by Morgana Best
“Are you going to sell your current house or keep it as an investment house?”
I made a small choking sound, and then realised that was likely a most unattractive thing to do. “No, I’m going to sell it. If I kept it, it would continue to be a money pit. The plumbing’s on its way out, and so is most of the rest of the place, truth be told. I’ll sell it for a bargain price; I just want to get rid of it.”
“Do you have any idea what part of town you’d like to live in? And what are you looking for in a house?”
I shrugged. “I want a fairly new house, preferably one still under builder’s warranty. My current house has been such a nightmare with all the constant repairs, all the roof leaks, the drains being blocked, the termite damage. I could go on. I just want something nice and new, and preferably within walking distance of Carl’s place, because he’s my best friend. I’d like it nice and leafy, with established trees.”
Tom sipped his coffee before speaking. “How many bedrooms?”
“Well, there’s only me, and Mongrel.”
Tom laughed. “I’m sure Mongrel doesn’t need his own bedroom.”
I laughed, too. “No, so two bedrooms would be fine. Or maybe three, I don’t know. I am serious about starting the online chocolate business, though, so it would be good to have a room I could use as a home office.”
“And how has Mongrel been going? Has he put anyone else in hospital lately?” Tom obviously meant it as a joke, but I had news for him.
“Yesterday, actually.”
Tom nearly choked on his cake. He managed to swallow it, and asked, “Seriously? What happened?”
“Well, it was quite bizarre,” I said. “Last week, Carl was over for dinner, and we had just finished the first course of chocolate glazed pumpkin risotto, when someone knocked on the door. It was a guy going door to door, some famous Cat Whisperer. He asked if I had any cats with behavioural problems.”
Tom thought that was particularly funny. “He sure was in luck at your place.”
I shook my head. “That was just it. I didn’t think anyone could possibly help Mongrel, so I was about to send him away, but Carl got very excited and said he’d buy his services for me as a gift. Then the poor guy came yesterday afternoon. It all started out well enough, but he wanted to do extinction therapy with Mongrel.”
Tom went white. “You don’t mean…?” His voice trailed away.
I nodded solemnly. “Yes. It was only a small piece of rope, but it was enough. I don’t think he needed too many stitches. I think he just went into shock.”
Tom leant across the table. “Hey, what was his name?”
“Peter Patterson. Apparently he’s quite famous, if you can believe what he says. Still, my father always said that self praise is no recommendation. This Cat Whisperer guy even has a documentary series on cat training. He calls himself The Purr-suader.”
Tom slapped his hand on the table. “I’ve heard of him! I saw an interview with him on TV recently. He’s had an interesting life. He loved cats for as long as he can remember, and in fact, he met his wife at a cat show. He bred Abyssinians, and she bred Himalayans. She ran off with another man, someone he worked with, and then had a child or children with him, and then died ten or so years later. He never married again, poor guy. I had the feeling that he never got over her.”
“That’s sad,” I said. “Still, why would such a famous Cat Whisperer who has his own TV show and everything come to our small country town and go door to door with fancy brochures?”
Tom drained the last of his coffee. After he set down his cup on the table, he said, “It does seem quite strange, doesn’t it? Perhaps he was visiting relatives in town. Anyway, I’ll bet those brochures were real fancy.”
I was puzzled. “Yes they were, but how did you know?”
“He was an advertising executive in Sydney for many years before he became a Cat Whisperer, according to the documentary,” Tom said.
My synapses sparked, making connection after connection. “Tom! I wonder—oh no, it’s probably too much of a coincidence. But Tom!” Before Tom could speak, I added, “Stan Wellings is an advertising executive, and he came from Sydney. His wife died some years ago. Sure, I know Sydney has like, five million people, but what if Stan’s wife was the love of Peter Patterson’s life? What if The Purr-suader poisoned Stan Wellings?”
Tom looked doubtful. “It does seem a bit of a coincidence.”
I was on a roll. “But don’t you see? He had access to the chocolates, the fly agaric chocolates. He was in the kitchen by himself. He could have easily poisoned those chocolates.”
“But didn’t you say there was a dome-like object on the top? You would have noticed if that had suddenly appeared.”
“True.” I tapped my chin. “Perhaps he injected the chocolates with poison in my kitchen, and that dome-like cap on the top was something entirely innocent.”
“Did he know the fly agaric chocolates were specifically for Stan Wellings?”
I thought about it. “Yes, actually, he did. Well no, I didn’t mention Stan’s name at all, but I did specifically tell him that the fly agaric chocolates were a special gift for an office retirement party that night. I said the other chocolates were for everyone, but these were specifically for the person who was retiring.”
“Narel, you should tell the police.”
I readily agreed. “I’ll call them after we have coffee.” I regretted bringing up the subject. The romance in my life had to date been pretty thin, non-existent to tell the truth, and this was my first taste of it now. I hoped I hadn’t ruined what could have been a pleasant time with Tom by first bringing up my search for a new house, and then an attempted murder.
Tom looked at his watch. “Narel, I’ve got to run. I have an open home soon, and I’m running late to get it ready.”
I hoped my disappointment wasn’t showing on my face. I also hoped Tom didn’t think I had friend-zoned him, and I even more fervently hoped he hadn’t friend-zoned me.
“I’m quite busy as I’ve been out of town for a while, but I’d love to have dinner again soon?”
His question took me by surprise. “Um, err, um, that would be lovely,” I stammered.
“How was your romantic time with Porridge?” Carl asked as soon as I set foot in my shop, a shop which sadly was empty.
“Call him Tom now, Carl,” I said sternly. “It was dreadful; I did all the wrong things. I talked about wanting to buy a house, and then I talked about the attempted murder.”
Carl busied himself polishing a glass cabinet. “Hardly the most romantic things to talk about.”
I frowned at him. “You’re supposed to say it didn’t matter, that he likes me anyway.”
Carl sighed dramatically. “Of course he likes you, Narel. He’s probably attracted to your weirdness.”
I bit my lip, trying to decide whether or not that was a compliment. “Oh, guess what!” I told Carl what Tom had told me about the Cat Whisperer.
Carl was silent for a long time, which was unusual for him. Finally, he spoke. “It seems a bit of a stretch, doesn’t it? And surely if he had injected something into those chocolates, it would have been something that killed him, not just made him sick.”
“But remember that Detective Clyde said it was a murder investigation?”
“I still maintain that was probably a slip of the tongue.”
I was getting anxious. “Carl, were there any customers while I was having coffee with Tom?”
Carl shook his head. “Sorry, Narel.”
I stabbed my finger at my photo splashed across the front of the newspaper. “Carl, we have to solve this murder. I’m sure the police will solve it eventually, but my chocolate shop will be closed by then. Time is of the essence.”
Carl stopped polishing and looked up at me. “What do you propose that we do? Are you going to get me into another sticky situation, Narel?”
I ignored that remark. “I think we should go to the hospital, and find out exac
tly what Stan Wellings was poisoned with. We also need to find out whether he is, in fact, still alive, and if he is, we need to know the extent of his condition.”
Carl looked worried. “How are we going to do that?”
I shrugged. “We’ll play it by ear.”
“When?”
I smiled. “There’s no time like the present.”
“But what about the shop?” Carl squeaked.
“It’s Saturday. We were going to shut at twelve, anyway.”
Chapter 7
I dragged a still protesting Carl towards the large sliding doors of the hospital entrance. It wasn’t as if I was fond of hospitals, quite the contrary. I had spent many months in one in Sydney, and had endured many surgeries, but the fact that a hospital had saved my life didn’t make me any happier to enter one.
I’m sure the smell of hospital disinfectant was imperceptible to most people, but I clutched my stomach as a wave of revulsion swamped me. The noises, the nurses’ uniforms, the bright lights, all brought memory after memory tumbling back to assault me.
Carl clutched my arm. “Are you all right, Narel?”
“Yes, well, no actually.”
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” he offered hopefully.
I shook my head. I was firm in my resolve. Although the amount I had been awarded in the settlement was large, I had to live on it for the rest of my life, and apart from that, I really wanted my little chocolate shop to succeed for emotional as well as financial reasons. The bullies at school had said I would never amount to anything, and maybe I was trying to prove them wrong. Who knows? I wasn’t a psychiatrist. All I knew was that I couldn’t bear my chocolate shop to go broke just because of a mean-spirited sensationalist reporter and suspicious local townspeople. If the police weren’t going to solve the murder in double quick time, then I would have to do it.
“I assume he’s in intensive care,” I said to Carl, who simply nodded and looked dismayed.
As we rounded the corner into a wide corridor, Carl caught my arm. “Isn’t that Stan’s daughter, Minnie?”
Carl had stopped, so I did, too. “Yes, I think it is,” I said. “Oh no, do you think her father died? She’s sobbing, and there are two nurses comforting her.”
“It doesn’t look good,” Carl said grimly. “Either he’s passed away, or he’s taken a turn for the worse. We can’t walk past her, or she might see us and ask what we’re doing here.”
I looked around me. “Is there another way to get to the intensive care ward?”
Carl looked around the signs as well. “If there is, I don’t know it, and we can hardly ask anyone, not a doctor or nurse anyway. We can’t let anyone catch onto what we’re doing here. Okay, Narel, let’s walk past her as fast as we can and keep to the wall. She’s probably too upset to notice her surroundings, anyway.”
We managed to get past Minnie without being detected, and followed the signs to the intensive care unit. “Look as if you know where you’re going and don’t make eye contact with anyone,” I hissed at Carl.
To my surprise, it worked. We made it through the corridors, which were surprisingly labyrinthine for such a small hospital. “Carl, what if he’s been transferred to Sydney?”
“I didn’t think of that,” Carl said hopefully. “That will stop us getting arrested, at any rate. I don’t want Detective Rieker to think I’m some sort of common criminal.”
“Aha! So that explains your reluctance.”
Carl didn’t have a chance to respond, because he caught my arm and pulled me back from a corner. “There are cops around that corner, uniformed officers, and a doctor. The police must be guarding Stan Wellings’ room,” he whispered. “Shush, maybe we can overhear what they say.”
We both leant as close to the corner as we dared, and strained our ears. That soon proved to be unnecessary, because the officers’ loud tones echoed along the empty corridor.
“He just accused Daphne Delamare, his housekeeper,” one voice said. “He came out of his coma, blamed Daphne Delamare, and then died.”
Another voice spoke up. “That is normal in the case of death cap mushroom poisoning.”
Carl hissed in my ear. “He didn’t say fly agaric mushrooms, did he?”
I shook my head. “He said death cap, or something like that.” I held my finger to my lips.
“The detectives will be here any minute,” a voice said.
Carl and I looked at each other in horror. “Where can we hide?” I asked Carl.
Carl looked aghast. “Are you out of your mind? We’re not going to hide—we’re going to hightail it out of here before the detectives catch us.”
I grabbed Carl by the arm and pulled him inside the nearest room. At least, I thought it was a room until we were in there, because the door had a sign saying Equipment on it. It turned out to be a cupboard full of mops and brooms, and I mean full. There was very little room to move, and Carl and I indulged in a childlike game of elbowing each other before we settled down.
“We won’t be able to hear anything in here,” Carl whispered in my ear.
“Exactly, that’s why we have to go out as soon as we hear the detectives walk past.”
“How will we know it’s the detectives walking past?” Carl hissed. “It could be nurses, or anyone.”
“That’s a risk we’ll have to take,” I said in a tone that belied my fear. The pit of my stomach was hollow and I had broken into a cold sweat. I could feel myself trembling. My breath was coming rapidly. I clutched my stomach as a wave of nausea hit me. Get a grip, I silently counselled myself.
Just when I thought I couldn’t bear it any longer, two sets of loud footsteps stomped past. I shot a look at Carl, and he nodded. We waited a moment, and then climbed out of the tiny room, managing to right several brooms and mops as we did.
We crept back to the corner. Carl went to peek around, but I pulled him back and shook my head. He shrugged and pointed to the corner, but I shook my head more strongly.
Detective Clyde was speaking in his usual strident tone, and for once I was grateful for that. Also, the acoustics in hospital corridors were hardly those of a recording studio.
“No, Detective Clyde, I can only give you an approximate timing. He wasn’t in good health, but it also depended on how many death caps he had eaten. You’ll have to wait until you get the coroner’s report.”
“Well, please do your best to give me an approximate timing.” I almost smiled, because I could imagine the frustrated look on Clyde’s face.
“He arrived in the hospital at the terminal phase. He had kidney failure, but his death was caused by liver failure.”
“Yes, but do you have any idea when he was administered the poison?” Clyde continued in the same frustrated voice.
“As I said, he arrived at the hospital in the terminal phase. There is a so-called recovery phase before that which lasts for two or three days. The patient appears to recover because their symptoms ease. Prior to that, the patient will have stomach pains and vomiting.” The doctor’s voice was quite matter-of-fact.
“Is it possible the victim was administered the poison just hours before he was brought in?” It was Detective Rieker’s voice this time. There was silence for a moment, before the doctor spoke again. “Symptoms could start as early as six hours after a meal of death cap mushrooms…”
Detective Clyde interrupted him. “So then, he could have been poisoned hours before he was brought here?”
Again, the doctor was silent for a few moments before speaking. “No. As I just explained, when the patient first consumes death cap mushrooms, and let us assume it is a significant meal, the patient will suffer symptoms which could be mistaken for stomach flu. These symptoms will usually continue for a day or two. At that point, the symptoms go away and this recovery phase could last for two or three days. After that, the terminal phase kicks in.”
“Is this unusual?” Clyde asked him.
“If you mean poisoning by death cap mushrooms,
then yes, it is quite unusual in these parts,” the doctor said, “but I did my residency in Canberra, so I’m familiar with it.”
“Then why weren’t you able to save him? No offence intended,” Detective Rieker added.
“As I explained to you not long after he was admitted, at that point, patients can’t be saved. There is a new experimental drug, but it can’t be administered after the kidneys have already failed, and in this case, it was too late to save this patient.”
“One of the witnesses reported seeing him consume something that looked like a death cap mushroom,” Clyde said. “But that was only an hour or so before he was admitted to hospital.”
“He had to have eaten the death cap mushroom in significant quantities several days earlier,” the doctor said. “It’s also clear that he ate more the night he was admitted, but that only served to push him over the edge and hasten his death. Yet whether or not he ate them last evening, the outcome for him would have been the same. It was just a matter of when.”
“We’ll need to take a statement from you, Dr Marshall. But for now, can you tell us the exact words he used before he died?” The voice was Rieker’s.
“He said, ‘My housekeeper did it.’”
“Did he name the housekeeper?” Rieker asked him.
“Yes, sorry. His exact words were, ‘Daphne did it. My housekeeper, Daphne, did it.”
“Thank you, Doctor Marshall, that will be all for now,” Clyde said. “We’ll need to speak with you again at some point.”
Carl grabbed my arm and we spun around, but we heard footsteps coming from the other way. I opened the cupboard door and pulled Carl into it. I stood there, trying to calm my breathing so that the detectives wouldn’t hear me. I was sure they would hear my heart—it was beating out of my chest. Carl and I clung to each other in fear. I knew how it would look if the detectives found us. We were near the scene of a death, although the doctor had said that the poison had been administered sometime earlier.
Several sets of footsteps went past us, and Carl was just about to open the door when we heard the heavy footsteps of the detectives. As they passed us, we heard everything they said.
