Murder by Meringue (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 25)

by Mary Maxwell

  “Why don’t we go to the office?” I told Abigail. “We’ll have more privacy there.”

  She waved at Julia. “Hey, Jules! I don’t care if you hear what I’ve got to say. The rumor’s all over town. I’m running around now trying to tell people the truth.”

  I put down the recipe card and went over to her. For a middle-aged woman with a reputation for impeccable grooming and casual style, Abigail looked frumpy and disheveled. She was panting and sweaty from the excitement, and there was a splotch of mustard beside her mouth. The plaid slacks that she was wearing with a floral print blouse were wrinkled and flecked with mud. Clearly, grief and loss had upended her normal routine to such an extent that the pride she invested in her appearance had been temporarily discarded.

  “Since you all have so much traffic through here,” she continued, “I thought it might be a good idea to stop and bring you up to speed.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But first, are you sure that you don’t want to sit down?”

  She shook her head. “No time for that. I made a list of all the biggest gossips in Crescent Creek. I intend to talk with every last one of them before I meet with my sister’s attorney later this afternoon. He wanted to go over Amelia’s will and whatnot. To be honest, I was surprised that she even had one.”

  “Really?”

  Abigail frowned. “Yes, really! My sister was never a very organized person in her own life. I think that’s because she worked as a bookkeeper. All day long, she had to keep track of invoices and receipts and every last penny for clients. I mean, until Ken fired her. This is really all his fault.”

  “You believe that Ken is to blame for your sister’s death?” I asked.

  “One hundred percent,” Abigail answered. “I’m not saying he put the poison in the cupcake, but Amelia was starting to get her act together before he ended their relationship and fired her from his company. I told her the entire time they were dating that workplace romances usually end in heartache.”

  “What about you and your husband?” Julia asked.

  “That’s different,” Abigail replied. “Me and Luther are the exception to the rule.”

  She went into her purse, rummaged around and came out with a small spiral-bound notepad. I watched as she flipped open the pages, searched for a particular entry and then glanced up with a smile.

  “The first person that mentioned the rumor about my brother and sister was Nancy Wabash,” Abigail said. “This was about a week ago, so definitely before Amelia died. We were both waiting in the checkout line at Food Town, and Nancy told me that she’d heard the news about Amelia and Hugh. I asked who made up such a horrible lie, but she wouldn’t reveal the source. I think she was actually trying to do a good thing by letting me know that people were gossiping about my family.”

  “Do you mind if I ask a question?” I said.

  She sighed. “Not at all, Katie. If you’ve got a suggestion about how I can spread the truth more quickly, I’d love to have the help.”

  “Well, it’s more of a suggestion about when you might do it,” I said. “You’ve suffered a terrible shock, Abby. Maybe you should focus on grieving your sister’s loss rather than trying to hunt down a bunch of rumormongers.”

  “I can do both,” she said. “We all deal with grief in our own way. I have to stay busy. About an hour after I got the news, I was scrubbing the kitchen floor. I’d cry for a while. Then I’d laugh, thinking about how Amelia would be doing the exact opposite. My sister had a reputation for being orderly, but that was the public Amelia. The private version was someone who didn’t care about being tidy or organized. It got a whole lot worse after she lost her job and Ken dumped her. Hugh flew up from Dallas to try and help, but he just complicated everything.”

  “How did he do that?” I asked.

  “By encouraging Amelia to go public with some dirt that she had on Ken Ballard,” she said. “Hugh has always been the troublemaker in our family. When they were both in middle school, Hugh somehow convinced Amelia that it would be a good idea to put glue on the teacher’s chair one day. The poor woman was old as dirt, so she didn’t notice it and plunked right down. When she tried to get up a few minutes later, all hell broke loose. Out of all the kids in the class, only my brother was laughing. He and Amelia ended up in the principal’s office about five seconds later, and they were expelled for a week.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s one childhood prank. What was Hugh encouraging Amelia to do now in regards to the end of her romance and loss of her job?”

  “Ken had promised that she’d have the position at the CPA firm for as long as she wanted,” Abigail said. “Hell, he even set up a special retirement account for her. That’s how convinced he was that she would be on the team there for many years to come.”

  “But then their romance soured and he let her go?” I said.

  Abigail walked to the center island and sat on one of the stools. Then she put her purse on the counter, shrugged off her sweater and asked for a glass of water.

  “If you don’t mind,” she said. “I was starting to feel a little woozy just then.”

  A few minutes later, fortified with sips of water and half of a blueberry scone, Abigail continued sharing details about the so-called conspiracy to drag her sister and brother through the mud.

  “For example, Rhonda Strangline,” she replied when I asked who else had been badmouthing her siblings. “Pam in the deli section at Food Town told me that she heard Rhonda telling two or three other women that Amelia was stalking Ken. But it was actually the other way around! He was keeping tabs on her.”

  “Do you know why?” I asked.

  “Because he’s got two marbles for a brain,” Abigail snapped. “And the rest of his head is filled with those packing peanut things, the little white foam nuggets.”

  “I’m familiar,” I said. “But I’m still a little confused. Why would anyone be spreading false claims about Amelia’s business affairs?”

  “And Hugh, too!” she said quickly. “Don’t forget they’re also trashing his good name.”

  I nodded. “Right. But why?”

  She drank more water. I glanced at Julia, who was playing the world’s smallest violin with her thumb and forefinger. Before I started laughing at her cheeky antics, I turned slightly so I was facing Abigail directly.

  “Was your sister having financial problems?” I asked.

  Abigail took a deep breath. “And my brother,” she said in a wobbly voice. “They’ve both always been like two peas in a pod. I mean, they were born two years apart, but they were more like twins than any other two people I’ve ever known.”

  “My nephews are twins,” I said. “I understand some of those dynamics.”

  “Like when Amelia was having trouble with school,” Abigail said, “Hugh started failing in a couple of subjects. And when she got engaged to that loser with the big nose, Hugh asked a woman at the 7-Eleven for her hand in marriage.”

  I smiled. “Just another customer?”

  Abigail chuckled. “Don’t be silly! Brenda was the night cashier. She and Hugh fell in love over Slurpees and mini beef tacos.”

  “Sounds creative,” I said, giving her a wink.

  “I know.” She heaved another sigh. “It sounds idiotic. But he was only doing it because Amelia got engaged. And then when Mr. Big Nose dumped her, Hugh told Brenda that they couldn’t get married.”

  “That must’ve been hard,” I said.

  “Not really,” Abigail said, idly picking at the rest of her scone. “There’s another 7-Eleven not far from his house. He could still get Slurpees and tacos without having to drive any further.”

  “Katie?” Julia called. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but your appointment just came in the front door.”

  “Oh, gosh!” Abigail was up and on her feet in a flash. “I’ve just been rambling, haven’t I?”

  “You’re fine,” I told her. “I’m meeting with a new catering client, so I do need to go. But you’re welcome to s
it here and finish the scone.”

  She looked down at the half-eaten treat. “Can I have a box to take it with me?”

  “I’ll get that for you,” Julia offered, coming around the island. “I’ll even throw in another one for later.”

  “That’s sweet,” Abigail said. “You guys are the best!”

  “We just do what we do,” I replied as she rushed over and locked me in a tight hug. “Please remember to tell the truth to anyone gossiping about Amelia and Hugh,” she said after lowering her arms and stepping back. “My brother and sister were not filing for bankruptcy, and they most certainly weren’t doing anything else that could be misconstrued as fishy or sketchy.”

  “I’m sorry about what you’re going through,” I said. “Is there anything that I can do to help? I mean, besides squelch the erroneous rumors.”

  “Yes,” Abigail said in a frail voice. “Pray. For my sister, for my brother and for everyone else grappling with misfortune and heartache.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “I have a question,” Julia said when I returned to the kitchen after consulting with the potential catering client.

  I looked for Abigail, but the only traces that she’d visited were a few stray crumbs on the center island and a faint hint of her perfume in the air.

  “If you’re going to ask whether or not I knew she was coming by today, the—”

  “Cool down there, tiger,” Julia said with a laugh. “It’s not about Abigail. I wanted to ask what you knew about strychnine poisoning.”

  “It’s pretty nasty stuff,” I told her. “After reading a few things last night online, it’s pretty miraculous that Ken survived.”

  “What is it anyway?” Julia asked. “And where does it come from? The only thing that I remember hearing is that you find it in rat poison.”

  “That’s true,” I replied. “Strychnine is basically a white, odorless powder that can be inhaled through the nose or mouth, injected into a vein and consumed in food or beverages.”

  “How quickly does it start working?” she said. “Like, did Ken collapse instantly after he ate the cupcake?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that one,” I said. “I haven’t heard the nitty-gritty details yet. But the articles online suggested that the symptoms could be visible within fifteen minutes to an hour or so. Survival depends on several factors, such as how the strychnine entered the victim’s system, their overall health and how quickly they get medical attention.”

  “Well, how could Ken survive and Amelia die?” Julia asked. “If they both ate something that had been laced with the stuff, wouldn’t it seem more likely that they’d both meet the same fate?”

  “It depends on those other factors,” I said. “If you ingested a small amount, you might only experience muscle spasms, rigidity in your limbs and slight difficulty breathing. But if you received a larger amount, you could experience respiratory failure and death in less than a half hour.”

  She made a face. “That just seems so…I don’t know, I want to say it’s unfair somehow. But I guess these types of things have nothing to do with fairness.”

  “Unfortunately, that isn’t involved,” I said. “And we don’t know what we’re dealing with. So far, it’s one fatality and one person in the hospital. The incidents would definitely appear to be linked, even though that hasn’t been indisputably proven yet.”

  “Do you know what they’re doing for Ken in the hospital?” she asked. “How do they even treat strychnine poisoning?”

  “Ah, now that I do have some good info about,” I said. “I called Liz Steinberg at the Regional Med Center. She’s such a cool character. I said, ‘Liz. I need to get some—,’ and she was already into her spiel before I finished. It was like she telepathically knew what I wanted to ask her.”

  “She is a sweetheart,” Julia said. “And her little girl is an angel. Jared and I ran into Liz and her family at the store a couple of nights ago. Since I hadn’t seen her in for breakfast lately, I was afraid that something was wrong. But it’s just her husband’s new work schedule. He’s going in later, so they eat breakfast at home together.”

  “That’s nice,” I said. “I mean, we’ll miss seeing her sunny smile, but it’s good they can start the day as a family.”

  “Too true,” Julia said. “So what did she say about Ken’s prognosis?”

  “Oh, she didn’t comment at all on the specifics of his condition,” I said. “That would violate the patient privacy laws. She basically described the general things they do for someone who’s ingested strychnine. First, they decontaminate the body as quickly as possible while treating the visible or subsequent symptoms. Next, they give the patient tons of intravenous fluids while managing any convulsions and spasms with medication. If their fever spikes during the treatment process, they’ll also do whatever it takes to keep the person cool and regulate their temperature.”

  “Do you think Abigail knows all of this?” she asked.

  “All of what?”

  “The different factors that determine whether someone can survive being poisoned by strychnine,” Julia replied.

  “I couldn’t really answer that,” I said. “Right now, it would seem that she just needs to grieve the loss of her sister. And if going around town correcting the rumors about Amelia and Hugh helps her heal, then more power to her!”

  Julia smiled. “She was pretty fired up when she left a few minutes ago. When you went to talk to the catering client, Abby told me that she’d already had six cans of Red Bull, three bottles of 5-Hour Energy and two cappuccinos with an extra shot of espresso so far today.”

  “Well, no wonder her hands were shaking so much,” I said. “I thought it was from nerves, but it was obviously from all the junk she’s got floating around in her veins.”

  “Don’t knock it,” Julia said. “Red Bull and vodka is a pretty potent combination.”

  I smiled. “Anything and vodka can be potent,” I said. “It just depends on what size glass you’re working with and who’s behind the bar.”

  CHAPTER 20

  “We have answers from Madame Nina,” my mother announced when she called later that day. “The spirits told her it would be very, very, very soon for both.”

  I’d been in the middle of organizing the Sky High office when the phone rang, so I wasn’t sure if I should be excited or displeased.

  “Who’s Madame Nina?” I asked.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “That’s my new psychic and spiritual guide.”

  “Well, I’m glad that you received answers from her,” I said, “but can you tell me about the questions?”

  I heard a sigh of epic proportions. Then my mother spoke a sentence that I’d heard thousands of times during my three decades of life.

  “Don’t you ever listen to your mother?” she said. “I told you about Madame Nina the other day. I wanted her to predict when you and Zack would be getting engaged. And I also wanted the spirits to forecast when your brother would call from San Diego.”

  I felt suddenly anxious. “And they’ll both happen soon?”

  She exhaled loudly. “Yes, daughter dear. Madame Nina was confident that you and the hunky photographer will be getting engaged very soon.”

  “Did she give you any specifics?” I asked. “Like, which month or calendar year? Should I start shopping for a dress? Will it be a destination wedding or are we tying the knot here in Colorado?”

  “I can’t go into the finer points of our session,” my mother answered. “Some details are confidential between the spiritual traveler and her guide.”

  I smiled at the surprisingly sincere tone. The closest that my mother had ever come to a psychic in the past was during a visit with my father to Las Vegas. As they arrived on the first day of their vacation, the car broke down in front of Mystic Mona’s salon on Flamingo Road. Otherwise, she’d always dismissed magic, clairvoyance or extrasensory perception as hogwash and claptrap.

  “Spiritual traveler?” I said. “Do you need a s
pecial passport for that, or do—”

  “Hold it right there, missy!”

  I followed orders, holding both my tongue and my breath.

  “I’m at the very beginning of a quest to learn and explore my past, present and future,” my mother said in a calm, measured tone. “If you choose to belittle my effort, that’s your decision. But you’ll have to do it on your own time. Madame Nina said doubters will disparage and nonbelievers will malign. But we must be strong and courageous, going forth into the shadows and darkness to find the lantern, spark the flame and hold it high to discover and proclaim and celebrate our truth.”

  I had my teeth clenched to keep from saying a word.

  “We must do all that we can,” she added, “to shatter the gloom with light, embrace our inner warriors and climb to the top of the mountain of enlightenment.”

  “What happens when you reach the peak?” I asked.

  My mother sighed. “Heck if I know,” she said. “That part’s included in the second set of textbooks. Your father wants me to wait until next month’s check comes to buy those.”

  I felt a tickle of foreboding in my stomach. In the past, my mother had chased diet trends and exercise fads with both her passion and checkbook. But Madame Nina’s weekly sessions and tomes sounded like an entirely different kettle of fish. I didn’t want to say anything yet, but I planned to do some research into my mother’s psychic friend.

  “Do you have her website handy?” I asked.

  “Madame Nina’s?”

  “Yes, mother. It sounds intriguing. Maybe I could learn a few things about climbing mountains and shedding light and being courageous.”

  “Well, I’m totally in agreement with you, sweetie,” she said as I heard the muted ping for an incoming call. “But Madame Nina doesn’t believe in websites.”

  I took a deep breath, told my mother that I had someone on the other line and asked if we could speak in the morning.

  “That sounds lovely, Katie dear,” she said. “And don’t forget Madame Nina’s prediction about you and Zack.”