Pushing Up Rhubarb (A Millsferry Mystery Book 1)

by Diana Saco

  Field trips were common in Millsferry. The town boasted a number of public grounds with unique features that encouraged participation in outdoor activities. The Town Pasture, for example, was a public grazing park for pet sheep, goats, and a considerable number of alpaca that were managed by the Millsferry Alpaca Co-op. Members owned at least one alpaca and paid for its care and feeding through their annual dues. In exchange, they received a 30% discount on all knitted products created by the artisans that the co-op employed. The deal also included a petting zoo where families could go and bond with their pet alpacas. They could even put a halter and lead on their pets and take them for walks. This arrangement wasn’t just educational. It was smart. It encouraged joint stewardship of our shared natural resources by giving Millsferryzians a sentimental entanglement with the creatures living in our parks.

  For me, joining the co-op was an easy sell. I always thought alpacas were adorable, and I loved their fleece. I got to pick mine out when he was a few months old. I was immediately drawn to his funky coloring—all black except for a white tummy and face, the top of his tail, and a shock of long white hair on his crown. In short, he looked exactly like Pepé Le Pew, so that’s what I called him. I decided it was fated when moments after I christened him, he started pronking about happily with his brothers and sisters, springing into the air over and over just like the cartoon character. After the little guy settled down, however, the MAC manager and I got a closer look and discovered that he was a she. I renamed her Pippy La Pew, and we’ve been buddies ever since. I’ve gone to see her at least twice a month since joining the co-op. On one of those early visits, Pippy stole the grapes from my lunch bag. She sniffed at my snacks on my next trip and looked like she was ready to spit at me when she didn’t find grapes, so I made sure to have some on hand after that.

  As interesting as the Town Pasture was, it was nothing compared to the Runes. Situated southeast of the town, the Runes were a half mile of coastal cliffs, along the north side, topped with 138 acres of shrubland and woodland strewn with runestones of unknown origin. Most of the locals accepted the story that Millferry’s village elders a century earlier seeded the area with thousands of runestones to develop it as a tourist attraction. Because some of the older stones seemed genuine, however, a few of our more eccentric denizens considered the place real—not fabricated but rather discovered by those entrepreneurial forefathers. They conceded that fake stones were added to the mix, but they believed, nonetheless, that the area had genuine mystical powers. For this reason, the location was a popular venue for spiritual gatherings. People would go there to make offerings and say prayers while stimulating the stones through the vibrations of their chanting and incantations. I was told once that this was called “tickling the Runes,” drawing out more of their positive energy by gently agitating them—sometimes actually stroking them.

  Tickling the Runes was what Lily Bingham proposed we do to get some answers. In other words, the week after her own husband indicted Chloe, Lily countered by staging a séance in the Runes in order to get the truth, in her words, “straight from the horse’s mouth.” She offered to perform a bit of necromancy, with the help of the runestones’ mystical powers, to conjure Monica Munch’s spirit and quite simply ask her if she knows who killed her. Chloe and I were expected to attend since we had the strongest motives for uncovering the truth—Chloe as suspect and me as investigator. Arguably, Al or Bruno or even Loyal could have filled my slot, but Al was busy with his family. Bruno and Loyal, moreover, were part of the official legal process that was putting Chloe on trial, so it wouldn’t look good for them to participate in a séance on the defendant’s behalf. Not to mention the fact that Loyal wouldn’t be caught dead at one of Lily’s séances. I didn’t fancy his chances of avoiding that. If he predeceased his wife, as most men do, Lily would undoubtedly call him in the afterlife, interrupting his so-called everlasting peace with the annoying persistence of a psychic telemarketer.

  Lily also invited Aunt Dottie, Farm, Alice Tidwell and Malice Tidwell, Mason and Alice’s sixteen-year-old daughter. I thought it was cool that her name was a mashup of her parents’ names although it practically preordained that she would be a touch rebellious at times. But she wasn’t malicious. Malice got into trouble the way most independently minded people got into trouble—because their convictions sometimes put them on the opposite side of the rules.

  The final member of our group was Randall Kirkland’s neighbor Felix Exley. His involvement with the second victim of the oxalic acid poisonings, however, was not the reason for his being there. Exley was a true believer. He was a member of Lily’s coven and also happened to be the only one free on Tuesday night, August 20, the night of the full moon.

  The eight of us convened at nine o’clock and started setting up. An herbalist by trade, Felix had brought bundles of dry sage for the occasion. As the rest of us set up the table and chairs and other paraphernalia, he began burning the wands of sage and waving them around the air.

  “Felix is doing a ‘smudging’ with the sage,” Lily explained, “to cleanse the area. The smoke will dispel negative spirits from here before we begin.”

  “But I thought you wanted Monica’s spirit to show up,” Chloe deadpanned.

  I snorted in amusement, but Lily chided her. “Chloe, you must show more respect and reverence. We need to be kind to the spirit we are conjuring to encourage her to come.”

  “As long as we encourage only the pleasant spirits to come,” Alice said a little nervously.

  “I’ll second that,” Malice said. “We don’t want mean spirits with guts and gore all over them.”

  “Yeah, they would just bloody up our runestones,” Farm said, “which would be terrible because, as they say, you can’t get blood out of a stone.”

  A sucker for bad puns, I laughed.

  “Or off the keys of an organ,” he added.

  “And they used Bon Ami!” Farm and I said simultaneously, reciting one of our favorite lines from The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, a comedy about a haunted house with a blood-stained organ that would not come clean.

  Malice giggled, and Aunt Dottie turned the comment into a little song. “Bon. Ami. Bon. Ami.”

  “I think we’re outnumbered,” Felix told Lily.

  Lily surveyed the group. “Well, Chloe is the suspect, so she has to be here. And Nina is her second.”

  That announcement surprised me. I wasn’t sure when it was that I became Chloe’s right-hand. I was also worried the term might foreshadow an impending duel between the forces of life and death. That would not be good.

  Lily continued her assessment. “Aunt Dottie’s been to one of these before, and doesn’t say much, anyway. Alice and Malice wanted to see what this would be like and certainly know how to behave themselves. That just leaves Farm.”

  “Hey, I can behave,” he protested.

  “Yes, you can,” Lily asserted. “But will you behave?”

  “Of course. I’ll be good,” he promised. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Why don’t you light some candles?”

  Lily had chosen a pavilion for the gathering. We had put the portable round table with its eight folding chairs in the center. The table was draped with a red silk cloth. Farm clustered four short, fat candles on a charger plate in the middle of the table and lit them. They sparked to life, startling him. The flames crackled and immediately made the candles begin to sweat. Farm proceeded to light the dozens of other candles arrayed around the perimeter of the pavilion’s paved floor. The effect was ethereal and, together with the scent of the burning sage, helped to create exactly the right atmosphere.

  “Okay everyone, please take a seat. Chloe, come sit on my right, and Nina, you sit on Chloe’s right. Then Aunt Dottie, Felix, Alice and Malice. And Farm, you sit here to my left, where I can keep an eye on you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “All right, then. Let us begin our conversation with the dead,” Lily said ominously.

  I visib
ly shivered but not because of Lily’s announcement. I had made three sartorial errors that evening and was paying for them dearly now. I wore canvas shoes, left my jacket in the car, and had chosen a thin white T-shirt over khaki cargo pants. The day’s fog and chill had settled over the grasses of the Runes like a cold layer of lemon-lime slushie. Consequently, my feet were wet and frozen within minutes of traipsing through the area. And seconds before we reached the pavilion, we were hit by a sudden downpour. The immediate effect was to turn my white shirt into a cellophane wrapper, making me feel like a bimbo at a frat party, especially when Aunt Dottie took one look at me and said, “Bimbo!”

  I sat there now feeling cold, wet, and naked, and apparently looking pathetic enough that Chloe took pity and offered me half her cloak. She unfastened the front and said “Here,” draping the right half over my shoulders and scooting closer to my left side. I sighed at the welcome warmth engulfing me and heard several giggles around the table, mostly Farm’s. I should have been embarrassed, but I was too grateful not to be freezing any more.

  “Now, let us begin,” Lily started again. She opened her palms toward the ceiling of the pavilion although she probably meant that as a symbolic opening toward the heavens. Suddenly I wondered why we assume all spirits are above us and not behind us or next to us or at a 45 degree vertical and horizontal angle from us. And weren’t the naughty spirits supposed to be below us? What if Monica had wound up down there?

  “Oh, spirits of the Runes, we entreat you,” she said, drawing my attention back to our necromantic chitchat. “Help us to communicate with the dearly departed. Oh, Mother Goddess, if it pleases you, make our request known to the restless souls of the afterworld.”

  I wondered whether Lily should be filtering her search that way. Was Monica, in fact, restless? What if she hadn’t been murdered and was perfectly happy and baking in some otherworldly kitchen? Maybe she wouldn’t show up now that Lily stipulated she wanted only “restless” souls answering her query. I considered saying something. Chloe must have felt me tense in anticipation of raising a question and put her hand on my knee as if to say “stifle.” I looked her way to try to gauge her mood. She was still staring at Lily with a cool and mildly interested expression on her face. Wow, she really looked good by candlelight. I started responding to her hand on my knee in a different way. She must have sensed that, too. She patted my knee twice, as if again to say “stifle,” and then pulled her hand away. I felt disappointed and reluctantly returned my attention to Lily, quite forgetting what it was I was going to say to her in the first place.

  Lily had continued her entreaties to the spirits and now began trying to open a more direct line of communication. “Monica Munch? Mmmmm-Monica. Mmmmm-Munch,” she hum-sang. “Please come to us.”

  Farm suddenly jumped and looked at the ground around his feet. “Something just brushed against my legs,” he said.

  “Those are the spirit cats,” Lily explained. “Pet souls are often the first to answer the spirit call. Especially my sweet Ruby. Did it feel like a long-hair cat, Farm? My Ruby was a Himalayan-tabby cross.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Farm said. “I’m sure it was her.”

  “Omicron! Epsilon! Do be gone!!!” Lily said emphatically.

  “Are those cat names?” Alice inquired.

  “Greek to me,” Aunt Dottie said, and now it was Chloe’s turn to snort.

  “Yes, they are Greek,” Lily explained patiently. “They are the fifteenth and fifth letters of the Greek alphabet. I invoke them to symbolize the five-pointed star, the pentagram.”

  “What about kappa and upsilon?” I asked, picking up on her pattern and wondering why she didn’t also invoke the tenth and twentieth letters of the Greek alphabet, since they are also multiples of five. “And why Greek?” I added, suddenly wondering about that, too.

  “Lily is a Hellenic Neo-Wiccan,” Chloe said plainly, as if that explained everything. She saw my confusion and continued. “She worships the Greek pantheon, especially Artemis, hence the Greek letters.”

  “And the two I chose represent the elements of water and air on our pentagram for this geography,” Lily added. “I was trying to dispel the animal spirits across the ocean and into the sky. Did it work, Farm?”

  He shook his head seriously and said, “Still here.”

  “Farrrmm,” I singsonged at him.

  “What?” he asked defensively. “I really do feel something brushing against my legs.”

  Lily took him at his word. “Run along, Ruby. It’s a human soul we seek today.”

  “Yeah, scat you cat,” Farm added, trying to help.

  I had to admit. Farm had more game in him than I did. But I was at a decided disadvantage. I didn’t particularly believe in an afterlife. Consequently, the idea of summoning a spirit from the afterlife just didn’t compute. Even as I had these thoughts, I tried to drive them out of my head. When she arranged this get-together, Lily warned us that the spirits wouldn’t respond if they detected any naysayers in their midst. I really didn’t want to be a paranormal-party pooper.

  I studied my companions to see if they were buying into this. Lily and Felix were veteran Wiccans, so I assumed they believed in what they were doing. Farm was a little jumpy, as was Alice. They were easily the most impressionable of the group. Malice was young and therefore open to the possibility of new experiences, the weirder the better. Aunt Dottie was young at heart, so equally open to weird possibilities. That left Chloe. My take on her was that she believed in spirits floating about the Runes. She was pagan after all. But since she hadn’t liked Monica Munch while she was living, it was obvious that she couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for conjuring the woman now that she was dead. Okay, so if Munch was a no-show, it wouldn’t necessarily be my fault. I felt mollified.

  After another twenty minutes of unanswered spirit calls, we decided to take a short hot-cocoa break and pulled out the thermoses. Chloe had also brought a basket of mini-muffins, which were somehow still warm. The rain had started coming down even harder, pelting the ground and bouncing back up against the candles, putting several of them out. We moved them in from the edges and relit them. When that was done, Lily called us all back to the table and started her incantations again. I had to give her props for tenacity. She continued in the same vein for another long while as I clutched my half of Chloe’s cloak ever tighter over my now slightly feverish body. I wondered how long it took to contract pneumonia. Eight fools out in an unseasonably cold summer storm—one of us was bound to catch her death, but did it have to be me? If Monica did show up, it would surely be to mock us—and possibly to welcome me to the neighborhood.

  It was close to eleven when we finally stopped trying to raise the dead. The rain hadn’t let up. All my companions bundled up in their raincoats and pulled out umbrellas. Everyone except me, of course. Chloe retook full possession of her cloak, leaving me frigid and R-rated again. I could have made a dash for it, but that would have left me running through the Runes at night by myself. No way. So I matched the brisk gait set by my other companions. Naturally, I was soaked by the time we reached our cars. Fortunately, we had taken Chloe’s car, so I didn’t have to drive. Aunt Dottie got in the passenger seat, and I claimed the back seat with relief, lying down and covering myself with the jacket I had left there. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, the car was stopped and Aunt Dottie was shaking me.

  “Home,” she said.

  I trudged out and half-heartedly said to Chloe, “I’ll just grab my overnight bag and be right back.”

  We had prearranged to spend the night at her place, but she changed her mind, maybe for my sake. “It’s late, Nina. Let’s just stay here.”

  I smiled gratefully as we all headed inside.

  “Bath,” Dottie suggested. “Tea.”

  I nodded heading for my bedroom and started a bath. By the time I had peeled off my soaked garments and lowered my body into the warm sudsy water, I heard a knock at the door. “Come on in, Aunt Dottie.”r />
  She came in, but she wasn’t alone. Dottie was carrying Minou, who was purring like a gas-driven motor. Close behind Dottie was Chloe carrying a mug of tea. I was feeling naked again, probably because I was. “Uh, thanks,” I said, when she handed me the mug. I took a sip and was grateful she’d added lots of lemon and honey. I felt weird making small talk in my bathroom, but kicking them out seemed impolite. “What a waste of time that was. Not that I expected Monica Munch’s spirit to show up.”

  “Did show,” Aunt Dottie said.

  By the time I realized what she had said, she was already gone.

  I looked at Chloe frowning. She just shrugged her shoulders and followed Aunt Dottie out.

  14. You Pay Extra for Baggage

  I was in the office two days later trying to get work done, but I should have been in bed. As of that morning, I was officially running a fever—102°F. Aunt Dottie had made me chicken soup with garlic and cayenne pepper the evening before. The hot spicy broth cleared the congestion from my head. But it returned with a vengeance an hour later, squatting in my chest and giving me coughing fits the rest of the night. On the way in, I picked up a couple of bottles of cough syrup at the drug store. I was already halfway through one bottle and still felt a tickle in my throat. I suspected I was overdosing, but I was desperate for relief.

  Chloe was in the office, too. She had ridden in with me for a meeting with Al to fill in some gaps in our investigation. Despite the physical warmth she provided during Lily’s séance, her demeanor toward me remained cold. For that reason, Al took the lead on her case and handled all the client conferences with her. Aunt Dottie hung out with her throughout the day, leaving me relegated to overnight custody of her. Being asleep most of that time and in separate rooms helped. The rest of our moments together were awkward.

  I started coughing again and got up from my desk to get some water. Feeling suddenly dizzy, I grabbed the doorjamb to steady myself just as Al and Chloe were coming down the hall.