Murder on the Sinful Express

by Shari Hearn

  I ripped open the sealed white envelope and found a sheet of white, unlined paper with cutout letters that stated, simply, “Go Home, Yankee.” This wasn’t the first time I’d received demands to leave Sinful and probably wouldn’t be the last. But it certainly took on new meaning since Celia was siccing the biggest snoops in Sinful on my tail.

  I shrugged it off and headed upstairs to get ready for bed, noticing for the first time today that Carter’s toothbrush was missing from the glass I kept in the bathroom. It was jarring at first and I had to remind myself that he probably took it for his fishing trip.

  Why did he take this one? Why not the one from his house? I heard a wounded voice inside say.

  “Get a grip,” I said aloud, not used to feeling so insecure. Maybe I was more bothered by the “get out of Sinful” note than I thought I was.

  I headed into the bedroom and noticed remnants of one of my slippers on top of the bed. Merlin was perched on top of the pillows like a king, a guilty look plastered on his little face. Since Carter and I had begun staying at one another’s houses, my little bored feline had turned into a jealous tiger. I considered myself lucky that it was just a destroyed slipper in the middle of my bed, and not the remains of his lunch.

  “Carter’s on a fishing trip,” I said to Merlin as I tossed the slipper into the trash. “You have me all to yourself this week.”

  He yawned and stretched, cat for, “You talking to me?”

  “You and Madigan have something in common,” I told him. “And that’s not a compliment.”

  Thinking of Madigan brought the memory of the day back to me. Specifically, the look between her and Anna. That witch had something on Madigan, that was obvious. I hopped in bed and cracked open Fickle Finger of Death. New clues were given and another body was found. The plot thickened. Before dozing off, I wondered again about the angry, whispered exchange between Anna and Madigan and the way Mindy had followed Anna around the library after the meeting had ended.

  Was there a plot thickening in Sinful I was unaware of?

  Chapter Six

  “ALL ABOARD FOR THE Sinful Express!” Madigan pressed the button on her toy train, signaling the start of day two of the Sinful Express Book Club. Word had it that that little train whistle and chugga-chugga-chugga were the only noises above a whisper that Lucy, the head librarian, would allow in her library.

  The reading group members filed in, picking out whatever pastries appealed to them before taking their seats. Queen Celia stood until one of her minions pulled out her throne before sitting. The seat next to hers, where Anna had been sitting yesterday, remained empty.

  “Anna will be in shortly,” Celia announced to the group.

  While everyone got settled with their coffee, tea and pastries, I read the day’s announcements.

  “Lucy would like to remind everyone that books and chewing gum don’t mix. Oh, and apparently someone left her dentures in the book drop again.”

  “Mama!” Delphine screamed into her mother’s ear. “Did you put your dentures inside Miss Lucy’s book drop again?”

  Cookie howled. I noticed her mouth was toothless. “That’s not funny!” Delphine said, shaking her finger at her. “You know it scares the crap out of Miss Lucy to put her hand in there and feel your teeth.”

  I reached into the Lost and Found box Lucy had given me and pulled out a plastic bag with a set of dentures inside. I slid the bag across the desk to Cookie, who slipped the dentures inside her mouth.

  Anna finally straggled in, looking fatigued and haggard. Her eyelids drooping, she gave a slight wave with her hand before grabbing at her stomach as she took her seat. “I’m sorry I’m late. I had to use the ladies’ room.”

  “She looks like crap!” Cookie yelled.

  Delphine shushed her mother.

  “I have to say, I think she’s right.” Mindy got up from her seat next to Anna and moved to an empty chair further away. “I hope you’re not coming down with something.”

  “Do you feel alright?” Celia asked, feeling Anna’s forehead with the back of her hand.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, grimacing as she once again clutched at her stomach. “I just stayed up late formulating my theories for the second fifty pages, so I didn’t get much sleep. Please, let’s start.”

  We dove right into the book

  I posed the first question. “On page sixty-seven Officer Cody discovers a blue thread on the staircase where the Widow Jenkins was killed. Any ideas where that blue thread might have come from?”

  “What?” Cookie shouted.

  “Where’d the blue thread come from?” Delphine shouted back into her mother’s ear.

  “Blue bread?” Cookie asked. “Sounds nasty. I’d throw it away.”

  “Thread!” Delphine shouted. “Blue thread! Where did the blue thread come from? Would you please turn up your hearing aid?”

  “It was Connie!” Cookie shouted. “She had a blue dress on. She did it. Shot that Brian dead!”

  “Miss Cookie, there was no Connie or Brian in this book,” Gertie said.

  Madigan leaned in toward us and whispered, “Miss Cookie is notorious for cheating and reading ahead, so Delphine gives her a different book to read. We all just nod our heads when she says stuff.” Madigan looked at Cookie and nodded her head. “Good for you, Miss Cookie. Connie’s a good choice.”

  Madigan turned back to me. “If I may, I have a theory. I remember Jenna wearing one of Cody’s shirts after she was at his house for dinner and spilled wine on her own blouse. That shirt was blue. I think that thread came from her.”

  A “Hmmmm” slipped out of Anna’s mouth. “But she has um...” Anna tried to snap her fingers, which fell short of connecting. “Um... you know.” Her speech was garbled. She yawned. “That thing, what’s the word?”

  “An alibi?” Edilia asked.

  Anna nodded. “Yes, that,” she said weakly. “She was nowhere near the Widow’s house when she was pushed down the... the...” Anna had a hard time moving her mouth as she stared at her mug.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Celia asked.

  Mindy shook her head. “I don’t need to tell everyone what sustained sleep loss can do in terms of our health, do I?”

  “Please don’t,” Ida Belle said.

  “Maybe you just need to drink more coffee,” Gertie said.

  Bea stood. “I’ll get it for you.” She took Anna’s mug and left the room.

  “Where were we?” Mindy asked. “Oh yes, the alibi. I have to agree with Anna on that point.”

  “But maybe the alibi’s not solid,” Madigan said. “I don’t trust Jenna.”

  “You just don’t trust Jenna because for some reason you don’t think she belongs with Cody,” Ida Belle said. She glanced at me. “I think she’s a perfect match for Cody.”

  “That’s not it,” Madigan said, her neck beginning to flush. “Just because I think Jenna is an interloper and Mona, Palm Springs born and bred, is a better fit for Carter is not the reason I think she left the blue thread.”

  “Cody!” several of the women said.

  Madigan’s face turned a beet red. “I said Cody.”

  Celia shook her head. “You said Carter. Didn’t she, Anna?” She glanced at Anna, whose face was draining of color. “Anna? You don’t look so healthy.”

  Anna moaned and stood up on shaky legs, which gave way, sending her face forward into the table. Coffee sloshed over mugs. Several women screamed. Others stared at her, paralyzed to act.

  Ida Belle, Gertie and I rushed over and gently pulled Anna up from the table. I felt for a pulse. It was weak, but she did have one.

  “Probably just crashed from lack of sleep,” Ida Belle said.

  But I could read Ida Belle’s face. I didn’t think this was ordinary sleep deprivation and neither did she.

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” Gertie whispered to me. “This looks serious. You two get her to the employee lounge.”

  I scanned the worried faces. “We�
�re going to take old sleepyhead here to the staff lounge so she can get more shuteye. Why don’t you all write your thoughts about the second fifty pages in your notebooks? We’ll continue the discussion later.”

  Celia stood. “There’s no way I’m trusting her to you three. I’m coming with you.”

  Chapter Seven

  DEAR DIARY,

  Now that felt satisfying. Funny what deadly things you can grow in a potato. I can’t claim all the credit for coming up with it. I read it years ago in a mystery novel, “One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato Die” about a gal who killed her husband with baked potatoes. Botulinum is such a fun little toxin. Loves to grow where there’s moisture but little oxygen, such as the inside of a potato baked in foil. Combined with improper storage after baking and your leftover potato can become a deadly weapon. You never hear that tip on the Food Network! Which is why I read mysteries and skip the cooking shows. Mystery novels are much more educational!

  It doesn’t always happen, of course. But given the look on Anna’s face before she slammed into the table, I’d say this hot potato was one ringing success. It’s her own fault, of course. I could tell she was going to be a threat. Besides, I don’t need her snooping around with the grand finale I have planned for tomorrow, although I question how good of a sleuth she is. I wonder if she could even tell I’d been in her house while she was out playing bingo, or that I’d switched chocolate cake slices with her. They looked identical, but the one I left her included an extract of potato innards added to an extra layer of frosting. And I bet she hadn’t noticed that I tossed the rest of the baked potato in her kitchen trash. Oh yes, I had quite a busy night last night.

  If the police suspect poison, they’ll look at everything in her kitchen, especially the trash for a clue about what she ate the night before. I learned that in “Trash Will Tell, book two of the Garbage Collectors Mystery series.” They’ll see the remains in the garbage and just assume that’s where she ingested the organism.

  Now, as for my grand finale, well, I’m certainly not going to use a potato. No, I think I’ll go with the tried and true antifreeze, a poison used in the book we’re currently reading and countless other books I’ve enjoyed over the years. Antifreeze is sweet. People have no idea they’re even drinking it until a couple of days later and their organs begin to fail. By then it’s too late. Of course, that’s harder to cover up than botulism in a potato. But not to worry, Diary, I already thought of that. It’s called planting the evidence.

  I’ve got to go. I hear sirens and they’re getting louder. An ambulance is here to pick up poor Anna and I must be among the sympathetic faces watching as she’s wheeled out. I’ll have to bite the inside of my cheek so I don’t laugh.

  Till then...

  Chapter Eight

  CELIA STOOD WITH HEAD Librarian Lucy and watched in disbelief as the paramedics wheeled their friend Anna through the library doors and into the waiting ambulance outside. Once the doors closed behind them, Lucy whipped her petite body around and stepped toward me, her dyed red curls slapping angrily against her forehead.

  “You are a plague!”

  “How is this my fault?”

  Celia waived her finger toward Ida Belle and Gertie. “You three tried to murder one of my friends.”

  “We didn’t try to murder her,” Ida Belle said. “She collapsed during the book club. The EMTs are suspecting botulism.”

  “Likely story.”

  “I have to concur,” Mindy said, walking up behind us with the rest of the book club members. “The symptoms she was exhibiting could pull for botulism. A very serious illness, I might add.” Mindy shifted nervously on her feet. “I noticed her using the library restroom several times before our meeting.”

  “I’ll say,” Cookie said loudly. “I couldn’t wheel myself out of there quick enough. Lucy, you need to put some matches in there.”

  “Mama, shhhhh. That’s rude.”

  “Not as rude as stinking up the place.”

  Celia folded her arms. “And how did she get botulism?”

  Gertie threw up her hands. “Food?”

  “I called Deputy Breaux and he’s over at Anna’s now looking in her refrigerator and her garbage,” Ida Belle said, “just in case she got it from something that she or someone else canned at home. Until the health officials find out where it came from, we should get out the word to stay away from any home canned items.”

  “Oh dear,” Mindy said. “I did a panel discussion at the senior center on that very issue last month.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” Bea said, “I got food poisoning last year. And Babs had it two months ago. It happens.”

  “Botulism isn’t your typical food poisoning,” Mindy said.

  “Still,” countered Edilia, “we can’t do anything right now. So can we please get back to the book club?”

  The Sinful Express “passengers” filed back into the room. “I’m going to the hospital and see if I can be of any assistance,” Celia said to Lucy. “I wouldn’t leave town if I were you three,” she barked at us before storming out of the library.

  We heard arguing coming from the community room, but when the three of us entered, the ladies clammed up. Gertie broke the silence by suggesting a prayer for Anna’s swift recovery.

  When we said our “amen’s,” Ida Belle let her gaze fall on every woman in the room. “I assume you were all debating whether one of us poisoned Anna,” she said, gesturing to herself, Gertie and me.

  Several of the women averted their eyes. Mindy kept Ida Belle’s gaze. “That might have come up.”

  “And then Edilia and I said how stupid that was,” Bea said.

  Trixi nodded. “I concurred. I’ve known you and Gertie since grade school. Though I’ve been in and out of Sinful several times over the decades, I was glad to come home still able to call you my friends. You and Ida Belle are two women of fine character.”

  Mindy shot me a look. My name hadn’t been mentioned.

  “But you aren’t suspecting Ida Belle and Gertie, are you?” I asked. “It’s me you’re really casting suspicion on.”

  “Heck yeah,” one woman said. She was one of Celia’s minions and the least talkative woman in the group, Susan. “Anna spoke about how mysterious you were and how you didn’t act like an ex-beauty queen should. And I’ve heard Lucy say you don’t act like a librarian either. Maybe you were afraid Anna would get too close to the truth. She is the best sleuth in here.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Mindy said. “I happen to be trailing by one point.” She looked back at me. “Though, what Susan said made sense.”

  Trixi folded her arms. “Yes, but that could be said about you, though, right? Maybe you wanted to get Anna out of the way to win as ‘Best Sinful Sleuth’ for this year.”

  Mindy chuckled. “I don’t need to poison my competition. I just need to keep one step ahead of them.”

  Ida Belle pointed toward Mindy. “And Fortune doesn’t need to poison anyone either!”

  The women began to argue, prompting Madigan to shoot up from her chair and jab the button on her model train. The whistle and chugga-chugga-chugga sound silenced the chorus of accusations. She glared at the faces around the table. “Ladies, we are passengers on the Sinful Express. We read mysteries and try our hands at solving them. We don’t point fingers at one another and accuse our fellow passengers of attempted murder.” Madigan thought a moment. “Unless one of you did poison Anna.” Her eyes landed on me.

  I held up my hands. “Okay, now stop. We don’t even know a crime was committed. If it’s food poisoning, she could have gotten it from food she prepared at home. So until the police say they’re suspecting a crime, why don’t we just get back to this week’s book?”

  We did. But I could tell from the wary side glances I was receiving from some of the women that, despite any evidence, I was suspect number one. I needed Anna to recover quickly.

  “SHE’S IN THE ICU,” Gertie said as she hung up the phone after speaking with M
yrtle, our spy in the sheriff’s department. We’d retreated to my house after the book club meeting to regroup. “Botulism. She’s on a ventilator and the doctors induced a coma hoping that will help her body fight the toxins.”

  Ida Belle was in midsip of coffee and immediately lowered her cup. “What?”

  So much for Anna recovering quickly. “Any idea how the toxin entered her system?”

  Gertie shrugged. “Deputy Breaux collected her kitchen trash and took it to the parish public-health unit to be tested. There were the remains of a baked potato wrapped in foil, so they’re thinking that’s probably where it came from.”

  Ida Belle shook her head. “I remember Mindy put on a presentation at the senior center about food safety. She mentioned baking potatoes wrapped in foil.”

  “You went to one of Mindy’s Grim Reaper presentations?” Gertie asked.

  “It was fried shrimp night,” Ida Belle said. “At least we can go back to the group tomorrow and tell them there’s no serial poisoner on the loose.”

  “Like the Celia faction will believe we had nothing to do with it,” I said. “With her gunning for me, I want Deputy Breaux there tomorrow to back us up.”

  The next day Deputy Breaux delivered his news to the Sinful Express “passengers.” Celia led the God’s Wives members in a Catholic prayer. Ida Belle led the Baptists in their prayer. Personally, I thought the prayers sounded exactly alike.

  “Was it an intentional poisoning?” Celia asked Breaux while glancing my way.

  The deputy shook his head. “I found what was left of a baked potato in foil, so it’s being tested. But they’re thinking that’s where it came from.” Deputy Breaux puffed up his chest. “So let that be a lesson to you ladies. You want to bake your potatoes? Skip the foil.”