by Shéa MacLeod
“Let’s think about this,” Nina said, hopping up on her stool and tapping her chin with her forefinger thoughtfully. “Since it clearly wasn’t food poisoning and you didn’t poison anyone, when could it have happened?”
I thought about it a moment. “Well, if the Christmas puddings were poisoned, there wasn’t much time. They were steaming right up until a few minutes before the first guest arrived.”
“Could somebody have poisoned them while they were cooking?” Nina asked.
“No way,” I assured her. “The molds would have had to have been taken out of the hot water and the lids removed. The puddings wouldn’t have cooked right. I’d have noticed.”
“What about after?”
“They were cooling upside down in their molds for about an hour. I only unmolded them right before I brought them out.”
“Not to mention we were in and out of that kitchen every five minutes,” Cheryl said.
“They were upside down the whole time?” Nina asked.
I nodded. “Unlikely anyone would have dumped lily extract on them then. It would have dripped off. Besides, I’d have smelled it.” I remembered the odor emanating from the bottle I’d found. The scent was unforgettable.
“Agreed.” Nina tapped her pen against the bar top. “How long were they on the table before you served them?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes tops.”
“Narrow window,” she mused.
Good point. I picked up my phone again. “So we start looking from when I brought out the puddings.” I flicked through until I found a picture of me exiting the kitchen with a Christmas pudding in hand, Cheryl following close behind me.
The doorbell jangled as another patron entered the bar. We glanced up from my phone in time to see Duke saunter in. I swear Cheryl turned seven shades of pink.
“Ladies,” he drawled, winking at Cheryl.
Cheryl went from pink to red. “Hey.” She ducked her head, clutching her wine glass tight.
“Hey, Duke,” I called. “These photos of the party... they the only ones?” I showed him the page where I’d found the uploaded photos.
He squinted slightly at the screen. “Yep. I uploaded them all.”
“What’ll it be, Duke?” Nina asked with a knowing glance at Cheryl.
He returned Nina’s smile. “Pink.” Nina laughed. “Rosé, it is.”
Instead of sitting next to us like I expected, Duke plopped down next to Lloyd. “What’s up, man?”
Lloyd gave Duke a sideways glance. “Playing this game. My daughter put it on my phone.”
Duke grinned. “Hey, what color team are you?”
Next thing I knew, the two of them were deep in conversation about taking over gyms, collecting balls, and hatching eggs. Watching Lloyd and Duke bond over the popular new game was the strangest thing I’d ever seen. Well, maybe not the strangest, but it was right up there.
I turned my attention back to my phone. A few more pictures showed various angles of me and Cheryl putting out the puddings, the puddings themselves, and finally the two of us serving the puddings, the mayor drooling nearby.
Nina started. “Wait, go back.”
I flicked back until I saw what Nina had seen. The shot had been taken from across the room. It was a close up of the mayor chatting animatedly with the head librarian. Between them you could see the dessert table loaded with goodies. At that moment only one person stood at the table and in their hand was the vial I’d found in the garbage.
I smiled. “Gotcha.”
Chapter 8
Getting a Clue
“I know who the poisoner is!” I declared triumphantly as I stormed into Bat’s office. It had started raining and my hair was dripping wet. Likely my makeup too. I didn’t care. I had more important things to worry about.
Bat paused, coffee cup halfway to his lips. “Good afternoon to you, too.” He proceeded to calmly sip his coffee which irritated me no end. Couldn’t he see I had vital news? I thrust my phone at him, the incriminating photo on the screen. He eyed it balefully. “What’s that?”
“See.” I zoomed in on the vial in the photo. “That’s the bottle I found in the garbage. The one I gave you. And they’re dumping that stuff all over my Christmas pudding. It has to be the poison.”
He frowned and set his cup down as he took the phone from me and studied the image. “Hmmm.” Nice and non-committal.
“You did test the vial, right? What was in it?”
“Easter lily extract,” he admitted, handing the phone back. “And peanut oil. There was also peanut oil in the pudding.”
“Peanut oil?” I plopped into one of the green plastic visitor’s chairs. “I never put peanut oil in the pudding. Too many allergies these days. It’s not safe. I always use safflower.”
“The lab suggested it might have been used as carrier oil for extracting the poison from the flower bulbs.”
I frowned, mulling it over. “That’s weird. I did some research on extracts and tinctures last year for one of my books. The heroine was an herbalist.” Bat looked bored. I gritted my teeth in frustration. Couldn’t he see we were on to something? “Herbalists usually use alcohol or an oil like safflower for extracting essences of plants. Peanut oil is too strongly flavored. It wouldn’t be ideal.”
“Maybe it was all they had.”
“More likely they would have had corn oil on hand. Peanut oil is a very specific ingredient. Most people don’t have it sitting around their kitchens unless they’re using it for a specific purpose.”
“You said it had a strong flavor. Maybe they were trying to cover up the taste of the poison.”
He had a point. “It’s possible. Well, are you going to arrest the culprit? It’s clear that this person is the one who made everyone sick.”
“Believe me, I’ll take care of it. Although I doubt there will be much jail time since clearly the only intent was to make people ill.”
I gave him a smug smile. “What if it was attempted murder?”
Chapter 9
Lilies Are For Funerals
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Bat grumbled as we marched down the carpeted hall of the River Front Hotel. The hotel was right on the water and I could smell the tang of the ocean wafting from the open windows.
“It’s because I’m so wonderfully brilliant.” I was feeling especially smug. I’d put two and two together before Bat did. How many people could say that?
He made a choking sound. Which was rather rude, if you ask me.
We stopped at the door marked 115 and Bat rapped on it. A moment later it opened slowly to reveal Venus Alton, author of steamy romances and co-guest of honor at the Mayor’s Christmas party. She was wearing a red silk robe that wrapped around her nearly twice and had her gray hair up in a bun. She looked only a little surprised to see us.
“Ms. Alton?” Bat asked, face grim.
“Yes.” She licked her lips nervously. “Who are you?”
“Detective James Battersea. Astoria Police Department.” He flashed his badge. It was all very NCIS. “This is...my assistant, Viola Roberts. May we come in?” His assistant, my ass.
Venus peered at me. “Oh, hi, Viola. Sure. Come in.” She swung open the door and Bat strode in, me close on his heels. “What’s this about?” She asked as she stopped in the small sitting area overlooking the river, but I knew from her expression she had a darn good idea.
Without preamble, Bat pulled out his phone and showed it to her. The image of her dumping lily poison all over my beautiful Christmas puddings was in clear focus. “I think you need to explain yourself.”
She sat down heavily on the couch, face pale. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
“Oh, really?” I asked sarcastically. “Then why did you poison everyone with Easter lily extract? Someone could have died.”
“It—ah—wasn’t my intent.” She swallowed hard. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
I snorted. “Please. Don’t give me that.”
“
Viola,” Bat warned. “Ms. Alton, were you aware that in addition to the Easter lily extract, you were also dumping peanut oil on the puddings?”
“I used it as a carrier for the extract. It’s what I had on hand.” She blinked, innocent as pie. I wasn’t buying it.
“Interesting,” I said, eyeing her closely. “Since there was only one person at the party who was deathly allergic to peanuts. Your rival, Petula LeMar.”
She fidgeted, twisting her fingers in the belt of her robe. “Well, I didn’t realize that. I’m truly sorry.”
“Are you?” Bat asked. “Because I have this little article here from two years ago. A party at the big romance convention in San Diego.” He tapped his phone screen and brought up the article. “Seems Ms. LeMar had a reaction to something made with peanuts. Thanks to your quick thinking, she survived.”
Twin red spots appeared in Venus’s pale cheeks. “Well. I forgot. A lot has happened in the last couple of years, and Petula and I aren’t exactly close.”
I scoffed. “You forgot? That’s your story? Unlikely. In fact, you were very careful, weren’t you? Easter lily extract. Just enough to make everyone who ate the puddings sick, but not enough to kill anyone. The peanut oil was just for Petula. Everyone else would get sick, but she would die.”
Venus ground her teeth, her jaw muscles flexing. “Too bad it didn’t work,” she finally blurted. There was a shocking amount of venom in her tone.
“But why?” I asked. “What did Petula ever do to you? I know you two are rivals but come on. There are plenty of book sales to go around.” And there were. Romance readers are rabid. I know some who read two books a day. No way could a single author ever keep up with that.
Venus sniffed. “It isn’t about book sales.” She said it in the exact tone you might use to speak to an idiot.
“Then what was it about?” Bat asked, tone and expression calm. I don’t know how he managed it. I wanted to punch the woman in the nose.
Venus straightened her shoulders. “I was in talks with some Hollywood people. They wanted to turn one of my books into a movie. It was a dream come true. It would have changed everything for me.”
I got it. Hollywood was the dream for most of us writers. The thing that would catapult our writing from something that reached a few thousand and maybe earned us a living wage—if we were lucky—to something that reached millions and made us money beyond our wildest dreams. It was a one-in-a-million shot, and Venus had been on the brink of hers.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Somehow Petula stole it from you.”
Venus nodded. “I was literally days away from having a signed contract when she swooped in with her agent and got the production company to buy the rights to her book instead of mine. Her agent knew the head of the company or something. Probably slept with him.” Her cheeks were red, and her eyes snapped with fury. “She took what should have been mine. What I worked so hard for.”
“So this was about revenge,” Bat said.
“No. This was about justice.” Her tone was insistent.
Well, that was debatable, but I got it. “The poison was to divert suspicion.”
She nodded. “With Petula out of the way, I figured they’d come back to me and I’d get back what should have been mine all along.”
Unlikely. With a signed contract, the money would have gone to Petula’s heirs and the Hollywood people would have either eventually made a movie or thrown the book on the slush pile. From what I understood, a signed contract meant money in your pocket but didn’t guarantee anything would ever happen beyond that.
“What about the flowers? That was about more than just putting Petula at ease with your fake apology.”
She gave me a twisted smile. “Didn’t you notice? They were lilies.”
“Yeah?”
Her smile grew even more evil. “Lilies are a funerary flower.”
“Venus Alton, you’re under arrest for attempted murder...”
Venus jumped up from the couch so fast it startled me. She took off across the room, her bare feet thudding across the carpet. In one step, Bat grabbed her and yanked her back from the door before she could make her escape. I watched as he snapped handcuffs on and marched her out of the hotel, bathrobe and all. I shook my head. What a ridiculous waste of talent.
Chapter 10
Murderers and Hot Dates
“Good news,” Cheryl said, climbing onto the barstool next to me at Sip. “Agatha called, and Petula LeMar is out of the hospital and doing well. They say she’ll make a full recovery.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Nina said, pouring Cheryl a glass of wine, a ruby ring to match her dress flashing in the low light. “The last thing this town needs is another murder.”
I couldn’t have agreed more. “The whole thing was just so ridiculous. I think Venus was spending way too much time in her own fantasy world.”
“Romance writers make terrible murderers,” Cheryl agreed. “Let me tell you, I could pull off the perfect murder if I wanted.”
I snorted. Cheryl couldn’t hurt a fly.
“By the way,” I said, eyeing her swishy blue dress. It had little white polka dots and was super cute and flirty paired with her red heels. “What’s the occasion?”
Cheryl blushed. “I’ve got a date,” she mumbled into her wine.
“Bat?" I asked, surprised the taciturn detective had finally worked up the nerve to ask her out.
Cheryl’s eyes widened. “Gosh, no. Duke. You know, the photographer at the party.”
“Her crush from high school,” I told Nina with a smirk. Nina laughed. Cheryl shot me a glare. “Well, don’t do anything I would do,” I said with a wink.
Cheryl rolled her eyes. “Please.”
“This is his second chance,” Nina said. “Make him work for it.”
Cheryl opened her mouth to respond, but before she could the door swung open and in walked none other than Duke. He was looking particularly delicious in worn jeans and a creamy Irish sweater.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said in a smoky voice as he swooped down and gave Cheryl a kiss that would make a porn star blush. Nina and I fanned ourselves with a distinct lack of subtlety.
“Hi, Duke,” Cheryl managed when she finally got her breath back.
“Ready?” he asked, offering his arm like a true gentleman.
Cheryl nodded and they strode from the bar looking every inch the perfect couple. Poor Bat. He’d be heartbroken when he found out. Still, he should have made more of an effort.
Just then my phone rang. The mayor. Oh, goodie. Probably calling to tell me I would never host another of his parties. Frankly that was fine by me.
“Hi, Charlie,” I said, trying to sound happy to hear him.
“Viola,” he boomed. “I just wanted to tell you what a fantastic party it was.”
“You mean until everyone got sick.” Me and my big mouth.
“Well, these things happen.”
I had no idea in what world people got poisoned regularly at parties. “Uh, sure.”
“I was calling to see if you’d be interested in throwing a New Year’s Eve party...”
Oh, hell no.
The End.
Read on for a sample of the next book in the Viola Roberts Cozy Mystery series,
The Body in the Bathtub:
Chapter 1
Matchmaking Machinations
“DARLING, I SAT NEXT to the nicest man at the coffee shop the other day.” My mother sat down across from me in a flurry of Chanel perfume and magenta chiffon skirts. The bright colors and light fabrics weren’t exactly suitable to the chill, wet weather of a coastal Oregon winter. Her only compromise was a pair of knee-high leather boots. She stood out in the rustic setting of Caffeinate (my favorite Astoria coffee shop) like a peony among dandelions. Her hair—originally dark brown like mine—was dyed a rich burgundy and tumbled from beneath a floppy felt hat and shimmered beneath the Edison style light bulbs hanging from the tin tile ceiling.
Mom
had come over from Portland to visit me for the day. She didn’t like staying overnight in Astoria, preferring the three-hour round trip instead. Four-star hotels weren’t good enough for her, I guess. I could have put her up in my Victorian cottage, but she steadfastly refused. She was a firm believer that overnight stays ended in blood and tears. With my mother, that was entirely possible.
Widowed at the young age of sixty, my mother—Vanessa Roberts—had taken up several hobbies which came and went like fruit flies. The entire family was relieved when she finally sold her pottery wheel at a garage sale. A person could only use so many lopsided cereal bowls. Her long-standing and most favorite hobby was playing matchmaker for her single daughter. Which would be me, Viola Roberts, romance novelist and amateur sleuth. I was still hoping she’d lose interest as she had with pottery.
I stared at her over the rim of my coffee mug, wondering how hard I should brace myself. Mornings were not my forte under any conditions. My mother was a more challenging condition than most. I decided non-committal was the best option. “Mmm-hmm.”
She sighed dramatically, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. The tiles, stamped with a fleur de lis pattern, added a touch of elegant Victorian to the rough brick walls and the wide plank floors. “Really, Viola.” She flicked an invisible crumb off the table with a moue of distaste.
“What? What did I do?”
“So, anyway,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “This man I met. He’s French. Accent and everything. And...” she leaned forward, her pearls sliding dangerously close to her coffee. “He owns a winery.”
“Um, okay.” I wasn’t sure why that was important, but from her tone she found it to be the most exciting thing ever. I inhaled the aroma of roasted magical beans before taking a fortifying sip. I was sure I was going to need it. Maybe a shot of espresso, too.
