by Morgana Best
I was still sitting in a blue plastic chair. All the other people in the room were encircling me, their hands on my head trying to cast the demon of swearing out of me. Thankfully, Dylan had not said another word and appeared subdued.
“There, I’m sure it’s worked,” Eliza said.
Ian shot me a doubtful look. “Do you really think so?” He narrowed his eyes at me.
“Of course it’s worked, Ian,” I said, rather too brightly. “Thank you, everybody. I’m most grateful for everything you have done for me.” It was a blatant lie, but thankfully I was not struck down from above. “Is there anything to eat?”
Eliza patted my shoulder. “Everybody gets hungry after they have been released from a demon. Why, I have seen this time and time again on my trips to Europe. Yes, it’s time for refreshments and fellowship.”
We walked to the back of the hall where there was a long wooden seat in front of a table with plates of cakes all over it.
“So, I haven’t seen you at prayer meetings before,” Eliza said to me.
“No, my mother usually comes instead.”
Eliza seemed puzzled by my words, probably wondering why both of us couldn’t come at once, but thankfully she didn’t press me on it.
“It’s a terrible matter, the murder,” I said. “Aren’t you in the gardening club too?”
Eliza nodded hard. “Yes, but Tom was the most unlikeable man. He insisted on growing rows of corn, which meant that all the sun-loving vegetables could not grow. The rest of us had put in rows of sun-loving vegetables such as tomatoes, watermelon, squash, peas and beans—but his corn eclipsed them all.”
“You couldn’t ask him not to grow the corn?”
Eliza threw back her head and made a sound like a horse neighing angrily, followed by a few snorts. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had pawed the ground with her sturdy boot. “No, no, no. Tom was a most unreasonable man. If he knew we wanted him to do something, he would do the opposite.”
“I wonder who murdered him then?” I said.
She narrowed her eyes. “Well, of course I don’t gossip.”
“Oh no, of course not,” I said. “It’s just that the police suspect my mother because they don’t believe that someone would genuinely repent and go to rehab for watching too many episodes of The Bold and the Beautiful.”
Eliza was clearly taken aback. “The police don’t believe that?”
“No, imagine that! Anyway, they’re trying to track down my mother and drag her out of rehab to answer their questions, because they think she murdered Tom.”
Eliza snorted again. “That’s ridiculous!”
I nodded. “I know, so I thought if I could think of anybody who might have a grudge against him, I could tell the police. That might get their attention off my poor mother, who simply wants to be praying and thinking while in rehab and repenting of her evil deeds.”
“Tea?” Eliza had been dipping a teabag in a mug of boiling water. She dropped the teabag onto a plate and handed me the cup.
“Thank you,” I said. I wondered if that was her way of avoiding the subject, but to my relief, she pushed on.
“Yes, I think that’s a good idea. Well, I don’t think anybody but God did like Tom Trent. He upset all the other gardeners. He was always doing mean things.”
“Like growing corn?”
She nodded vigorously.
“And what else did he do?”
She looked aghast. “Isn’t that enough? That is a heinous thing to do, growing corn which throws shadows over all the sun-loving plants.” She reeled off a list of sun-loving plants again.
I took a deep breath and silently counted to ten. When she finished speaking, I added, “What about his personal life? Did he have a non-gardening life? Did he have any enemies, or did he have any problems with any other people that you know? Maybe family members? A falling out with friends?”
It only just then occurred to me that they hadn’t even mentioned Tom Trent at the prayer meeting. Eliza had her mouth open to answer me, but I cut her off. “Did he come to prayer meetings?”
“Of course not!” she scoffed. “He wasn’t a godly man, not at all. He didn’t even attend church.”
“But then why was he allowed to grow things in the church community garden?”
“Anybody can. They don’t have to belong to the church.”
“But he was on the committee, wasn’t he? Along with you, my mother, and Celia Watson.”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, we had to have one non-church member on the committee. It’s in the rules.”
“I see.” My head was already spinning, probably from a lack of carbs, so I grabbed a nearby lamington and devoured it quickly. I tried to remember the last question I had asked her.
Eliza had clearly remembered the question because after she devoured a Tim Tam, she said, “Apart from causing us so much trouble on the church community garden committee, there was also the incident of the fence.”
“The fence?” I parroted. “What fence? The fence around the church community garden?”
Eliza shook her head. “The fence around his house. It’s all over town. Haven’t you heard about it?”
I had to admit that I hadn’t. She pushed on. “He has a long driveway that is tucked behind two other houses. You know, they call it a battle-axe block. There was an old wire fence, but he decided to have an expensive fence built. Why, the builders were working on that fence for weeks! The fence went all up his long driveway and then around his land. He had that expensive fence in common with two different neighbours. After the fence was finished, he went to each neighbour and demanded they pay a share of the fence.”
“Is that legal?” I asked her.
She shrugged and then shook her head. “I don’t think so. He was supposed to ask them beforehand, but he didn’t. He asked them afterwards. They both refused, so he threatened them with legal action, and they received legal letters.”
“But if it’s not legal, then why did they get legal letters?”
“Because lawyers want to make money, I suppose,” Eliza said with another shrug. “The neighbours were furious. Tom had a few acres and the fencing cost eighty dollars a metre, so he wants fifteen thousand dollars from each neighbour.”
“But would somebody murder someone over that?” I said more to myself than to her.
“Well, somebody murdered him over something,” she said. “The police asked me if I murdered him over his corn overshadowing the vegetables. Can you imagine that?”
“Did you tell them about the fence?” I asked her.
“I sure did.”
I nodded. “And he was poisoned. Do they know what poison was used?”
For the first time since I had spoken with her, Eliza looked decidedly uncomfortable. She set down her half-eaten Tim Tam and wrung her hands. “I have no idea.” Her eyelids flickered.
Chapter 9
I was sitting in my bathtub, scented bubbles filling the air. I inhaled the heavenly fragrance of vanilla and strawberry. There was nothing quite so relaxing as a nice hot bath, especially after a traumatic prayer meeting. I had called Basil as soon as I had arrived home and filled him in on the evening’s events. I’m sure he was glad he hadn’t gone with me.
I had just towelled myself dry and slathered myself with rose body lotion when the bell sounded from the front of the funeral home.
I threw on my bathrobe, tied it tightly around me, and sprinted down my stairs. I flung open my apartment door and sprinted across the foyer. I hesitated at the front door, hoping it was Tara rather than Janet. I opened it a crack and peeked around. To my relief, Tara was standing there. I opened the door wide.
“Come in.” I quickly locked the door behind her.
“You haven’t heard from the police again, have you?” Tara said by way of greeting.
My breath caught in my throat. “No? Do you know something I don’t?”
“Lots of things, I’m sure,” she said with a laugh, “but not about the case.” She thrust a
bottle of wine into my hands. “When I asked for a girls’ night, I didn’t think about you and Basil. I hope I didn’t thwart a nice time with him?”
I chuckled. “No, Basil has a lot of work at the moment. Come on upstairs.”
Tara went up first, and I turned and locked the apartment door behind us. Once at the top of the stairs, I threw myself on the couch. “I’m exhausted,” I said. “The prayer meeting was simply ghastly.”
“I’ll pour us some wine, and you can tell me all about it.”
I gave Tara a brief summary, and she seemed to think it was entirely funny. “You actually swore in a prayer meeting against swearing?”
I clutched my head. “I did, but I can tell you, I paid for it later.”
“So, was it worth going? Did you find out anything about the suspects?”
I shook my head. “No, I did have an interesting conversation with Eliza Entwistle, but I wasn’t able to speak with Celia Watson at all.”
Tara refilled my wine glass. “What did Eliza say?”
“She told me that the victim, Tom Trent, had a boundary fence argument with two of his neighbours, Russell Reed and Cameron Kerr. He’d sent them legal letters and everything. Apparently, Tom built a very expensive boundary fence between his neighbours on both sides without asking them or even telling them first, and then he demanded they pay half.”
Tara’s eyebrows shot skyward. “But that isn’t legal, surely?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t think so, but who would know? Still, as far as I know, the legal requirement is that the neighbour has to pay half of the cheapest fence possible, and what Tom built certainly wasn’t a cheap fence. Anyway, he commenced legal action over it.”
Before Tara could ask, I held up one hand, palm outwards. “And don’t ask me why he could send legal letters when he probably didn’t have a legal leg to stand on.”
“It sounds as though you have made some progress. Is there anything to eat?”
“Of course there is. I made some pizzas. That’s what you can smell in the oven.”
Tara walked over to peek in the oven. “They look good. And do you have ice cream?”
I scoffed at her. “When don’t I have ice cream? And I have chocolate too.” I reached into a top cupboard and pulled down some chocolates.
“Why do you keep them up there?” Tara asked me.
“Because Basil eats all the chocolate he can see,” I admitted. “He’s worse than I am, so I have to hide the chocolate from him.” I offered her one.
“No, we should eat the pizza first. Pizza first, then chocolate.”
I chuckled. “Who made you the Order of Eating Police?” I popped a chocolate in my mouth.
Tara tapped the side of her head. “Oh, that reminds me! Talking of the police, that is. The poison was wolfsbane.”
“Wolfsbane? As in monkshood or aconite? Those pretty blue or purple flowers?”
Tara nodded. “You mean those deadly flowers. Duncan told me that’s what was used.”
“But how did they know so quickly?” I asked her. “Doesn’t the toxicology report take a long time to come back?”
“From what I can understand, it had to be a very fast acting poison, because his body was found early in the morning, and when the police went to his house, they found he’d had oats with honey for breakfast. There was a big jar of newly opened honey. They suspected the wolfsbane was in the honey because wolfsbane is very bitter and the honey would have disguised the taste.”
I shook my head. “That’s all very well and good, but how did they know it was wolfsbane in the first place?”
Tara bit her lip and appeared a little confused for a moment. “Okay, I’m trying to remember what Duncan said before he raced out of the door.”
I waited patiently for her to continue.
“The detectives knew it was poison because his body had ghastly and obvious signs of poisoning. They knew it had to be a fast acting poison, because Tom had been seen by several people the afternoon before, and he was perfectly healthy. He hadn’t been sick or coming down with anything, but he was stone cold dead the next morning. Duncan said a big dose of wolfsbane will kill very quickly, and as I said, the victim was fine the night before. The detectives had the honey and the oats tested.”
I thought it over. “I see. Obviously, not many poisons could kill anybody that quickly, so they tested specifically for those poisons.”
“That’s my understanding,” Tara said. “Toxicology doesn’t test for everything, but they obviously tested for fast acting poisons and found out it was wolfsbane.”
“What about heirs? Was he wealthy and did he have an heir?” I silently berated myself. That was the first thing I should have considered. Surely an heir would be the Number One Suspect.
“Yes to both,” Tara said.
I waved my hand at her, nearly knocking over my wine glass in the process. “Go on! Tell me more.”
Tara shrugged. “It’s not too exciting. Tom has one heir, a son. I think Duncan said his name’s Angus. Anyway, he’s lived most of his life in Europe, and that’s where he was at the time of his father’s death. I’m afraid he’s not a suspect, so your mother isn’t off the hook.”
“Are they certain about his alibi?”
“Dead certain.” Tara hesitated, and then added, “No pun intended.”
I opened the oven door and then shut it. “Those pizzas will be a few more minutes yet. I’ll grab my laptop and google the poison.”
I went to my bedroom to fetch my laptop and walked back to the living room where Tara was scrolling through her phone.
“Quite a few people have been murdered with wolfsbane,” she said. “There are even two recent cases, and one where a woman put it in her husband’s curry and killed him.”
I sat on the couch and put the laptop on my knees. Tara spoke before I could start searching. “It says one gram will kill somebody in an hour.”
I gasped. “What? One-fifth of a teaspoon?”
Tara nodded.
“But where would somebody get it?” I asked her.
Tara looked at me as though I had taken leave of my senses. “The church garden, of course!”
I planted my palm on my forehead. “It’s been a hard day.” I took another large gulp of my wine. “So they grow wolfsbane in the community garden?”
Tara walked over and took my glass away from me. “No more wine—or chocolate—for you until you eat some pizza. Yes, they grow wolfsbane. I told you they grow all manner of herbs.”
“But I didn’t know they grew deadly poisonous herbs,” I said. “This article here says that somebody died by brushing past wolfsbane.”
“They grow the poisonous herbs in a greenhouse at the back of the garden, and they don’t let the other gardeners in there,” Tara told me. “Duncan said that only the committee members are allowed in.”
I groaned. “My mother’s one of the committee members! Now they’ll suspect her even more than they did before! So only Mum, the victim, Eliza, and Celia were allowed access to the poisonous plants?”
Tara nodded. “And the greenhouse was locked, and only the committee members had a key.”
“Hmm, maybe there’s an extra key under a flowerpot or a key at the church as well.” I got up and walked over to the oven. “They’re ready.” I put on some oven mitts and popped the pizzas on the benchtops. “I suspect the victim’s neighbours.”
“Why? Surely their motive wasn’t strong.”
I grabbed the pizza slicer. “Maybe one or both of them had motives we haven’t discovered yet. It would be easy enough to grow wolfsbane surreptitiously. The fact wolfsbane was used suggests to me the murderer wasn’t a garden club member, as it’s too obvious. It seems to me one of the neighbours poisoned Tom Trent with wolfsbane purely to throw suspicion onto one of the gardeners.”
“Perhaps. So, are you going to the church camp tomorrow?”
I spun around to face her. “Church camp? What church camp?”
“Didn’t yo
u know? Duncan told me all about it. Your mother was going, and Eliza and Celia are booked to go. And Dylan is a late addition.”
“Oh no. Dylan is going?”
Tara nodded. “I figured you’d like to go too.”
“But it’s probably all booked out by now,” I said.
“Possibly, but didn’t you say you needed to keep an eye on Dylan? And Eliza and Celia must be the main suspects, what with the poisonous plants and all.”
“But like I said, there are the two neighbours with the expensive fence as well,” I reminded her. “I have no idea how they’d get access to the greenhouse, so I suspect one of them was growing wolfsbane secretly. Think about it. It’s too obvious that a known poisonous plant grower would poison the victim.”
“Maybe that’s what one of the gardeners was thinking. Seriously, Laurel, you need to go to the camp. You can’t let possessed Dylan out of your sight for that long, and besides, two of the suspects will be there.”
“But I hate camping,” I said. “I’ve never been camping.”
“Then how do you know you don’t like it?” Tara said, rather too brightly. “Go on, call Pastor Green now and ask him if you can go.”
I reluctantly picked up my phone. I had the pastor in my contacts, not only because he was the one who usually presided over the services at the funeral home, but also as he was the only one who could handle my mother—mostly, anyway.
To my dismay, Pastor Green said there was room for one more. Dylan had taken my mother’s place and somebody else had pulled out at the last minute. “Lucky me,” I concluded the call.
“See, I’m a great help with your sleuthing,” Tara said. “Just think, if I hadn’t told you about the church camp, you wouldn’t be going tomorrow.”
“I’ll hate it,” I lamented.
Tara smiled widely. “It’s a church camp, Laurel. What could possibly go wrong?”
Chapter 10
Before Basil knocked on my door with an iced coffee and a croissant, I was folding my pyjamas and placing them neatly inside a suitcase. I did not have a romantic view of camping. I could not care less about bonfires and marshmallows. Sleeping under the stars seemed the sort of thing you do only when the roof has been torn off your home by a storm or some sort of gigantic radioactive lizard. And the thought of canoeing sent cold shivers down my spine.
