Murder by Mushroom

by Virginia Smith

  But Dennis would suffer that and worse to learn from the best investigator in the state. One day he hoped to lay claim to that title himself.

  He picked up the folder containing the notes he’d printed off at home last night. For the most part, his job so far in this case had been great. He’d faithfully recorded notes of every conversation, every interrogation Conner conducted. Their case file was growing. True, they didn’t have much to go on yet, but the detective’s techniques were inspiring. He was certain to weasel out relevant information sooner or later.

  Dennis made his way down the hallway toward the crowded room where Conner’s desk was located. The lab report they’d received yesterday had indicated no evidence of Gyromitra ambigua on any of the utensils they had confiscated from Jackie Hoffner’s kitchen. True, they had been washed, but the wooden surface of her cutting board bore trace amounts of onions, peppers and ordinary mushrooms. Jackie hadn’t chopped Gyromitra ambigua on that surface. While she might not be a great dishwasher, Conner seemed ready to concede she wasn’t a viable murder suspect. Far more likely that the poisonous mushrooms were planted in a leftover portion of her pasta after it arrived at the victim’s home.

  Dennis grinned, remembering her expression on Sunday as she faced down Conner. That was one determined girl. While he was in complete agreement with Conner that she needed to stay out of their investigation, he couldn’t help but admire her spunk. If she carried out her plan to talk to the women in that church, she might just dig out a clue or two.

  Conner was already at his desk, reading through a typed report. He looked up when Dennis approached, his eyes fixing on the folder. “Those yesterday’s interrogation notes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. I needed them an hour ago.”

  He snatched the folder. Dennis bit back a sharp retort as Conner pulled out the neatly printed pages and scanned them. Yeah, he was learning a lot working with Conner. How to act like a good investigator. And how not to act like a total jerk.

  Tomorrow he’d be here at seven.

  He stood while Conner scanned the notes. The detective chewed a corner of his mustache while he read. When he finished the last page, he gave a nod. “Looks like it’s all there.”

  That was as close to a compliment as Dennis was likely to get. “Thanks.”

  Conner shuffled the papers and pulled a two-hole punch from a drawer. “I’ve got a team meeting us at the victim’s house at noon. I want to go through there one last time.”

  “But we already—” Dennis cut off his argument midsentence at a glance from Conner.

  “I want the surrounding property combed, too.” The detective punched holes in Dennis’s notes and slid them onto two metal prongs inside the folder he’d been reading when Dennis arrived. “Then we can cut the tape and release the house to the estate.”

  Dennis’s cell phone rang. With an apologetic grimace at Conner, he unclipped it from his belt and glanced at the display. His parents’ number. Before eight o’clock in the morning? Something must be wrong.

  He flipped open the cover. “Hello?”

  “Dennis.” Relief saturated his mother’s voice. “I’m so glad I got you.”

  The speed of his pulse kicked up a notch. “What’s wrong, Mom? Is Dad okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t he be? He’s out in the garage, as usual, fiddling with the lawn mower.”

  Dennis felt the weight of Conner’s stare. He turned his back. “Mom, is this important? I’m working.”

  “Of course it’s important. I wouldn’t be calling otherwise. I need you to come to the house for dinner tonight.”

  “Dinner?” Dennis lowered his voice and took a couple of steps away from the detective’s desk. “Why is that important?”

  “Because I’ve invited someone I want you to meet, and this is the only evening she can make it.”

  He closed his eyes. Lately his mother’s efforts to see him married off to a nice girl had crossed the line of mere nagging and become downright frustrating. “Mother, I am not coming to dinner tonight to let you parade another girl in front of me.”

  An outraged puff sounded in his ear. “Are you taking a tone with me, young man?”

  He took pains to reply calmly. “I’m in the middle of an important case. I don’t have time for this right now.”

  “But will you come tonight? I promised Kelly Jean you’d be here.”

  “Then you’ll have to call her back and unpromise her.”

  “I can’t do that!” A hint of desperation crept into his mother’s voice. “The poor girl will be so disappointed. She’s already made plans to be here.”

  “I hope you have a nice time with her,” Dennis said, leaving no room for argument. “I’ll be working late.”

  “Honestly, who would have thought that such a sweet, compliant little boy would become such an irritating man?” She humphed. “An irritating unmarried man.”

  Dennis raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Goodbye, Mom. Tell Dad I said hello.”

  He closed the cover and clipped the phone onto his belt. When he turned, he found Detective Conner watching him, arms folded across his chest.

  “Whenever you’re ready to get to work,” the surly detective said, “we have something a little more important than your love life to attend to. Like a murder to solve.”

  Jackie parked her car in front of a single-story brick house that had been converted into an office building. A sign on the door read Hockensmith Transcription Services. Sure that her recorder was turned on and the microphone clipped unobtrusively to her purse, she pushed her way through the front door. The jangle of bells announced her presence. She stopped just inside, faced with a maze of chest-high cubicle walls.

  A head appeared over the top of the nearest one, and a young woman peered at her from behind dark-rimmed glasses. “Can I help you?”

  “Uh, yeah, I’m looking for Sharon Carlson.”

  Another head popped up a few cubicles beyond the first, this one blond, wearing a headset. “I’m Sharon.”

  “Hi. I’m Jackie Hoffner, from church. Uh, Samantha’s church.”

  Sharon looked at her, waiting for her to go on. Jackie shifted her weight to the other foot. Now that she was here, she wasn’t sure how to begin. But she certainly couldn’t shout her questions across the room. “I wanted to ask you about something. Do you have a minute?”

  Sharon exchanged a look with the brunette, then shrugged. “Sure, I can take a break.”

  She removed the headset and stepped out from behind the partition, and gestured for Jackie to follow. “Come back here where we can talk privately.”

  Following her past a row of cubicles, Jackie ignored the inquisitive looks the occupants cast her way. They rounded the last wall and stepped into a small break room where Sharon took a bottle of water from an ancient refrigerator and held it toward her.

  “Or there’s coffee, if you’d rather.”

  “This is great, thanks.”

  Jackie took the proffered bottle and sat in one of three chairs at a round table that dominated the room. She set her purse on the table, off to one side. Hopefully Sharon wouldn’t look closely enough to notice the microphone.

  Sharon joined her and twisted the top off her own bottle, watching Jackie in silence with piercing blue eyes. She looked amazingly like her daughter. Blond hair swung in wispy locks around an oval face that was completely free from any sign of age. If she wore makeup, Jackie couldn’t detect it, but her skin shone with health. Her lithe frame belied the fact that she had ever given birth to a child.

  “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me,” Jackie said, stalling. Sitting across the table from Sharon’s expectant expression, her confidence from yesterday’s visits flagged. How did one casually bring up the subject of murder? This had been a lot easier with eager old Mrs. Sawyer.

  “I’ve got to admit, I’m curious. No one from the church has ever come to my office before. Is Samantha in some sort of trouble?”

  “Oh,
no.” As Jackie shook her head, an idea for an opening sprang to mind. “In fact, I wanted to make sure she’s okay. I’m sure you’ve heard about the death of Mrs. Alice Farmer.”

  Sharon’s expression did not change. “My father-in-law told us last week.”

  “It has been really upsetting to a lot of us at church,” Jackie continued. “And for a young, impressionable teenager like Samantha, it must be frightening.”

  “Not really.” Sharon shrugged. “I’m sure she knew the old woman, but they weren’t especially close.”

  “You’ve never heard Samantha mention Mrs. Farmer at all?”

  Sharon cocked her head. “Why would you ask that? Do you think Samantha is somehow involved in her death?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then why are you here?” Her eyes narrowed. “And don’t give me any garbage about being concerned for Samantha, because she’s never mentioned your name, either.”

  Swallowing a mouthful of water to relieve a throat gone suddenly dry, Jackie’s mind played tag with itself. Maybe she should have written out her questions before she arrived. Too late now.

  “I know what this is about.” Sharon sat back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “You aren’t here to check up on Samantha. You’re here to check up on me.”

  Busted!

  Jackie forced herself to remain calm as she screwed the lid back on her water bottle. “Actually, I did come across some information that might indicate you and your husband didn’t exactly get along with Mrs. Farmer.”

  Slamming a fist on the table, Sharon groaned. “Those gossiping old biddies at that church just can’t let anything go, can they? It was fifteen years ago! And they’d still like to paint a scarlet A on my forehead.” She leaned forward suddenly, looking directly into Jackie’s eyes. “And your Mrs. Farmer was the worst. That old bat had the nerve to call my house when she found out Nick was up for promotion and tell me she didn’t think he was suited for a job supervising people.”

  Jackie drew a breath. “Why would she do that? Why would she think her opinion mattered to you?”

  “Because she worked a million years at the Schilling Paper factory, and she still has friends there. She wanted to let Nick know if he moved forward with applying for that supervisor job, she intended to make sure her friends knew why he shouldn’t have it.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jackie said. “Lots of people have children and never even bother to get married. Surely that wouldn’t make any difference.”

  Sharon shook her head, her lips twisted. “You have no idea. This is a small town, and Schilling Paper is a family-owned business. The owners are Christians—” she spat the word “—and nobody holds a grudge like a Christian.”

  Jackie’s back stiffened. “Hey, I’m a Christian. I don’t hold grudges.”

  Blue eyes stared at her for a moment. When Sharon spoke, her voice dripped accusation. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  A flash of shame heated Jackie’s face. Though she wasn’t here to accuse Sharon of getting pregnant before she married, she was here because of an old woman’s gossip. Not a very good reflection on the character of a Christian.

  She met Sharon’s gaze. “Not because I hold any sort of grudge or even make any judgment about you. I’m just following up on a lead, trying to get to the bottom of a murder. If your husband had a reason—”

  Sharon placed both palms on the table and stood. She leaned across the surface until her face was inches from Jackie’s.

  “Leave my husband out of this. Leave my daughter out of this. And leave me out of it, too. That nasty old spider never did anything but spread her poison and cause us heartache. If you keep at it, you’ll end up just like her.”

  She left without another word. Stunned, Jackie sat in the silent room. Had she just been threatened? Reaching into her purse, she pulled out the recorder and saw that it was still running. Good. If she turned up dead, at least the police would have a record of the threat.

  Her hand shook as she slipped the device back into her purse. Rarely had she been on the receiving end of such anger. Was that the reaction of a murderer trying to cover her tracks? It might be. But something about the fierce fury on Sharon’s face made Jackie wonder. The emotion might also have been that of a wrongly accused woman who had been hurt by malicious actions too often in the past.

  She had botched this interview, for sure. Maybe she owed Sharon an apology. But how did one apologize to a furious potential murderer?

  She rose from the table and wound her way through the building toward Sharon’s desk.

  But with guilty relief, she discovered she wouldn’t have to figure it out today. Sharon’s cubicle was empty.

  “And whatever you do,” Margaret told her, “don’t accuse anyone of anything.”

  Jackie kept her attention on the road through the windshield of Margaret’s Buick. The last thing she needed this morning was a lecture from the pastor’s wife.

  “And I don’t just mean not to accuse anyone of murder,” Margaret went on, “but anything. Don’t accuse anyone of disliking Alice or of having a reason to resent her or anything. This is supposed to be a fun lunch, not a cross-examination.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Jackie didn’t bother keeping the sarcasm from her voice. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Margaret’s head jerk her way.

  Actually, if Jackie’s mother had survived the car accident, she would be about Margaret’s age. Aunt Betty had been a wonderful parent, but she was really a great-aunt, and much older than Jackie’s real mother. What would it have been like, having someone like Margaret around during her teenage years?

  Her mind turned to the teenager most often in her thoughts today: Samantha Carlson. Was she close to her mother? When Samantha was younger, had Sharon gone to her piano recitals and school plays? Had she taught her how to turn cartwheels in the grass, and do duck-unders on the swing at the park? A sick, guilty heat churned in the pit of Jackie’s stomach as she pictured Sharon’s face across the break-room table. The way she’d sneered at the word Christian revealed a deep disgust, maybe even hatred, toward anyone associated with the church. No wonder she never attended with her daughter. And Jackie certainly hadn’t done anything to change her opinion.

  She turned toward Margaret. “Do you think Mrs. Farmer was a Christian?”

  Margaret shot her a startled look. “What a question! Why do you ask?”

  “Sharon Carlson.”

  “I wondered how that went.”

  “Terrible. She really doesn’t like Mrs. Farmer, and she apparently thinks all Christians are out to get anyone who makes a mistake.” She looked down at her lap. “Me included.”

  “Ah. That couldn’t have been a comfortable conversation, then.”

  “It wasn’t.” Jackie looked up again. “But what gets me is the look in her eyes when she realized why I came to see her. She was angry, yes, but I think she was also…” She fell silent.

  “Hurt?” Margaret’s voice was a soft breeze.

  Jackie nodded. “And she blamed me, just because I’m a Christian. Guilt by association, or something. When she talked about Mrs. Farmer and others at the church, I felt…ashamed. I didn’t want to be associated with Christians if that’s how they acted.”

  She looked away, embarrassed by her admission. They rode in silence for a moment.

  “Christians aren’t perfect, Jackie,” Margaret said finally. “We all give in to the temptation to sin every now and then. Unfortunately, some sins hurt other people.”

  She executed a turn from County Road 68 onto the long driveway leading to Shaker Village. Jackie stared out the window at acres of green pastures framed by black plank fences. Horses grazed or stood serenely in pairs, soaking up the spring sunshine. Outside the car, peace reigned in those verdant fields. Inside the car, Jackie’s thoughts disturbed any pleasure she might have gotten from the charming scenery as Margaret steered the car down the narrow driveway and rolled to a stop in the shady parking lot.<
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  Margaret turned in her seat. “When Christians sin, we can so injure another person that it keeps them from accepting the Lord. How that must grieve Him! We’re supposed to be His representatives, and instead we turn others away by our actions.”

  Jackie felt pierced by Margaret’s regard.

  “Gossip and spite are sins, Jackie, and Christians aren’t immune to them. Sharon Carlson is a victim. We need to pray for her and do everything in our power to show her what Christian love is all about.”

  The memory of Sharon’s anger and pain were branded in Jackie’s mind. Margaret was right. Anyone who had been hurt like that needed prayer.

  “But what if she and Nick killed Mrs. Farmer?”

  Margaret shrugged. “They need Christ just like everyone else. The sooner the better, preferably before they go to prison.”

  Jackie gave a slow nod. She should pray for Sharon Carlson…and maybe ask for a little forgiveness herself.

  Her spirits lighter, she turned a smile on Margaret. “I’m starved. Let’s go eat.”

  EIGHT

  Jackie stepped inside the restaurant, an old Shaker building dating back to the mid 1800s now in use as a bed-and-breakfast. They informed the hostess of the number in their party, and then spent a few minutes admiring the furnishings. On each side of the entry hall, identical spiral staircases rose to the upper levels, their hand-carved wood railings gleaming with years of polish. A small room to the left of the front door held antique furniture and a display of Shaker items.

  “Here they come,” Margaret announced, gazing through a side window.

  Jackie performed a quick check of her recorder. She pressed the record button and clipped the microphone to the shoulder strap. Her conversations with Mrs. Sawyer and Sharon sounded perfect, but the mic’s range had been unobstructed. She couldn’t very well set her purse on the table at lunch, and she worried that their voices wouldn’t pick up well if she shoved it under the table.