Heaven Preserve Us: A Home Crafting Mystery (A Home Crafting Mystery)

by Cricket McRae

  Stunned, I stammered out, "There was another man brought in this morning." I looked at my watch. "Yesterday morning, I guess. And then he died in the afternoon. Philip Heaven. He had many of the same symptoms. Was that botulism, too?"

  Her eyebrows arched. "I don't know. But I'll certainly look into it. What was his name again?"

  I repeated it, and she wrote it down. Then she smiled at me. "If you're worried Mr. Ambrose is going to die overnight, you can stop. If it's botulism poisoning, he'll make a full recovery eventually."

  "And if it's not?"

  She looked earnestly into my eyes. "Then you'll deal with that when we know more. But for tonight he needs his rest, and it looks like you do, too. If you stay, I'll have to insist you remain in the waiting room anyway. Go home. He won't even know you're gone."

  No woman wants to hear those last words, but she was probably right. What else could I do but leave?

  I wasn't proud of the tiny flicker of relief I felt as I exited the hospital into the fresh night air.

   

  EIGHT

  AFTER A FEW FALSE turns, I found my way out of the hospital parking garage and back to the highway to Cadyville. I suddenly understood what the phrase "sick at heart" felt like in real time.

  It was late, but when I got home I found Meghan dozing on the couch, a copy of MFK Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf open on her lap.

  I'd completely forgotten to call her.

  A small fire crackled in the fireplace, and the room smelled of cedar and cloves. Light jazz played at low volume on the stereo. It was a wonderful atmosphere to walk into, welcoming and homey.

  I struggled not to burst into tears.

  Meghan started awake. "Oh! I didn't hear you come in." Alarm flooded her features as her eyes met mine. "Is Barr okay?"

  I shucked out of my jacket. "I think so."

  She seemed to relax a little. "What happened?"

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

   

  "Honey, what's wrong?" She got up and came over to me, put her arms around my shoulders, and gave me a patented Meghan Bly hug.

  That was all it took. I turned into a gooey, messy excuse for a woman, a puddle of angst and insecurity and fear. She led me back to the couch and made me sit. She brought me tea, strong and hot and heavily sugared. I spluttered and leaked tears and told her about Barr and the botulism and how Philip might have died from it and how Barr being in the hospital made me think about Mike. She took my half-drunk cup of tea away and brought me a glass of single malt Scotch.

  Bless her heart.

  I downed the Talisker. And she gave me some more.

  And then she put me to bed.

  Exhausted and a little tipsy, I drifted off to sleep surprisingly quickly. And I slept like a baby until nearly three a.m.

  That's when I awoke and lay in bed, thinking. Someone had threatened Philip Heaven. He knew who it was. He hadn't taken them seriously at first, but when he'd whispered in my ear while we waited for the paramedics, he'd believed that was why he fell so terribly ill. And then he'd died.

  Barr's symptom's matched his very closely.

  Had someone intentionally given Philip botulism toxin? After an hour I managed to work myself into a real tizzy, wondering whether Barr had become worse during the night.

  At six-thirty Erin found me sitting at the kitchen table with a big mug of coffee, on the phone quizzing the nurse I finally managed to track down on the fifth floor of the hospital. He wasn't any better, but he wasn't any worse, either. He was asleep. She also told me that the test for the presence of botulism toxin had come back positive and that Barr had already received the antitoxin. She didn't have any information about Philip, but she had passed on my suspicions to her superiors, and they had alerted the medical examiner.

   

  I thanked her and hung up, wondering in a macabre way whether performing an autopsy on someone who had died from botulism would be dangerous. I suspected it might be, but I realized that, other than a vague notion that botulism could be found in poorly home-canned food, I knew very little about it. As I stared at the wood grain on a kitchen cabinet, I didn't even notice Erin had put together her own breakfast until she sat down across from me. Cereal and milk. And a bowl of peaches.

  Home canned peaches.

  "Don't eat those!"

  She stopped with the liquid dripping from the spoon into her cereal bowl. Her mouth was half open and her eyes wide.

  "What's wrong?" Meghan came in, and though her words were innocuous, I sensed she meant, "What's wrong now?"

  I winced. "Botulism. It's confirmed. That's why Barr's sick. But somebody over there was on the ball, and he's going to be all right."

  Meghan eyed the bowl of peaches.

  "Am I gonna die?" Erin asked.

  "Of course not," her mother said. "We've been eating out of that jar for a couple of days. They're fine." To prove her point she grabbed the spoon out of her daughter's hand and took a big bite of peach. "They're fine," she repeated after swallowing, and gave me a significant look.

   

  I forced a smile on my face. "Sorry. Knee-jerk reaction."

  "You want some?"

  "Urn, sure. But not right this instant. Maybe later." I had no doubt Meghan was right about the fruit, but I couldn't bring myself to eat any of it. "I'm going downstairs to look up botulism on the computer. Maybe I can get some idea of where it came from"

  "Okay. But don't scare yourself. Bug, are you going to study for the bee this morning before school?"

  Erin nodded and began shoving soggy cornflakes in her mouth at a record pace. She swallowed and stood up. "Can we leave at six-forty-five?"

  Meghan smiled. "Sure. I'll be ready when you are."

  The phone rang, and Meghan's eyes grew round. Phone calls before seven a.m. generally didn't bode well. She went to answer, and I sat with my eyes closed and my fingers pressed against my lips, afraid to move and selfishly praying the call had nothing to do with Barr.

  But Meghan returned almost immediately. "It was a hang up" Her forehead creased. "Again"

  "Again?"

  "There were two of them last night when you were at the hospital. Reads `private call' on the caller ID."

  Crap. "I bet its Allen, or whatever his name is."

  "Probably. Next time it rings, you get it. Try to get him to stop, okay?"

  Erin returned, laden with full backpack and clad in full winter weather garb. "C'mon, Mom" Her voice held no doubt as to what she thought of a mother who promised they could leave at sixforty-five and then couldn't get it together in time.

   

  Meghan hustled into the hallway, scooping up a pair of boots on the way to the bench by the door. "Grab your lunch out of the fridge and we'll go," she called as she speed-laced her footwear.

  Erin rolled her eyes at me, grabbed her lunch, said goodbye, and they were out the door.

  Try to get Allen to stop? Sheesh. What a great idea, Megs. I took my coffee and went down to my workroom.

  My desktop computer sat in the corner of my storeroom. Since I do a lot of my Winding Road business via the Internet, I spend a lot of time down there. There was one small window that didn't open but allowed in some natural light, and I loved the smell of the soaps curing on the shelves. It also made it easy to ascertain the availability of the different toiletries in my repertoire, so I wasn't popping up to check every time I had to create a packing list or order supplies.

  The morning was still pitch black outside. I switched on the little desk lamp and booted up the computer. Once it was online, I plugged the words "botulism symptoms causes" into the search engine and began to read.

  Pretty nasty stuff. Slurred speech, nausea and vomiting, disturbed vision, and possible death due to paralysis, especially that of the respiratory system.

  I thought of Philip Heaven, struggling for breath, his body refusing to cooperate. He'd basically suffocated to death. The thought made the coffee sour in my stoma
ch. As a mild claustrophobe, I thought that would be a particularly awful way to go.

   

  The most common way to get botulism was via home-canned food. It was fairly rare anymore and usually found in low-acid foods like beans or corn-things that anyone who does much home canning knows you have to put through a pressure canner.

  I thought back to the offerings at the preserves exchange. Bette had brought some salmon from her annual trip to Alaska. Ruth had provided those beets, so beautiful in their jars or on the plate but not so attractive splattered all over the Heaven House floor, Maryjake Dreggle-and my shoes. Maryjake had brought jars of lovely golden corn which I happened to know came from a little roadside stand south of town and was the best I'd ever eaten, as well as green beans from her own garden. Had there been anything else that would need a pressure canner? I could only think of the pickles and jellies, fruits and chutneys, all of which were at relatively low risk.

  Wait a minute. Philip had died before the preserves exchange. Maybe none of those items were even suspect. Maybe he'd eaten a can of grocery store soup from a damaged can. I'd always thought my grandmother was paranoid when she'd throw out any can that was the least bit dented. Now I had to admit she probably knew more about the possible dangers than I'd ever considered.

  No one had eaten anything at the exchange that I knew of, including Barr. But thinking back, he hadn't looked so great when he'd shown up.

  Philip and Barr hardly knew each other. How had they both ... wait a minute. Slow down, Sophie Mae. No one had said Philip had died from botulism poisoning. Not yet.

  But his symptoms were right on. And it wasn't like anyone would be calling me up once they found out, either. I needed more information. Official information, through unofficial channels. This time Barr was out of the loop, but I had an idea. Checking my watch I saw it was already eight a.m., an hour before Miss Manners said it was acceptable to telephone people.

   

  However, Miss Manners didn't know Tootie Hanover was such an early riser, and I did.

   

  NINE

  CALADIA ACRES WAS A nursing home on the north edge of Cadyville where Tootie Hanover had lived for several years. I'd met her the previous fall when her son Walter died. He had been our neighbor. A facility that was intimate in a small-town way, Caladia Acres emphasized casual comfort in an attempt to overcome the sterile medical atmosphere found in most nursing homes. When I walked in, the air was thick with the scents of yeast and spices. Yum. The residents had been served cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

  Ann Dunning, the nurse at the reception desk, nodded a hello and told me I'd find Tootie holding court in the library. I waved at a couple of the residents I'd grown fond of from my frequent visits, and they lifted their hands in greeting. Passing behind the three women and two men who sat with their eyes glued to a dramatic, tear-filled scene from some daytime soap opera on the big screen at the end of the room, I slipped into the tiny room they called the library at Caladia Acres.

   

  The space was only large enough to hold a small settee and two chairs. All four walls held shelves of books, including on each side of and above the door, and around the single window in the north wall. A various hodgepodge of nonfiction and fiction, from literary masterpieces to light romances, how-to, history and biography, with a fair amount of religious works thrown in by some fervent benefactor, the books didn't seem to have any particular order or arrangement. I knew from experience, though, if a particular volume needed to be found in the collection, Tootie Hanover could put her hand on it within seconds. When she wasn't in her room or the dining hall, she gravitated to this room, with its spare light and the scent of old ink on yellowing pages.

  When Ann told me Tootie was holding court, I'd expected to find her with a few people, but only one other woman sat in the small room with her. In contrast to Tootie's tall elegance and patrician features, her companion was short and solidly built, clad in mustard-colored polyester top and bottom, and sported short, unnaturally black curls above an attractive round face. Tootie's signature gray braid coiled on her head like a crown, and she wore a forest-green silk sweater over black slacks. That woman could show more style in a day than most people could muster in a year.

  "Sophie Mae, come in. Have you met Betsy Maher?"

  I closed the door behind me, glad it was solid wood and shut out most of the volume from the television down the hall.

  I smiled at the woman sitting opposite Tootie in the leatherbacked rocking chair. "I don't believe so. It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Maher."

  "Please, call me Betsy."

   

  "I'll be happy to. And I'm Sophie Mae. Reynolds," I added, since Tootie hadn't mentioned my last name. Which, come to think of it, was a little odd, since Tootie was a stickler for good manners.

  Tootie's eyebrow raised just a fraction. "Betsy," she said, "is Andy Maher's mother."

  It was the first time I'd ever heard Cadyville's Police Chief, Andrew Maher, called "Andy." I grinned, delighted at Tootie's resourcefulness. "Really. You must get to hear some fine tales from your son.

  Betsy Maher's brown eyes twinkled. "He does manage to provide me with a certain amount of entertainment. Sometimes it's hard to get him to tell me the really juicy stuff, though. If he had his way, I'd only get to hear about kittens being rescued from trees and commendations for bravery." She winked. "Luckily, he doesn't usually get his way, and I also get to hear about the woman who whacked her husband over the head with his own bowling ball."

  This time I was the one raising my eyebrows. Betsy Maher was a pistol all right.

  Tootie settled back in her chair and took a sip from the steaming cup of tea that had been sitting at her elbow. "In fact, Andy is going to be coming to visit this morning. He should be here any minute now."

  "Is that so?" I asked. And we exchanged another look.

  "Maybe you should tell me what it is you'd like to find out, before he gets here," Betsy said.

  I blinked. "Um ..."

   

  "Oh, now, come on, dear. I know that's why you're here. And I'm willing to play my part, as long as I get to find out the good stuff, too."

  Tootie laughed, and after a couple of seconds, so did I.

  "Well," I said. "There was a death yesterday. Philip Heaven. Did you know him?"

  Betsy rolled her eyes. "I never had the pleasure personally, but I certainly did know of him-chock full of promises and not a leg to stand on when it came to following up on any of them. Put a few people around here in pretty bad straits as a result"

  That reiterated what I'd heard from other quarters, but I felt kind of bad dissing poor Philip now that he was dead. Couldn't quite come to his defense, either. I satisfied myself by saying, "Yes, well, he had a good heart; it's just that some of his ideas were too big to implement as he imagined."

  Tootie snorted. Betsy shook her head. I wondered if the taboo against talking ill of the dead became easier to break as more and more of the people you knew died. I got the feeling just being dead wasn't enough to get you off the hook with these two.

  I continued. "Well, he got sick all of a sudden, and it's possible he was exposed to botulism. Someone else I know, and, um, care about is also ill, and it's because of botulism, although whatever amount he happened into was obviously a smaller dose than what I suspect killed Philip Heaven. Mrs. Maher-Betsy-I want to know what the heck is going on. Do the authorities know what happened to Philip? Was it botulism? If so, how was it introduced into his system? Did they find canned food that had gone bad in his apartment? And most importantly, I suppose, at least at this point: is there danger of someone else getting sick-or worse?"

   

  Betsy pushed her palm against her chest, just above her abundant bosom. "My goodness! That's horrible. I knew the poor man had died, but had no idea someone else had fallen ill. Is it anyone I know?"

  Her tone and posture reflected sympathy, but the glint in her eye betrayed
her. Betsy Maher was a bit of a ghoul. I glanced up at Tootie, and her look conveyed wry agreement. It became instantly obvious that Betsy expected a bit of tit for tat in the information game.

  "His name is Barr Ambrose," I said. "He works for your sonhe's the detective for the Cadyville Police Department, and at this point not only is he in the hospital recovering from a comparatively mild case of botulism poisoning, but now the department is functioning without an investigator."

  Betsy shook her head, another expression of sympathy, but the glint was still there. "Don't you worry, honey. We'll get to the bottom of it just as soon as Andy gets here."

  "That would be great," I said, with a tentative smile.

  While we waited for Betsy's son to show up for his weekly visit, unaware of the maternal snare that had been laid for him, she and Tootie chatted about the new activities director at Caladia Acres. She was introducing some unusual and interesting elements: art therapy, a series of games like indoor croquet that promoted a certain amount of physical activity and an atmosphere of mild competition.

  Pretty soon Betsy steered the discussion to the personal lives of some of the people they lived with, and I tuned her out. I stood up and began perusing the titles arranged along the shelves. I had just moved to the opposite wall when I heard a male voice.

   

  "Mother! How are you this fine morning!"

  I turned to see Chief Maher. Before he'd taken over the Cadyville Police Department last year there had been rumors of dissatisfaction among the troops, but now everything seemed to be running smoothly. Or smoothly enough with only one detective in the budget. Whenever I'd been at the cop shop to see Barr, the Chief had been hunkered down behind an enormous steel desk in one of the few private offices in the tiny building. Now I could see what a large man he was-at least six foot six inches tall and what you might call, uh, girthy. Despite his bulk, there seemed to be little fat on the man, and he moved with an easy grace that gave the impression of controlled power.