Rhubarb Pie Before You Die

by Gin Jones

  “Your cat,” he said. “From Graham Winthrop’s yard. The police said you wanted her. You’re lucky I was able to catch her so quickly. I found the spot where Graham had been feeding her, so I could set the trap right where she’s used to finding food. She must not have been fed this morning, so she was hungry enough to go after the bait right away.”

  “Wait,” Mabel said as her phone pinged to let her know she’d received a text. She hoped it was from Jeff Wright, but she needed to deal with Graham’s cat first. “I didn’t say I wanted the cat, just that someone ought to look after it.”

  “Guess that someone is you.” Vance paused in the middle of pulling the trap closer to the van’s doors. “You will take her, right? She’s pregnant. Kind of late in the season, but all the usual foster homes are overwhelmed or burned out after all the kittens they’ve dealt with for the last six months and they’re not taking any new placements. You’re my last option.”

  “I thought she was a barn cat. Don’t they usually get neutered so they can’t reproduce? All of Aunt Peggy’s were fixed before I got here.”

  “This one wasn’t a working cat,” he said. “Can’t tell for sure, but she seems feral, although it could just be the hormones of pregnancy. She’s in good health overall though. I stopped by the vet and had her tested. She’s negative for the most serious contagious diseases so she won’t be a danger to your barn cats once she’s released. You’ll need to keep her contained though until the kittens are born. And then for a couple of months afterwards, until her kittens are weaned and socialized for adoption.”

  “I can’t do all that,” Mabel said. “I won’t even be here that long. I’m leaving town soon.”

  Vance laughed. “What? You’re planning to go on the lam? I bet you killed Graham so you could steal his cat, and now you’re just pretending not to want her.”

  “I don’t want the cat,” Mabel said. “And I’m not going on the lam. I’m selling the farm. I agreed to the deal shortly before I found Graham’s body.”

  “I was just kidding,” he said, but Mabel couldn’t help thinking that jokes often hid a great deal of truth. If even the animal control officer thought she might have had a reason to kill Graham, absurd as it was, then maybe Charlie had been right in thinking that the homicide detective—the one she hadn’t met yet from the state police, if not the local one—would certainly have her on the list of suspects. She had to nip this in the bud.

  “I didn’t kill Graham, and I didn’t have any reason to.”

  “Good to know.” Vance reached inside the van to bring the trap closer, until the tortoiseshell cat inside was visible. “Since you’re not going to be arrested in the next few days, you can take her. Just until the kittens are born. It’ll only be a couple of weeks, max, according to the vet. In the meantime, I’ll work on finding a foster home for the whole family once they’re born. I’ve got to say though that we’re stretched pretty thin when it comes to placing cats. Nothing we do ever seems to cut down on the feral population. They’re incredibly prolific breeders.”

  Mabel tried not to look at the trap or its occupant, but knowing she shouldn’t risk getting attached to another cat only added to the temptation to inspect it. She gave in, and confirmed that it was the same cat she’d seen racing out of the greenhouse. She was tiny, except for her bowling-ball-sized belly.

  “What will happen if I don’t take her in?”

  “She’d have to stay at the shelter,” he said. “And if she’s feral, well, they don’t do well in that setting. The stress could cause her to miscarry the kittens.”

  Mabel looked into the cat’s golden eyes, which glared back with obvious, lethal hatred. Mabel had to admire the simple honesty. At least with cats, unlike with human beings, there was never any doubt about what they were thinking. This cat was plotting escape. Followed by murder. Although she’d settle for the other way around if necessary.

  “She hates me.”

  “It’s nothing personal,” Vance said without disagreeing with Mabel’s assessment. “You’d hate anyone who locked you up in a cage too.”

  Was that another joke about getting arrested? Mabel wasn’t sure. Another reason to like cats. They didn’t make obscure jokes.

  “I’m really busy right now, with the farm’s sale and all.”

  “It won’t take much time at all,” he said. “And you won’t be doing this all alone. I can give you a crate to keep her in until the birth if that will help. She’ll know what to do when she goes into labor. And then once the kittens are born, I can arrange for the mom to be spayed, and the shelter will help spread the word about kittens available for adoption. All you have to do is give them a little space in your house and feed the momcat.”

  Mabel sighed. She knew it wouldn’t actually be that easy, but she also knew what Vance was going to say if she argued with him, because he’d done it before. He was going to say that her aunt would have taken in the cat and her soon-to-be kittens without a second thought. It was true. And Aunt Peggy would have wanted Mabel to do it too.

  There really wasn’t any solid reason to say no. If all she had to do for the cat was let it stay in a crate somewhere, it could stay in her aunt’s bedroom. Mabel had been sleeping in the smaller, second bedroom, the one she’d stayed in when she’d visited as a child. It was something of a stretch to call her aunt’s room a “master” bedroom anyway, since the two rooms were the exact same size and layout. The main difference was just how much furniture and odds and ends each room held. Mabel’s room held nothing but the bare necessities, while her aunt’s room was stuffed to capacity with barely a clear path between the door and the various pieces of furniture. Mabel hadn’t been able to face sorting through it before now, but the clutter was going to have to be removed soon for the farm’s sale, and having to make space for the cat’s crate would help motivate her to deal with her aunt’s possessions.

  “Two weeks,” Mabel said finally, ignoring another ping from her phone. Porter had said he could close in just a week, but she didn’t think he’d withdraw the offer if she asked for another week to finish packing everything. Even if the cat weren’t an issue, she’d need that long to sort out the contents of the house. Porter would have to understand that she needed a little extra time, especially if she showed him the clutter hidden behind the kitchen cabinet doors. “I can keep her for exactly two weeks. Not one minute more.”

  “I’ll start looking for a foster home right away,” Vance promised, pulling the trap the rest of the way out of the van and handing it to her. “You take this, and I’ll bring the crate into the house for you.”

  * * * *

  The animal control officer carried the crate up to Aunt Peggy’s bedroom with Pixie at his heels. Vance stayed long enough to help move a pair of reading chairs and small table to clear a space in the corner to set up the crate. After it was installed and the cat released into it from the trap, he’d gone back to the van twice and brought in the basic supplies she’d need, from a litter box and litter to a special brand of kibble for pregnant or nursing cats. Mabel couldn’t help thinking that she was supposed to be getting things out of the farmhouse in preparation for the sale, not bringing more things in. As it was, she’d had to toss the moving boxes out into the hallway. Even folded flat, they took up too much space in the crowded room.

  Finally, Vance covered the crate with a canvas drop cloth, explaining that cats, especially feral ones, felt safer when they were tucked into a cozy spot, unable to see humans. “Or other cats,” he added, gently moving Pixie away from where she was trying to pull back the cloth to peer inside. “It’s best to keep them separated, at least until the kittens are born and weaned. Momcats can get aggressive due to hormones.”

  Mabel picked up Pixie and followed Vance out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her before she put down the cat and went downstairs. After the animal control officer left, she gave Pixie a handful of treats to apol
ogize for evicting her from a portion of her territory.

  She checked her phone to see who’d been pinging her, hoping it was Jeff Wright, but it was just a spam call. Her thoughts returned to Vance’s joke about her having killed Graham. She’d thought Charlie was being paranoid on her behalf, but now that a second person suggested she might be a suspect, she had to take it seriously. She’d been the object of curiosity before, but she’d never been the focus of suspicion. This time, it seemed as if everyone in town might be wondering if she’d just killed someone.

  She definitely needed to divert attention elsewhere. Except she had no idea who might be a better suspect than herself. Lena was a possibility, but no matter how seriously the woman took her role as president of the homeowners’ association, would she really have killed Graham over some messy hedges? And would she have used rhubarb leaves as the murder weapon?

  If not Lena, then who?

  Mabel needed more information, and she knew exactly where to get it. She gave Pixie a pat and a warning to stay away from the pregnant cat’s room, grabbed her phone and headed for the library. She could always count on Josefina Marshall, everyone’s favorite librarian, according to both Josefina herself and if not quite literally “everyone,” at least the vast majority of the local residents.

  When Mabel walked inside the main lobby shortly after five o’clock, Josefina was in her usual spot behind the checkout counter. In her late seventies, she had white hair with a jagged streak of hot pink on top, just off-center, and she generally wore clothes in assorted coordinating shades of pink. At the moment, she wore a white blouse topped with a neon pink cardigan.

  Josefina was looking down at her computer’s keyboard while her hands, bent and swollen with arthritis, hunted and pecked at the keys. Mabel always cringed at the librarian’s typing and had to fight the urge to offer to take over for her, not so much because it was so slow and inefficient, which would be irritating in other circumstances, but because it looked so painful.

  When she finally looked up and caught sight of Mabel, Josefina squealed like a teenager and raced around the checkout counter much faster than her age should have allowed to engulf Mabel in a hug.

  Mabel had been counting on finding Josefina here, since she seemed to work around the clock, seven days a week. When Mabel had first arrived in West Slocum, she’d needed to use the library’s public internet and phones quite frequently until the access at the farm was upgraded, and Josefina had always been at the checkout counter.

  Mabel still wasn’t ever completely prepared for dealing with the librarian. She liked Josefina, who would undoubtedly have all the information for coming up with a list of suspects in Graham’s death, but there was a price. Hugs. Josefina hugged everyone, especially if they were new to the library or a long-time patron she hadn’t seen for a while or she’d heard something sad or distressing about their lives. Or, really, just because it was a Monday afternoon.

  Mabel had grown accustomed to it, and was careful to tamp down on her automatic urge to push the frail librarian away, but it still felt like an eternity before she was released.

  Josefina stepped back and peered at Mabel. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I wouldn’t be if I were you.” Josefina headed back to her spot behind the checkout counter. “What’s the world coming to, with dead bodies in greenhouses?”

  “Just one body.”

  “It’s still shocking,” Josefina said. “I always thought Graham would die of grief, just sort of fade away. He’s been getting more and more detached from reality ever since his wife died about ten years ago. She was so young, and he took it hard. She had some kind of cancer, although I don’t know all the details.”

  “What about his rhubarb obsession?” Mabel thought it had to have something to do with Graham’s death, possibly giving rise to the killer’s motive. It just didn’t make sense that someone would force-feed him the leaves—assuming he hadn’t eaten them intentionally—unless they were trying to send some sort of message. “His breeding work seemed to give him a purpose for living. Did he ever talk to you about that?”

  Josefina looked down at her keyboard for a moment as if it held all the answers and then looked up again. “He wasn’t a regular patron, but he did come in occasionally. He asked for my help two or three years ago, when he was researching the use of rhubarb leaves to cure cancer. He said he’d just discovered their potential, and they might have saved his wife if he’d known earlier.”

  “That’s odd,” Mabel said. “Rory told me they’re highly poisonous.”

  “Oh, they are,” Josefina said. “I did some background research when Graham first mentioned his theory. I thought it was interesting that he wasn’t the first person to think the leaves might be edible. Perhaps because both the roots and the stalks have some purported medicinal benefits, so they assumed the leaves must too. During a food shortage in England in the midst of World War I, people were mistakenly advised to supplement their vegetables with rhubarb leaves. Fortunately, it takes a lot of them to kill you, or the consequences would have been worse. I warned Graham to be careful, but I don’t know if he listened.”

  “What if his breeding program had produced a variety where the leaves were non-poisonous?”

  “That would be remarkable, but I doubt it happened,” Josefina said. “From what I read, scientists don’t even know what it is that makes the leaves so toxic, so they wouldn’t know what to breed out of them. There’s a relatively large amount of something called oxalic acid that’s not good for you, but they suspect there’s a second, unidentified element that’s even more toxic. In any event, you’d probably have to eat a huge amount of the leaves, a whole bushel basket of them, not just a regular half-cup serving of greens, for a lethal dose. Even a few bites can make you good and sick, but it’s hard to imagine anyone would eat enough for the oxalic acid to be fatal. At least not without first going to the hospital for treatment.”

  “Maybe he did go, but no one figured out he’d been poisoning himself by testing his theory,” Mabel said. “Do you know what the symptoms are?”

  “Not offhand.” She keyed a few painful-looking words into her terminal’s search engine. “Ah, here it is. The symptoms are mostly gastrointestinal, and then if it progresses to damaging the kidneys, there could be fatigue, faintness and weakness. Oh, and this is interesting. One symptom of kidney failure is trouble thinking clearly. That could explain a lot about Graham’s recent behavior. He was usually confused, rather than aggressive.”

  “He wasn’t very logical at all last night. I was surprised to find out he was a lawyer.”

  “Maybe he had been experimenting on himself,” Josefina said sadly. “I’ve been hearing rumors that he’d been making mistakes in court for the last couple of years. I figured any mistakes he’d made were due to being distracted by his hobby. Now, I have to wonder if he was sick and deteriorating mentally.”

  Mabel was going to ask about the clients who’d been upset with Graham, but Josefina pulled her pink cardigan around her more closely and said, “Enough about Graham. How are you doing? It must have been terrible to find his body.”

  “I’m fine,” Mabel said. “But I’m worried that people think I killed Graham.”

  Josefina waved a hand dismissively. “It’s nothing personal. They don’t know you yet, but they’ll realize how silly they’re being once the real killer is caught.”

  “What if he’s never caught?” Mabel said. “Detective O’Connor seemed a little green to be handling a homicide case.”

  “He’s getting help from an experienced homicide detective, but I know what you mean. It would be more reassuring if someone who was both local and experienced were in charge. O’Connor knows the people around here and has access to the local grapevine, but he might not know what clues to pay attention to or what information he should pass along to the more experienced detective.�
�

  “What’s the grapevine saying about the murder?” Mabel braced herself for confirmation that people were betting on her as the culprit.

  “Not a whole lot yet,” Josefina said. “All I know for sure is that he was stabbed in the back.”

  “Literally?” Mabel sometimes had trouble telling when statements were meant metaphorically. “Or do you mean they think he was betrayed by someone he trusted?”

  “Both.” Josefina sounded certain.

  “But there was no blood,” Mabel said. “At least none that I saw. Of course, he was lying on his back when I found him, so his body might have hidden it.”

  “I heard the cops were surprised too. Apparently the blood seeped into the dirt floor of the greenhouse, so no one noticed until the body was moved.”

  “I really thought he’d been poisoned. He had rhubarb leaves sticking out of his mouth when I found him.”

  “Oooh, I hadn’t heard about that,” Josefina said with a little too much relish. “Someone must have put them there after he died then.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “I know,” Josefina said without hesitation. “And I’m sure you didn’t stab him either.”

  “Definitely not.” Mabel said. “Do you know anything about what he was stabbed with?”

  “It was his own gardening knife.” Josefina shook her head at the irony. “He really loved that knife. I sort of feel responsible. He came to me shortly after his wife died, wanting to know what the best tools were for planting and harvesting. My research suggested a hori-hori knife was indispensable. It’s multipurpose, with a serrated edge that’s good for cutting the leaves off stalks, and a beveled tip so it can be used as a dibble for transplanting the seedlings.”

  That wasn’t what Mabel wanted to hear. The police might be able to identify a suspect by way of the murder weapon if the killer had brought it to the greenhouse. But if it had already been there, then anyone would have had access to the first of the three elements for identifying a suspect: means by which the murder could be done. And looking just at motive and opportunity, Mabel was, at least logically, a prime suspect. It could be argued she was desperate to keep him from filing charges against Rory, which created motive, and by finding and reporting the body, she’d identified herself as someone who had been at the crime scene and, depending on the time of death, could have had the opportunity to kill.