by Ami Diane
“What’s wrong with Rummy?”
“Nothing, if you don’t cheat. The only time I’ll play it again is if I have actual rum in my hands. Then, I’ll consider it.”
“You’re such a party pooper.”
At Marge’s insistence, they had stayed up past midnight, playing games, talking, and laughing while Orchid had snoozed by the cooling cauldron and Jasper slept in his cage. Libby found it to be one of the happiest nights she’d experienced in months. When she’d admitted to herself that she’d be okay if Marge ended up using the warding potion, she wondered if this wasn’t what Stockholm syndrome felt like.
Soon, the kettle was screaming for attention, pausing their argument over cards and what constituted cheating.
While Libby poured hot water into the press, a knock came at the front door. She stopped pouring and exchanged a nervous glance with the potionist.
“I’m sure if it’s the killer,” Libby said, “they wouldn’t come in broad daylight.” She hoped the fact that her voice was nearing a pitch only dogs could hear didn’t give her doubt away. “And they certainly wouldn’t knock. Unless they’re a polite murderer, that is.”
“I’ll see who it is.” Marge dabbed a napkin over her rouged mouth before slipping out of the kitchen. The woman seemed to sleep in her makeup.
“Hey Chewbacca, you sure you don’t want to take a knife with you?”
“Don’t be such a scaredy cat.”
But when Libby peeked into the living room from the safety of the kitchen, she spotted Marge grabbing the defense potion off the coffee table.
She held her breath as the door cracked open. Marge spoke with someone on the other side a moment before the voice rose enough Libby could parse out words.
“Just let me in, will you?” Deputy Jackson’s deep voice growled at the older woman. “It’s me.”
“How do I know it’s you?”
As much as Libby enjoyed this scene, she was curious as to what brought the deputy over at this early hour. “Marge, let the man in.”
The older woman sighed and swung the door open. Jackson stomped in, sparing a glare in Marge’s direction.
“Who else would I be? You’ve flipped your lid, you know that?”
“How do I know you’re not the killer dressed up in disguise to look like Eric Jackson? I watched this thing on the television about how they do that Hollywood makeup and—”
“It’s clearly him, Marge.” Libby stepped between the two before they brawled, or worse, before Marge used the defense potion. The woman had failed to mention its title, but based on Libby’s brief encounter with the potion used on Marge’s ex, it couldn’t be good.
“Also,” she added, turning to Jackson, “Flipped your lid? Nobody says that anymore.”
But he was still staring at Marge. “What are you wearing? Did you kill a gorilla and make a suit out of its hair?”
“Is it hair or fur?” Libby wondered aloud, drawing looks from the other two. Then, she smiled at Jackson. “Now me opening my door in my birthday suit doesn’t seem so bad, am I right?”
His ears reddened. “It’s still worse.”
Marge’s head swiveled so hard, Libby thought she’d get whiplash. “You opened your door naked?”
Libby waved aside the question. Since she no longer saw smoke coming out of both of their ears, she strode into the kitchen for some much-needed caffeine.
The two followed in tow. While she rooted around for anything that could pass as coffee creamer besides the chunky milk she found in Marge’s fridge, the deputy pulled out a chair and sat.
“Did you tell her?”
Libby nodded. “Last night.”
Marge settled in the seat beside him, her tone suddenly serious. “But that can’t be why you’re here. You couldn’t possibly have found something overnight, could you?”
“The ME owed me a favor and worked late. He’s finishing up this morning, but his preliminary examination found something.”
Libby abandoned her search and joined them. Marge’s hand slid across the table and grabbed Libby’s; the woman’s face was a map of pain and fear.
“He found a puncture wound on her neck, typical of a needle mark. Also some bruising.”
“What?” Libby gasped. Marge’s hand trembled, causing Libby to tighten her grip. “Why didn’t the coroner spot it?”
“Most would’ve missed the puncture wound if they weren’t looking for it. The bruising—” he shrugged “—sometimes the blood takes time to rise to the surface. And as I said, the discoloring is barely visible. The ME almost missed it.”
“What’s this mean?” Marge croaked out.
“It means, we’re definitely looking at homicide and that I have two murders on my hands.” He let out a tired sigh. “I’m going to operate under the assumption that it’s the same killer because of the location of both bodies. But that doesn’t mean it’ll end up being the case. It’s possible we’re looking at two unrelated cases, which means, two killers.”
They lapsed into a deep silence that was eventually broken by Jackson’s chair scraping across the floor as he stood. “I need to get back to the office. I think it’s best you don’t return home for the time being.” His icy blue eyes bore holes into Libby’s, waiting for a response.
Her head dipped in a nod, the best she could manage since her tongue wouldn’t cooperate. Her mind swirled with questions and doubts, theories and suspicions.
She hated being told she couldn’t go home. She hated that someone had violated her haven. But most of all, she hated the pain she saw in Marge’s eyes.
So much death.
The front door closed, and she realized Jackson had left.
“You okay?” Libby bit her lip. “Sorry, stupid question. I mean, what can I do?”
It was a long while before Marge spoke, and when she did, her voice creaked like tall pines in a breeze. “You can help me catch the SOB who did this.”
Libby patted her friend’s hand before releasing it. “I was hoping you’d say that because I had an idea. But first, I really need coffee.”
Libby pulled her silver Honda Civic up to the curb outside Mother Nature’s Apothecary.
Beside her, Marge struggled out of the car. “Anyone ever tell you, you drive like a grandma?”
“Anyone ever tell you, you dress like a teenager?”
The older potionist raised her chin and smoothed out a sequined top that glittered like a disco ball. “Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.” Libby gestured at the front door. “Can you unlock it or do you want to stand out on the sidewalk all day chatting?”
“Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” Marge dug through her purse for her set of keys.
“No, somebody woke up on a couch because the guest bedroom was ‘occupied’.” Libby used air quotes for the last word.
When Marge had shown her the spare bedroom to prove that it was too full to sleep in, she’d revealed a room packed waist high with items from her shopping addiction—because that’s what Libby had decided to call it. An addiction.
Raindrops began to patter Libby’s jacket as she scanned up and down the sidewalk. “I don’t want to be seen out and about.”
“We’ll be fine. I brought the defense potion.”
“I’m more worried about Jackson spotting us.”
“Found it.” Marge narrowed down a fat set of keys to one and wiggled it into the lock for the shop.
Inside, the familiar scent of lavender and cinnamon hung in the air. Strolling slowly past the shelves, Libby’s eyes combed over jars of dried herbs, essential oils, salves, scrubs, lotions, supplements, and elixirs in tincture bottles alongside aerosol potions disguised as body sprays.
“And you’re sure nothing was taken?” Libby asked, picking up the conversation they’d had on the drive over.
“Positive. I did the inventory myself. Most of this stuff is already made, useless to a potionist. Whoever broke into Caroline’s stock was after in
gredients.”
Libby nodded, the evidence, again, pointing to another potionist. But that wasn’t what she was searching for.
“Can any of these cause heart attack-like symptoms? I know monkshood or wolf’s bane can slow the heart rate dramatically, enough to cause a heart attack, but I’m not sure it would account for the elevated potassium levels. That’s your department. I specialize more in plants, not how they affect people.”
“Those don’t fit,” Marge agreed. “Possibly foxglove, but Arlene didn’t exhibit the other, more common symptoms if that were the case.”
With foxglove, the other symptoms that usually reared their unglamorous heads first were vomiting and diarrhea.
“What about your stronger stuff in the back?”
Marge gave a shrug of resignation and led Libby to her office where she unlocked the potion cabinet.
Libby got her first good look at the contents filling the musty shelves and was surprised to find bottles of aspirin, Tylenol, gauze, a blood pressure machine, and other medical equipment, as well.
She picked up the potion with the skull and crossbones label she’d noticed her first time in the office. Holding it aloft, she raised her eyebrows in a silent question.
“Oh, that’s Gas Erase. It’s to help ease digestion issues, particularly of the wind variety, hence the name. However, for someone not suffering intestinal issues, it tends to have the opposite effect.” She winced. “I once asked Julie to mix a few drops of No. 2 into a customized elixir for one of my customers to help regulate his… well, you know.
“Anyway, she grabbed this bottle by mistake. The poor man didn’t have a BM for weeks. That’s the reason for the poison label on it now. Also, I don’t have Julie mix anymore unless I’m super busy.”
Replacing the bottle, Libby made a mental note to be more dubious of any elixir Marge handed her in the future. The bottles clinked as she moved them around to read labels.
She held up a jar with the letters K-C-L. Her lips moved silently as she worked over the letters before realizing that it stood for the chemical formula for….
“Is this what I think it is?”
Marge squinted at the label. “Potassium chloride.”
“Right. That’s what I thought.” She hadn’t been thinking that, mostly because the “L” wasn’t lowercase. If, on the other hand, it had read “KCl” she would’ve recognized it.
Potassium chloride was contained in large quantities in potash which she used to aid plant growth, limp stems, and root formation. Farmers also used it for fruit formation.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to review the periodic table when she got home.
Inside, a crystalline substance shifted like sand. If she recalled correctly, this was the stuff used to inject prisoners on death row back in the day.
She started to replace the glass jar then stopped. Rounding on Marge, she noticed her friend had the same thought, her eyes widening.
They spoke at the same time.
“It causes heart attacks in large doses.”
“This can be injected.”
Libby took a breath, setting the jar on the desk like it was made of gold—actual gold, not copper pennies-turned-gold. “Is any of it missing?”
Bending, the older woman got eye-level with the jar. “Yes. Quite a bit.” Her eyes glimmered.
“I’m assuming this gets dissolved into a solution before it’s injected?”
“Yes. In smaller doses, it benefits those who are hypokalemia. That is, those with low potassium levels.”
Libby whistled through her teeth, eyeing the innocent-looking substance. “But in larger doses, it causes heart attacks.”
Marge sank onto her chair, her face a mask of guilt.
“Hey,” Libby said, lowering into the chair on the other side, “you didn’t do this. This isn’t your fault.”
“I did the inventory myself after the break-in. Only, I focused up front, sure that’s where a thief would’ve concentrated because it was easy pickings. I asked Julie to check out the cabinet. She’s the one who told me nothing was missing.”
“Well, maybe to her it didn’t look like anything was. She probably doesn’t keep an eye on this stuff.” Libby winced, realizing she’d just made it sound like Marge was to blame. “I mean—”
“No, it’s fine.” Turning the jar, Marge’s finger brushed over measuring marks. “We keep a log of how much gets used and dates on a sheet inside the cabinet. It would’ve been a simple thing to check.” Her head shook then drooped so low her chin brushed her chest. “I’m going to have to let Julie go.”
“Wait, why?” Libby didn’t want to say it, but she felt Marge was just as responsible for not cross-checking the log with the jar of KCl.
“Because she was the last one to lock the cabinet that night, and she obviously forgot. She’s become a liability.”
Libby didn’t know what to say, so she remained silent, her heart aching for Marge. Someone had used potassium chloride from this bottle to kill her best friend. Someone who knew it was there and had gained access to the cabinet, bypassing the lock.
It was possible the thief knew how to pick a lock, but what was far more probable, what Libby knew in her gut, was that someone had used a potion to unlock the cabinet. And she knew someone who had such a potion.
CHAPTER 19
LIBBY’S STOMACH WAS grumbling in protest for not having eaten in several hours, but she was too distraught over the scene unfolding before her to think about food—well, almost. She could go for another cannonball of clam chowder right about now.
“It’s not my fault,” Julie sobbed. Her cheeks were wet, causing long, black strands of hair to paste against her skin. “I locked it. I swear.”
“I’m so sorry,” Marge said, equally upset. Despite the shop being closed on Sundays, and this being the clerk’s day off, Marge had asked to stop by the girl’s apartment.
Libby sat in the sardine-can sized kitchen, trying to give them some privacy. But as with most postage stamp-sized apartments, privacy existed only as a concept.
The living space was one of those open plans, so despite the fact that she sat at a tiny dining table, head hunkered over her phone, she also sat in the living room, seeing and hearing every word.
“Julie, I love you like a daughter.” Marge laid a hand on the young woman’s shuddering shoulders. Julie’s head was now buried in hands. “But it’s a liability. I have some powerful medicine in there. Suppose you forget again? Or you mix a bottle incorrectly? We got lucky Mr. Newton decided not to sue. This was just one forgetful moment too many.”
Libby’s fingers paused in their scrolling on her phone screen, wondering if Mr. Newton was the unfortunate customer with the bathroom issues or if Marge was referencing a different incident.
Julie’s body wracked, and muffled words blubbered between the cracks in her fingers.
“How’s that dear?” Marge pushed Julie’s mess of hair aside and leaned in.
The assistant sat up, her face red, wet, and snotty. “I locked the cabinet. I did. I swear on my mother’s grave.”
An expression passed between them, something Libby couldn’t help but notice.
“I believe you,” Marge said, quietly.
“Maybe they picked the lock,” Julie suggested with a sniffle. “I went to school with a boy who could do that.”
“Maybe.” But the doubt was evident in the apothecary’s voice. “Alright, you’re not let go, but until I can get this mess sorted out, I can’t have you coming in.”
Julie’s lip trembled like a shriveled leaf in a breeze. “I understand.”
After they said their strained goodbyes, Libby and Marge stood in the apartment parking lot, breathing out the intense atmosphere that had accumulated in their lungs.
“That was rough.” Marge’s face looked like she’d just survived a bout with a champion boxer—only without the blood and bruising.
They climbed into the car, and Libby turned the engine, the key chain jangling ag
ainst her leg.
“Marge? What if she’s right? What if she really did lock the cabinet?”
“You know, I believe she did—or at least that she thinks she did. That’s part of the problem.”
“But what about her key to the cabinet? The thief could’ve taken it from her desk and unlocked it to get the potassium chloride.”
“There’s just the one key.” Marge patted her purse.
Libby’s brows lowered as she pulled out onto the road with the intention of getting lunch. The clerk must’ve taken the key from Marge’s purse and accidentally put it back in her desk that day Libby saw her get into the cabinet.
“And that night of the break-in, you’re sure the key was in your purse?” Her eyes flitted sideways and caught Marge’s tense expression.
“Yes, Red. I’m sure.”
“If Julie really did lock the cabinet, and you had the key, then it stands to reason that the thief picked the lock.”
“Looks like it.” Marge stared out her window.
“Or used a potion that can unlock any lock.”
The interior of the vehicle fell silent.
“So, we’re back to another potionist?” There was no mistaking the edge in Marge’s tone. “You know, we’re not all bad, right?”
“Whoa, that’s not what I meant. I’m one of you now, remember?”
“You sure don’t act like it.”
“Holy donuts, where is this coming from?”
Marge let out a wheezy sigh that spoke of pain and heart-wrenching sadness. Finally, she said in a broken voice, “I’m sorry, Red. I didn’t mean it.”
“It’s alright.”
Libby turned down the main road that ran through town. The rain had stopped, and clouds had scattered across a pale sky. Ships bobbed in the bay, their profiles broken by the glare of a cold sun refracting off the water. She wished spring would hurry up and finish so summer could come.
