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

by Cricket McRae

   

  I thanked her and called Maryjake's house, figuring she might be home since she was obviously not at Heaven House. James answered.

  "Sorry, she can't come to the phone right now. She's in bed with a migraine."

  "Okay," I said. "Would you mind if I asked you a couple of things?"

  "About what?"

  "About Heaven House."

  "God. That place. All right, but I don't have much time. I have to get to the lab." James was a biologist who worked for a national environmental nonprofit doing field studies and research.

  "Maryjake cans a lot of different things. Do you help her?" I asked.

  "No. I contribute to the family table by hunting and fishing. Maryjake is in charge of preserving the garden produce."

  Gosh, how manly. Still, I bet they managed to feed themselves decently, however arrogant James sounded about it.

  I continued. "Do you know whether Maryjake uses a pressure canner?"

  He hesitated. "I don't know. Is that the thing with the lid that screws down?"

  "Sounds right."

  "Well then, she uses one. I don't get it. How is this about Heaven House?"

   

  "One more question. Does Maryjake can beets?" She hadn't brought any to the exchange, but she might not have brought samples of everything she canned, especially if she did as much of it as James implied.

  "Hell, I don't know. What does this have to do with ... is this about Heaven's death?"

  "Well, sort of," I said. "He died of botulism, and they found some nasty beets in his kitchen."

  "They think the beets were Maryjake's?" He practically barked the question.

  "Nooo ... they think they were Ruth Black's."

  "Then what's with all these questions about Maryjake's canning? She didn't do anything wrong."

  "I never said she did. There is some question as to where the beets came from, though, and I called to see if Maryjake could shed some light on where else Philip might have gotten hold of a jar. 11

  "Not from us." The words were clipped. "I hate beets, always have, ever since I was a kid. We don't eat them."

  Why hadn't he just told me that in the first place? Sheesh.

  "I've got to go now," he said.

  "Could you have Maryjake call me when she's feeling better?"

  A pause. Then, "Sure" The phone went dead.

  Nice.

  I had some trouble tracking down Jude Carmichael, and eventually called Ruth at Heaven House to see if she had his number. She did. Apparently Philip's cousin, rather than living onsite as Philip did, rented a room from an elderly man whose wife had recently died. Mr. Oxford, Ruth said his name was, and he was a friend of her Uncle Thaddeus, who had introduced the two. Mr. Oxford made a little money by renting to Jude, and Jude provided a bit of companionship and some muscle around the house when needed, helping to maintain the yard, keeping the woodpile stocked, that kind of thing.

   

  When I called, Mr. Oxford answered and assured me in his deep baritone that Jude would be home soon. He'd pass on the message to call me.

  That left Thaddeus Black, though I was sure Ruth had already talked to him about the beets. I called anyway, and I was right. In fact, he'd been home when two people from the Health Department had come by to confiscate Ruth's beets, and the rest of her home-canned goods as well. Thaddeus could shed no light on the origin of the errant beets but was still very upset and spent considerable time reiterating Ruth's arguments about how it couldn't have been her preserves that caused Philip' death. I had to insist several times that I believed him, and that indeed I was trying to help Ruth find out what had really happened.

  Finally, I managed to hang up. The phone rang immediately. Jude had received my message. I went through the whole diatribe about the wrong beets being blamed, or more accurately, the wrong beet canner being blamed for his cousin's death. Did he have any information at all about how Philip had obtained the tainted jar?

  "I can't imagine. You say Ruth doesn't use that kind of jar?"

  "She said she uses another brand." "

  I bet she uses whatever she can find, like my mother used to. You're out at a garage sale, and someone is getting rid of a box of canning jars for a dollar. You take what you can get because the price is so right."

   

  He could be right. Meghan and I had acquired most of our canning jars exactly that way. The lids and seals always had to be new, but the jars could be used over and over. People were always getting rid of them at garage sales. However, the type of canning jar wasn't the only argument for Ruth's innocence. In fact, it was the least important.

  I could almost see Jude shrug on the other end of the line as I told him the type of beets the Health Department found were different from the kind Ruth grew in her garden.

  "Besides, Philip died before the preserves exchange," I added.

  "I don't know what to say. I wasn't even there when the Health Department came by, and by the time Ruth reached me on my cell and I got over to Heaven House, they were leaving. I mean, the jar was all packed up like hazardous waste or something, so I never saw it."

  That meant Ruth was the only one who'd seen the beets in question, and she was the only one with a vested interest in them not being hers. Not a good position for her to argue from, I had to admit.

  I still believed her.

  And the more I learned from talking to the other volunteers, the more I realized just how darn odd the circumstances of Philip's death were.

   

  ELEVEN

  I'D BEEN NEGLECTING BUSINESS errands for days. I needed more beeswax for lip balm-it was amazing how fast the stuff ran outand the printer had left a message that a fresh order of Winding Road labels and letterhead were ready. I also had to meet with the home economics teacher at the high school to talk about a class she wanted me to give on traditional recipes for homemade cleaning products.

  By the time I got home there was no hope of being in time to help with dinner.

  Meghan, of course, had things well in hand. An intoxicating scent welcomed me as I opened the front door. Chicken in the oven, something with onions, and something else ... Parmesan? Nothing like that smell-sometimes a bit too much like old gym socks, but absolutely lovely in concert with all the other goodness wafting on the air.

  The phone rang as I was hanging my jacket on the coat tree in the front hall.

   

  "I'll get it," I called and snagged the cordless off the hall table. "Hello?"

  "Hello, Sophie Mae Mae Mae." The singsong voice was instantly familiar.

  Great.

  "Oh, gosh, lemme guess. Is this by any chance Allen? This wouldn't be Allen, would it? Because I was so hoping you'd call."

  "Really?"

  I sighed, loud enough to be heard on the other end of the line. "No. Not really."

  "Oh. Well you don't have to be so mean about it."

  Honey, you have no idea. "What do you want?" I asked.

  "I told you. I want to talk."

  "Sorry, don't have time for a nice little convo about death right now. And you have to stop calling here and hanging up." "

  I don't want to talk to them. I want to talk to you."

  Hmm. If he was calling when I wasn't home in hopes of reaching me, then he wasn't following me around. At least not all time. It wasn't much, but it made me feel a little better.

  "You have to stop calling me here," I said, trying to keep my voice gentle but firm. Was this guy mentally unbalanced or merely... inappropriately smitten with me? "It's bothering my housemates."

  There was a long silence. "Well, when would be a good time to call back?"

  I almost laughed out loud, but stopped myself just in time. So polite. At least he wasn't your run-of-the-mill stalker. "There isn't a good time, Allen, not for that." I took a deep breath. "I'd still like to help you. Are you still having thoughts about harming yourself?"

   

  "I'm not cal
ling the Helpline! I'm calling you!" His tone went from zero to sixty in one-point-five seconds. "Don't talk down to me, don't you dare. What do you know, anyway? You're just some stupid woman in a dorky little town with nothing better to do than hang out at some community center."

  "Allen, I need you to settle down"

  "Don't talk to me like that! I thought you understood!" He hung up.

  Any thought of laughter had completely disappeared. I made my hands into fists and willed them to stop trembling. Had I done the wrong thing? The right thing? Was he dangerous after all? I had a sudden thought and grabbed the phone back off its cradle. Punching in *69, I licked my lips and waited.

  The number was unavailable.

  Well, of course it was. A ten-year-old could cover their telephonic tracks these days. Unless I went to the police I'd probably never find out who Allen really was. And for some reason I wasn't quite ready to do that.

  In the kitchen, the scent of dinner was even stronger. The oven did indeed contain chicken; boneless breasts soaked in buttermilk and Worchestershire sauce all day, then rolled in a combination of bread crumbs and grated parmesan, sprayed with olive oil and baked to crispy perfection. Meghan stood by the counter, mixing together melted butter, heavy cream and more parmesan for capellini alfredo, and Erin gave the room-temperature, marinated vegetable salad a stir at the kitchen table.

  I closed the oven after inspecting the contents. "That was my stalker."

  "What?" Meghan sounded distracted.

   

  I sank onto a kitchen chair and snagged a black olive from Erin's salad. She tried to slap my hand, but missed. I stuck my tongue out at her, and she grinned.

  "Allen again. I told him to stop calling and hanging up when you answered because it was bugging you."

  Meghan turned toward me, still stirring her Alfredo sauce. She shot a quick glance at her daughter, now eyeing me with real interest. "You didn't."

  "I did. And he asked when it might be more convenient for him to call."

  "He didn't."

  "He did."

  "You have a stalker?" Erin asked. "Does he talk dirty?"

  I tried not to smile at the look this question engendered on Meghan's face. "No. He's just lonely, I think."

  Erin rolled her eyes. "Figures. You can't even get a spooky stalker."

  "Nice," I said. "Real nice."

  They laughed, and I joined in. But as we bustled around, I felt a little hollow inside. Could Allen really be dangerous? Surely not, I told myself.

  In fact, I told myself that several times.

  The doorbell rang just as the water for the pasta was beginning to boil. I answered it and was delighted to find Tootie Hanover leaning on her silver-headed cane. An newer model sedan was pulling away from the curb, and she half-turned to wave at the driver.

   

  "What a wonderful surprise!" I said. "Who brought you over?" Usually either Meghan or I picked Tootie up from Caladia Acres when she came over.

  "Andy Maher, actually. He's taking his mother out to dinner."

  I was glad to hear that. "Betsy bully him into giving you a ride?"

  "He's a nice man. I like him. And you have to understand Betsy is not the least demanding mother a Chief of Police could have."

  "No kidding. Anyway, I'm glad he could drop you for a visit. You're in time for dinner."

  "I should hope so. Meghan did invite me, after all."

  Oh. "I guess we've been talking about other things since I got home. She forgot to mention it. I'm just glad you're here."

  I took her coat, hung it on the hall tree and led her into the fragrant kitchen. Everyone exchanged greetings. Tootie eased into one of the wooden ladder-backed chairs at the table. She sat and listened to Erin chatter on about the spelling bee and Jonathan for a bit, back straight and head held high despite the arthritis pain she battled on a daily basis. The white coil of braid atop her head gleamed in the overhead light. She still wore the long silk forest-green sweater over black slacks, and the elegant effect was ruined only slightly by the swath of white hair Brodie had deposited on her pant leg as he trotted from cook to cook, casting yearning looks with those big brown eyes so perfectly suited for begging. A smile warmed her face as Erin wound down, and we all took our places at the dinner table.

  "How is your young man?" Tootie asked me.

  "He seems to be doing better." Barr, who was in his forties, would have loved to hear her call him my young man.

  "Botulism is terrible. I knew twin brothers who died from it when I was a young girl. Of course, a woman whose daughter they had-" she glanced at Erin "-hurt gave it to them on purpose, so that's a little different. Do you know where it came from?"

   

  I stared at her. "You know someone who used botulism as a murder weapon?"

  "Well, she was never caught." Tootie put a ladylike portion of chicken in her mouth.

  "Then how exactly do you know about it?"

  She looked sideways at Erin, who studied her with an attentive gaze, and swallowed. "It was my second cousin, actually. And they wouldn't have been able to prove it, not then. But I heard her talking to my older sister, so I knew what happened."

  "Did they deserve it?" Erin asked.

  Again the sidelong look. "I don't think anyone deserves to have someone else take their life. Not even the state. But in that case, even I have to admit, there might have been a certain amount of... justice in what happened. Of course, I didn't find out about it until well after the fact. It gradually became common knowledge in town, but it was still only a rumor as far as the law was concerned." She left Erin to think about that a while and turned to me. "So do they know where the botulism originated?"

  "Apparently the people at the Health Department think Ruth Black's beets were contaminated. They found some beets in Philip's kitchen, and she brought beets to the preserves exchange. The problem is that Philip got sick before the preserves exchange, and the beets they found are different than the beets Ruth cans."

  Meghan jumped in. "The Health Department came by this afternoon. They took away everything we got from Ruth at the exchange."

   

  Wow. They moved fast. I thought about the beets in my closet with a twinge. Should I have done that? With a sinking feeling, I asked, "Did they take everything else?"

  She shook her head. "No. But they gave me a heck of a lecture about home canning." "

  I bet they did."

  Erin laid her fork down on the table. "Isn't botulism the same thing as food poisoning? Zoe got food poisoning last year. She felt really bad, but she didn't end up in the hospital or anything. Could she have died?"

  "Your friend probably had ptomaine, honey," Tootie said. "That's another kind of food poisoning, and it's a lot more common."

  "Then botulism is worse?"

  "It certainly can be," I said. "It's a toxin released by an active bacteria. Thing is, there are a lot of inactive spores of that bacteria around all the time, and most of the time they don't hurt anyone. They need a warm, wet environment without any oxygen in order to activate. That's when the toxin is released."

  Meghan wrinkled her nose. "This is lovely dinnertime conversation."

  "Sorry."

  But she was the one who continued. "Doesn't acid kill the bacteria, too?"

  I nodded. "And high heat. That's why the food needs to contain a certain amount of acid naturally, or you have to add an acid like vinegar or lemon-pickles, for example-or use a pressure cooker."

  "What's a pressure cooker do?" Erin asked around a bite of salad.

   

  "Don't talk with your mouth full," I said. "It uses pressure to raise the temperature of the jars without letting them explode."

  Meghan grimaced. She felt pressure canners and pressure cookers were dangerous.

  "I can't believe they use the botulism poison to erase wrinkles." Tootie snorted. "Idiots"

  I shrugged. "I don't care if someone else wants to inject a toxic substance int
o their face, but I sure don't want to." Botox was all about muscular paralysis to preserve beauty. Not high on my list of priorities right now.

  "Did you know the paralyzing agent in botulism can benefit people with Parkinson's disease or muscular dystrophy?" I asked. Like digitalis, botulism was both poison and savior.

  Meghan changed the subject then, but as we continued plowing through the mountain of food on the table, I kept coming back to what Tootie had said earlier about the mother who'd poisoned the brothers in retribution for hurting her daughter.

  What had Philip done to make someone want to kill him?

  Meghan returned from taking Tootie back to Caladia Acres after dinner and went into her office to check her schedule for the weekend. Erin was up in her room doing homework. I tried watching a little television, but nothing caught my attention. I really needed to talk to someone about what had been weighing on my mind. Meghan, as my best friend, won the honor.

   

  "Got a minute?" I asked, setting a steaming cup of strong black tea on the desk in front of her. "There's something I didn't want to talk about in front of Erin."

  She closed her laptop and sat back in her chair, lacing her fingers across her abdomen. "The stalker truly is dangerous, isn't he? What else has he done?" Her narrowed eyes said she'd been expecting this.

  "What? No, no. This has nothing to do with that guy. I swear to God, Meghan, earlier he actually asked when it would be convenient for him to call back. What kind of nut does that? I'm sure he's harmless."

  The expression on her face didn't change an iota. "We'll see. So something else is going on?"

  I paused. A huge philodendron wound its way up a trellis in the corner of her office. The tiny fountain in the massage room behind her gurgled softly but failed to sooth me.

  "Well? What?"

  I sighed and plunged in. "I think someone may have deliberately poisoned Philip."

  The look on her face could have stopped an oncoming truck. It didn't stop me, mind you, but it did warn me of the reception my theory would receive. I laid it out in a systematic manner, citing Ruth's insistence that the offending beets had not come from her kitchen, Philip telling me someone had threatened him and asking Barr about how to get a restraining order, and finally, Philip's cryptic words to me before the paramedics had hauled him off to the hospital to die.