Ladies Courting Trouble

by Dolores Stewart Riccio

  “So you can fly off on yours?”

  “You’re too canny, my dear.”

  “Maybe I’ve inherited some of your sixth sense.”

  I hoped not, but I didn’t say so. So many terrible things I’d seen—and seen twice. Once in my mind’s eye, and again when they happened. Remembering some of those occasions while Becky talked on about the merits of following hunches in her family law practice, I let myself gaze too long out my office window at the gold of the late-afternoon sunlight settling on the ocean. I felt myself slipping away. I saw a pair of hands wearing work gloves, carrying a canvas bag. Gardening boots, like Wellingtons. Bright green. The corner of a navy jacket. Now what was that? And where?

  “Mom? Are you there?”

  I gave myself a mental shake and zipped back to the present. “A sixth sense can be a mixed blessing, dear. Bad things happening to good people, you know.”

  Thanksgiving was a case in point. But for me personally, it was a truly blessed day that filled me with a rich sense of well-being. I’d put the work gloves and green Wellingtons right out of my mind in favor of concentrating on Grandma’s stuffing and my usual tussle with the pastry for pies. I have been known to hurl the whole mess against the wall, just to see if it would stick, but on this magic Thanksgiving, the pastry mixed up perfectly—neither too wet nor too dry. I baked a slew of pies: pumpkin-pecan, mince-pear, and two apples, one French with cream and one regular New England. All thoughts of the murderous herbalist were banished from my spicy, steamy kitchen.

  Joe and I had got it all together—not only together, but polished and shining. And, as always, it was glorious to have most of my family—with lively Freddie as a bonus—together around the table. Fiona was sharing the holiday with us, adding her own particular zaniness and wisdom, a nice foil for Freddie’s kinetic energy.

  From the moment Adam and Freddie stepped out of his Lexus, however, I’d had to submerge the nagging little notion that their friendship was becoming a lot less than casual, which, of course, had been Freddie’s intent ever since they’d first met here in my house. I remembered how Adam had come downstairs looking for a boot Scruffy had stolen. My tall, fair-haired son was wearing only a towel at the time, and Freddie had been turned to awestruck, worshipful stone, Pygmalion in reverse.

  Oh, let those little birds fly free! I reminded myself, trying not to visualize Freddie as a prospective daughter-in-law—Great Goddess! What a challenge that would be! I loved the girl dearly, but she was Volatile with a capital V. Still, she’d saved my life once—I owed her one, though not necessarily one of my children.

  From sheepskin jacket to Gucci loafers, Adam looked as if he’d just stepped out of Gentlemans Quarterly. Even the perfectly faded jeans had an Armani label. Freddie, on the other hand, sported her usual bohemian chic—micro skirt, clingy top, thigh-high boots, and a sporty ankle-length black leather coat. Her pale face emphasized heavy eye makeup, more skillfully applied than it once had been. Her hair was midnight black again, jelled into pixie peaks, and her earrings were plentiful, but never mind—at least she’d given up the nose ring. They were a wildly divergent couple, but maybe that was the attraction.

  Since the days she worked at Hamburger Heaven, Freddie had always been a favorite with Scruffy. It’s the girl. The girl is here! Let’s keep her this time. He danced around Freddie, leaping and snapping his teeth together, until she crouched down and allowed herself to be greeted with sloppy kisses.

  Becky came in later, breathless from an emergency hearing for an abused wife seeking a restraining order. “She’s pregnant, too,” she declared angrily. “Holidays seem to bring out the monster in estranged husbands.” Still wearing her all-purpose court outfit—suit, stockings, and pumps in monochromatic navy—she was just a shade plumper, but radiant in her own new freedom.

  I wondered if Becky and Adam were planning to visit their father, perhaps tomorrow, but I didn’t ask. Gary Hauser, my ex, a chemical engineer, unfortunately was employed at the Pilgrim Nuclear Plant and lived in a nearby condo development called Governor Bradford Village. I did my best never to run into him.

  And now that I was newly married, it was heartwarming to see how well my children responded to Joe’s earthy affection. In the Mediterranean way, he hugged everyone, including Adam.

  Fiona, in a striped skirt and quilted top, stood beside me, breathing in, I knew, the essence of everything I was feeling about Becky and Ron, Adam and Freddie, my dear, absent Cathy, even Gary and Joe. “All things will evolve as they are meant to do, in the best of possible ways. Don’t you worry, Cass,” she murmured in my ear.

  “Oh, thanks, Dr. Pangloss,” I hissed. But before I could ask her for specifics, Freddie had dragged her away for a conference on “finding the unfindable,” which was Fiona’s specialty.

  “She knows enough right now,” I warned Fiona.

  “But I always want to learn more, you know that, Cass.” Freddie’s tone was deferential, but the wink she directed toward me was her own saucy self.

  “Freddie’s ability to learn complicated material is almost intuitive. She never stops amazing me,” Adam said, causing Freddie’s pale face almost to blush. “She’s on her way to becoming a master troubleshooter at Iconomics.”

  “She never stops amazing me, either,” I said, thinking of an entirely different set of skills that Freddie possessed. Had he seen her ability to addle a delicate machine? Yes indeed, as I soon learned, he had witnessed just such an incident, but he hadn’t realized what was going on.

  It was a lovely feast, filled with warmth, affection, and laughter. Joe told engaging stories about his Greenpeace missions. Becky described her craziest family cases. Adam related how a “curious but humorous intermittent virus” had infected a competitor’s display at the Atlanta Computer Show. At this, Freddie looked away from my raised eyebrows to busy herself cutting meat off a turkey leg, while Scruffy leaned devotedly against her side, sensing that bits of crispy skin were about to fall his way. Fiona refrained from dowsing the food, for which I was personally thankful, both for her trust and for not having to explain what was going on to Becky and Adam.

  So I was in a rather mellow mood, still humming “We Gather Together” and putting sheets of foil over leftover pies when Patty called me, gasping and crying. “It’s Wyn, Cass. He got dreadfully ill right after dinner—the dinner we give at the church, you know. For the elderly or anyone else who’s alone.” More sobs. I had to strain to understand her. “Poor, dear man. And Wyn’s not the only one. I’m calling from the hospital now. I thought you ought to know. It’s probably hemlock again. In the chocolate cake. Oh, Cass…Wyn’s favorite. He gobbled up two pieces, while complaining that the coconut was ‘off.’”

  “Oh, Patty, I’m so sorry. Would it help if Joe and I came over there? Has someone notified the police?” All the time I was being reassuring, I was wondering why Wyn and Patty hadn’t been more careful about the provenance of every food at the church dinner. And surely Patty had warned Wyn to watch out for chocolate.

  “The police know, Cass. Wyn insisted on having an officer present to keep us all safe. Officer Notley personally vetted all the donated foods, attached a label with a name to them all. But the problem was Bevvy Besant’s cake. ‘I’m white cake,’ she said, so Ned Notley okayed the two ‘white’ cakes. But Bev had only brought one. And what do men know, anyway? Ned thought coconut frosting meant white.”

  “Where’s Officer Notley now? Do you think I could talk to him?” The idiot.

  “He’s having a gastric lavage, dear. Wyn gave him a big piece of the coconut cake. Sorry for him, you know, getting stuck with Thanksgiving Day duty. But those two nice detectives are here again. So you stay put, dear. You have your family there. Just go ahead and enjoy them. There’s nothing you can do. I simply had to talk to someone outside the church, you know. Mrs. Pynchon is acting as if I’m somehow at fault in all this for not keeping a closer eye on the donated food and a tighter rein on Wyn’s sweet tooth. I even heard her
telling Detective Mann that he ought to investigate me. Me! Can you imagine that?”

  “Stone Stern and Billy Mann are always running into crackpots like Mrs. P. They’ll know enough to ignore her. But tell me, Patty, has anyone been able to track down the chocolate cake. I mean, who brought it?”

  “Oh, I should have known,” Patty wailed. “But I was so busy serving the dinner, and by the time I had a bite myself, then started cutting up the desserts, there was Wyn digging into a chocolate cake. What was I going to do? Grab the fork out of his hands and wrestle the cake away? Of course, I instantly checked the label, and it said Besant, big as life. The pies were donated by Bunn’s Bakery, you know, but the cakes were baked by the Ladies’ League.”

  “What about the rest of the food?”

  “The cooked turkeys were a gift from Forker’s Turkey Farm. Angelo’s Market sent over most of the fixings. Oops. There’s Dr. Blitz. Have to go now.”

  “Patty…wait…I want you to keep me posted. I’ll try to stop by later.” But I didn’t know if she actually heard me.

  Joe and Fiona had been hanging over me, listening with concern to my end of the conversation and what they could hear of Patty’s squeals. “You’d think the Ladies’ League would have been much more careful after what happened the last time,” Joe said. “They should have vetted every single food item themselves, never mind the cop, and kept tabs on who actually carried each one into the kitchen.”

  “Okay, I won’t say they should have dowsed the dinner,” Fiona said. “I know that’s not their thing. But for Goddess’s sake, a modicum of care. Talk about ‘Death by Chocolate’!”

  Hearing our excited voices, Becky, Adam, and Freddie came in from the living room, where Freddie had been taking all their money in a cut-throat game of Monopoly. I’d warned them that Freddie was a wizard with dice.

  “What is it?” Adam demanded.

  “Not another poisoning!” Becky cried. “What kind of a pervert would poison people on Thanksgiving?”

  “Chocolate cake this time. Might be hemlock again.” I found I needed to sit down and take deep breaths for a moment. Joe put a consoling hand on my shoulder. “That was Patty Peacedale. The cake turned up at the Gethsemane Thanksgiving dinner for the lonely and elderly. The pastor is very ill. He’s at the hospital now with several of his parishioners.”

  “Awesome,” Freddie declared. “Some nutty dude, no doubt about it. Wish I could stick around to help catch this guy. But you go, girls! Chocolate lovers are getting to be an endangered species around here.”

  “Yes, this has gone quite far enough!” Fiona was drawing herself up into her most imperious glamour. “We simply must get together posthaste.”

  “Maybe at Phil’s,” I agreed. “She’s entertaining family, but I believe they’ll be leaving sometime tomorrow.”

  At seven, Becky said good-bye, pleading the merciless caseload she was carrying for Katz and Kinder. Leaving Joe, Adam, and Freddie to deal with the last of the dishes, Fiona and I jumped into her ancient baby blue Lincoln Town Car and headed to Jordan Hospital to see how Wyn and Patty were faring.

  “You don’t suppose the reverend is being targeted by evil forces, do you?” Fiona asked as she drove at her usual lulling pace of thirty-five miles an hour.

  “Nothing so medieval,” I said. “If he is a target, it’s those millions he’s just inherited.”

  “Evil is the root of all money.” Another of Fiona’s pixilated proverbs.

  Chapter Nine

  As we entered the Jordan Hospital lobby and headed for the reception desk, Fiona dug in her reticule and took out a small bottle of sage oil. “Here, rub a little of this on your wrists, my dear. There are always lingering negative vibrations when a madwoman is running around town indiscriminately poisoning innocent people.” The receptionist looked up from her computer with a startled expression. Fiona paid her no attention, continuing her lecture to me. “You’ll want to step outside yourself now, dear, if you’ve a mind to have a healing influence on the pastor. We’re all connected to each other, cells of one body. You remember, I explained how that works when we were in Salem on the Donahue case.”

  The receptionist, who no longer made any pretense of looking at her computer monitor, was hanging on Fiona’s every word.

  “My friend will be fine just as soon as she gets her medication,” I said. “Could you tell us, please, in what room we can find Selwyn Peacedale?”

  “Well, I…” Looking hesitant, she punched a few keys. “He’s not allowed to…”

  Fiona drew herself up for battle, but just then I caught sight of Phillipa’s husband striding across the lobby. “Stone…Stone…” I called to him. “How’s Wyn? Is Patty still here?”

  “Hello, gals.” He smiled down at us, pushing the fine brown hair out of his eyes in a preoccupied manner. “Peacedale will live, which is more than we can say for some of his Thanksgiving guests. He’s in Room 202, second floor. Patty Peacedale is up there, too, in the clutches of some women from the church. I think she’d be grateful for a rescue.”

  “This is so terrible. Was it someone from the church crew who died? Or that young officer?”

  “No, the victims were guests. Elderly ladies. Let me get back later to you on the details.”

  Stone looked so harried and worried, I couldn’t bring myself to give him the third degree. So I just said, “Okay, thanks. I’ll talk to you later then. Maybe we can help. I mean with the herbalist connection.”

  “Cass, believe it or not, I’d welcome even a psychic insight to this case.”

  “I wish I could offer one. I’ll keep trying.” We said good-bye and rushed away in opposite directions.

  As we came out of the elevator, I heard a familiar strident voice. “…never had such goings-on as we’ve had to endure since your husband took over Gethsemane. And now these murders…murders… surely some sort of curse…you and your witchy friend.”

  Fiona may be plump and arthritic, but when the spirit moves her, she can outdistance me with ease, as she did now, racing down the hall into the family waiting room at full sail with cannons blazing. We found Patty in tears, not entirely because of Wyn’s narrow escape. Mrs. Pynchon was there with two other League ladies, obviously her acolytes.

  “Avast and begone, evil tongues!” Fiona cried, holding both little fingers straight out in the classic banishing mode. “We’ll have no more harangues this night. You ladies will want to leave here this minute and not be bothering dear Mrs. Peacedale any longer with your ill-considered remarks. For your own good, you know. It wouldn’t do for any of those mean-spirited thoughts to come home to roost. Not that I’m wishing you ill, although I could, I could. No, it’s just the way of the Universe of Infinite Returns…”

  I didn’t think Mrs. Pynchon and her minions heard the last part of Fiona’s homily, because they were out the door and running for the elevator before she was half through her speech.

  “That was a bit over the top, Fiona, but it worked like a charm,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m so glad to see you,” Patty breathed. “Mrs. P. has been working herself up to a fever pitch for the last half hour. I’d be surprised if she wasn’t convening another ‘Dump Peacedale’ committee.”

  “Not to worry. Fiona took her down very neatly. How’s Wyn?”

  “Asleep, poor baby. What a terrible time’s he’s been having. I pray that this poison person will be caught soon.”

  “She will,” Fiona said grimly. “We’re on the case now.”

  “Oh, goodie,” Patty caroled with some of her old ingenuous zest. “Several of my own friends are organizing a prayer circle, and your good thoughts and wishes will be most appreciated. What is it, exactly, that Wiccans do in a case like this?”

  Before Fiona could reply, I said, “We’ll say some words that are very like prayers for the best possible outcome—healing of the sick, comfort to the bereaved, and harming none, the banishing of the evildoer.”

  “Putting a stop to this wicked woman’s
poison spree is first on our agenda, then locking up her ass in jail forever.” Fiona’s menacing tone was somewhat muffled as she fished around in the bottom of her reticule. “Ah, here it is!”

  Good Goddess, I thought, let her not pull out that pistol. But no, she had found a crystal pendant, not as large as the one she usually wears around her neck, probably a spare. “Here, dear, if you will take this crystal and hold it over whatever you plan to eat—”

  Patty seemed quite enthralled as Fiona described the basic uses of the pendulum and then how it could be employed to dowse food and pronounce on its wholesomeness. But since a pendulum must work through one’s unconscious mind, would it perform for someone who might not have that sixth sense for good and evil that Fiona possessed?

  “But Fiona…that’s your own very special crystal,” Patty protested. “Now, if I understand you correctly, any pendant could signal its approval or disapproval of a particular food.”

  “Oh, yes,” Fiona agreed. “Even better if it’s been worn on your person and absorbed your vibes.”

  “Well, then, I think I’ll just try your most interesting game with this.” Patty reached under her Peter Pan collar and pulled out a silver cross on a chain.

  Fiona gently lifted the pendant in her hand and, leaning close to Patty, examined its curious design. The elegant basket-weave pattern of the square cross was set against a slightly smaller circle. In its center was a green stone, like a rough emerald. “Oh yes, dear, this should be fine. Worn it for a long time, have you?”

  “It was a gift from my favorite relative. Aunt Mae. Aunts can be such angels in the lives of young girls.”

  “What was your aunt’s last name, dear?” asked Fiona.

  “McDonigal. Mae McDonigal.”

  “Celtic, of course. For best results, give the cross a wash in mugwort tea.”

  “Mugwort? What’s that? My, my…Won’t Wyn be fascinated,” Patty breathed, wiping away the last traces of tears from her cheeks.