Hooked on Ewe

by Hannah Reed

  “See, over here”—Ginny indicated a display with a large sign that read Gluten Free—“are the special bakery items I’ve added as more and more people are becoming intolerant tae gluten, so gluten-free it ’tis. Or is supposed tae be. Senga changed everything around, swapped a gluten-free batch for one with gluten! She made my customers sick, is what she did. I had no choice but tae let her go.”

  “Surely it was a mistake on her part,” I said, but couldn’t help wondering about that sleeping-pill-laced cupcake and the connection between that and this. Though there was a vast difference between a mistake in placing the wrong products on a shelf and intentionally adding drugs to baked goods.

  “Senga admitted her error, said she needed new glasses, and apologized from the bottom o’ her heart,” Ginny said. “But tae my mind, the choice was either her staying on, or my customers staying safe. I lost trust in her judgment and ability tae accomplish the most basic tasks, and found I couldn’t get it back. Which would ye have picked if ye had tae choose?”

  I didn’t reply. I might have handled the situation exactly as Ginny had.

  “Ach, employees! Ye haff tae watch them every second,” Sean said to his cousin as though he were an expert. “Nothin’ worse fer a business than bad employees, if ye ask me.”

  “I’ve learned my lesson,” Ginny agreed. “I always baked my own products in the past and wouldn’t change that, and after what happened I’m shelving them myself, too. A business owner has tae mind the shop.”

  Which was exactly what Kirstine had said about Sheepish Expressions and keeping watch over the cash register. Being a small business owner had to be hard work. Even doing your absolute best wasn’t good enough if an employee messed it up for you. Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about that in my line of work.

  After leaving the shop, Sean asked if I needed directions to Senga’s home. I told him the address I had and he added, “She’s in the upper flat. Go in through the close. Ye want my assistance?”

  Absolutely not, I thought, but said, “I can handle this one.”

  With that, he went his own way and I went mine. I’d pay a quick visit to Senga then head out to the farm for a showdown with the conniving Kirstine MacBride-Derry about the missing yarn kits.

  In a small community, avoiding unpleasant people isn’t as easy as it was in the city. Or maybe in a village this size it’s simply easier to peel away the layers of their public personas and expose them for what they really are.

  However, so many of the other locals were kind and welcoming. Despite Ginny’s issues with the woman, Senga Hill struck me as one of the many who were fun to be around.

  Senga lived on Oldcroft Street, which runs parallel to Castle Street two blocks north of the very center of the village. She rented a bedroom upper flat in a row of identical apartments. I stood on the sidewalk studying the building and seeing only one door, which led to the lower flat. And a walkway on the side of the building. The close? I followed the path, passing garbage receptacles, and found a gate in the back.

  I opened it, walked into and through a lush communal flower garden, past a timber shed, and up a flight of stairs. Senga answered on the first buzz.

  “Eden, what a lovely surprise,” she said, letting me into her kitchenette. “We’ll sit in the lounge. Would ye like some tea?”

  Thinking of how massive amounts of caffeinated tea had been the primary reason for my sleepless night, I declined. I followed her into her living room, or the lounge as she’d called it, where she motioned me to a seat on one end of a floral sofa.

  “I heard ye were helping solve the case,” she told me, sitting down on the other end of the sofa. “Are ye making headway on finding Isla’s killer?”

  “We’re still early in the investigation,” I told her, which amounted to a negative. “Right now, we’re asking routine questions.”

  “The inspector has been puttin’ inquiries tae me through a series o’ telephone calls.” Senga appeared fairly calm, but I noticed she was wringing her hands in her lap. “And he was asking about the cupcakes, and if Isla had bought any. Lots did, but not that one. A very strange question, if ye ask me. ’Twas yarn around the neck that killed her. What would my cupcakes have tae do with anything?”

  A tricky question to answer without giving away too much.

  It wasn’t my place to tell Senga what the coroner had discovered. She might suspect something odd, but she couldn’t know for sure why we were asking. Unless, that is, she turned out to be the one who murdered Isla.

  “Well?” she said, still waiting for my response regarding her cupcakes and Inspector Jamieson’s suspicions. Thankfully, she went on, “What’s Inspector Jamieson up tae?”

  “The inspector keeps his thoughts to himself most of the time,” I said, intentionally vague, but definitely true.

  “Aye, he’s a hard one tae read.”

  Tell me about it, I almost said, catching myself in time. Then to change the topic I asked for her yarn kit, explaining that we were collecting all of them.

  She immediately rose, went into her bedroom, and returned with it. Like several other members, Senga had started knitting—I recalled seeing her knitting alongside a few others at the trials. She didn’t complain, simply turned it over. “There ye be,” she said. “I have nothing tae hide.”

  I placed the kit beside me on the sofa. One more, with yarn intact, accounted for.

  “Did you see Isla during the day?” I asked.

  “Aye, she came around with her money bag tae collect the mornin’s take.”

  “How did she seem?” I asked, keeping to the script.

  “She seemed same as always. Her usual self.” I sensed something then, as though Senga had her own opinion about Isla Lindsey, but wasn’t going to share it on her own.

  “That was the only time you saw her?”

  “Aye.”

  “Anything else that might help?” I prompted, not ready to end the interview yet. “Anything at all that struck you as unusual?”

  “Nothing at the moment, but if I think o’ anything, I’ll be sure tae ring ye up.”

  I thought of asking her for a list of those who had purchased cupcakes, but she’d sold hundreds; she couldn’t possibly list every person who’d bought them, let alone known who may have actually eaten one.

  Before I could think of a last line of questioning, Senga said, “Dinnae take this the wrong way, Eden, but ye look exhausted. Ye should get some sleep. A nice nap would do ye wonders.”

  “I have been having trouble sleeping,” I admitted. “The murder is preoccupying my thoughts, even at night when I should be asleep. Especially then, actually.”

  “If Doc Keen sees ye, he’ll be on ye with a remedy. The doc’s been givin’ away samples o’ a new type o’ sleeping pill,” Senga told me.

  “Really?” I kept my expression as neutral as possible, but my breath took a leap and my heart began to beat faster.

  Senga went on, “Some salesperson left plenty o’ samples behind in Doc Keen’s office and he’s offering them tae some o’ his patients tae try.”

  I hoped the doctor wasn’t distributing sleeping pills like candy, especially if it was the same kind that had been given to Isla. So much for the inspector’s “good lead” if he was. “Doc Keen has a lot of patients from the village, does he?”

  “He’s the only private-practice doctor o’ medicine between the North Sea and Inverness that isn’t affiliated with the hospital and therefore not charging an arm and a leg fer his service as some o’ them do. Doc Keen takes care of us pensioners who don’t want some young pip-squeak barely out o’ nappies examining them.”

  Senga continued, “I wish I’d kept the sample he gave me, so ye could give it a try, but I threw the package in the rubbish. I’m not a big believer in using drugs tae get by, but each tae his own. I made the mistake o’ mentioning tae Doc Keen tha
t I’m up several times through the night and I couldn’t bring myself tae tell him I don’t believe in poppin’ pills. So I carried them along when I left with the full intention o’ throwin’ them away. Now I’m sorry I did. They woulda helped ye get some shut-eye, if ye aren’t against such a thing.”

  “When did you toss your sample?” I asked.

  “Just a few days ago, as a matter o’ fact. But ye can go by his office and make a request. Although he might have tae see ye first, make sure ye’re fit as a fiddle before given ye a sample tae try.”

  “I passed a bin on the side of the walkway leading round back to your door,” I said, suddenly excited that the conversation had made a turn from routine to right-on. “Is that where you discarded the sample?”

  “That’s a funny question tae be askin’,” she said, eyeing me with concern. “Ye don’t plan on digging fer them, now do ye?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Ye poor dear. See how exhausted ye are. I’d dig them out meself, but they’re buried but good by now. Should I phone the doctor fer ye?”

  “No, no, that’s quite all right. I rarely take medications myself.” It was time to move away from this hot topic, so I went on, “Did you know Isla well? I get the feeling that you’re holding back.” There, I’d put it out there.

  “Ye could tell that, could ye?”

  “I had a feeling.”

  “I knew her too well, if ye must know,” Senga said. “I learned tae steer clear o’ that one. She had a way o’ making a body feel small and worthless.”

  “You sound like you had personal experience,” I prodded.

  Senga nodded. “Aye, it’ll come out anyway, so I might as well be the one tae tell it. I worked fer a short time in the office o’ the hospice. I was helpin’ keep the books fer the charity events. Data entry, it was mostly, but a little bit o’ accounting as well. I had tae do all o’ that when I owned my own business, and I have a certain knack fer numbers.”

  “Who hired you?”

  “Harry Taggart himself. I’d already been making baked goods fer some o’ the other charity events and he knew I’d been a business owner. He thought I’d be useful tae catch up on the books. But I was forced out early in the summer.”

  “Forced out?”

  “Aye. Isla took a dislike tae me. She challenged me every time I turned around. After only a few weeks, she claimed I’d made too many mistakes. She didn’t give up with complaints against me, and soon after Mr. Taggart told me my help was no longer needed. It was herself that was behind it, I’m sure o’ it. But I didn’t make any mistakes at all, in fact I found several errors. She had it in fer me fer some reason or another.”

  I murmured something comforting, but my thoughts were elsewhere. Another mistake that Senga Hill had made. Another mistake that had led to her termination. Was she a vengeful woman? Had she killed Isla for accusing her of poor accounting skills? That hardly seemed likely. I paused to recall the timeline of Senga’s employment, and was certain that Senga had worked for Ginny in the spring and for the hospice during the summer. If she was going to kill someone over losing a job, wouldn’t her first victim have been Ginny Davis at Taste of Scotland? Ginny, though, was a sweetheart. Isla was a whole ’nother story.

  A few minutes later, I wished her a good day, tromped down the stairs, rounded the corner, and paused beside the trash bin. Senga claimed that she’d thrown away a sleeping pill sample. What if she’d lied to me? What if she used her sample to knock out Isla before choking her to death?

  Was I really considering digging through her trash?

  But if I found it, that would be something. Not much, but better than nothing. We’d have proof that her sample wasn’t used as a special ingredient in a cupcake.

  And if I didn’t find it? What would that prove?

  Someone else might have taken it. I couldn’t rule that out. But not finding it would throw a very bad light on the baker.

  Senga had obviously had access to those cupcakes. She’d been the one to make them, so of course she had plenty of opportunities to tamper with one. By her own admission, she’d also been given a sleeping pill sample, and had been let go from Taste of Scotland for making customers ill. Not only that, the recently murdered Isla had been the reason Senga also wasn’t working at the hospice office any longer.

  We only had Senga’s word for it that she hadn’t given Isla a cupcake. And having her yarn kit didn’t exonerate her. She could have stolen someone else’s and used their yarn. The important thing to do was track down every single kit until we found which one was missing. That kit’s owner wouldn’t necessarily be the killer, but it was the best place to begin. Not here in a garbage can.

  Or so I told myself even as I placed Senga’s knitting kit on the walkway and began digging in her trash. It seemed like an investigator sort of thing to follow up on.

  The trash receptacles were shared by several apartments. There was way too much waste for one household, and the communal trash—dirty diapers, canned fish remains, stinky odorous food—was made worse since multiple days’ worth had accumulated. Worse yet, when I didn’t find any pill samples in the top layers of either bin, I was forced to delve deeper.

  And deeper.

  The only positive thing about this task was that there weren’t many windows facing the walkway between the apartments, or I would have been exposed to any tenant looking out. I certainly didn’t want to get caught by any of the tenants, but if I did, at least I had a warrant to present, which was something, but it would have been embarrassing at best.

  My phone rang when I was elbow deep in garbage. I fumbled to answer it before the sound gave me away.

  “How is it going on yer end?” the inspector’s voice came through loud and clear after I greeted him in a whisper.

  “Messy,” I replied.

  “I’ve traced those sleeping pills tae Doc Keen,” he told me. If I could find any amusement in anything at the moment, it was in knowing I was several piles of garbage ahead of him. “He’s been offering samples tae some o’ his customers.”

  “How many pills in each sample?”

  “Two.”

  Next, I asked him to describe the package and learned that the two capsules came in a two-inch-by-two-inch heavy-duty clear plastic container. “The capsules are red on the one half and gold on the other,” he added.

  Red and gold. Bright colors to be searching for in a heap of garbage. At least they would stand out. I was almost through with one trash can and about to move on to the second.

  “Did you get a list of patients who he gave samples to?” I inquired.

  The inspector sighed on the other end. “I’ve known Doc Keen since I was a wee lad,” he said. “The doc is an intuitive physician, as good as they come, but he doesn’t always abide by the proper rules as they pertain tae this modern day and age.”

  “He’s not hiding behind patient confidentiality, then?” I said.

  “That would be proper use o’ the rules, but not valid as a legitimate excuse when it comes tae cooperating with a murder investigation. No, after dodging my questions, he finally came clean that he’s been giving them out freely tae his patients over the last month or so without keeping any records.”

  “So you have no idea who received them?” I asked. I had every intention of telling him about Senga’s sample, but I hoped to find it first.

  “That’s aboot right. Although I asked if he’d given any tae the hospice fer distribution tae the patients, and he hadn’t. And he hadn’t given any tae the hospital, either, due tae the fact that it has a strict policy against using samples. So his own patients are the extent o’ it.”

  “How can he be so sure that the sample salesman didn’t leave any at the hospice?”

  “Doctor Keen is consultant physician fer the hospice. All changes regarding medical protocols and medications like that have ta
e be approved through him.”

  “But staff members might be able to obtain them?”

  “If they are his patients and they saw him in the last month, aye. It would make it more difficult fer us if the physicians at Kirkwall Hospital also were disbursing samples. I’ve asked the doc tae make a list of patients from memory, but just tae be on the safe side, I confirmed with the hospice and hospital. He remembered that much at least. Neither has samples.”

  “Even if we tracked them all down, those patients might have given them to someone else,” I said, fighting disappointment.

  “Aye, there’s that. Our job isn’t any easy one, is it?”

  “I’ll call you back in a few minutes,” I said. “I’m sort of in the middle of something.”

  In the thick of things, actually.

  We disconnected, and I went back to work. In the end, nobody came along to ask what I was doing. But I didn’t find any sleeping pill samples, either. Had Senga Hill lied to me? If so, why bring up the pills at all? Because she thought we’d find out anyway?

  Afterward, with garbage aroma wafting from my clothes (which became particularly pungent in the confines of my car even with the windows open), I called the inspector and related the conversation Sean and I’d had with the owner of Taste of Scotland, my subsequent interrogation of Senga, the discovery that she’d gotten those sleeping pills from Doc Keen, and how I’d searched through the garbage without finding proof that she’d thrown them out.

  “I have tae admire ye,” he said when I finished. “Ye followed that lead tae its final conclusion.”

  That didn’t sound quite as sincere as I’d hoped. I detected amusement in his tone along with a concerted effort to remain professional.

  Then he was gone, but not before I heard him laughing out loud as the connection terminated.

  “Very funny,” I said into the phone, even though he wasn’t there to hear me.

  Now I didn’t feel nearly as bad about keeping the information about certain unsent kits from him. That would teach him to laugh at me.

  Besides, I rationalized—I deserved to handle this one by myself.