Never Enough Thyme

by Juliet MacLeod

  “And what does that mean? Certified medicinal herbalist?”

  “I use herbs—mostly grown on my farm, though I do harvest some species from the wild and get others from suppliers—to treat people’s medical issues.”

  “What training or qualifications do you have?”

  “I have a Bachelor of Science in plant biology from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master of Science in plant molecular biology from Washington State University. I’ve also been licensed and certified by—”

  “Objection, Your Honor.” The public defender, an older man in a bad suit with a liberal dusting of dandruff on the shoulders, stood up. He looked bored and irritated by the entire proceedings. “Miss Taylor’s education and training are not in dispute. I’m certain she is who she says she is. Not to mention the fact that she is not on trial. My client is.” He half-turned toward the man sitting next to him, Gordon Oakes, murderer of two people. I glanced at Gordon, who was wearing a cheap suit and hiding his shackles beneath the table behind which he was seated. He looked terrible, haggard and jaundiced. His hair hung lank and greasy around his head, which was bowed as he stared at his lap. He’d also lost a noticeable amount of weight; his clothing hung from him as though it was still on its hanger. I felt terrible for him for a split second before I remembered that he’d taken two people’s lives.

  Harry glanced at the defense attorney over the top of his half-moon reading glasses and arched a coal-black eyebrow. Then he looked at Mr. Mott. “I assume there is a good reason for this line of questioning, Mr. Mott?”

  “There is, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said with a nod. “I want to establish Miss Taylor as an expert medical witness. It does pertain to this case.”

  Harry nodded and sat back in his seat. A thoughtful look crossed his face before he turned to me. “Miss Taylor,” he asked, his voice still gentle. “How many years have you been a certified medicinal herbalist?”

  I blinked, shocked by the question. Wasn’t Harry supposed to rule on the defense’s objection? Why was he asking me something directly? “Uh,” I said, a frown wrinkling my brow. “Almost seventeen years.”

  “I see. And how many hours of certification training have you taken? How many hours of continuing education credits are you required to take to keep this certification?”

  “For the certification, it was a little over thirteen hundred-fifty hours. I’m required to perform thirty hours of continuing education a year, and I’m re-certified every two years.”

  Harry nodded and turned back to the defense lawyer, who was still standing. “Would you like to stipulate to Miss Taylor’s qualifications as an expert medical witness, Mr. Giannopoulos?”

  “So stipulated.” The defense lawyer sat down.

  “Please proceed, Mr. Mott,” Harry said and sat back in his chair once more.

  “Thank you, Your Honor. Now, Miss Taylor, can you describe to me the scene you witnessed during the bake sale and fishing derby at the Saxon Lake SummerFest? The date was June seventeenth of this year.”

  I leaned forward a bit, my hands fisted in the folds of my knee-length skirt. I recalled the day for the record, telling the jurors about witnessing Barry Shubitz’s death and Viki Childress’s strange reaction to it.

  “And why, do you think, did Miss Childress react so strangely to Mr. Shubitz’s death?”

  “Objection.” Mr. Giannopoulos stood up. “Calls for hearsay and assumption of facts not in the witness’s first-hand knowledge.”

  “Sustained. Follow another line of questioning, Mr. Mott.”

  The prosecutor nodded and lowered his eyes to the yellow legal pad in his hand. He took a deep breath and questioned me about finding Viki Childress stabbed to death two days later, as well as a conversation I’d had with Dean about the defendant and the night Gordon was arrested after threatening to kill me and confessing to the murders of both Barry and Viki.

  “And what, exactly, was the reason Mr. Oakes gave you for murdering Mr. Shubitz?” the prosecutor asked.

  I glanced at Mr. Giannopoulos, expecting to hear him object to the prosecution referring to Gordon’s crime in an obvious way. Wasn’t Mr. Mott supposed to say “allegedly”? But the defense table was quiet. “He—Mr. Oakes, I mean—told me that Barry had hurt his family, had sent his father away to jail where he died, and Mr. Oakes said just blackmailing him wasn’t helping. Mr. Oakes said that Mr. Shubitz had to die.”

  “I see. And did he say anything about Miss Childress?”

  “Yes, he did.” Before my testimony today, Dean warned me to only answer the questions I was asked and not to volunteer any further information.

  “And what reason did he give for killing Miss Childress?”

  “He was afraid she was going to tell Dean... uh, Sheriff Jensen”—I felt my cheeks blazing, but managed to power through the flaming embarrassment—“what he, Mr. Oakes, had done.”

  “Murdering Barry Shubitz after blackmailing him.”

  “Yes.” I glanced over Mr. Mott’s shoulder to Dean, who was smiling and nodding with encouragement. He didn’t seem to care that I’d slipped up and called him by his first name on the stand. It wasn’t a secret that he and I were dating, but I wanted to keep my testimony about him on a professional level. I’d almost failed to do that.

  Mr. Mott continued asking me questions about the night that Gordon Oakes had broken into my mother’s bookshop and threatened me before Dean and his deputies had rescued me. Then he returned to the prosecution’s table and set his legal pad down. “Two final questions, Miss Taylor. First, how did Barry Shubitz die?”

  “He was poisoned.”

  “Can you describe for the jury both the poison used and what physical effects that poison had on him?”

  “He was poisoned with hemlock, and he died of suffocation. The alkaloids coniine and conhydrine, which are both present in hemlock, cause paralysis of the central and peripheral nervous systems. The first symptom of poisoning is numbness in the extremities, followed by violent vomiting and convulsions, and finally, the patient dies of suffocation.”

  “And this is how Barry Shubitz died?”

  “Yes. His throat constricted so much that he couldn’t breathe.”

  Mr. Mott was silent for a few moments as he glanced over at the jury. Two of the women had their hands pressed against their throats, while others were frowning horror. I knew at that moment that Gordon would be convicted of two first degree murders and sentenced to life in prison. I felt such a strong sense of elation that lasted only long enough for guilt to settle in.

  “Thank you, Miss Taylor,” Mr. Mott said. “No further questions for this witness, Your Honor.”

  “Your witness, Mr. Giannopoulos.”

  The defense lawyer stood up and said, “The defense has no questions for this witness, Your Honor.”

  Both Harry and I blinked at Mr. Giannopoulos in surprise. “All right,” Harry said after a long pause. “You may step down, Miss Taylor.”

  I stood up and walked through courtroom’s well, the area between the judge’s bench and the bar, to the gallery, where I sat down next to Dean. He reached over and took my hand, giving it a firm squeeze before releasing it. “You did great,” he whispered after leaning over. “Just great.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered back before turning my attention to the proceedings.

  Mr. Mott had just called George “Doc” Hutchins, the county coroner, to the stand. Doc confirmed my testimony about how Barry had died, as well as informing the jury of how Viki had died, namely of a single stab wound to her chest, which perforated her heart. Again, the defense lawyer had no questions for Doc. After Doc left the witness stand, Mr. Mott called the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s medical examiner to the stand, who confirmed both my testimony and Doc’s. There were no questions from the defense this time, either.

  It was four-thirty in the afternoon by the time the CBI’s ME finished testifying. Harry called for a recess until the following morning at nine o’clock. Dean and
his two deputies, Gary McGill and Leticia Nichols, were expected to testify the following day.

  As we left the courtroom hand in hand, I asked Dean, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come tomorrow?”

  “No, it’s fine,” Dean replied as he walked me to my car, a red forty-five-year-old Karmann Ghia convertible. “I’ve testified lots of times before. I’m an old hand at it.”

  I smiled and wrapped my arms around him in a hug. “Thanks for being there for me today.”

  He squeezed me back and planted a kiss on my forehead. “You did great up there on the stand. You looked like a natural.”

  Jennifer and my mom joined us, giving me hugs as well. Jen said, “You really did great up there. You didn’t look nervous at all.”

  “She was nervous,” my mom said. “I could tell. The way she was clutching at her skirt.”

  I laughed. “I was terribly nervous. I was afraid I was going to burst out in tears at any moment.”

  Dean glanced at his watch before giving me another kiss. “I’ve got to got to work for a little while. I’ll bring Red Dragon over for dinner? Say, around seven-thirty or so?”

  “Mmm,” I said with a contented smile. “General Tsao’s chicken and egg rolls. Sounds perfect.”

  Dean chuckled and nodded goodbye to my mom and Jennifer before moving off to his truck. We all watched him go. I sighed as I enjoyed the view. “He’s so handsome,” my mother said in a dreamy tone of voice, one I’d only heard her using when talking about Bobby Darrin.

  “Mom!” I rounded on her and gave her a horrified look. “He’s my boyfriend!”

  “So? That doesn’t mean I can’t admire him.”

  “She’s right,” Jen said, nodding. “I love Mark, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still admire a fine looking man. And honey, that sheriff of yours sure is fine.”

  “Oh, my gosh,” I said, exasperation in my voice. “You two are incorrigible. I’m going home.”

  Jen and my mom giggled like school girls before walking arm in arm to their own cars. I slid behind the wheel of the Ghia and turned the key, praying the engine would turn over. It was always a dicey proposition, but I was delighted when the car started up on the second try. I pulled out of the courthouse’s lot and headed east, towards Saxon Mountain, where my four-acre mini-farm was located.

  Mid-September in the mountains of Colorado is my favorite time of year. Beautiful, clear morning skies gave way to sun-drenched afternoons with lines of puffy white clouds sailing by on the near horizon, which in turn gave way to cool evenings that are sometimes dramatically lit by streaks of lightning and underscored by a soundtrack of rolling, booming thunder. The slopes of the peaks surrounding my tiny village of Saxon Lake are covered with pockets of golden-yellow aspens, providing a stark contrast to the deep, almost black, of the pines surrounding them.

  My favorite thing to do on stormy evenings is to curl up on my front porch and watch the light show as it plays out across the valley. I love the sound of the rain on the roof and the smell of ozone that perfumes the air. I love the way I can feel the reverberation of the thunder on my breastbone. And I love the way the air feels alive and coiled with such exciting energy.

  My cats, Beryl and Lily, hate thunderstorms and can usually be found hiding beneath my bed or cowering at the bottom of the cast-iron, clawfoot bathtub in my master bath. My chickens don’t seem to mind the storms; neither do Daffodil or Tulip, my blue ribbon-winning Nubian goat nannies. Dean seems to think it’s because the chickens and goats aren’t that bright. He maintains that fear is a sign of higher intelligence. And then he looks at me askance. Apparently, I don’t display enough fear for someone with higher intelligence. When I protest, he reminds me of the reason I’d testified in Gordon’s murder trial that morning.

  Gordon held me hostage inside my mother’s bookshop, and he threatened not only my life but Dean’s as well. Dean and I had just started dating, something I’d wanted to do since our sophomore year of high school. I got so angry with Gordon for what he’d done, and more importantly, what he was threatening to do, and something inside me snapped. I disarmed Gordon with a move that I’d learned from a Jet Li movie. After Gordon had been arrested and I was safe, Dean told me he was going to lock me up if I ever did anything as stupid as that again. I promised him that I wouldn’t be that dumb a second time, but somehow, I doubted very much that he believed me.

  But so far, I’d kept my promise. Three months had passed since Gordon Oakes was arrested for the murders of Barry Shubitz, the village’s only lawyer, and Gordon’s own girlfriend, Viki Childress, who worked as a clerk in my mother’s bookshop. I hadn’t done anything more dangerous in that time than haggling over the price of six ounces of dried peppermint with the font of gossip in Saxon Lake, Adele Vincent. She suffered from frequent upset stomach and heartburn and found a cup of mint tea sweetened with local honey helped to relieve her symptoms. Since she was my mother’s best friend and one of the first customers to frequent Sage Wisdom, she felt she was entitled to a bit of a discount. She had suggested something in the range of fifty percent. Needless to say, I did not share her views and refused to lower my price for her. In the end, she always paid full price, but she wasn’t happy and complained to my mother, who in turn, informed me of Adele’s complaints. Thankfully, she didn’t take them seriously.

  “Bryony,” my mother said the week before, during our weekly Thursday night dinner, “Adele Vincent makes Ebeneezer Scrooge look like Jimmy Carter.” She waved her hand vaguely in the air, dismissing my complaints about Adele. “One gets used to it. Just stick to your guns and ignore her bad behavior.”

  Fine advice, but a week later, I found myself still smarting over it. Adele had made me feel guilty, and there were few things I disliked more than feeling guilty. I’d decided to cut Adele a deal the next time I saw her and had harvested all of the extensive peppermint plants that grew on my property, setting them aside to dry in the herb shed that sat next to the gardens. I’d give her all of it and then I wouldn’t have to see her for a few months. Talk about win-win.

  I soon reached my house, a hundred-and-fifty-year-old Italianate-Victorian that had been built fifteen years after Saxon Lake was founded during the Colorado Gold Rush. When I bought the house and the four acres it sat on, the house had been in danger of being condemned and demolished. The director of the local history museum begged me to save the structure, so I dumped a lot of money into it and restored it to its previous glory. For my efforts, the National Register of Historic Places had given me a plaque that hung on the outside wall next to my front door, and pictures of the building were featured on the museum’s website.

  Once inside, I greeted the cats with head scratches and a handful of crunchy treats. While I watched them eating, I marveled at how well they got along. Lily had been Barry Shubitz’s cat, but after his death, she’d been alone in his house without food or water. I’d rescued her and brought her home, intending to keep her until Barry’s ex-wife made other arrangements for her. But Sharon hadn’t wanted her, so I’d become her new owner. Lily was a beautiful, tiny white cat with one yellow eye and one blue eye who talked to me and to Beryl, a flame-point Ragdoll, with funny trilling noises. I had expected Beryl to hate Lily, but she was just too sweet for him to dislike her. They’d bonded in less than a day’s time, and I could usually find them curled up together on my bed or lying on the back of the couch in the living room, soaking up the sunbeams that streamed in through a large picture window.

  After seeing to the cats’ needs, I went upstairs to shower and change into jeans and a light cotton sweater. I was looking forward to a relaxing cup of tea and a re-read of the first Diane Mott Davidson book when my doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting anyone until after seven, and it was just past five-thirty. Maybe Dean had decided to drop by early, knowing how much I adored egg rolls and how little patience I had when it came to waiting for their delivery.

  Running a hand over my hair, which I’d pulled into a messy bun after getting chang
ed, I opened the door with a wide, anticipatory grin. The grin fell, however, only to be replaced by a frown of confusion when I was greeted not by my boyfriend’s handsome face and arresting green eyes but by a red-nosed, blotchy-looking, blonde stranger who was dressed in a peach-colored sundress and a white cashmere cardigan. She was clutching a wad of used tissues in one perfectly manicured hand.

  “Are you Bryony Taylor?” she asked, her voice thick with tears.

  “Yes, I’m Bryony. Are you okay? Can I help you?” I stepped back and opened the door wider. “Please, come inside.”

  That might have been a dangerous thing to do, and I’m sure if Dean had been around, he’d have given me that look again, but the woman was crying—had obviously been crying for some time—and I was a healer. I couldn’t bear to see suffering. Besides which, she was barely five feet tall and couldn’t have weighed more than one hundred pounds. I was pretty sure that if push came to shove, I could have taken her in a fight. I’d disarmed Gordon Oakes, after all.

  “Yes,” she said, stepping inside my house and wiping again at her eyes. “Thank you. I just... I don’t know what else to do. The sheriff’s deputies were no use, and I almost got into an accident on the way over here. And I have nowhere else to turn.” She stood awkwardly in the hallway, her bloodshot blue eyes moving over the photographs on the walls of my foyer.

  “The sheriff’s department? Is everything alright? What’s happened?”

  “I live in Bard Creek. There isn’t a sheriff's station there, so I had to drive to the one here. But the deputy I talked with... She couldn’t help me. Not for another twelve hours, she said.” The woman shook her head. “But I just know something’s happened to him, and after those articles in the paper about how you helped Sheriff Jensen solve those murders, and all the TV coverage of the trial, I thought why not come see if you could help.”

  I smiled and nodded as I listened to her pour her story out. “Well, Mrs—” I paused for a moment, realizing that she hadn’t introduced herself to me.