Pushing Up Rhubarb (A Millsferry Mystery Book 1)

by Diana Saco

  “Doesn’t that make them inadmissible?” Al asked.

  “Not anymore,” Mason said triumphantly. “Loyal opened the door on that for us when he decided to give Nina immunity. We can use anything she saw in there. So what is special about the cooking diaries?”

  “There’s a section several pages long describing the dangers of eating rhubarb leaves,” I said. “It was dog-eared and had the words ‘oxalic acid’ written in Monica’s handwriting in one of the margins. That shows she knew about the leaves being toxic and even what the substance was. In fact, the grandmother emphasized how deadly the leaves were by painting little tombstones across a portion of the page. You would have liked them, Chloe,” I added.

  “That’s that then?” Mason said definitively.

  I exchanged looks with Chloe and Al. I could tell from their equally confused expressions that none of us had any idea what Mason meant even though we felt we should know. It was kind of like the feeling you get when you daydream in a class or in a meeting and suddenly realize you missed something important. One of us had to stick a neck out and admit to being lost. I volunteered.

  “Uh, Mason, what do you mean?”

  “We’re going after Monica Munch.”

  Chloe threw her hands up like it had been a long time coming.

  “At last!” she said.

  14. Tyning the Runes

  The following day was Sunday. I ignored anything and everything having to do with Chloe’s trial. I even ignored Chloe. She had already emailed me a couple of times before breakfast, but I resisted the urge to open the messages and reply. Instead, I gave myself the day off. In fact, I resented Chloe’s emails. Didn’t she know it was Sunday? Good grief, less then twenty-four hours ago, I was locked away in a jail cell and recovering from being poisoned. Give an ex-con a break! Didn’t I deserve to take the day off?

  Being boxed up in a jail—even if it was only hours—had made me itchy to be outside. So I spent the morning swimming, hanging out at the Town Pasture with Pippy, and riding my Trikke from there to an outdoor café by Mills Pond. I deliberately took the long way around to avoid having to go on Bingham Place, the street named after Loyal and that skirted the southwest side of his golf course. That’s how much I wanted to avoid thinking about the trial. I ate a leisurely lunch at the café and then headed back to the Pasture to pick up my car. After that, I found myself gravitating toward the Runes.

  Ever since the night of the séance, I had the crazy sensation that I had left something behind at the pavilion. I went back there just to look around. More people were out in the area tickling the runes or just picnicking at nearby pavilions, but the one we had used was empty. I had no idea what I was looking for and had no expectation of finding anything. I think it was more the need to sit a spell and ponder. Despite my attempts to push the trial out of my head, I realized that I’d been going over key events from the moment I had woken up that morning.

  The case had taken many turns and even more victims. It wasn’t just that Monica Munch was dead. Randall Kirkland, an innocent bystander by all accounts, had suffered the consequences of the initial misdeed. He was—in the awful wording used by military types—collateral damage. Chloe was not collateral damage. If our suspicions were correct, she was the original target, and she was surely suffering the consequences of being made, as she put it, “the bad guy.” Aunt Dottie was hurting because Chloe, one of her project kids, was in trouble. In a sense, I was a victim, too—not an innocent one by any means, but one caught up in the drama nonetheless. I needed to help, and out of that need, I talked myself into doing something that got me poisoned and suspended. I also put my partner at risk, another innocent bystander—but not another victim if I could help it.

  Then there was the family—Marvin and Maxi. They were victims, too, more acutely than the rest of us because they loved Monica and lost her. Marvin was now also a physical victim of the poison. If things played out the way I suspected, Monica’s reputation might also become a victim, and that possibility was making her sister suffer. I understood that Maxi felt she owed her sister a debt, but Monica was dead now. What difference would it make? What sort of debt did we owe the dead anyway? Why was it taboo to speak ill of them? Maybe it was just bad form—picking on someone who couldn’t defend herself.

  Let’s face it. Except for the odd sociopath, reputations mattered—both in life and in death. Why else make those pacts with our best friends? You know the ones. The promises extracted—usually in the middle of the night after a few too many drinks—while you’re still lucid enough to remember that journal full of too many secrets, the sex toy in the nightstand, those embarrassing photos in a box at the back of the closet. You entrust your best friend with this information and make her—in my case, him—pinky-swear to get rid of the incriminating evidence in the event of your untimely death. Farm hinted he would look first, but I tackled him to the floor and held him down until he swore he would burn everything without peeking at any of it. I could be a mean drunk, so he gave in pretty quickly.

  I tried to imagine Monica and Maxi rolling around on the floor wrestling assurances out of each other, but that mental picture wouldn’t come into focus. They seemed too prim and proper. The most menacing act I could envision between them was Monica threatening to throw one of her cream pies at Maxi’s face, or Maxi poised to dig a finger into a cake Monica had just finished decorating. Gasp!

  I knew it wasn’t fear or threats that drove Maxi to protect Monica’s reputation. It was something more binding than a vow slurred in the dark of night under the influence of distilled spirits. It was guilt. That’s why Maxi was refusing to unlock the tablet. She knew her sister better than anyone. Maybe she knew all along that Monica had spiked Chloe’s dessert. Not knew-knew—as in, having irrefutable evidence—but know-knew—as in, having too much history with her sister to doubt that she could have, would have, and had to have done it. That meant that Maxi also knew that the tablet would contain evidence of her sister’s lies and deceptions. As it stood now, everyone thought of Monica as a devoted wife with an impeccable reputation. She baked adorable treats for children and award-winning tortes and tarts to please more mature palates. That’s who Monica was, and Maxi wanted to leave it at that. Would she let Chloe go to prison just to protect that perfect image of Monica Munch, the smiling baker with the blue ribbons?

  I had gone to the Runes wishing I knew the answer to that question. I strolled to the edge of the pavilion and idly swiped at some dry leaves with the toe of my sneaker. I saw something red in the debris and bent over to look at it more closely. I recognized it as one of our candles from the night of the séance. It must have fallen off the pavement. During a dry spell, that could have been dangerous. But it was raining that night, so the flame would have gone out shortly after the candle rolled into the damp heath, and probably before. The wax, however, had still been soft when the candle landed. As I pulled the candle up and turned it over, I saw that some runic symbols had become imprinted in the wax before it hardened. I rechecked the area where the candle had fallen and immediately found the runestone that had left its impression on the candle. It was slightly bigger than a quarter and had two symbols that I recognized as part of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc or runic alphabet. The first was the Os symbol, which looked like an F with a small dip in the middle of the horizontal lines. The other symbol was Ing and resembled two connected X’s, one above the other. I vaguely recalled that Ing was a god, but I definitely remembered that Os meant “mouth.” So my immediate interpretation was “mouth-ing,” which I took to mean “to eat,” also known as “munching.” That, of course, made me think of Monica Munch and sent a creepy shiver up my spine.

  Just then, my cellphone rang, which made me start with a yelp. As I fumbled for the headset in my pocket, I looked around to see if anyone noticed. The nearest person was several yards away at a neighboring pavilion and seemed more aware of his sandwich than of jittery madwomen with raw nerves.

  “Hello?” I said, tappi
ng the headset on as I put it in my ear.

  “Why aren’t you answering my emails?”

  “Chloe!” I said, recognizing her voice. “You just gave me a heart attack!”

  “I’m sure I didn’t.”

  “Fine. Your call startled me,” I restated. “But hyperbole still has its place in the world.”

  “With tweens and drama queens, perhaps.”

  “Did you just call me a drama queen?” I asked.

  “If the slipper fits . . .” she said.

  “Chloe, why are you calling?”

  “Because you aren’t answering my emails.”

  “It’s Sunday. I spent yesterday in jail. I was poisoned the day before. And technically, I’ve had my license suspended and shouldn’t be working anyway. So excuse me for being selfish, but I thought I deserved the day off.”

  “I agree. I was emailing because I wanted to invite you to brunch as a thank you for the lovely flowers. When you didn’t answer those emails, I changed it to dinner.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Now, don’t you feel silly for thinking the worst of me?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Nina, would you like to come over for dinner?” Chloe asked.

  I smiled. “Yes.”

  “Where are you, anyway?” she asked.

  “I’m at the Runes,” I said, absently toeing the loose ground cover. “I went back to the pavilion where we had the séance.”

  “What in Gaia’s name for?”

  “Just a weird feeling that I had left something here that night.”

  “You mean other than your dignity?” she asked.

  “Not nice,” I said.

  “You looked cute in your see-through T-shirt, shivering and wet like a lost puppy.”

  “Still not nice, Chloe Owens.”

  “Oh, don’t do that,” she said. “Please don’t call me by my full name. It reminds me of the albatross. It was always ‘Hello, Chloe Owens’ and ‘Goodbye, Chloe Owens.’ And when I would hear her talking about me to someone else, it was always—‘that Chloe Owens,’ often said in an exasperated tone.”

  I laughed and then remembered my find. “Speaking of, I discovered the strangest thing. Do you remember those candles we were burning during the séance?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “One of them rolled into the grass, and a runestone got imprinted in the wax. When I looked at the ground again, I found the runestone. The strange part is the symbols. The first one is Os or “mouth” and the second is Ing. Get it? It says “mouthing,” which has to mean ‘Munch,’ don’t you think?”

  I had to pull the headset out of my ear when Chloe started cackling on the other end of the call. “Hey, why are you laughing?” I yelled into the mike. When I heard her laughter subsiding, I put the headset back in my ear.

  “Oh, Nina,” she said between remaining chuckles, “that’s priceless.”

  “Are you making fun of my runology?”

  “Yes. I love your enthusiasm, but your interpretation is too contemporary and too literal.”

  “But don’t you remember how Aunt Dottie said that Monica Munch did show up the night of the séance?” I asked.

  “Have you been drinking cough syrup again, Nina?”

  “Come on,” I persisted. “Don’t tell me you didn’t feel something that night.”

  “Annoyed, cold, perplexed—I felt a lot of things, but not haunted by an actual ghost, despite Farm’s antics with the cat spirits brushing against his legs.”

  “You’re a witch, Chloe. I thought witches believed in ghosts.”

  “In spiritual energy, yes. I’m just saying that I don’t believe Monica Munch’s ghost was conjured at the Runes by Lily Bingham’s well-meaning incantations.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure she was here, and I think this candle proves it.” I was beginning to sound petulant, even to myself, but I didn’t care.

  “Seriously, Nina, the Runes can have a strange effect on people. Something in the air. How are you feeling?”

  “I feel fine. It smells great up here today. I’m clear-headed and sharp. And I was even feeling good about how much I remembered from my rune research until you harpooned my happy bubble.”

  “Again with the hyperbole,” she said. “Okay, let me try my hand at interpreting what you found. What were you thinking about when you saw the candle?” she asked.

  “Why should I tell you? You’ll just make fun of me some more.”

  “I won’t. I promise,” she said.

  I sighed heavily, letting go the frustration. “Okay, I was thinking about the case and all the twists and turns. I thought about how so many people have been hurt as a result. And I was thinking that despite all of Maxi’s efforts to protect her sister, Monica’s reputation was probably going to take a hit. You know, be another casualty. And the very last thought I had before finding the candle was that the reason I was here at the Runes is because I hated not knowing how far Maxi would go—whether she would let you go to prison just to protect her sister’s reputation.”

  “That’s why you went to the Runes?” Chloe asked. “That’s what was preying on your mind?”

  “Well, it is the $64,000 question, right?” I said. “I think we’re confident that there’s information on that tablet pertinent to the case. Information that could exonerate you. But Maxi’s the only one who can unlock the tablet. So how far is she willing to go?”

  “Hmm, I suppose that is the question,” Chloe said.

  “Well, that and also—what do we have to do to persuade her to give up?” I added.

  “All right, then, we have our questions. Now according to legend, the way the Runes work is that they attune themselves to your greatest desire at the moment and offer guidance.”

  “Right, that’s what they call ‘tickling the Runes,’ yes?” I asked.

  Chloe didn’t quite laugh, but I could tell from the levity in her voice that she wanted to. “Where did you hear that expression?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I heard it a while ago, from Lily, I think, or maybe Farm told me when I first moved here. Doesn’t it mean that you stimulate the runestones while you’re thinking about what you want? Like by chanting at them or sometimes rubbing them?”

  “Maybe that’s the way some people do it,” Chloe allowed diplomatically. “The expression I’m familiar with is ‘tyning the Runes.’ It’s ‘tyne’ with a ‘y,’ so the derivation is sketchy, but I think it’s just an alternate form of ‘tine’ with an ‘i,’ as in the tine of a tuning fork. That, I think, is the meaning. ‘Tyning the Runes’ is about tuning them to your spiritual and emotional need at the moment by focusing on what you desperately need to know.”

  “So you don’t touch the stones? No ‘tickling’ is involved?” I asked.

  Chloe chuckled. “I suppose you can pick up some of the runestones and rub them for focus, but you don’t actually go searching for them. You sort of let them find you. The ones you find accidentally while you’re deep in thought about your question—those are the key ones to read. Follow?”

  “Yes, and that’s what happened!” I said excitedly. “I wasn’t looking for runestones. I found them accidentally.”

  “Okay, so now as to what they mean—Os does mean ‘mouth.’ It can also refer to an ‘estuary’ or to the Norse god Odin. ‘Mouth’ is the usual meaning, but not in the sense of eating. It’s more profound than that because the mouth is how we communicate and share knowledge. It’s about language, Nina—maybe even about storytelling.”

  “Cool,” I said in awe.

  Chloe laughed at my reaction and then continued with her reading. “Now Ing or Ingwaz or Yngvi are older names for the Norse god Freyr, a fertility god who was known for bringing pleasure to us mere mortals. That rune signifies stored up energy and transformation, like something that’s been incubating and is now springing forth. That makes it also a rune of action and completion. So Ing isn’t so much a language element like the ‘i-n-g’ you add to the end of a
verb. Rather, it’s more a symbol for these other references to male virility, energy, action, and the accomplishment of a goal. A common shorthand for that is the concept of the hero.”

  “So what are you saying? Are these symbols referring to the hero of a story?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Who is the hero of this story?”

  “I don’t know. I think you have to answer that, if that’s what the runestone says.”

  “Well, what else could it be saying?” I asked.

  “How about ‘the hero is the story’?”

  I thought about it. “The hero is the story,” I repeated. “You said Freyr is a god of pleasure?”

  “Not quite, but close enough.”

  “So this hero, is it a hero who brings us pleasure?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’m sure of it.”

  “So maybe it means that it’s going to take a story to bring us satisfaction, to create some kind of closure in this case.”

  “Sounds good. Does that help you with the case?”

  I turned the idea around in my head. “I haven’t a bastard clue.”

  Chloe laughed.

  “Maybe the problem is that I don’t know whose story it is that we’re trying to tell here,” I said.

  “Well, think about it. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  “Okay, but right now, I’m beginning to feel a little lightheaded,” I admitted.

  “Time for you to go, then,” Chloe said urgently. “But put the runestone back where you found it,” she added.

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely! It’s the proper way to show respect to Gaia. Leave everything the way you find it.”

  “Let me get a picture of it first.” I snapped a couple of images with my smartphone and then returned the stone to its original location. “I should take the candle, though. Right?”

  “Yes, that’s our junk.”

  “Okay, Chloe, I’m ready to go. Just one more question,” I said. “What’s for dinner?”

  15. Startling Developments