by K. J. Emrick
He slid the window shut, and that was the end of their interview.
“Well,” Jon said once they were outside again. “There you go. The police here aren’t even investigating this. They’ve chalked it up to accidental poisoning.”
Darcy was far from convinced. She knew she should let it be. They were on their honeymoon, after all, and here she was sticking herself in the middle of a mystery. One that the police didn’t even think was worth looking into.
Her sixth sense was telling her the police were wrong.
“Jon, do you think we can find a map of the town somewhere?”
“Oh, no. I know that look.”
“What look?” she asked innocently. Then she gave up trying to fool him. “All right, you got me. I want to go over to wherever this Evangeline Circle is and talk to this Alec, uh, whatever his last name was.”
“Beaudoin,” Jon provided for her, then grimaced like he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. “Darcy, you heard what Kevin said. The police aren’t investigating this.”
“But they should be, Jon. Four people get poisoned, two of them die, and the police don’t think there’s a reason to be suspicious? Come on. What does your gut tell you? You’ve always trusted your gut.”
She patted his flat stomach when she said it, walking close beside him. It had the effect on him she figured it would.
With a heavy sigh he put his arm around her shoulders. “All right, fine. My gut says this is more than coincidence, no matter what the PD says. I trust my gut. I trust your instincts, too, and if you think we need to go talk to this Alec Beaudoin, then we will, but if it doesn’t go anywhere I want you to promise me you’ll drop it. Okay?”
“That’s fair,” she admitted, even though she didn’t want to. Trouble always had a way of finding her. She wouldn’t feel right turning her back on it now, knowing that more people might get hurt if she didn’t at least try to do something. Not to mention, Great Aunt Millie had given her a warning. She still had no idea what it meant, but there had to be a reason for it.
They retraced their steps of last night back toward Mabel’s bookstore. Darcy reasoned that there would be a map of the town there to be found. Maybe they could pump her for more information than she was willing to give last night, too.
Not to mention, she was still a strong suspect in Darcy’s mind.
There was probably a map to be had back at the police station, too, but asking Kevin Powers to give them a map of the town right after asking him about the poisoning victims might raise a few questions they wouldn’t be able to answer.
As they walked, another question nagged at Darcy.
“Jon. What’s Ice?”
“Hmm? I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Back at the police station there was a poster about how Ice kills more than three hundred Australians every year.”
“Oh. That kind of Ice. It’s a street name for methamphetamine. I remember something about it being very popular over here right now. It’s highly addictive. And deadly.”
Well, Darcy thought. Australia and America had more in common than she realized.
They didn’t take their time. They had planned on walking around today. Just to sightsee, and enjoy themselves. There was no time for that now. Kevin Powers said he wasn’t going to talk to Alec Beaudoin until this afternoon, but plans changed. If he suspected Jon and Darcy had more interest in what was going on here in Lakeshore than a tourist should, he might just decide to go over to Evangeline Circle right now.
It was a shame, really, because Lakeshore was a beautiful town. Tall, narrow pine trees in their full green glory swayed everywhere, outside of town and in small clusters between the houses and buildings. The sun was warm. The breeze was nice, and carried the fresh scent of water from the nearby lakes. They passed by several houses with people out in their yards playing with young children or doing chores. A few smiled and waved. It was a nice friendly town.
Where people were dying.
“Hey, look,” Jon said.
He was pointing up at a brown metal street sign with yellow letters spelling out Evangeline Circle.
“Guess we found it.”
He turned at the corner and she followed with him onto a street that was a little cul-de-sac, curving around to form a lazy circle of houses that were just as white and just as simply built as all the houses in town. They followed the sidewalk to the right past small, neatly trimmed lawns. “Now how are we supposed to find the house? Want to go door to door and ask if anyone knows where Alec Beaudoin lives?”
“Or we could just try that house there,” Darcy suggested with a confident smirk.
In front of the house Darcy pointed to was a mailbox with a number thirteen on it and a black prancing stallion painted on the hinged door. On the side was a name. Beaudoin.
“We could try that,” he agreed. “See, that’s why you’re a consultant.”
Darcy felt a twinge of guilt. “I’m sorry, Jon. We’re supposed to be here on our honeymoon and here I have us in the middle of a mystery.”
With a look that warmed her inside, he told her it was all right. “Besides,” he said, “I still don’t think there’s anything to this. You promised me you’d drop it if there was nothing to it. The police have done their investigation. After we talk to this Alec guy I’m sure we’ll be able to get back to our vacation.”
“So, you’re just humoring me?”
He took her hand and led them up the front walk of the Beaudoin home. “Maybe a little. Isn’t that what a good husband would do?”
“I think you qualified for the good husband seal of approval when you brought your wife all the way to Australia for her honeymoon.”
Jon knocked on the door, and leaned over at the same time to kiss the side of her neck.
She could feel her face turning pink.
The door opened and a short man in a blue bathrobe stood not exactly smiling at them. His brown hair was thinning even though he still tried to comb it over his scalp. A pudgy face was pockmarked and bristly with a few days’ growth of beard.
“Help you?” he asked, in a rough and gravelly voice.
“Hi. I’m Jon Tinker. This is my wife Darcy. We’re looking for Alec Beaudoin.”
“Found him.” Alec crossed his arms over his chest and stuck out his lower lip. “Don’t know ya, Mate. Or yer Sheila here. What can I do ya for?”
“We’re here on vacation—”
“Good for you. Tourists from America. I’m not a bloody tour guide. Whad’ya want?”
The man was close to shutting the door in their faces. Darcy could tell just from his tone of voice and the hostility that radiated off him in waves. Some people were like that, she knew. Some people hated outsiders intruding on their business. Misty Hollow was a pretty friendly place, for instance, but even back home they had plenty of people who were happy to live their lives behind closed doors.
Before he could shut them out she took a step forward. “We were worried about the people who got poisoned here,” she said. “We heard you were a victim. Would it be all right to talk to you for a few minutes?”
“The poison?” Alec’s face softened, going through a series of emotions that barely registered before it settled on a tight smile. “Right. I mean, sure. Anything to help a neighbor, even if they are from the other side of the blooming world. Come in, come in.”
He stepped aside for them to enter. Jon glanced at Darcy and then quickly looked away. She knew what he was thinking. That was a fast change of heart.
“I think he likes the attention,” Jon whispered to her when Alec’s back was turned. “Being poisoned probably made him a local celebrity.”
“I’ve some water in the kettle fer tea,” he told them, cinching the belt of his robe up tighter. “Wasn’t expecting company. Don’t get many visitors. I work night shift at the quarry out west of here. Usually asleep during the day. But, I got crook after that poison got me. Had to take a few days. Now the whole outfit is shut down for the
season and I ain’t got no way to make me rent.”
He stopped talking. His hands slipped into the pockets of his robe like he didn’t know what to do with them. “So. Er. What can I do for ya?”
They were in his living room, but truthfully Darcy didn’t dare sit down. Standing was fine with her. There was a grimy couch with a horrible floral pattern and two mismatched easy chairs, both different shades of blue. A spring was poking through the cushion of one. The rest of the room was just as neglected. The wallpaper needed to be scrubbed. Magazines and beer bottles and empty pizza boxes littered the floor. Alec probably wasn’t home much, Darcy guessed, working nights like he did. That probably explained the mess.
Or, he was just a slob. She wasn’t sure. Either way, she stayed standing with Jon.
“Mister Beaudoin,” she said, hoping that being honest with him would gain her some continued good will, “do you know how you were poisoned?”
He was shaking his head even before she had the question finished. “Coppers asked me that at the hospital. ‘Fraid not. So, don’t drink the water, I guess?”
He let out a half-hearted laugh for his own joke that quickly turned into a cough.
“Does the hospital know what poison you had in your system?” Jon asked.
“Sure enough. Some sort of biological poison, they said. Like poison oak, just a whole lot stronger. Put me out on my…er, me backside for four whole days. Couldn’t see straight the first two. Couldn’t swallow, neither. Bad rash all over me skin. Still coming back from it. Had to take a week off from me job. Nothing I’d wish on a worst enemy, I can tell you that.” Again he stopped, like he’d caught himself saying too much. “Anywho, you folks won’t have to worry. Only hit four of us. Not like it’s an epidemic.”
“Two people have died,” Darcy reminded him.
Alec shrugged. “Everybody bites the big one sometime, Miss.”
That wasn’t a very caring attitude. “Did you know the victims?” she asked him. “The ones who died, I mean.”
“Not the first bloke. Knew the second one, sort of. From around town. Lindsay Burlick. Sweet girl. Liked to paint sunflowers. Just enough to say g’day to, ya understand.”
Hmph. Darcy was a little disappointed. She was hoping there was some kind of connection between all four victims. If there was one, Alec didn’t know what it was. Did that make the poisonings random? Or, was there some connection even the victims were unaware of?
“Well. It was nice to know ya,” Alec said to them after a long pause where no one had anything else to say. “Enjoy yer stay. Don’t worry ‘bout getting poisoned. Hasn’t been a new case in more’n a week. Fair to say it’s over. Whatever caused it, that is.”
“The four of you all got poisoned at the same time?” Jon asked. His police mind was working now. Darcy could see it in his eyes. “All four at once? That’s a bit suspicious, don’t you think?”
Alec blinked at him. “You know, Mate, you gab like the law. What is it? You a copper?”
Jon put on a smile. “You’re very observant, Mister Beaudoin. I’m a police chief, but not here. I don’t have any kind of jurisdiction here.”
“No I reckon you don’t, Mate.” Alec nodded thoughtfully. Then he walked away from them, back to the entryway, and opened the door to his small home again. “No jurisdiction at all. You should go enjoy your holiday. Now.”
They were being escorted out. Whatever good will had got them into his door had been used up, apparently. Darcy had to ask one more thing. “Mister Beaudoin, can I ask you if you Know Mabel Quinn? The bookstore owner?”
“Of course,” he answered. “Everyone does. Why do you…oh, you reckon maybe she…I see.”
“We don’t think anything,” Jon said, trying to cover their obvious interest. “We were talking with her yesterday and she had some interesting things to say.”
Alec leaned in closer to them. “Mabel’s a full on kook. Nutters in the head. If I wanted to say anyone in Lakeshore could slip me a poison mickey, I’d put my money down on Mabel Quinn.”
Interesting, Darcy thought.
“Did you tell that to the Lakeshore Police?” Jon asked him.
“No, I did not. Didn’t think of it until you just jogged me memory. I’ll tell them soon as I get the chance.”
Then he was holding the door open for them to leave. Darcy knew Alec would get his chance to talk to the police again soon enough. He could tell them about Mabel when Kevin Powers came to interview him.
Now Mabel was an even stronger suspect in Darcy’s mind.
Outside again on the sidewalk of Evangeline Circle, Darcy waited to say anything until they were a few houses away, just in case Alec was listening at his window.
“So what now, Jon? Do you still think there’s nothing to this?”
“I’m not sure if I do or not,” he admitted. “I know this much. I’d like to talk to Mabel again.”
“So would I.”
“Of course, there’s someone else I’d like to talk to even more than that crazy bookstore lady.” He watched Darcy out of the corner of his eye. “I’d like to talk to Lindsay Burlick. I’m betting she knows something.”
Lindsay, the dead girl. Darcy could only imagine how much easier murder investigations would be if people could talk to the dead victims. That was impossible, of course. No one could talk to the dead.
Except for Darcy Sweet.
Chapter Five
They were almost back to Mabel’s bookstore when Darcy’s stomach started to growl. The walk had worked up an appetite. Checking her My Little Pony watch, she saw it was only just after ten in the morning. Not even close to time for lunch.
“I saw a store on the way into town,” Jon said, checking his watch too. “There was a sign in the window that said they sold food. I think it’s some sort of deli. We could always get a midmorning snack and take a break.”
She smiled up at him. “You read my mind. Are you sure? I mean, I know we agreed to only eat at the Inn.”
His stomach growled, too, and that seemed to decide it for him. “We’ll only eat prepackaged foods or things we can watch being made in front of us. I don’t see the risk in that. We can eat quick, and then get back to investigating.”
“Are you sure? I know this isn’t what you wanted to do today.”
He took her hand, and they passed by the bookstore together. “Tasmania isn’t going anywhere, Sweet Baby. Besides, you heard Alec. The poisonings have stopped. We might just be too late for this mystery. So. I say let’s take a break and get you something to eat. Then we can talk to the crazy bookstore lady.”
As they passed the Eye of the Beholder, Darcy peeked in through the tall windows. Mabel was inside, wearing a dress even more colorful than the one from last night, dancing in slow circles between the book stacks.
They got to the deli or whatever it was a few minutes later. It was the same one Darcy remembered from the taxi ride. Painted white boards overlapped each other up the two story building to the edge of the slanting tiled roof. In the tall windows were the signs for tobacco and medicine and the one that read “Food Here.” A black sign above the door had the name of the place written in scripted letters. “The Morris Milkbar.”
“What’s a milkbar?” Darcy asked.
Jon shrugged. “Not really sure. I hope they sell more than milk and tobacco, though.”
The floors inside were wooden planks. Every step was a hollow thump, thump, thump. Somehow, the place managed to look smaller on the inside than it had on the outside. Maybe it was the tall coolers along the outside walls, stocked with cold drinks and juices and, yes, milk. There were wrapped sandwiches that Darcy saw in one cooler, and boxed meals in another. Rows of shelves took up space on one side, while this side closest to the door was an open space with three round tables and chairs waiting for customers to sit down.
A counter to the left of the door had a cash register and debit card machine next to a display of lottery tickets, and past that was a glass case full of wrapped hams
and other meats and blocks of cheese. A working deli, stuffed into a convenience store. Wow, Darcy thought.
Behind the counter, a woman was bent over a meat slicer, working a side of beef into thin slices. She looked up at them with a final slice. “Be with you in a jiff.”
The woman’s slender figure was hidden behind a long green apron. She was probably in her thirties, Darcy judged, a little older than her and Jon, even though the lines of her face made her look older. Her blonde locks were pulled back neatly under a mesh hairnet. Taking off clear plastic gloves she smiled and powered down the slicer.
“I’d love a sandwich,” Darcy told her. “Do you make those here? Turkey and maybe some Swiss cheese?”
“Get that right quick for ya.” The woman’s smile broadened. “You’d be Americans then? Could tell by the accent.”
Darcy wanted to say she didn’t have an accent, but she knew on this side of the world she was the one who sounded different.
Jon asked for a sandwich too, and they added chips and drinks, and had their snack in just a few minutes. Paying with colorful plastic notes, they thanked the woman in the green apron and took seats at one of the tables to eat.
After a few moments, she called over to them. “Everything super?”
“It’s very good,” Darcy told her.
“You two are tinny. You’re here before the lunch rush. Come eleven-thirty got my hands full. This place used to belong to my parents. They’ve passed on now, and here I am. Oh, sorry. You trying to eat and me talking your ears off. Name’s Cathy. Glad to have you here in Lakeshore with us.”
Jon looked at Darcy, chewed his bite of sandwich, and swallowed it back with a drink from his bottle of Coke. “We’re enjoying our vacation. Lakeshore is a beautiful town.” Then, smooth as silk, he steered the conversation to the mystery going on around them in this beautiful town. “We heard there was some trouble here, though. Some people got poisoned?”
