Wined and Died: A Home Crafting Mystery

by Cricket McRae.

  Erin didn’t look up, but I knew she was listening.

  Barr moved to the counter and poured coffee in the mug. “It came up when we questioned the Swensons last night. It wasn’t a girl, though. A woman in her twenties. Name was Leed.”

  “Is that why you were so late? Interrogations?”

  “Hardly. We asked a few questions—there was only time to cover the basics—but we’ll follow-up with everyone again. Or rather, I will.” He snapped the lid on the cup.

  “Right.”

  His partner, Detective Robin Lane, had no talent for questioning people, whether suspects or victims. She was abrasive and blunt, utterly without finesse. So whenever possible, Barr handled interviews. It put an extra load on him during investigations.

  My tired husband refused my offer of a brown bag breakfast and left for the police station. The doorbell rang soon after, and Erin went to let her friend Zoe in. Unless one of them had to get there early or was running late, the two girls had walked to school together since the first grade.

  “Hi, Sophie Mae,” Zoe said, leaning against the kitchen doorjamb while Erin loaded her backpack in her bedroom.

  “Hey,” I managed.

  “Are you sick?” she asked. She was a tall, gangly, athletic girl with mousy brown hair that she wore straight and tucked behind her ears. Orange sneakers peeped from beneath her purple jeans, and her T-shirt advertised some band I’d never heard of.

  “Naw,” Erin said from behind her. “She just doesn’t like mornings.”

  I liked some mornings just fine, but I didn’t have the energy to argue. “Have a good day at school.”

  “K!” they agreed in unison. Erin threw me a concerned look over her shoulder as they were leaving. I gave her a thumbs up to let her know I was okay.

  I propped my chin on my hand and considered the platter of uneaten sausage, fruit, and toast in the middle of the butcher block table. Erin hadn’t made much of a dent in it. I took a bite of the sausage. After watching the girls through the window for as long as he could see them, Brodie waddled in, laid down, and put his head on my foot.

  I gave him the rest of the sausage.

  Somehow I had to gather enough energy to face the day. I slurped coffee. Watched a slice of Granny Smith apple slowly turn brown.

  Barr hadn’t really answered my question about the civil suit against Quentin, but I didn’t think it was intentional evasiveness. After all, he had a lot on his mind, and we were both tired as all get out.

  The phone startled me out of my half trance. Brodie scrambled aside as I rose to answer it. I didn’t recognize the caller ID.

  “Mrs. Ambrose?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Willa Swenson.”

  Oh, dear. I took the phone back to the table and sat down. “Hello, Willa. I’m … I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “So you know.”

  “Yes.”

  She sighed. “I suppose it’s all over the news.”

  “I don’t know whether it is or not. But my husband is a Cadyville police detective. He told me about Quentin yesterday.”

  “Oh. I must have met your husband last night. I take it he’s not the stunning redhead?”

  “No, that would be his partner.”

  “First they told Iris—that’s Quentin’s wife—that it was a heart attack. But then they asked a bunch of strange questions. Even mentioned murder. Do you know anything about that?”

  I had to tread carefully. “I know they investigate all sudden deaths as possible homicides until that possibility is ruled out.”

  “So it has nothing to do with that therapist’s notes you told me about?”

  “Well …”

  “That’s what I thought. Why didn’t the detectives bring up the notes when they were talking to us?” Willa asked.

  “No idea.” Because the evidence was hearsay? Because they wanted independent proof that a murder had been—or hadn’t been—committed? Because a family member had just died?

  “I want to know more,” she said. “Can you meet with us?”

  I waffled. I shouldn’t. Barr wouldn’t like it. “The police will fill you in. I’m sure of it.”

  “Yes, but you tried to warn us. We want to talk to you.”

  On the other hand, maybe I could find something out for him. Willa and I had hit it off well enough, and she sounded pretty reasonable on the phone.

  “Please.” She hesitated. “I might be able to help find out the truth.”

  Tricky. What if she’d killed Quentin?

  “Do you have information that would help the police?”

  “I … I’m not sure.”

  What if she hadn’t killed Quentin?

  “Where did you want to meet?” I asked.

  “My house is in downtown Cadyville. My sister and brother and I will be here all morning.” She gave me the address. It was easily walkable.

  And unless they’d all done it, going over to her house seemed safe enough. Still, I had to make sure I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes.

  “Let me make a phone call and get back to you.” I glanced at the caller ID. “Can I call you at this number?”

  She agreed. I hung up and called Barr’s cell phone. It went straight to voicemail.

  I waited for the tone. “It’s me. Willa Swenson just called the house. She wants to know more about Elizabeth Moser’s notes. Asked me to come over to her house and talk with her siblings. Call me back as soon as you can.”

  Darn it, what was I supposed to do now?

  I made a decision. Take a shower, and wait for Barr to call back. But if he didn’t get back to me in an hour, I’d go see what Willa had to say.

  First I wanted to know more about that lawsuit against Quentin. I poured the last of the coffee into my mug and padded downstairs in my bathrobe. I sipped the lukewarm liquid while my computer revved up to speed. The empty spots on the storeroom shelves reminded me that I needed to do inventory and place some orders in the next day or so.

  This was so not the best time for me to be running around town trying to find a hypothetical killer.

  Or not so hypothetical.

  And my new employee was more of a hindrance than a help.

  I brought up the online archives for the Cadyville Eye again. It took longer to find what I was looking for than I’d anticipated, but finally I found the story from six years prior.

  I should have remembered such a thing, but I’d only lived in Cadyville for a short time by then, and had been in mourning for my dead husband. I hadn’t known any of the players in the Kringle’s Drugs drama, so it hadn’t penetrated my self-involvement at the time.

  First off, Quentin hadn’t given anyone the wrong prescription. And his pharmaceutical trainee hadn’t put the wrong pills in the bottle either. But the victim—not a girl, as Penny had told me, but a woman in her twenties, as Barr said—suffered a severe allergic reaction to the medication that resulted in her death. Her name was Alison Leed. Unmarried, no children, but she had left behind two brothers and her parents.

  They were the ones who had filed the civil lawsuit, first against the college student who had filled the prescription, then against Warren Kringle. In both of those cases, the cause of death was determined to be accidental. Sad, but no one’s fault. And apparently Warren agreed, because he didn’t fire his pharmacist.

  But that was when the Leeds turned on Quentin. They cited negligence in his training practices and inadequate monitoring of his new assistant. And that wasn’t the end of it. From what I could tell, the court case had dragged on for three years now and was fueling state legislation. The new law on the table would require felony prosecution for any pharmacist whose trainee made any mistake in dispensing prescription drugs.

  I powered down my computer and took my empty cup back up to the kitchen. Could anyone in the dead girl’s family have killed Quentin? Their concerted anger against him seemed like a good motive, but from the newspaper accounts they seemed more determined to channel thei
r grief and fury into large-scale legal revenge.

  Barr still hadn’t called back. I tried him again. Didn’t leave a message.

  After showering, I cleaned up the kitchen, still waiting. A third call to his cell phone netted me voicemail once more.

  “Okay, I’m going over there,” I said into the phone. “Glenwood and Victoria will be there, too. I’ll do my best to find out what I can without giving them too much information. That shouldn’t be too hard, since I don’t really have any.” My laugh sounded forced because it was. On one hand, he’d asked me to help him investigate a murder the year before by just talking to the people involved. People who wouldn’t be as likely to talk to him because he was the police. But I didn’t know if he’d really be on board with this little trip.

  Oh, well. I’d given him three chances to stop me.

  I called Willa to let her know I was on my way over and donned

  a windbreaker with a hood over my fleece zip-up and jeans. Outside, gray clouds roiled like mercury overhead, but the rain held off. Fifteen minutes later I was standing on the sidewalk in front of Willa Swenson’s tiny house.

  Painted sage green, Willa’s house sat well back from Third Street. The lawn was precisely cut, the boxwood hedge freshly trimmed, the peach azaleas under the front windows bursting with color. The same white Passat wagon I’d parked next to at Grendel Meadery was parked in front. Leaning on her crutches, Willa opened the door when I was halfway up the sidewalk.

  “Come on in.”

  “My husband knows I’m here.”

  She blinked, and the corners of her mouth turned up. “All right.”

  So what if I sounded paranoid. I didn’t care. This woman could be a killer.

  The front door opened directly into a small living room. Framed, black-and-white photographs of nature along with several pictures of Willa with another woman interrupted the cream walls. At least a dozen houseplants hung from the ceiling, reached up from large pots in the corners, or flourished on shelves among brightly colored book jackets. Vivid rag rugs were scattered seemingly at random across the floor planks. The wooden blinds were open but not pulled up, discouraging the dull daylight outside from entering. Instead, bright yellow light from two floor lamps illuminated the tableau.

  Victoria perched on the chunky, rust-colored sofa, a cup and saucer next to an African violet on the glass table in front of her. Glenwood leaned against the cushions next to her, looking bored. And surprise, surprise: Dorothy Swenson sat across from them, Cabot beside her on a folding chair.

  I had been invited to a Swenson family meeting.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Come in,” Dorothy demanded.

  Dishes clattered beyond the doorway set in the far wall, behind Dorothy. With a pang I wondered whether Normal was in attendance—and what Barr would have to say if he were.

  Though frankly, I was way more worried about Jakie than Normal.

  “We’re having chamomile tea,” Victoria said. “Would you like some?” Her puffy, red-rimmed eyes betrayed the grief her genteel words glossed over.

  “No, thanks.” I shrugged out of my windbreaker.

  Willa took it from me and hung it on the heavily laden coat rack by the door. “Sit down, please.” She gestured toward a pair of leather wingback chairs.

  I dumped my tote bag under the coats and chose the empty chair nearest the door. The room felt small and stuffy with six people and a wheelchair in it. An open window would have done wonders.

  A short woman with ginger-orange hair curled around her ears appeared in the doorway behind Dorothy. I recognized her from the photos on the walls. “I have to get to work now, at least for a little while. I’ll be back as soon as I can get away.”

  Willa nodded. “Okay.” The one word held a tremendous amount of weariness.

  We heard the back door open and close as her girlfriend left the house.

  Willa awkwardly sank into the other leather wingback and laid her crutches on the floor. She turned to me. “We’d like to know what those psychotherapist’s notes said. Do you have a copy?”

  On my walk over I’d thought about what to tell the Swensons about Elizabeth’s notes, trying to figure out what Barr would do. I decided he’d play it close to the vest.

  So now I shook my head. “I don’t have a copy. The police have the tape.”

  “Tape?” Victoria’s skepticism was evident.

  So I related the story about the micro-cassette tapes and my attempts to return them. “But Elizabeth Moser had died of a heart attack, and there was no one to give them to.”

  “A heart attack?” Willa asked. “Like Quentin’s?”

  “I don’t know the particulars, but yes. Which is why the police are looking extra carefully at your brother’s death.”

  “And you gave these tapes to the police,” Dorothy said.

  “Well, my husband took them.”

  “The detective.” Glenwood spoke for the first time.

  “Right.”

  “Well, what did they say?” Dorothy pointed at me as if trying to push an on button.

  “First, I’d like to know whether any of you knew Elizabeth Moser.”

  Willa shook her head. “I didn’t. Vicky?”

  Anger flashed in her sister’s eyes. “Of course not.”

  Glenwood shook his head. “Nope.”

  Dorothy glared at me. “Do I look like someone who would go to a psychotherapist?”

  Beside her, Cabot smiled at the idea.

  “No, ma’am,” I admitted.

  “Then what did she say?”

  The actual transcription I’d made burned a hole in my pocket, but I cleared my throat and paraphrased. “That her client planned to kill someone in the Swenson family and make it look like an accident or natural causes. Ms. Moser didn’t know whether to take the threat seriously or not, but she planned to tell the police and your family, just in case. She, um …”

  “What?” Dorothy snapped.

  “She implied that her client was also a member of the Swenson family.”

  They all looked at each other with a complicated combination of astonishment and suspicion.

  “Did she tell the cops?” Willa asked.

  “No. Just like she didn’t tell you, apparently. Now, was any other member of your family in therapy?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “Normal, or Jakie?”

  “Jakie’s only our great uncle’s lackey. He isn’t one of us,” Glenwood said. No one even entertained the notion that Normal was in therapy.

  “Is there anyone else I don’t know about? Your mother?” I was curious whether that was a tender subject or not.

  Dorothy’s nostrils flared. The sisters exchanged a look. Victoria said, “Mother lives in Virginia with our stepfather. She hasn’t been to the northwest in over four years, and she’s certainly not one of this Moser woman’s clients. And Daddy’s been dead for years.”

  I’d been perched on the front of my chair. Now I settled against the back and looked over at Willa. “You mentioned on the phone that you might be able to help.”

  “Ridiculous!” Dorothy exclaimed.

  A look passed between the sisters again. I wondered whether Glenwood ever felt left out, but he didn’t even seem to notice. Victoria gave the tiniest shake of her head.

  Willa turned back to me. “You’re going to pass on anything we tell you to your husband, aren’t you?”

  “Are you saying you would rather I didn’t? Because frankly, that doesn’t make a lot of sense if you want the police to have all the information they need to investigate. In fact, I’m not sure why you’re not telling the detectives in the first place.”

  Hesitation, then Willa seemed to make a decision. “First off, we wanted to know more about what the therapist said. For all we knew, those notes you mentioned would tell us right away whether someone, you know … killed our brother.”

  Hard words to say. I knew from experience.

  “So you had someone
in mind already?”

  Her face squinched in confusion, she examined the floor. “It didn’t make sense. I mean, how could they do it?”

  I waited.

  Flicking a glance up at her grandmother, she continued. “Quentin had some trouble with a local family. The Leeds.”

  “Because of Alison Leed. The woman who died,” I said.

  Willa looked relieved, as did Victoria. Glenwood smirked. Dorothy pressed her lips together in irritation, and Cabot mirrored the gesture.

  “So you already know,” Willa said.

  “And so do the police. You talked about it last night, didn’t you?”

  “We didn’t. Iris might have.”

  “Well, the detectives know about the Leeds and the lawsuit. They’ll look into it.”

  I, on the other hand, was much more interested in the bottles of mead found next to Quentin’s body and in Elizabeth’s closet. Who here knew about them?

  Victoria said, “The Leed woman’s death was a horrible tragedy, but it wasn’t Quentin’s fault.”

  “No charges filed.” Dorothy sounded downright offended at the very notion that anyone would blame her grandson in any way. But Tootie had told me how loyal she was to her family.

  “Not by the county attorney,” I said. “But there were several civil cases, weren’t there? In fact, the one against Quentin himself is still pending.”

  Glenwood weighed in. “Parents looking for someone to blame.”

  “Our brother wasn’t responsible,” Willa said. “They would have lost that case like they did the others. I’m sure of it.”

  They were all pretty loyal. What would a parent do if the law ignored their plea for justice? Would they take the law into their own hands, punish the person no one else would?

  “What about the legislation—” My cell phone rang. “Excuse me.” I rose and went outside, closing the front door behind me. “Hello?”

  “Where are you?” Barr demanded.

  “Um …”

  “Are you at Willa Swenson’s?”

  “Er, yeah.”

  “I want you out of there right now.”

  “But—”

  “Right now. This is an active investigation.”