Squinting through the glass, I managed to read the title of the book in his hands: “Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother”. There was more in tiny print but I couldn’t read it.
After my first snort of laughter at the idea of Dale actually offing his mother, I began to sober. Murder and murderers were not something to laugh about, especially not when there might be one walking the streets of Hope Falls.
I went back to my vehicle without venturing inside. My brain was spinning like a centrifuge, throwing ideas out as it separated the gold from the dross. This notion taking shape wasn’t a clue yet, it was too amorphous, but it told me the direction to travel. Reluctantly, I decided that I would have some lunch with Alex—supposing that Dad could spare him—and then drop in to see my cousin and talk about… things. Like where Aunt Dorothy’s gun might have gotten to. I didn’t really suspect Althea of killing Silly Gordon, but the gun needed to be found so we could rule her and Aunt Dorothy out, and obviously Mom wasn’t going to press the point.
Alex had time for lunch, but only barely. Greatly distracted by Dad’s enormous to-do list, I got only half a sandwich and a casual hug. But just before I left Hope Falls Park something else happened. It wasn’t deliberate and I think that for a moment Alex wasn’t even aware of what he said, but then you could see the light dawn as he replayed his final sentence: Love you, sweetie. I’ll be home by five.
Stunned, I didn’t know what to say back so settled for telling him not to get cold or let Dad work him too hard. I was so shocked by his casual declaration that I didn’t even notice that Blue remained with Alex and the bag of sugar cookies.
Damn. He’d gone and used the L-word. I felt happy and dismayed and panicked.
My life is pretty streamlined since my close call with the cheating pustule, David Cooper. It had been challenging to make a place for Alex and that had worked out because he was usually two states away. Boyfriends take effort. Like constant and discrete hair removal and they eat twice as much as any regular friend. Of course, there is enjoyable stuff too. Alex and I had fun and were a good fit professionally, but was I really ready for anything else? Was he— really?
Maybe it was hypocritical—okay, it was hypocritical—but it seemed okay to feel love as long as we didn’t talk about it or make any long-term plans.
I drove on autopilot. My cousin was at home—darn it—so I stopped. It took me a moment to gather my wits and to push thoughts of Alex away.
“Come in! I’m going crazy anyway,” Althea said less than graciously. As if her problems had anything to do with me.
“Hello yourself,” I said back. The living room was awash with bridal magazines, many of them torn to pieces. I suspected that they were ones with unwanted suggestions from Gordon’s mother. A few stray sparkles of gold glitter on the covers confirmed this hypothesis.
“That woman! That…. whose wedding is it anyway? Who’s the bride—just tell me that!”
Given Mitzi’s sheer horribleness, I began to belatedly wonder what had become of Mr. Gordon. Dale never mentioned him. Had he impregnated Dale’s mom and then wisely headed for green—and quieter—pastures?
“Are Gordon’s parents divorced?” I asked Althea as I found a place to sit. “Will his father be at the wedding?”
“No. His dad died about ten years ago—thank heavens I won’t have to deal with a second wife. I can just imagine the seating chart. The only way this is going to work is if I make Mitzi eat in the limo.” She had wedding on the brain. Better that than death, I supposed, but if I were in her shoes I would be giving the matter of Silly’s murder at least a little thought.
“That’s sad. Was he ill?” I tried to look concerned.
“No.” Althea’s voice grew harsh. “He drank. He also smoked in bed. One night he did both together and paid for it.”
“Oh dear. Mitzi was lucky not to have been hurt.”
Althea didn’t look like she agreed with this statement, but she had had advanced training as a hypocrite and I saw it kick in. This is a family trait and allowed her to—barely—refrain from saying what she really thought.
“She was playing bingo that night,” was all Althea said.
“I guess a dead husband would explain why she is so close to her son. Were there other children?”
“No.” This was becoming Althea’s favorite word. This time, the nuance was bleak. Unable to help herself she added: “She’ll be with us for every damn holiday between now and the day she dies. And it will be worse when we have kids. Dale and I are going to start a family right away, you know.”
This was scary. The lardhead and the narcissist were going to have children. I couldn’t think why, but I guess even black widow spiders have offspring.
I made myself pat her shoulder. Althea had annoyed me from birth and I had always wanted some payback for her torment, but not her unhappiness until the end of days (or at least the end of Mitzi Gordon’s days).
“Maybe Mom and Aunt Dot can get her interested in some clubs and things,” I said. “Doesn’t your mom still belong to that shooting club?”
“They’re trying, but she never gets asked back to a second meeting. How she could offend anyone at the rifle range with all those guns going off, I will never know—but she did it. Even when people wear earplugs, she annoys them. The gun club would have been perfect for her too.”
So Mitzi knew how to shoot a gun.
“Did your mom loan her the twenty-two?” I asked point-blank. There was no point in being subtle. “It seems to be missing.”
“Yes, and she managed to drop it in the lake.”
“The lake? But how? Why?” I asked with what I think is pardonable exasperation. “Althea, this is really not good. We need that gun.”
Althea shrugged.
“She decided to try some practice shooting on her own. So she borrowed Gordon’s canoe and paddled out to Gazebo Island.” The gazebo that had once graced this unpopulated little up-thrust of wooded rock in Hope Falls Lake was long gone, but the name remained. “On the way, she somehow managed to drop the rifle over the side.”
“Huh.” This was a very suspect story and I think Althea knew it, but angry as she was at her mother-in-law to-be, she wouldn’t say anything else.
“Let’s have some tea,” she suggested. “And I can put a slug of something in mine. My ankle is killing me.”
I trailed my limping cousin into the kitchen, wondering if we should drag the lake. I couldn’t blame Althea for being annoyed since I also found Mitzi trying. But it probably wouldn’t hurt her to do a little more suffering in silence, and loyalty isn’t a bad thing in marriage, I thought. Though it was making my job harder.
“Has Mitzi been here?” I asked, studying the way the canister sparkled.
“Not that I know of. I don’t encourage her to come.” Althea sniffed.
Maybe Dale had been by and that was how the gold glitter had gotten in her kitchen and all over her tea canister.
Only Dale didn’t like tea. He had, in fact, many times expressed his view about the kind of girlie men who drank tea.
And he had been reading a book about poisonous plants.
“Don’t!” I said as Althea reached for the canister. The words were out before I thought.
“What?”
“Don’t touch the canister. Do you have any cooking tongs? I want to look inside.” Althea has always been bitchy to me, but she didn’t doubt that my ‘intuition’ was almost always right. She opened a drawer by the oven and pulled out some serving tongs. Her gaze was alarmed.
“What is it?”
I carefully lifted the lid, grateful it wasn’t a wire bale kind of jar and looked inside.
“That looks like foxglove,” I said softly. Althea peered beside me.
“Is it?” she sounded more perplexed than worried. “These herbal teas all look like potpourri to me. I only drink them because I need to lose weight.”
“That’s digitalis—heart medicine. Enough of it could kill you
. Or Mom and Aunt Dot,” I added, feeling a blast of sudden rage. “Get me a plastic bag. I am sending the canister in for a fingerprint check and will have the tea analyzed.”
I turned to my cousin whose own face had gone white.
“What?” she whispered.
“Listen to me. Maybe this is another joke—like the stairs. But this one could do more than get you hurt. Or the moms. You need to be careful from here on out. You need to make sure that your mom—and mine— are careful too. Lock the doors any time you are out. No eating any cakes left on the doorstep or in your car. No accepting candy that arrives in the mail without a return address. No touching edible engagement gift whose cards have fallen off. If something looks at all off—food wise—any wise, don’t touch it. Call me. Or Dale.” I made myself add that, though at the moment the glitter on the canister rather incriminated Althea’s fiancé. Unable to leave it, I added: “But if you call Dale at the station it will make it official, so you need to think before you do that.”
Althea nodded, still looking about the same shade as her enormous and tasteless wedding gown. She fetched a plastic bag for me and I wrapped the canister and then got out my phone. I didn’t know who to call first. Dad and Alex were together—with my dog! But I needed to get the canister checked for prints and the tea to the lab right away, and the only one who could do that outside of channels was the Chief. That meant that he got the first call.
“Where are the moms?” I asked Althea.
“Book club at the library. They’ll be there until three.”
“Okay, start tearing the kitchen apart. Put on those rubber gloves. Throw out anything that’s open and put aside anything else that has glitter on it. I am counting on you to explain things but not terrify them. I doubt there is anything else wrong in the kitchen. This is just in case, okay? We need to be smart, not scared. Can you do this?”
Althea nodded and I stepped outside to make my call.
Chapter 10
No fingerprints on the canister. I didn’t expect there to be, unless we were dealing with an idiot madman who never watched television and didn’t know to wear gloves. The Chief looked grim as I shared the news—all the news, Althea’s first injury, the missing gun and my seeing Gordon reading about poisons in the book store. He was unhappy, but he didn’t question my reasoning and got the tea off for analysis immediately. The Chief asked if I knew which gardens in town had foxglove and I could think of two—Mitzi’s and Tara Lee’s, but I pointed out that anyone could take digitalis from their yards or get plants at the garden center.
Lastly, I confessed that I seemed to be unable to investigate the case properly because I was too involved with many of the suspects and maybe because I was still shaken by what had happened in San Francisco. The Chief, who is usually tactful, actually laughed at me. He said I was doing more than fine and get back out there and find the murderer.
I called Alex as soon as the Chief and I were done and asked if he and Dad could meet me at home. Dad suggested the coffee shop instead, so he could press the flesh, but I told Alex that this was about the murder and we needed to speak in private. After he relayed the message, Dad agreed to meet at my place and help finish up the leftovers.
Dad and Alex were no more thrilled with my news than the Chief had been and Dad even decided to go visit my mom after we finished dinner. I didn’t encourage him to linger because I could see he was concerned about my mother and I wanted him to make sure that Althea had impressed the moms with how important it was to be careful. The trouble with living your whole life in a place where bad things rarely happened was that you didn’t have the ability to be truly suspicious.
Over pie and coffee—not tea; it would be a while before I drank tea again—Alex and I discussed motives and means. We had five suspects so far, though in my heart I refused to believe that Althea or Aunt Dot would kill anyone, let alone risk hurting my mother by planting poison in the tea in the kitchen they all shared.
I had thought the horrible day over and done with, but the Chief called just before ten with the news that Eddie Rounds was dead. He had died in his own garage while his wife was off visiting her sister. Apparently the car he was repairing had fallen off the jacks and crushed him. The Chief didn’t add that Eddie Rounds had just gotten the job that the lardhead wanted, but we were both thinking it. Dale Gordon now had two strikes against him.
I hung up the phone and turned to Alex. I thought again of Althea and her long-awaited wedding and begin to feel ill. There would be no nuptials if Gordon was arrested for murder. My words were calm as I mentioned this to Alex, but I was have fits on the inside.
“There’s no consistency,” Alex said quickly. “The WD-40 on the stairs was a stupid way to try and kill someone. I think that was a prank.”
“The gun wasn’t a prank though. It worked most efficiently.”
“Yes. But the digitalis might be a prank. Or at least, it is a chancy way to try and kill someone. I’ve been reading about it and it is more likely that tea would have made someone ill. Unless they had a heart condition. Does Althea have anything wrong with her heart?” he asked.
I did not make any jokes about hearts made of flint.
“No, but my aunt does.” I remembered something and sucked in my breath. “Aunt Dot grew foxglove this summer. I must have blocked it out. Damn! I told the Chief I shouldn’t be investigating this!”
“You can’t remember everything, Chloe. And no one is better qualified than you.”
“Actually, I pretty much can remember everything,” I muttered, feeling shaken. What was up with me? Could this really be the end of my career as a detective?
We were silent for a moment. Alex did not suggest that I call the Chief and relay my latest memory.
“The car jack collapsing could be an accident,” Alex said.
“Maybe, but if it isn’t, I think we have to put this in the direct and efficient category rather than on the list of pranks.”
“Yeah.”
“So, two pranks on my cousin and Althea is still alive. Two serious attempts at murder—maybe—and two dead. Are they even related? I just can’t see the pattern yet.”
I sighed. Blue sighed.
“Come on. I’ve run my brain up against the wall too many times today and so have you. Let’s go to bed.” Alex took my hand. Neither of us said anything about being in love. We did things about it, but the discussion was postponed.
* * *
The next day was as bad as I expected it to be. There was a pall over the station as funeral arrangements for Eddie Rounds were being made. And there were so many officers still sick with food poisoning that I got stuck with the student no one wanted, a detective wannabe with a video camera. Worst of all, I had to leave Blue with Alex. I always thought better when Blue was with me. Without her I was all tangled thoughts and nerves.
The Chief, guessing at my degree of unhappiness at having a little shadow along for the day, introduced Frederica Barnes and I personally. He then explained that the day contained further horrors. In the midst of life we are in death, or something like that, but that didn’t mean that I was spared the earthly suffering of having to take my honor student with me to the grammar school to explain crosswalk safety to the kindergarteners. Officers Bill’s last appearance had caused a playground-wide panic, so the principal was understandably nervous to see me. But this time I didn’t have Dale Gordon along to make matters worse and Frederica and I were able to escape thirty minutes later without a single tear being shed in the kindergarten.
“One down and one to go.” I was feeling more cheerful. The new Office Bill head was lighter than the old one and didn’t smell of cat urine.
“I didn’t know that they made police officers do things like this,” was all Frederica said. Then, with a flash of pity: “Don’t worry. I won’t put this on youtube.”
“Thanks.”
Mercifully, Frederica was fairly quiet, possibly because she was obsessed with documenting everything about her day for
her blog with her digital camera. I decided that we could kill two birds with one stone and both continue my investigation and give Frederica something to photograph besides cars. I explained that I was trying to identify which homes in town had foxglove in their gardens.
A chance to actually detect something made the rather plain girl light up like a Christmas tree. The only problem was that she didn’t know what foxglove looked like. Since the three choices for plant identification were my mom’s place, Tara Lee’s, or Mitzi Gordon’s, I went with Mom first. But when we arrived I discovered that all the plants had been ripped out of the yard. Maybe because the snow had blackened them, but most likely because of the tea Althea and I had found in the kitchen.
I chalked tires as we wended our way to Mitzi’s place. Mitzi Gordon or Tara Lee, it really was the devil and the deep blue sea. But Tara Lee was outside my usual route, so if Mitzi was home I had a back-up plan of visiting the library and showing Frederica foxglove in a gardening book. Fortunately, I saw Mitzi walking away with Gordon as we rounded the corner and we were able to sneak into her yard and shoot some video of the foxglove. Only one clump remained. It was hidden by some frost-bitten chrysanthemums. Monday seemed to be the day for people to rip out their deadly flowers.
I didn’t like that Dale wasn’t at work on a week day. If the Chief had suspended him, pending the results of the lab test on the tea and perhaps processing of the new crime scene—and the Chief would have to investigate the death of Eddie Rounds as a possible homicide— I was likely to be hearing from a very unhappy Althea. Like there was anything I could do about it, but that wouldn’t stop her from yelling at me. Worse, the station was likely to be attacked by an enraged Mitzi. The Chief would probably think I was the right person to cool her down too.
“Uh oh!” I said, making a sharp, illegal U-turn to avoid being stopped behind the mayor at the long stoplight on Main. I had hoped that maybe he would have cooled off after a couple days of being in a snit about my dad’s challenge, but his backseat was stuffed full of campaign posters and I could see him yelling at someone on his cell.
Death in a Turkey Town: A Chloe Boston Mystery Page 7
