The breeze had turned into a wind, bringing all kinds of new noises. Leaves rustled here, a branch cracked there. Her scalp prickled when she heard the awful cry of a fisher cat in the woods behind the fields. The weasel-relative’s call sounded like a baby being tortured. One more reason, beyond the foxes and coyotes, she always secured the chickens for the night.
She hurried back toward the barn on the path, thinking about her mother’s prospects, wanting to talk with her more and continue their newfound closeness. Halfway to the barn her toe caught on a clump of grass, and she ended up sprawled on her elbows and knees.
She swore and pushed back up to standing, dusting off the knees to her pants. She straightened, then froze, hearing a murmur. Was that a voice? Was somebody on her property again? She pictured Carlos’s face when Pete hauled him into the barn. But Carlos was dead.
The murmuring didn’t continue. It must have been the wind. Cam set out for the house again, this time at a long-legged lope. She didn’t stop until she was safely on the back steps to the house. Whew.
Inside, though, she read a note on the table from her father saying he and Deb had gone to bed and that they’d see Cam in the morning. Talking with Mom would have to wait until tomorrow. Her poor mother. The thought of her spending time in a Florida jail was chilling.
Now that her nerves had settled after falling and hearing the sound, Cam identified the empty feeling she had as hunger. She foraged in the kitchen, settling on a peanut butter toast with sliced bananas. Red wine oddly seemed like the right accompaniment. She sat at the table to eat her supper, but stood again to grab her phone off the kitchen counter where she’d left it charging. What Lucinda had said about Carlos and Nicole’s matching rosaries was bugging her. Cam brought the phone to the table and, as she ate, tried to learn more about those rosary beads. Lucinda had said they were made of something natural, a seed or a bean. And she’d said her grandmother in Brazil prayed with a rosary like Nicole’s.
Cam tapped in “natural rosary bead.” But that search yielded rosaries with beads made out of wood, stone, or glass. She tried “rosary bead plant.” She shook her head at the images of a hanging house plant with little beadlike growths. She typed “rosary bean.” She stared at the screen. She set down her wineglass with a jolt, making the deep red liquid slosh up the sides. The third result read, “Rosary Pea: 15 Plants that Could Kill You.” It was a link to a Web site called Mother Nature Network. She clicked the link.
“Many jewelry makers have died after pricking a finger while handling a rosary pea,” she read. “The poison contained within the seed is abrin—a close relative of ricin and one of the most fatal toxins on Earth.” Cam clicked the link for ricin and read about the even more toxic substance found in castor beans. She sat back, eyes wide. What if abrin was what killed Nicole?
A few of the peas had been missing on Nicole’s rosary. She hunched back over her phone and searched for abrin. Of course the Wikipedia article came up first, but she clicked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention link instead. It had to be more accurate. She frowned as she read. The article said it could take a person from a few hours to a couple of days to die from abrin poisoning, depending on the method of ingestion. Had Nicole been that ill when Deb had talked to her? Cam thought back. Deb had said Nicole didn’t seem to be feeling well that morning. Cam wondered if Ivan had checked out who’d had contact with Nicole the day before her death.
“Gah,” she said out loud. Good thing she hadn’t picked up that rosary outside her barn. What if one or more of its beads had been broken? Cam herself could have been the next victim. And maybe Carlos had died from abrin poisoning, too. Except his rosary hadn’t been missing any peas.
She checked the time on her phone. Eight-thirty. She really didn’t want to be phoning Ivan on his cell this late. And she had too much information to convey in a text message. She scrabbled in her bag until she found his card. Yes, an e-mail address. She moved over to her laptop and typed out a message for him with a subject line of “KINGSBURY POSSIBLE CAUSE OF DEATH.” She described the rosary pea, mentioned the highly toxic abrin, and included the plant’s Latin name, Abrus precatorius. “Have you checked it out yet? CDC Web site has good details,” Cam wrote. She pasted in the link to the CDC article. “Remember beads were missing off Nicole’s rosary. Thought you should know.” And if the lab had a clue the poison might be abrin, they’d know what to test for, according to Pete.
She signed it and hit Send. There. He could handle it from here on out.
Chapter 30
The next day’s dawn splashed stunning reds and pinks over the horizon. Cam had learned that the adage “Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning” was a remarkably accurate predictor of rain later in the day. Good. The soil was still so dry, despite yesterday’s rain. She sat on the back landing, mug of French roast in one hand and an apple in the other, munching and watching the color dissolve into wispy clouds and blue sky. She hadn’t been able to sleep past five, but the compensation was getting to see Mother Nature’s watercolor art. The beautiful sky did nothing to cheer Cam, though.
She couldn’t shake the heaviness of her mom’s news last night. It felt as if a lead cloak were draped over her shoulders. She hoped Mom would be resilient enough to survive whatever was to come. And the murder was still unsolved, too. Preston rubbed his head against her knee. She drained her mug and laced up her work boots, tossing her apple core into the herb garden to decompose.
“We’re up so early, might as well get to work, Mr. P.” Maybe some good physical labor would lighten her mood.
He glanced up at her, then trotted down the steps as if to go fetch a miniature hoe. She smiled wanly and followed him to the hoophouse, propping the door open after her. As she sprayed a fine mist over her seedlings, Orson Page and his run-down greenhouse came to mind. Had Ivan checked out his alibi? Adding Carlos’s death to the investigative mix might have slowed the search for Nicole’s killer. Unless it was one murderer, two victims. And what was the period of time for an alibi, anyway? If Nicole had died of abrin poisoning, it could have been administered even the day before. Or maybe her death was an accident, in fact. She might have accidentally crushed one of the rosary peas and the poison seeped in through a cut on her hand.
Cam shook her head. She was missing too much information to make sense of the two deaths. She trudged out to the coop instead. She couldn’t help but smile again as the hens spilled out into the fresh air. “Good morning, ladies,” she said. “Eat, fertilize, lay eggs. Rinse and repeat. What an easy life you have.”
She spent the next two hours having her own version of an easy life. You couldn’t beat planting and weeding on a fresh new day to bring a sense of accomplishment. By the time her stomach growled, it was seven-thirty and time for breakfast.
Pete’s car pulled in as she approached the house. He climbed out, with Dasha bounding out after him, his leash trailing on the ground.
“Hey, guys,” Cam said, extending one arm to Pete and the other hand to pet Dasha. “You’re here early.”
The skin around Pete’s eyes was tight, and his Mediterranean skin had that slightly gray hue it took on when he hadn’t had enough sleep. “It’s a tough case. Or cases, I should say. Our commander is leaning on both Ivan and me to get these deaths resolved.”
“I hear you,” Cam said. She squeezed him around the waist and dropped her arm. “What do you know about abrin?” She cocked her head.
Pete narrowed his eyes like he was thinking. “I’ve heard of it but can’t think where.”
“So Ivan hasn’t mentioned it? Or whoever does autopsies for the police?”
“No. What is it?”
She explained about ricin’s toxic relative and its carrier, the rosary pea. “You need to be sure they test for that in Nicole’s blood. And maybe in Carlos’s, too. If you don’t know about it, Ivan must not, either.”
“You’re right. I would have heard. This changes a lot. How long does it take to act?”
“Sure. Like any poison. And how did you learn this?”
“Yesterday Lucinda was here and she mentioned that she’d seen Carlos praying in Mass with a rosary like Nicole’s, and like the one her grandmother used in Brazil. And she said the beads were from some kind of plant. The ones I saw didn’t look plastic or glass or even wood. They looked natural. ”
“You could have told me,” Pete said, but his voice was more inquisitive than scolding.
“I just found out, and I didn’t realize it mattered. Lots of people pray with rosaries, right? Last night I got curious, so Mr. Google and I had a little visit. The information was pretty easy to find. And I e-mailed it all to Ivan.”
Preston strolled up to them but froze for a moment when he saw Dasha, who perked up and panted happily. Preston ignored him. He groomed an urgent spot on his back before trotting to the trunk of the big maple. Dasha barked once and trotted right after him. He lay with his head on his paws, gazing at Preston. The cat raised a front paw toward Dasha.
“Uh-oh,” Cam whispered. “We might be in for a little pet fight.”
Instead Preston lay his paw on Dasha’s ear and began to lick the dog’s head. Dasha didn’t budge.
Pete smiled at Cam. “Looks like acceptance has happened, at long last.”
“I guess.” Dasha had always accepted Preston, but the Norwegian Forest cat had remained true to his feline roots and had taken his sweet time to return the favor.
Pete took Cam’s hand. “How’s your mom doing? I hate that you all have to go through this.”
“She went to bed early last night and I haven’t seen her yet, so I don’t know. It gives me the shivers to think of her in prison.”
“It might not come to that. We’ll see.” His phone vibrated on his belt. “I gotta go, darling. I’ll be in touch.”
One kiss later and he was gone. She waved as he drove off, then squared her shoulders. She still had an empty stomach to fill and a farm to run. She hoped after a good night’s sleep Deb would still be accepting her situation as well as Preston was accepting Dasha. Cam frowned. But her mom was unlikely to accept Dasha at all. She picked up his leash.
“Come on, Dash. Let’s get you out behind the barn, okay?”
He yipped his agreement and trotted alongside her. She found another rope in the barn and tied one end to the bench and the other to his leash. That side of the barn was in shade for the morning. He could rest here until she came back out to work.
Cam headed back to the house, but inside Deb was nowhere in sight. William once again worked in the kitchen, this time pouring pancake batter and tending sausages in two skillets side by side.
“Hungry, Cam?”
“You bet.” She watched as he plopped a few blueberries onto each disk of batter. “Where’d you get those blueberries?”
“Your freezer.”
“Really? I had no idea.” At this time of year she barely kept up with cooking and wasn’t surprised her freezer held forgotten secrets. “Where’s Mom?”
“Upstairs. I brought her coffee, but she said she’s not hungry.”
“She’s still pretty upset, I’ll bet.”
“Wouldn’t you be?” he asked.
“Of course.” She poured another mug of coffee and added a splash of milk before sitting at the table to watch him cook. “How are you doing, Daddy?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “I’ve been better, sweetheart.”
“I hope Mom doesn’t end up in prison.”
William’s shoulders slumped as he let out a breath. “I hope she doesn’t, too. But if so, we’ll meet it together as we’ve met every other problem in our marriage.”
Cam frowned, glad his back was to her. This wasn’t the time to ask about other problems in their marriage, about which she knew zero. “So, what are your plans for today?”
“I thought I might go into town and do some snooping.” He twisted and grinned at her.
“Snooping, Daddy? What do you mean?”
“Seems to me we need to get this mystery, or mysteries, solved. You don’t need it on your shoulders, and your mother and I should resume our travels to . . .” His voice trailed off along with his grin.
“Now you can’t go. Is that what you were thinking?” she asked gently.
“Exactly.” He grimaced. “But back to the situation at hand, which needs solving no matter what.”
“That’s for sure. I have to run the farm. But I also have to figure out what happened with these murders. I think it’s key to find out who went in and out of Nicole’s house and the greenhouse the morning of her death.”
Her father turned back to the stove. “I agree. We need to track the various suspects’ whereabouts. Including the late Carlos’s.”
“Right. Hey, Daddy, maybe you could visit the houses near the greenhouse.”
“I like it. Ask questions of the neighbors and all. Isn’t that what they do in mystery novels?”
“But . . .” Cam frowned. “Why would they tell you anything?”
He flipped the pancakes one by one, then faced her. He held the spatula in the air. “I’ve got it. I’ll be conducting a survey about small-town life, with a clipboard and all. And I’ll draw them into conversation. Listen, I’m a cultural anthropologist. I have decades of experience getting people to talk to me.”
Cam stared at him. “Of course you do. That’s a brilliant idea. I think. You’re going to have to ask about the day before, too.” She told him what she’d told Pete about the abrin. “Since we don’t know how or when she ingested the poison, if that was how she died, the period of an alibi could be more than a day long.”
“Not a problem. You leave it to Professor Flaherty.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Cam asked.
“I don’t think so. People might recognize you. Nobody knows a skinny, older professor from Indiana.”
“Okay.” She hoped it would be okay. What if he asked the wrong person the wrong question?
“Now set the table quick, honey. Breakfast is ready.”
* * *
Cam saw her father off on his crazy quest. She doubted he’d get any more information than the police had, but you never knew. He’d mocked up an ID from a fake national survey company, printed up questionnaires, and borrowed the clipboard Cam used at the farmers’ market to sign up newsletter subscribers. He climbed into the rental car just before nine o’clock wearing clean khakis, a button-down shirt, a blazer, and a big smile.
“I like to feel useful,” he said.
“Are you sure that ID is a good idea?” she asked
“It’ll be fine.”
“All right. Well, good luck. And be careful, okay?” Cam cautioned from where she sat on the steps. “If you run into any of our suspects, just call the police.”
He counted them off on his fingers. “Rudin, Geneva, or Orson. Right?”
“Right.” She waved as he drove off. She’d said “our suspects.” Were they? What if both deaths had been accidents? Once again Cam thanked her lucky stars she’d left that rosary on the ground when she’d seen it outside the barn. Ivan had picked it up with a pencil, since the police never touched any piece of potential evidence directly.
Now what was next on her own agenda? Tomorrow was Volunteer Wednesday, and she had to be sure she was organized for that. The soil had warmed up so early this spring, she could assign a couple of helpers tomorrow to spread mulch on the herb garden and on any freshly weeded beds. Finished compost was the best mulch. It shaded the soil so weed seeds wouldn’t sprout. It kept the moisture in and fed the soil beneath it when rainwater trickled through. Too bad she couldn’t mulch away the pressing issue of murder as easily.
She made her way to the barn. “Dasha, want to help?” She unhooked his leash. He followed her first to the faucet and then to the compost area. She dragged her longest ho
se behind her, a sprayer holding back the flow of water until she squeezed it. While air was a key component of the mix, so was enough water for the bacteria to stay alive. She examined the side-by-side bins. Bobby had turned one whole pile yesterday.
Cam set to work turning the least finished pile into the next bin. It wouldn’t be ready to be used as mulch tomorrow, but certainly by the weekend. She remembered her experience finding a bracelet as well as a body part in her compost earlier in the spring and shuddered. She hoped that would never happen again. Dasha rolled back and forth on his back under the nearest tree before settling in on his side. His eyes drifted shut as she forked and watered, forked and watered. The physical work set her mind to working, too.
Surely Nicole’s death hadn’t been accidental. The question of who killed her seemed to come down to motive. Would Orson really have murdered his new competitor? That still seemed an extreme solution to Cam. And what about Rudin? Maybe the divorce wasn’t quite final. He’d said something about Nicole being his almost-ex-wife. If he got away with murder, he would inherit everything he’d had to relinquish to her in the settlement. Or the killer could be Geneva. Maybe Nicole had also seen Geneva trying to steal narcotics as Deb had. Or worse.
And that was only Nicole’s death. Carlos’s was even more bewildering. One death could have been murder and one an accident. She paused with a forkful of rough compost about ready to toss over the wall into the next bin.
“Can I help?” A low voice spoke behind her.
“Ai!” Cam was so startled she threw the pitchfork into the air as she whirled. Deb stood behind her. “Mom, you scared me.”
Dasha woke up and stood in one movement.
Deb held up both hands. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wondered if I could help you with anything.” She edged away from Dasha, putting the bins between them.
“Dasha, sit,” Cam told him, and he did. As her heart rate sank back to normal, she took a closer look at her mom, who appeared to have aged a year overnight. “Are you okay?” Cam asked.
Mulch Ado about Murder Page 19