by Sara Rosett
“Oh, no,” Gina said, her tone scandalized that I’d even suggest it. “No, it was nothing like that. I just want you to know that even though she wasn’t my close friend, I knew her. She came in regular as clockwork, Tuesdays, three-thirty. Her break time, she called it. She wrote every weekday and weekends when she was on a deadline. She does go on holiday, but only for a week or two at a time, to visit friends or, a few times, on longer trips. She went to Portugal once and Italy another time, but she always came home after a week or so. She never stayed gone months at a time. Christmas was her favorite time of year. That’s one of the reasons she put so much effort into getting this market off the ground. She knew it would be a success. I know she wouldn’t miss it. She wouldn’t. She’s been gone since November,” Gina said, touching the table with her forefinger to emphasize the point. “She would not willingly miss the Christmas market.”
“I’m sorry that you’re worried about your friend, and it does sound rather…odd.” I picked my words carefully because I didn’t want to hurt Gina’s feelings. “But why would you want to talk to me about this? If you’re worried about her, you should talk to the police.”
She jerked her head in an impatient gesture. “The police. I’ve talked to them, and they won’t listen.”
“Why not?”
“Because they contacted someone in the Canary Islands and got back word that Harriet is fine,” she said, her tone scornful. “Just because the hotel manager says she’s there, doesn’t mean she is. People can be bribed, you know. If she’s there, why won’t she answer her calls?”
From the little I’d seen of her, Gina seemed to be a mostly reserved person with a soft voice and a hesitant manner. She didn’t seem to be the type who got worked up often, but she was agitated now. She took a breath, then sipped her tea, taking a moment, and then she continued in a more reasonable tone. “That’s why I need you. Louise told me all about your work with the police. You can find out what happened to Harriet. You can catch her killer.”
I blinked. It took me a few moments to actually form a sentence. “Saying that I worked with the police is stretching it. I’m flattered you think I could help, but I’m afraid I’d be useless to you. I was only able to help those other times because I knew the people involved and had sort of an inside track. Special knowledge of the situation, I guess you’d say. I’m not connected to anyone you’ve mentioned. I’d be completely clueless here.”
“Oh, but I already know who did it. I just need you to help me figure out how to prove it. Louise says you’re very clever.”
I’d been about to take a drink of my watery hot chocolate, but put the mug down. “You know that Harriet is dead and who killed her?” I asked as I looked toward Louise. Was Gina really a stable person? She appeared to be, but normally people didn’t go around talking about knowing a killer’s identity so blithely.
“It was Carrie Webbington, of course,” Gina said.
“The woman whose shop we were just in?” I asked, checking Louise’s reaction to Gina’s announcement.
Louise set down her hot chocolate, then raised her hands and leaned back in a don’t-ask-me posture. “I don’t like the woman, myself, so I’m not a good judge. She certainly seems like someone who could bump off another human being without a second thought.”
“She thought long and hard about it, I’m sure,” Gina said. “She had motive and opportunity.” Gina ticked each item off on her fingers. “She lives in the semi beside Harriet. So she was right there with her. Plenty of opportunity.”
“Semi? I don’t know what that is,” I said.
Louise said, “Semi-detatched. Two houses that are joined with a common wall.”
“Oh, like a duplex,” I said, nodding.
“And Carrie has always been greedy.” Gina paused to pat Louise’s arm. “I’m sorry to bring it up, but it’s true. And it’s pertinent.”
Louise made a face. “No worries. I got over Randy a long time ago.” Louise looked at me. “Carrie and I go way back. Before I moved to Nether Woodsmoor, she and I worked at the same restaurant in Manchester. She stole my guy.” Louise shrugged. “Water under the bridge.”
“But still, it’s a pattern,” Gina said firmly. “She wants more than she has—that’s motive. She’s not a true Janeite either. She only sells those things because they’re profitable. I saw her online store when she first opened. She had all sorts of tacky things. Only the Jane Austen merchandise sold, so she stuck with that. You saw how she’s taken over Harriet’s booth and is selling her books. You can’t tell me that the royalties off Harriet’s books wouldn’t be worth killing for. Her books are best sellers.”
“Only online though,” Louise cautioned.
Gina took another sip of her tea, grimaced, and put it down. “I did some research over the last few days. Her books may sell mostly online, but she’s made the New York Times list three separate times as well as several other lists. Her books sell. She has to be making good money, and Carrie is transferring it into her account, I’m sure, or simply withdrawing it in cash.”
“That should be easy enough to check. You’ve told all this to the police?” I asked.
“No, they won’t talk to me.” She took another sip of her tea, then set it aside with a shudder. “That’s awful. I don’t know what they put in it. I should have had the cocoa,” she murmured, then looked down at her folded hands. “I’m afraid I’ve been banned from my local constabulary,” she said primly.
“Surely not,” Louise said.
“Well, not officially, but Constable Petrie won’t speak to me on the subject any more. He holds up his hand and shakes his head when I try to talk to him now. He says they checked, and Harriet is fine, so I have to leave it alone. But I can’t. Not when I know something terrible has happened.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think—”
She reached across the table and took my hand. Her hand was very cold. “Please,” she said with a beseeching gaze that rivaled the pitiful look Slink sent me when she wanted a walk. “At least let me tell you what I’ve found out before you say no.”
I sighed. I couldn’t resist her sad gaze. And she was so insistent. “All right,” I said, “but I don’t think I’ll be able to help you.”
“That’s fine, just talking through it may jog my memory, or you might notice something I missed.” She shifted around on the bench and reached for her handbag, but stopped abruptly and put her hand to her forehead. “Oh, a bit of a head rush there.” She carefully moved so that she wasn’t twisted around. “Sorry. I’m okay now.” She put a pocket-size spiral notebook with a red cover on the table and flipped to a page that was folded down at the corner.
She blinked and held the notebook at arm’s length, seeming to struggle to focus on the page. After a second, she handed it to me with a shake of her head. “My eyes are tired. It’s all there. I don’t need to read it. I’ve looked at it so many times I have it memorized. The last time I saw Harriet at the grocery was in November. It was a Tuesday, her usual shopping time. She didn’t buy as much as she normally did because she was leaving for a trip to the Canary Islands, the day after she came to Page Turners. That’s our book club,” Gina explained.
“Yes. Louise told me. Was Harriet a member, too?”
“Oh, no,” Gina said. “We invited her to talk about her books. We were thrilled that she could do it. So nice of her to make time, right before her trip, but that was Harriet all over. Thoughtful, you know, despite being so busy. It was such a fun night. We met at the White Duck, of course, and had a wonderful time. So interesting to hear about her process. She writes a twenty-page outline in longhand, then when she’s writing, she saves all her work to one of those small memory devices. What did she call it? Oh yes, a flash drive. Keeps it with her all the time,” Gina said.
Louise nodded. “She doesn’t like ‘the cloud.’ She said she lost power and her Internet connection once when she was on a tight deadline and couldn’t get to her book.”
�
�Anyway, the last time I spoke to her was the third Friday in November, after the book club,” Gina said.
Louise wrapped both hands around her mug of hot chocolate. “Yes, we all walked out together that night. Gina and Harriet stayed while I closed up.”
“She said she was leaving the next day for her trip, and she would return a week later on Saturday, November twenty-eighth. We talked about the Christmas market and how much she was looking forward to it.”
Gina paused, her gaze focused on the green and white tablecloth. “I’m sorry to say that I didn’t realize she wasn’t back until December. It was the change of the month, you know, that jogged my memory. I thought, oh, I will ask Harriet about her trip when she comes in this week. But she didn’t. I thought I’d missed her. But when the second week of December went by, and no one had seen her at the grocery, I went by her house. It was shut up tight. Blinds closed, and the little step covered with dead leaves. Carrie came up the walk at that moment, a key in her hand, as bold as brass. She said she was bringing in the mail for Harriet, that Harriet had called and said she extended her trip, and would Carrie get the mail for her? I didn’t believe her for a moment.” Gina put her hand on her stomach and swallowed determinedly.
“Are you okay?” I asked. Gina’s skin had a washed out look to it, and I noticed her forehead was suddenly shiny. If talking about her friend brought on this physical reaction, she really was worried about Harriet.
Gina gripped the edge of the table, wrinkling the paper cloth as she drew in an unsteady breath. “No, I’m afraid I’m going to be ill.” She turned and half-crawled along the long bench, then stumbled away, weaving along the side of the tented dining area. Louise shifted along the bench, following her. I stood and stepped over the bench then hurried around the end of the table to Gina. She’d stopped and was doubled over in pain, her hands clutched at her midsection.
“Someone call for help,” I said as I put a hand on her back.
“No—need…air.” She pushed herself upright and with her hands braced on one of the tables she took a few steps, faltered, and fell, her head cracking against the edge of the table as she collapsed.
Chapter 4
A WHITE-COATED MAN WITH thinning hair and round glasses opened the door to the waiting room and consulted a file. “Louise Clement?”
The attention of the people scattered around the brightly lit room dropped away as they shifted back into the vinyl chairs. Louise and I stood as the man walked over.
“I’m Doctor Hardy. You’re a friend of,” he paused to check the file again, “Mrs. Brill?”
“Ms. Brill,” Louise corrected. “She’s not married.”
“Any children or other family?” the man asked.
“As I told them at admission, no. Her nearest relative is a cousin in Canada.” Louise’s voice was impatient. “How is she?”
He made a note in the file, then put his pen away as he looked at Louise over the rims of his glasses, which had slipped down his nose. He sighed. “I really shouldn’t—”
“Dr. Hardy,” Louise said in a firm tone that I’d never heard her use. “Even if I could get in touch with Gina’s cousin, it would take her at least a day or more to get here. I am one of Gina’s closest friends. How is she? What happened?”
“That’s my question for you. You said she fell, then complained of nausea?”
“No, that’s completely wrong.” Louise pushed her red bangs out of her eyes with an impatient gesture. “She said she was going to be sick then wrapped her arms around her stomach. She was clearly in pain. Then she fell and hit her head. We couldn’t wake her.”
The doctor’s attitude changed from briskly businesslike to intense concentration. “She didn’t fall first?”
“No, that’s what I just said—what we’ve told everyone from the emergency people who arrived at the market to the admissions people,” Louise said, her voice testy.
“She said she felt dizzy, too,” I added, “and she looked very pale.”
Dr. Hardy ignored Louise’s irate tone. “And she had ingested tea?” he asked.
“Yes, peppermint tea, at the Christmas market. Again, how is she? I’d like to see her.”
Dr. Hardy had already moved backwards a few steps as Louise asked her question. “We’re doing everything we can,” he said. “I’ll update you soon.” He turned and jogged away, disappearing through the doors.
Louise sagged into the nearest chair. “Really. Doesn’t anyone listen? I told them—all of them—exactly what happened.”
I did my best to soothe Louise, but the doctor’s quick exit worried me. I settled in to wait, expecting it to be a long time before anyone came with more news, but less than twenty minutes later Dr. Hardy pushed through the doors again. Louise had been trying to find someone who could get in touch with Gina’s Canadian cousin, and I had been paging through Gina’s notebook. She’d left it with me when she left the table. In the commotion after she fell, I’d tucked it in my coat pocket. I had been skimming over her notes, but it was hard to concentrate with the activity in the waiting room—people moving through the chairs, making calls, and one baby who wasn’t at all happy.
“No, don’t get up.” Dr. Hardy sat down beside Louise. “Your friend is still in critical condition and unconscious. You can’t see her now, but it may be possible tomorrow. I expect her to improve, now that the poison is out of her system.”
“Poison?” Louise said. “What are you talking about?”
“Ms. Brill ingested between ten and fifteen mistletoe berries.”
“But she didn’t have anything but the tea…” Louise’s voice trailed off, and I felt a little nauseous myself.
Dr. Hardy asked, “Did anyone save her cup?”
Louise seemed to be lost in her own thoughts and didn’t answer, so I said, “No. We didn’t know…I mean, I could tell she was sick, but it never occurred to me to think it might have something to do with the tea.”
Louise put out a hand and touched my arm. “She said it tasted funny, remember? When she was almost done with it.”
“Yes, she did,” I said. “But she’ll be okay now?”
“I’m actually more worried about the blow to the head than the poison. She has a concussion and some swelling. Medically speaking, mistletoe poisoning is the lesser of the two worries. Every holiday season the warnings about mistletoe are made, but overall, very few cases of mistletoe poisoning are fatal. Most people recover after some gastric distress. The head wound is what we’ll keep an eye on. We should know more tomorrow. But, of course the poison does matter to the police,” Dr. Hardy continued. “We’ve contacted them. Standard procedure. They’ll sort it out. I’m sure they’ll want to speak to you. Ah, there he is now. If you’ll excuse me?”
Dr. Hardy left to meet a uniformed police officer who had entered the waiting room.
Louise looked down at Gina’s notebook, which I had dropped into my lap. “Do you think…”
“It must be,” I said. “Gina must be right. Why else would someone try to poison her?”
Constable Petrie didn’t share our opinion.
At the mention of Gina’s name, he quirked his mouth into a disapproving line. “At it again, is she?”
Dr. Hardy, who had just brought the constable over to Louise and me, said, “You can get in touch with me here, if you need additional information,” and strode rapidly away.
Constable Petrie was probably in his late twenties, I guessed. He had a prominent brow with thick eyebrows that nearly met over close-set eyes and a pointed chin, which gave his face a triangular shape.
He took Louise and me around a corner into another waiting room and printed all our contact details into his notebook, then listened to us recount what happened, but there was an air of barely-suppressed impatience about him. Louise still seemed stunned by the news about the poison, so I’d taken the lead in detailing what had happened at the Christmas market and finished by saying, “Neither one of us had any idea. We didn’t realize until
Dr. Hardy told us about the mistletoe.”
“And was anyone else with you at the table?” Petrie rubbed his hand along his pointy chin.
“No, just the three of us,” I said. “Gina is worried about a friend of hers.” I paused, trying to think of how to phrase things so that he’d listen. It seemed a bit extreme to mention the word murder at this point, especially since Gina had said the police had been dismissive of her worries about Harriet. “Gina’s worried that her friend is hurt or possibly in trouble—”
“Harriet Hayden,” Petrie said, cutting me off. “Right. Know all about it.”
I held out Gina’s notebook. “These are her notes.”
Petrie flipped through the first pages, then handed it back. “I don’t need this.” He closed his own notebook and stood, obviously preparing to leave.
“You don’t want her notes? Someone tried to poison her,” I said, still holding the notebook out toward him.
“I have all that. Ms. Brill sends me weekly updates.” He made air quotes around the last two words. “As if she’s running some sort of investigation. She’s a woman with too much time on her hands, who has become a little too fixated on a semi-famous person.”
“You don’t think there’s anything suspicious about Harriet Hayden’s extended absence?” I asked.
“What absence? She’s in a hotel in the Canary Islands. She extended her holiday. No crime in that.”
Louise, who had been very quiet, leaned forward suddenly. “You’re not taking Gina’s poisoning seriously.”
Petrie tapped his notebook. “I took down everything you said. We’ll look into it, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Ms. Brill did it to herself. I’m sure the doctor gave you the same news he gave me. Mistletoe doesn’t kill people, only makes them sick. This whole thing,” he circled his notebook indicating the hospital walls, “could be an attempt to get us to check into the Hayden thing again.”
“But what if Gina’s right? What if someone did murder Harriet Hayden?” Louise asked. “If Gina figured it out, then she’d be a target, too.”
