by Morgana Best
“But we don’t know that green potatoes killed Paul,” Aunt Maude said.
“Do you have a better idea?” Agnes asked.
Linda set down her fork. “It does make sense.”
The doorbell rang shrilly and constantly. Agnes struggled to her feet. “I’ll get it.” The rest of us were left in silence, not knowing who was at the door, but Agnes presently returned with the two detectives. “Can we have a word, Mrs Williams?” Detective Oakes asked.
“Another one?” Linda said in a horrified voice. “You gave me the third degree all morning!”
The detectives were unmoved. “We won’t take up as much of your time on this occasion,” Oakes said. “Ladies, may we use your living room?”
“Help yourself, gentlemen,” Aunt Agnes said.
Linda got to her feet warily and followed the officers from the room. I looked at the aunts expectantly, but they were all looking quite smug and staying silent. They were not known for their silence, so I said in a firm tone, “What are you all up to?”
“Why, we’re not up to anything, dear,” Aunt Maude said, but Agnes shushed her.
“Valkyrie’s no fool, Maude.”
Maude’s face flushed red. “I didn’t say she was,” she snapped.
Agnes waved her hand at her. “Let’s all go and listen in.”
I thought that not a good idea at all. I could imagine the police opening the door and all of us falling into the room. “Can’t we wait for Linda to tell us what they said?”
Agnes shook her head vehemently. “We can’t trust that woman to tell the truth, of course.”
I was shocked. “I thought you liked her.”
“Of course we like her,” Dorothy said, shooting a sharp look at Agnes. “It’s just better to hear something for oneself, rather than hear it from someone else.”
“How will we hear through those solid doors?” I asked them.
Aunt Agnes sighed loudly as if I had said something rather silly. “Obviously, we won’t be able to hear through the doors,” she said. “We’re going into the listening room.”
“The listening room?” I wondered if I had heard correctly, but the aunts were already on their feet.
“Follow us,” Aunt Agnes said rather unnecessarily. I followed them to what I had always thought was a solid wall of wood panelling. Aunt Agnes reached behind an old oil painting, and to my shock, the door slid open, revealing a dark cavity. Aunt Agnes put her finger to her lips and beckoned me inside.
Within seconds, I was cheek to cheek in a cramped space with the aunts. Agnes must have done something else, because the panels closed behind us.
The air was stale and musty, and I fought a brief moment of panic. What if the panels didn’t open, and someone found us there, centuries later? Sometimes it didn’t pay to have an overactive imagination.
I was surprised that I could hear the conversation in the room clearly, and what was more, Agnes pulled a latch aside and we could see into the room. I recalled the gilt mirror in the room, and realised it was a one way mirror.
“So you are sure there weren’t any potatoes in the cottage?” Detective Oakes asked Linda.
Aunt Maude elbowed Agnes in the ribs. “I told you so!” she whispered. Aunt Agnes signalled her to be quiet.
Linda once more denied having potatoes in the house. “She could be lying about that,” Agnes whispered to us. “If she did cook up a brew of green potatoes for her husband, then of course she’d deny having them in the house.”
“But do you really think she killed him?” I asked her.
“I’m in two minds about it, to be honest,” Aunt Agnes whispered. “She seems legit, but you can never trust a...” Her voice faltered.
“Never trust a what?” I asked.
Agnes hesitated. “An unhappy wife.”
It seemed to me that Aunt Agnes was lying. I was certain she had not intended to say, ‘An unhappy wife.’ But what had she intended to say? You can’t trust a… what?
“Would you agree that your husband’s death was convenient for you?” Detective Mason said.
Linda wrung her hands. “Yes, it was, but we went through this at the police station earlier.”
“No one can confirm that you were at the motel all night,” Detective Oakes added.
“They’re harassing her,” I whispered.
Aunt Agnes shook her head. “They’re just doing their job.”
Chapter 7
By dinnertime that night, I had a crashing headache. I took two Nurofen, washed down by a goblet of Witches’ Brew.
I thought about excusing myself from dinner, but I knew that would only make the aunts worry.
I had spent the afternoon working on the website, and had managed to get it into some kind of order. I also googled ways to kill someone with green potatoes, and I googled Lila Sanders. Nothing pointed to her being a homicidal maniac. She was single now, but had dated a model, an actor, a footballer, and a billionaire.
I had changed the website to a paid site, and had paid for a proper domain name. The reviews so far on the current site had mainly been bad, so I hoped that Linda would leave a good one. I chuckled as I imagined what she would say: The Jasper family were very kind to me after my husband was murdered in one of the cottages.
I shook my head. There had been two murders in the space of a week at the Bed and Breakfast. If the press got hold of that, I’m sure no one else would have made a reservation. I hoped Lila wouldn’t sell the story to a sensationalist magazine. Still, there was nothing I could do about that. All I could do was make sure the website was good, the service was good, and the cottages looked attractive. There was no point in worrying about something over which I had no control. The trouble is, that was just the kind of thing I always did worry about.
Aunt Dorothy took one look at me. “You don’t look too well, Valkyrie.”
I had to agree. “I think I was staring at the screen too long.”
“Have you been hunched over that computer all afternoon?” Aunt Agnes asked me, concern evident in her voice.
I had to admit that I had been. Aunt Agnes shoved a full goblet of Witches’ Brew in front of me. “Drink this quickly. Linda will be here at any moment.”
The aunts had impressed on me at length not to drink too much Witches’ brew in front of other people. Werewolves, Shifters in general that is, and other vampires would be suspicious that we were vampires. The aunts stressed to me the importance of keeping that entirely confidential. They hadn’t yet explained why, and every time I asked them, they clammed up about it. For a moment, I even wondered if the aunts had murdered Paul Williams, then I dismissed the notion as fanciful.
“Now Valkyrie, put the Witches’ Brew in that bottle there. We told Linda that it’s a sports drink. She doesn’t like sports drinks, so we can pretend we’re drinking it instead of Witches’ Brew. The thing is, it’s now chilled, but we don’t see any other option.”
Aunt Agnes urged me to finish my goblet, and then she snatched it from me and replaced it with a tall glass of the Witches’ Brew wine masquerading as a sports drink.
“Here you are now, Linda,” Aunt Agnes said loudly, clearly wanting the rest of us to know Linda had arrived, even though we could hardly avoid noticing her.
My heart went out to her. She was still impossibly pale, and her eyes were red rimmed. “How are you doing this evening, Linda?”
She shook her head. “This potato thing is really doing my head in. I don’t know why the police are so fixated on it. I’m sure they think I’m lying. I’m sure they think I fed Paul green potatoes.”
“We’ve already been over this,” Aunt Agnes said, although not unkindly. “Valkyrie googled it and found out it would take a huge quantity of green potatoes to kill someone. Surely the police don’t think you cooked him green potatoes and killed him by mistake, and you’re trying to cover it up. No, it had to be more than that. It had to be murder.”
Linda shook her head again. “Yes, but I’m sure they think I
somehow peeled enough green potatoes to kill him and tried to make it look like an accident. I just get the vibe that they think I did it.”
I took a sip from the glass. Chilled Witches’ Brew wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. “I think they’re like that to everyone. When they questioned me, I was certain they thought I was the murderer.”
“You pay them no mind, dear,” Aunt Maude said. “Now eat a hearty dinner and everything will seem much better. There’s nothing like a big meal to put everything into perspective. What would you like to drink, Linda? You don’t like sports drink, do you? Would you like some lemonade?”
Soon Linda was drinking lemonade, and the rest of us were drinking Witches’ Brew disguised as sports drink and tucking into a huge meal. The aunts had provided a big steak for Linda. I just picked at my vegetables, not feeling up to facing other food. The headache was starting to subside, but it was still throbbing and felt like someone had tightened a rope across my forehead. The sick feeling in my stomach was still there, but only just.
I reached out to rub my neck, at once realising that was the source of my headache. Typing for too long had given me a horribly sore neck, which in turn had invariably led to a headache. At least the headache was on its way out, and a hot bath should help as well.
“I did some googling after I last spoke to you at lunch today,” I told them. “I found out that green potatoes have a substance called solanine. It’s highly poisonous, but it doesn’t usually kill people. It can make them quite sick though, and there were lots of cases listed on the net about people who became so sick after eating green potatoes that they even had convulsions. It’s also often misdiagnosed.”
“Did it say how much was needed to kill someone?” Aunt Agnes asked me.
“Yes, it said six milligrams per kilogram,” I said.
Aunt Agnes took off her glasses and polished them on her dress. “With many substances, six milligrams is a little over a teaspoon. And to make it easier, let’s say Paul weighed one hundred kilograms.” She raised her eyebrows at Linda, who shrugged.
“I suppose he was around that weight. That means he needed six hundred milligrams of solanine to kill him. Is that right?”
Aunt Dorothy and Aunt Maude both hesitated for a moment, and then nodded.
“So that was just over one hundred teaspoons of the stuff?” I asked them.
“Yes, I’d say so,” Aunt Agnes said. “The first thing that pops to mind is hash browns. I’ve seen a recipe where people shave potatoes and then press the shavings together. If someone used only the shavings of the green part, he might eat enough hash browns to do him in.”
I shot a glance at Linda, but she didn’t look the least distressed by the conversation.
“Oh, what about potato soup?” Aunt Maude asked. “If someone chopped up enough green potatoes and put them in some soup, that might do the job.”
“But wouldn’t boiling kill the substance, solanine? Did you check that, Valkyrie?” Aunt Dorothy said.
“From what I read on the net, boiling wouldn’t have much effect on it, so conceivably someone could have given him soup,” I said.
“Wouldn’t it taste strange?” Aunt Agnes asked me.
“I read one report of someone who said that green potatoes taste a little bitter, but I’m sure that could be disguised by flavourings such as herbs, spices, anything really, even cream,” I said, taking another sip of my drink.
“But it must’ve been someone he knew,” Linda pointed out. “I mean, someone wouldn’t just knock on his door and say, Here’s some potato soup or some hash browns for you. Or what if he ordered a take away meal from a local restaurant?”
I shook my head. “This has to be a deliberate attempt to murder him, Linda. I don’t think there could be enough green potatoes in any take away meal to kill him, probably only enough to make him sick. Someone has deliberately gathered enough green potatoes and given them to him.”
Everyone had finished their meal, so Aunt Agnes cleared the table. I helped her. I presently returned to the table at Aunt Agnes’s request, while she set about serving everyone rhubarb pie. “But that brings us back to the question of who would do such a thing,” Aunt Agnes said, as soon as she sat down.
Silence fell over the table as everyone tucked into the rhubarb pie.
“It’s very strange,” Aunt Maude said, breaking the silence. “Obviously, it was someone Paul knew. If it wasn’t any of us, that could only mean it was Lucas O’Callaghan, or someone we haven’t considered so far.”
“What about Lila Sanders?” I asked her. “What if she turned up and said that she knew he’d had a fight with you, Linda, and offered to cook him dinner?”
Aunt Agnes shook her head. “She hadn’t arrived in town at that point.”
“She hadn’t booked in here,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t in town. Perhaps we should check all the motels and accommodation places in town for that night. Or maybe she even slept in her car, just so she could do the deed.”
“But what motive could she possibly have?” Aunt Maude asked me.
“Now, Maude, we’re focusing on opportunity and not on motive at the moment,” Aunt Agnes said waspishly.
Aunt Maude was clearly affronted. “Why didn’t you say so? I didn’t hear you say it. Did you hear her say it, Dorothy?”
Dorothy averted her eyes, and stared at her spoon.
“One thing is obvious,” Linda said. “It had to be someone who knew Paul. I don’t know if Paul knew Lila Sanders. For all I know, she could’ve been one of his customers, but there’s just no way of knowing.” She put her head in her hands and sighed. “It’s not much to go on, is it? For all I know, it was someone I’d never even met.”
I swallowed my mouthful of rhubarb pie before answering. “The odds are that it was someone you knew. After all, someone knew Paul well enough to want to kill him, so it stands to reason that you had at least met the person.”
Linda held up her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I’m all out of options now, I’m afraid.”
“I still don’t like you staying in a cottage by yourself with everything that’s happened,” Aunt Agnes said to me.
I had hoped that the aunts had given up trying to make me stay at the manor. “I’ll be fine,” I said. I didn’t tell them that I pushed the heavy chest over my bedroom door the previous night. Still, I was probably just as safe in the cottage as I was in the manor. “It seems like someone went to a lot of trouble to kill Paul, so it’s not like the murderer would come after random people,” I added. Something occurred to me just as I said that. “I just thought of something obvious.” Everyone looked at me. “He was murdered with green potato peels!”
“But we know that,” Linda said, puzzled.
“Don’t you see?” I said excitedly. “If someone knew Paul was here, say a week ago, that would give them time to go and get a decent poison, like arsenic or cyanide, or something really useful.”
“But I’m sure those things are awfully hard to get,” Aunt Agnes protested.
I shook my head. “No matter. My point is, someone improvised with poisons. You know, just like someone who is caught without their weapons, and has to improvise with anything to hand. What I am trying to say is that someone must have suddenly found out Paul was here and poisoned him with whatever they could find. If they had time to plan it, they would have used a more standard poison, surely.”
Aunt Agnes looked over her bifocals at me. “So, Valkyrie, are you saying that this was an opportunistic murder? That it wasn’t planned, at least not too far in advance, that Paul was murdered by someone who had just discovered he was in town?”
I nodded. “Exactly! Someone who came across Paul, and didn’t have much time to find a suitable poison, so made do with green potato peels. Perhaps the murderer had some at home, or perhaps they bought them. Isn’t it potato planting season now?”
The aunts nodded.
“So lots of people could have sprouting potatoes read
y to plant. They’re supposed to be full of solanine. Also, the leaves are full of it, too, so it could be someone who grows potatoes at home.”
“But anyone can go into any old local hardware store and buy rat poison,” Linda said, frowning.
“That’s true.” I tapped my chin for a moment, thinking. “Perhaps the murderer didn’t have any rat poison lying around at home. So then, if they went to a hardware store and bought it and killed Paul that way, the police would be onto them in a flash.”
“What you’re saying makes sense, Valkyrie,” Aunt Agnes said, “but it seems a bit of a stretch. I’ll have to think on it some more.”
I was on a roll. “But don’t you see? This narrows it down. It means the murderer is someone who doesn’t have rat poison at home, and either grows potatoes or bought some just before Paul was killed, and it’s someone who only just found out Paul was here.” I looked around the table. Clearly no one shared my excitement, but I was sure I was onto something. “Think over what I said, will you?”
They said they would, but their expressions were less than convincing. I said my goodbyes.
Despite the aunts’ protests that I shouldn’t go to the cottage alone in the dark, I decided to walk back alone.
Chapter 8
The moon was full, and the sky was clear. My vampire sight meant I could scout around widely. If I saw anyone, I was sure my vampire speed would get me out of there before they could get too close to me. I saw with relief that the lights were on in both Lila’s cottage and Lucas’s cottage. That meant they were not together at the moment. I was also relieved that neither of them had cancelled their bookings after the murder.
I unlocked the door and let myself in, then immediately locked the door behind me. I went through the cottage, turning on every light. Although I could see quite well in the dark, it afforded me some measure of comfort to have the lights turned on. I searched under my bed, in the wardrobe and in every nook and crevice, but I was all alone.
