Michael McGarrity - Everyone Dies

A state police cruiser came toward him on the Interstate. It slowed, drove onto the left shoulder, cut across the median and oncoming traffic through a break in the northbound flow, and stopped next to him. Russell Thorpe got out.

“Got problems, Sergeant Istee?” Thorpe asked jokingly, gazing at the steam billowing from the engine compartment.

“The water pump went out,” Clayton said, returning Thorpe’s smile, “and you don’t have to be so formal.”

Russell’s smiled broadened. “Good deal. Santa Fe dispatch passed on a request from Chief Kerney. He’d like you to stop by his house.”

“Did the baby come?” Clayton asked.

“Last night,” Russell replied, “and mother and son are fine.”

“Great,” Clayton said.

“I’ll give you a ride there after the tow truck arrives. ETA is ten minutes.”

“I’d like to get briefed on what’s been happening up here first,” Clayton said.

“I can do that while we wait,” Russell said, opening the passenger door to his cruiser.

Clayton nodded and climbed into Thorpe’s unit.

Samuel Green left the diner with a plan in mind. He gassed up his car at a self-serve station, then checked the yellow page listings for florists at a pay phone. After writing down the addresses of several that weren’t in busy retail, shopping mall, or downtown locations, he cruised by the businesses. He decided to use a florist that shared a stand-alone building with a shoe store on Cerrillos Road, where the only vehicle outside either establishment was the flower delivery van.

He drove around the building before parking and found four cars in reserved employee spaces near the back doors to the shops. Inside the flower shop he saw no surveillance cameras. A middle-aged woman and a kid in his early twenties worked at a table behind the customer counter unpacking fresh cut flowers from boxes and placing them in a glass refrigerated display case that stood against a wall.

Green approached them with a smile. “I need to send some flowers.”

“What’s the occasion?” the woman asked, wiping her hands on an apron. She had a soft, placid face and chubby arms.

“A birth,” Green replied. “Put something nice together.”

The woman smiled cheerily. “I’d suggest stargazer lilies, some roses, and spikes of liatrus, set off with ferns and some delicate baby’s breath.”

“That sounds perfect,” Green said. Except for the roses and ferns, he didn’t have the slightest idea what she was talking about. “Can you deliver?”

“Certainly,” the woman replied. “What color roses would you like?”

“Red will do,” Green replied.

She asked him to select a card from the rack on the counter and turned away to begin putting the arrangement together. The kid moved the boxes of cut flowers to a work table and continued unpacking them.

Using a fingernail to hold the card in place, he scrawled congratulations, added an exclamation mark, scribbled an indecipherable name, and left it on the counter. He watched as the woman stuck a stem with a whole bunch of purple flowers into a vase. It only took her a couple of minutes to complete the job. She tied a ribbon around the vase and carried it to the counter.

“That’s so lovely,” she said, as she admired her handiwork.

Green nodded in agreement. “How soon can it be delivered?”

“Is it going to the hospital?”

Green shook his head and gave her Kerney’s address.

“We’ll get it out right away,” she said as she wrote the address on a delivery slip, put the card in an envelope, and attached it to the vase.

“Thanks a lot,” Green said as he paid the bill.

“Thank you,” the woman replied. “We love doing birth bouquets. It’s such a special event to celebrate.”

Green smiled. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

While Sara and Patrick slept, Kerney dozed on the living room couch until the ringing doorbell brought him to his feet. A quick check out the window revealed another delivery truck and a kid standing on the porch holding a vase of flowers.

Kerney opened up wondering if the house would be filled with bouquets by day’s end. It was the third delivery since they’d arrived home.

He tipped the kid, put the vase on the coffee table, and read the card, trying to make out who’d sent it. He couldn’t decipher the name, and the handwriting was unfamiliar. Maybe Sara would know. He’d ask when she woke up.

Minutes later the doorbell rang again. This time Kerney glimpsed a state police cruiser in the driveway and Clayton, who was dressed in civvies, standing at the door.

“Where’s your vehicle?” Kerney asked when he opened the door.

“Getting a new water pump installed,” Clayton replied with a wave to Russell Thorpe, who drove away.

“It’s good to see you.”

“I understand I now have a brother,” Clayton said as he stepped inside and shook Kerney’s hand.

“Yes, you do,” Kerney said, surprised that Clayton hadn’t stressed a half-blood relationship to Patrick. He looked for an unspoken coolness in Clayton’s expression and saw nothing but genuine pleasure. “Six pounds, ten ounces. Fortunately, he looks like his mother.”

Clayton smiled. “That’s good. Let’s hope he’s not as troublesome to deal with as I’ve been.”

“You’ve been confusing to deal with, not troublesome,” Kerney said with a laugh.

Clayton chuckled in agreement and looked around the room. “So where is he?”

“Sleeping. So is Sara. Come into the kitchen. We can talk there without disturbing them. You did good work down in Socorro.”

“Not good enough,” Clayton replied as he followed Kerney through the living room. “We still haven’t caught him.”

“I’ve got some ideas why,” Kerney said. “Are you up to speed on what happened last night?”

“Yeah, the bald-headed man,” Clayton said as he sat at the kitchen table. “Thorpe filled me in.”

“Good,” Kerney said. He filled two coffee mugs and brought them to the table. “But first, how are Grace and the children?” he asked.

“Doing better,” Clayton answered. He sat back in his chair and talked about how he’d hated to leave them while they were still so upset, how Wendell had gone a bit wild after the explosion, how Hannah had glued herself to her mother, how Grace probably felt abandoned by his decision to go to Socorro.

“Didn’t Grace understand that it was something you had to do?” Kerney asked.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it any easier on her,” Clayton replied, launching in to all the things that needed to be done to get everything back to normal.

Kerney nodded sympathetically and listened, thinking maybe something good had come out of all the adversity and chaos of the past week. For the very first time in their relationship, Clayton was really talking to him.

Down the street from the flower shop Samuel Green waited impatiently for the kid in the delivery truck to return. What happened next would all depend on what the kid had to tell him.

Even though there was heavy traffic on Cerrillos Road, nobody had entered the shop since Green left, and only one customer had made a quick stop at the business next door. If the trend held, there shouldn’t be any problem putting the second phase of his plan into action.

After ten more minutes, the kid arrived. Green left his car, circled behind the building to avoid any curious eyes inside the shoe store, and walked into the shop. The bell on the door tinkled and the kid and the woman looked up from the counter and smiled at him.

“Back so soon?” the woman asked.

“Yeah, I need to send some flowers to another friend,” Green said sheepishly as he stepped toward them, looking at the kid. “Were you able to make that delivery?”