Pushing Up Rhubarb (A Millsferry Mystery Book 1)

by Diana Saco

  As a private investigator, however, I loved these digital footprints. Electronic databases made background checks and case research cheaper, faster, and greener. If I needed to search the archives of a newspaper in the middle of the country, I rarely had to travel there and schedule access. For major newspapers, I didn’t even have to go to my local public library to scroll through sheets of microfiche or rolls of microfilm. Most of them had been digitally scanned. Even company records were now commonly digitized and made available somewhere online, albeit behind a firewall or two. No more battling spiders and silverfish for pieces of paper that might or might not contain useful information. No more risking blindness and bronchial infection visually scanning reams of musty, dusty files with fading print and illegible scribbles under water stains and coffee-mug rings. I just logged into any number of free or subscription-based services on the Internet, typed in a few queries, and then sat back and waited for the results to be delivered in pristine bits on my high-definition flat screen monitor or tablet display.

  This was what I did after getting back from our excursion to Charlton. The results of my newspaper query were now saved on my smartphone. I was eager to share them with Mason, who had said that the trip would be a waste of time. Chloe and I had a meeting with him the following morning. We filled him in on the interview with Dr. Roth and explained how we put two and two together and came up with twins who shared a love interest. Fortunately for our investigation, the twins’ proud parents were the type to make public announcements about family milestones. That’s what I discovered when I researched the archives of their hometown paper. Almost three decades earlier, under the heading “Moffit-Munch,” Clovis and Abigail Moffit of Stillwater, Oklahoma, announced the engagement of their daughter Maxine Moffit to Marvin Munch. A mere thirteen months later, virtually the same announcement reappeared in the paper, but with one significant substitution—Monica, not Maxine, was now engaged to marry Marvin Munch. Having laid out our findings for Mason’s review, Chloe and I sat back triumphantly, waiting for his reaction.

  “And?” he said.

  “And what?” I countered.

  “How does that help us?” he asked.

  “Monica Munch’s husband and sister were having an affair! If we can prove that, we have two suspects with much better motives for killing her!”

  “Actually, what you’ve uncovered is that Maxine and Marvin were involved nearly thirty years ago. What you’ve also uncovered is that Maxine ended their relationship to pursue a career. And they’ve maintained a friendship, despite the breakup, with no apparent hard feelings between the sisters, who continued visiting each other. Marvin, for his part, is going to appear to be a loving husband, devoted to his wife and completely devastated by her death. That’s what the jury will see once Loyal parades all those witnesses at the bake-off who can testify to how Marvin reacted when he arrived on the scene and learned about his wife. If we’re going to start pointing fingers at him, we have to be able to prove it, darn it!”

  That was the closest I’d ever heard Mason come to swearing, so I knew he was serious. “What about the sister? How sympathetic will the jury find her when they discover she slept with her students?”

  “Pretty sympathetic once they learn about the kidney donation.”

  “What kidney donation?” Chloe asked.

  “The autopsy showed that Monica Munch had prior surgery for the removal of a kidney,” Mason explained. “I got an authorization from Mr. Munch to release his wife’s medical records. There’s a notation in there that when the sisters were nineteen, Monica donated a kidney to Maxine.”

  “No kidding,” Chloe said, the awe evident in her voice.

  Mason smiled. “Yes, no kidding. And if you’re this impressed, imagine how much more impressed the jury will be. That’s going to move them even more to sympathize with the victim and her family. They’re going to see two sisters so devoted to each other that one of them saved the other one’s life.”

  “Okay, but then Marvin comes into the picture,” I pressed.

  “Enter Marvin Munch,” Mason continued. “And maybe both of the sisters take a shine to him. Maxine is a bit more outgoing and popular, so Marvin falls for her first. But she has a debt she feels she needs to repay. So she changes her mind about the engagement and pretends she’d rather focus on her career. The fact that she’s sleeping with younger men who look like Marvin maybe shows she still carries a torch for him. But she’s sleeping with the substitutes, not with Marvin. That’s the choice she makes. She’d rather sleep with stand-ins than risk hurting her sister.”

  “Wow,” Chloe said. “That’s so . . . so honorable.”

  “Isn’t it? And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts Loyal’s going to tell the jury the same story.”

  “People change their minds, Mason,” I suggested. “Maxine may have made those sacrifices, as you said, because she felt she owed her sister. But years of loneliness and of pining away for something just out of reach can wear a soul down.”

  “I don’t disagree with you. I’m just saying that we need proof. Real proof. Flinging mud is only going to make us look dirty.”

  “Where does that leave me?” Chloe asked softly.

  I looked over and for the first time saw genuine worry etched in lines around her eyes. At that moment, she looked younger and more vulnerable than I’d ever seen her. Mason’s words brought us back down to reality, but because I had lifted her hopes up so much about our findings, the fall was suddenly harder. It was entirely my fault. I didn’t usually have my clients with me during my investigations. So I hadn’t learned how to play it close to the vest in their presence. I felt awful.

  Mason must have sensed that we needed a pep talk. “Listen to me carefully, both of you. Where this leaves you, Chloe, is no worse off than you were before. Loyal still has to make the case against you, and his job is a lot harder than ours. We don’t have to find Monica Munch’s killer. We don’t even have to prove that there could have been someone else. All we have to do is keep Loyal from showing beyond a reasonable doubt that Chloe is the only person who could have done it.”

  “How do we do that without pointing a finger at someone else?” I asked.

  “By focusing on the facts and showing how ridiculous the prosecution’s argument is. That’s how we’re going to win this case.”

  17. Munch's Revenge

  I was downtown a few days later reviewing records in my office. I was alone, which was good given that I was in a foul mood. Early in the investigation, we had gotten cellphone tower records on Monica’s phone showing her calls and corresponding locations, dates, and times for the previous thirty days. Bruno had wanted us to make sure Monica hadn’t gone anywhere else briefly the Saturday morning of the bake-off. It was before the tox reports came out confirming that the poison was in Chloe’s dessert, so it made sense to confirm that Monica couldn’t have gotten poisoned anywhere else. Mason had subpoenaed the same records and wanted us to go over them again officially for the defense side. That part made less sense to me. I dutifully scanned the data for July 20, again confirming Monica hadn’t been anywhere except at the Loop.

  “Nothing new here, Mason,” I said sarcastically.

  I was still brooding over Mason’s comments at our previous meeting. I respected his legal knowledge, but I lacked his faith in the outcome. I simply didn’t believe we could win the case without pointing a finger at someone else. Call it a writer thing, but I knew that something in the human psyche demanded closure. A story with a beginning and a middle had to have an end. If you offered people two stories—the prosecution’s story and the defense’s story—the version with an ending was going to be far superior to the one that provided no ending at all. Loyal’s story satisfied that requirement. It ended with a believable explanation for who killed Monica Munch. Our story didn’t even provide a good cliffhanger. There was no promise of discovery. No hint at explanation. No jury was going to buy that. But before we could persuade a jury, we had to persua
de Mason. We needed evidence to convince him that he could and should deliver a plausible alternative to the jury and give them closure.

  So when Al answered the phone and said it was Jeff Woo calling with more information, I practically lunged at my extension to take the call. “Hi, Jeff!” I said enthusiastically. “How’s it hanging?”

  I slapped my forehead, considering too late how one of my habitual greetings would go over with a nudist. I heard laughter at the other end as my face turned rhubarb red. I was pretty sure Jeff knew I was blushing.

  “Nina, glad to hear your voice, too,” he said. “Listen, Joanna and I were talking about your case again after your partner’s visit the other day.”

  In our research, we had discovered that oxalic acid concentrate could be distilled from rhubarb leaves. Given Joanna Woolsy’s expertise in plant biology, I had conned Al into visiting the Woolsy-Woo home to find out more. But silly me, I forgot to mention they were nudists. Al got an eyeful. He was still on the other extension, and I could hear him cough uncomfortably when Jeff mentioned his wife’s name.

  “Did Joanna have something else she wanted to add?” I asked.

  “No, actually I thought of something else. You know, I cut most of the leaves off the rhubarb before selling it, everything except a small triangle at the top of each stalk to keep it fresh longer. Anyway, I sometimes take crates of those leaves to the market for customers to take for free.”

  “Why would your customers want rhubarb leaves?” Al asked.

  “For their own compost mostly, but they can also be used to make a natural pesticide. Joanna and I use some of them for that. And I have one other regular client who soaks the leaves to make rhubarb wine.”

  “Is that safe?” I asked alarmed.

  “Uh, yeah, if done right to remove the acid. So anyway, I take the leaves in mostly for that guy, but only a couple of times in the season.”

  “Did you take some leaves to the market with you the same day you sold Chloe her rhubarb?” I asked.

  “No, that’s why I’d totally forgotten about this until I was talking to Joanna. I took leaves to the market the week before, on Friday, July twelfth.”

  So far I hadn’t heard any startling new revelation. I assumed Al had the same thought because he pressed Jeff for more details.

  “Are you sayin’ Chloe was there the week before and picked herself up some of those leaves then?

  “No, not Chloe. Another lady. I didn’t really get a good look at her face because she was wearing sunglasses and had a black knit cap on. Seemed a little hot for that, but what caught my attention was that instead of picking up a crate or two, she was grabbing leaves and shoving them into a garbage bag bare-handed.”

  “Is that bad?” I asked.

  “Well, it can cause irritation. Which is why I put the leaves out with a big sign saying, ‘Rhubarb leaves. Toxic. Handle with care.’ She seemed out of place. Like she didn’t know what she was doing.”

  “Maybe she was just lookin’ for greens, ya think?” Al suggested.

  “No, I heard her specifically ask my assistant if we had any rhubarb leaves before he pointed her in the direction of the truck behind us. I saw her go over and start putting the leaves in the plastic bag. I was about to call to her to give her some gloves, but a customer came up. By the time I was done with him, she was gone.”

  “And you have no idea who she was?” I asked.

  “No, but I could see some of her hair coming out the bottom of the cap. It looked red. Oh, and she spoke with a thick southern accent.”

  I could think of two people involved in this case who fit that description perfectly. One of them was dead, and the other one was her dead-ringer.

  “Is there anything else you can tell us, Jeff?” I asked. “The car she was driving, her clothes, her jewelry? Anything?”

  “No, sorry. She disappeared into the crowd while I was distracted. And I didn’t get a good look at her to begin with. Not so helpful, huh?”

  “It’s food for thought, Jeff,” I said. “I appreciate your giving us a call.”

  Jeff agreed to contact us again if he remembered anything else. After he hung up, Al came over to chat. I was glad Chloe was with Aunt Dottie all day. I didn’t want her overhearing our conversation and getting her hopes up again needlessly.

  “What ya think, Sha?” Al began.

  “I think it’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an eggshell.”

  “Are we gonna crack some eggs, then?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Ya thinkin’ it was the sister?”

  “Don’t you?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t make sense. You said yourself that you didn’t think Maxi had been to Millsferry before.”

  “Well, to her sister’s house, anyway,” I clarified. “She might have rendezvoused with Marvin somewhere else in town.”

  “And she would have to know somethin’ about cookin’ to work with those leaves to get that acid concentrate, don’tcha think?”

  “But remember what Jeff said? That the lady seemed out of place like she didn’t know what she was doing?”

  “All right, Sha. I’ll check to see if there’s any surveillance recordings for that area on those dates, then. You wanna check Maxi’s B&B? See if she was out-a-town?”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that,” I said. But what I was really thinking was that maybe it was time for something more proactive.

  *****

  Al and I agreed not to say anything to Chloe until we knew if the information Woo gave us was a bona fide lead. I did call Maxi’s B&B. The person who answered identified herself as “Lucy, the assistant manager.” I pretended to be a guest who had stayed there last July. I told her that I only recently discovered that I had lost a cameo broach and that the last time I remembered wearing it was at the B&B on the twelfth. She said she didn’t see a broach listed in their lost-and-found, which is what I had hoped given that this was a complete fabrication. I told her that a lady had admired it, that I thought she was the manager, and could she ask her if she remembered seeing my broach. And that’s when I got the information I was after.

  “I don’t think so, ma’am,” she said. “Dr. Moffit was in Amherst that weekend for a NOFA project.”

  “Nofa?” I asked.

  “Oh, sorry. The Northeast Organic Farming Association. Dr. Moffit was going to chair one of the panels for the annual summer conference in August.”

  I recalled Dr. Roth saying that Maxi wanted to promote the use of organics in the hospitality business. Evidently, she had continued her pet project after leaving Charlton. I wondered how much she had learned. I asked Lucy about it and almost put my foot in it.

  “Does Dr. Moffit do much organic farming at the B&B?”

  “Our traditional four-square kitchen garden is the centerpiece of our inn, ma’am. It’s all over our brochures. Didn’t you visit our garden during your stay with us?”

  “Oh. Oh, yes, I remember now,” I said, trying to recover. “It’s just, I was on a writing retreat, you see,” I lied, pulling together a plausible storyline from tidbits of the conversation I had with Chloe on our recent car trip. “I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings, I’m afraid. It’s probably how I misplaced my broach.”

  “Well, on that weekend, Dr. Moffit was gone from Thursday until the following Monday to attend a preplanning meeting with some of the panel participants.”

  That was the information I needed, but I continued the ruse a little longer to see if I could learn anything more.

  “Oh, dear,” I said. “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure, ma’am. I was out, too, so Dr. Moffit had to find someone else to cover here. I don’t know who that was, but I can ask Dr. Moffit.”

  I assumed she meant she would call Maxi, but I continued playing my part anyway.

  “Yes, can you ask her now, please?”

  “No, ma’am, she’s not here at the moment. She’s been away on family business. Her sister passed away.”

  �
��Oh, my condolences to her. I suppose that means you won’t be able to reach her?”

  “Actually, I’m expecting her and her brother-in-law later today. They’re coming up for the weekend so that she can tend to some business.”

  Interesting, I thought. I finished my conversation with Maxi’s assistant pretending that I would call her boss later about the fantasy broach. I considered what I had just learned—that Maxi and Marvin were going to be out of town the entire weekend. I sensed that this was information I could use, but I wasn’t sure how. Not yet anyway.

  Curious about the other facts I had uncovered, I launched my browser and did a little more research on this conference that Maxi apparently attended regularly. As I suspected, it included workshops on everything from sustainable practices to public policymaking. For my purposes, the workshops that mattered were ones on making your own organic pesticides. Jeff Woo had said that the rhubarb leaves someone picked up from his truck could have been used to make an organic pesticide, one that obviously would have been high in oxalic acid. Maxi could have learned about rhubarb leaves from her research and conference participation. She may well have gone to Amherst that weekend to further her education in the ways of organic farming. But she could have as easily taken a short detour into Millsferry first—both to see Marvin and maybe also to engage in an extracurricular project that involved getting rhubarb leaves from the farmers’ market. Some pieces were starting to fit together with a satisfying click.

  *****

  Few things annoy me more than a stuck window. Summer swelter bloats the wood causing the window frames to swell inside their tracks. Old paint doesn’t help either. I could swear I saw at least four strata of previous decades’ paint where a small chunk had been chipped away. This would make it almost impossible to open any window, let alone a second story window that is barely at arm’s reach while one is dangling outside it from a nearby tree.