The Rumor Mill

When Carter found a sunflower on the hood of his truck, which sat parked at the hardware store, he suggested to Rosie that they see if Irene would let them stay the night at her place. Usually only bartenders were welcome at Irene’s, but tonight was different. Watchful eyes had sent the rumor mill slowly turning down Brewery Boulevard creating a common knowledge that wherever Rosie went, Carter went too.

The two walked to Irene’s front door, while police searched Carter’s truck for possible evidence. Rosie didn’t know about the sunflower trail just yet though he’d have to tell her later.

“You know where the spare room is, Rosie,” Irene said. “Carter, you’re welcome to sleep on the couch. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t do mixed gender sleeping arrangements under my roof.”

Rosie laughed. She hadn’t laughed in weeks. She was stressed and nervous and vulnerable. Though she was grateful for Carter letting her stay at his house, they hadn’t found much to talk about. But tonight she would have Irene to break the awkward silence.

She had walked into the spare room and she could hear Irene and Carter talking in the kitchen. And from what she could make out, Carter was telling Irene about the investigation. The door was cracked open, so Rosie leaned against it for a better listen.

Carter had said something about sunflowers and police searching his truck.

“But they don’t have a suspect, do they?” Irene said. “Sometimes I see the story on the news, but it never says if police have anyone they’re investigating.”

“No, there isn’t one,” Carter said. “I just don’t get it. It’s like the Rosie’s attacker wants us to find out who they are by leaving this trail, but it’s not enough to lead the police down a path worth pursuing. It’s a giant tease.”

“How has Rosie been holding up? Bartenders talk and we’re concerned about her. I’ve heard she hasn’t spoken a word to anyone in public in weeks. It’s like she’s lost her voice.”

“She’s quiet. We don’t really talk much. Unless she’s working, she’s at the house,” Carter said.

“I saw her last week at the market, but when I called her name she looked at me, turned and ran. She dropped her basket all over the floor. It was a side of her I’ve never seen before.”

Rosie chose this moment to come out of the bedroom. She wasn’t going to pretend like she hadn’t just been eavesdropping. They had been talking about her, after all.

“I didn’t go to the market last week.”

“Oh Rosie, I didn’t think you could hear that,” Irene said, sounding startled. “I guess my idea of whispering is conversationally loud.”

“And what did you say about sunflowers? This is the second time tonight someone has mentioned them; those flowers and me being somewhere that I wasn’t.”

She recounted the events at the store where the cashier recalled her buying hair dye and sunflowers hours earlier. Carter shared the photographs of sunflowers at the break-in, the phone booth and his truck. The trio went down to the station.

“We found a tracking device near the tail pipe,” Officer Garcia said. “We think it’s been there for a while because it showed signs of weathering. The suspect might have used it to locate your vehicle at the hardware store to place the sunflower and at your home address to find your phone number.”

“The cashier said a woman had bought sunflowers a few hours ago, did you talk to her?” Rosie said.

“We did. And surveillance videos from the hardware store show a female placing the sunflower on your truck,” Officer Brown said to Carter. “The store clerk said he did see someone outside, but thought it was most likely the owner of the vehicle. He also said he recognized the woman.”

“So we know who it is, then,” Carter said. “We know who’s after Rosie.”

“We’re close, but I don’t think we’re there just yet, Mr. Jenkins,” Brown said. “The cashier’s and the clerk’s description of the female suspect seem to draw up the same person, which could be a good thing. But the clerk said he recognized the woman as a bartender from the boulevard. He said the woman was Rosie.”

The rumor mill started spinning.

The Sunflower Trail

The phone went dead before Carter could say hello.

He reached for his cell phone and dialed the police station. Rosie was still in the other room.

“This is Carter Jenkins. I need to speak with Officer Brown immediately,” he whispered so Rosie wouldn’t hear him. The receptionist put him through.

“This is Officer Brown speaking. What can I do for you Mr. Jenkins?”

“I need to know who just called my house. It was a woman’s voice. I think she knows about Rosie.”

Carter told Rosie he was headed into town. Despite his best efforts to keep her at home, she insisted on tagging along to get groceries. He said he was going to hardware store, but he was headed to the station.

The call had been traced to a payphone on Brewery Boulevard, around the corner from McNulty’s, where Rosie worked. But when the forensic team arrived, the phone had been completely wiped clean. The phonebook lay closed on the small ledge, with a sunflower marking a page.

“The phonebook was marked in the J’s,” Carter was told. “It was on the page of your home number listing.”

“Someone is after her,” Carter said to Brown. He had shared this idea with the officer before, but Brown didn’t like his work being done for him. There wasn’t hard evidence that proved Rosie was being targeted or whether she was in any real danger. Burglaries, though rare in town, did happen, but were usually done at random.

“I can’t prove your theory, Carter. It doesn’t connect,” Brown said, sitting down at his desk. “Her house was broken in to, but we have no suspects. You have this mysterious group from the bar and yet questioning of the bartenders hasn’t brought out any suspects there either. I’ve got men working on finding my lost officers, but those imposters Rosie met haven’t proved any kind of connection to the grand scheme of things.”

Carter was growing frustrated with the dead ends Brown laid out. They were missing a link.

“Boss, take a look at this.” A photographer, camera hanging heavy around her neck, interrupted the silence that had taken over Brown’s office. “This is about the Lawrence case. There was a sunflower in the phonebook this evening, right,” she said, showing Brown the image on her digital camera. “I swear there were sunflowers at the break-in.” She put a cardboard box on the desk and pulled out photo enlargements of the scene at Rosie’s house. “Yeah, right on the doormat like someone dropped it on the way out, you see? And here’s another one— in the closet in the master bedroom. I remember thinking this one was a weird place to keep a flower. Who keeps flowers in a closet?”

“Thank you, Becky. Please leave those photos here and print the ones on your camera. I’ll need to add those to the file,” Brown said. He turned to Carter after Becky left the room. “Looks like we might have a case.”

At the same time, Rosie was getting groceries down the street. When she had reached the check-out line, the cashier stared at Rosie for just a second too long.

“Did you forget something?” the cashier said.

“No, I’ve got everything, thanks,” Rosie said, loading her items on the conveyor belt.

“Oh, I just meant because you were here an hour ago. But you were wearing a different outfit.”

“I haven’t been here in a few weeks. You must be mistaking me with someone else,” Rosie insisted politely.

“So you didn’t buy brown hair dye and a bouquet of sunflowers?” The cashier didn’t seem convinced that Rosie wasn’t the woman from earlier.

“I’m sorry, but that wasn’t me. I don’t know who you’re talking about, but I would really like to pay and leave, if you don’t mind.” Rosie was growing irritated.

“Well, then you must have a twin.” And with that the cashier bagged up Rosie’s items without another word.

The Spider's Web

Rosie had been staying at Carter’s house for the past week. She worked her shifts at McNulty’s, but only because Carter insisted she act like nothing was different. They had agreed to leave her car parked down the street from her house and had not gone back for it. If she had been under any surveillance associated with her vehicle, she now looked like an estranged homebody.

Carter still made his rounds down Brewery Boulevard, though now he only drank water. Rosie insisted he could still enjoy his evening drinks, but Carter was afraid he’d need the sobriety.

The information Carter had shared hung over her head when she worked.

Are there people in my bar who are targeting me? Who would break in to my house? she wondered. Her thoughts had her so consumed that she was making uncharacteristic mistakes.

“Rosie, you seem to be off your game recently,” her boss mentioned one night. “I know about your situation, but is it still bothering you?”

Rosie didn’t want to share too much information with her boss though she knew he was concerned.

“I’ve just been trying to get my life back on track,” Rosie said vaguely. “There’s a lot of damage I’m trying to fix. It keeps me up at night.”

The reality of it was there was an investigation going on surrounding the night Rosie’s house was burglarized. She’d been called into the station on multiple occasions and Carter had stayed with her every time. He didn’t know police were some of Rosie’s least favorite people and she wasn’t planning on telling him why.

Between the information shared by the police and by Carter, Rosie was beginning to feel helpless. She was stuck in a web of fact and suspicion, waiting for a hungry spider to discover her hiding place.

Apparently the officers Rosie had encountered when she went looking for Carter at his childhood home had been imposters. However, police hadn’t been able to find the police impersonators since the incident.

Carter shared his theory of the group from the bar with the police, against Rosie’s wishes.

“Can you give us just a moment?” Rosie had asked the officer sitting in the interrogation room. She didn’t like the idea of putting all the cards on the table.

“They’re only trying to help us figure this out,” Carter insisted. “The more they know, the more we’re closer to solving this. I really think it’s a good idea to tell them about the group. You only remember a few details of the impersonators, but I might remember their faces.”

“I think we’d be a lot better off if we just kept the bar group out of this,” Rosie said. “They have their situation and we have ours. Let’s not get involved.” She tried to get Carter to notice her stern ‘we’re not going to tell them now’ tone, but he wouldn’t go along with her idea.

Carter had waved the officer back in the room and said, “I know something that might help.”

Since that discussion, Rosie was told that there might be a connection between the men and the burglary, but there wasn’t solid evidence just yet. Two officers had been missing since that night, which added another strand to the web.

Staying at Carter’s hadn’t been so bad. She had offered to stay at Irene’s instead, but Carter wouldn’t hear of it. He would keep her safe, he said, though the two of them together made an awkward pairing. Each tried to pry into the secret life of the other, but without any success.

Carter avoided answering questions about why he loved Brewery Boulevard. Rosie pretended not to hear questions about her family. Carter never mentioned a job and Rosie was mute about her distrust of police.

During breakfast they always discussed the investigation, lunch was eaten in front of a television and dinner was eaten alone. Neither really knew what to say to the other. They were basically strangers thrown together by random events and forced to live under the same roof.

What they had in common was the note Carter left and the night that followed. Most nights, like tonight, when Rosie wasn’t working, they spent in silence.

But then the phone rang. Carter answered.

“I know you have her,” said the female voice on the other end.