A Taste of Death (Maggie Olenski Series)

by Hughes, Mary Ellen

  CHAPTER 13

  "Maggie!" Dyna protested, "Elizabeth would never poison a cat!" The look of horror on Dyna's face was so awful Maggie hurried to explain.

  "I didn't mean she did, Dyna. Of course I know she wouldn't have poisoned Ali. I only meant that it could look suspicious to the wrong people."

  "But she doesn't have the bottle of poison - if that's what it was - anymore. John carried it off after his search, remember?"

  "I know. But the darn plant seems so available in this town. They should probably change the name from Cedar Hill to Oleander Ridge."

  "Ha! You're right. There could be a bottle of oleander extract tucked away in every cupboard, for all we know. What's that old slogan - 'a chicken in every pot'? Maybe Cedar Hill's should be 'poison in every cupboard'."

  "What I'd like to know," Maggie said, "is who put that particular bottle - and that book on poisons - in Elizabeth's cupboard."

  "I asked Elizabeth who could have slipped them in there, and she has no idea. She says the Book Nook was so busy just before Christmas that anyone could have gone into her living area without her knowing. She says she's never worried about keeping her door locked, always trusted the people here."

  Maggie nodded. "Annette's a possibility, of course. But since she seems to be the one who called John about seeing it, I think that takes her out of the running, don't you?"

  "Yeah. Like we talked about before, if she was the murderer, she wouldn't want to put herself in the picture that way. Besides, I think Annette gets her kicks poking into what other people are doing, not by doing it herself."

  "So who do we know of so far as a possible?" Maggie began ticking off her fingers. "There's Paul Dekens. He has a motive to kill Jack Warwick - to keep Big Bear - and probably the opportunity to hide the bottle in Elizabeth's cupboard."

  "Oh, I really hope it's not him," Dyna said. "Count Leslie twice for an extra good motive for being married to a rat that cheated on her and for having the poisonous plant growing in her own house. I don't know if she ever went to Elizabeth's book shop though. She doesn't seem like a reader, does she?"

  "She could have bought books for someone else, if not for herself." Maggie touched a third finger. "Dan Morgan had oleander too, in the foyer of his restaurant, and his motive might be to preserve his business, which could go under if the ski resort was sold."

  "Yeah, maybe," Dyna agreed, with less force than she had shown for Leslie. "And there's Regina, you know."

  "Right." Maggie pressed a fourth finger. "She said herself she had no use for Jack Warwick and hated what he proposed to do to the town."

  "What about Alexander and Karin?" Dyna asked.

  "Well, Alexander wanted to sell Big Bear to Jack Warwick, so that probably lets him out. Karin, however, sided with Paul. She and Alexander don't seem to agree on very much, as far as I can see."

  "Yeah. If Alexander was the one poisoned, everyone would sure be looking at Karin with suspicion. But you don't think she would have killed Jack, do you?"

  "She doesn't seem like the type, but I don't think we can eliminate her just yet. She did have motive, and she was there at the refreshments table and certainly had the opportunity."

  "I guess," Dyna agreed, somewhat reluctantly. "But let's prove it was Leslie, okay?"

  Maggie laughed. "We'll try to prove it was whoever it was, and just hope it's not someone we've grown to like."

  "I know," Dyna said, not echoing Maggie's laugh. "It would be a real bummer for that to happen, wouldn't it?"

  Maggie looked at Dyna's face with a twinge of concern. Dyna had been the one urging her at the beginning to get involved in this murder investigation. And Maggie knew Dyna was as convinced as she of Elizabeth's innocence. But what if the murderer turned out to be someone who would be nearly as upsetting as Elizabeth? Things didn't always turn out the way you wanted them to, and Maggie wondered if Dyna would be able to handle it if it didn't. Would it be better to get Dyna away from all this? Maggie resolved to think about that very seriously.

  <><><>

  Concern about Dyna still lingered in Maggie's mind when she woke up the next morning. She had stayed up late, working on her book so that she would have the best possible report to give Anne Striker when she called the editor that day. She promised herself to do it as soon as the working day began at the publishing house in New York. With a little luck, she thought, Anne would be unavailable and Maggie would get away with leaving a message.

  "Wow! It snowed last night!" Dyna's voice carried down the hall from her room. Maggie jumped out of bed and pulled her window curtain aside to be greeted by a vision in white. Several inches of snow had fallen while they slept, covering the cabin's once-cleared walkways and weighing down tree branches.

  "It's beautiful!" Maggie cried, delighted with the dazzling whiteness softened only by blue-grey shadows of trees in the path of the sun.

  "Beautiful, yeah," Dyna said from Maggie's doorway. "But they probably won't get around to plowing Hadley Road for quite a while, and we need to do some shopping."

  "We do?"

  "Tonight's the fund-raiser at Leslie's, remember? Do you have anything remotely wearable for a fancy dinner hanging in that closet?"

  Maggie looked at the closet door, knowing the only things behind it were jeans, tops, and a fuzzy bathrobe. "Nope."

  "Me neither. And we're going to have to figure out how to get to a dress shop or end up walking around that dinner looking like two pathetically dressed detectives trying to eavesdrop on everyone's conversation."

  "Instead of looking like two well-dressed school fund supporters, trying to eavesdrop on everyone's conversation?"

  "Exactly.

  Maggie grabbed her robe and trotted down the steps to the living room. She stepped into her slippers, one at a time, as she hopped over to the sliding glass door that faced Hadley Road and their driveway. Looking out she saw that the snow covering it was definitely too high for either her Cavalier or Dyna's rental Ford to maneuver, coming up nearly to the car's bumper.

  "Will it even be plowed in time to get to the dinner?" Maggie asked.

  "Oh, sure. They'll clear it by then. They're much faster in Cedar Hill than in Baltimore because they get snow here all the time. But they have to do all the main roads first, you know. Hey, I've got an idea!"

  Maggie looked at Dyna warily. "You're not going to suggest we turn the draperies into ball gowns, are you?"

  "Huh? Oh!" Dyna grinned and made a face. "No, this is Cedar Hill, not Tara. I was thinking of cross-country ski's! We've got all the equipment here. We can just ski through the woods over to Main Street."

  "You make it sound so easy."

  "It is," Dyna insisted.

  "But I've never done cross-country."

  "You'll pick it up like that," Dyna assured her, snapping her fingers.

  "Let me think about it over a cup of coffee," Maggie said. She tightened the sash on her robe and headed for the kitchen. "That sounds like a very strenuous way of clothes shopping, too strenuous to even think about without a little fortification." And maybe I'll come up with a much better idea in the meantime, Maggie hoped, as she scooped coffee grounds into the filter.

  <><><>

  Unfortunately for Maggie, nothing better presented itself. Not long after calling Anne Striker and putting the best possible spin on how the book was progressing, Maggie found herself outside in the snow, braced for a morning of great exertion. She listened intently to Dyna's instructions as she stood in what seemed like very flimsy boots - compared to the downhill version she was used to - on much narrower skis, at the edge of the cabin's outside steps, which was the farthest she was willing to go at this point. Only the necessity of being inconspicuous at the fund raiser had pushed her to agree to this madness.

  Dyna demonstrated the sliding-walking motions she would have to do, moving around the cabin's front yard with ease and tramping down tracks Maggie could use. Maggie tried it, feeling uncoordinated at first, but quickly found Dyna had been rig
ht. It was easy. At least here in the yard it was easy.

  "You're getting it," Dyna said.

  "I think I am," Maggie agreed – and promptly pinned one ski under the other, lost her balance and fell down.

  "You'll have to watch that," Dyna said as she helped Maggie right herself.

  "I'll certainly try," Maggie said, brushing off her pants.

  Dyna had told her to dress more lightly than she would for the downhill skiing. "You'll work up your own heat real soon," she had promised. As Maggie followed her down Hadley road and onto the trail in the woods, which snowmobilers had apparently already ridden through and packed down again, she soon found herself lowering the zipper on her jacket to let in cool air. Minutes later she begged Dyna to stop and let her catch her breath.

  "You're getting tired because you don't have a real smooth action yet. Don't worry, it'll come," Dyna promised.

  In how many years, Maggie wondered. She took deep breaths and waited for her heart to slow down, then gamely followed again in Dyna's tracks. She kicked and pushed and glided as best she could, stopping less and less as they moved through the woods, and was just beginning to enjoy the effort when she realized she could see Main Street through the trees.

  "It was right around here where I found Ali," Dyna said, pausing. Maggie looked where Dyna's ski pole pointed, but the only thing to see was freshly fallen snow piled around wintry brown, leafless trees.

  "So the vet said he's okay?" Maggie asked, remembering the call Dyna had made to the veterinary clinic while Maggie dressed.

  "Yeah, he says I can come get him as soon as the roads are clear for driving. They spoke to Leslie, and she's glad to have me take him." Dyna's eyes had narrowed as she mentioned Leslie, and Maggie knew she was still convinced Leslie had tried to dispose of poor Ali in a most unforgivable way.

  Maggie didn't comment, and they pushed on to Main Street. The sidewalks had been cleared, so they stepped out of their skis and carried them over their shoulders as they walked. Maggie was glad the dress shop wasn't too far up Main. Although these skis were lighter than the downhill type, they were still an effort to lug, and she wished they had decided to leave them at the end of the path. Surely the skis wouldn't have disappeared when they went back for them, she thought. But then again, as had been dramatically made clear to her, this town wasn't always as crime-free and innocent as it seemed.

  "There it is," Dyna said, pointing to the dress shop up ahead. Maggie joined Dyna in jamming her skis into the mound of snow at the curb, dusted the snow off as best she could, and followed her into the store.

  Ski Lady Boutique was larger than it looked from outside, and carried a selection of women's clothing far beyond ski apparel. Dyna apparently knew her way around the store as she led the way purposefully to the rear. A woman who Maggie remembered as having spoken up at the town meeting against rezoning turned toward them there, smiling. Middle aged, elegantly coifed, and what she herself would probably describe as a "perfect size 14", she replaced a suit she had been holding onto the rack near her and approached them.

  "Hi Mona,” Dyna said. “Guess what we're here for."

  "Since you clearly made considerable effort to get here this snowy morning, I imagine you need something to wear for the dinner tonight."

  "Right! I hope you're not all sold out."

  "Oh, I think we'll be able to find something you'll like. Let's see, this should be your size here, right?" Mona led Dyna to a row of brightly colored dresses, then took Maggie over to her own section, one size lower. They fingered their way through the clothes, occasionally pulling something out and holding it out to look at.

  In the end, Dyna chose a floaty lavender dress whose color put roses in her cheeks. Maggie had wavered on a black dress, but finally decided to go with a green one that might get use someday for a school function. She let Mona help her choose a necklace that would elevate her outfit to the level of tonight's event. Thank goodness Dyna had discovered some basic dress shoes left behind by both her and her mother, which they could each use tonight. One less purchase to worry about.

  As Mona wrapped their purchases in tissue and totaled bills, she chatted about that evening's dinner. "The whole town should be there, the adults, that is. Everyone's dying to see what the Warwick's, I mean Mrs. Warwick, will have arranged."

  "I understand Dan Morgan's doing the catering," Maggie said. Her gaze had wandered back to where the black dress hung. It was still sending out a siren song which her innate practicality had managed to muffle but not completely silence.

  "Yes, and he does such wonderful things with food. I hear he's even doing a vegetarian table for Regina and her friends."

  Dyna's eyes lit up. "Great! Maggie picked up our tickets yesterday from Regina. We only just heard about the event, which is why we didn't have anything to wear."

  Mona looked over to Maggie. "What did you think of her place?"

  "It's interesting. She told me about it having been built by her grandfather."

  "Yes, she's very proud of the house, and of her family. Most of it." Mona's voice had dropped to a tone of confidentiality. "I don't suppose she mentioned her brother, did she?"

  "Her brother?" Maggie asked, surprised. "She told me she was the last of the line. I assumed she had no siblings."

  "She doesn't, now." Mona had paused in her folding and bagging to look at Maggie and Dyna with serious eyes. "He committed suicide, years ago, as a young man."

  "Oh, how awful," Dyna said.

  Maggie waited, sure that Mona planned to tell them more. She was right.

  "He had been the family's black sheep, from what I hear, younger than Regina by two or three years. But where she firmly followed in the family's path of straight and narrow - the same as she does now - Trenton was living wild. He was what I guess they called in those days a wastrel. He was driving his parents to distraction, and Regina, I hear, hated it even worse."

  Mona paused. "She was the one who found him."

  "What had happened," Maggie asked.

  "Shot. He shot himself. With his father's own rifle. Regina was out walking in the woods near the pond and said she found him there."

  "Did he leave a note?"

  "No note. But I'm told everyone assumed he felt he had disgraced the family enough."

  Maggie pictured Regina's living room, so carefully maintained. Even her father's hunting rifles. Was the one that killed her brother there too, she wondered? Cleaned and oiled? Had Trenton actually been the one who felt that his disgraceful life had to end? Or had Regina?

  Maggie shook her head to chase away those gruesome thoughts and was glad when more customers came in, ending Mona's chronicle. She and Dyna picked up their purchases, packed now in sturdy plastic bags with handles they could loop over their arms backpack style, and said their good-byes.

  "Gosh, what a story," Dyna said, as they retrieved their skis from the snow pile.

  "Yes," Maggie agreed, struggling to hoist the skis onto her shoulder while protecting the precious cargo on her back and at the same time hold onto a pair of ski poles.

  As they tramped down Main Street and back to the path, Maggie wondered how similar Regina's attitude might have been towards both a disruptive brother and a disruptive businessman. Both problems in her life had been eliminated. Regina was clearly a take-charge woman, but to what extent had she taken charge in these cases?

  Maggie wondered, and vowed to look into it, one way or another.

  CHAPTER 14

  The lights of Leslie's house blazed at them as Maggie turned into her street that night.

  "Wow! Looks like a party going on there," Dyna said.

  "You might think so. Where do you suppose I should park?"

  "Follow that white Blazer. It looks like Leslie's got valet parking set up."

  Maggie pulled into a short line of cars. When hers reached the snow-free front walk of the Warwick house she was waved to a stop by a parka-clad teen-aged boy who opened her door, helped her out, and quickly took her pl
ace in the driver's seat.

  As she stood on the sidewalk with Dyna watching her car speed out of sight, Maggie swallowed the fear that she would never see it again in the same condition, then turned toward the house. "Thank goodness the snow plows cleared Hadley in time for us to get here. Let's hope most everyone else shows up too. We need to try to learn as much as we can, things that will help Elizabeth."

  "Yeah, we'll pump everyone for information, while they're scarfing down goodies and off their guard."

  "But discreetly," Maggie said, smiling. "Always discreetly."

  They approached the front door and Maggie heard music coming from the house, which crescendoed when the door opened. Laughter, along with the clatter and tinkle of dishes and glassware filled in between beats of the melody. Leslie stood near the door greeting guests, dressed in a very unwidow-like glittery and slinky silver number. Looking at her, Maggie's pleasure in her own new green dress slipped down several notches. However, the music, and a glimpse of the festive decorations within managed to keep her mood at party level.

  "I'm so glad y'all came," Leslie sang out as Mrs. Hanson quickly relieved them of their coats.

  "Your place looks wonderful," Maggie said. And you do too, she thought, but found she couldn't quite bring herself to say so. Maggie tried to justify this by telling herself Leslie must know how great she looked and surely was tired of hearing it, and almost succeeded. I really should try harder, she thought, to be more gracious to my murder suspects.

  Glancing at Dyna, Maggie saw she wore a rather tight smile and knew she must be thinking of Ali, whose pick-up from the vet's had been postponed to tomorrow because of a small setback in his condition.

  Leslie's thoughts, however, were clearly far from anything as unpleasant as the cat she so disliked as she smiled and gestured toward the living room.