Murder Sweetly Served
Page 6
“He didn’t actually say Daphne Delamare killed him,” Clyde pointed out. “He just said she did it. That could mean anything, and it will seem that way to a jury.”
“She certainly had the opportunity, and the motive as well,” Rieker said. The two of them had paused quite close to the door, as we were able to hear them easily.
“I’m sure the doctor’s right, but we’ll need to do a bit more digging into these death cap mushrooms. Find out the shortest time someone could die after administration. This makes things more difficult now, given that it was possibly administered well before the party. If we can’t pinpoint the time of the poison’s administration, that will make it a very difficult case to solve.”
Rieker was the next to speak. “I feel sorry for Ms Myers because of that dreadful newspaper article this morning. The whole town will blame her. She will probably go broke. Everyone will think her chocolates were poisoned.”
“True, but that’s not our responsibility,” Clyde said brusquely. “Our duty is to solve this murder, but it seems as if we have a plethora of suspects, and right now, Daphne Delamare is looking like the main person of interest.”
“And there’s no chance of accidental ingestion?” Rieker asked. “I googled death cap mushrooms, and they can be mistaken for common mushrooms.”
Clyde made a strange sound at the back of his throat. “No, you heard what Dr Marshall said last night. He said the victim ingested a huge amount and on a continual basis. Find out if he cooked his own meals, and arrange for his place to be searched right now. I shouldn’t think anyone will force us to get a search warrant. If Dorothy Delamare cooked his meals, then the finger is pointing firmly at her.”
They said more, but they had started walking again, and we couldn’t hear. After what seemed an age, we emerged from the cupboard, none the worse for wear. We walked briskly back through the corridors, avoiding eye contact with all the nurses, who were busily going about their own business.
“Carl, I’m done for,” I wailed, as soon as we were outside. “Did you hear what they said? They said I was going to go broke!”
“Calm your farm, Narel,” Carl said. “They were talking idle nonsense.”
I clutched my throat. “Do you really think so?”
“No. They probably meant it.” He held up both hands to placate me and then unlocked his car. “Narel, I hate to admit when you’re right, but it looks as though we are going to have to solve this murder by ourselves. One thing is sure; Daphne Delamare didn’t do it.”
“How do you know that?”
Carl didn’t answer, but jumped in his car. I followed suit. When we had buckled up, Carl reversed the car, keeping his eyes firmly on his reversing camera. “Why do people walk behind a reversing car?” Carl said crossly.
I poked him in the ribs. “You haven’t told me.”
Carl shot a look at me. “Told you what?”
“You haven’t told me why you think Daphne Delamare didn’t do it.”
“I don’t think she didn’t do it, I know. If she did poison him, why would she come to his retirement party and make a scene? Until that point, probably no one knew she was having an affair with him, but now everyone does. Not only that, but now everyone knows that she had a big argument with him.”
“Oh, that makes sense.” I thought on it some more. “Actually, it doesn’t make sense.”
Carl swore at the hat driver in front of us. In Australian country towns, hat driver is the term used to refer to slow-driving farmers who wear big hats while driving erratically. Most of the time, hat drivers drive at a fraction of the speed limit and invariably never indicate before or during turning, although some indicate randomly a few minutes after turning. They are also likely to slam on the brakes for no reason. This hat driver was doing ten kilometres in a fifty kilometre zone. Carl finally managed to pass the hat driver, who sped up and swerved into our lane as Carl did so.
“What did you say, Narel?” He made a rude sign at the hat driver, who waved happily back.
I was still clutching my seat. My accident had left me terrified of cars. In fact, I still hadn’t bought my own car. I thought I should get used to being a passenger first. “I said it didn’t make sense. I mean, she could well be the murderer, because she might have staged that scene to make everyone think she only found out that night that he was cheating on her. That would absolve her from blame, don’t you see?” Carl didn’t answer, so I continued. “We overheard the detectives and the doctor saying that Stan was actually poisoned several days ago. That is, that he would have eaten the first lot of death cap mushrooms then, a few days ago. Do you see what I mean?”
Carl shook his head. “Not really.”
I sighed. “Okay. The murderer poisoned Stan Wellings several days ago. Sure, they could have kept poisoning him, but they first poisoned him several days ago. Correct?”
Carl nodded.
“What if Daphne Delamare knew he was having an affair all along and poisoned him several days ago, but staged that scene last night to make it look as though she had only just found out that he was having an affair. That was a big public scene, so everyone present would think that she had only just discovered it. Since the medical evidence is that he was poisoned several days earlier, that would let her off the hook. What if it was all a big act on her part?”
Carl was silent for a few moments. “I see where you’re going with it, Narel, but it sounds far too complicated to me.”
“It would be clever of her though, wouldn’t it?”
“If she was the murderer, then it would be very clever of her, I suppose,” Carl conceded. “Narel, you need to come to my place and I’ll make you some lunch. Then we can go over all the suspects. We need to solve this case as soon as possible.”
That made me feel better. We had overheard the police saying it was a very difficult case, and while I was sure they would solve it in the end, I still wanted my chocolate shop to be successful by the time they did.
Chapter 8
If I had to describe Carl’s house in one word, it would be ‘white.’ The walls were white; the floors were white; the kitchen was white; even Carl’s fancy cat, the former show champion, Louis the Fourteenth, was white. Louis the Fourteenth was as well-groomed as Carl’s immaculate house was clean. There was not a single cat hair to be seen, quite a feat considering Louis the Fourteenth was a Persian.
It was then no surprise that Carl favoured whiteboards when figuring out a problem. Whiteboards were everywhere in the living room—propped against the walls, on whiteboard stands, on tables. The only colour I could see was the blue whiteboard marker.
Carl snatched up his whiteboard marker with delight. “Narel, we’ll start with making lists of suspects, and then we will cross-reference them to motives. Do you think we should have a separate whiteboard for each suspect?”
“I’m not sure if you have enough whiteboards for that,” I said, trying to conjure up a list of suspects in my mind.
Carl shook his whiteboard marker at me. “I know! We’ll have a whiteboard for each of the main suspects, and then we will put everyone else, excluding ourselves, of course, on another whiteboard or two.”
I agreed that that was a good idea. Carl wrote Daphne Delamare’s name across the top of one whiteboard, and underlined it with a flourish.
“And don’t forget we have to put The Purr-suader on another whiteboard,” I said.
Carl pouted, but nevertheless did as I asked. He spun around, his marker in the air. “I suppose we should put Miriam Moreton, Stan’s personal secretary, on a whiteboard by herself. She did seem to like him, but that could have been an act, and she did ask you to make the fly agaric mushrooms.” He nodded furiously. “Clever. Yes, I could see why she did that. Very clever ordering fly agaric mushrooms and then poisoning them with death cap mushrooms.”
“Well, we don’t know if she actually did it, Carl,” I said. “And if she did it, why wouldn’t she ask me to make death cap mushroom chocolates?”
I shook my finger at him. “I’ll have you know, fly agaric mushrooms are very poisonous as well. They can be quite deadly, too.”
Carl pursed his lips. “But they’re so pretty,” he protested.
I simply shrugged. Pursuing this line of conversation wasn’t going to get me anywhere. “Who else can we have as suspects?” I asked him.
Carl fetched another whiteboard stand and placed a bulky whiteboard on it. “Mick Holder, the sheep shearer.”
“Yes, because Stan wouldn’t allow him to be with Minnie.”
Carl shook his head. “No, Narel. Right now we’re just thinking of suspects. We will get to motives later.”
My stomach growled. “Didn’t you mention lunch, Carl?”
“Yes, you can have lunch as your reward, once we get all the suspects written on the whiteboards. I’m adding Minnie to this whiteboard, and who else is there?”
“Craig Cooper, the colleague,” I said suddenly. “He certainly didn’t like Stan.”
Carl wrote Craig’s name on another whiteboard, and then placed all the whiteboards in a line. He turned to me and ticked off the suspects on his fingers. “Dorothy Delamare, The Purr-suader, Craig, Minnie, Mick. Is that all?” He seemed disappointed.
“I think so. I’ll think better on a full stomach,” I said pointedly.
“All right, all right. Let’s go into the kitchen.”
The kitchen, of course, was as immaculate as the rest of Carl’s house. I was surprised he even cooked in there. Still, I knew he was one of those people who cleaned up after every part of the cooking process. “How about a nice healthy salad, Narel?”
I groaned. “Is there dessert?”
Carl pouted. “If you eat all your salad, maybe I will let you have some chocolate ice cream.”
“Can I have some chocolates on top of it?”
Carl looked quite put out. He bent down to stroke Louis the Fourteenth who was rubbing between his legs, purring loudly. “It depends on how much salad you eat.”
“But Carl, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, I can’t eat much at once. You know, from what they had to do to my insides with all my terrible injuries. That’s why I can’t put on weight—well, it’s one of the ghastly medical reasons, anyway.”
Carl brandished a lettuce leaf. “If you eat a small amount of salad, then I will give you a small amount of chocolate ice cream with one chocolate on the top. Deal?”
I had to admit defeat. “All right, then,” I said sadly.
“I’m sure Porridge wants his women fit and healthy,” Carl said archly.
“Carl, please call him Tom, not Borage, or Porridge for that matter. Anyway, I’m not Tom’s woman, and I am working on getting myself fit and healthy.”
Carl simply added a sliced tomato to my salad bowl by way of response.
Something suddenly occurred to me. I slapped myself on the side of my head. “Why didn’t I think of that before?” I pulled my phone from my pocket and googled images of death cap mushrooms.
Carl abandoned his addition of more vegetables to my plate and came to look over my shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“I’m seeing what death cap mushrooms actually look like. I’m wondering if that was what I saw on top of the fly agaric.” I slid my thumb across the screen and then pointed. “Yes, it looked exactly like one of those young ones. You know, a small one would look like a marshmallow.”
“But surely he’d know if he ate a mushroom?” Carl asked in a bewildered tone. “He’d know it wasn’t a marshmallow, or a chocolate for that matter. Still, perhaps he thought it was a type of avant-garde chocolate. Yes, that must have been it.” He nodded slowly.
“Hang on a minute.” I scrolled down to read the description of death cap mushrooms. “It says here that they taste delicious.”
Carl pulled a face. “Maybe so, but they wouldn’t taste like chocolate.”
“I had other textures in there as well,” I reminded him. “The stems were a type of meringue. Besides, he shoved the chocolates in his face so fast that he wouldn’t have had a clue what he was tasting.”
Carl pushed the salad bowl across the table to me. I regarded it with caution. Lettuce? Why would anyone eat lettuce? “You know, Carl, I’ve just had a brilliant business idea. What if I make chocolate-coated vegetables?”
Carl stared at me as if I had gone mad. Finally, he spoke. “You’re joking, right? On second thoughts, don’t answer that. Hurry up and eat your salad if you want some ice cream.”
“I’m not a child,” I protested, but I did as he asked. It was worth the torture of eating the salad to get to the delicious chocolate ice cream with the chocolate on top. “Can I have another chocolate, Carl?”
Carl shook his head. “Narel, you keep telling me you can’t eat much, but you’ve eaten a whole salad, a small bowl of chocolate ice cream, and one chocolate.”
“There wasn’t much chocolate,” I said plaintively.
Carl ignored me. “Back to work!” He marched back into the living room, with me following behind. “Now we have to look at motives. Let’s look at the obvious motives first. Minnie’s motive was that her father wouldn’t let her see Mick.”
“That’s a pretty lame motive,” I said. “Lots of parents don’t let their daughters see guys, and the daughters don’t murder them for that.”
Carl held up a hand in protest. “I said we would write the motives, and we can decide later whether they are bad or good motives. For now, we just write the motives.”
“Okay.”
Carl was on a roll. “And Mick’s motive was that Stan wouldn’t let him see Minnie. What was Craig’s motive again?”
I bit my lip. “I don’t really know, but Craig didn’t like Stan. He made disparaging remarks about him.”
Carl seemed pleased by that. “I’ll just write that he didn’t like him, but we need to do some more digging on that one. They both worked at the same ad agency, so they were competitors. There was probably some dirty dealing on Stan’s part and we’ll have to find out what it was.”
“And we have to see if The Purr-suader was in fact married to Stan’s wife, before she was Stan’s wife, I mean,” I added.
Carl wrote that across the board. “And Daphne Delamare. Her motive is obvious. She found out that Stan was having an affair with Peaches.” His hand flew to his mouth. “I forgot Peaches!”
“So did I.” I wondered how anyone could possibly forget Peaches. The image of the woman’s impossibly stretched face and incredibly huge lips flashed before me. Carl fetched another stand and neatly placed a whiteboard on top. He wrote Peaches’ name with a flourish and underlined it three times. “I’m going to write that Peaches had a possible motive, namely, that she found out that Stan was cheating on her with other women, at least with Daphne, the housekeeper,” Carl said.
I pointed to one of the blank whiteboards. “Just write Stan’s colleagues there. Miriam said that Stan wasn’t well liked, so there must have been other people in the office who had a grudge against him.”
“Which brings us to Miriam,” Carl said. “I wonder what motive she had, if any.”
I stretched back on the sofa and groaned. “There are just too many suspects. Too many suspects, Carl, and not enough clues.”
“That’s because we haven’t begun digging yet,” Carl said, undaunted. “How about we invite The Purr-suader back to your place to work on Mongrel? We can pump him for information.”
“I doubt he’ll come back,” I said. “You saw what happened to him.”
“I’m sure he didn’t need too many stitches,” Carl said. “Besides, he left with all his fingers intact—at least I think he did. It won’t hurt to ask him. Anyway, I’ll bet his professional pride is involved.”
I leant forward. “Maybe you’re right. Now let’s look
at opportunity. Daphne was obviously the one with the most opportunity, and possibly Peaches, too. And Minnie. If the doctor was right about Stan’s initial poisoning occurring a few days ago, then anyone could have slipped him poisoned mushrooms at his home.”
“But if the doctor was wrong and he was given a massive dose that night, then The Purr-suader had the opportunity, because he was alone in your kitchen and he was overly interested in your chocolates.”
“Of course he was interested in my chocolates,” I said, somewhat put out. “Isn’t everyone?”
Carl raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. “At this stage, we don’t know that Mick had the opportunity. Miriam had the opportunity to slip him poisoned mushrooms at work, and so did Craig for that matter. So far, the only one who doesn’t have the opportunity—as far as we know—is Mick.”
“Oh great!” I said sarcastically. “So many suspects, all with motives, and most of them had the opportunity. How on earth are we ever going to solve this crime, Carl?”
Carl smiled enigmatically. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. We’ll start investigating these people one by one. I’m sure our investigations will turn up something. You wait and see, Narel.”
As if on cue, Louis the Fourteenth deigned to stretch out one long white paw and tap my knee.
Chapter 9
“I’ve had a brainwave,” Carl announced proudly. He studied the whiteboards a little longer, and then swung around to me, his hands in the air. “We just need the guest list.”
I thought that over for a moment. “So we can find some other suspects?”
Carl nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, so we will know everyone who was there. That will give us all the suspects.”
“It might not. Don’t forget that Stan was poisoned days earlier,” I reminded him.
Carl wagged his finger at me. “Yes, but what you’re forgetting is that the doctor said he likely had a massive dose the night of his retirement party. That meant it had to be someone present.”