Ladies Courting Trouble

by Dolores Stewart Riccio

  I tried to e-mail Freddie or Adam, but my e-mail service was completely clogged with hundreds of incoming messages from “mystery chef” with the subject line, “your goose is cooked.”

  For what seemed like hours, I was clenched like a pretzel over the computer. Finally, with great effort, I yanked myself away. Either I could shoot myself with Grandma’s rifle and end this misery or go for a head-clearing walk outdoors, trying to achieve detachment and perspective. All right, I am not the stuff of which Zen masters are made, but I could try.

  As I looked out my office window, the deceptively warm-looking morning sunlight was in full glory, shimmering on the waves like sequined velvet. Which reminded me of my luxurious green hooded cloak, a gift from Joe. I wrapped myself up in all its good karma, like the blessing of love. Taking Grandma’s walking stick in hand, I opened the back door to the glacial chill of an east wind off the Atlantic.

  In an instant Scruffy bounded down the stairs from his retreat. Hey, Toots! Wait for me! Wait for me! I ought to be leading the way and scouting for danger.

  “All right, you can come with me, but there will be no squirrel detours today.” Scruffy’s leash always hung on the hook by the back door; I hooked it to his collar. “And don’t go down those stairs too fast. They may be icy.”

  I found the stairs already sprinkled with a pet-friendly melting agent by my thoughtful and energetic husband. Just thinking of Joe brought a throb of pleasure as I remembered our passionate embraces of the night before. What drug is greater than the fulfillment of love and the sweet oblivion afterward? A flush traveled through my body. I wondered if it was a hot flash or plain, old sexual heat.

  Come on, come on faster. Let’s get a move on. Gotta see what’s happening in the woods. Scruffy sniffed the air eagerly.

  Preoccupied with libidinous thoughts while trying to manage a long cloak and a leashed dog without falling on my head, I hardly noticed the slight figure standing between the pines up near the road. It was more like the sudden consciousness of a malevolent vibration somewhere in my environment. The boy must have stepped into our line of vision just at that instant, because Scruffy reacted with a mighty tug at the leash, nearly taking me off my feet.

  Changeling! Leonardo Deluca was standing between the pines. As I moved closer, the dog thrusting ahead and barking, I saw that the boy was smiling at me, as cold as the January sunshine that glistened through the icy trees. I was aware of a piercing ray catching me in the eyes. Intense light at that particular angle has a curious effect on me. It bounces me out of time and place. This is not the moment to lose myself in a trance, was my last thought before I fell down right on my knees on the frozen leaves covering the ground.

  No longer was I crouched in my own front yard. Instead, I found myself looking down an earthen track between darkly massed trees. At the end of that slope, water rippled in the sunshine. Several boats were moored at that shore, most of them half-filled with frozen water. They looked like wooden canoes, with rough, hand-hewn surfaces. A car came over the ridge of the hill. The motor revved. The car headed straight for the water. It was a green Volkswagen. I couldn’t see the driver or the passengers, but I could hear their screams. The scene faded slowly; the sparkling water was the last thing to dissolve, like the smile of the Cheshire Cat.

  Scruffy must have done his best. When I came out of the vision, he was whining mournfully in my ear, nuzzling me as he would have done to a wounded canine companion. Hey, Toots! What’s the matter with you? You’ve got me really worried now. Want to lean on me a while? I’m a strong, tough Shepherd de Brie. My ancestors pulled milk carts to market, you know.

  “Yeah, yeah!” I said. “Just give me a minute to recover my wits. I’ll be up in no time.”

  Nauseous and disoriented, I did lean on Scruffy to stand on my feet again. I may even have pulled on his fur, but he stood staunch as a champion. Then I remembered the peculiar presence of Lee Deluca. Gone now. Leaving me with a vivid impression, a shimmer of evil intention. Why had he come? Perhaps to let me know that my problems were caused by him and not a routine computer malfunction. Yes, he would want to take credit. And now what was he up to? What was the meaning of my vision? Where was that scene happening or due to happen?

  Joe drove in the driveway. His abrupt stop splattered the driveway’s gravel. Jumping out of his Rent-a-Wreck, he ran to where I was still leaning on Scruffy. “What’s going on here, sweetheart? You look dazed, and you’re leaning on the dog. Did you fall?” His sea-muscled arms went around me, holding me close and safe. It was good to feel sheltered by a man, but I knew it was a lovely illusion. So many dangers that must be faced alone.

  That furry-faced person is pushing me out of the way now. No respect for the loyal protector. You’d better tell him how I saved you again.

  “It was more like a swoon,” I explained to Joe. “The sun was in my eyes, and it brought on a vision. The next thing I knew, I was on my knees and Scruffy was trying to revive me.” I reached down to pat Scruffy, whose head was wedged between the two of us. “What a good dog you are!”

  “Sunlight does that? Maybe you should start wearing dark glasses,” Joe suggested as he helped me back up the stairs and into the house. The moment I stepped foot in the kitchen, my PC woes washed back over me in a tide of misery. I groaned, and Joe hastened to settle me comfortably in the kitchen rocker, then set about making a fresh pot of coffee. Scruffy sat beside me with his head resting on my knee.

  Don’t you worry, Toots. I’m here. A dog’s reminder that life’s necessities are truly few. I was okay, and I had friends.

  “The most terrible thing has happened to my computer.” I tried not to wail. “Some hacker got into it and erased all the files—my accounts, my records, my current orders—the works! Even my e-mail is clogged with hundreds of messages from someone calling himself the ‘mystery chef.’ Oh, Joe, I think it’s that Deluca boy. He knows I’m onto him. When I came out of the house with Scruff, the boy was just standing up there by the main road, grinning at me. If I believed in the devil, I’d call him the devil’s child.”

  “Wait a minute…let me get this straight. This weird kid ruined your computer program while standing outside your house?” Joe took our coffee mugs out of the strainer and put them onto the kitchen table.

  “No, I mean he must have done his dirty work on the computer last night, then turned up this morning to let me know it was him. I could swear he was gloating.”

  “That’s one sick kid,” Joe said. “I’d like to get my hands on him.”

  “He is that,” I said. “But not your hands, my dear. Let’s be legal here. Stone’s hands will do fine.”

  “Since when did you fret about legalities?” The coffee sputtered to a finish, and Joe filled our cups. He handed me the one that said The Sybil Is In and took Have You Hugged a Whale Today? for himself. They were, of course, gifts from Phillipa.

  “The fact that this is a child makes me very nervous,” I confessed.

  “What makes me nervous is that this child is a sociopath,” Joe said.

  He hadn’t asked me about my vision. Joe was always a bit cautious about questioning my clairvoyant episodes, as if they were some ecstatic religious experience I might prefer to keep private. I’d learned to tell him anyway, for the sake of whatever insights he might add. Also, I need to put the details of an episode into words before they fade like a dream. “Speaking of sociopaths…” I began, and described the locale, the Deluca car poised at the top of the incline, the screaming inside.

  “Where do you suppose you were?” Joe asked.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. It’s nowhere I recognize. It might be Myles Standish Forest. That place is so huge, there are probably hundreds of vistas I’ve never seen.”

  “And, more to the point, who was in the car?”

  “That’s what scares me most,” I said. “The voices were high-pitched, young.” Suddenly I had a mind’s eye glimpse of Lee dressed as the Pied Piper, playing a merry tune
on a recorder and leading children into the yawning mouth of a Stygian cave.

  Looking out my kitchen window, I saw Patty’s black Buick Regal had pulled into my driveway. It was just after three. She was carrying her knitting bag as well as her handbag, so she probably planned to stay for a chat. Good. A distraction would be welcome.

  At a loss to know how to occupy myself without herbal orders to fill, and distraught over the customers I was losing during the current computer crisis, I was brewing a pot of Wisewoman Tea, my special blend. Its strong, spicy aroma might soothe my wounded spirit. If I weren’t a highly evolved Wiccan on the white path, I’d really enjoy hexing this hacker!

  Patty, however, was in worse shape than I. “You have to help me,” she said as soon as she got in the door. She dropped her bags and clutched both my hands. Her little heart-shaped face was looking anxious and vulnerable.

  “Of course I will, Patty, if I can. Sit down here and tell me all about it.” I disengaged myself gently and took down another cup and saucer from the shelf.

  “Oh dear. What’s that banging under the floor?” She looked about fearfully.

  Tempted though I was to tell her that Beelzebub was stirring in his subterranean chamber, I said, “It’s only Joe. He’s rewiring my workroom. In the cellar.”

  “Oh, he’s back. That explains it, then,” she said. I poured the tea and waited. “I never thought I would, but I have really grown very fond of Loki.” She took a real handkerchief—lace-edged—out of her handbag and wiped her eyes. “The poor little thing!”

  “Oh, Great Goddess. Is he all right? Did something happen to Buster—I mean, Loki?”

  “Close call, I fear. Heather Devlin will be so cross with me. But you know that Loki is an independent fellow, and he was moping so at the window, watching the birdies in the feeder, I decided he needed a breath of fresh air. I’d been talking to this pastor’s wife from Britain, and she said the animal-rescue people in England wouldn’t allow her to adopt a cat unless she agreed to give the animal access to the outdoors so that he wouldn’t get depressed. Can you imagine? A completely different point of view from cat people here. Well, that set me to thinking.”

  Patty took out her knitting, obviously an aid to deep thought. It seemed to be a heavy moss green chest covering of some sort, like a bulletproof vest. I wondered if it was a present for Wyn. A single lock of brown hair fell over her broad forehead as she studied her work and picked up the stitch. I had faith Patty would eventually get to the point. I waited, semi-patiently.

  “Now I admit that I may be carrying this pendulum thing too far, but I have been dowsing Loki’s food as well as our own. I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but so far, so good. ‘Must you bless the cat’s food, too?’ Wyn asked me, but I just said, ‘Yes, animals have souls, too.’ Then, this morning, quite early, I allowed Loki to go out. He’d been scratching at the windows in a positive fever to get at something, and I thought, well, what’s the harm? Better to let the cat do his yowling outdoors than to have Wyn wake up and have a bird. So to speak. Loki is still a bit of a sore subject. And I’m forbidden to mention Saint Francis’s rapport with animals again.”

  “Sometimes women go right ahead and do the things they’re forbidden to do,” I said.

  “Oh, do they, dear?” Patty’s hazel eyes looked at me earnestly as if this was an insight that had never occurred to her. “Well, there’s so much divorce these days, isn’t there?”

  Touché, Patty.

  “That was about five. I got up myself at seven and went downstairs to make breakfast. The temperature was close to freezing, and I began to worry about Loki. Perhaps I shouldn’t have let him out after all. I looked out and couldn’t see the cat on the porch or anywhere nearby. So I got the coffee going, put on my coat and boots, and went out to call the cat. Oh, I feel so guilty, Cass.”

  “Are you ever going to tell me what happened?”

  “That’s what I am doing, dear. I found the poor little thing under the porch, drooling and heaving. Beside him was the remains of some raw beef burger on a piece of waxed paper. It looked as if Loki had dragged the thing in there. A private treat. Now, you know Loki is not a great traveler.”

  “I certainly do. You should have called me, Patty. Either Joe or I would have helped you with Loki. Where did you take him?”

  “To the Wee Angels Animal Hospital, of course. Dr. Devlin is such as dear man. I took that burger with me, too. While I was waiting for news of Loki, I dowsed it. Well!”

  “Your cross went a bit erratic, did it?”

  “Good heavens, yes! A whirling dervish. So I gave the burger to Dr. Devlin to have tested.”

  “Oh, Patty, I’m so sorry. What did you find out? And how’s Loki?”

  Patty sobbed into the moss green thing. Then she blew her nose in the lace-edged hanky. “Heather Devlin came rushing in when she heard I was there with Loki. She insisted on taking that sorry burger meat to the laboratory herself, went speeding off in her Mercedes. An hour later she was back. Dr. Devlin said, ‘How did you do that? I never get results so fast.’ She said, ‘Never mind that, the burger was laced with nicotine.’ Then he tells me Loki is terribly sick, and he can’t guarantee his recovery.”

  “Loki is a tough old guy, a real survivor.” As I put a consoling arm around Patty’s shoulders, a scary thought occurred to me. “Patty, have you been home since you took your cat to the hospital? Have you dowsed the food in your refrigerator?”

  Patty’s hand went to her mouth in an expression of horror. “No, I stayed at the hospital for a while, then I went to tell Heather what happened, but I didn’t mention that Loki was outdoors when he got sick. She insisted I stay for lunch, although I really wasn’t a bit hungry. Afterwards, I came here. You see, I was so afraid that Wyn would look, you know, pleased to be rid of Loki, that I…well…Lord, I’d better call and warn him not to eat anything.”

  “Patty, it’s three-thirty. By now he’s probably eaten breakfast and lunch.” Even as I spoke, I was punching in Patty’s number on my cell. It rang, and I handed it to her.

  “Oh, Wyn, Wyn…are you all right? Yes, of course I’m coming home. I’ve been with Loki at the vet.”

  There was a pause, during which a fat tear ran down Patty’s cheek.

  “No, dear, I wouldn’t dream of giving up the cat. I love Loki. You’re all right, then?”

  Another pause. “What did you have for lunch, dear? Good. That was okay, then. Yes, all right, I’ll be home directly.” She punched END and handed me the phone.

  “He said he decided not to have a hamburger, he’s watching his cholesterol. So he had two doughnuts and a hunk of cheese instead.”

  “I wonder about that hamburger,” I said.

  Patty looked at me with an odd expression. “When I left home this morning,” she said, “there was no hamburger in the refrigerator.”

  “Uh oh. I don’t suppose you took my advice about keeping your doors locked?”

  “It seems so unchristian.”

  “Okay, Patty…I’m going home with you now. We’ll call Stone. I’m sure he’ll want us to pack up that meat for him to have tested. I have an idea that this was another attempt on Wyn’s life, with a more reliable poison. I hate to say this, but actually it’s a good thing for you that the poisoner couldn’t resist trying it out on the cat. I don’t suppose nicotine is very hard to obtain. It’s in nicotine patches and things like that. He may have even grown a tobacco plant. Anything he needed to know could be found on the Internet. Pack up your knitting, and let’s go.”

  “Who? Who are you talking about, Cass?”

  “Lydia Craig’s grandnephew, Lee Deluca.”

  “You mean, a young person did this?”

  “Yes, that’s what I’ve seen, and by now Stone Stern knows all about my suspicions.”

  “You mean ‘seen’ as in a vision, Cass?”

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  “Oh, capital!” Patty enthused. A wan smile lit up her face for the first time that aft
ernoon.

  It turned out that Lee Deluca had slipped up for the first time in using ground beef. He’d bought it at Angelo’s, and the checkout clerk, a young man who’d also gone out for track, remembered the small, fast sprinter from Assumption buying ground beef. That was the good news. The bad news was that, while Patty and I were having tea, Lee had emptied his mother’s cash register and disappeared. By the time Stone was ready to question the boy, Jean Deluca was in her hysterical mode, filing a missing-persons report and threatening to sue everyone in the county of Plymouth who was hounding and harassing her son.

  As Phillipa related the scene to us, Stone had talked to Jean very gently and got nothing but verbal abuse. The detective then turned to Arthur Deluca, who’d accompanied his distraught wife to the police station. Stone explained that nicotine poison had been found in the ground beef that the cat had consumed and that more poisoned meat had been waiting for the Peacedales in their refrigerator. Jean Deluca screamed that there was no connection between this so-called poison and her son, and they couldn’t prove differently in a thousand years. The ground beef her son had bought at Angelo’s had been purchased at her request, and the family had eaten it for their dinner. Stone had been going to ask permission to have a look at the plants in Arthur Deluca’s mother’s basement, but thought better of it right then. It was of prime importance not to tip off Jean as to where evidence against her son might be found.

  Nor was that the end of the bad news. Although Stone was able to lift Lee’s fingerprints from his locker at Assumption, they did not match any found in the parsonage kitchen. When the detective tried to obtain a warrant to search Lee’s grandmother’s house, Judge Paradise could not be convinced by the evidence of past misdemeanors (the records of which were sealed) and a tenuous motive that the young person who attended Assumption with her own son, Ted, could be responsible for the series of poisonings that had been plaguing Plymouth. And Judge Lax was reluctant to search an innocent old lady’s home for nebulous evidence against her grandson. If the press got hold of the story, the judicial branch might be accused of insensitivity toward senior citizens. Now that the boy was missing, his mother was screaming blue murder that someone ought to pay for falsely accusing her child and possibly causing him to harm himself.