Sleeping with Anemone

“Good heavens!” Grace cried. “I’ll get water.” She hurried back to the parlor as Lottie grabbed the towel she’d slung over her shoulder and dropped it over the brick.

I jumped over the glass, opened the door, and ran outside, but other than two women coming out of the realty agency next door, and a few others across the street who were heading my way to see what had happened, I didn’t spot any likely culprits.

As I stepped back inside and saw Lottie’s expression, I knew she was thinking about that anonymous letter. I certainly was. “Maybe you should call Sergeant Reilly now,” she said.

By the time the squad car pulled up, a crowd had gathered in front of Bloomers, its numbers growing larger by the minute. I was betting that by suppertime, the whole town would know about the burning brick, including my parents.

“Nothing to see here, folks,” Reilly said as he strode toward the shop. “Move it along.”

He was pretty much ignored.

Sergeant Sean Reilly was a good-looking forty-year-old, a fourteen-year veteran of the New Chapel Police Department. As a rookie, he’d worked with my dad, then later with Marco during his short stint as a cop. As a result, Reilly and

I had become friends, which had come in handy considering how many times I’d gotten myself in a bind.

Now he stood inside the shop taking notes while Lottie told him about the brick and the previous letters, Grace taped cardboard over the broken door to keep out the cold wind, and I phoned the glass company to have the beveled pane replaced ASAP. That would cost me a bundle. When I hung up, Reilly was gazing at me in that know-it-all way of his. Considering the morning I’d had, I really wasn’t in the mood for one of his upbraidings, so I grabbed a broom to finish sweeping the floor.

“Don’t you think you should have called us after you received the first letter?” he said.

“The other letters said that I should stop harassing the poor farmer so he could open his dairy farm. Why would I call the police for that? And if I had, what would you have done about it? Order DNA tests and put your best men on the case, or file it away under crank mail?”

He knew I had a point but wouldn’t admit it. “So who have you ticked off this time?”

“You say that like I regularly tick people off.”

He gave me a level gaze, his pencil ready to write.

“Uniworld,” I muttered, sweeping harder.

“Uniworld Food Corporation? You ticked off the whole company?”

“Abby’s trying to keep their new dairy farm operation from opening here,” Lottie answered, trying to be helpful. “They do very bad things to their cows.”

Reilly wrote it down, shaking his head. “I should have guessed who was behind those campus protest rallies.”

“Abby got a nice write-up in the News,” Grace said proudly.

Reilly crouched for a look at the brick, using his pen to lift away burned twine and peel off layers of charred newspaper at one end. He rose to his feet. “I’ll take it with me. I doubt we’ll find anything, but you never know. I think I’ll also pay a visit to the Uniworld Distribution Center and see what they can tell me about the incident.”

I scoffed. “Like they’d admit to anything.”

“Maybe not,” he said, “but at least they’ll know the cops are watching.”

The bell over the door jingled, and Marco stepped inside, inspecting the brown paper covering the gaping center as he shut the door. He acknowledged Reilly with a nod, then immediately spotted the brick. “What the hell? Someone tossed that through the door?”

“After setting it on fire,” Lottie added, in case he’d missed the charred newspaper.

“What kind of idiot would pull a stunt like that?” Marco asked.

Reilly whispered, “He doesn’t know about the you-know-whats?”

Oh, very professional, Reilly.

Marco glanced at me. “What you-know-whats?”

“Someone shoved a letter under the door today,” I explained as Reilly pulled it out of the back of his notebook and let Marco read it. “I didn’t think anything of it until the brick hit.”

“Wasn’t her first letter, either,” Reilly the instigator added.

Marco glanced at me in concern.

“It’s Uniworld,” I assured him. “They’re using scare tactics to get me to back off. I didn’t mention the letters before because I didn’t think they were anything to worry about.”

“What do you think now?” Marco asked.

That I didn’t care for his pompous tone, but then I reminded myself that he was just showing his protective side, and since that was a plus, I held my tongue.

“I’m going to take a ride out to Uniworld,” Reilly told him, “have a talk with people there, see if I can rattle some cages.”

Marco put an arm around my shoulders and said to him, “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”

“Me, too, Reilly,” I said. “And make sure you ask for Nils Raand, the guy in charge.”

“Just so you know,” Marco added, “Abby’s going to tone down her protests. Maybe that’ll put an end to the threats.”

I was? Irked, I pulled away from him. “If I tone down my protests, how will I keep Uniworld from opening their milk factory? By writing them poems?”

At Marco’s raised eyebrows, I said contritely, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you, but I can’t let Nils Raand, or anyone else at Uniworld, believe I can be frightened off.”

“You can’t let them burn down your flower shop, either,” he countered.

“They won’t burn it down,” I said. “This is about intimidation. Bullying. If they’d wanted to burn down Bloomers, they’d do it when no one was here.”

“Maybe there’s something you can do besides holding those protest rallies,” Lottie said. “Something a little quieter and less risky.”

“That’s why I’m collecting signatures for a petition, so I can ask for an injunction,” I explained to Reilly, “but I’ve got only forty-three. I need five hundred to be effective.”

“How about meeting with a Uniworld rep to discuss your concerns?” Reilly asked.

“That’s a lovely idea,” Grace said hopefully.

“No risk there,” Lottie chimed in.

“It’s something to consider, Abby,” Marco said.

I was on the verge of explaining how Uniworld had operated in other cities, pretending to be sympathetic to concerns about the milk production, then proceeding as planned, and how the only things that had stopped them were citizen rallies and marches. But I knew I’d be wasting my breath on this gang. All they wanted was for me to be safe.

“Fine.”

Everyone smiled.

“How about if I see what I can set up with Raand for Monday?” Reilly offered.

What the heck. It was Saturday. If he set up a meeting, maybe I wouldn’t have to worry about any more bricks being heaved through my door. Maybe a day to let recent events settle in would be a good thing. I could regroup, decide what my next move would be. “Okay.”

At that, Reilly left; Lottie went back to unloading flowers; Grace returned to the parlor to make tea; and Marco gazed at me thoughtfully. “So, no more protests, right?”

“I didn’t agree to that.”

“You agreed to a meeting.”

“I agreed to try a meeting. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up the idea of protests if the meeting doesn’t get results.”

He lifted my chin and gazed into my eyes. “Repeat after me: no more protests. You can’t afford to have your business go up in flames.”

“Marco-”