Claw Enforcement

by Sofie Ryan

  We stepped into the shop, where Rose was circling a wire mannequin torso that was taller than she was. A long striped scarf was wrapped around its neck. Charlotte walked over to join her.

  I went upstairs thinking I’d get another cup of coffee, but instead I detoured into my office. Elvis was stretched out in the middle of my desk. He looked like he was doing a yoga corpse pose.

  I caught sight of the guitar case beside my desk. It held a Seagull S6 that I’d bought a week ago from Cleveland, who had scavenged it from the contents of an old basement he’d been hired to lug to the landfill. I knew the Canadian company made good instruments—it had a cedar top and maple neck—but the guitar had only had three strings so I couldn’t judge its tone. Still, it had seemed like a good buy and so I’d said yes to Cleveland’s price. I needed to get to the music store and buy a new set of strings so I could be sure, as Liam had said when we were talking about Joe Roswell, that I hadn’t bought a pig in a bonnet.

  “I should just run down to the music store now and get the strings,” I said to Elvis.

  “Mrrr,” he said. It could have meant “yes, you should” or it could have meant “whatever.” I decided to go with the former.

  I went back downstairs. It was quiet in the shop. Charlotte was watering the teacup gardens, a perennial favorite with tourists. Rose was nowhere to be seen.

  “I’m going down to Herbie’s to get a set of strings for that guitar up in my office,” I said to Charlotte.

  “So you think it’s in good shape?” she said.

  “I don’t think it spent very long in that basement.” I reached down to turn one of the teacups a half circle so all the handles were pointing in the same direction. “The neck is straight and the body is in very good shape. There’s no sign of mold or warping.”

  “Do you think Nick would like it?”

  I tucked my hair behind one ear. “Maybe,” I said. Nick was a very talented musician although he tended to downplay his ability. “Why? Did he say something about it?” Nick had stopped by the day I’d bought the guitar from Cleveland. He’d tuned the three strings and told me I’d gotten a good deal.

  “No.” Charlotte shook her head. “I just noticed how completely focused he was when he was playing with that guitar. I thought maybe I’d surprise him with it for Christmas. What do you think?”

  I remembered watching Nick with his head bent over the instrument. “I think it’s a great idea,” I said.

  “Are we going to argue about the price?” she asked.

  “Probably,” I said.

  She smiled. “Good to know.”

  I drove down to the music store and bought the guitar strings. Sam had offered to restring the guitar for me and I thought that I should probably stop by the pub and make sure the offer was still open. The fact that Mac was there trying to get information out of Cassie Gibson was just a happy coincidence. At least that’s what I told myself.

  I stepped inside The Black Bear hoping that there were enough people around that Mac wouldn’t spot me. He was seated at the bar, back to the door, waiting for his lunch, I was guessing. Cassie Gibson was hanging wineglasses on the rack above her head. There was no indication they were having any kind of a conversation. Maybe he’d already gotten all the information Rose needed. Maybe he was waiting for the right moment to start talking to her. Maybe she wasn’t going to tell him any more than she’d told me.

  I heard an insistent sound, like air coming out of a punctured tire. I looked around. Liz was at a table across the room, where she could watch what was happening at the bar, but for the most part stay out of Mac’s line of sight. She jerked her head to one side. I knew that meant “get over here.” I went.

  I slid onto the chair to her left.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “The same thing you’re doing here,” she said. “Spying on Mac.”

  “I’m not spying on Mac.” I self-righteously squared my shoulders and sat up very straight in my seat. “I came to see Sam.”

  “Oh please!” Liz pointed a pink-tipped nail at me. “The way you came skulking in the door, all you needed was a cape and a mask covering half your face and you could have passed for the Phantom of the Opera.”

  “I wasn’t skulking,” I said. “I was being discreet.”

  “Well, whatever it was you were doing I don’t think he saw you.”

  I leaned to the right a little so I could see the bar. “Has he talked to her yet?” I asked.

  “Other than to order, no.”

  We watched for a couple of minutes. Mac tried more than once to start a conversation with Cassie Gibson, but it wasn’t working.

  “He’s going down in flames,” Liz muttered. “Enough of this foolishness.” She got to her feet and headed across the pub. I scrambled after her.

  Liz stopped next to Mac at the bar. His eyes widened in surprise. I stayed back a little. Cassie Gibson turned around, gave Liz a polite smile and said, “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, I believe you can,” Liz said. “My name is Elizabeth French. You were tending bar at a reception Thursday night in my boardroom.”

  Cassie nodded. “Yes. I was there.” She swallowed as though her mouth was suddenly dry. Liz could be intimidating without even trying.

  “Did you poison Christopher Healy?”

  I winced. So much for subtlety.

  “No, I didn’t.” The bartender stood her ground and her gaze stayed fixed on Liz’s face.

  I believe her, I thought.

  “You broke into the clinic at the health center,” Liz said. She tapped her nails on the bar. She was getting impatient.

  “No, ma’am, I did not,” Cassie said. Something flashed in her dark eyes.

  “But you did take something from it, from the office where your sister works.”

  Cassie didn’t answer. Her eyes darted away from Liz for a moment. We were getting somewhere.

  “I’m a pretty good judge of people, young lady,” Liz said. “I do believe that you didn’t kill Mr. Healy. But you planned to do something.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Cassie blurted. “I just wanted to make him miss court on Friday, that’s all. I swiped something that I knew would make him sick to his stomach.” She swallowed again like there was a lump in her throat that wouldn’t go away. “The day after I took it, I saw him just down along the boardwalk and I couldn’t help it. I told him what he’d done by messing up Joe’s deal. I wasn’t the only one who was out of work. He didn’t care. I yelled something stupid and I walked away before I punched him and got in real trouble.” She was sliding her plain gold wedding ring up and down her ring finger. “I was ashamed of myself. I went home and dumped the stuff I’d swiped down the sink and I took my husband to his physiotherapy appointment. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who was out for revenge. The only thing I gave Christopher Healy that night was coffee, ma’am. I swear. That’s all.”

  Liz took a card out of her purse and handed it across the bar. “Come to my office tomorrow.”

  Cassie picked up the card and looked at it before looking at Liz. “Why?” she asked.

  “You’re looking for a job, aren’t you?”

  The younger woman nodded.

  “That’s why,” Liz said. She turned around, elbowing Mac as she did. “You’re done, bucko,” she said.

  He turned halfway around, realizing for the first time that I was behind him. “Sarah, what are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Long and embarrassing story,” I said.

  He smiled, gesturing at the bar. “I have a short and embarrassing story. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

  I nodded. “Deal.”

  He looked at Cassie. “Could I get my check, please?”

  She was still watching Liz. She gave her head a shake. “Uh, yeah, no problem.” She hesitated for
a moment. “Do you know her?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Is she legit?”

  “She is.”

  Cassie looked a little shell-shocked. “So I might have a job?”

  “As long as you’re willing to work hard, yes.”

  She smiled, a genuine smile that lit up her face and I smiled back because what the heck, I like a happy ending as much as the next guy and this looked like a happy ending for Cassie Gibson and her family.

  Mac paid his bill and I grabbed part of his sandwich because I hate to see food go to waste and because I had a feeling this was the only lunch I was going to get.

  Liz was already gone. Mac and I stepped outside.

  “Well, that went well,” he said.

  I started to laugh.

  “Liz was spying on me, wasn’t she?” he asked.

  “Well . . .” I couldn’t think of any other way to put it. “Yes, she was.”

  We started walking. “And so were you.”

  I shook my head. “No. I came to buy strings for the guitar that’s up in my office.”

  Mac gave a long look. “And you ended up at Sam’s because?”

  “I needed to double-check that Sam was going to be able to put the new strings on.” I could see Mac struggling not to smile out of the corner of my eye.

  “And is he?”

  “I didn’t exactly get to ask him. Liz sidetracked me.” I pressed my lips together and tried to look serious. I was pretty sure it wasn’t working. We were walking past Cooks, which was a kitchen products store, owned by Marleigh Cook, who had been a chef in San Francisco for years before coming back to Maine. I loved the layers of meaning in the shop’s name. I pointed at a red stand mixer in the front window. “I’m thinking of buying a mixer,” I said, mostly to change the subject.

  “I’m thinking of buying a house,” Mac replied.

  “Oh,” was the only response I could come up with.

  We walked in awkward silence for maybe a minute.

  “Why do you want a mixer?” Mac finally said. I gave him a sideways glance. He seemed genuinely curious.

  “I want to make cakes the way Rose does.” I felt my cheeks get warm at the admission. Now that Rose had taught me how to cook without a visit from the fire department, I’d discovered I actually enjoyed it.

  “I like the sound of that,” he said.

  “Why do you want a house?” I asked. “I’m assuming it’s not because you want to build a boat in the basement.”

  Mac grinned at the reference to our previous conversation. “I do want to build a boat, just not in my basement. I’m thinking about a house because I want to put down some roots.”

  I smiled at him. “I like the sound of that.”

  We walked for another few feet without talking.

  “Do you believe her?” Mac suddenly asked. I knew he meant Cassie.

  “I do,” I said. “I watched her body language. She looked Liz in the eye. She didn’t shuffle her feet or play with her hair. I think she was telling the truth.”

  He nodded. “So do I.” He kicked a rock and sent it skittering along the boardwalk. “So now what?”

  I shrugged. “So now there are two.”

  Chapter 12

  Tuesday morning I got up early for a run. I did the hills route, pushing myself hard, hoping that somehow the exertion might lead to some kind of insight into Christopher Healy’s death. It didn’t.

  My cell rang while I was getting dressed. Elvis immediately jumped up onto the bed and put a paw on the screen. “Excuse me, that’s mine,” I said. I grabbed the phone. He wrinkled his nose at me in annoyance.

  It was Michelle. “Look, I know that Alfred Peterson is friends with Christopher Healy’s stepfather so you’re going to find this out anyway. Christopher Healy’s death is being ruled a homicide.”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed. Elvis climbed onto my lap. “He was poisoned, wasn’t he?”

  For a moment there was silence. “Yes.”

  Rose had been right from the very beginning. I decided to go out on a limb. “Whatever killed him wasn’t in the coffee.”

  “What makes you say that?” Michelle asked.

  Elvis bumped my hand with his head and I started to stroke his fur. “Liz talked to Cassie Gibson, the bartender. If the poison had been in the coffee she would have been the most likely person to have put it there.”

  “And she managed to convince Liz that she hadn’t.”

  “Yes.” Something occurred to me then. “If Christopher Healy wasn’t poisoned at the party then the poison wasn’t fast-acting,” I said. “He could have ingested it hours before that.”

  “He could have,” Michelle said, her tone noncommittal.

  “It couldn’t have been antifreeze or rat poison. The symptoms were wrong.” I was thinking out loud as much as talking to her. I’d done a little reading online the night before about poisons.

  Michelle sighed. “It will be impossible to keep something like this quiet for long. It was aconite.”

  “Aconite?”

  “It comes from a plant. Several hours can pass between ingestion and death.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Could Healy have been poisoned by accident? Did he come in contact with the plant in someone’s garden or maybe on one of the hiking trails?”

  “I can’t tell you anything else, Sarah,” Michelle said. “I know that Rose and Alfred and the rest of them aren’t going to keep their noses out of this case, but if they come across anything, no matter how inconsequential it might seem, please call me.”

  I promised I would and we said good-bye.

  I finished getting ready for work, collected my messenger bag and packed my lunch into a retro Wonder Woman lunchbox I’d found at a yard sale back in the summer. I was unlocking the SUV when I noticed Tom Harris out in his driveway with Matilda. I knew botany was a hobby of his.

  “I’m going to talk to Tom for a minute,” I said to Elvis. The cat was already sitting on the front seat, but he started over to the door. “Matilda’s with him.”

  Elvis made a sound like a disgruntled sigh and sat down again.

  I gave him a scratch behind his left ear. “I won’t be long.”

  Tom smiled when he caught sight of me. “Good morning, Sarah,” he said. “Isn’t it a beautiful morning?”

  I looked up at the blue sky overhead and the red and gold leaves in his yard and mine. “Yes it is,” I said. Matilda was quivering with happiness and I crouched down to talk to her. I knew Elvis was likely looking daggers at me from the car.

  Once I’d given the little dog some attention I stood up again, brushing off my hands. “Tom, I need to pick your brain,” I said.

  He tapped his temple with one hand. “You’re welcome to whatever is in there,” he said.

  “What can you tell me about aconite?”

  “Tiny amounts are used in Chinese and homeopathic medicine, but larger amounts are poisonous.”

  “Where does it come from?”

  “Monkshood. Aconitum napellus,” he said. “It’s a pretty plant, little purple-blue flowers. You’ve probably seen it.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “It grows wild in New England, but you can find it in a lot of gardens as well. It’s also known as wolfsbane. Folklore holds that it’s an effective way to defeat a werewolf.”

  “I’ll try to remember that in case I ever come across a werewolf,” I said with a smile.

  “May I ask why you’re interested in aconitum?”

  “The Angels have a new case.”

  Two furrows formed between his bushy white eyebrows. “And you think someone may have been poisoned with aconite?”

  “Is it possible to poison a person with the plant?” I asked. Matilda had leaned her warm, furry body against my leg. I reached down and patt
ed her side.

  “It certainly is,” Tom said. “All parts of the plant are poisonous and aconite has a long history of being used to commit murder. Back in 1882 in England Dr. George Lamson was hanged for putting it in a Dundee cake—a Scottish fruitcake—and giving it to his brother-in-law. He was after the man’s inheritance. I think you’ll find the poison would most likely have been ingested between two and four hours before death occurred. Anyone with basic chemistry skills could have concocted it.”

  Two to four hours. That meant Cassie Gibson was likely in the clear assuming she’d been telling the truth about taking her husband to his physiotherapy appointment. Mr. P. had probably confirmed that by now.

  Tom narrowed his gaze again. “Have I been of any help at all?”

  “You’ve been a great deal of help,” I said. “Thank you.”

  He smiled. “You’re most welcome. If you have any more questions, please come and ask.”

  I nodded. “I will.”

  I said good-bye to Matilda and walked back to my SUV. I had a lot of information to relay to Rose and the others. Problem was, I had no idea how it was going to help.

  Chapter 13

  I spent the first part of the morning working on the mantel out in the garage workspace. Elvis lounged on a footstool that needed a repair to one of the legs, eyeing my work and making little murps every so often like a furry peanut gallery. A busload of Canadian tourists on their way home from a model train convention in Portland stopped in midmorning. They cleaned us out of all the teacup planters, half of the glass milk bottles, several Halloween-themed flowerpots and a box of glass test tubes.

  “I am no longer surprised by the things people buy,” I said to Charlotte as the bus headed down the street.

  She smiled. “You know that old saying, ‘There’s a cover for every pot’?”

  “Rose might have quoted it to me a few . . . dozen times,” I said.

  “Well, I think a variation of that might be there’s a collector for everything.”

  “Which helps—at least in part—to keep us in business,” I said. “So it’s okay by me.” I looked around the store. “Are there any more of the clay flowerpots left under the stairs? I think I should get Avery to paint a few more.”