A Taste of Death (Maggie Olenski Series)

by Hughes, Mary Ellen

  "Making this casserole for Elizabeth, I assume you have some sympathy for her situation, the fix she's in."

  Regina snorted. "I have little sympathy for someone who fools around with a married man. But Jack Warwick was a manipulating charmer, a predator. Going after that young woman, the state she was in after her mother's death, was akin to child abuse, in my opinion. He was a rogue, a devil who deserved what he got."

  "But you don't think Elizabeth poisoned him, do you?"

  "Don't know. Don't really care who did poison him. All I know is she's in a heap of trouble right now."

  "Yes, she is. And she's going to need a lot of help.'

  "Best help she can get at this point is a good lawyer."

  "I agree."

  "Tom Schaeffer."

  "Tom Schaeffer?"

  "Lawyer. Best in the county. She should get Tom Schaeffer."

  The phone rang and Regina stood up to answer it. It seemed to be someone on the school fund-raising committee with questions about the logistics of the dinner, which Regina responded to with brusque, precise answers. When she hung up she said, "I'll get those tickets for you. Two?"

  Maggie nodded, and Regina left the room, returning in seconds with a large, brown envelope. She pulled out two tickets and remained standing as Maggie wrote the check, sending the clear signal that her break was over and their conversation was ended.

  As they walked back down the dim hallway Maggie searched for something to keep Regina talking, and, glancing in the living room, commented on the furniture. "Are they antiques?" she asked.

  "Most of the things were my grandmother's," Regina said, pausing at the doorway of the room, her expression softening half a degree. She patted the door frame. "This house was built by my grandfather, and my family has lived here ever since. We've had wealth, but we never sought it. We always gave back to the community. Cedar Hill flourished, over many years, largely because of us, and Jack Warwick would have destroyed it in weeks."

  "Cedar Hill means a lot to you," Maggie said.

  "I know some think of me as a foolish crusader, but my causes have always been for the good of the town and its surrounding environment. Any clear-thinking person could see what Warwick's plan would do to this place, and any clear-thinking person who cared about his life here would have spoken up against it. As the last of the White family, I've always tried to continue its tradition."

  The last of her family. How bleak that sounded to Maggie, and simply to strike a more cheerful note said, "Your grandfather built a lovely home."

  Regina nodded. "I keep it up as best I can, even the guns in that case over there, which my father - Lord forgive him - used for hunting. People weren't as enlightened about such things as they are now."

  "Opinions certainly do change on things that were accepted in another age," Maggie said, thinking of the change in attitude toward smoking in just the last decade. Regina's father likely smoked too, but Maggie could only imagine how Regina would react to a cigarette being lit in her house today.

  "More opinions need to change concerning the environment," Regina said. She moved toward the door again, and Maggie had no choice but to follow. "The fools of this town who were ready to trade the beauty of it for a few dollars from Warwick need to examine their priorities." She opened the front door and stood aside for Maggie. "This fund-raising dinner, at least, is a good thing. People working together for the right cause." Having said her final words she put a hand on Maggie's back and guided her firmly out the door.

  "Yes," Maggie said. She would have added more but the door closed on her before she could draw a breath. "It is," she said out loud to herself, and laughing softly, walked down to her car.

  Back at the cabin, Maggie mulled over what Regina had said. She seemed to have the right motives for all she did - for the good of the town - although certainly not all the townspeople agreed that what she did was good for it. Lacking family of her own to occupy her, she clearly put her energies into the preservation and promotion of Cedar Hill. How far, though, would Regina go for this passion of hers? If murder were the only way to prevent an evil to her beloved Cedar Hill, would Regina murder? Maggie hadn't seen any plants in Regina's house, but according to John, anyone could have acquired oleander clippings if they - or she - knew what to look for. Regina struck her as someone who would know plenty about anything she needed to know.

  Maggie looked at the clock, surprised that Dyna wasn't back yet. Maybe she should have stopped at the book shop to pick her up. Then again, perhaps Dyna and Elizabeth were having a good, long talk. It would be great if that were the case. Maggie thought she might as well squeeze in a few minutes' work.

  She sat down at the computer and soon her mind was filled with math as she maneuvered through a world of numbers. She hadn't been working too long, though, before the phone rang. "Maggie, it's me," Dyna's voice came through the receiver, sounding distressed. "Can you come pick me up? I'm at the vet's."

  "The vet's? What are you doing there?"

  "It's Ali. Leslie's cat." Dyna's voice began to crack with emotion. "I found him in the woods. He's in pretty bad shape. I think maybe he was poisoned."

  CHAPTER 12

  "Okay, now tell me how this all happened," Maggie said, as she and Dyna left the veterinary clinic and headed for her car. She had waited patiently as Dyna got an update on Ali's condition from the veterinary staff and their plans for treatment. Even waited without complaint when the receptionist insisted on telling them both the long, sad tale of her own cat's recent illness and demise.

  "Oh, Maggie, it was so pitiful," Dyna lamented as she climbed into the Cavalier. She waited until Maggie got behind the wheel and buckled up before continuing. "I had just come onto the path from Main Street when I saw Ali up ahead, just standing and looking at me."

  "You're sure it is Ali?"

  "Uh-huh. Besides being the same size and color, I recognized the collar he was wearing when we were at Leslie's. A kinda glitzy thing with rhinestones. I remember thinking that it really didn't fit a former alley cat and that he seemed embarrassed about it. Anyway, I stopped and called to him, and held out my hand, but he kept on standing there, looking kinda, you know, dazed. Then he threw up - and I mean threw up - everything."

  "Cats do do that, I hear." Maggie had started the car and was heading back to Hadley Road.

  "I know. My Missy used to spit up hair balls all the time, and at the first wheeze we'd scoop her up and put her outside on the grass until it was over. But when it was, Missy was always fine. Ali, when it was over, keeled over and just laid there, his eyes all glassy-looking. Maggie, it was awful!"

  Dyna had painted a vivid picture, and Maggie felt a pang for the innocent creature, deathly ill in the cold, snow-covered woods. "How did you get him to the vet's?"

  "I just grabbed him and ran back to the street, waving like a crazy person until Susan Larson pulled over and picked us up."

  Very brave of Susan, Maggie thought, to take a sick cat into her car, but very kind of her too. Maggie was sure Dyna would have run all the way to the vets with the ailing feline if she had to. They reached the cabin, and Maggie pulled into the driveway.

  "What does the vet say?" she asked as they opened their doors and started climbing out of the car.

  "All he can say for now is that it might have been something Ali ate. He's treated Ali in the past and knows he was a healthy cat."

  "So he doesn't know yet if it was poison of some kind?"

  Dyna followed Maggie up the steps and into the cabin. "No, but he thinks it's pretty suspicious, I can tell." They pulled their jackets off and yanked off boots, Dyna hopping on one sock foot as she tugged at her second boot. She finally sat down on the floor of the small foyer making it necessary for Maggie to climb over her. "I mean, just the look on his face," Dyna continued as she scrambled back up. "And he knows Leslie doesn't like that cat."

  "You think Leslie might have poisoned Ali?"

  "Of course! She wanted to get rid of her husband, she
had oleander in her house, and now Jack's dead. She wanted to get rid of her cat, and Ali almost died."

  "Will Ali be all right?" Maggie sat opposite Dyna who had settled down at the other end of the sofa.

  "Yeah, I think so. I asked them to call me if there's a problem."

  "Shouldn't the vet call Leslie? Ali's still her cat, you know."

  "No way! She's not getting another chance at him."

  "Dyna, I think you're jumping to conclusions. First of all, we don't know yet what made Ali sick, and second, there's no proof that Leslie killed her husband or tried to kill her cat."

  "But who else would want to kill the poor thing - I mean Ali, not Jack. Lots of people wanted Jack Warwick out of the way, but only Leslie hated the cat. We saw that ourselves."

  "Well, let's see what the vet comes up with, if anything. And probably we should talk to Leslie and see what she has to say."

  Dyna had crossed her legs, and her right foot was bouncing faster than Maggie's pulse, while her fingers drummed on the end table next to her. "Whatever she says, she's not getting that cat back. I'll take him, as soon as he's well enough to come here."

  Maggie sighed. She knew Dyna meant it, and she understood and wasn't about to try to discourage her. But it looked like one more complication was about to be added to her on-going struggle to finish the book she had come up here to work on.

  "Tell me about your talk with Elizabeth," Maggie asked. "How is she doing?"

  Dyna's foot slowed down, and the tempo of her drumming fingers gradually went from Flight of the Bumble Bee to something closer to Moon River. "Lizzie's doing a little better, I think. At least she laughed when I walked in with all the groceries. She helped me fix a couple of sandwiches, and we talked a while as we ate them."

  "Did you find out who might have called John about the things in her cupboard?"

  Dyna nodded, a small grin forming. "We should have figured it out."

  "Who?"

  "Take a wild guess."

  Maggie looked at Dyna, thinking, until a light went off in her head. "Annette?"

  "You got it. Elizabeth says Annette came over the day after the town meeting with a small coffee cake. Said it had been accidentally left behind when she loaded up her car with things for the meeting the night before. Annette claimed she was on a diet, and Elizabeth would be doing her a favor to take it off her hands. When Liz got busy with a customer, she asked Annette to go back to her kitchen for a knife so she could slice it and put it on her tea table in the shop, and invited Annette to have tea with her. But when Annette came out a few minutes later, she was suddenly in a big hurry, didn't have time for tea, babbled about having to go somewhere and rushed out."

  Maggie nodded. "We should have known."

  "What a snoop."

  Maggie grinned. "She'd make a good detective, wouldn't she?"

  Dyna looked over at her and grinned back. "Maybe we should sign her up."

  "To what? The Maggi-Dy Investigative Agency?"

  "I was thinking more Dyna-Mag."

  "That sounds too much like the name of a vacuum cleaner, wouldn't you say?"

  "And Maggi-Dy sounds like, well, we'll have to think of something better."

  "We’ll work on it. But right now," Maggie stood up, glad to see that Dyna's mood was back to normal, "I want to make a couple of phone calls."

  Maggie picked up the receiver of the cordless phone next to Dyna and carried it over to the kitchen counter. Sitting on one of the high stools, she punched in the number of Big Bear, waited to be put through to Paul, then asked him if a lawyer had been retained for Elizabeth yet. She wrote down the name Paul gave her, a small frown forming, and asked how Paul had chosen him.

  "Judd Ambler's good," Paul assured her. "He was highly recommended by someone who knows lawyers."

  "Someone told me Tom Schaeffer was the best around here."

  The was a silence for a moment, until Paul said, "Tom wasn't available. Judd will take good care of Elizabeth."

  What was Maggie hearing in Paul's tone now? Was it anger at her challenging his choice? Or was it simply the tension of someone who cared about Elizabeth and was distressed at the situation she was in that required the services of a lawyer? Maggie couldn't say for sure. After getting Judd Ambler's number, she ended the call, thanking Paul for his help.

  She sat for a moment, thinking, then punched in another number. Her brother Joe answered, and Maggie smiled at the sound of his voice. She remembered how long it had taken him to finally forgive her for getting involved in the murder of last summer, Lori's murder, and decided not to risk his good humor by explaining what she was doing now that was taking time from the book she had come to Cedar Hill to write.

  "I thought I'd catch you between classes today," she said. "How's it going?"

  "Maggs! Hey! It's going great. How about you?"

  "It's pretty cold up here, but it's great skiing. You'll have to come up some time."

  "Yeah, as soon as I'm self-supporting and have some spare change."

  "You'll get there. Joe, you know that law office you worked in last summer? Do you think they'd be able to check up on a lawyer for me? A guy up here in New Hampshire?"

  "Yeah, probably. I could ask. What do you need it for?" A hint of suspicion had crept into Joe's voice now, and Maggie hastened to remove it.

  "It's just a friend of a friend up here needs a lawyer – to handle a situation where she's absolutely not to blame, and I'd like to make sure she gets a good one." Maggie gave him Judd Ambler's name, and Joe seemed to accept her explanation without pressing for more details. She hadn't lied to him, she told herself, pushing away the twinge of guilt she was feeling. What she had said was absolutely true, if not the whole truth. And she wasn't in a court of law, after all.

  They talked a bit about his studies - Joe was working towards a masters in political science at the University of Maryland - and about their parents, who Joe still lived with. This, he claimed, was a financial necessity, but Maggie suspected he also liked the convenience of it, as well as the home-cooked meals. Joe was a bright guy, but fairly laid back and not as eager to assert his independence as Maggie had been.

  "Oh, I almost forgot," Joe said. "Your editor called."

  "My editor! Yikes! What about?"

  "I think she wanted to know how the book is coming. I told her where you were, and gave her the number up there. Is that okay?"

  Okay? That meant she'd probably be calling here soon, wanting a progress report. Maggie felt her stomach lurch as she thought of the looming deadline and the work she still had to do. "Sure, Joe, that's fine," she said, knowing he assumed she was spending every waking minute at her computer. How could she tell him she'd been getting behind on her book in order to investigate another murder?

  Maggie ended the call and returned the receiver to its cradle, her hand still resting on it. How quickly could she vacate the cabin, she wondered, and be out of reach of the dreaded editor's call? It seemed she had barely formed the thought when the phone rang, vibrating under her hand.

  Maggie yipped, pulling her hand away as if from a hot iron and jumped back two feet. The phone rang again.

  "Want me to get that?" Dyna asked, poking her head out of her room upstairs.

  "No! Let it ring. Let the machine get it."

  After the forth ring the machine clicked on, and after the beep Maggie heard that familiar voice calling from New York, friendly, but at the same time steely, the voice of someone Maggie suspected few tried to cross or contradict.

  "Maggie, Anne Striker here. Just checking in on how the manuscript is shaping up. Call me at...." Maggie had tuned out by then, visions of ripping the phone cord out of the wall going through her head at the same time that she saw how infantile she was being. She couldn't avoid the woman forever. After all, they had paid Maggie an advance and deserved to check up on her once in a while. But not yet. No, not yet.

  Dyna trotted down the steps, a questioning look on her face. Maggie glanced at her and slum
ped down into the sofa. "Don't ask," she said.

  Dyna shrugged and dropped into the plump chair opposite her. "I still can't get over John being so rotten this morning over our trying to help. I mean, I thought he was a pretty neat guy. Today he acted like, like my father, for gosh sakes."

  Maggie thought of the stern look on John's face at the coffee shop as he warned her to stay out of official business. It still made her nostrils flare. She had never taken kindly to orders, which tended to make her want to do the opposite. This had certainly been the case last summer, after Joe found out what had happened at the resort and demanded she come home immediately from her ill fated vacation. It had only strengthened her resolve to stay.

  John Severin wasn't her younger brother, of course. And his warning carried more weight. But unless he planned to arrest her and lock her up Maggie didn't see what he could actually do to stop her from investigating. She had presumed, naively it seemed, that she and John could work together somehow, cooperate, but clearly that wouldn't be the case. Now she could only hope to get inside information from Elizabeth's lawyer - with Elizabeth's approval, of course - and bypass the forbidding Sheriff Severin.

  Her thoughts went back to her visit with Regina, and she realized she hadn't shared any of that with Dyna yet. As her mind ran over it, she sat up with a start, remembering something.

  Dyna looked up from the fingernail she had been examining. "What?" she asked.

  "Something just occurred to me. Something bad."

  Dyna's fingernail went to her teeth as she waited.

  "If the vet finds that Ali was poisoned with oleander, the same poison that killed Jack, things might look even worse for Elizabeth."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Ali was outdoors, and probably ate whatever got to him this morning. Regina had been out walking early this morning when she said she saw Elizabeth out, too."

  Dyna looked at her blankly, not getting it.

  "Don't you see?" Maggie asked. "Elizabeth, who's been keeping out of sight in her own quarters, was outdoors early today, probably at the same time Ali was out. The same time Ali might have been sniffing and looking around, like the good alley cat he is, for something to eat."