Willa leaned awkwardly forward and crushed a sage leaf between her fingers, brought it to her nose, and inhaled.
“Did you know a woman named Elizabeth Moser?” I asked, watching her closely.
Slowly, she shook her head, gazing into the air as she thought. “I don’t think so.” Then, more emphatically, “No, I don’t know the name.”
“She was a psychotherapist in town.” Feeling my way, unsure of how much to reveal. If Willa was a victim, she wasn’t the potential murderer. But I’d just met her, and maybe the accident at the meadery really was an accident. Should I show her all my cards? If she was the person Moser had spoken of, then would I be putting myself in danger? Or would the fact that someone knew about the threat neutralize the threatener?
“And …?” She looked at me expectantly.
“And she’s dead,” I said. “Heart attack.”
She waited, puzzlement on her face.
“In her notes, Moser mentioned one of her clients was named Swenson.”
“I don’t understand.”
The door to the shed opened and Victoria emerged with a small jar in her hand. Erin followed, chattering away, red notebook momentarily forgotten.
I moved closer and put my hand on Willa’s arm. “Do you know if any member of your family went to a psychotherapist?” My words were rushed.
Willa looked at me like I was the one who should have been seeing a therapist. “Isn’t that kind of private?” She pulled her arm away from my grasp. “I’m not sure how that could be any of your business.”
I mentally scrambled for an excuse to be asking impertinent questions of people I barely knew. Dang it, the only viable option appeared to be to come clean.
“In some notes I inadvertently came across, Elizabeth Moser said she was going to contact your family. She seemed to think one or more of you were in danger.” Saying the words made me feel exposed, vulnerable.
“What kind of danger?” Willa asked.
“I don’t know exactly. So she didn’t contact you?”
She shook her head, the perfect picture of confusion.
“Well, I don’t want to frighten you or anything. But you might want to let the rest of your family know.”
“Know what?” Frustration leaked into her words. “That you came and told us some woman none of us has heard of thought we were in some kind of unspecified danger? I can just imagine how that would go over with Grandmother.”
Victoria and Erin were nearly within earshot.
“I’d rather not talk about this in front of Erin, if that’s okay. But I think you should tell the others in your family.”
Willa frowned. “Yeah. Well, thanks for the heads-up.”
There wasn’t really anything else I could do. Maybe warning Willa would do some good in the long run. Maybe I’d done nothing but make a fool out of myself. Either of these sisters could have been Elizabeth Moser’s client.
Erin skipped up to me, and a moment later Victoria handed me a half-pint jar filled with dried herbs. I held it up to the light, trying to identify the contents.
“Boiling water will release most of the medicinal qualities of the plants,” she said. “But if your friend mulls wine with these herbs, the effect will be even greater.”
“Wine? Really?”
“Wine is always best to extract the most from a combination of herbs, since some constituents are extractable by water and others are dissolved by alcohol.”
Huh. The best combination of tea and tincture. Made sense.
“Well, thank you so much for your generosity,” I said. “I’ll let you know how it works.” I put my hand on Erin’s shoulder, and we headed toward the door that led back inside the meadery. I opened the door and Erin went in.
Before following her inside, I turned back to Willa. “Are you sure those cases falling on you was really an accident, Willa?”
Her eyes widened. She began talking to Victoria as I let the door shut behind me.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “Kind of derailed us from the tour, didn’t I? But how ’bout that garden?”
“It’s pretty.” Erin said. “Victoria’s nice. You should see all the stuff she’s got in her shed.”
Footsteps approached, and a man in a gray jumpsuit came in from the bottling room.
He pulled up short when he saw us. “Can I help you with something?”
“We got distracted and lost our tour,” I explained. “Do you want to catch the next one?” I asked Erin.
She nodded enthusiastically. Then she whispered up at me, “But I have to use the restroom.”
“There’s one right off the lobby, where the next tour will start,” Mr. Jumpsuit said.
Erin reddened. I thanked him, and we retraced our steps.
While Erin was in the restroom, I looked around the lobby, taking in details I hadn’t had time to catch before we’d been whisked away on the tour.
In the tasting room, several people were already sampling different Grendel offerings. As I watched, Glenwood Swenson entered through a door set in the far wall with the other members of our tour group trailing behind him. Before they even got a chance to sit down they were given trays loaded with pre-poured samples.
I wandered over to look at the bold oil paintings that marched in a colorful row down a forest green wall opposite the glassed-in equipment room. The last picture was next to a short hallway that was almost invisible unless you were standing right in front of it. On the other side of the opening, a bushy schefflera blocked the view from the tasting room.
Glancing toward the closed restroom doors, I slipped around the corner. The forest green paint continued down the hallway walls, but the wooden floor of the lobby gave way to ugly, industrial carpeting that cushioned the sound of my footsteps.
“No!”
I nearly jumped out of my skin, but the word wasn’t directed at me. It came from an open doorway spilling light into the hall from twenty feet away.
“I refuse to put you back into a position to threaten this family.”
My ears perked up like Brodie’s when there’s bacon on the stove. The soft clank of metal on metal sounded from the open doorway, and I desperately looked around for someplace to hide. There was only one other door. I took a step and tried the knob. It was locked.
Well, of course it would be.
Breathing as quietly as I could, I just stood there.
“So stop asking. We have made other arrangements for shipping to Canada.” Now I recognized Dorothy Swenson’s voice.
“But darlin’, you don’t understand,” a male voice whined. “I haven’t been able to make other arrangements.”
“Good. You need to stop that foolishness and simply stick to your other activities. Aren’t they sketchy enough? I swear, Normal, I live in fear that someone will find out about all that nonsense. Do you even realize the position you could put this business in? Or do you simply not care?”
“Ah, Sis.” More whine.
“Don’t you ‘ah, Sis’ me, old man.” Strident.
“Leave him be,” snarled a new, deeper voice. “He should be the one running this outfit, anyway. He loaned you the seed money to start this place. And now you’ve got the nerve to tell us we can’t be part of the Canada runs?”
“Please step away from the chair!” still another voice said. I was betting it was Cabot, Dorothy’s nurse-companion.
Suddenly, the tallest man I’d ever seen strode into the hallway. A wizened gnome followed on his heels. A quick gasp from behind me, and I whirled to see Erin, notebook in hand, wide-eyed with fear.
“What are you doing down here?” the giant said. Every word sounded meaner than the last.
“We were, uh, looking for—”
Cabot wheeled Dorothy into the crowded space. “Private offices! You’re not allowed. Return to the lobby. Now.”
“—the restrooms,” I finished. It was mildly believable.
The men came toward us. Erin squeaked and fled. I backed down the short ha
llway and into the lobby. When the big one ducked under the door lintel and into the light I almost gasped, too. He must have been well over seven feet, with translucently pale skin, dead blue eyes surrounded top and bottom by dark circles, and large-knuckled hands hanging like weights by his side.
He shambled past, glaring at me but not speaking. Several people in the tasting room were peering out at us now, either curious about what was going on or simply staring at Gigantor.
“They’re right over there,” the gnome said, pointing toward the restrooms. A wide smile split his face, deepening the multitude of wrinkles and corrugating his bald pate.
“Thank you.” The words sounded a little shaky. “Come on.” Hand on Erin’s shoulder again, I steered her toward the ladies’ room for a second visit.
So that was Normal Brown. And Jakie, the one Felix had warned me about, wasn’t a mean dog after all. He was an enormous, scary person.
Erin didn’t mind at all when I said we had to get home because Penny would be there soon.
_____
“Cyan has to stay late at school this afternoon, so she won’t be in until later,” I said.
“I’ll just plug away on my own, then,” Penny said with great cheer.
Not so fast, new employee of mine. “I have plenty of work to do, too, so you won’t be alone.”
“Lovely! What shall I start with first?”
“I have a large order of lye soap that’s finished curing and needs to be packaged.” I led her into the storeroom and handed her a large basket. “I’ll just fill this up with these cocoa butter bars and take them to the work island, where it’ll be easier to spread out.”
She peered with interest at the soap.
I grabbed a couple sheets of rice paper and a long ruler, along with a roll of printed labels, and laid them on top of the basket.
Out at the work island, I began unloading the soaps onto the clean surface. “These have been trimmed already, so try not to bump the edges on anything hard.”
Penny held up one finger and waved it at me. “Don’t you worry. I’ll be handling this soap with kid gloves.” She grinned. “Well, plastic, at least.” She moved to her capacious quilted handbag, pulled out a pair of plastic gloves, and put them on. She snapped the wrist with a look of satisfaction.
“Gosh, that’s not necessary,” I said. “The soap will be fine if you simply wash your hands.”
“I beg to differ. I’m sorry, dear, but I’m not getting any nasty lye on my skin.”
Oh, brother. “The lye has been saponified with the oil in the soap. It’s not alkaline anymore.”
“If you say so.” She made no move to take off the gloves.
“Let me show you something.” Back in the storeroom, I dug out a packet of pH papers. At the sink, I wet two of them. The first I dabbed against the opening of the dishwashing soap on the counter. It turned dark green: pH 8.5. The second strip I rubbed against one of the bars of cocoa butter soap ready for wrapping. It turned a light, yellowish green: pH 7.
Penny peered over my shoulder with great interest. “Ah.”
“Exactly. This soap is far milder than the soap over there, and, in fact, milder than pretty much any over-the-counter commercial soap you buy.”
She smiled at me.
Whatever. If she wanted to wear gloves whenever she worked with soap, I wouldn’t stop her. Never mind that the latex was probably worse for her skin than the soap ever could be.
“Okay, if it makes you feel better,” I said.
Still smiling, she took over unloading the soap in the basket onto the table.
I showed her how to tear the rice paper into strips by using the straight edge of the ruler. Then I tore those strips into shorter lengths to wrap around the bars of soap.
“Then fasten each with this Winding Road label.”
Penny pointed at me. “You got it.”
I left her to it and gathered olive oil, cocoa butter, and beeswax to make classic Winding Road lotion bars. I measured and weighed and poured, then set them to melting together over low heat. On one of the counters against the wall usually reserved for packing boxes I arranged rows of two-ounce molds shaped like leaves.
The beeswax was still melting, so I returned to the work island to give my helper a hand. Penny was still tearing the rice paper, ever so carefully, into precise strips.
“You can be a little sloppy. They’re supposed to look torn.”
She looked hurt.
I sighed internally and tore a few pieces by hand. Then wrap, sticker, wrap, sticker, wrap sticker, wrapsticker wrapsticker—bam bam bam. I was so used to having to hurry it didn’t occur to me not to. It wasn’t like I was trying to make her feel bad.
But she didn’t seem to have noticed, still tearing the paper inch-by-careful-inch with latex-encased fingers.
Deliberately slowing my pace, I said, “Cyan said you had to leave for a family emergency. I hope everything is okay.”
Penny stopped what she was doing altogether, shaking her head. “That Robbie—he’s my youngest, you know. Gets himself in the darndest situations.”
“Oh?” I started ripping the rice paper into strips. One. Two.
“Do you know he ran out of gas? Must’ve ignored the fuel gauge.”
Three. Four. “Was he out in the middle of nowhere?”
“Oh, no. Right downtown.”
“Pretty close to the gas station,” I said. Rip. Tear. Stack.
“Only two blocks away!”
“And he called you?”
She laughed, leaning forward on her elbows. I put the pile of rice paper in front of her, all ready to go around the soap.
“Can you believe it?”
What I couldn’t believe was that she hadn’t told him to hoof it down and get a gas can and some gas and let her get on with her work.
The corners of my mouth turned up. “Hmm.” I could only hope that sounded more noncommittal than I felt.
I poured the lotion bars, put together some paperwork for my accountant, mixed up two batches of Peppermint Sugar Glow and cleaned up the “cooking” area.
Penny wrapped twenty-three bars of soap.
Sliding back onto the stool across from her, I started wrapping and sticking again. “Cyan will be here soon.” Thank God.
“I do hope she’s not in very much trouble.”
My forehead creased. “What do you mean?”
“Having to stay after school and all.”
“Oh, she’s not in trouble. She’s on the prom committee, and they had a meeting,” I said and rose. “I have some work to do on the computer.”
A heavy feeling in my gut, I went into the storeroom. I’d lived thirty-seven years and never had to fire anyone.
So far.
Footsteps clumping down the wooden stairs announced Cyan’s arrival. “Erin let me in,” she called to me. “Since Mom dropped me out front.”
I came out of the storeroom. “No problem.”
She shed her jacket and settled in at the table, immediately starting to label soap. She was almost as fast as I was. Rather than compete with her young co-worker, Penny seemed to slow down even more.
“Erin said you toured the Grendel Meadery today. I’ve never been out there,” Cyan said.
“It was pretty interesting. You should go.”
“The boys took me out there for Mother’s Day last year,” Penny said. “They have a little brunch. I got all loopy from that honey wine, and in the middle of the day, too!”
Cyan grinned. “I don’t think they’ll actually serve me any of it. Maybe I’ll wait until I’m legal to drink before doing the tour.”
“That’ll only be four years or so, right?”
Cyan stuck her tongue out at me.
“Those Swensons—the family that owns Grendel’s? They’re something else. Have you met any of them?” Penny asked.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve met all of them,” I said. Suddenly Penny’s propensity for gossip seemed less egregious.
; “Of course, you know Quentin doesn’t work out there. Had a bit of a falling out with his grandmother when he decided to pursue pharmaceuticals.” The way she said it made him sound like a drug addict.
“I know Quentin. Saw him just today, over at Kringle’s.”
She shook her head and made a tsking sound. “So tragic.”
“What is?” I asked reluctantly. Penny was probably going to talk about Quentin’s wife’s ordeal with cancer. Rumor mongering along those lines didn’t sit well with me.
“The court case against him. About the little girl who died.”
That got my attention. Got Cyan’s as well. Oh, dear. “Could you go get more soap for us to wrap?” I asked her.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Huh-uh.”
She rolled her eyes, slid off her stool, and grabbed the basket. “Fine.”
I turned back to Penny. “What girl?”
“Oh, Quentin didn’t kill her—it was someone he was training who did it. Some kid going to community college over in Everett. Loaded the wrong pills into the prescription bottle. Poor little thing was dead the next day.” Penny looked awfully happy as she related the tale. “Poof. Gone. Her parents were terribly upset.”
No kidding.
“And Quentin felt just awful about it.” Penny sat with her chin in her hands, apparently having abandoned the notion of wrapping soap altogether.
Cyan came back with a full basket of lavender-scented bars. “But it was an accident, right?”
“Sure it was. But the parents blame Quentin, so they’ve filed a civil suit against him. And they’re working with the state legislature to create some new law that would make the training pharmacist liable for the mistakes of his charges. As if you can watch an employee all the time.”
Hmmm. “Well, that is sad.”
A veil of exaggerated concern fell across her features and she shook her head long and hard at the whole situation.
Given her willingness to jump to conclusions about Cyan’s dad, who knew how much of the story about Quentin was true. At least it was something I could check out. But even then, how could it have any bearing on Elizabeth Moser and her belief there was a renegade Swenson?
Wined and Died: A Home Crafting Mystery Page 9