by Carol Cox
Paul and Livvy had thought Kate somewhat delusional for having the same idea, but Renee’s theory mirrored her own. Normally, Kate would have sided with Paul and Livvy as the more rational thinkers. But Renee’s idea added conviction to the suspicion that had already taken root in Kate’s thinking. She needed an answer if she was going to be able to put her mind to rest.
Moving slowly, she carried her mug to the kitchen and picked up the phone to dial the number to Paul’s office. Paul answered on the third ring.
“I need you to do me a favor,” Kate told him.
“No problem, hon. Just tell me what it is.”
“You agreed to be my musketeer, remember? Well, this is your chance. Would you contact everyone you know who came down with food poisoning and ask them specifically what they ate at the diner?”
There was a slight hesitation before Paul responded. “Sure, if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Let’s just say it’s the best way I can think of to set my mind at ease about all this.”
She could hear the smile in his voice when he responded. “If that’s the case, I’ll start working on it this afternoon.”
Kate hung up the phone and finished the rest of her tea. As she set the empty mug on the counter, she heard the front doorknob rattle.
Had Renee come back for something she’d forgotten? Kate waited for the customary yoo-hoo. The knob rattled again, followed by a knock on the door.
Chapter Nineteen
Kate tried to remember a time when there had been so much doorbell ringing and doorknob rattling as she’d experienced over the past few days.
“Coming,” she called, hoping her voice would carry to whomever stood on the other side of the door. Making her way across the living room took far longer than usual, but eventually she reached the door.
LuAnne stood on the front step. Instead of wearing her normally cheery grin, her face looked drawn and haggard. “Sorry, Kate. I didn’t mean for you to have to get up. I was hopin’ the door would be unlocked so I could just slip on in without havin’ to bother you. Mind if I come in?”
“Of course not. Let’s go sit in the living room.”
“I can’t stay long,” LuAnne said. Then she looked at Kate as if realizing how wobbly she felt. “I’ll shut the door,” LuAnne offered. “You go on ahead and get off your feet.”
Feeling as though she was wearing a path in the carpet, Kate shuffled back to her seat and curled up in her customary spot at the end of the couch.
LuAnne plopped down next to her and sat with her chin almost resting on her chest.
Kate’s heart skipped a beat. LuAnne looked positively dreadful. “What’s wrong?”
“The plain truth of it is, I’m scared.” LuAnne raised her head and looked at Kate, her eyes swimming with tears. “Loretta’s been my friend most of my life. I started working for her right out of high school. She’s like family to me.”
“I know,” Kate said gently, wondering where this was heading.
“She trusted me enough to leave me in charge of her business, and I’m makin’ a total mess of it.” LuAnne pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and used it to swipe at her eyes. “That’s no way to treat a friend.”
Kate sat back, relieved on one hand to learn LuAnne’s health wasn’t at risk. At the same time, she knew that LuAnne’s concerns about the diner were well founded. “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
LuAnne lifted her hands and let them drop back into her lap. “Pretty much everything. J.B. came in for a while this morning, but when people kept lookin’ at him funny, he decided to go back home. He said folks were scared they’d get sick eatin’ his cooking, so he thought he ought to stay away for a while. I know he’s just tryin’ to help, Kate, but it’s left me runnin’ the whole shebang all on my own.” LuAnne twisted her fingers together. “Between doin’ all the prep and bakin’ pies and trying to keep up when the orders start coming in...” Her voice choked on a sob. “I’m trying. I really am. But I just can’t slam the food out the way Loretta and J.B. can.”
LuAnne blinked rapidly, and two fat tears slid down her cheeks. “Things ground down to a halt after lunch, so I came over here and left the girls in charge...not that they’ll have anything to do but stand around and stare at each other. I guess I just needed to talk to someone.”
Kate reached over and gently rubbed LuAnne’s back. “I know how hard it is when you’re too close to a situation to be able to see it clearly. Let’s see if we can think of some ways to help take some of the burden off of you.”
LuAnne sniffled. “Like what? I’ve already cut back on the menu.”
“That’s a start. What about the baking? That takes up a lot of time. Is there someone else who could take that on for you?”
LuAnne shook her head. “No one who can bake like Loretta.”
“People ought to understand that they won’t get Loretta’s special pies until she’s home again. In the meantime, what’s the next best option?”
LuAnne raised her eyes to meet Kate’s. “What if I picked up some pies at the SuperMart? It wouldn’t be the same, but at least it would save me a few hours every day.”
“That’s a great idea!” Kate enthused.
They went on to brainstorm several other ways for LuAnne to streamline her cooking duties. By the time they finished, she looked more like her usual cheery self.
“Thanks, Kate,” she said as she rose to leave. “You’ve given me hope again. Keep me in your prayers, all right?”
Kate smiled. “You know I will.”
PAUL STOPPED BY a few minutes after LuAnne left. “It took me a little while, but I finally got ahold of all the people I knew who’d been sick over the weekend, and I wanted to tell you about it in person.”
Kate raised her eyebrows. “This sounds important. What’s up?”
“Every one of them ate the same thing: the chili.” Paul sat beside Kate and took her hand in his.
“But, Paul—”
“I know it isn’t what you wanted to hear, but that narrows it down without a doubt. The chili was the source of the food poisoning outbreak.”
“No, listen.” Kate pressed one hand to her forehead to stave off light-headedness and willed her eyes to focus on him. “Don’t you remember? When we ate at the diner a week ago Sunday, I had the fried chicken, not the chili.” Conviction lent strength to her voice. “If all the other cases of food poisoning came from the chili, then whatever I had must be something different.”
Paul didn’t look convinced. “But that doesn’t prove that the chicken didn’t make you ill. If they had problems with one dish, they could just as easily have had problems with others.”
“Wait a minute. Let me do a little checking.” Kate got up and walked to the kitchen phone, where she dialed the number for the library.
“Livvy, I have a quick question. You and your family ate at the diner a week ago Sunday, right? Do you remember what each one of you had?”
She paused a moment while Livvy reeled off the names of the dishes. After she hung up, Kate walked back to the couch and sat next to Paul.
“Livvy and Danny both had blackened chicken salad, and James ate a hamburger. But Justin had the fried chicken too, and he’s just fine. I’m telling you, Paul, my getting sick last weekend had nothing to do with the food at the diner.”
FEELING DRAINED by all her visitors that afternoon, Kate decided to return to her bed. She leafed through her case notebook one page at a time, looking for something, anything that would bring her closer to a resolution.
She had weighed the evidence as best she could. Right now, she had nothing more than opinion to go by—hers and others’. If only she could put her finger on what had made her so certain that Lawton was speaking the truth!
Finding no answers in the notebook, she set it aside and booted up her laptop. She had read every article the Chronicle had printed on the topic, but it wouldn’t hurt to go back over them again. Maybe she’d missed something.
She scrolled through them one by one. The first indication that something was amiss was the mention about money being collected fraudulently for a chamber of commerce project. That article was immediately followed by Lawton’s outraged response and demand for swift justice.
Kate’s gaze traveled over a photo of the mayor that accompanied that article. He looked straight into the camera with his chin thrust forward as if daring the photographer to challenge him. She started to click on the link for the next article, then pulled her hand back, her eyes arrested by something in that photo.
What was it...the tilt of Lawton’s head? There was something meaningful, Kate felt sure of it, but she had no clue what that might be, nor how she could find out. Frustrated by her inability to determine the importance of the picture, Kate made a note of the article and continued her search, this time focusing more on the photos than on the written words.
After an hour, Kate flipped the lid of her laptop closed and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. This wasn’t her style of investigating. Looking up facts on the Internet was one thing, but it didn’t have the advantages of personal interaction. More than once, a conversation had taken an unexpected turn that led her to a new discovery. She wasn’t going to get that staring at a computer screen.
Enough of this lounging around! She had to start feeling better, and soon.
But until then...Kate opened her laptop again. Her conversation with Paul had confirmed that food poisoning had nothing to do with what ailed her. This was at least an avenue of investigation she could pursue on her own. She needed to make the most of it instead of wasting time feeling sorry for herself.
Uncertain of the direction she wanted to follow, she stared at the screen, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. Clicking on the History link at the top of her browser window, she brought up the files she had visited over the past few days.
Kate scanned them, then clicked open a couple of Web sites she had looked at before. Both were related to poisons. She looked through them, trying to narrow down the range of possibilities.
With a sinking heart, she discarded one substance after another. Some of them produced symptoms similar to those she had experienced, but they went much farther than that—irregular heartbeat, paralysis, even death. Kate shuddered and kept looking, wondering if Paul and Livvy could be right. Maybe she was a little paranoid after all.
A link near the bottom of one page caught her eye. She clicked on it.
“Oh my!” Kate followed a series of links, scribbling notes until her hand cramped. She set down her pen and shook her aching fingers. What she really needed was a book where she could find information all in one place instead of chasing it haphazardly. For that matter, a book might help pin down her intuition about Lawton as well. Kate pushed the notebook aside and dialed Livvy’s work number.
“I hate to be a pest,” she said when her friend answered the phone. “And I don’t want you to rearrange your plans for tonight on my account, but were you by any chance planning to stop by this evening?”
“I’m not sure. What’s up?”
“I was wondering if you’d mind bringing me a book or two on body language. Would that be a problem?”
“Justin has a dentist appointment in Pine Ridge in an hour. Danny has a faculty meeting, so I’m taking off a little early to drive Justin up there. Why don’t I drop the books off on our way out of town?”
“That would be great, Liv. I appreciate it. And before I forget...If I e-mail you some links to specific articles from the Chronicle, could you print them out for me?”
“Sure.” Livvy’s voice held a hint of laughter. “Consider me the musketeer to call on for all your research needs.”
“Thanks a bunch.” Kate paused, then added, “And while you’re at it, would you check and see if the library has anything on poisonous plants?”
Chapter Twenty
When Paul got home, Kate was curled up on the couch, reading. Paul stopped just inside the door and sniffed appreciatively.
“Something smells good. Don’t tell me you cooked supper?”
Kate looked up and smiled. “Only in a manner of speaking. I poked around in the freezer and pulled out one of the chicken-and-broccoli casseroles. All I had to do was thaw it and pop it in the oven. It’ll be ready in about thirty minutes. Maybe I’ll have a bowl of cereal later. I’m just not up to eating much at the moment.”
Paul’s shoulders drooped, and he walked over to stand in front of Kate. “Last night really knocked you for a loop, didn’t it?”
“I don’t feel as horrible as I did a week ago, but the dizziness still comes and goes. I just don’t have any oomph.”
Paul looked at her, a worried frown creasing his forehead. “Except for the past couple of days, you’ve hardly eaten enough to keep a bird alive. No wonder you’re feeling weak.” He glanced at the book in her hand. “What are you reading?”
Kate held it up so he could see the cover. “The Complete Guide to Body Language.”
“Okaay.” Paul drew the word out. “I think you lost me. Why the sudden interest in that?”
Kate gathered up the stack of books on the sofa cushion and motioned for him to sit beside her. “I remembered reading an article that talked about how gestures and mannerisms tend to tell the truth, even when spoken words don’t.”
A look of mock horror spread over Paul’s face. “Are you implying that I haven’t been making the right gestures when I tell you I love you?”
Kate slid one arm around his neck and pulled him over to her for a kiss. “Trust me, after nearly thirty years, I have you all figured out. I never worry about you telling me the truth.”
She pulled her arm back and tapped the book with her fingers. “Like I told you, I knew there must be a reason I felt so sure Lawton has been telling the truth through all this, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I remembered that article and asked Livvy to bring this by so I could find out more about it.
“Mannerisms can reveal so much about what a person is feeling or thinking, whether they’re being straightforward or trying to hide something.” She opened the book and pointed to a photo. “Look, this closed posture, with the arms folded and the legs crossed, indicates disagreement.”
She flipped a few pages ahead. “Here’s another one. A person who’s averting his gaze might be concealing information.”
Paul nodded sagely. “I’ve seen Renee do that when she’s trying to convince Kisses she’s out of doggie treats.”
Kate elbowed him in the ribs. She riffled through the pages with her thumb. “I’ve only read a few chapters, but...” She gasped.
“What is it?” Paul asked.
Kate flipped back through the pages. “Wait a minute. I just saw something. Here it is. Look!” She held the book up.
“What am I looking at?” Paul asked, frowning.
“See the way that man is facing forward and holding his hands palm out? According to the book, it’s a sign of honesty. Now look at this.”
Kate dove for a stack of papers on the floor beside the couch. “These are some articles I asked Livvy to print out. Take a look at these photos of Lawton. What do you see?”
Paul scanned the pictures, and his lips parted. “He looks just like this guy in your book.”
“Exactly. See how he’s looking straight into the camera and holding his palms up? It matches some of the signs the book gives for a person who is telling the truth.”
Kate closed the book and stared at Paul. Elation bubbled through her. “This is what I’ve been looking for. When you compare the photos in the newspaper to the illustrations in the book, it’s as clear as day. Lawton was telling the truth. He was no more involved with that fraud than I was.”
Paul slid the book out of her hands and turned the pages, comparing the figures in the book to Lawton’s photos. “On the face of it, you’re right...No pun intended,” he added with a grin. “But a facial expression or gesture isn’t likely to hold up as evi
dence in a court of law.”
Kate felt like a bloodhound that had been casting about for a scent and finally found the trail. Even Paul’s cautionary statement couldn’t throw her off the track now. “You’re right. This is a start, but it isn’t enough in itself. We can see the truth, now we need to find something concrete to prove it.”
LEAVING KATE IMMERSED in the business of taking notes from her books on body language, Paul went into his study and closed the door.
Sinking into his desk chair, he propped his elbows on his desk and cradled his head in his hands, grateful to have a few moments to himself before he dished up his evening meal.
It was good to see Kate back doing something she loved. She looked happy, intent on ferreting out a solution to a problem. And having her mind occupied with Lawton’s troubles served another purpose: it distracted her from raising her theory of poisoning again.
Paul had done some deep thinking since their earlier conversation when his belief that Kate had been a victim of the diner’s tainted chili had been burst like a balloon.
Ever since his talk with Danny about Kate’s suspicions, he’d been trying to convince himself that although Kate had a world-class record when it came to making deductions, this had to be one time she’d jumped to a faulty conclusion. But it seemed that Kate had been right all along. Her ailment had been caused by something else entirely.
But was she right about someone intentionally administering some harmful substance? He thought back to her earlier assertion that it could have something to do with her sleuthing—the very case she was pursuing right now with such zeal. Paul groaned. What a dilemma! He believed with all his heart that God had given Kate this gift for deduction. How, then, could he tell her that she had to stop utilizing it?
At the same time, if this meant she was putting herself in danger, he needed to find a way to protect her. Why had it been so hard to accept the idea that Kate was right about someone wanting to do her harm? Was it because he’d truly believed she was wrong, or was he simply unable to imagine someone coldhearted enough to try to hurt Kate this way?