t due home until later today. And Marco, my hunky knight in shining black leather jacket, the guy who was always there for me . . . wasn’t there anymore. He and I were history. Finito. My eyes filled with tears. The shock of losing him was so new and raw that I hadn’t fully absorbed it.

Quickly I blinked back the tears so my cell mates wouldn’t think I was some wimpy little girl. I couldn’t think about Marco now. I had much bigger problems on my plate. I glanced around at my dismal surroundings -- the long, narrow room, the stainless steel sink in the corner with the short partition beside it that hid the stinky toilet, the high barred window on the back wall, the six cots on a side wall, stacked two high, jutting from the cement blocks, the single light bulb overhead . . .  I was actually incarcerated. Me, a harmless florist.

I glanced down at the putrid orange prison jumpsuit I had been forced to put on, then shut my eyes as the walls began to close in on me. Sweat broke out on my forehead and my hands grew clammy as my claustrophobia clawed its way to the surface. My only hope was that word of my arrest would quickly reach Sgt. Reilly’s ears, because if I didn’t get out of there soon, I was going to have a serious meltdown.

“Baby, those bars ain’t gonna bend. You might as well stop pullin’ on ‘em and have a seat. ‘Sides, they ain’t gonna let you out until you been arraigned.”

“I know how it works,” I muttered weakly. “I went to law school.”

“You did? You a lawyer then? Well, that’s a whole ‘nother situation. You hear that, girls? We got ourselves a bonafide--”

“I’m not a lawyer,” I said, cutting off the sudden excited chatter. “I didn’t make it.”

“You run outta money, or what?”

“Brains.” Like I needed to be reminded of that particular failure now. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not go into it.”

“So what are you in for?”

Her questions weren’t helping my glum mood. “No one would tell me. All I know is that I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Sugar, that’s what everyone says.”

“I don’t care what everyone says,” I snapped. “I’m innocent.”

“Well, someone’s got herself some attitude.”

There were snickers at her comment.

“And someone’s got herself too many nosy questions,” I retorted.

Silence.

Ticking off an inmate probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, considering I had nowhere to hide, so I loosened my grip on the bars and turned to apologize. There were five women in with me, each on her own cot. One was a pasty-skinned, emaciated middle-aged white woman who was so blotto that her eyes kept crossing. She was lying on a second tier cot, one arm hanging limply off the side. Below her was a young Latino with long, dark hair who looked like she was barely in high school.

On another upper cot was a woman who desperately needed a good bath and possibly a de-lousing. Beneath her was a woman displaying multi-hued tattoos on her arms and neck. One cot over was an attractive black woman sporting an ugly purple bruise on her jaw and another around one eye. She was giving me a scowl. Clearly, this was the woman I’d offended.

“Sorry,” I said to the scowler. “I’m getting some major claustrophobia here and it makes me extremely edgy.”

Her expression softened. “Yep, this place’ll surely do that to you.”

“I tried to explain my condition to the state trooper, but he didn’t care.”

“Did you think he would?”

Well, actually, I had, but I didn’t want to admit it now for fear of showing my naivete. I’d even pulled out my ace-in-hole, telling the trooper that my dad was a twenty year veteran of the New Chapel police force, but he’d just ignored me. He’d laughed out loud when I said I hadn’t done anything wrong. The only thing he seemed to give a rip about was whether I understood my Miranda rights. I told him what he could do with those rights. It hadn’t improved my situation.

“You’d better sit down, honey,” the woman called.. “Come on over here. I won’t bite.”

I peered up the hallway again, but it was still empty. Taking a deep breath, I made it across the narrow room in three strides and plunked down on the edge of her cot, resting my head against the chilly cement wall behind me. I hoped that cot would hold both our weights. My cot mate was a good-sized woman and I wasn’t exactly anorexic myself.

The woman stuck out a beautifully manicured hand, where each nail had its own personality. “Lavender Beals.”

“Abby Knight.” I shook her hand, then gave a start at a loud clang, hoping it meant someone had heard my calls for help. But no one appeared, so I sank back against the wall. “Will the matron come by when she’s done eating?”

“You never been here before, have you?”

“Once, when I was ten, on a field trip.”

“I was eighteen my first time, but it wasn’t for no field trip. This is my third visit, all told, and each time it’s been because of that bastard I married. I got rid of him this time, though -- for good.  He done slugged me for the last time.”

I eyed her warily. “You got rid of him?”

“I didn’t kill him, baby, just kicked his booty right out.”

“If he hit you, why are you in jail?”

“I took a baseball bat to his windshield, just to show him I meant business. Now I get to cool my heels here until next Thursday.”

“For hitting his windshield? Why so long?”

“‘Cause I don’t have the money to hire a lawyer, so the court appointed me one, and now I got to wait until the next hearing date and that’s next Thursday.”

“Can’t you get someone to post bail money for you?”

“Baby, what you been sniffing? Nobody I know’s got that kind of money.”

“How long have you been in here?”

“Six days now.”

“Six days, plus another six . . .”  I could feel my indignation rising. “Do you realize that you’ll probably get less jail time than that for smashing the windshield?”

“‘Course I realize it. What am I gonna do about it?” Lavender nudged the underside of one of the cots above us. “This here’s Maria. She’s sixteen – shouldn’t even be in here – but she was with two boys who TP’d and egged her neighbor’s house.”

“What?” I stood up so I could see the girl. My claustrophobia was receding as fast as my outrage was growing. “You’re in the adult lock-up for throwing toilet paper and eggs?”

Maria shook her head, her eyes huge in a tiny face. “I didn’t throw the eggs. I just tossed rolls of paper into the trees.”

“And you were jailed for that?”

“See, sugar, it’s all about having political connections,” Lavender explained. “That fat-headed neighbor of hers wasn’t about to let some little punks get away with pranking him, so he raised a stink with a councilman he knows and got the kids waived to adult court to prove how important he is. If he gets his way, Maria will have a criminal record. Ruin her life in the process. Won’t that make him feel important?”

“How long have you been here?” I asked Maria.

“Four days.”

“And you have to wait until next Thursday, too?”

She nodded and started to cry. “I’ll flunk my classes. I just want to go home.”

Boy, was my blood boiling. “Even if you had damaged his property, Maria, you should have been taken to the juvenile detention center, not here. And then you probably wouldn’t get any jail time, only probation. What they’ve done to you is outrageous and totally unfair.”

“You tell her, girlfriend,” a woman in the cell across the hallway called. I glanced around and saw a dozen women in two cells standing at the bars, listening avidly.

Lavender snorted. “It’s the system, baby. Money talks. Nothin’ fair about it.” She pointed to another cot. “That there is Cherry. She’s bi-polar and can’t afford her meds, let alone a lawyer. She’s been here seven days.”

“Sitting in here isn’t going to help her get better,” I said, pointing out the obvious.

Lavender shrugged. “Does anyone care?”

“I care. Someone else has to care, too.”

“Hey, Abby,” a woman across the aisle shouted. “I been here five days. They got me on a Public Intox charge.”

Having clerked in Dave Hammond’s law office, I knew a Public Intoxication charge would probably merit her a weekend in jail. She’d done more than enough time already.

“I been here a week,” one of her cell mates called.

“Where’s the justice in that?” I asked. “What happened to a person’s right to a speedy trial? There has to be some way to stop this insanity.”

Lavender laughed.

I stood up and began to pace, which meant going a few feet in either direction. No way could I let this pass. I hated injustice. “We have to raise public awareness of the problem.”   Women in the other two holding cells were starting to discuss their own situations and the injustices therein, their voices growing louder and more irate.

“Okay, here’s what I’m going to do,” I said to Lavender. Instantly, the others stopped chatting. “I’m going to contact a reporter at The New Chapel News to talk him into doing a piece on this. Maybe if people are aware of the problem, they’ll demand a solution.”

“Yeah!” a woman across the hall responded. “We want a solution.”

“We can get our families to picket in front of the courthouse,” someone else called. “Justice for all, not just for the rich!”

Someone else repeated the phrase, and then the call went through the entire cell block. Within moments the halls echoed with their cries. Someone else began to shout, “Abby! Abby!” and they all took that up, but somehow it changed to, “Attica! Attica!” and then they began to run metal cups along the bars and stamp their feet, until the noise was deafening.

It was, in fact, a small riot -- and I was in the middle of it.

Somewhere down the hallway a door clanged open, then I heard the sound of many heavy boots thundering toward us. Because my cell mates were clamoring at the bars, there was no way I could see what was going on.

“Stand back!” the guards were shouting, striking the steel with their clubs.

As my cell mates fell back, allowing me my first glimpse of the hallway, the jail matron strode forward. But this wasn’t Matron Patty, the petite, gum-snapping, ball of fire my dad had introduced me to years before. This was a thick-set, no-nonsense woman who bore a striking resemblance to a pug. “What’s going on here?” she demanded.

The five women in front of me all swung around to gaze at me, waiting for me to speak up. Then someone from across the hallway pointed at me and said, “She says we’re not supposed to be held here so long, and she knows the law.”

The matron’s piercing gaze zeroed in on me. “Is that so?”

My cheeks immediately began to burn. “Well, you see, I attended law school and--”

“Name?”

“New Chapel University School of--”

“Your name!” she barked, making me jump.

“Abby Knight.” It came out in an embarrassing squeak.

She glared at me as she inserted a key into the lock and slid back the cell door. “Your lawyer’s here. You’re free to leave.”

Instantly, the mood inside that cell turned from red hot to icy cold, and I could feel the wrathful glare of every woman there on me. I broke out into a sweat, afraid to make a move. “Thank you,” I whispered.

At once, like a messenger from heaven, a tall, familiar cop stepped inside the cell. “Let’s go, Abby.”

I blinked up at him in surprise, so happy to see my old buddy Sgt. Reilly that I could have kissed him. However, he didn’t seem all that pleased to see me. He was giving me a look that said, I should have known I’d find you at the center of this.

I paused to say to Lavender, “I’m going to find a way to help,”  then, sticking close to my bodyguard, I walked through the open door, leaving my impoverished sisters behind me.

In a tiny cubicle just inside the main security door, I stripped off the ugly jumpsuit and donned my own clothing, never fully appreciating just how much I liked them until that moment. I checked my purse to make sure everything was there, then headed outside, where I gazed up at the blue sky and breathed in the crisp November air. Ah, the glorious smell of freedom.

Then two photographers and three reporters rushed me, firing questions and snapping pictures. Before I could open my mouth I was whisked off to Reilly’s squad car parked at the curb, one arm firmly in his grasp and one held by a slightly paunchy, balding man in a gray suit and white shirt, red tie loosened at the collar – Dave Hammond.

“My client has no comment,” Dave said to the reporters, as we ducked into the back seat.

  “Dave, you’re back!” I cried in relief.  “And just in time, too. It was getting a little dicey in that jail cell.”

“Ask her why it was dicey,” Reilly said from the front seat.

Dave gave me a skeptical glance. “Do I really want to know?”

“It was nothing,” I said. “A little disturbance.” 

Reilly snorted. “It was a riot, and guess who started it?”

“Just a tiny riot,” I countered, “but there was a very good reason for it, which I will go into later. Right now, I want someone to please tell me why I was arrested.”

“Let’s go back to my office to talk,” Dave said, as photographers continued to snap photos through the windows.

“At least tell me why the trooper picked me up.”

“You have to promise to stay calm,” Dave said.

“Look at me, Dave. I’m the very picture of calm.”

“Uncurl your fists.”

“Done.”

He studied me for a moment. “I think we’ll wait.”

“Good call,” Reilly said. He circled the courthouse and stopped in front of the old brick building that housed Dave’s law office. “I’ll catch you both later. I’ve got to get back to my beat. By the way, Abby, Marco text-messaged me from Chicago a little while ago. He heard the news about your arrest and wanted further details when I got them.”

My heart soared -- Marco asked about me! -- then immediately sank. “I was on the news?”

“Just the local radio station. You haven’t made the airwaves yet. You’ll probably be hearing from Marco soon. In fact, I’ll bet there’s a phone message waiting for you now.”

Not likely. Not the way things stood between us. I didn’t say that to Reilly, of course, because he didn’t know about Marco and me. The only person who knew was my best friend and roommate, Nikki, in whom I confided everything. Still, I had to check.

I turned on my cell phone, anxiously waiting for the screen to appear. There were seventeen messages from my mom, three from my dad, and five from Bloomers, but just as I’d thought, there weren’t any messages from Marco.

#

Dave’s office, and my flower shop, were located on streets surrounding the courthouse in the heart of New Chapel, Indiana. Bloomers Flower Shop was on Franklin Street, on the east side of the courthouse, and Dave’s office was on Lincoln, above a tavern on the north side. As we stepped inside the door and climbed the lop-sided stairs that led to Dave’s second floor law office, I phoned Bloomers to let my assistants know where I was and what had happened, promising to give them the details when I got back. My only request was that if my mother or father called, they were to be told I was out on a delivery and would get back to them soon. With any luck, they wouldn’t hear the news until I’d had a chance to prepare them.

With a brief hello to Dave’s secretary, we headed straight for his office, a room with forest green carpeting and peach walls that shouted nineteen eighties. I sat in one of the two leather club chairs in front of his desk and Dave settled into his creaky, high-backed brown leather chair, slid his briefcase across the top, and leaned back with a sigh. “Coffee?”

“I could really use some water.” I glanced at my hands and thought of those grimy steel bars. “And maybe some disinfectant.”

Minutes later Martha bustled in with a cup of coffee for Dave and a bottle of water for me, promising to return with sanitizing lotion. She was always on top of things. She reminded me of my own assistant, Grace, who used to work for Dave. In fact, I’d met her in this very office when I’d clerked for him -- back in the days when I thought I had a chance in law school.

Dave had thought so, too, apparently, or he wouldn’t have hired me. But after I flunked out and found a new home at Bloomers, where I’d blossomed, so to speak, he agreed that flowers were my true calling. He just hadn’t realized that they weren’t my only calling. I was developing quite a little side-line solving puzzles, usually involving some very bad people.

“End my misery, Dave,” I said, opening the screw top water bottle. “What did the trooper think I’d done?”

“It’s nothing to worry about, Abby, a case of mistaken identity.”

I nearly spilled the water. Mistaken identity? A suspicion began to form . .

“The trooper was responding to an APB. He happened to be passing by the public parking lot as you were getting out of your car and reacted instinctively. He’s a rookie, and right now, a very embarrassed one.”

“He ought to be. But you still haven’t told me what my alleged crime was.”

Dave gazed at me from under lowered brows. “Are you calm?”

I put the bottle on his desk and showed him my unclenched fists. “Absolutely.”

“Murder.”

Not calm now. My fingers curled into my palms as my eyes narrowed in fury. Libby had murdered someone? Was that why she’d stolen my identity? To pin the crime on me?

“Are you okay?” Dave asked.

“Not so much. Who was the victim?”

He scanned the typed page in front of him. “No information on that yet.”

“And this person the trooper thought was me, is her name Elizabeth Blume?”

“Yes. Do you know her?”

With a groan, I buried my face in my hands. “She’s my evil twin.”

“Your what?”

“My doppelganger, my deadly double -- whatever you want to call her. You’re probably the only one on the square who hasn’t met her. She’s a young woman I used to babysit, and for the past three weeks she’s been slowly making her life over into a perfect copy of mine.  I knew she was planning something, I just never expected a murder.”

At that thought I sat forward, my whole body tensing. “Have I been cleared as a suspect?”

“Your arrest was a mistake, Abby. You’re not a suspect. ”

“I will be, Dave. Trust me. It’s all part of her plan.”

“You’d better enlighten me.” He took a hearty swallow of coffee and, thus fortified, pulled his yellow legal pad closer and readied his pen.

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