by Darci Hannah
“You said Jeb was poisoned first. Do you know what kind of poison was used, or how it was given?”
Jack gave a curt nod. “Doc Fisker identified it as cyanide poisoning. Apparently Jeb had ingested it. Very lethal stuff.”
“How lethal?” I asked this because I knew next to nothing about poison, let alone the one Jack had mentioned.
“Obviously it was lethal enough to kill a man.”
“Yeah, I see that. But where does it come from? How does one get it? And how did the murderer make Jeb ingest it?”
Jack shook his head slowly and shrugged.
“Okay. Jeb was poisoned,” I said. “Let’s think about this. According to Dad, most of the guests had retired to the lounge. However, the McSweenys sneak into the orchard for a little nookie-nookie, as Mom put it, and happen to stumble upon Jeb’s body. What do we know of the McSweenys?”
“I spoke with them last night,” Jack said. “They’re from Milwaukee, in their early thirties, been married two years, and appeared to be in shock at having discovered the body. It could all be an act, of course, but I don’t think so. They looked too nervous when they spoke about the croquet mallet. They’d been playing in the tournament that evening and recognized it as belonging to your father. Of course, what they reported isn’t sitting well with any of the guests. Nobody wants to stay at an inn owned by a murder suspect. However, I made it perfectly clear last night that no one’s to leave until we have a bit more information to go on.”
“And so the Cherry Blossom Festival continues,” I said darkly. “Are the McSweenys still suspects?”
“Everyone’s a suspect, Whitney, even your parents, until I can prove they had nothing to do with the murder. To do this I need to substantiate all alibis. I need to find out who had a motive. Most importantly, I need to find the real killer.”
“I wish I could have seen how the crime scene looked,” I said.
Jack raised a curious brow and took out his phone. “I don’t know what good it’ll do, but here,” he said, handing the phone to me. “I took these last night. They’re a bit unsettling, but now that you’ve been fed and are sitting down, I think you can handle it.”
It had been dark when the body was found, which only exacerbated the sinister quality of the pictures. Illuminated by the bright flash of a cell phone camera, they were positively gruesome. It turned my stomach to see them. Again, I regretted wolfing down that big breakfast. To witness Jeb’s body like that … lying on a blanket of the tender white petals he’d cared so much for in life! His face looked similar to what I’d seen in the morgue, only more livid. I zoomed in, looking closely at the body and the petals beneath it. It suddenly struck me that something didn’t seem quite right. It took me a moment more to realize what it was.
“Jack, there’s something odd here. See by his right hand? I’ll bet my life those are cherry pits.”
Jack took a look. “Okay. What if they are? It’s a cherry orchard.”
“There aren’t any pits in a cherry orchard, at least none that are that clean. You’ve seen the machine we use to harvest the cherries. There are two components to it—the hydraulic shaker, which clamps onto the trunk of the tree and travels down the left side of the row, and the collector-conveyer, which travels down the right side at the same time. The two machines work together, coming from either side of the tree until they overlap near the base of the trunk. When the machines are in place, the shaker goes into action, removing every ripe piece of fruit. The fruit, with some leaves and branches, falls into the collector-conveyer, where it moves up the belt and is deposited in a water-filled collection tub. Nothing falls on the ground. That being said, consider the fact that it’s spring right now. The cherry harvest takes place in mid-July. And these pits look like they’re lying on top of the blossoms, not under them. That would only happen if someone put them there.”
“So you’re suggesting that the killer was eating cherries?”
“No. These are sour cherries, and people generally don’t like to eat them raw. Even if they did, all our cherries go through the pitter first. And, for the sake of argument, even if these pits were from the Bing variety, whoever was eating them while murdering Jeb would’ve likely spit them on the ground in a random fashion. These are all clustered together—as if they’ve dropped from his hand.”
Jack took another look. “My God, Bloom,” he said appreciatively and leaned back in the booth. “I can’t believe I missed that. I’m going to need to take another look at the crime scene. First, however, I’ve asked your father to take me to the old lighthouse storeroom to have a look around. And while I’m doing that, I’ll let him in on what we discovered this morning at the morgue. He’ll be relieved, to say the least. But Whitney, I don’t want the poisoning to become public knowledge just yet. Got it? Someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look like your dad killed Jeb in a fit of rage, and this person is still out there. I want the murderer to believe we’re none the wiser. It’ll make him bolder and hopefully he’ll slip up. Like I said, I have a feeling whoever stole all that wine is somehow involved in the murder.”
Suddenly I too had a pressing need to get into that old lighthouse and have a look around. This, however, I would never admit to Jack.
He glanced at his watch. “All right, Whit, you good?” I nodded. Jack stood and picked up the check. “My treat. And Whitney, now that you know the truth, I need you to be extra careful. But for the fact that we’re old friends, I never would have taken you to the morgue this morning. I shouldn’t have indulged your curiosity, but I did. Don’t make me regret it. If you want to help, the best thing you can do is go back to the inn, pitch in wherever your Mom needs you, and stay vigilant.” He then took my phone and added his number to the contact list. “No snooping around, got it? However, if you should happen to see anything suspicious, or hear anything that might be of use on this case, call me. This isn’t a game. That lump on your head, you got that witnessing what this person is capable of.”
Thirteen
My head was reeling with all the new information I’d learned at Ed’s Diner. Jeb hadn’t been clubbed to death, he’d been poisoned with cyanide, something I knew little about. I had to believe that being poisoned was a terrible, agonizing way to die, and yet as scary as that thought was, the fact that the murderer had tried to frame Dad was somehow possibly worse. It meant familiarity. It could easily be one of the guests. Dad said most came back every year. Yet Jack was inclined to believe that the murderer was local, and very familiar with both Jeb and Dad.
And then there was the oddity of the cherry pits. If they had fallen from Jeb’s hand, why was he carrying cherry pits to begin with? I didn’t know. I might never know, but I did know, with near certainty, where he had gotten them. It was the one small detail I had purposely refrained from telling Jack. A girl, including one endowed with probing curiosity, needed to keep some secrets to herself. Especially if that girl had no intention of listening to her high school friend, even if he was a cop.
As Jack drove back to the Cherry Orchard Inn in contemplative silence, I sat beside him in the passenger seat thinking of the crime scene. According to his description it was in the back of the orchard, not far from the processing sheds, and now clearly marked with yellow caution tape. I would have no trouble finding it, but that was hardly a thing I would tell him. I was also curious about the poison used. Jack obviously knew a great deal about this poison. His reticence on the subject was proof enough. He didn’t want to talk about it, for the obvious reason that he didn’t want me to know. Because he knew that if I knew, I’d keep digging, and rightly so. He knew this because this was exactly what the old Jack MacLaren would have done. And self-proclaimed obsessive video game junky or not, he would never drop a stimulating subject before examining it to death.
I was just about to covertly read up on cyanide poisoning on my iPhone when my phone rang. It was Giff. He was using FaceTime, his fa
vorite form of communication, especially since he knew I could see that he was lounging on my bed with a stack of Cosmos beside him. It was all for show.
“Hi there,” I answered, smiling at the screen.
“You driving? Jesus!” he exclaimed and leaned away from the phone. “Your forehead! Looks like an alien’s about ready to pop outta that little egg.”
Jack, overhearing, laughed.
Giff’s eyes widened. “The lady is not alone? I hear a voice … a decidedly male voice. Well, don’t keep me in suspense, princess. Introduce me.”
For his own entertainment, I was sure Giff was hoping it would be Tate. Giff knew all about Tate, and I suspected he had a bit of a man-crush on him as well. Dashing his hopeful look, I said, “I’m riding shotgun in a police SUV. Say hello to Detective Jack MacLaren, Giff.” I turned the phone for a quick face-to-face introduction.
Jack took his eyes off the road for a second and waved. “Nice to meet ya, Giff.” With eyes back on the road, he added, “And don’t worry. I’m not arresting her, not yet anyway. We went to school together. And, for the record, I had nothing to do with that lump.”
“Well, isn’t that a shame … on both accounts.” This reply elicited another grin from the driver. “I used to work for her. Apparently she thinks I still do.” Giff raised his voice slightly and added, “I’ve delivered your pies, angel. You now owe me all the juicy details.”
Jack cast me a look of warning as I turned the phone back to me. The moment I did, Giff raised his brows and waved his hands theatrically under his face while mouthing HOT COP ALERT. For some reason this made me blush. It wasn’t like that, not at all. This was Jack MacLaren.
“Okay, you want details?” I asked, ignoring the inappropriate teasing. “They’re gruesome.” I then proceeded to tell Giff a little about the murder—just enough to repay my debt. He knew the victim’s name, he knew that Dad was the prime suspect, and I had regaled him with my disastrous visit to the morgue, which enchanted him. What he didn’t know, however, was that Jeb had been poisoned first.
“It’s disturbing, isn’t it?” I remarked.
In true Giffster style, he replied, “Truthfully, angel, what I find even more disturbing than murder is the fact you have a cherry pie bake-off at the inn tomorrow afternoon and no judge. I’ll be there in five hours.”
The screen went blank. He’d ended the call. It took me a moment before I realized that Gifford McGrady had just taken care of one of the many nagging problems plaguing the inn, and my aching head.
Now to find the murderer. I googled “cyanide poisoning” and began educating myself.
Fourteen
The internet is a remarkable thing. What’s even more remarkable is being able to sit beside a cop in his own car and access information he has no idea you’re accessing. When Jack asked what I was doing, I replied, “Facebook. You have your obsessions, I have mine,” which wasn’t a total lie. I did like social media. I had to engage to promote Bloom ’n’ Cherries!, but I was in no way obsessed with the thing. The moment he turned away, I started reading about cyanide.
Basically, death by cyanide is asphyxiation on the cellular level. The cyanide molecule CN prohibits cells in the body from absorbing oxygen. Without oxygen, cells can’t produce energy, and without energy, muscles like the heart quickly use up their energy stores and die. The thought made me shiver. Cyanide can be inhaled as a gas, absorbed through the skin in liquid form, or ingested in crystal form. There’s real danger of cyanide poisoning in a house fire due to the burning of plastics. That wasn’t likely to have happened in Jeb’s death, I thought, since there’d been no sign of a fire at the crime scene and no indication of soot in the mouth and nasal passages. Besides, Jack had told me that Jeb had ingested the poison. I then looked to see how the poison was made. I was disturbed to find that cyanide is relatively easy to acquire and quite simple to make. It’s commonly found in pesticides and some industrial cleaning products. And, a bit closer to home, it’s also found in the pits of common foods like almonds, apricot kernels, and apple seeds. If a person eats too many apple seeds they can have mild exposure symptoms, like a rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, and dizziness. Greater exposure causes death, and it doesn’t take long to die. In World War II, high-ranking members of the Nazi party used to carry cyanide capsules to commit suicide if they were caught. I remembered reading about that when I was a kid. But it was the mention of fruit pits that got me thinking. There wasn’t much on the page I was reading, so I did another quick search and found the answer I was looking for.
“Wow,” Jack breathed, pulling me from the webpage. I quickly turned off my phone. “You weren’t kidding about the press infiltrating the inn,” he said. “That’s Greta Stone up there. She’s the heavy hitter from Baywatch News. Mostly because she has a way of getting men to talk. She’s a shameless flirt.”
“I gathered,” I replied, glancing at the attractive woman who’d promoted Blunder Under the Blossoms. Precariously balanced on red four-inch heels, she was leaning close to a pudgy, middle-aged man. The long, slender legs the heels were attached to seemed to sprout from under a very tight, very short, leave-nothing-to-the-imagination skirt. “That poor man,” I remarked. “He thinks he has a chance, doesn’t he?”
“That’s the thing about men. We all do. But remember what we talked about at the hospital?” Jack asked. “Greta and her team are just doing what they do best, which is drum up scandal and interview anyone willing to get before the camera. You know what they say: nobody can pump a man like Greta Stone.” Registering the look on my face, he clarified. “For information, that is.”
“Oh, really? And how would you know this?”
Jack parked the car, turned off the ignition, and turned to me. “It’s common knowledge … and a little bit based on the fact that I know her.” The look on his face suggested something more than a working relationship.
“You know her? Greta Stone?” I didn’t know why, but for some reason I felt a flash of jealousy. Most likely because Ms. Stone was drop-dead gorgeous! “How well?” The fact that Jack didn’t answer this question was probably for the best.
I glanced out the windshield again, slightly miffed and more than a little skeptical.
“Don’t dwell on it,” he advised, reaching for the door handle. “Besides, you have Giff. He’s what a lot of woman would call ‘a real looker.’”
“What? I’m not dating Giff! Giff’s gay!”
“Oh, so you do know. I wasn’t sure you’d picked up on that.” Jack flashed a grin and opened the door. “Okay,” he said in a near whisper, “whatever you do, don’t look directly at her. Just head for the family entrance and keep your head down. Got it?”
I nodded and exited the car. A moment later I felt Jack’s hand on my back—a warm, strong hand. “Come on,” he whispered, proceeding to guide me through the crowded parking lot and away from the view of the front porch. “Hopefully your dad’s still waiting for me. I’m anxious to have a look at that lighthouse.”
We were weaving our way through parked cars, keeping low and aiming for the left side of the inn, when a throaty voice called out from above. “Officer MacLaren! Jack, I know it’s you!” The voice was unmistakable; the sound of it caused the hand on my back to stiffen. Jack kept walking, pushing me toward the three-story turret where a shaded pathway awaited leading to a private gate. “Don’t turn around,” he whispered. “Greta’s onto us.”
“Officer MacLaren! You’re the law here in Cherry Cove. You were the responding officer on this case. I’d like a word with you, Jack! More importantly, I’d like to know why you’re avoiding me and who you’re trying to protect!” The sharp ping of high-heels skittering down stone echoed around us.
“Here she comes,” I whispered.
Jack picked up the pace.
“Will Baxter Bloom, the wealthy owner of the Cherry Orchard Inn and Bloom Family Orchard, be charge
d with the murder of Jeb Carlson?”
Now that question pissed me off! I stopped and was about to turn around when another voice caught me by surprise.
“Whitney!”
My name, uttered by a voice I hadn’t heard in a very long time, rocked me to the core. I spun around, stunned, and saw the one face I never wanted to see again. The face of Tatum Vander Hagen, my ex-boyfriend. The man who had broken my heart.
It was incredible! I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Nope, I wasn’t. It was Tate, and he was driving one of the inn’s three Gators. What the devil was he doing here? I’d only been home a few hours, and the fact that he looked so at home on the bright green-and-yellow utility four-wheeler wasn’t sitting too well with me either. He’d just rounded the building from the other side and was racing across the parking lot toward us. He skidded to a stop three feet from where we stood and cried, “Quick, jump in.”
I was horrified to find that I wanted to. Curse his arresting Norse god good looks! He was smiling, flashing dimples—the kind you just wanted to stick your fingers into and wiggle a bit. I’d worked hard to resist those captivating cheek dimples but, for the love of cobbler, they were a powerful weapon. He knew it, too, and yet seeing that I was still hesitant, his smile faltered.
“Jesus, Whit, I’m not going to bite.”
I glared at him and hissed, “What the devil are you doing here, Tate?”
“What the devil happened to your forehead?” he countered.
“An accident,” I snapped, tired of getting horrified looks about it.
“Sorry to hear it. Your mom’s waiting for you. Look, it’s either me or her,” he said, pointing to Greta Stone. The woman was now clipping at speed through the parking lot. It was kind of impressive, considering she was wearing such obnoxiously high heels. The way I saw it, there wasn’t a whole lot to choose between. I was still deliberating when Jack made the decision for me.
