Allergic to Death

by Peg Cochran

  “Oh no.” Sienna put a warm hand on Gigi’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “That is bad news, isn’t it? And she was absolutely positive?”

  “Yes. She even noticed he had blond hair. She was quite certain about that.”

  The inner door to the theater burst open and Adora shot through it. Emilio followed close behind. Once again, he tried to put a hand on her arm, but she shook it off. “Where’s my lunch?” she demanded as soon as she saw Gigi.

  “There is no need to get so upset,” Emilio began before Adora cut him off with a withering glance.

  She snatched the wig off her head and glared at him, then turned her glance on Barbie and Alice, who had emerged from the theater, blinking in the sudden light.

  “You don’t understand. Any of you.” She looked from one cast member to the next. “Amateurs,” she spat out, then turned on her heel and ran out of the theater.

  Alice watched her go. “Temper, temper, temper,” she chided. “Just because she once had a bit part in a Broadway play.” She shook her head and held out a hand for her Gourmet De-Lite container. “You know”—she opened the lid and peered inside—“I used to think this was a ridiculously small amount of food. Couldn’t imagine how someone my size was going to survive on so little. But now”—she ran a finger around the loose waistband of her trousers—“I can barely finish it.” She looked up at Gigi. “Can you believe it?”

  “Your appetite has shrunk back to normal.”

  At least someone had benefited from this whole enterprise, Gigi thought. Alice had lost weight and was really going to wow them at her daughter’s wedding.

  Barbie took her lunch and smiled warily at Gigi.

  Winston materialized at Barbie’s elbow. “Come on, old girl, let’s go outside while you eat that. Hopefully we’ll catch something of a breath of fresh air out there.” He took her arm and led her toward the door.

  Gigi was left holding Adora’s container. She looked around, but Alice and Emilio had also disappeared. “I hope she isn’t long. I’ve left Reg in the car. The windows are down, but still…”

  Sienna gestured toward the bench. “Oh, just leave it there for her. Serve her right if it spoils.”

  “I don’t know. I could put it back in the cooler and wait for her—”

  “Don’t be silly. Adora acted appallingly. There’s no reason why you should hang around waiting for her to come back from wherever she’s gone to have her temper tantrum.”

  “Well, if you’re sure…”

  “I am.” Sienna held open the door. “Come on. I could do with some air myself.”

  The parking lot was empty as they bumped and dragged Gigi’s cooler over the rutted macadam toward her car.

  “I managed to snag a spot in the shade.” Gigi pointed to where the MINI sat under the spreading branches of one of the trees.

  “Aren’t those seed things going to get all over it?” Sienna gestured toward the ground under the tree, which was littered with pods.

  Gigi shrugged. “At least it will be cool.” She craned her neck. “I guess Reg must have fallen asleep. Usually he’s got his head hanging out the window watching every blade of grass twitch.”

  Sienna laughed. “He is a good watchdog, that’s for sure.”

  “What’s that on your windshield?” Sienna stopped and bent down to fix the strap on her sandal.

  “I don’t know.” Gigi frowned at the square of white paper that fluttered under one of her wipers. She laughed. “It can’t be a ticket, thank goodness.”

  “Probably some sort of advertisement. I’ll heave this into the car”—Sienna kicked lightly at the cooler—“and you go check it out.”

  Gigi reached across the hood of the car, careful to keep her dress from brushing against the MINI, and grabbed the piece of paper. It was an ordinary sheet that looked like it had been torn from the kind of notepad you’d keep by the phone or on your desk. The top edge was jagged, and there was a corner missing. It had been unevenly folded in half.

  “What is it?” Sienna asked, pausing as she tried to maneuver the cooler into the backseat. “I think you’re going to have to help me with this.”

  “Just a sec.” Gigi unfolded the note.

  She read the words, but at first they didn’t make sense. They were easy enough to read, written in childish block capitals in black ink. For a second, the words swam before her eyes before coming back into focus.

  “This note…” She held the piece of paper away from her. Her voice cracked, and she had to start again. “This note says that if I don’t stop investigating Martha’s murder, they’re going to do something to hurt Reg.” Her voice ascended to a crescendo, and she had to bite off a scream that rose in her throat like bile.

  Suddenly she panicked. “Where is Reg? Is he in the backseat?”

  Sienna’s face went a ghostly white. She leaned into the car. “No.” Her voice was muffled. “He’s not here.” She yanked open the front door, and both she and Gigi peered inside.

  Nothing.

  “He’s gone.” Gigi did scream this time.

  And Sienna crumpled to the weedy ground in a dead faint.

  Chapter 16

  “Sienna!” Gigi screamed as she fell to her knees beside her friend. Sienna’s eyelids fluttered.

  Gigi took Sienna’s wrist and felt for her pulse. Not that she had any idea what a person’s pulse ought to be, but she’d seen it done in movies often enough. At least she could verify that Sienna did indeed have a pulse.

  Sienna moaned softly and turned her head to and fro. Her eyelids fluttered again, then opened.

  “What happened?” She ran a tongue over her lips.

  “You fainted.”

  Sienna groaned again. “That’s right.” She struggled to sit up. “They’ve got Reg haven’t they?” She put a hand to her forehead. “That’s all I remember…”

  “We’ve got to do something,” Gigi sobbed as she tried to help her friend sit up. She was torn between helping Sienna and rushing off to find her lost dog.

  She was squatting next to Sienna when she felt something push against her. It knocked her off balance, and she had to put a hand down to keep from toppling over.

  “What the…?”

  Something warm and wet nuzzled at Gigi’s side. She twisted around.

  “Reg!”

  The little dog put his paws on her shoulders and licked her face enthusiastically.

  “Okay, that’s enough, boy.” Gigi gently pushed him aside and swiped a hand across her damp face.

  Reg sidled up to the still-prostrate Sienna and began to lick her face. She giggled and hugged him fiercely.

  “He must have gotten out of the car somehow.” Gigi buried her face in Reg’s fur.

  “Or whoever left the note let him out. You said you’d left the windows down.”

  The note. Gigi had almost forgotten about it in her panic.

  “We’ve got to show it to Detective Mertz. It’s time to stop playing amateur detective. Someone is going to get hurt.”

  “And it’s time to get you to the hospital,” Gigi declared firmly. “You really scared me.”

  Sienna struggled onto her elbows. “Must be that flu bug I had last week.”

  “Well you’re going to get it checked out before another minute goes by.”

  They dropped Reg off at Gigi’s cottage, making extra sure that the doors and windows were all bolted and shut tight. Gigi was still nervous about leaving him, but they certainly weren’t going to allow him into the Woodstone Hospital emergency room, and she wasn’t letting Sienna out of her sight until she’d had a thorough examination. She didn’t want any more scares like the one she’d just had.

  An ambulance screamed past as they were pulling into the hospital parking lot. The noise and flashing lights made Gigi jump, although maybe she was just jumpy already. She pulled up to the automated ticket dispenser, but not close enough, and she had to open her door and slide half out of the car in order to reach the stub the machine spit out. She vowe
d that as soon as she got home she was making a cup of iced chai tea and sitting on the patio with her feet up even if it was only for five minutes. She had to do something to restore her equilibrium.

  Gigi was relieved to see that the emergency room wasn’t crowded. There was a young man sitting with his hand wrapped in a towel filled with ice, and a young mother cradling a baby whose red cheeks suggested it was suffering from a fever.

  They found a seat as far as possible from the television, which was blaring an afternoon game show, and picked up dog-eared magazines.

  They didn’t have long to wait. A nurse with a clipboard called Sienna’s name, and then the two of them disappeared through an open door.

  Gigi tried not to think about Reg, home alone. What if the person who’d left that note tried to break into her house? She felt perspiration breaking out along her sides. She looked at her watch. They hadn’t been gone more than half an hour. Surely Reg would be okay for a few more minutes. If this took any longer, she’d run home and check on him and then come back for Sienna.

  Sienna returned relatively swiftly, and Gigi looked up, surprised, from the magazine article on finding romance after thirty that she’d been reading with more interest than she was willing to admit to.

  Sienna had a strange look on her face. Awe, joy, disbelief…the emotions floated like clouds across her features.

  “What is it?” Gigi tossed the magazine on the table and stood up.

  “You won’t believe it,” Sienna said in a voice that sounded like she didn’t believe it herself.

  “What is it?” Gigi prompted again.

  “I’m pregnant.” Sienna plopped down in the seat Gigi has just vacated, and burst into tears.

  “I thought you wanted to get pregnant,” Gigi said as she tried to feed a dollar bill into the automated ticket station that guarded the exit to the hospital parking lot. The bill went half into the machine before being spit out again like a naughty kid sticking out its tongue.

  “I do,” Sienna sniffled, and rummaged in her purse for a tissue. “I don’t know. I’m just surprised, I guess. And emotional from the hormones. I’ve been a wreck lately. No wonder.”

  Gigi finally got the machine to accept her rumpled dollar and felt a very small surge of triumph as the barrier lifted and she pulled out of the lot.

  “I’ll drop you at home, and you can call Oliver, and then lie down and get some rest.” She patted Sienna’s hand.

  To her surprise, Sienna burst into a fresh torrent of tears.

  “What’s the matter?” Gigi stole a glance at her friend out of the corner of her eye.

  “I don’t know where Oliver is,” Sienna wailed.

  Gigi nearly stomped on the brake in her surprise. “What do you mean you don’t know where Oliver is?”

  Sienna gave a choked-off sob. “I’ve called his work phone, and it just rings and rings, then goes to voice mail. I tried his cell—same thing.”

  “Maybe he’s in a meeting with a client? I always turn my cell phone off when I’m with a client. He probably does the same thing. It’s rude otherwise.”

  Sienna gave a sniff that ended in a hiccup. “I was so excited to move here and have a baby.” She opened the glove box and took out Gigi’s tissues. “I grew up in a town just like this, and I loved it. Mumsy ran the bookstore and Pops taught at the university. I wanted the same thing for our baby.” She pulled a tissue from the box and blew loudly. “I guess Oliver doesn’t.”

  Gigi glanced at Sienna again. “Oliver grew up in the city, didn’t he?”

  Sienna nodded. “I suppose he’s just more comfortable there. But he always said he wished he’d had the kind of life I’d had growing up. He never even knew his father! When his mother hit forty, she decided she wanted a baby, and she went to a sperm bank!”

  Gigi couldn’t imagine growing up not knowing who half your family was. Her father had been a fireman and had died when the roof of a building collapsed on him. Gigi had only been three years old, but growing up, the house had been peppered with his photographs, and the dozens of brothers, cousins and uncles on the Fitzgerald side had kept his memory as alive as if he had been there himself.

  Gigi turned toward Sienna. “Maybe now…with a baby actually on the way…”

  “Do you think Oliver will come around?”

  “I’m sure he will,” Gigi said, crossing her fingers.

  Gigi had just enough time, after taking Sienna home and calming her down, for a cup of iced chai tea on the patio before she had to begin preparations for her Gourmet De-Lite customers’ dinners.

  Reg hovered around the counter as Gigi prepared the wild mushroom and chicken stir-fry that was on the menu for dinner that evening. She dropped a tiny piece of chicken into his bowl, and then realized she hadn’t fed him yet.

  “Sorry, buddy.” She poured a cup of dry food into his dish and topped it off with a smidge of canned beef stew—doggie version. The vet had made her promise not to overfeed him, although it was tempting when he looked at her with those soulful brown eyes of his. She thought about how she’d almost lost him and decided that just once wouldn’t matter and added an extra spoonful of the wet food to his dry mix.

  She still couldn’t believe that someone would threaten to hurt him. The thought made her shiver despite the warmth of her tiny kitchen. Tomorrow she would show the note to Detective Mertz. The thought made her shiver again. She had to admit he was good-looking, but that was the beginning and end of his attractiveness. He was stiff, pompous and something of an ass!

  But then why did she keep thinking about him, a little voice inside her head demanded to know. I do not! she argued back, even as she recognized that the little voice was right.

  She just hoped Mertz would take her seriously and not laugh. She glanced at Reg and shivered again. Who could have done such a thing? It could have been anyone. Adora had stomped out of the theater, then Emilio and Alice. Winston and Barbie had also left. Any one of them could have slipped the note under her windshield wiper. They knew she was coming. Perhaps they’d written the note earlier and had it at the ready? No matter how she felt about Detective Mertz, she was going to be glad to place the whole matter firmly in his large, square, capable hands.

  Gigi wasn’t taking any chances. Reg was going to Sienna’s house while she was at the police station talking to Detective Mertz. Reg trotted off happily with Sienna, and Gigi watched until they’d gone into the house and closed the door. She was very worried about Sienna, but she would be back soon and would check on her then.

  Mertz was behind his desk, a huge pile of papers and files nearly obscuring him from view. He jumped to attention when Gigi was shown into his office. His short, dark blond hair was as neat as always, his suit immaculate, his tie somewhat unimaginative in color and pattern if free of spots.

  Gigi could have sworn he clicked his heels as he motioned toward the chair in front of his desk. She took a seat. He sat down, too, his back as ramrod straight as if he were guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, not sitting in his own office.

  Gigi took the threatening note from her purse, unfolded it, and handed it across the desk to Mertz.

  He laid it open on the blotter in front of him. His eyebrows shot up as he read.

  “Who is Reg?” he asked in alarm.

  Gigi cleared her throat. “My dog.”

  Mertz relaxed slightly. “Oh. A dog.”

  “He’s a very special dog,” Gigi said defensively. “Besides, isn’t it illegal to send threatening notes like that, even if he is a dog?”

  “This came in the mail?”

  “Not exactly. Someone left it under the windshield wiper of my car.”

  Mertz frowned and glanced down at the piece of notepaper again. “What does this mean…if you don’t stop investigating?”

  Gigi felt her face blossom with hot, red color. She’d been afraid he was going to ask about that. She’d spent a good part of the hours between four A.M. and six A.M. trying to come up with a reasonable answer
and failing miserably. “It’s not investigating, really—”

  “What is it then?” Mertz’s crystal blue eyes got even icier, if that was possible. Gigi shivered just looking at them.

  “Research.” Gigi tilted her chin up and looked him straight in the eye.

  “Research?” Mertz looked far from convinced. “I thought I’d already mentioned that the police have closed the case?”

  “Then why am I getting threatening letters?” Gigi gestured toward the note still open on his desk. “Someone is spooked. Spooked enough to try to stop me.” She raised her chin another notch and continued to glare at him.

  To her surprise, he nodded agreement. “You’re right.” Now he was the one looking her straight in the eye. “Someone is running scared.” He picked the note up and let it flutter back to his desk. “And I’d like to know why.”

  “So would I,” Gigi said, but she mumbled it under her breath, and Mertz didn’t hear.

  “But I don’t want you”—he pointed a finger at her to emphasize the you—“doing any more so-called research.”

  He looked frighteningly stern, his brows drawn together straight over his ice-chip eyes, mouth set in a grim line. But Gigi sensed something different buried deep underneath—a warmth that all his posturing couldn’t completely obscure. She felt an answering warmth grow in the pit of her stomach, and a tiny smile played around the edges of her mouth.

  “Does this mean you’re going to reopen the case?” Gigi fiddled with the strap of her handbag.

  Mertz pursed his lips and tapped the note with his forefinger. “Not necessarily. But we’re going to look into this note.” He tapped it again. “Where were you when you found this?”

  “At the theater. I’d stopped to deliver everyone’s lunch.”

  “Who is everyone?”

  Gigi closed her eyes to think. “Well, Adora for one. She’s the lead in the play the Woodstone Theater group is performing. Then Emilio was there, too.” Gigi hated having to bring up Emilio’s name, but Mertz would probably find out anyway. “Also Alice, and Barbie and Winston. Alice and Barbie are in the play, and Winston was there to have lunch with Barbie.” Gigi thought for a moment. “Oh, and Sienna, but she doesn’t count.”