A Late Frost

by Sheila Connolly

  “I wish I had the time!” Ginny said. “I thought about home-schooling my kids, but there was no way we could do that and run the orchard at the same time. You don’t have any kids, right?”

  Meg laughed. “We’ve been married about three minutes, so no. Seth was married before, but they didn’t have any, either. Still, as far as I know, the schools around here are pretty good—there are plenty of academic types living in town.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring. You want me to explain what I plant between the trees? That’s something you could do, and it doesn’t take much work.”

  “Sure. What should I know?” As they meandered along, Ginny pointed out clumps of dried vegetation, which didn’t mean much to Meg. “What’s your plan here?” she asked.

  “I’ve chosen plants that provide needed nutrients for the trees and enrich the soil—and keep the weeds down, by the way. I prefer it to adding chemicals, even when they are acceptable to the organic purists.”

  “Makes sense. And they don’t take much maintenance, right?” When Ginny shook her head, Meg added, “Maybe you could give me a list, or point me to something I could read about these?”

  “I’d be happy to.”

  When they’d completed the circuit of the orchard, Meg asked, “Have you considered adding other money-makers? Cider-making, or jellies?”

  “Well, as you probably know, both would take an up-front investment in equipment, or bringing the kitchen up to code if we were going to sell a cooked product, and we’d probably have to hire somebody to manage whatever it was. So the short answer is no: no money and no time. Kind of a Catch-22, isn’t it? We could make more money if only we had money to spend to make it possible.”

  “That is a problem. I think about making cider now and then, but I know nothing about the process, and like you, I’d have to bring in someone who did, and set up the whole operation. Makes me tired just thinking about it.”

  “Exactly. Seen enough?”

  “I guess so. Your place here, it seems almost like a secret garden. You kept all the trees around the perimeter. Would it help if you opened it up more, maybe put up a sign to let people know you were here?”

  “Maybe. But in a way, I like the trees. You look out the windows and it could be a past century. I want the kids to have a sense of that. I know they’re going to grow up with malls and electronic stuff coming at them all the time, but I’d like them to see there are simpler ways to live. Come on in and I’ll show you the house.”

  As they walked toward the house, Meg studied it: one story, with unpainted but nicely weathered board siding and a low-pitched roof. A shallow porch ran along the front. Set back on one side was a small sale area, with a table and tiers of shelves for baskets—empty now, no surprise. Meg followed Ginny into the front room, where a fireplace occupied most of the wall to the right, with a kitchen on the other side of it. Meg assumed there were bedrooms to the rear. It was small, but it felt comfortable and well lived in.

  “I’ve driven by yours,” Ginny said, watching as Meg took in the room. “Nice Colonial. Original?”

  “Yes, it is, built around 1760, which was before Granford was even founded. Luckily nobody’s messed around with it much, except that around 1850 one of the owners decided that having a single central chimney with fireplaces on each side took up too much space, and replaced it on the first and second floors, which allowed him to put in a central stair. But the brick base is still in place in the basement. It’s massive.”

  “That’s cool. I mean, that it’s still there. And that you can follow the history of the people who made it. Is it hard to heat?”

  Meg laughed. “Let’s say I’ve bought a lot of sweaters over the past two years. But both Seth and I don’t want to pop in aluminum windows, which would spoil the look, and we haven’t had time to make our own replacements.”

  “Must be nice having a plumber plus woodworker on hand,” Ginny said almost wistfully.

  Maybe her husband wasn’t handy around the house—a lot of men weren’t anymore. “He grew up doing it, and his mother still lives in the Colonial he grew up in. Me, I grew up in the suburbs, so I never knew anything about any of this. But I’m learning.”

  “Hey, where are my manners? You want some tea or something? The kids won’t be back for another half hour.”

  “Sure.” Meg followed Ginny into the kitchen, which ran the depth of the small building.

  “Sit down—it won’t take long.” Ginny filled a kettle and set it on the stove, then pulled a glass jar out of a cupboard. “Hope you don’t mind herbal—it’s my own blend.”

  “That’s fine. You have an herb garden?”

  “I do. That’s kind of my little kingdom, and it’s easy to maintain. I let the kids help weed.” When the water boiled, Ginny spooned her tea into a pot and brought it to the table, along with a pair of mugs.

  “Give it a minute or two to steep. So, do you miss the corporate world?”

  “Every now and then, when I’m hot and sticky and too exhausted to even take a shower. Funny, isn’t it? The first thing I think of is being clean. But I like learning new skills, and I like using my body. I’m probably more fit than I’ve been in years, even though I used to do a lot of walking in Boston. It’s not the same, though.”

  “No, it’s not,” Ginny said, laughing. She poured tea into the mugs. “Taste it before you add sugar.”

  “You don’t use sugar?”

  “Yes, in moderation, and also honey. But the sugar masks the flavor, so you should see what it’s like on its own.”

  Meg sipped cautiously. The blend proved to be fruity and spicy at the same time—it was pleasant, with a slightly tart aftertaste. “Nice.”

  “I read up on old recipes, when the orchard isn’t eating up all my time. I like to experiment. It really is nice to have the break from dawn-to-dusk work in winter, you know? All that hauling stuff around and lifting really does a number on my joints. And muscles, too.”

  “Believe me, I know what you mean. You don’t hire any pickers?”

  “No, it’s just us, but like I said, the crop hasn’t been all that large for the last couple of years. Maybe this year, fingers crossed!”

  “My manager and I had to hand-water the orchard during a long dry spell. We have a well, so there was water, but we had to distribute the water by hauling the tank around the orchard with a truck. Water is heavy!”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  “The only thing that saved me was the old claw-foot bathtub that must date from before 1900. I could fill that up with hot water and just wallow in it until I got the kinks out.”

  “I envy you—we don’t have one like that, just a modern one that’s too shallow to really submerge yourself in. Just as well, I guess—I don’t think our boiler could manage to fill a bigger one anyway. That’s another thing we need to replace. But I have found one thing that helps when I ache all over.”

  “What’s that? I just use ibuprofen.”

  “I used to use that, but it really didn’t help, so my doctor told me to try this other thing. Let me show you.” Ginny got up and went through the living room, presumably to the bathroom, and returned shortly with a small cardboard box, which she handed to Meg. “It’s really good for joint pains—it’s been used for treating arthritis. And it’s a natural product. Have you tried it?”

  Meg took the box and glanced briefly at it—then looked back. The package was clearly labeled “Colchicine.”

  Meg wondered what her face showed. Was this just a coincidence? Or was there more to it? “No, I haven’t. Where do you get it?” she said carefully, trying to keep her voice normal.

  “You can ask at the pharmacy. But once I found out it worked, I started ordering it over the Internet—it’s cheaper that way. Hey, why don’t you take that box? I’ve got more.”

  “Sure. Thanks.” Meg found she didn’
t know what to say next, but she was saved at the sound of young voices coming down the long driveway: the children were home. “That sounds like your kids. I should be going. Thanks for the tour, Ginny. I’d be happy to show you around my place if you like.”

  “I would. I’ll give you a call and we can set up something. Hey, kids, welcome home! This is Meg Chapin—she has an orchard, too, on the other side of town. Meg, this is my daughter, Alice, and my son, Joey.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Chapin,” the children answered dutifully. Funny how they assumed that because I’m a grown-up, I must be married, Meg thought.

  “Nice to meet you. Sorry I have to run, but you can come over with your mother if you like some afternoon. I have a pair of goats.”

  “Thank you,” the older child, Alice, said. “Mom, are there any cookies?”

  “In the kitchen. We’ll talk later, Meg.”

  Meg carefully put the box of colchicine in her bag and zipped it, and went out to her car. She felt like she was in a daze, so instead of starting the car immediately, she tried to sort out what she’d learned and what she wanted to know now. One, she liked Ginny. They had a lot in common, on more than one level. They could become friends. Two, Ginny took colchicine for muscle or joint aches. It had been recommended or prescribed for her by a doctor. She apparently kept it in her bathroom, not hidden away or under lock and key. It was commercially available without a prescription to ordinary consumers. How had she missed finding that fact? Three, she really needed to know if Ginny had met Monica, and if Ginny had suggested the same remedy to her. Ginny had been part of the WinterFare. Monica had made a point of meeting all the vendors, so she had probably paid a call to Ginny at some point, just as she had with Meg. So the odds were good that Monica had sought out Ginny. Could Ginny have handed Monica a box of the stuff? Too bad the arrival of the children had prevented her from asking just a few more questions.

  But surely Monica wouldn’t have taken more than prescribed. The medical lab had said there was colchicine in Monica’s system—but how much? A therapeutic dose? Or a fatal one?

  Now what was she supposed to do? For all she knew, there was a package of these same tablets in half the households in Granford. It was legal and available, so why shouldn’t people have it? But had Monica taken it herself, in a safe dose or a deadly one? Or had somebody slipped it to her? She needed to talk to Seth. And Art. Not Marcus. That was her immediate to-do list, short and simple.

  She turned on the car and headed for home.

  Seth was in the kitchen when she arrived. When he looked at her, he asked immediately, “What’s wrong?”

  “I went over to Ginny’s to take a look at her orchard. While I was there, she gave me something she said helped with her aches and pains, better than ibuprofen.” Meg fished in her bag and pulled out the box, then offered it to Seth. “This.”

  He took it and his expression changed. He turned it over in his hands, read the back label, opened the box, and pulled out a blister pack of capsules. They weren’t very large, Meg saw. “These are legal?” he asked.

  “Apparently so. They might keep them behind the counter at the pharmacy, because we know they can be toxic, but you don’t seem to need a prescription.”

  “Ginny volunteered these?”

  “She gave me the package. Her doctor recommended it when she said ibuprofen didn’t work, and she thought I should try it. We both know what kind of physical work an orchard demands. It’s hard to imagine that she wouldn’t have suggested it to Monica, if they met, which seems likely. I didn’t get a chance to ask because the school bus dropped her children off right then.”

  “Huh. How’d you two get along?”

  “I liked her. We have a lot in common.”

  “So you don’t think she’s trying to kill you to reduce the competition in Granford?”

  Meg checked his expression to see if he was kidding. “By handing me poison pills? You don’t really mean that?”

  “No, of course I don’t. So now we know there’s at least one innocent use for this stuff, and plenty of people could have it. I wonder if there’s a lab that could tell if this is the same formula as what they found in Monica?”

  “I’d like to know what concentration was found in Monica,” Meg replied. “I have read that it’s bitter, and it looks to me like it would take a whole bunch of those capsules to do any real harm, and odds are you’d taste that something was off. And we need to know if Ginny gave her a box, the way she did me, or if it came from somewhere else. What do we do now?”

  “I’d say talk to Art again. If he’s still willing to pick up the phone when he sees who’s calling.”

  “I vote for that, too. Is Lydia coming for dinner tomorrow, and is she bringing Christopher? You said you were going to ask.”

  “Yes and yes.”

  24

  “You want to flip to see who calls Art this time?” Seth asked.

  Meg sighed. “This was my conversation with Ginny, so I should do it. Why do I keep finding myself in the middle of things? I went over just to see Ginny’s orchard, and to get to know a neighbor, and look what happens. Okay, I’ll do it now before I lose my courage.”

  “Great. You still okay if Mom brings Christopher for dinner?”

  “Of course I am. We need to talk to him anyway. When was the last time we had a simple meal talking about happy stuff? I can’t even remember.” Meg retrieved her cell phone and walked into the dining room to call while Seth made his call from the kitchen. She checked her watch: Art should still be at the office. That was all right, because this was official business, sort of, and she trusted him not to blab it around. She hit his speed-dial number, wondering yet again how it happened that she had the Granford chief of police on speed dial.

  “Meg,” he answered cautiously. “What is it this time?”

  “I just discovered something that troubled me, and I thought you might want to know. Can you talk, or do we have to do it face-to-face?”

  “Let me shut my door.”

  Meg heard voices in the background, and then silence as the door shut. Then Art picked up again. “Okay, hit me with it.”

  “I was over at Ginny Morris’s house this afternoon, looking at her orchard.”

  “Do you consider that a crime now? Industrial espionage?”

  “No, of course not. But we had a cup of herbal tea afterward, and got to talking about the physical demands of running an orchard. She said she’d tried the standard over-the-counter pain relievers and they hadn’t really worked for her, but then her doctor recommended something different. You can probably guess what.”

  Art sighed. “Our current favorite poison?”

  “Yes. Sold legally, in stores and available by mail order and online. I never knew. I’ve been looking at it online myself, but mainly its agricultural applications. It never occurred to me that it would be so available and so ordinary. And potentially deadly.”

  “I didn’t know, either, Meg. So you’re saying just about anybody could have gotten hold of it?”

  “That’s what it looks like. In fact, Ginny gave me a package of the stuff.”

  Art was silent for a few moments. “Does the package say anything about a fatal dose? Or that it can be fatal at all?”

  “Hold on—let me get it.” Meg retrieved the box from where she had set it on the mantelpiece, so she could read the label. “Shoot, only that exceeding the maximum recommended dose can be dangerous. How is that even legal?”

  “I’m not the person to ask. Anyway, from all I know about the Morrises, they’re pretty straight-arrow folk, so I don’t think they’d knowingly use something illegal or dangerous.”

  “That’s what I thought. And of course that got me wondering . . . You know Monica came by the house here, a couple of weeks before the WinterFare, mostly to introduce herself? Well, she probably did the same thing with Ginny. What if Ginny hand
ed her a package of these things and said, ‘try this,’ like she did with me?”

  “Did you ask Ginny?”

  “No, because the kids came home from school then, so I didn’t have a chance. But think about it: if Ginny’s actually taking the stuff herself, I can’t imagine she’s using it to poison people. I mean, her kids could get hold of it. It’s not like it’s hidden, or even under lock and key. She just walked to her bathroom, which I could see from where I was sitting, and came back with a box.”

  Art was silent a moment. “Let’s say she did give Monica a box, and Monica forgot about it, or didn’t feel the need for any pain relievers for a couple of weeks. The fair must have been a lot of work, and maybe that was the first time she remembered she had it, or needed it.”

  “That’s what I’d like to think, Art. So now I’ve got two questions. One, can your lab buddy tell if this is the same formula as what he found in Monica’s body, and two, how high was the dose Monica took? I mean, given the size of the capsules, did Monica take one or half a dozen? What was the lethal dose?”

  Art chuckled. “This is why I love talking to you and Seth, Meg. You ask such interesting questions, and I have to work hard to find answers. I don’t know what I’d do at my job if I didn’t have you two. I cannot answer either of your questions, but I can put the question to my friend. It’s late Friday afternoon, and I doubt he’s going to hang around the lab checking this out, if he’s there at all. He might be able to answer your second question, about how much Monica had taken and if that dose was fatal. If he says no, he wouldn’t have to worry about the other question. Of course Marcus would have something new to worry about, but that’s his problem. And I will bend over backward and jump through hoops to keep all of our names out of this discussion, if ever it becomes official.”