The Poppy Drop Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Author Bio

  The Poppy Drop

  A LILY LIST MYSTERY

  C.L. BAUER

  The Poppy Drop Copyright © 2018 by C.L. Bauer.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or repro- duced in any manner whatsoever without written per- mission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, busi- nesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information visit: www.clbauer.com

  Book and Cover design by Michelle Schad

  First Edition: October 2018

  Dedication

  For my family and friends...here we go!

  Prologue

  The “boulevard” was the most popular street in the new suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri. Popular was in the eyes of the beholder. Small trees just planted by the developer edged the new streets. Small shops with cloth awnings in different colors lined the sidewalks. The architecture featured clay tiled roofs and brick storefronts of mom and shop keepers making their American dreams realities. This new shopping area still had a lot to prove; it wasn’t downtown and it definitely wasn’t the Country Club Plaza but more and more citizens were taking a chance moving to the outer areas of the streetcar routes. More and more families needed groceries, housing supplies and those non-necessities like candy and flowers.

  Lily’s opened its doors for business on the boulevard on a bright cool March morning in 1939. Its green and white striped awnings marked the little flower shop tucked in between a five and dime store and the local watch maker.

  That twelfth day of March, Ida Faust placed her plants for sale out front on the sidewalk and turned the “closed” sign over at precisely nine o’clock. Maybe it was a little cool for the plants but the sun would warm the day soon enough. Besides, Ida wanted people to know that Lily’s was open for business. She hoped the business would come. Her husband, Edgar, was working at his already established jewelry shop downtown, just one block off Main Street.

  She shook her head in amazement at his work ethic. Always working, always pushing ahead was what her Edgar did. He had made a fine home for their little family; just the three of them. As she went through her open shop’s front door she smiled. She had wanted more children but Lily was enough of a handful. God had blessed them with a real firecracker. She could still remember the day at the orphanage as the nurse placed the bundle in her arms. Immediately she was their daughter, her screams soothed by just a little lullaby.

  It was ten o’clock on the dot when the bell rang at the top of the door and the first customer strolled in. Ida popped her head up from behind the counter. The man wore a smart fedora, light camel-haired jacket and brown crisply pleated pants. His shoes were shined and he carried a cane.

  “Good morning. May I help you?”

  “You have any yellow roses? My wife loves yellow roses and that’s all I ever buy her.” His heavily accented voice gave him away as a fellow European immigrant.

  Ida smiled. “You sir are in luck. They are my favorite too. I brought them in for my first day open.”

  She turned to the refrigerator box and slid the glass door. “How many?”

  “You from Germany?”

  She stopped. “Yes. My husband and I came over ten years ago. It was a hard time. And you?”

  “Berlin. My beautiful Berlin just wasn’t where my future could be. I still have family there but now this is my home. I’m Leo Stein and I’ll take all the yellow roses you have.”

  And that was Ida’s first sale and her first customer.

  The sky was darkening by the time Edgar and Lily entered the shop that day. Her small daughter ran to greet her, hugging her around the legs.

  Edgar was more interested in business. “So how were the sales today?”

  “Slow but pretty good. I had six sales.”

  He shook his head. “You need more to stay in business, mine Liebe.”

  She held Lily’s hand as she began to turn off the shop’s lights. “I will do better but it was a good first day. I met a fellow, very nice, very good customer. He bought out all my yellow roses.”

  “Ah, Lily’s favorites. Good. I had a good day too. So, you come back tomorrow?” She grabbed her pocket book and turned the last switch.

  “Of course. I need a business to leave Lily when we are gone. It will be this shop.”

  Almost twenty years later, Lily Faust was sweeping in the shop when she saw Mr. Stein coming toward the door with her morning coffee. Today he had a tall man with broad shoulders walking next to him. He looked like trouble with black wavy hair.

  Mr. Stein introduced Victor Schmidt and handed Lily her drink.

  “Lily, Victor knows a lot about plants and I thought he could help you out now and then.”

  The young man stuck his hand out to her and smiled. “Pleasure to meet you, Lily. Call me Vic.”

  He was trouble and she married him a year later. In the bargain she also received a couple of his brothers and sisters who were great workers. Her business, now their business was really taking off and she was the talk of the town. The boulevard was the place to shop and to see Lily. What was she wearing? Did you see her hat, her shoes? Did she buy them on the Plaza? Is she doing your wedding? She did mine and she was amazing.

  Vic and she had everything, everything but a baby. Her deceased mother and father had adopted her and they had been a happy little family. She and Vic had tried so many times and adoption was an option but it didn’t seem like a good idea on so many levels. The two of them fought all of time and it seemed like the only place she smiled was when she was working at someone else’s wedding. Thank God for Vic’s brothers. The Schmidt boys helped out so much around the shop she never had to look for real employees. Vic now had his own greenhouse which kept him out of her hair.

  It was a Friday afternoon when two policemen came into the shop, their hats in their hands.

  “What can I do for you today, officers?” Ed, Vic’s brother came out from the back of the store when he heard the question.

  “Mrs. Schmidt?”

  Lily nodded. Something didn’t feel right. She clutched the edge of the counter. Instinctively she reached out for Ed who was now on her left side.

  “We have some bad news, ma’am. Your husband was in an accident…”

  She stood motionless as t
hey continued to describe her husband’s death. She melted onto the floor and into the gentle bandaid of darkness as Ed tried to grab her. Vic was gone. Her mother and father had been dead for a few years now. Nothing was certain anymore.

  She found that certainty and confidence in a bottle. With Ed’s help the business continued to thrive. It became an elite wedding florist shop. Lily became a supreme actress remaining flamboyant never showing her real side of desperation. She enjoyed jazz clubs and meeting friends for dinner but she was always the odd woman out. She was alone until she arrived to an empty house and her friend, the full bottle of bourbon.

  Ed was making his own life eventually marrying a lovely woman, Helen French. Life was good, for him.

  On a crisp December morning, Ed Schmidt unlocked the shop’s door. He held a thermos of coffee in his left hand, his job since Mr. Stein had passed away a few months back. He’d catch the bus down on the corner to go to his full time job at the steel company but first Lily needed her coffee. With Helen pregnant the full time job was necessary and the extra money on the weekend from Lily just set them closer to their goal of buying a house.

  As he entered he saw the brown liquid on the floor behind the counter. What the heck was going on? He threw the thermos down when he saw her head. Lily Schmidt had successfully entered that oblivion of darkness she so badly wanted to dwell in.

  The shop closed during the week but Ed kept it going. Helen miscarried and didn’t want to go back to her job with all the friends who had been anticipating the baby along with her. They’d try again and if they were blessed with a girl they’d call her Lily. Eventually, Helen became the shop owner and tried to fill the very high heels of the woman who preceded her.

  They named their first child John. Helen had her mind set on the name Elizabeth for their second. Ed just couldn’t say no to the woman he loved, to a woman who had such difficult pregnancies.

  Their final and surprise child after many years was named Lily.

  Chapter One

  Another week was beginning and so was THE SEASON. Lily Schmidt unlocked the front door, turned off the security system and lifted the blinds on the display window of her shop. The early morning sun came straight in like a laser, creating a halo to form over a mirror on the wall. Lily shielded her eyes with her hand as she stumbled through the store and headed to the back.

  “When will Monday morning stop? I feel like a vampire,” she said aloud. “Please Lord, don’t make me wait until I’m seventy years old to retire.”

  God and Lily talked quite a bit, especially on Monday mornings. Frankly who else was there to complain to when you were self employed? Her assistant would be in after her one o’clock class at the university and by that time Lily’s mood would change. She would be fine, or a facsimile of fine, when dear Abby would pass through the door with love in her eyes. The twenty year old Abby was in love with Jeremy Klein and if Lily heard about how wonderful he was one more time… Well it wouldn’t be pretty. She would go out into the street yelling like a banshee until one of the bartenders from the bar and grill on the corner came out to pull her into the building. He would probably think she was just practicing for karaoke night. Her screaming and yelling held some similar components.

  Lily took a deep breath and looked at the calendar for the week. She’d already made her list and had it on the white board beside her desk. She forgot to add in bookkeeping and that was something that was mandatory. With the stack of “to do’s” getting higher and higher she had to get to it. She had to. This was just the middle of May and the wedding season was really going to hit.

  She’d be here on Sunday cleaning up, attempting to hit the Mt. Everest of paperwork.

  She began to sing. “Climb every mountain, ford every stream…” Lily was not going to continue to the “follow every rainbow” part. When you were the owner, the boss and the sole proprietor of your existence, rainbow connections didn’t really exist. Oh, and you were in charge of the family business. Of course, the family was pretty much gone but you were the last woman standing after over seventy some years.

  It was only Monday. How would she live through the week? She always did but sometimes it just seemed too much. Lily just kept going. She couldn’t be the one to sabotage the shop now.

  Besides it seemed to have a life of its own.

  It was still in the mid-town of Kansas City. It still had loyal customers with history, for some, from the very beginning. Just last year she had provided the wedding flowers for Mr. Stein’s great granddaughter. He had been that first customer of Ida’s with a twenty-cent purchase of yellow roses. Wow, yellow roses for less than a quarter. He had been a friend of the shop with his visits of coffee and conversation for Ida and for the original Lily, this Lily’s long deceased aunt. He received great, inexpensive flowers and the occasional apple strudel. Lily still had the recipe in one of her Dad’s metal filing cabinets. 'Best apple strudel' was scrawled at the top.

  Lily looked up from her desk to see the copy of the bill of sale on a piece of faded carbon paper.

  Next to it was a photograph from the Kansas City Times, page five. The headline read “Lily’s Opens For Business”. Not very creative but it served its purpose. The story went on to say that the shop was edged between the five and dime and the watchmaker shops. But it was one block from 'Greenie’s', a plant and flower shop, and five doors down from another flower shop, 'The Painted Wagon'. What had the Fausts been thinking? But all three thrived. If you needed funeral flowers or something delivered to a house you came to mid-town. If you had a daughter marrying, you came to mid-town. If you didn’t like the Painted Wagon, you went to Lily’s. If you didn’t like either of them, you stopped at Greenie’s. It became the boulevard of blooms. Wow, had times changed.

  By now Lily was just dreaming at her desk. It wasn’t going to change anything. Living in the past usually didn’t change the future. And it was still Monday. It was time to put on her big girl panties and go to work.

  She called it the responsibility gene; what made you tick and do the right thing. It made you do your homework when you really wanted to go out and play…Lily, be a good girl and get that homework finished. It made you pay your taxes on time…Lily, you don’t need a penalty or a bad credit rating. It made you send out thank you notes…Lily, make sure you are always gracious and thankful for every little thing you receive. It made you go to church on Sunday no matter how exhausted you were…Lily, God will know if you aren’t there. Supposedly the responsibility gene made you a better person, but not without coffee. She needed coffee. Desperately.

  She was trying to cut back on caffeine, on coffee but Monday was not the day to attempt acts of insanity. Besides she could work as she drank. Lily began with a call to the hotel venue they were decorating on Saturday. Of course the coordinator wasn’t in town but a short message in her mailbox would do it. Next, she called the cake lady.

  “So this bride has gone back and forth over the color of the cake,” Darlene of Good Cakes complained. “First, she wanted white icing, then she wanted a cream color. I told her if she has butter cream frosting its not going to be stark white, hence the 'butter' part of the cream. She still doesn’t get it.”

  Lily understood her complaints. The girl just never seemed to settle on anything and it was the same with her flower order. She had notes all over the final document and the post-it notes were like yellow pieces of wallpaper in the file folder. A month ago, Lily very forcefully told her she couldn’t change anything once the order went into the wholesaler and the growers. The bride was still attempting to make not-so-subtle changes. Lily only hoped that after countless emails and many phone calls, some balancing on the rude scale, that the bride still liked her a little when she saw her.

  Darlene and she decided they’d hope for the best. Thirty minutes later their call ended and Lily saw the email from the hotel coordinator. The schedule for Saturday and the delivery times for another wedding were now confirmed. She’d only need her assistant Abby stayin
g at the shop to accept any walk-in work, and for the other smaller wedding to pick up their flowers.

  Done and done. Abby could clean out all the buckets and the cooler when she arrived this afternoon.

  Lily was suddenly feeling accomplished; the coffee was really kicking in. The phone rang and halted her happiness.

  “Lily, it's Neal,” her wholesale representative said calmly. Usually Monday calls from Neal were bad news. Big gulp, small prayer, and Lily waited for the shoe to drop.

  “Well, it looks like those garden roses are going to have to come in from Ecuador and not Holland or California. We were having a hard time getting the red and we had to go to the South American market.”

  “Neal, what does that mean for me exactly?” Her heart was pounding. She didn’t need any problems with this order when the bride was already difficult. If the girl couldn’t figure out that butter cream was a little creamy looking then she sure wouldn’t appreciate that a red garden rose wasn’t red or wasn’t there at all.

  “It just means that you won’t get those roses until late Thursday afternoon and we can run them out on the last city route.”

  Ohhhhh. That was it? No sweat.

  “Great Neal, but I’ll see you on Wednesday for my usual pickup.”

  “See you then ,and just let me know if you need anything in the meantime.”

  The crisis of the red garden roses was averted and all was right in the wedding kingdom once more. She needed to check in with the difficult bride but she’d wait until tomorrow. There was no reason to make Monday worse. That girl was so nice but she just couldn’t make a decision to save her soul. How did she keep her job? Did she ever make a decision during her workday? Lily looked at her notes to see what she did do for a living…a nurse? She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Lily headed to the front to begin changing the large window display. Mother’s Day was over.

  “Thank you, Lord, for getting me through another one of those,” she said out loud. She had a look in mind for the window featuring pink hydrangea and a bone china set. The finer things in life were coming back. She was hanging midway into the window when she saw her favorite retired policeman.