God Rest Ye, Mary

by Jaye Watson

  Faint hope. Not five minutes later, Harry spoke her name.

  She met his level gaze, saw nothing but the cop.

  He motioned her to precede him into Dr. Burton's office, where he sat behind the desk and gestured her into the chair opposite. The sleek mahogany desk, usually holding nothing but a pen stand, a telephone and a studio photo of Sylvia Burton, was buried under folders and a laptop. Harry picked up a folder, looked inside. His mouth tightened, and he frowned. "How'd you spill food all over your lab coat?"

  "How did-- You found it."

  He nodded.

  "Alyssa did it. I mean--" She took a breath and held it long enough to calm the fluttering in her belly. "I was filling my plate and she came pushing by and bumped my elbow. The plate tipped and everything on it spilled down my front." Absently she rubbed her arm, wishing she'd put a gauze pad over the worst place. It itched and it burned.

  "So you smeared it around, trying to clean it off?"

  "No, Alyssa did. She grabbed me by the arm and attacked me with a napkin." She invited him to smile, but his cop expression didn't alter. "She just made it worse. I yelled at her, and she stopped. Once she'd gone away, I took off the coat, used it to gather up the spilled food, then stuck it in the corner. I was going to go back after we ate and finish cleaning up. but...well...everything happened..."

  "She said you stepped back just as she walked past you."

  "That's wrong. That's absolutely wrong. I was standing still. In fact, I believe I had one hand on a serving spoon. Candied sweet potatoes, I think. She ran right into my elbow, even though there was plenty of room to pass me." She leaned forward, looking straight into his eyes. "Harry, what's this all about? What has my lab coat to do with Mary's death? Am I under suspicion of...of murder?"

  "Of course not." But he looked at the folder when he said it, not at her.

  For some reason his words didn't make her stomach clench. They made her arm burn worse than ever. She rubbed it, and wished she hadn't. The burning, stinging pain reminded her of the time she'd fallen into a patch of stinging nettles while wearing a tank top. Only a hundred times worse.

  She winced.

  "Something wrong with your arm?"

  "Just a rash." She unbuttoned the cuff of her jacket and pushed the sleeve up. The rash had matured into small pustules, extending from the back of her hand halfway to her elbow. Some wept clear liquid. The skin around them was bright red.

  "That's more than a rash," he said. "Looks like poison oak."

  "This time of year? Not likely. More like something in the lab. This isn't the first time I've gotten into something that irritated my skin." But never like this. She started to pull her sleeve down, thought better of it. "I'll put a dry dressing on it as soon as we're through here."

  "Good idea." He tapped on the folder, now lying closed under his big hands. "Ms. Kent was pretty definite about your stepping back. She says it was almost like you wanted to prevent her from passing."

  Emaline refrained from chewing her lower lip. She collected her temper and said, "I guess it's her word against mine. I don't see what difference it makes, though."

  "You made the salad. Tell me again what you put into it."

  She did, counting off on her fingers as she mentally reassembled the salad. "I didn't put the artichoke hearts in, because Mary was allergic to them. They were in a dish beside the salad bowl, next to the dressings."

  "Oil, vinegar, and..."

  "In separate cruets. Plus bottled French, thousand island, and ranch." I wonder who cleaned up the food. And what they did with it. The conference room had showed no trace of the holiday potluck this morning.

  "Did you open the bottles yourself?"

  "I saw no reason to, unless someone wanted them."

  "Don't get pissy. I just wondered."

  "Don't get pissy? Don't get pissy?" She rose half out of the chair, set her fists on the desktop. "You're all but asking me if I did something to the salad, and you tell me not to get pissy? Isn't it about time you read me my rights, Detective Jordan?"

  He held up both hands, palms out. "I am not accusing you of anything, Em--"

  "That's Doctor Banister, to you, Detective." If she could stay mad enough, she wouldn't be scared. She hoped.

  He was silent for several minutes. Emaline did her best not to fidget.

  "You said Ms. Kent grabbed your arm. Which one?"

  "The left--" She held it up, controlling the almost irresistible urge to attack the itch with her fingernails. "This one." She looked down at the pattern of pustules in four long, parallel clusters, the surrounding inflammation. "Her hand was wet and sticky."

  "She grabbed your lab coat?"

  "No. No, she somehow slipped her hand inside and grabbed my bare arm." Closing her eyes, Emaline tried to recall just how that had happened. "She was wiping my lab coat with a napkin, and I was trying to stop her, because she was going to spill it all on the carpet. She grabbed my hand, said something about my sleeve, and the next thing I knew she had a death grip on my wrist." The memory of Alyssa's clammy, sticky hand returned, making her shiver. "That's when I yelled at her. Told her to get her hands off me."

  Harry stood. "Thanks Doctor Banister. If you don't mind, I'd like you to stick around a while longer. We may have more questions." He opened the door and waved her out.

  As she stepped past him, she looked up into his eyes. In them she saw more than the cop. She saw...concern.

  * * * *

  Emaline went to her office, still fuming. He had no business suspecting her. The...the idiot. She slammed the door behind her and threw herself into her chair. Moron. Imbecile. Brainless cop.

  Cop.

  Harry Jordan was first and foremost a cop. That meant he was naturally suspicious. Hadn't he proved it, when he'd bent the rules and ordered a PM on her grandfather, in spite of there being no indication his death was other than natural?

  She leaned back and closed her eyes, letting the small, niggling remnant of fear free of the tight hold she usually kept on it. She had put prussic acid in the pie.

  She had scooped it out immediately.

  It took little more than a sniff of the deadly acid to kill a human being--just a sniff of almond odor--particularly if he was old and fragile, as Granddad had been.

  They didn't find any trace of poison, she told herself.

  Harry knows I planned to kill my grandfather.

  "Oh, stop it! You had nothing to do with Mary's death. They won't find anything to connect you to it."

  To get her mind off the speculation she'd seen in Harry's eyes, she reached for the latest Journal of Biochemistry and flipped it open. Keeping up with her reading was a constant challenge. She might as well take advantage of this free time.

  A few minutes later, she tossed the journal on her desk, disgusted. Ordinarily she'd have been interested in the paper on membrane topology, but the itching on her arm was so completely distracting she hadn't followed a word of it.

  Peeling back her sleeve, she looked at the rash. More of the pustules had broken and were weeping clear liquid that crusted on her skin. The pattern was still the same. Four parallel lines, running diagonally across her forearm. Curious, she held her fingers just above the rash.

  A perfect match. Alyssa's hand was sticky. With what?

  She'd read an article on contact dermatitis not too long ago, but where? As was her habit, she swiveled her chair around and stared at the bookshelves behind her desk. Often just looking at the spines of all her journals would remind her where she'd seen what she was looking for.

  Nothing spoke to her. She started to turn around, then stopped when her gaze lit on a title. Annual Proceedings of the Asthma, Allergy and Immunology Society. She reached for it, more out of curiosity than anything. Contact dermatitis could be due to an allergy.

  Half an hour later, she replaced the book on the shelf and sat back, her fingers steepled under her chin. If she was right...

  * * * *

  The guardian police
woman admitted that Harry was still in Dr. Burton's office and, after some persuasion, gave Emaline grudging permission to knock.

  At his growly "Yeah?" she pushed the door open.

  "Harry, what happened to the trash from last night?"

  He didn't even look up from the papers he was studying. "I dunno. Ask Groppen."

  "Who is Groppen?"

  "At the desk. Out there."

  She added boor and rudesby to her list of applicable epithets. "You are sooo kind. Thank you very much."

  He raised his chin and stared, as if he'd just now noticed who he was talking to. "Oh. Em. Did you need something?"

  "Nothing at all. I'll just go speak to Officer Groppen." As she pulled the door closed, she thought she heard him growl again.

  "You'll have to ask Detective Armbruster about that," Groppen said, in reply to her question. "Why?"

  "That's an answer I'd like to hear, too."

  Emaline jumped. She hadn't heard Harry come up behind her. "Oh! Well, I had an idea. Last night I--"

  "Let's go where we won't be overheard," he said, cupping her elbow in his big hand. "No calls, Groppen."

  When he was back behind the desk and she was seated facing him, he said. "Well, Em?"

  "My salad? I gave Detective Armbruster a list of the ingredients."

  "Uh-huh. So?"

  "I took some. It was the only green salad and everything was so rich--" She saw his lips twitch and forced herself to act like a scientist. "Sorry. I'll get to the point. I bit into something I know I hadn't put into the salad. It was...bitter...sour...nasty." She made a face as she remembered the taste. "I spat it into a napkin and laid it beside my plate."

  "Curly endive is pretty nasty."

  "Nonsense! This wasn't endive, or any other salad green. I've never tasted anything like it." Just that one bite had made her mouth tingle for several minutes. "Harry, I'd like to find that napkin. I think it might have something to do with what killed Mary."

  His level look was calculated to make anyone with a guilty conscience squirm. Emaline's conscience was pure as the driven snow, and she still had the urge to twitch. She held up her afflicted arm. "I think this does too."

  He picked up the phone. "Groppen, we need to find a napkin wrapped around a wad of half-chewed green stuff. Have the techs look for it when they go through the trash." He listened for a moment. "Good. See if they can get the results on my desk in the morning." He hung up. "Armbruster's on his way to the lab with everything. We've got a crew of technicians who'll sort through it."

  "So you already had an idea it was something she ate."

  "Em--" He tapped his fingers on the folder. "Oh, hell. You're a scientist. I don't have to pussy-foot around this." He extracted a photo and slid it across the desk.

  At first she didn't know what she was looking at, then she recognized nostrils, and realized the photo showed grossly swollen lips and a protruding tongue. They were covered with blisters. She drew a deep breath and laid the photo back on the desk. "M-M-Mary?"

  "She wasn't kidding when she said she was allergic to everything," he said, sliding the photo back into the folder. "Doctor Carleton said he'd never heard of such a rapid onset of anaphylactic shock. She cried out, clapped both hands on her mouth, and collapsed. She was still breathing, but in obvious distress, when Carleton reached her. Her mouth was already covered with those blisters."

  "How awful. Poor Mary." She hadn't particularly liked the woman, but she certainly hadn't wished her ill, either. A little tingle of triumph made itself felt in her middle. "This makes me even more certain I'm on the right track. I'm sure it was murder, and I think I know what the murder weapon was."

  "What?"

  "Let's see if they can find the napkin with the green stuff I spat out. We need to identify it."

  "Em, if you know--"

  "I don't know, Harry. I've merely formulated a hypothesis. Now we need to test it." She stood. "I'll be in my office. I need to do some more research."

  * * * *

  Someone tapped on her office door about eleven the next morning. "Come," she said, without looking up from the graph she was studying.

  "We found your green stuff. What shall we do with it?"

  "Oh. Good morning, Harry."

  His hands were empty.

  "Where is it?"

  "At our lab. We'll run some tests, but if you could give us an idea what we're looking for, it would help." He lowered himself into the chair across from her. "Tell me about your hypothesis."

  "I'm still refining it. Can you send a sample of the specimen to Dr. Halse at OSU? Stomach contents too, if you have them."

  "Sure. We've sent him stuff before. What else?"

  "Id like a small sample. There are some tests I can run here." She held up a hand when he looked about to object. "Harry, I assure you we are as qualified to run these tests as anyone in the state. Think of it as getting a second opinion."

  He scratched his chin and appeared to seek answers on the ceiling. After a moment, he exhaled gustily. "Okay. You'll have samples this afternoon. Just remember to document everything."

  "I think you just insulted me. What do you think I do for a living?"

  "Sorry. Look, I've got to go. We've done everything we can do here. The dishes we've taken will be returned eventually." He got to his feet slowly, as if he were unutterably tired.

  "Harry? When did you sleep last?"

  "I caught a nap at my desk during the night. A couple of hours, maybe. I should be able to go home tonight, unless something else comes up. See ya."

  She watched him go, wondering what had come up to keep him at work all night. Sitting at her desk instead of following him out and insisting he take a nap took an effort of will. Good grief. I'm thinking like his mother.

  Or his wife?

  Where had that come from?

  * * * *

  Her hypothesis was so far-fetched that no one would take her seriously without strong evidence. Following the protocol outlined in the paper she'd read, Emaline ran the gas chromatography on the samples from her napkin and Mary's stomach. The results were exactly what she'd expected, but she didn't say anything to Harry. She wanted to get the results from Dr. Halse's examination of the material first.

  Christmas came first.

  Harry had to work on Christmas Day, so they celebrated on the twenty-fourth. Emaline fixed a stuffed pork loin, shrimp aspic and gingered sweet potatoes. He brought pickles, olives, a fruit salad and rolls from a locally famous bakery.

  "Ever tried this?" He set a bottle on the counter.

  She'd seen the winery's label in the stores, but had never tried any of their wines. "2005 Reserve Gew�rztraminer? No, I haven't."

  "Then you're in for a treat. Got room in the fridge?"

  This was the Harry she'd seen at the play, at the opera. Definitely not the cop tonight. Emaline liked this Harry far better than the other one. He looked different too. Instead of the pleated slacks and slightly loose sports jacket he usually wore--to cover his shoulder holster, she presumed--he wore a richly red-and-blue sweater in a nubby yarn and mildly faded Levi's.

  They worked well together, she realized, as they did all the last minute dishing-up and sorting out. "Jelly for the rolls? I've one last jar of homemade blackberry."

  "Locally grown?"

  "Absolutely. An old friend of the family has an acreage in Estacada. He lets the wild blackberries grow in one corner. I picked these summer before last."

  He handed her a bowl. "You make jelly?"

  She had to laugh at his astonishment. "Guilty. I love to save summer in jars. It's...reassuring."

  "That you won't starve in the winter?" His voice came from just behind her.

  Goosebumps erupted along her arms. "That summer will come again." She stuck a spoon in the jelly bowl and turned. To find herself caged. His hands were on the counter behind her, his body all too close.

  "I'm having a hell of a time sticking to my resolve," he said, leaning closer and resting hi
s forehead on hers.

  "Y-your resolve?"

  "To wait a year before I make any major changes in my life." Drawing a deep breath, he straightened and took a small step back. "My wife died last January. Even though we'd been living apart for a couple of years, she was still my wife. I miss her."

  "Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry." She wanted to ask why they'd been separated, but couldn't decide how to phrase it. Were you a lousy husband, like thrillers often portray cops? Was she sleeping around? Even more she wanted to point out that January was only eight days away.

  "Thanks. Look, let's pretend the last year didn't happen. We're friends who are sharing a holiday dinner because neither of us has family nearby. Let's not complicate anything...yet."

  Because he'd implied a promise in that last word--yet--she was able to smile and say, "Of course. Will you open the wine? I'll get the food on the table."

  They both worked hard to keep the conversation light and on the impersonal side. At least Emaline thought he was striving as much as she was to do so. After she served the flaming plum pudding, they lingered over brandy and coffee. The room was lit only by the fire, for she hadn't had the heart to put up a tree.

  "Me neither," he said, when she mentioned her reluctance. "Christmas trees seem like they're meant for families. Kids. We used to have a big one, when the kids were small, but after they left home, well, it never seemed to matter."

  "You have children?" She shouldn't have been surprised. He was, after all, at least her age. If she'd married instead of going for her Ph.D., she could have a grown child. Or two.

  Of course, she'd have had to find a man she could live with first. The only likely candidates had already been taken. Where were you thirty years ago, Harry?

  "Three, two girls and a boy. Charlie, the oldest, is doing a pediatrics residency at OHSU. Matt will finish his Navy flight training in May, God willing, and Sallie is a junior at Reed."

  All she could think to say was, "You're proud of them."

  "Yeah, well, they're good kids. More brandy?"

  Since he had to be at work at eight the following morning, he left about ten. This time he held her for a moment after he kissed her. And this time it wasn't exactly a brotherly kiss.