The Diva Digs Up the Dirt

by Krista Davis

  The EMTs made quick work of loading him onto a gurney and placing him in the ambulance.

  The Greene family, Cricket, and Francie dispersed quickly to follow the ambulance to the hospital. In minutes, only the minister, the violinist, Nina, and I were left.

  Practical Nina said calmly, “I guess we’d better take Cupcake with us. I seriously doubt that it will occur to any of them to feed her tonight.”

  At nine o’clock, I paced the floor, a peculiar mixture of exhaustion and taut nerves that wouldn’t let me sleep. Every few minutes, I stepped outside, looking for lights in Francie’s house.

  Unless there were several killers in the Greene family, someone had murdered Heath and tried to kill Roscoe, Mindy, and Audie. What did they have in common?

  I could link Roscoe, Audie, and Heath due to Heath’s attempt to embezzle from Roscoe’s company, but Mindy was outside the loop.

  I could link Mindy, Roscoe, and Audie, because Mindy’s arrival in the family had caused heartache, but then Heath didn’t fit into the equation.

  What were the facts? What did I know for sure?

  Roscoe and Mindy were both poisoned by digoxin, yet that didn’t seem to be the case for Audie, since he’d had different symptoms. Had the poisoner run out of digitalis and switched to something else? Had he changed to another drug because Mindy and Roscoe survived?

  That was all useless speculation. I had to focus on the facts.

  Audie and Cricket intended to marry. Mindy could have been jealous. No, that, too, was speculation. Who knew what Mindy felt? Why did everything lead back to unfounded theories?

  Audie had been poisoned by food Cricket brought from his home. Now there was something concrete. It pointed a finger at Cricket. Who was I kidding? Olive, Roscoe, Violet—the whole family probably had access to keys to Audie’s house, the same way Natasha kept taking my keys from Mars.

  But Francie and I had seen Mindy go into Audie’s house. If Audie wasn’t having an affair with her, why had she been there? What if he didn’t know she was in the house? Was that possible?

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, Sophie,” I muttered to myself. There were bottles of the dressing stored in the guest house. That was a fact. It was also indisputable that Mindy had a key and let herself into Audie’s home.

  My pulse quickened.

  She had easy and private access to bottles of dressing in the guest house, which she could have doctored. Francie and I could place Mindy at Audie’s house, the scene of the crime. It would have been a snap for her to replace one of the bottles in Audie’s house with a poisoned bottle. But what about Cricket? Why wasn’t she sick? That blew my whole theory.

  I walked outside again. There was a light on in Francie’s house. I rushed to her door and banged the knocker. Nina must have been watching for Francie’s lights, too, because she ran up behind me.

  Francie opened the door. “I should have known.” She walked back to her kitchen. I closed the door and followed Nina. Francie set three Waterford sherry glasses cut in the Colleen pattern on the table and retrieved a bottle of Hartley and Gibson’s Cream Sherry.

  I always enjoyed the ambience of Francie’s kitchen. It struck me as part kitchen, part library. The stove and other kitchen appliances took up one corner in the back. The rest of the room was lined with cabinets topped by bookshelves. A chunky French farmhouse table occupied the center of the room.

  She sat down, shoved the bottle toward me, and closed her eyes.

  I poured some of the sweet amber liquid into each glass. “How’s Audie?”

  Francie sipped her sherry. “He’s my godson, you know. I never thought I’d see a day like today. The police, namely that idiot, Kenner, think Olive tried to kill Audie.”

  “Olive?” Nina cried. “She loves Audie.”

  “That she does.” Francie slowly swung her head from side to side. “The EMTs said she was acting like she knew what had poisoned him.”

  “She was, sort of.” She had been adamant about that water.

  Francie glared at me.

  “She kept telling him to drink,” I said. “In fact, I think she might have told them she knew he was poisoned.”

  Francie rested her elbows on the table. “Turns out all the water probably saved him.”

  “Did they test the dressing?”

  Francie scratched her head. “See, that’s the weird thing. It was mostly dressing. The doctor said they spread some out, and it looked like someone had chopped up various plants and added them. Harmful ones, as well as bits of daisies and petunias.”

  “So what caused the problem?” I asked. “He was violently ill.”

  “Monkshood. One of the most poisonous plants in the English garden. You can be poisoned just by touching it. Olive suggested they test for it because she had planted some back near the pond. Fortunately, Audie must not have gotten much, and all that water Olive forced him to drink helped save him. It also made her the prime suspect.”

  “But that’s crazy,” said Nina. “If Olive had wanted to poison someone, she wouldn’t have added all those nontoxic plants. She would have known what she was doing.”

  “It’s absolute nonsense to place blame on Olive,” said Francie, looking more alert. “She would never hurt Audie. Never! She was spitting mad about Mindy’s plan to dig up those beautiful gardens and cover them with concrete, but Olive wouldn’t kill anyone.”

  “Okay, I’m making a list,” said Nina. “This is driving me crazy.” She snatched a pad of paper and a pencil off a shelf. “It all began with Roscoe. Then Mindy fell. And now Audie.”

  “You forgot Heath,” I reminded her. “He was really the first victim.”

  “Wow. Four victims.” Nina added Heath to the top of the list.

  Francie lowered her head into her hands. “It’s as though someone wants to wipe out the entire Greene family. No wonder they suspect Olive.”

  “I’m making a suspect list on the right,” said Nina. “Olive. Have to add Mrs. Danvers, er, Violet. She’s looney.”

  I swiveled the liquid in my glass. “What I don’t understand is why Cricket didn’t get sick. Didn’t she and Audie eat the same foods?”

  “Hah!” spat Francie. “The doctor asked her that. Turns out she doesn’t like Italian dressing. She’s a ranch dressing girl all the way.”

  “Adding her to the list of suspects,” said Nina, writing.

  Francie set her glass on the table. “I love Olive like she’s my sister, but I never understood her desire to plant monkshood. Audie was just plain lucky that he didn’t get a bigger dose.”

  “Which begs another question,” I said. “Why switch from digitalis to monkshood? Roscoe and Mindy had digoxin in their systems, but Audie was poisoned by monkshood.”

  “It’s faster.” Francie twisted the stem of her glass around while she spoke. “Monkshood can kill a person in thirty to sixty minutes. Foxglove brings a slower death.”

  “It was Mindy,” I pronounced.

  They stared at me.

  “Who had the most to gain from Audie’s death? Mindy! If Roscoe’s only child was out of the way, wouldn’t Mindy think she would be in the best position to inherit Roscoe’s entire estate?”

  “But she was poisoned, too,” said Nina. “Maybe she has the motive to kill Roscoe and Audie, but she hates the garden. She wouldn’t know which plants were poisonous.”

  “You can look up anything on the Internet these days,” said Francie. “You don’t have to be a pro at gardening to poison someone.”

  “Nina, if you wanted to poison someone with plants, how would you do it?” I asked.

  She cocked her head at me like I was being silly. “You already told me the easiest way is to make a tea.”

  “What would you put in the tea?”

  “I’m not on trial here!”

  “I’m not accusing you. I’m trying to make a point.”

  “I guess I’d put in foxglove and that monkshead stuff.”

  I grinned at her little distortion of the
plant’s name. “What does it look like?”

  “I don’t know,” she wailed. “Was the foxglove pink or purple? But I’m not stupid. I’d look it up… ohhhh. I see what you mean. She couldn’t research poisonous plants on her computer because the cops could track it to her. So she chopped up bits of plants, hoping she was getting some poisonous ones.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Dear Sophie,

  I watched a local domestic diva on TV who insisted that gardens must be planned carefully on paper. She even recommended the use of a color wheel to make sure the flowers will coordinate, not clash. I was exhausted just watching her. Is it really awful just to shake out some seeds and hope they’ll take?

  —Lazy Gardener in Lantana, Florida

  Dear Lazy Gardener,

  Have fun with your garden and scatter seeds as you wish. You never know what wonderful things might happen! If you don’t like what comes up, you can always move it.

  —Sophie

  Francie perked up, her eyes shining. “That’s what we saw, Sophie! Audie didn’t go home to meet Mindy. He probably didn’t even know she was there. She snuck into his house to switch out the bottle of dressing.”

  I placed my finger on my nose like we were playing charades. “That’s exactly what I think.”

  Francie rose and brought me her phone. “You have to call Kenner right away and tell him.”

  “Wait!” shouted Nina. “Why did Mindy poison herself?”

  “That wicked minx,” growled Francie. “She used plants so it would cast suspicion on Olive, the garden expert. I knew Mindy was trouble. Then, when Roscoe didn’t die, I bet Mindy thought it was safe enough, so she took some of her own poison so no one would suspect her.”

  Mindy had opportunity and motive, not to mention that we had seen her entering Audie’s house, but something was bothering me. “Why would she kill Roscoe first? Assuming her goal was to inherit everything, it would have been a huge risk to poison Roscoe before Audie died.”

  I thought Nina might spew her sherry.

  Francie sat down, deflated. “Maybe she thought the digitalis would take longer to kill Roscoe. If she gave it to him in small doses, his eventual death would have been chalked up to a heart condition.” She shook her head. “Poor old stupid Roscoe.”

  Nina snapped her fingers. “Then, when Roscoe went to the hospital, she became nervous. What if he died before Audie? So she had to hurry up a new batch of dressing and run it over to Audie’s house!”

  “That blows our theory entirely. If she chopped up plants because she didn’t know which ones were poisonous, then how did she manage to avoid giving Roscoe monkshood? If he threw out his digitalis prescription like he said, and she didn’t know one flower from the next, then how would she have poisoned him with foxglove?”

  Francie sat back. “I’m exhausted. I don’t know how you girls manage without sleep. Sophie, promise me you’ll call Kenner and tell him about Mindy when you get home? He should know that we saw Mindy going into Audie’s house.”

  “I must be getting older because I no longer bristle when someone calls me a girl.” Nina kissed Francie on the cheek. “Get some sleep.”

  It was ten thirty when we left Francie’s house. “Should I call Kenner now or wait until morning?”

  “Mindy’s in the hospital, so presumably she can’t do much damage. On the other hand, maybe he should know now. He could be on the way to arrest Olive.”

  We went back to my house, and naturally, I couldn’t find Kenner’s number. When had he given it to me? At Wolf’s house. I’d worn a sleeveless top that day with skorts and regretted it when the bushes scratched my arms. I ran upstairs and found Kenner’s number stashed in the pocket of the skorts, along with the picture of Wolf and Anne on the beach that I’d swiped from Wolf’s house. I pressed in the numbers on my cell phone to call Kenner and slid the photo into my purse for safekeeping. I wanted to return it in good condition. Except for memories, pictures were all Wolf had left of Anne.

  Kenner answered immediately. I told him we had a theory about Mindy based on fact, but when I started to explain it, he said, “Are you at home? I’ll be right there.”

  The door knocker banged before I reached the foyer. When I opened the door, Mars and Kenner waited outside, breathless.

  “Were you standing out on the street?” I asked.

  “Actually, we were. Natasha has some kind of weird project under way, and she’s banging on metal,” explained Mars. “We were trying to get away from the clanging.”

  They followed me to the kitchen. “Could I get you a drink?”

  “Nothing hard for me, thanks.” Mars wrinkled his nose. “I think I’m off it for a while. I didn’t like what that scotch did to me.”

  “Afraid of drinking and eating? How about a black cherry float?”

  Kenner perked up. “Are you serious? I haven’t had a float since I was a kid!”

  Was it just me, or was Kenner becoming slightly more personable?

  I took down soda fountain glasses that I had snagged at a yard sale for next to nothing.

  While Nina explained our theory about Mindy chopping plants, putting them into Italian dressing, and delivering them to Audie’s house on the sly, I pulled vanilla ice cream from the freezer.

  Letting it soften for just a couple of minutes, I looked for old-fashioned black cherry soda in my pantry and brought several bottles to the island counter.

  “I see another flaw in your theory.” Mars ruffled the fur on Daisy’s neck. “If Mindy didn’t know anything about gardening, how did she know about foxglove and digitalis?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe she saw an article in a magazine, or someone happened to mention it to her.” Nina suggested. “I’m always running across weird information.”

  I scooped creamy vanilla ice cream into the tall glasses and poured the soda over the ice cream. One long iced-tea spoon and a straw went into each. I brought them to the table with blue napkins on a little tray.

  In all the time that I had known him, Kenner had never looked so happy.

  Mars had a mouthful of ice cream but said, “Mmm. Perfect.” He swallowed. “We should do this more often. Not the poison stuff, but the floats. I’ll take this over Mindy’s scotch any day. What’s that?” He pointed at the paper Nina held.

  “I made a list to help us figure all this out. The victims are on the left and the suspects are on the right.” Nina shoved the list to the center of the table so they could read it.

  “If you suspect Mindy, why isn’t she on the suspect side?” asked Kenner.

  Nina added Mindy’s name to the other column.

  “Heath is the odd man out here since he’s not a Greene,” mused Mars. “Shouldn’t you add Anne Fleishman’s name to the victim side? She was entangled with Heath in some way.”

  “What about Audie?” I asked. “He could have killed Heath.”

  I watched as Nina wrote Anne’s name, then added Wolf, Mona, and Audie to the suspects column. “I hardly think Wolf has been poisoning the Greenes.”

  “No one ever said there couldn’t be two people trying to poison someone.” Kenner’s suggestion caught me by surprise.

  “Of course! That would explain the two different poisons.” I squinted at Kenner. How could I convince him to tell us more? Maybe if I said something outrageous. “Is Wolf a suspect in Heath’s murder?”

  Nina’s entire body jolted. “I need a drink. The hard kind, scotch, not soda. Mars, can I get you one?”

  “No thanks. I’ve been off scotch since the day I had some of Mindy’s stash and felt so ragged afterward.”

  Mars and I said it at the same time. “The scotch.”

  “One of the poisons could be in the scotch. You didn’t have any, right, Sophie?” asked Mars.

  “I don’t usually drink that early in the day. Well, maybe a Mimosa or something fruity. Nothing that strong anyway. Cricket didn’t have a drink, either. It was just you and Roscoe. We didn’t have any salad or dr
essing with lunch. Maybe you should call and warn Roscoe.”

  Kenner held out a hand. “It’s okay. All kinds of things were taken from the house to be analyzed. I’m sure they’re checking the liquor, too.”

  “They might not have known about it,” I said. “It’s in a globe.”

  Mars chimed in. “It looks like a piece of furniture.” He picked up my telephone and dialed.

  We listened to Mars explain the situation to Roscoe.

  Mars placed his hand over the receiver. “Roscoe’s on his way downstairs to remove the bottle so no one else will drink from it.”

  “Ask him if Mindy drank any of the scotch recently,” I suggested.

  We waited, eating the ice cream in our floats.

  Kenner blew on the back of his wrist.

  I recognized the blisters and bumps from my own encounters with a vicious weed. “Poison ivy?”

  “I guess so. It itches like the devil.”

  “It’s gone?” Mars shouted. “Yeah, good-night Roscoe.” Mars hung up. “Mindy’s scotch decanter is missing. Though he sounded more upset about the fact that Violet still hasn’t refilled his bourbon decanter. And Mindy had a couple of drinks the night before she fell down the stairs.”

  “I knew it!” Nina waved her spoon. “Mrs. Danvers—er, Violet—is the poisoner. She probably poured out his bourbon on purpose to drive him to Mindy’s bottle of scotch.”

  “I really drank poison?” Mars grabbed his throat with both hands and hacked.

  It was frightening. Mars could have been seriously hurt. I knew his propensity to obsess over things, though. With the confident tone of a school nurse, I said, “You’re fine. Maybe the cops found the scotch and took it to test.”

  Kenner remained silent.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked him.

  “Violet would be very clever if she had done that because it would appear that she had intended to kill Mindy, not Roscoe.” Kenner’s eyes narrowed, as though he was trying to figure something out.

  “As cold and odd as Violet is, I think she truly loves Audie,” I said. “I can’t see her poisoning Roscoe or Audie. And since she does most of the cooking, she would surely realize that Cricket doesn’t like Italian dressing.”