“He’d have to be, to get away with that attitude.” Jackie studied him. Maybe without Detective Conner around to commandeer the conversation, she could actually get this guy talking. “So you found a knife, huh?”
His eyes slid toward the house before returning to her. “I don’t think the detective would appreciate me talking to you about the case.”
Jackie scuffed a toe in the packed dirt. Flirting had never worked out well for her, so she hesitated trying it now. But how could she get him talking?
“He wouldn’t have to know,” she suggested. “And besides, I already saw the knife. I’m just trying to figure out whether or not the killer intended to use it if the mushrooms didn’t work.”
No answer except a slight shake of his head.
“Don’t tell me there’s another victim. You didn’t find that knife in a body out back, did you?”
His eyebrows rose. “That’s quite an imagination you’ve got there, Miss Hoffner.”
She waved a hand. “Call me Jackie.”
“Jackie.”
Her name, spoken in his low voice, sent a delicious shiver coursing through her.
Okay, so maybe a little flirting wouldn’t hurt.
“Tell you what, Trooper—”
“Dennis.” His lips twitched into a sideways grin that made her mouth go dry.
“Tell you what, Dennis. If you tell me what you found in the backyard, I’ll promise to tell you if I find any hard evidence. Not just rumors, but actual clues.”
“You’ve heard rumors?” He stood straighter. “Anything we should know about?”
“I don’t know.” Jackie looked pointedly toward the backyard. “Maybe.”
“You know I can’t talk to you about the case.” His grin teased her, almost as if he knew what he was doing to her stomach.
A glance down the driveway, toward the back of the house, showed her the deep wooded area behind Mrs. Farmer’s backyard. Thickets of scrub bushes and trees grew freely between the house and the neighbors, providing plenty of cover for someone sneaking into the backyard from those woods. And mushrooms grew in woods, right?
She cocked her head and looked up at him disarmingly. “So that paper plate I saw, was it lying near the knife?”
Watching him carefully, she saw the grin melt a tiny bit.
“Like maybe someone had been using them both,” she went on. “Maybe slicing mushrooms, while wearing rubber gloves?”
Aha. Now the grin faded completely and his focus slid toward the house. She was on the right trail.
“You know,” she said, trying to hide her growing excitement, “you can lift fingerprints from the inside of the gloves. I saw it on CSI.”
The crooked grin returned. “We know.”
“But this proves that no one at the church could have done it. At least not at the potluck.” She thought of Julie McCoy, who had dished up the leftover portions of the casserole. “The killer chopped the mushrooms in the backyard, or maybe even in the woods, and then slipped into the house to plant them in the leftovers.”
No bites on that fishing expedition. Crossing his arms, he pursed his lips and gave her a stern look. “I want to talk about those rumors. If you discover something relevant to the case, you have to tell us. Withholding evidence in a murder case is a crime.”
Jackie knew he was right. On the other hand, so far she’d only heard gossip, and she really didn’t want to pass on gossip. Especially gossip about Sharon Carlson.
But he was the police. Besides, if she cooperated by telling him at least part of what she’d discovered, maybe she could convince him to return the favor. He was certainly a lot more likely to talk to her than Detective Conner.
“Well, it seems Mrs. Farmer has made a few enemies around the church. She apparently liked to write letters pointing out what people were doing wrong. She was well-known for them.”
“Any specific letters you’ve heard about?”
Avoiding his gaze, she answered, “There was one a while back, to the former pastor, complaining about the way his wife dressed. I heard there’ve been others, too.” She stopped. If he didn’t ask which others, she wasn’t going to volunteer the information. “I guess not many people at church liked her.”
“What about—”
Behind them, the door was thrown open, and the detective’s voice barked, “Walsh!”
They both turned. Jackie swallowed hard, feeling like she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t. One glance at Dennis’s face told her he felt the same.
“Yes, sir?”
“I need you in here.” Conner glared at Jackie. “If you can spare the time, that is.”
As he turned to walk toward the house, Dennis lifted his shoulders and gave her a brief smile. “See you later.”
Watching him close the door, Jackie hoped so.
At three-fifteen, Margaret pulled onto the street that ran beside the high school. She drove slowly, scanning the teenagers crowding the sidewalk until she caught sight of an arm waving her down.
“Hi, Mrs. Palmer,” said Samantha as she slid into the passenger seat. She put a bulging backpack on the floor at her feet. “Thanks for giving me a ride.”
“I’m glad to do it.” Margaret drove to the end of the street and then turned right. “Is there anyplace you need to go, or do you just want me to take you straight home?”
When Samantha called the parsonage this morning and asked if she could bum a ride home from school, Margaret suspected the teen had more on her mind than just a ride. Looking at the troubled expression on her face now, she was sure of it. The girl avoided eye contact as she absently twirled a blond lock of hair in front of her ear. It had been almost ten years since Margaret’s boys lived at home, and she had never been blessed with girls, so she didn’t have much experience reading the nonverbals.
“Or do you want to go somewhere and get a Coke?” Margaret asked.
Samantha nodded.
Margaret drove through town, the silence between them growing awkward. She racked her brain, trying to come up with something to say, something to draw the girl out, but nothing came to mind.
Lord, I can tell she needs help. Can You give me a hand, here?
On the other side of town, Margaret turned right onto U.S. 60 and then into the parking lot of the first fast-food restaurant she saw, a Wendy’s. She parked the car in the space nearest the road and turned to look at her passenger.
“Maybe I’m out in left field somewhere, but you seem worried. Is there anything I can help with?”
Sometimes people just needed an opening. That was certainly true of Samantha, because her eyes filled and her chin started to quiver.
“I have this friend,” she said as a tear slipped down first one smooth cheek and then the other.
A friend? Was this going to be one of those “friend with a problem” stories?
“Go on.”
Samantha’s breath shuddered as she inhaled. “My friend has a drinking problem. I’m pretty sure of it, but she says she doesn’t.”
Margaret struggled to keep her expression impassive. Not pregnant, which was a big relief, but an alcohol problem? Sweet little Samantha? Her grandfather would be devastated.
“What makes you think your…friend…has a problem?”
Samantha glanced sharply at her. “It really is my friend. Her name is Liz. I don’t even drink.” She paused, then looked away and added softly, “Anymore.”
Margaret didn’t detect any sign of dishonesty. She dropped her hands to her lap. “Anymore? So does that mean you have in the past?”
Samantha nodded.
“I see. And maybe you’ve even been drinking with Liz?”
Samantha closed her eyes and nodded again.
“Do you want to tell me how it started?”
The girl sat for a long moment before speaking. “We used to sneak out of the house on Friday nights. I have to sneak,” she said with a quick glance, “’cause I’m never allowed to do anything.”
A trace of teenage disgust colored her tone, reminiscent of Margaret’s own sons’ frustration over household rules stricter than their friends’. Margaret hid a smile and nodded for her to continue.
“At first it was no big deal. It was just fun. We’d walk up to the McDonald’s where some of the kids hang out, and everyone would sit around on the hoods of their cars and talk. Sometimes we’d get to go cruising down Main Street with someone who had room in their car.
“That’s when we first tried drinking. This guy had a bottle of cherry vodka, and we bought Cokes and made cherry Cokes.” She paused. “You won’t tell my parents, will you?”
Margaret caught her gaze and held it. “You’re not drinking anymore, are you?” Samantha shook her head. “Then no, I won’t. We’ll consider this a counseling session, so what you say stays between us.”
“I thought only preachers had counseling sessions.”
Margaret grinned. “Preachers’ wives have them, too, on occasion.”
The girl’s shoulders relaxed. “Thanks. Anyway, that first night I drank way too much. After I got home I barfed out my bedroom window all night. The next morning I had to take a hose out there and clean it up before anyone saw.”
“Lovely,” Margaret said drily. “And you enjoyed yourself so much that you went out the next Friday night and did it again?”
“Something like that. Anyway, once we started drinking, it seemed like everyone we met had alcohol. Beer, whiskey, vodka, wine. Every week it was something different.”
“Where do they get it?”
“Oh, it’s not hard. There are people who’ll get it for you. Anyway, one day I went to school—it was a Monday—and Liz called me over to her locker. She had a bottle of vodka in there.”
“And that’s when you knew she had a problem.”
Samantha nodded. “I told her it was a bad idea, we might get caught. But she didn’t care and she said if I didn’t want any that just left more for her. That was about a month ago. She drinks every day now, and sneaks out almost every night. And sometimes she gets so trashed she’s…getting into other stuff.”
“Drugs?”
“No.” Samantha gulped. “Sex. She gets so wiped out she tells me the next day that she can’t remember who she was with. That’s happened more than once.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. Margaret reached into the backseat for a box of tissue and handed her one.
“Have you tried talking to her?”
Samantha nodded. “I even looked up some stuff on alcoholism so I could tell her what could happen to her. That was scary. I went to the library downtown in case my mom and dad checked the Internet history at home and somebody from church came in. I was afraid I might get caught looking up Web sites about alcoholism, but I don’t think they saw me.”
“What does Liz say when you try to talk to her?”
“She doesn’t want to hear it. She tells me she’s just having some fun, and there’s nothing wrong with it. She says I’ve turned into a goody-goody.”
Margaret heard the pain in Samantha’s voice and watched her blot at a fresh batch of tears.
“It’s my fault, Mrs. Palmer. I’m the one who wanted to take the first drink with the cherry vodka. Liz really didn’t want to, and I talked her into it. She doesn’t go to church, and I do. I know better. And look what I’ve done!”
The tears fell freely now, and Margaret slid across the seat to put her arms around the sobbing girl. She ached for this poor child who was learning a painful lesson in integrity—one some people never managed to understand.
When the sobs subsided, Margaret handed her a fresh tissue.
“Are you a Christian, Samantha?” Blotting at her eyes, the girl nodded. “Then the first thing you need to do is ask God to forgive you for anything you’ve done wrong. And then start praying for Liz. I will, too.”
“Okay.” A huge sniff, and reddened eyes turned Margaret’s way. “But what else can I do?”
“Well, I think you need to continue to be honest with Liz and tell her why you’re worried about her. And maybe you could invite her to church.”
“She’ll never come. I can’t even get my mom to come to church with me.”
Margaret wanted to ask a few questions about that, too, but bit her tongue. Now was not the time.
“Then we’ll pray about that, too. I’m sure God will show you what to do.”
Jackie turned from Main Street onto U.S. 60, heading toward the grocery store for cat food. The first traffic light turned red as she approached, and her car glided to a halt. She glanced through the passenger window.
Wasn’t that Margaret’s Buick in the Wendy’s parking lot? Yes, it sure was. Margaret herself sat in the car, along with someone else. Who?
The light changed, and Jackie inched forward. A blonde sat in the passenger seat. It looked like…Was it Sharon Carlson? Jackie nearly wrenched her neck staring as she drove slowly past. As she came parallel to the window, Margaret leaned back and the other woman leaned forward, giving Jackie a clear view of her face. No, it wasn’t Sharon. That was Samantha Carlson in Margaret’s car.
What in the world was Margaret talking so intently about with the daughter of one of Jackie’s murder suspects?
Another pair of eyes, peering through the window of a bigger car, glimpsed the blonde in the passenger seat of the tan Buick.
This development was most disturbing. Something had to be done about it.
Quickly.
TEN
Linus leaped onto the dinette table, directly in the center of Jackie’s notebook.
“Get out of the way, you goof.” She picked up the cat and stroked his soft fur a couple of times before returning him to the floor.
Not to be deterred, Linus sauntered around to the other side of the table and leaped again. He sat primly at the far end of the table, his tail curled around his body and his amber eyes fixed on Jackie.
“As long as you stay over there, you’re okay.”
Jackie picked up her pen and punched play on the recorder. She was thrilled with the quality of the recording from lunch. Esther’s voice sounded as clear as if Jackie had held the microphone right under her nose.
“Well, she wasn’t a nice old lady by any standard I ever heard. I can think of several reasons someone might want to get rid of her.”
“Esther.” That was Margaret.
“It’s true. Everybody here knows that. I’m just stating a fact.”
Jackie pushed Stop and scribbled in her notebook below a heading in neat block letters that read ESTHER HODGES. She pressed Play again, listened all the way to the end, and double-checked her notes to make sure she had all her thoughts written down. Then she turned off the recorder and looked at the page.
“I don’t know, Linus. I mean, she’s certainly still angry over the letter that got her son fired. But the guy’s okay now. He has a good job and a nice wife with straight teeth. Mrs. Farmer wasn’t a threat to him anymore.”
She tapped the pen against her lips.
“So that means her motive is revenge, plain and simple. But she just doesn’t seem like the vengeful sort. Especially when she’s looking forward to having a grandchild someday soon. Why would she jeopardize that?”
Immobile, Linus watched the tapping pen with rapt fascination.
Jackie flipped the page and stared at the notes beneath the heading SHARON CARLSON. Sharon had a motive—trying to protect her husband’s chance for a promotion at the paper factory. There was no doubt she disliked Mrs. Farmer, but enough to kill her?
“If only we could get a look in her kitchen and see if she has a set of knives matching the paring knife the police found.”
Jackie flipped to another page, this one labeled CLUES. She had spent the afternoon surfing the Internet to research poisonous mushrooms. Her computer, a clunky thing about a million years old with a dial-up modem, was more frustrating than helpful. She hated it. The old thing ran so slowly it almost wasn’t worth using, and the connection
dropped frequently without warning. But she suffered through several hours of surfing to make sure she had her facts straight before she wrote anything on her list of clues.
She read the short list to Linus.
“Poisonous mushrooms in the woods behind Mrs. Farmer’s house. That’s the only possible explanation for the plate and knife the police found back there. But the mushroom site on the Internet said that’s nothing unusual—they grow just about everywhere this time of year.”
“Mushrooms planted in leftovers. Well, yeah. But since that kind of poisonous mushroom usually only makes you sick, the killer would have to know that Mrs. Farmer had heart problems.” She shrugged. “That’s just about everybody at church, and probably everybody who knew her outside of church, too.
“Knife. The one I saw was small, like a paring knife. We don’t know for sure if that’s what the killer used, but it’s likely. Unfortunately you can get a paring knife anywhere, even the dollar store. So unless they can find fingerprints, it probably won’t help much. I don’t think they’ll find anything on the knife, because of these.”
She drummed the tip of the pen on the next item on her list.
“Rubber gloves. Not the yellow kitchen glove variety, but the thin, translucent doctor’s-office kind. Those could be the break we need, if the police can get fingerprints off the insides. Of course, you can probably buy rubber gloves in a drugstore, but I’m guessing a killer wouldn’t want to have a box of gloves with only two missing laying around his house for the police to find. It would be a lot safer to pick up a couple from someone else’s box. So we need to know who has access to rubber examination gloves. Doctors, of course, along with anyone who works for them. And who do we know who works for doctors?”
Linus remained silent, his eyes following the pen in Jackie’s hand.
“I’ll tell you who. Sharon Carlson.” Jackie flipped the page in her notebook. “See, I wrote right here after talking to Samantha on the phone the other night that Sharon would be at work as long as she wasn’t out doing deliveries. A medical transcriber delivers the documents she types to the doctor’s offices. So that means Sharon has access to the rubber gloves there.”
Murder by Mushroom Page 9