It's Your Party, Die If You Want To

by Vickie Fee

  “Thanks,” I said. “Can you think of anything else you need from me?”

  “I will need an electrician when we install the sets and position the spotlights at the country club. I don’t want any of the kids climbing up to the rafters to move lights around.”

  “Of course. I’m sure the country club would prefer that for liability reasons anyway,” I said, scribbling in my notebook. Speaking of insurance, it reminded me I needed to double-check on the event insurance to see if we needed any additional riders. I jotted that down in my notebook, as well.

  * * *

  Just east of town, I pulled up the circular drive to the Dodds’ large Greek revival-style home with columned upper and lower galleries. It isn’t antebellum, but it’s certainly a nod to the stately southern homes of the past. It was constructed with the wealth Rachel’s dad had amassed from his small chain of department stores in the tri-state area—Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

  The large public rooms provided ample space for entertaining on a grand scale, and the house would provide the perfect setting for the party this weekend. Mrs. Dodd wasn’t at home, so I left the box of cookies and a note with the housekeeper.

  I headed back to the office to check in with Holly, who had efficiently ticked off all the boxes on her to-do list.

  * * *

  Since lunch had consisted of a protein bar I had scarfed down in the car between appointments, I decided supper at the McKay home this evening was going to be a bucket of fried chicken from the drive-thru and the remains of a tossed salad in the fridge.

  Larry Joe had made it home ahead of me, which was unusual.

  “Hey, hon,” I said as I came in from the garage, toting chicken.

  “Mmm, I can’t wait to get my hands on a breast. The chicken smells good, too!” my husband said, wiggling his eyebrows à la Groucho Marx.

  “You’re awful sassy—and you’re home early.”

  “I thought I’d leave the office before I killed Dad. That old man was getting on my last nerve.”

  “What’s your dad all worked up about?”

  “Oh, he was raising hell about this and that. But what it really comes down to is that Mama and I have been pushing him to cut back his hours since his heart attack. It hurts his feelings to see the business not falling apart without him there every minute, makes him feel unneeded.”

  “Your dad’s a proud man. He’s worked hard all his life, and retirement or even semi-retirement is going to take some getting used to.”

  “I know, I know. That’s why I came home instead of taking him over my knee like the spoiled brat he’s been acting lately,” Larry Joe said. “Let’s not talk about the old geezer anymore. It’ll give me indigestion. How was your day?”

  “Crazy busy. I ate a light lunch on the run and I’m starved,” I said as I placed the chicken and the salad bowl on the table, along with a couple of plates.

  “They held a preliminary hearing for Jasmine Green today. I suppose you saw all the hubbub around the courthouse,” Larry Joe said as he helped himself to some mashed potatoes and gravy.

  “No. I didn’t,” I said. “I was barely in the office today. I guess that means Dave has a pretty good case against her.”

  “I heard, thirdhand you understand, that the lab tests identified the poison used to kill Morgan. Seems it’s pretty rare, not available to the average Joe. And it doesn’t naturally grow in this area; you’d have to plant it. Apparently, Jasmine grows this deadly plant in her greenhouse, and she uses it in one of those herbal face potions she sells. And the poison was in the herbal tea that Jasmine personally served to Morgan.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That sounds like pretty damning evidence. I still find it hard to think of Jasmine as a murderer. Not that it’s hard to imagine someone wanting to kill Morgan. I’ve entertained those thoughts more than once myself. I guess they set Jasmine’s bail pretty high, huh?”

  “Half a million bucks, I heard,” Larry Joe said.

  “That’s really high, isn’t it?”

  “It’s high enough she’ll be sitting in jail until the trial if a grand jury hands down an indictment,” Larry Joe said.

  “Can’t she pay some money to one of those bail bond companies?”

  “Yeah, but I think they charge something like ten percent of the bail amount. I imagine she and Dylan would be hard-pressed to come up with fifty grand.”

  “That’s pretty rough,” I said, “especially if it turns out she’s innocent.”

  After putting the dishes in the sink, I asked Larry Joe if he wanted to join me on the patio.

  “The weather’s perfect this evening,” I said. “Great for a light sweater and a cup of coffee.”

  “I’ll pass, hon. I’m going to change the oil in my truck. It’s way overdue, and I need to switch from straight 30 weight to 10W-30 before cold weather sets in.”

  I knew working on the car was Larry Joe’s coping mechanism when he was stressed about his dad or work. Too bad working on remodeling the upstairs bathroom didn’t have the same soothing effect on him. He disappeared into the garage, and I phoned Di to see if she wanted to imbibe with me.

  “Actually,” Di said, “if you’re up for something a little stronger, come on over. I just whipped up a batch of margaritas in the blender.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  As I passed through the garage I smacked Larry Joe on the butt—he still has some of the cutest buns east of the Mississippi—and told him I was going over to Di’s for a bit.

  * * *

  Di handed me a glass as I entered her trailer. She stretched out in the recliner, and I plopped down on the sofa. After a moment of silent sipping, we both said, “Aah.”

  “You and Larry Joe finished supper kind of early tonight.”

  “Yeah, he came home a little early to get away from his dad. Daddy Wayne’s been on a rampage because he feels like his wife and son are trying to put him out to pasture. They’ve been encouraging him to cut back his hours, you know, after the heart attack.”

  “It’s so selfish of them to want him to live a few years longer,” Di said. “If he’s driving Larry Joe nuts, he’s probably really driving your mother-in-law up the wall, what with his spending more time around the house now.”

  “I think Miss Betty handles it better. With Larry Joe there’s the father and son thing, plus that whole clash of male egos.”

  “Did you watch any of the action around the courthouse today? I heard the news stations from Memphis were there with cameras rolling,” Di said.

  “No. I wasn’t in the office today. Figures I’d be running all over the county the one day there’s excitement outside my window. Larry Joe said they seem to have some pretty strong evidence against Jasmine, with her growing the rare poison that killed Morgan.”

  “Yeah,” Di said. “And she’s always seemed like such a harmless little peacenik.”

  There was a knock on the door. Di hollered, “Come on in.”

  Sheriff Dave stepped inside and took off his hat.

  After salutations all around, I stood up and said, “Well, I was just going. . . .”

  Di said, “Sit down, you’re not going anywhere—you just got here. And you actually called before dropping in.” The words came out of Di’s mouth and hung in the air like frost, dropping the temperature in the room by several degrees.

  “I won’t stay. I was just stopping by for a minute,” Dave said with a hangdog expression.

  “You’re welcome to come in and join us,” Di said, sitting up and making space for him on the sofa. “There’s liquor in the blender and Cokes in the fridge. Help yourself.”

  Dave grabbed a Coke can and sat down on the couch, leaving a safe distance between Di and himself.

  I felt like an intruder, but I didn’t dare move after Di’s chilly words of greeting to the sheriff.

  The silence was deafening. After a pregnant pause, I finally said, “So, Dave, we were just saying how it’s hard to believe Jasmine could have killed M
organ, but the evidence about the poison seems pretty substantial.”

  Dave glanced over at Di, who was deliberately avoiding eye contact with him by picking nonexistent lint off her pants leg. He swiveled in my direction, still seemingly dumbstruck.

  I continued, “I understand Jasmine had a poisonous plant growing on her property, but couldn’t someone else have used the poison?”

  “That’s possible, of course, but not very likely,” Dave said. “It’s not a common poison. It’s called hemlock water-dropwort and it’s not even native to the U.S. It also causes that gruesome grin like Morgan had frozen on her face.”

  “I always thought the so-called death smile was caused by strychnine—like in all those mystery novels,” I said.

  “Hemlock water-dropwort apparently causes it, too. Only this poison doesn’t generally cause the other more obvious symptoms of strychnine like muscle spasms and labored breathing, which Morgan didn’t display, according to witnesses. And in large-enough doses, death comes pretty quickly. In fact, a botany professor at the University of Memphis said that some historians now think some of the ancient poisonings mentioned in literature previously attributed to strychnine may actually have been caused by this hemlock water-dropwort.”

  Di finally condescended to speak to Dave.

  “So why would Jasmine even have this plant around if it’s so deadly?”

  “The death smile is caused by facial paralysis, a side effect of this particular poison,” Dave said. “Jasmine uses it in miniscule amounts in an anti-aging cream she sells. It’s akin to Botox. It relaxes the muscles, so it removes wrinkles. The professor said there’s some new research into cosmetic applications for hemlock water-dropwort, but it’s not widely used and hasn’t been rigorously tested for safety on humans. One of the very unsettling qualities of this plant is that, unlike most poisons, it actually tastes good. It grows wild in parts of Europe, and a full-grown cow could die from eating its sweet roots. The poison can take from a few minutes to a few hours to kill someone, depending on the amount ingested.”

  “Has Jasmine confessed?” I asked.

  “No, she maintains her innocence. But suspects rarely confess to their crimes, except on TV,” Dave said.

  After finishing his beverage, Dave left, and Di actually got up and walked him to the door.

  The look on her face made it clear that she did not want to talk about the current state of her relationship with the sheriff, so I didn’t ask. I decided to ask about Daisy instead.

  “So did you get a chance to talk to Daisy at yoga class tonight?”

  “She didn’t even show up,” Di said. “I think getting those two together is going to be like herding cats.”

  On the way home from Di’s, I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few items. Most of my grocery shopping lately had been grab-and-go instead of planned trips with a list.

  As I was strolling down aisle five looking for Larry Joe’s favorite cereal, I spotted Dave looking at protein bars. I pulled my cart up beside him.

  “Seems we meet again,” I said. His basket contained frozen dinners, canned ravioli, a package of bologna, and some beef jerky—a sad assortment that screamed “bachelor who doesn’t cook.”

  “Dave, I didn’t think to mention it earlier, but that phone call Naomi Mawbry received about her sister has been bothering me. It’s a strange thing to happen anytime, but happening on the day of Morgan’s murder seems like a pretty big coincidence. Is it possible the killer didn’t want Naomi at the retreat center the night Morgan was killed?”

  “Yeah, I don’t like coincidences much myself,” Dave said. “Morgan’s dad gave us permission to look at the bank’s phone records. None of the people at the retreat, including the choir folks at main lodge and those Sisters of the Full Moon, phoned the bank during that time frame.”

  “Wouldn’t Naomi have noticed if the incoming call had a local area code instead of the hospital’s Mississippi area code?”

  “The bank still has an old phone system that doesn’t have caller ID, so she wouldn’t have been able to tell,” Dave said. “The only people outside the bank that called around that time were a couple of businesses, and bank employees remember talking to them, plus one old lady who calls at least twice a week to check her account balance, and Trudy remembers talking to her.

  “We also checked Naomi’s alibi to make sure she was actually in Mississippi the night of the retreat. A credit card receipt from a gas station in Batesville and a nurse working at the hospital both confirm she was nowhere near the retreat center when Morgan died. Sometimes a coincidence really is just a coincidence,” he said.

  We said our good-nights and I rolled my cart with the squeaky wheel down the aisle, taking one last look at Dave’s pitiful rations. I decided I needed to invite him over for supper sometime soon.

  Larry Joe had finished changing the oil and whatever other tinkering on the car and was washing up at the kitchen sink when I came in with the groceries. I gave him a quick kiss as I stood on tiptoe to reach the cabinet beside him to put away the cereal.

  “Hey, hon,” he said. “How’s Di?”

  “I’m not sure. Dave dropped by while I was there, and things were obviously a little chilly between them. He didn’t stay long. I think he was starting to feel frostbit.”

  “You didn’t ask her why after he left?”

  “No. She didn’t seem receptive. In fact she’s had very little to say about Dave recently,” I said.

  “They’re both hauling around a lot of emotional baggage, what with the death of a spouse and a felon for an ex-husband,” Larry Joe said. “They’ll work it out in their own time.”

  “I hope so,” I said, wrapping my arms around my husband’s waist and nuzzling my face against his back. “I just want the two of them to be as happy as we are.”

  Larry Joe grabbed my hands, releasing the hug I had him locked in and turning around to face me.

  “Aw, Liv, not everybody can bear that much happiness,” he said with a smirk before kissing me on the forehead.

  Chapter 10

  As I was walking from my car to the office Thursday morning, I spotted Dave getting out of his truck in front of the sheriff’s office. I crossed the street and caught him before he went in the building.

  “I know you have evidence against Jasmine, but it’s not exactly an open-and-shut case. Have you checked up on Astrid Caine from that Sisters of the Full Moon group? She sounds like a viable suspect to me.”

  “I haven’t ruled out anyone at this point. But Miss Caine has an alibi for the time of Morgan’s death. And as much as you don’t want to hear it, the people at your retreat had the best opportunity to poison Morgan.”

  “Having the best opportunity doesn’t mean they had the only opportunity. Some of the women at the retreat are assumed to have a motive for murder based solely on gossip about their husbands and Morgan. That’s just a lot of tongues wagging. And I don’t recall hearing any rumors about Dylan, so what was Jasmine’s motive? Anyway, Astrid having a loud and ugly exchange with Morgan in front of witnesses is something solid,” I said.

  “That just puts her on the long list of folks who didn’t like Morgan. To actually have killed Morgan she would have needed detailed knowledge of the retreat—who was going to be there and that there was going to be an excursion to the cemetery—in order to pull it off.

  “Plus, we have the problem that the other members of her group gave statements that place the suspect dancing naked around a fire at the time Miss Annabelle wandered off—which would have been about the time of Morgan’s death. And while one or two people might lie to protect someone close to them, getting seven or eight people to lie for you about something as serious as murder is extremely unlikely. It’s not even like they’re all dedicated pagans. Some of the women are Baptists and Presbyterians who just happened to find the back-to-nature, dancing naked, feminine bonding aspects of the event appealing.”

  “Whatever their spiritual beliefs, they could be ly
ing to protect a friend,” I said. “Besides, Winette said it was Astrid—and honestly, how many people named Astrid do you know?—who showed up at our lodge door to check on Miss Annabelle. According to Astrid’s version of things, she got dressed, went up to the main lodge, and talked to somebody before trekking back to our lodge. And somehow she managed to do all that before you arrived about ten minutes after the body was discovered. Doesn’t that seem odd?”

  “Everything about her seems odd,” Dave said. “But that doesn’t give me a case against her.”

  Dave, who had received a call on the police radio, got in his car and took off. I headed to my office to do a little research on Astrid Caine. I enthusiastically embraced the idea of the murderer being someone I didn’t know personally.

  I put on a pot of coffee, thinking how I ought to buy one of those coffeemakers that quickly brews one cup at a time.

  Through the wonders of the Internet, it didn’t take long to find out that Astrid Caine, whose real first name is Brenda, owns the Cosmic Moon Cottage in Hartville. It’s a gift shop that sells, among other things, crystals, candles, T-shirts, Renaissance clothing, and goddess jewelry. I wasn’t sure what goddess jewelry was, but I thought it might be a perfect Christmas gift for Mama if it was a bit on the gaudy side.

  I decided at the first opportunity I’d run over to Hartville to see what I could learn from Astrid. But there wasn’t room in my schedule for that to happen today.

  Before ten, I had already returned all the calls on my answering machine and even booked an appointment with a prospective client. I was about to refine my time line and to-do list for the Dodds’ party when the phone rang. It was Mitzi, Lucinda’s personal assistant.

  “We have a situation here with two of the women who have been stalking Miss Grable. While I’ve told her she really should call the sheriff, she would very much like to resolve the issue without involving the authorities. Could you come over to the hotel right away?”

  Foolishly, I said yes. I probably should have told Mitzi to go ahead and call the sheriff and just let Nell and Sindhu face the consequences of their juvenile behavior. But with Jasmine already locked up, I thought Dave might be running out of room at the jail if he brought in those two.