Page 66 of A Flower for Angus

The next hour passed in a blur of questions as the local chief of police, whose jurisdiction the crime was in, sorted out the basics.

“I want to go home,” Poppy announced once some of the numbness began to pass. She’d tried to avoid looking at the blood everywhere for as long as she could, but the stench of it was clinging to the insides of her nostrils like a permanent visitor. The pool where Abby went down and the splatter on the desk and wall behind Nevil was macabre against all the silver and white of the modern office.

“We need to get a full statement from you both,” the chief replied.

Poppy felt increasingly nauseous from the stench and stress which increased the pain in her head. “If I have to endure all this gore any longer, I’m going to puke all over your crime scene,” she shot at him. “I’ve told you what happened, now I need to go home.” She turned to Angus with a pleading look. “Angus, get me out of here.”

“Look, Chief,” Angus growled. “Ye have all the facts ye need right now, can’t ye get the rest of the story when Mrs. Condoloro has had a chance to recover from the shock of all this?”

“I’d prefer to get it tonight,” the chief replied, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Mrs. Condoloro was already implicated in one murder not that long ago.”

Angus stood his ground. “She was never indicted, so unless ye are charging either of us with a crime, we’ll be leaving. Ye know who she is and where she lives. I’m her guest so I’ll be there as well. Ye can get our written statements in the morning at the house, or we can come down to the station and give it to ye tomorrow. What will it be?”

The chief waved his hand irritably. “Fine, I’ll expect you both at the station tomorrow. Don’t leave the country,” he warned Angus.

“I wasna plannin’ too,” Angus replied testily.

They had just stepped outside the door amid all the flashing lights from police cars and ambulances when Poppy couldn’t hold it any longer. She ran to the hedge beside the front entrance and lost everything in her stomach. Angus held her hair as she wretched miserably. Then he took off his nice white dress shirt and gently wiped her face.

“Oh...my head is pounding,” Poppy bleated. “Your poor shirt, it will never be the same.”

“Don’t ye worry about my shirt. It gives me a chance to show off my abs for the ladies,” he teased.

One of the ambulance drivers approached. “Are you all right, Mrs. Condoloro? Why don’t you lay down for a minute.” The young girl motioned Angus towards the back of one of the ambulances where a gurney stood at the ready.

“How do you know my name?” Poppy asked suspiciously. “Angus, don’t let them kidnap me and find out later that supercilious bitch upstairs was behind it.”

“I recognize you from the papers and we are at your building,” the pretty medic replied with a smile. “The bitch is on her way to the hospital. I heard you shot her. You should have aimed another inch to the right and it would have been more effective,” she added helpfully. “I’ve been hearing stories of what she’s done for the last hour.”

Poppy finally laid down on the gurney with Angus’s help. “I was aiming a whole lot further to the right,” she confessed with a wobbly grin.

“Do ye have a bottle of water so Poppy can take her pain pill?” Angus asked.

“I can do better than that,” she replied eying his tanned abs in the lights around them, “I’ll give her something for the nausea too. It’s from the shock most likely, but it will pass.”

Poppys eyes were closed against all the flashing lights. They didn’t help her head any. “Here I finally get to see you without your shirt on and I’m too nauseated to appreciate it,” she joked feebly.

“If I’d known ye wanted to, I’d have done it before this,” he teased.

The young medic came back with a pill packet and a bottle of water. “Take this, it will fix you right up.”

Poppy accepted her offerings and sat up to swallow the tablet the medic gave her and her pain pill Angus had retrieved from her clutch.

“I love your accent, by the way,” the admiring medic told Angus and then handed him a plastic drawstring bag. “You can put your shirt in this. Good thing it’s not too cold out tonight.”

“Thank ye, lass.” Angus smiled down at Poppy. “I’m goin’ to call a cab, wee one. Ye’re in no shape to drive us to yer house.”

“No, wait. You don’t have to do that,” the helpful medic replied. An earsplitting whistle and a hand wave later and one of the young policemen standing around hurried over. “Arty, can you take Mrs. Condoloro and her friend back to the mansion?”

“Of course I can,” Arty replied, eager to help too. “I’ll just call it in. Thanks, Pete.”

Angus raised his eyebrows. “Pete?”

She nodded. “Yep. Short for Petunia, but everyone calls me Pete.”

“Well, Petunia, I thank ye for all yer help,” Angus replied as Arty brought the car around.

“No Pete?” she grinned.

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