A flock of an alibi, p.3
A Flock of an Alibi, page 3
About the Author
Connie B. Dowell writes historical and modern cozy mystery as well as nonfiction and children’s stories. “A Bird-Brained Scheme” is her first paranormal cozy, but be on the lookout for more adventures with Poppy Ashfield coming soon. When not writing or illustrating, she gardens, plays violin badly, and binge watches Midsomer Murders. Read some free fiction from Connie here: http://conniebdowell.com/free-stories/
The Case of Flamingo Fakery
By S. Newell
Chapter 1
Mandy squinted against the blinding early morning sun as she dragged herself up the bright white, concrete steps of Holiday, Florida's town hall. Again and again her best friend Samuel, owner of DelKitty Bakery, told her she needed to get more sleep. Why did she never listen?
The man went to bed before the sun, but he sprung up at four a.m. ready to take the breakfast rush by storm. Whereas she stayed up late enough that the stars gleamed and the world went silent. When her alarm went off, she had to slam the snooze button five times before she crawled out of bed like a zombie fresh from the grave.
The sting of it all was especially painful as she scrambled to make her eight a.m. meeting with the boss. She hadn't even had time to stop for breakfast or a hot chocolate.
Her feet thudded through the marble halls, leaving a reverberating echo of Chuck Taylors that filled the space as she rushed to the mayor's office. They weren't very professional shoes, but in her job as the town's publicist she split her days between working on her computer and walking the streets. She'd learned early on that comfortable footwear was essential. Normally it was flip-flops, but that was a little too casual for a meeting with the mayor, so she compromised with sneakers.
She pushed open the large oak doors to the mayor's office with one minute to spare.
"Whoa." Still only half awake, she froze when her eyes met with an alarming shade of pink. Mandy stepped back to take in the full sight. The mayor's secretary, Nancy, was wearing a pink a-line dress cinched at the waist with a black belt. It was a throwback to the fifties that had Mandy feeling like she'd just gone back in time.
Nancy, an older woman with a stern face and grey, roller set curls, raised her eyebrows and cocked her head in a challenge.
Mandy swallowed down the exclamation on the tip of her tongue. Every time she'd seen Nancy, the woman had been put out by her mere presence. The last thing she wanted to do was make it worse. "That's a nice dress."
Thankfully, Nancy nodded approvingly.
"I have a meeting with the mayor."
"He's busy." She didn't sound irritated, but she wasn't exactly pleasant, more ambivalent.
"I thought we had a meeting at eight." Mandy shouldn't have been surprised. The mayor had canceled or rescheduled almost every meeting they had since she'd moved to Holiday and taken the publicist job; and it was always at the last minute.
"Yes," Nancy smiled apologetically, "but something came up. As you know, a mayor's business is never done."
"Right, well, tell him I'll be at the bakery when he's ready. I need to get some breakfast, see if it can jog my brain a little."
"I'll have him give you a call."
Chapter 2
Even though it was early, the temperature outside had already reached sweltering. Despite the short walk to the bakery, Mandy could feel herself melting into the pavement. She tried to focus on the fact that her hometown also got hot in the summer and that at least she wouldn't spend the rest of the year wrapped in three jackets, but that did nothing to impede the layer of sweat that had started to form.
A blast of ice-cold air hit her as soon as she opened the door to the bakery. It was both a relief and an uncomfortable shock to her damp skin. She squeezed through the crowded space, careful not to bump into anyone as she stepped into an open spot at the end of the line.
Bleary-eyed, she looked up at the menu hanging above the counter. Hot chocolate wasn't going to cut it, not when the mayor could call her in for a meeting at any moment. She reached up to rub the sleep out of her eyes. Would adding a shot of espresso help?
Fully caffeinated patrons brushed past her on their way out the door, chattering like magpies, but Mandy just stared at the menu.
"Next." Samuel's voice rang out across the small bakery as Mandy backed farther into the front corner to wait her turn. "Next. . . Mandy, that's you." Mandy looked down to see that the snaking long line had disappeared. When had that happened? "Mandy."
"Right, right, sorry." She stepped up to the counter.
"Hot chocolate and. . ."
"No, something stronger."
"Late night?" Samuel raised an eyebrow, crinkling the tie-dye bandana that held back his floppy brown hair.
"When did the line disappear? You're always busy this time of morning." Ever since Pi Day the bakery had become a local hot spot for breakfast. How her friend kept up, Mandy would never know.
"We were. You've been standing there for fifteen minutes."
"What?"
"Got it, something stronger than hot chocolate." Samuel's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Anything else?"
"Any specials today?"
"Ughh." His groan went right to Mandy's gut like a sucker punch.
"Never mind, a chocolate pastry it is." She said, trying to avoid worsening whatever had ruffled his feathers that fine morning.
"I'll be right back with your stuff."
Mandy stared after him, watching as every couple of steps Samuel turned and glared towards the street.
While he was making her drink, Mandy followed his gaze. But she didn't see anything worth scowling at. It was just the normal street; nothing to be upset about.
"Here's your breakfast." Even as Samuel dropped off her plate, he was frowning towards the windows.
"Samuel, what's wrong?" She asked, grabbing the plate and taking it towards one of the corner cafe tables.
Samuel's eyes darted around the half full bakery. "Later." He whispered in a hushed tone.
Mandy sat down and slowly sipped from the steaming mug; it wasn't what she'd expected.
"What is this?"
"Mocha."
"It's good, but a little strong."
"It'll wake you up. That was what you needed, right?"
"Yeah."
Layer by layer the pastry in front of Mandy disappeared and the nearby tables cleared out.
"Better?" Samuel asked as he sat down across from her with a mug of his own.
"Much. How about you? Are you doing better?"
Samuel looked down at the swirling steam and sighed.
"I'll take that as a no. What's going on?" She held out a piece of her pastry.
"Did you not see?"
"See what?"
"The windows?"
Mandy looked over at the windows expecting to see something weird, but it was just the normal windows covered with decorative flamingo cutouts.
"I don't see it."
"The flamingos?"
"I assume today is flamingo day or something." Every day the town celebrated a different holiday, so the landscape was always littered with new decorations. One day they'd built a tomb for single socks.
"National Pink Flamingo Day. But they're not supposed to put decorations on our shops without talking to us first."
"And they didn't talk to you about the flamingos."
"No. Today was supposed to be a laid-back holiday."
"A laid-back holiday in Holiday? I've never heard of such a thing. This town goes all out for everything."
"Mandy, you've only been here a few months; you haven't seen all the variations." She wanted to roll her eyes at his tone, but the way Samuel kept picking at the tabletop told her that the stress was really getting to him. So she decided to let it slide just that once. "Some holidays are less important. I mean we all have the holidays we like, the ones we personally go all out for, but some are just bigger and better. Flamingo day isn't one of them. It doesn't get this level of press."
"Really, why?"
"I don't know. I mean, I'm not against flamingos. This just isn't a major holiday. I heard they considered replacing it with a different day, but with all the celebrations it's nice for the holiday to be low key once in a while. It allows us to catch up on stuff." He sighed and gestured towards the road "Does that seem low key?"
"I mean it's just a couple of cutouts. I get that they overstepped, but that doesn't seem like a big deal."
"Just cutouts, Mandy? Oh no. It's not just the cutouts in the windows. Come here."
Mandy followed him out to the sidewalk.
"You must have been asleep on the walk over. They're everywhere."
He waved his arm towards one of the palm trees that lined the street. The space under the tree was overflowing with pink plastic flamingos. Mandy looked towards the town square, every spare piece of dirt was stuffed to the brim with flamingos and every building was covered with matching flamingo cutouts.
How had she missed it?
"That's a lot."
"It's too much. How am I supposed to deal with this?"
"Just ignore it."
"I can't! With this level of decoration people are going to expect me to go all out. They'll want flamingo specials, pink cupcakes, pink everything!" Samuel threw his hands up in the air. "I didn't prepare for any of this because they told us this was going to be a minimal holiday."
"It'll be fine."
"What am I going to do when people ask about the specials?" Samuel was in full freak out mode.
"Just tell them you don't have any today." Mandy stayed calm and tried to sound reassuring. She'd dealt with a Samuel freak out before. They would get through this.
"I can't do that. I have a reputation to maintain."
"Then make pink cupcakes." She kept her tone even and relaxed.
'Mandy it's not that-"
Mandy's phone rang. "One second, it's the mayor."
She raised the phone to her ear.
Stepping closer, Samuel leaned over her shoulder. "Mandy, ask him why there are so many flamingos."
Chapter 3
Mandy wandered downtown, trying to get a picture of how many flamingos had been set up. During their call, the mayor had confirmed a new meeting time. She had 30 minutes to prepare to plead Samuel's case and rehearse the summer promotional strategy she planned to propose. It was unlikely that just saying "there's too many flamingos, it's irritating the business owners" would be enough to prompt any action.
Every shop window was plastered with paper flamingos. Every gap in the sidewalk was filled with plastic ones. It was an exercise in overkill. At least the sock tomb had been confined to the town square. Any shops that had decorated for National Lost Sock Memorial Day had done it on their own. The decorations had been adorably mismatched. The paper flamingos gracing each shop were identical, down to the knobs on their knees and the shade of pink in their wings.
Up ahead, a group of teens were sitting on the sidewalk, sticker covered skateboards at their sides. Mandy knew the ringleaders, Janie and Alex. They were good kids, though they enjoyed intimidating some of the more crotchety town elders.
As she approached, a sticker caught her eye. It was bright pink and completely unmarred by a hard day's skate.
"Is that a flamingo?"
"We thought they looked neat." Janie said, not moving from her seat on the curb.
"It looks just like the ones on the shops."
"Yeah, just smaller."
"Where did you get them?" Mandy asked. She debated crouching down to be closer to eye level with the teens, but couldn't decide which position would be more off-putting.
"We found them." Alex said with a shrug.
"They look really cool."
The gathered teens rolled their eyes.
Mandy almost asked them if they knew anything about the source of the flamingos, but her relationship with them was delicate. It had gotten off to a rocky start and though things had improved, Mandy didn't want to risk upsetting them without a good reason. Besides, why would they cover the town in flamingos?
Accepting their story for now, she waved goodbye and continued her walk around the square. The lush green grass was so crowded with flamingos that picking a path through the plastic bodies would have been impossible. So she stuck to the sidewalk. Every building she passed was papered with matching cutouts.
When would someone have had the time to do all of that? It would have taken hours, and they hadn't been up when she went home the night before.
After circling the square, Mandy checked her watch and decided it was time to head to the town hall. The mocha was doing her good, her eyes were no longer fighting to stay open, and she felt prepared to talk to the mayor. With each block the flamingos got sparser, but they were still peppered along the street in surprisingly high numbers.
The mayor greeted her at his office door. As usual, he was cheerful, but a little disheveled.
"What were we planning on talking about?" He asked.
"Plans for the summer promotions."
He'd asked for the meeting, so not remembering what it was for was unusual, but not wholly unexpected.
"Ahh, right, well, what do you have?"
Mandy ran through the list of plans, highlighting the weaknesses in their current efforts and how she would remedy them. The hot summer months were tricky; kids were out of school, but the heat kept many non-Floridians from visiting the sunshine state. So Mandy wanted to redirect their marketing efforts closer to home. She laid out a couple of ideas, but the mayor just said to do whatever she thought was best. He didn't seem very invested in the meeting until she asked about the flamingos.
"I have no idea where they came from. You said they're everywhere?"
"Yeah. You probably would have seen them on the way in."
"Hmm. . . The Holiday Decorating Committee decides what to put up, but I thought they were going minimal for today." He stroked his white beard as he mused.
"There's a Holiday Decorating Committee?"
"Of course, you don't think I plan all of these celebrations, do you?"
"Oh." She had thought that. It would have explained the constant schedule changes.
"Maybe they changed their mind about today."
"Is there any way to confirm? Maybe talk to them about toning it down a bit?" Mandy forced a smile. "Some of the business owners were a little flustered by the intensity of the display."
"My secretary, Nancy, is part of the committee, she could put you in touch with the leadership."
"That would be great."
"Nance! Can you come in here and give Miss Mandy the contact information for the Holiday Decorating Committee?"
The mayor's secretary peeked her head in.
"I have Susan's number. She runs the committee, but you could also go down to the library. They have a meeting starting, well, now."
"Oh, that's lucky." Mandy said. Hopefully that would clear everything up, and Samuel could get back to his day.
Chapter 4
Fashionably late and covered in sweat, Mandy opened the doors to the library meeting room. All at once seven heads swiveled towards her, some eyes curious, some shooting daggers. It was almost enough to make her turn around, but Samuel needed her. So Mandy took three deep breaths and tried to stand tall in the face of those intimidating gazes.
"I think you're in the wrong room," said the woman standing at the head of the table. She was a blonde in her mid-forties with a short bob and angry glare. Mandy felt herself shrinking involuntarily backward.
"Sorry to interrupt, I-"
"Shh Susan," Scolded Beth-Anne, the grandmotherly owner of the town's one grocery store. "Be polite to our visitor."
Susan faltered, her eyes wide in shock.
Beth-Anne didn't pause for a moment. Turning to Mandy she approached with her arms open for a hug. "Mandy, it's so nice to see you."
"It's nice to see you too." The friendly face gave Mandy the confidence she needed.
Beth-Anne was one of the sweetest people in town. She greeted each customer at Martin's Grocery by name and her interjection right then broke the tension in the meeting room. The hug wrapped Mandy in a sense of peace and belonging.
Beth-Anne turned back towards the women gathered. "Mandy is the town's new publicist. She's done some great work. I'm sure you've seen it around." She looked over at Mandy. "Unfortunately, if you're looking to join the decorating committee, I'm afraid all the spots are currently taken. We're capped at eight people."
"Oh, no, I just had a question."
"Ahh well, ask away. I'm sure we'd all be happy to help."
"Well, it's about flamingo day."
Every face in the room contorted, and Susan looked like she'd been slapped.
"Today is National Pink Flamingo Day, right?"
"Yes," said Susan, squaring her shoulders in a way that made the room feel half the size. She looked ready for a fight. "We were considering changing it, but for now we've decided to continue celebrating flamingo day."
"You wanted to change it?" That didn't mesh with their decision to fill the town square with flamingos.
"Yes. There was an intense discussion. We'll probably change it next year to a holiday that gets more participation."
"A holiday that gets more participation?" Mandy asked, eyebrows raised.
"Yes. One that gets more participation." Susan said snidely.
"What more could you want?"
"Did you see any flamingo specials at the bakery? A display of flamingo patterns at the knitting store?" Susan's tone was condescending, and Mandy had to clench her hands into fists to keep from showing her irritation. "Anything at the pet shop? Given that it's an animal holiday you'd think they'd do something."
"No, but well, the decorations downtown, they're a little much."
"Yes. So we've noticed." Susan said, as she sat back down in the high backed, leather, executive chair.
"So that wasn't your intention?"
"We didn't do that. As I just explained, flamingo day is not a big holiday."
"Are you sure? I mean the amount of effort required to place all of those flamingos would have been tremendous. I don't know of another group in Holiday that could have done that."
