Ladies Courting Trouble

by Dolores Stewart Riccio

  “I always think it’s a mistake to burden a husband with too many details that are best handled by a woman,” Fiona said, letting go of the cross. “Your Wyn has so many parish matters on his mind, especially now with these malevolent goings-on. It might be a kindness simply to dowse the food and say nothing more about it.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. I’ll just say it’s a kind of blessing.”

  “A fine thought.” Fiona put her plump arm around Patty’s shoulder and hugged her warmly. Silver bangles tinkled softly. “Now about your problems with Mrs. Pynchon…”

  “Enough, Fiona!” I said hastily. “Let’s just duck into Wyn’s room and say a few healing words. I think that’s what we came for, wasn’t it?”

  The pastor lay flat in bed, eyes closed, face pale, his hands in a prayerful pose on his chest, like a saint in effigy on his tomb. We sat down quietly in the two plastic chairs, not wanting to disturb him if he was dozing. I tried to remove myself from my own concerns and concentrate on healing thoughts. Fiona reached over to lay her pudgy fingers on the pastor’s arm.

  “Hell and damnation,” said the crabby voice of the reposing saint. “I suppose I’m going to have to follow your advice and give up chocolate.” His eyes opened. “Oh dear. I thought that was Patty.”

  “That might be good advice to follow, Wyn,” I said. “At least until we discover the crazy chocolatier with the poisonous herbs. I mean, until the police solve the case.”

  He smiled wanly. “My money’s on you ladies in the circle.”

  “Your money may very well be the motive, Wyn. I’ve heard it’s quite a lot.”

  He sighed. “Millions. It’s like having won some terrible lottery, when I think how I’ve benefited from Lydia Craig’s untimely death. I was hoping the money would be a force for good.”

  “It will be,” Fiona said grimly. “As soon as we banish this wicked person.”

  “Amen,” Wyn said.

  I didn’t have to call Phillipa. It was she who called me early the next morning. I was slumped against the counter sipping my first cup of coffee, waiting for the caffeine to kick in, when the kitchen phone jangled my nerves like an alarm clock. “We have to do something!” she screamed in my ear. “Did you know two people who dined at the church yesterday died last night?”

  “Yes. I met Stone at the hospital.”

  “It was two of the really frail elderly dears, the Luckey sisters. Did you know them? I guess Peacedale has some kind of cast-iron gut. I can’t stand any more of this!”

  “Me neither. Stone didn’t say who they were. I think Fiona introduced me to the Luckeys one time at the library. The sisters were quilting with the Women’s Cooperative in the basement. Fiona will be wild. She’s already insisting that we meet, possibly at your house, and conjure up a way to stop this evil character. Is your family leaving for home today?”

  “Yep. Noon flight. Will you call Deidre and Heather? I’ve got to go whip up a farewell breakfast. Oh, and, Cass, it was hemlock again.”

  “But it’s November,” I said. “The stuff should have died back in the fields by now. I wonder if she put by some chopped hemlock leaves in her freezer. Not much different than freezing parsley or basil. You can do it in little foil packets. Turns black but is perfectly usable in cooked dishes.”

  “Personally, I always use fresh herbs,” Phillipa said.

  “This gal really knows how to manage her herbal arsenal.”

  “Or guy.”

  “Maybe. But her boots looked to be a woman’s size nine.”

  “You saw her boots, Cass?” Phillipa’s voice was hitting that shrill note that’s so unsettling first thing in the morning.

  “Green Wellingtons. You go dazzle your guests, Phil. I’ll explain everything tonight. What time do you want us?”

  “Oh, come at seven. And come hungry. I have leftovers to die for.”

  “Unfortunate expression,” I commented. “See you later, then.”

  I telephoned the others. Deidre was happy to take a break from the family scene. Cooking was not her forte, but she waded into any holiday with her usual grit and gusto. To Deidre, Thanksgiving meant candied yams with marshmallows and green bean casserole with condensed mushroom soup and petrified onions, and, by Goddess, she would produce them.

  Fiona said she’d hardly ever been more tempted to invoke a curse—what kind of madwoman would harm two lovely old ladies like the Luckeys? So she was pleased that her concerns were being taken up by us all before she could stray from the white way, so to speak. Nevertheless, she complained, “But, Cass, it’s you who always tell us who to look for. What’s happened to you?”

  “Do you suppose finding true love has taken away my witch’s powers, like in the movies?”

  “Oh, garbage, Cass. True love sharpens all the senses, five or six or nine—whatever you’ve got. You know that.”

  “Yeah. Listen, Fiona, I’ll surely zero in on some telling detail. Just give me a little time.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Cherchez l’argent. Again!” Phillipa turned over another tarot card, this one the four of pentacles.

  “I thought that was supposed to be cherchez la femme.” Deidre put down her fork and empty plate with a sigh. “That was the loveliest mince pie, Phil. I suppose you made the mincemeat yourself, right?”

  “Maybe it’s both,” I said. “Seek the woman who’s after money. Divine lemon, too, and with a double-crust—superb.” I had to admit that Phillipa had a way with flaky pastry that was far beyond my poor culinary powers. Pure magic!

  We were lying around Phillipa’s living room in various stages of surfeit. I made the zipped-lip sign to our hostess so she wouldn’t mention that the mincemeat was made from venison, which would get Heather riled just as we were gearing up for a united effort. That dedicated animal activist had even picketed one of Plymouth’s trendiest restaurants, Winston’s New England Nuovo, for the offense of serving Provimi milk-fed veal.

  A blazing fire in the copper-hooded fireplace highlighted a Moroccan brass table where Phillipa was studying a tarot layout. “And the six of pentacles, too,” she said, as if that confirmed everything.

  “I don’t know how someone could cause all this heartache and bellyache out of greed,” Heather said. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor near the fire. Her bronze hair glinted with light, looking like part of the décor.

  “That’s because you already have money, honey,” Deidre chided her.

  “Ladies, ladies…let’s just concentrate on who has something to gain in this series of poisonings.” Fiona brought us back on track. “Reverend Peacedale, for instance, has become a millionaire, thanks to the Lydia Craig legacy. Perhaps she intended him to set up some kind of trust to do good works, but, as I understand it, he can do anything he wishes with the money.” She gently stroked Phillipa’s fluffy black cat, Zelda, who had found a comfy napping nest in Fiona’s lap. Perhaps Zelda remembered, in the mysterious way of animals, that it was Fiona who’d rescued her from a Dumpster and conned Phillipa into giving the discarded kitten a home.

  Heather took out a faux-leather bound notebook and gold pen from her hand-loomed bag with the legend Moonchild woven into the pattern. “I’m making a list of suspects connected with the money. Selwyn Peacedale is number one. Has to be, because he got the dough. It is, after all, possible that he might have feigned getting poisoned himself. Second, his lovely wife, Patty, who may very well have had enough of that drafty parsonage and living a life of good works. She knew about the Craig legacy, and could have been impatient to collect. Now, who else? If something happens to Peacedale, for instance, what becomes of his inheritance?”

  “Good point,” Phillipa said. “And as a matter of fact, I’ve looked into that. Or, rather, Stone has looked into that, and I’ve wheedled the information out of him.”

  “Who?” “Who?” “Who?” we demanded, sounding like a parliament of owls.

  Phillipa’s dark eyes, often so difficult to read, betrayed a gleam of pride
at her clever research. “If Wyn Peacedale were to go to his heavenly reward within a year of receiving the Craig bequest, Patty P. would get not one red cent. The money would revert to the estate, to be divided between Lydia Craig’s nephews and niece. But, if the pastor lives longer than the specified year, the bequest will be inherited by whomever he chooses, probably his wife.”

  “Do you suppose that there’s a plan afoot to get rid of Peacedale before the year is up?” Heather asked, busily jotting down notes. “And what are these relatives’ names, ages, occupations, marital status? It certainly would be in their interest to polish off Peacedale while his bequest is still entailed to the Craig family.”

  “I know something about them,” I said. “Patty has made me her not-of-the-parish confidant. The funeral civility of the Craigs, she’s complained, disappeared the moment the will was read, and they’ve been trashing the Peacedales ever since. But you want names, Heather. As I recall, the oldest nephew is Geoffrey Craig. That’s Geoffrey with a ‘G-e-o.’ He’s a CPA, married to an attorney named Heidi Pryde. A distant cousin of the pig-farm Prydes, I might add.”

  “Plymouth!” Deidre said. “Six degrees of separation doesn’t apply here. It’s barely two.”

  “I wouldn’t trust a Pryde as far as I could throw her,” Phillipa said. “I’ll bet she’s a personal injury attorney.”

  “Okay, Geoffrey Craig and Heidi Pryde Craig.” Heather continued her note-taking. Was that a Mont Blanc pen, I wondered. It flashed richly in the firelight.

  “The Geoffrey Craigs live in a posh part of Marshfield, and Heidi belongs to the very exclusive Gardeners of the Mayflower Society,” I continued. “Which makes her a prime suspect in my book. We’re looking for someone who knows her herbs.”

  “It’s not easy getting into the G.M.S.,” Heather said. “As it happens, the president is related to me by marriage, Violet Pickle Morgan, and a more snobby old harridan you’ll never want to meet.”

  “Don’t tell me! To get into G.M.S., your family has to have come over on that overrated, overweighted boat?” Deidre demanded to know.

  “No, but it helps to be related to some founding mother who hand-carried English herbs to her New World garden. I wonder how a Pryde made the cut?”

  “Blackmail, obviously. Old Violet Pickle must have had a skeleton in her ancestral closet, and Heidi Pryde ferreted it out. Children?” asked Deidre.

  “No. Not yet anyway. Lydia confided to her pastor that Geof and Heidi were thinking of adopting a Russian orphan, and she did not approve.”

  “Next?” Heather’s blue and gold pen was poised at the ready.

  “Bruce Craig, rather the black sheep of the Craig family. Ace mechanic, works at Johnny D.’s garage and lives in an apartment over the Wampanoag Deli in North Plymouth. Married to Sherry Wojcik. They have two children—Bruce Jr. and Shirley, both elementary-school age. On weekends, Sherry works as a cocktail waitress.”

  “And Lydia Craig does not approve of cocktail waitresses?” Phillipa inquired.

  “You got it,” I said. “And it also came to Aunt Lydia’s attention that the police were called to Bruce’s apartment more than once for a ‘domestic disturbance.’ Then we have the niece, Jean Craig Deluca, married to Arthur Deluca, a painter of the seagulls-overdunes school of Cape Cod painting. Jean’s something of a potter, plus she runs a little gallery in Plymouth Center near Fiona’s place, where she sells her husband’s work to tourists who want to take home a piece of the Cape. Lydia Craig did not approve of the Delucas’ artistic friends. She felt that her niece, Jean, was wallowing in bohemian decadence, possibly getting drunk with a bunch of artists and smoking pot as well.”

  “Art! I know Art,” Fiona said. “And Jean, too. He’s a pleasant enough fellow, and so prolific. Her pots are…well…pretty little things,” Fiona said. “They’ve always seemed like a harmless couple to me. No raucous parties or police raids, at any rate. There’s a teenage son, too, I believe.”

  “Yes, Leonardo,” I said. “Goes to Assumption. But Lydia Craig felt that a Catholic high school was a waste of money and would turn the boy popish like his father, when a plain old public school education that her taxes paid for was available for free.”

  “Lydia Craig is clearly depicted here holding on to her four pentacles for dear life.” Phillipa tapped a card in her layout. “She would not have approved of any wild expenditure such as education fees.”

  “Patty said that Miss Craig told Wyn about the bequest last Christmas. She said she wanted him to create a foundation to help the ‘deserving poor,’” I continued. “And she instructed him to commission an engraved bronze plaque with an embossed portrait of herself and the Craig coat of arms to be erected over her pew. Oh, and the family motto, ‘Live that you may live forever.’ The plaque, of course, would barely put a dent in the Craig millions.”

  “I’m surprised she didn’t hold out for a stained-glass window,” Deidre said. “So poor Peacedale was supposed to let the undeserving starve on the church doorstep? I know that type of do-gooder. But poor, miserly Miss Craig died in an untimely and horrid way, and I mean to find out who did it.”

  “So do we all,” Fiona declared. “She must have wanted that foundation to ensure her immortality, without her having to go to the expense of hiring a foundation financial manager recommended by Borer, Buckley, and Bangs. We all know what a tight-wad Lydia was. On the other hand, simply leaving everything to her own family would have yielded no everlasting profit in heaven. She probably counted on having plenty of time to work out the parameters of the foundation with Peacedale, never suspecting that a yen for brownies would cut short her plans.”

  “Brownies!” I said. “I can’t get over the notion that brownies—the elfin kind—are connected in some way.”

  “Well, Craig is a Pictish name.” Fiona polished off the last of her lemon pie with a flourish of her fork. “Craig means ‘rock,’ by the way, and the original Craig tartan was soberly designed in various rock colors—black, gray, tan, white, and a thread of orange. Sometime later, the Craigs added crimson and a rather raucous blue. The MacDonald tartan, I’m happy to say, is sober green with a dignified red accent….”

  “Picts are connected to brownies, and Craigs are connected to Picts,” Deidre interrupted. “Hey, Cass…synchronicity rules!”

  “Okay, here’s the list.” Heather tore the page out of her notebook. “The Peacedales, Selwyn and Patricia. The nephews, Geoffrey and Bruce, and their wives, Heidi and Sherry. The niece, Jean, and her husband Arthur Deluca. So, what’s the next step, Cass?”

  “Why is everyone looking at me?”

  “Past history, based on who sent us off into danger before,” Phillipa said. “Anyone for more pie?”

  A chorus of groans. Then Deidre said, “Have we got any kind of sorting spells in Hazel’s Book?”

  “Aha! I thought you’d never ask.” Fiona reached into her remarkable reticule and pulled out that useful volume, a treasure she’d unearthed at a yard sale. Faint purple letters etched into the black cover read Hazel’s Book of Household Recipes. Along with stews, soaps, sachets, cough syrups, and other nineteenth-century staples, the book included recipes with magical ingredients and purposes. “Hmmm. Sorting, sorting…”

  Fiona licked her finger and paged through, her silver bangles chiming. I wondered what ancient viral infection might lurk on those back pages. I’m definitely getting paranoid, I thought.

  “Now, here’s the very thing!” Fiona pulled forward the raveled, faded pink ribbon marker to hold the page. “‘Sorting for Rot or Any Evil Influence.’ Ah yes. No surprises there.” She mumbled to herself, reading the ingredients through the gold-rimmed half-tracks perched on her nose.

  “Aloud, aloud!” Heather insisted.

  Fiona read in a low, strong voice, taking on Hazel’s persona. “Line up in a row your fruits or livestock or whatever you question as to its wholesomeness, and sprinkle them with a strong tea of sweet wormwood, chervil, and Herba benedicta. Light a yellow ca
ndle whilst chanting, ‘Mother of wisdom, dispel all doubt, evil at the bone will out.’ If you are close put upon by curious neighbors, a verse of ‘Rock of Ages’ can be sung instead and will also work. The rot will be sorted from the wholesome, making itself known by ooze.”

  “Do you suppose that applies to names on a piece of paper?” asked Deidre. “Shouldn’t we have photos or something like that? And what’s Herba benedicta?”

  “Avens,” I said. “The Blessed Herb. Geum urbanum. Also called bennet. A long medicinal history, and also used to ward off demons. Where she writes ‘whatever you question,’ I believe she may have used slips of paper. You know Hazel, with her cautious wording and red herrings.”

  “Yeah, like, I can see her piously humming ‘Rock of Ages,’” Deidre said.

  “On the other hand, one doesn’t expect slips of paper to ‘ooze.’” I continued.

  “Never know till you try it,” Fiona said. “Magic is in the eye of the beholder, I always say.”

  “Well, yes, I can put together the herbs,” I said, “and, Heather, you do the yellow candle, but don’t get carried away. A plain yellow candle will be quite good enough. Let’s get together at my place, say, on Friday night. Give me a chance to show off my newly refurbished workroom.”

  “What do you mean, ‘carried away’?” Heather demanded. “What you need here is the piercing ray of the Goddess, yellow grain, Ceres Incarnate sorting the wheat from the chaff.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “Whatever.”

  “I’ll write the names on parchment,” Deidre said. “Maybe parchment has some latent ooze properties. I’ve been practicing calligraphy in my spare time.”

  “How does a mother of four youngsters get any spare time?” Phillipa asked.

  “As you know, Deidre has a special relationship with time,” I said. “Friday at eight, then?”

  As soon as Patty got Wyn home from the hospital and settled into bed, she called me, her regular sounding board, to bemoan the fact that he was insisting on officiating at the Luckey sisters’ funeral.