In the Nib of Time by Jessa Archer

Author:Jessa Archer [Archer, Jessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Archer Mysteries
Published: 2019-07-24T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

I'm not usually a morning person. I like to sleep until seven thirty or eight and get into Flourish by nine. On Friday, I made an exception. I woke up early and got to Ralph's just before eight.

It was another sunny day, just like the one when I found Ralph slumped over his drafting table. But today the hanging baskets weren't dripping and the hummingbirds weren't flitting around happily. That day, I'd had no warning of what I was going to find. If the house had looked like it did now, I might have been prepared for some horror inside.

Although I'd watered the hanging baskets just yesterday morning, they were brown. Like, really brown. Dead brown. Crispy brown. "Baked in an inferno of summer heat for days without water" brown. And it just hadn't been that hot since yesterday. Or that long since I'd watered them. Even the baskets being root-bound wouldn't explain it.

And as for the hummingbirds, they have a way of expressing their displeasure to the closest human available. As I walked up to the porch, a male Anna's hovered in front of me, scolding me.

"What are you complaining about?" I said. "I'm here to help." I glanced at the feeder. "You still have food."

It was only when I grabbed the feeder to take it down to refill that I saw the problem—the feeding holes were clogged with something sticky. Had that been there yesterday?

I honestly couldn't remember. Usually I wash out the feeders when I refill them. But yesterday I'd been in such a hurry that I'd skipped that step. My mind had been elsewhere. I performed the task by rote. As I crossed the porch to get the next feeder, a hummingbird lying still at the end of the porch caught my eye.

As I walked toward it, my stomach clenched. I'd never seen a hummingbird that still. Or flop onto a porch. They usually perch somewhere and dart around flowers. When I reached it and stood over it, I realized why—it was dead.

Ralph's was becoming a house of horrors.

"I'm so going to have to stop coming here," I said to myself. "I can't take all this death."

Ralph kept a shovel in a little shed in the backyard. I should go get it and bury the bird. Before I could move, the dots connected in my mind. For a second, I thought I would throw up.

I took a picture of the bird on the porch. And of the clogged feeder holes. Suspicious, I stuck my fingers in the soil of one of the hanging baskets. There was still a hint of moisture deep in the center. But all the plants were clearly dead.

I went around to the hose reel by Ralph's front outdoor faucet and inspected the watering wand that was attached. Ralph always had a container of liquid plant food attached to his hose and watering wand. Suspicious, I inspected the watering head. All the holes of the nozzle were caked with a crystalized substance that looked suspiciously like salt.

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