Tea and Sympathy

by Carol Cox

  Paul shoved his chair back and slammed his fist into his hand. He jumped to his feet and paced his study. He couldn’t be with Kate every moment of the day. How was he supposed to keep her safe?

  At least being confined to the house offered her some measure of protection. Maybe he would have to be satisfied with that small consolation and hope that whoever was behind this would be caught before Kate was well enough to venture out of the house again and put herself in harm’s way.

  He sat in his chair again and rested his elbows on his knees. Leaning his forehead against his folded hands, he closed his eyes. “Lord, you know exactly what’s going on around here. Would you please put a hedge of protection around both of us, and especially around Kate as she does what you’ve given her the gifts to do? I can’t be with her every second, but you already are.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

  Kate rested her fingers lightly on the pages of her Bible, mulling over the wisdom from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans. This admonition to persevere and not give up was exactly what she needed to hear that morning.

  Loud chirping from outside caught her attention, and Kate laughed at the sight of two nuthatches squabbling at the birdfeeder.

  Her laughter faded. Seeing the morning so advanced made her feel vaguely unsettled. On a typical day, she would be sitting in the rocker having her quiet time as the first rosy fingertips of dawn traced their way across the sky. But today she’d slept in far past her usual hour.

  “Lord, I know you don’t let things happen without a reason, so I assume I’m supposed to be learning something during this time of weakness. If that’s the case, would you mind letting me know what it is?”

  She rocked a few moments in silence. No immediate answer came, but Kate felt a peace settle over her like a blanket. She set the Bible on the table beside her chair and reached for one of the books Livvy had brought over the day before: Toxic Plants: A Field Guide.

  Flipping it open to the table of contents, she discovered a listing for a chart labeled “Signs and symptoms of plant intoxication” and turned to that page. She was running her finger down the column of symptoms, comparing them with her own, when Paul came out of the bedroom.

  “Are you feeling up to coffee this morning, or would you like another cup of tea?”

  Kate thought a moment. “Much as I miss that morning jolt of caffeine, I think I’ll stick with tea for a while.”

  When he refilled her mug, she glanced at her watch and looked back at him. “Is something going on? You’re usually out of the house long before now.”

  Paul shrugged. “I had a few things I needed to work on in my study, and I thought I might take care of them before I leave.” He looked down at the book on her lap. “More on body language?”

  “Not exactly.” Kate closed the book and held it up to show him the cover. She saw his Adam’s apple bob when he read the title.

  Paul sat in an easy chair and leaned forward with his forearms on his knees, his face solemn. “I think we need to do some talking about this.”

  Here it comes. Kate braced herself for a lecture on not overreacting.

  Instead, Paul asked, “Are you getting any ideas on what could have done this to you?”

  The book slid from Kate’s hands, and she bent over to retrieve it from the floor. “You mean you think I’m right?”

  Paul lifted his hands and let them drop back between his knees. “It’s taken me a while to come around, but yes, I think it’s the most likely answer.” He tapped his fingertips together. “I did a little checking online after you went to sleep last night. You’re right, the effects you’ve been experiencing should have gone away long before now if they were caused by food poisoning or some kind of stomach virus. That does tend to narrow the possibilities down, doesn’t it?”

  Kate nodded. Paul’s willingness to concede her point lifted some of the heaviness that had settled over her ever since poison arose as the probable cause of her illness.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so pigheaded,” Paul went on. “It isn’t an easy thing to accept, especially when something like that is happening to the most important person in your life.”

  Kate blinked back a tear, then cleared her throat. “I’ve spent a considerable amount of time online, and there’s a wealth of history on the use of poisons, dating back to the Borgias, some of the Roman emperors, and even earlier. But most of that involved the use of arsenic or other types of chemicals and heavy metals. That doesn’t seem to be the case in this instance.”

  “Thank heaven for that,” Paul said with feeling.

  Kate murmured a fervent agreement. “Looking at the symptoms I had, many of the chemical poisons didn’t fit, so I decided to look in a different direction. The more I read up on it, the more some kind of plant-based poison seems like a possibility. Therefore...” She held up the book again. “Apparently I have quite a list to choose from. I just started the book, so it’ll take a while to go through them all to see if I can narrow it down.”

  Paul searched her face. “Is there any chance this is something you could have taken inadvertently?”

  The hope in his eyes tugged at Kate’s heart. She couldn’t blame him. It would be so much easier to deal with the thought of something like this happening accidentally rather than from a deliberate act.

  “I’m certainly willing to consider that. Let me do a little more research. I’ll have a better idea of what we may be dealing with after I’ve looked into it further.”

  Kate leaned back, and the rocker swayed gently. “The thing I can’t get past is that it all started just a few hours after we ate lunch that Sunday.”

  “In that case, maybe you got into something after we left the diner, or even before we went there. Isn’t that a possibility?” Paul had the look of a man clutching at a lifeline.

  Kate couldn’t bear to argue with him. “In that case, let’s see if we can re-create the day. We’ll go over everything we did from the time we left the house.” She gave a rueful laugh. “You’ll have to help me, since I’m still a little fuzzy on things.”

  “Okay.” Paul straightened up as if relieved to have something concrete to focus on. “We went to church, of course. There wasn’t a potluck or anything like that, so you wouldn’t have eaten anything there.”

  “So the diner was next?”

  Paul nodded. “It was crowded that day.”

  “Of course it was.” Kate chuckled. “Everyone eats at the diner on Sundays.”

  “You’re right about that. We had to wait for a free table. I remember LuAnne was all flustered. It seemed like she was trying to be everywhere at once.”

  “Okay, I can’t think of anything that could have happened at that point.”

  Paul picked up the tale again. “Once a table opened up, we still had to wait, because someone knocked the salt and pepper shakers onto the floor, and they broke. LuAnne had to pick up the pieces and get fresh shakers from the kitchen.”

  Kate beamed. “That’s great. Lots of details. Go on.”

  Paul paused and closed his eyes, as if getting his thoughts in order. “We went over and sat down. On the way to our table, we stopped and said hello to Dr. Milt.”

  He looked at Kate. “I remember checking the floor around the table to make sure LuAnne had swept up all the shards. You were wearing those dressy sandals of yours that day, and I wanted to make sure you didn’t get a piece of glass in your foot.”

  Kate nodded. “So now we’re sitting at the table. Who else was there?”

  “Half of Copper Mill, it seemed like.” Paul laughed, then looked at Kate’s face and cleared his throat. “Okay, let me see if I can be a little more specific. Emma Blount and her mother were at the table closest to ours. John Sharpe and his wife were at a table on the other side of the Blounts’ table. Lawton and Lucy Mae were sitting near the front window. I remember Steve Smith was heading up to the register just as we sat
down.”

  “That’s right.”

  Paul blinked at Kate. “You remember?”

  Kate stared across the living room, seeing not the framed prints of Southwest missions on the wall but the diner as it had been on that Sunday afternoon. “I do! At least a little bit. It’s like a curtain just pulled back and let me see.” Joy welled up inside her. “Livvy and her family were there, and weren’t Jack and Carl Wilson sitting at a table off to my right?”

  A huge grin creased Paul’s cheeks. “Hey, you remembered that, but I didn’t. I think your memory is coming back at last.”

  “Hallelujah,” Kate said softly. “And LuAnne had tried to brighten things up by putting cut flowers in jelly jars on all the tables. Let’s see, what else? There was a group of women at a booth in the far corner. I don’t remember who they were, nobody I know well anyway. I think there were quite a few people there from out of town.”

  Paul picked up the thread. “LuAnne came to take our order.”

  “Mm-hmm. You got the Reuben sandwich, and I ordered the chicken dinner. And I decided to try the cranberry iced tea.” Kate smiled. “I remember my string beans tasted funny.”

  “Funny?” Paul’s eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean?”

  Kate laughed. “Not that way. There wasn’t anything wrong. Not with the beans themselves, anyway. I guess when LuAnne replaced the shakers, she refilled the saltshaker with sugar instead.” She grimaced. “I must have made a face, because LuAnne came hustling right over, wanting to know what was going on. I think she was a little offended because I thought it was funny. Normally she would have laughed it off with me, so she must have been feeling the stress already.”

  Kate frowned, trying to recapture the memory. “She offered to bring me a new plate, but I told her a little sugar wouldn’t hurt the beans at all. My mother used to put sugar in the string beans when she cooked them, so I didn’t think it was any big deal.”

  Paul shook his head. “That must have happened when Eli stopped to talk to me on his way out. He wanted to ask me about a point I’d made in my sermon. I guess I missed that whole thing with LuAnne.”

  “At least it wasn’t anything significant, except for LuAnne looking so upset.” Kate looked at Paul. “I hadn’t thought of it until just now, but I wonder if bringing that jam over the other day was meant as a peace offering of sorts.”

  Paul nodded. “That’s a real possibility. We both know how tenderhearted LuAnne is. If she thought she’d done something to hurt or offend you, she’d want to make amends.”

  Kate grinned. “If there had been any ruffled feathers, that jam is yummy enough to smooth every one of them.”

  Paul eyed her closely. “Do you remember anything else tasting odd?”

  Kate shook her head. “No. I didn’t care for the cranberry iced tea, but that was just a matter of preference. Once I put the real salt on the string beans, everything was just as good as always. It was a pretty quiet meal as far as I can remember. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.”

  Paul nodded agreement. “Not with the food, anyway. There was the moment when that woman tripped and fell. That was a little unnerving.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Another fragment of Kate’s memory fell into place—hearing the commotion, hurrying over to the couple, and kneeling beside the woman as Paul prayed for her.

  “The poor thing. And I felt sorry for her husband too. They were making that big trip from Raleigh to California for their fortieth wedding anniversary, and he was so afraid she’d hurt herself and wouldn’t be able to go on.” Paul laughed. “She wasn’t about to let anything spoil her fun. Said she’d waited forty years for her husband to plan something special like that, and she wasn’t going to let a little bump throw their plans out of whack.”

  Kate grinned at the memory. “We went back to the table and...” Her eyes grew wide. “My notebook! I had it out so I could jot something down. When we got up to help that woman, I slipped it back into my handbag. That was the last time I remember seeing it.”

  Paul nodded, his eyes somber. “And that was only a few hours before you got sick.”

  “Right.” A chill rippled across Kate’s shoulders. “There may be a connection there. So what else happened?”

  “Nothing, really,” Paul said. “We finished our meal. We both had a slice of huckleberry pie.”

  Kate gave him a sly grin. “Yeah, and yours had a scoop of ice cream on top.”

  “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t remember that.”

  Kate snickered. “Then we paid and left, right?” When Paul nodded, she went on. “I can’t see how I could have gotten anything there. Plenty of other people were eating, and there haven’t been rumors of any of them getting sick that day, so I’m convinced we can cross food poisoning off the list for good.”

  Paul spread his hands. “And after that, we came straight home.”

  “I didn’t putter in the garden that afternoon...did I?” Paul shook his head, and Kate continued, “So I couldn’t have come into contact with anything in the flower bed.”

  “I got my afternoon nap,” Paul added. “You were working on a new design in your studio when I lay down, and you were still at it when I got up. You seemed fine then. It wasn’t until an hour or so later...” He looked at Kate, and his eyes shadowed.

  Kate sighed. “I remember that part vividly.” She shuddered at the recollection of the sudden stomach cramps, the waves of nausea, and...She put one hand to her mouth. “In all the confusion, I was too sick to pay attention to specifics, or to really care about them at that point. But looking back, I felt very dizzy and disoriented as well.”

  Paul set his mouth in a firm line. “I do believe you got something in your system that you shouldn’t have. But I don’t know where it could have come from.”

  “Neither do I. That’s the problem.”

  Paul heaved a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. “Maybe if we can figure out what it was, it would help us determine when and how you came by it.”

  Kate nodded decisively. “That’s my next job, then. Livvy brought several books. I’ll pore over them and see if I can pinpoint something that fits the profile.”

  “That’s a good plan.” Paul planted his hands on his knees and pushed himself up. “I think I’ll spend a little more time in my study while you’re working on that.” The telephone shrilled, and he grinned. “After I see who that is.”

  Kate opened her book and studied the chart until Paul walked back into the living room with a somber expression on his face. “Is something wrong?”

  “That was Millie. There’s a fellow at the church who needs some help and wants to talk to a minister. From what Millie said, it sounded like he’s fairly distraught. I don’t feel comfortable about asking her to send him over here. On the other hand, I don’t want to leave Millie alone with someone who might fly off the handle.”

  “Then you’d better go.” Kate smiled when Paul hesitated. “I’ll be fine. I’m just going to study my books, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Relax,” Kate said. “I feel much more encouraged now that I have something specific to look for.” And now that she knew she and Paul were working together.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Paul grabbed his keys and hurried off. Kate heard him check the knob after he closed the door. She went back to her chart, narrowing the possibilities down to the plants that could cause symptoms closest to her own.

  Her fingers flew as she wrote down one plant name after another. She still wasn’t close to reaching a conclusion, but things were finally beginning to come together.

  “Thank you, Lord, for giving me direction.” She had asked for wisdom, and he was providing.

  It seemed like no time at all before she heard Paul’s key rattle in the lock. Kate looked up from her note taking, feeling a bit bleary-eyed. She must have been working longer than she’d thought.

  Paul entered and closed the door behind him. He
held his right arm behind his back.

  “Did everything go all right down at the church?” Kate asked.

  Paul nodded and walked across the room, keeping his right arm out of view. “The fellow was on his way from Greenville, South Carolina, to Lebanon, Tennessee, for his cousin’s funeral. His car kept breaking down, and by the time he paid for all the repairs, he didn’t have enough cash left for gas.”

  “Oh my. That would be awful.”

  Paul nodded agreement. “The tank went dry just as he rolled past the church parking lot. He said he didn’t know whether to take that as a sign to thank God or be mad at him. More than anything, he needed to vent a little bit. He’d been carrying quite a burden, so we spent some time talking, and then I bought him a meal and filled his car up with gas. He said that should get him to McMinnville, where he has some friends who will put him up and help him make it the rest of the way.”

  Kate smiled at her homegrown hero. “That’s great. I’m glad you were able to help.”

  “That’s one of the things I love about being in the ministry—being able to show Christ’s love in a tangible way. Speaking of showing love...” Paul stepped nearer to the rocking chair.

  “What’s that grin for? If you were a cat, I’d swear you had canary feathers sticking out of your mouth.”

  “While I was out, I stopped and picked up something for you, just to brighten up your day.” He swept his right arm forward, revealing a large bouquet of spring flowers.

  “Oh my goodness!” Kate jerked back against her chair.

  Paul’s arm drooped. “What’s the matter? I thought you’d like them.”

  Seeing the wounded expression on his face, Kate forced herself to reach out and take hold of the stems. “They’re beautiful, and I do appreciate them. It’s just that”—she gestured toward her notes—“reading up on so many of these plants has left me a little skittish. Even though they’re gorgeous, you wouldn’t believe what they can do to you.”

  She pointed to a pale lavender bloom. “Every part of the iris is poisonous, especially the roots. Then there are the daffodils. I had no idea they were dangerous until Ruby mentioned it the other day. And did you know that these beautiful delphiniums could actually kill a person?”