Poisoned Ground

by Sandra Parshall

  As soon as she turned into the driveway, most of her fears evaporated. The Colonial house and its yard practically shone from loving attention and made a pretty picture that could have graced a magazine cover.

  The oldest sister, Winter, waved from the front steps. This white-haired woman might be an old maid, a senior citizen, whatever society chose to call her, but her body looked strong and fit in dark slacks and a sweater, and in her movements Rachel saw the physical assurance of a woman who was still active and intended to stay that way.

  “The poor little things,” Winter crooned as Rachel approached with the carrier containing the rabbits. “They must be so confused and frightened by all this moving around.” She smiled at Simon, who carried a bag containing the rabbits’ dry kibble and their dishes. “Hello there, Simon. I’m sure you don’t remember meeting me when you were a baby, but I taught both of your parents—and your uncle Tom—in high school.”

  Simon’s face brightened with eager curiosity. “You were my mom and dad’s teacher?”

  “I was. They were excellent students, I’m happy to tell you. The kind that every teacher loves to have in her classroom.”

  Simon beamed, and he looked up at Rachel to share his pleasure with her.

  She squeezed his shoulder, but restrained herself from a caress that might embarrass him. “Simon’s pretty sharp himself. We’re all proud of him, and I’m sure his parents would be, too.”

  “They certainly would be. Now let’s get the bunnies inside out of this chilly breeze.” Winter clucked her tongue as she shepherded them into a pleasant, neat living room. “What a shame Lincoln and Marie’s son and daughter can’t be bothered to care for their parents’ pets. Too much trouble, I suppose? It would interfere with their schedules?”

  That was a clear invitation to discuss Ronan and Sheila, and Rachel was surprised Winter had brought it up in front of Simon. “They both live some distance away, and they’d rather not put the rabbits through the stress of traveling. Or the dog. Bonnie’s happy with Joanna and her dogs.” Before Winter could comment, Rachel added, “I appreciate your willingness to do this, and I’m sure the Kellys would be grateful.”

  Winter pursed her lips and shook her head but said no more about the dead couple’s disappointing offspring.

  Three cats—black, gray tabby, and seal point Siamese—marched into the living room single file, forming an advance guard for the other sisters, Spring and Summer. Simon laughed as the cats circled his legs, and he dropped to his knees to pet them.

  All three sisters fussed over him, remarking on his way with animals, telling him how much he looked like his father, explaining their personal connections to his family—Spring had also taught Simon’s parents, and Summer had worked with his grandmother, Anne Bridger, at the hospital. Rachel wanted to gather them in a hug for putting a real smile on Simon’s face.

  “The sunroom is all set up for the rabbits,” Summer said. “Simon, do you want to see where they’re going to live?” When Rachel had last seen the youngest Jones sister, she’d been in tears over the Kelly murders, but today she was calm and smiling. Her pink blouse and cardigan complemented the rosy glow of her complexion and made her look younger than her age.

  Summer and Simon led the way, but the three cats hustled to get in front of them, single file again, and seemed to know exactly where they were headed. The procession of humans and animals crossed through the dining room and kitchen on their way to the sunroom at the rear of the house.

  The house was spotless, Rachel noted. No clutter, no dust on anything. In the kitchen, pots and pans with gleaming copper bottoms hung from a ceiling rack, and the white appliances shone as if they’d been waxed. If anything, these women went overboard on tidiness. She could imagine them spending most of their time perfecting a house that few people besides themselves would ever see. That was the kind of household Rachel had grown up in, and she pushed the unwelcome memory aside with an inward shudder.

  “Summer’s been making some of her specialties,” Spring said as they walked through the kitchen. She gestured at a plate piled with delicate pastries, all drizzled with chocolate, under a glass cover. “You and Simon will have to stay long enough for a snack.”

  “Yeah!” Simon said over his shoulder, making all of them laugh.

  The sunroom was a cozy space filled with hanging plants and potted plants on tables. More than a dozen orchids of various sizes and colors sat on long tables. Needlepoint throw pillows had been arranged invitingly on a white wicker settee and matching chairs. “We’ve moved all the plants out of reach,” Summer said, “so the bunnies can be free and we won’t have to worry about them eating something harmful.”

  “Wow,” Rachel said. “You’ve gone to so much trouble. I can’t thank you enough.”

  When she set down the carrier, all three cats pressed close to see what was inside. The black one, Maggie, jumped back in surprise, hissing and growling. Belle, the gray tabby, took a look, quickly lost interest, and sauntered away. Tootles, the Siamese who belonged to Spring, hooked claws over the grille that formed the carrier’s door and tried to pull it open. Failing in that, she stuck her nose through the grille. The male rabbit moved closer and touched his nose to the cat’s, and the female rabbit followed.

  “See there?” Winter said. “They’ll be just fine. Don’t mind Maggie. She’s set in her ways and always resists change, but she’ll come around. Tootles is the boss in this little trio. If she likes our new residents, Maggie and Belle will follow her lead.” Barely pausing between subjects and no change in tone, Winter went on, “Is Tom making any progress on finding the person who killed Lincoln and Marie?”

  Startled, Rachel took a moment to answer. This was the second time Winter had mentioned something they shouldn’t discuss in front of Simon. “I don’t really know much.” And I wouldn’t tell you if I did. “I’m sure Tom will get to the bottom of it. He always does.”

  “Yes,” Winter murmured, almost absent-mindedly. “He does have a perfect solve rate, doesn’t it? This killer will have to be very clever to avoid being found out.”

  The sisters stood in silence for a moment, and Rachel felt an odd thrumming sensation, an undercurrent among them. Fortunately, Simon seemed engrossed in the interaction of the rabbits and cats and wasn’t paying attention to the adult conversation. Rachel tried to cut Winter’s speculation short before the boy heard too much. “Why don’t we let them out so they can explore their new quarters?”

  “Can I do it?” Simon reached for the latch on the wire mesh door.

  Summer smiled at Simon. “Of course you may. Will you help us keep the cats from overwhelming them?”

  “Sure!” With a flourish Simon pulled the door open.

  The rabbits twitched their noses but didn’t move. Tootles, the Siamese, sat down a couple feet away and issued a string of the guttural sounds that constituted Siamese speech. Rachel thought she sounded encouraging. After a moment of hesitation and a lot of nose wiggling, the rabbits took their first cautious steps out of the carrier.

  Without preamble, Spring asked, “Do you believe we should be worried about our safety?”

  Simon, engrossed in the rabbit-cat encounter that was underway, seemed to be paying no attention to the adults, but Rachel nodded in his direction. “Do you mind if we don’t talk about this right now?”

  Rachel didn’t know how to make her concern any clearer, but Spring continued as if she hadn’t heard. “After all, we do live in a rural area with no neighbors close enough to see our house. If someone wanted to hurt us, we’d be totally vulnerable.”

  “But why would anyone want to hurt us?” Summer asked.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, you know exactly why,” Winter said. “If we don’t come to an agreement among ourselves soon about selling to Packard, we’ll have both sides mad at us. Heaven knows what could happen in the dead of night when we’re asleep in our bed
s.”

  Simon looked up at Rachel with a troubled frown. What on earth was wrong with these women? She spoke to them in a low voice. “I sympathize with you, but could we please not talk about it in front of a child?”

  “Oh, of course,” Spring said. “You’re absolutely right.”

  “I’m sorry,” Summer added. “We’re being thoughtless.”

  Rachel expected them to stop discussing the murders altogether, but instead Winter and Spring both took her by the arm, steered her a few feet farther away from Simon, and picked up where they’d left off.

  “We heard that Lincoln and Marie changed their minds and decided to sell,” Winter said, keeping her voice to a near-whisper. “Well, it would have been Marie’s decision, with Lincoln in such a poor mental state. That must have been the reason behind the murders.”

  Rachel despaired of her chances of making them shut up. All she could do was get Simon out of here. He was on the floor, petting both rabbits and cats, but his expression had turned solemn as the sisters talked on.

  As Rachel started to make an excuse to leave, Spring said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the murders were purely personal. Lincoln and Marie were more than a bit on the self-righteous side—”

  “Sister, please,” Summer broke in.

  Spring threw a peevish glance at Summer and continued, addressing her comments to Rachel. “They were always trying to tell other people how to live. Would you believe Lincoln went around looking in people’s trash on collection day? To see who was committing recycling sins.”

  “Oh, don’t tell that story,” Summer pleaded.

  Spring ignored her. “He came to our door once with an empty toilet paper roll he’d fished out of our trash. He had to open a trash bag and root around to even find the thing. There he was at our door, holding it up like a trophy, as if it were evidence of the worst behavior he’d ever witnessed, and he proceeded to lecture me about the proper recycling of cardboard. I shut the door in his face.”

  Under any other circumstances, Rachel might have been amused as she imagined the scene, but at the moment she didn’t find it funny. “I’m afraid we have to go. We have plans—”

  “A fervor for recycling is not a motive for double murder.” Winter drowned out Rachel’s words. “The only person the Kellys had any serious trouble with was Jake Hollinger.”

  Summer’s sharp intake of breath made Rachel glance her way. The woman bit her lower lip in an oddly girlish way and lowered her head.

  “I don’t really know Mr. Hollinger,” Rachel said.

  Winter snorted. “Well, you’re one of the few. A great many women in this county are closely acquainted with him.”

  “Winter, please!” Summer exclaimed.

  “You know it’s true,” Spring put in. “The man has always been a womanizer.”

  Oh my God. Rachel glanced at Simon and found him grinning at the way the cats and rabbits were sniffing each other. Maybe he wasn’t listening after all, or the women were speaking so quietly he couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  “Our father started hearing stories about Jake and his women early on,” Winter continued, “after he sold that piece of land to him and Sue Ellen. There were even rumors about him and Marie Kelly at one point in those early years. Our father didn’t approve at all. He wanted to be rid of Jake. He even tried to buy the land back. The way Jake carried on with Tavia Richardson while his wife was dying—” Winter shook her head. “Well, I’m glad our father wasn’t around to see that.”

  Summer stood with her arms wrapped around her waist, a deep flush coloring her cheeks. She seemed more than embarrassed by her sisters’ gossiping. She looked furious.

  Winter wasn’t finished. “As for whether Jake killed Lincoln and Marie—”

  “Would you like to try my pastry now, Dr. Goddard?” Summer cut in. “They’re fresh, I made them this morning. Don’t you think Simon would like a treat?”

  “Oh. I—” Rachel saw the plea in Summer’s eyes. The woman had listened to as much vitriolic gossip from her sisters as she could take. Rachel felt guilty for wanting to run out on her. “Thank you. We’d love to have something, then we really will have to go.”

  Summer hurried into the kitchen, and after a moment Winter followed. To prevent Spring from starting the gossip again, Rachel knelt next to Simon to watch the cats and rabbits interact.

  Summer brought out dessert plates holding cream-filled pastries, each topped with a drizzle of chocolate. As Rachel had hoped, the conversation was constrained by Simon’s presence as they ate, and they let him chatter about the rabbits, the cats, Billy Bob and Frank, the pileated woodpecker pair he’d seen on Tom and Rachel’s farm that morning. Summer remained silent, never looking up as she nibbled on tiny bites of her pastry.

  The encounter had been interesting, to say the least, but Rachel was so tense that the rich pastry made her slightly queasy. To avoid hurting Summer’s feelings, she forced all of it down. She was enormously relieved when they could finally get the hell out of there.

  She let out a long breath as she drove away.

  “Let’s get Billy Bob and go to the river,” Simon said.

  Rachel smiled. “You got it.”

  The queasy feeling wasn’t going away. The pastry had been too rich. She didn’t normally eat anything with so much fat and sugar. “Do you feel okay?” she asked Simon. “That pastry’s not making you sick, is it?”

  “Nope. It was real good.” He looked at her with wide, concerned eyes. “Did it make you sick?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” She wasn’t going to disappoint him by bailing on him when he was looking forward to an excursion to the river. She wasn’t sure they had any antacid at home, but they had ginger ale, which would work as well.

  A spurt of acid rose in her throat, and she tasted the sourness at the back of her mouth. Swallowing hard, she concentrated on driving. Just get home. Drink some ginger ale. She’d be fine.

  A wave of nausea roiled her stomach and she knew she couldn’t hold it back. She wrenched the steering wheel to the right and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. Slamming the gearshift into park, she flung open the door and scrambled out. Hanging onto the door for support, she leaned over and surrendered to the sickness.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Tom suspected that Raymond Morton, Mason County’s prosecutor, had suggested they meet over lunch on Sunday because he knew Brandon Connolly’s parents were sending over sandwiches for Tom, Brandon, and Dennis. Morton, a thin, balding man of seventy, dug into a bag labeled “Connolly’s Fresh Deli” and came up with a fat sandwich before he took a seat at the conference room table.

  “I couldn’t talk Sheila out of paying Ronan’s bail.” Tom pulled out a chair across from Morton and Dennis. He took a sandwich for himself. Brandon, sitting next to Tom, had already emptied a bag of oven-baked chips into a bowl in the center of the table. The rustle of waxed paper filled the room as they settled down to eat. “And she didn’t want a deputy to drive him back to Joanna’s place to pick up his car. She insisted on doing it herself.”

  “I thought she was afraid to be alone with him,” Dennis said. “What changed her mind? Is she feeling guilty because she’s getting most of the estate?”

  “Yeah, I think that’s exactly what’s going on.” Watching them leave together, Ronan disheveled and unshaven and scowling, Tom had hoped he wasn’t seeing the prelude to a disaster.

  “You still think the Kelly boy could have hired out the killings?” Morton sank his teeth into a roast beef sandwich.

  “He’s got the motive. But Jake Hollinger’s just as likely a suspect.”

  “And it would have been easier for Hollinger to pull off.” Brandon popped a chip into his mouth and crunched on it.

  “We need to pin Hollinger down about his movements that day,” Tom told Morton. “He claims he didn’t see the Kellys, but we
’ve got the Jones sisters saying he was arguing with Lincoln at the fence. And his own son didn’t back up his alibi. I got the strong feeling from Mark Hollinger that his father told him to lie, but he made a mess of it.”

  “You think he’d be stupid enough to go after Joanna McKen-drick now?” Brandon asked. “I mean, if it’s obvious the only people getting hurt are the ones holding out on the land sale, Hollinger’s gotta know we’ll come after him.”

  Morton swallowed a bite of sandwich. “If you don’t have the evidence, you can’t touch him. Don’t bring me a case I can’t prosecute. Tom, you think we’ve got reason to worry about Joanna?”

  “You’re damned right I do. We’ve got the Jones sisters to think about, too. They say they’re undecided about selling, but I think they’re just divided. Winter wants to sell, and Spring might, too, but Summer doesn’t want to uproot herself. If they don’t all agree, they won’t be going anywhere.”

  Dennis pushed aside his half-finished sandwich and reached for a bag of cookies. “Could they have some financial problems that we don’t know about? A reason why Winter wants to sell?”

  Morton wiped a bit of mustard from his bottom lip with a paper napkin. “It would have to be serious to force them to sell out and leave. They’ve had some bad times in that house—it’s not exactly your normal family—but it’s the only home they’ve ever known. Regardless of what Winter says, if Joanna stands her ground, I believe the sisters will stand with her. And that’s going to make them targets, too.”

  “The killer could be somebody we haven’t looked at yet,” Tom pointed out. “Somebody we haven’t even thought about. A lot of people feel like they’ve got a personal stake in that resort development.” His worst fear was that while he was trying to find evidence against the obvious suspects, the real killer was operating under the radar, free to strike again at any time.