The Body in the Bookmobile

by Connie B Dowell

  At the end of the path, Frank climbed the steps. He rapped on the door, then when there was no response, he simply opened it and walked inside uninvited.

  Frank strode into the living room as Pauline emerged from the back hallway. She yelped and grabbed at her chest. Pauline grew red in the face. “Geez, Frank. You can’t just go bursting into people’s houses!”

  “And you can’t possibly be going on with your talk at the library less than a week after Martin dropped dead,” said Frank.

  “That’s what this is about? Couldn’t you have called first before you came bounding over here? But that’s you all over, isn’t it? No phone calls.”

  Was she seriously bringing the cell powers into this? “A man is dead for crying out loud.”

  Pauline raised her arms in the air and brought them back down with a sigh. “Yeah. A man you couldn’t stop fighting with. A man you didn’t care a thing about until he was suddenly gone.” She stomped across the room and flopped onto the sofa. “Go home to your wife, Frank.”

  “It’s not right,” Frank persisted. “And you know it.”

  Pauline crossed her arms over her chest. “Go barging into somebody else’s house. Or break up some other club’s board meeting. I don’t know why I didn’t kick you out years ago.”

  Frank wasn’t worried. She said that at least once a month. “Bye.” He turned to go.

  Pauline’s voice stopped him. She spoke not in anger this time. She was quiet.

  “Did you do it, Frank?”

  Frank looked over his shoulder. It was fear written on her face. And how should he respond?

  “Did you do it?” he asked.

  9

  Chapter 9

  The air was crisp and cool as Millie and Peter walked downtown on Saturday morning.

  “What restaurant is it we’re going to again?” asked Peter.

  “The Ramp Grove,” said Millie. They were on their way to meet with the chef she had seen talking about Martin and Frank almost a week before. He’d been tough to get a hold of. Thursday evening—with Detective Allen showing up on her doorstep—she’d been busy. And Friday was not a great time to get in touch with a chef. However, after multiple messages left, Adam finally got back to her. He’d been alarmed to hear that Martin was dead, and he agreed to meet with Millie briefly on Saturday morning, before they opened for brunch.

  Millie’s satchel bounced against her leg as she walked, as though the copy of Eating Wild in Virginia contained within it was taunting her. She had checked out the title just as soon as she got back to the main library, but an evening of poring over the book hadn’t sparked her memory at all. She cringed at the thought, but she’d simply have to ask Flor if she remembered anything about the page. Flor had been so affected by finding Martin that Millie hated to mention it, but she’d had a better look at the scene than Millie had. The question would have to be asked.

  The restaurant was only a few blocks from the apartment. Millie and Peter knocked on the door, and a moment later Adam showed them in.

  “Thanks for coming,” said Adam.

  “Thanks for seeing us,” said Millie. “I know you’re busy. We’ll try not to take up too much time.”

  Adam led them through the restaurant to a small table away from the windows. The restaurant was upscale and trendy, but with a nature theme, a place for rich people to come and eat after they cleaned up from a hike. Or for rich people to come and eat and pretend like they taken a hike. The restored brick walls and pressed tin ceiling played host to a variety of nature themed decorations, from framed botanical prints, to shadow boxes containing antique hiking equipment—like a pair of nineteenth century binoculars—to hanging baskets dripping with vines next to each window. A number of hand-painted signs also adorned the walls, each saying things like “Eat Natural” or “Foraged > Grocery Store” or “Find Your Food.” The last was a sentiment Millie found odd, considering nobody finds their own food in a restaurant.

  “Nice decorations,” Peter commented.

  “Thank you,” said Adam. “Eating local is a passion of mine. And you can’t get more local than what you find growing outside naturally. Did you know that Sorrelville is named for wild food? The name doesn’t refer to the sorrel herb popular in French cooking, but to wood sorrel, a native plant found in abundance here. I feature wood sorrel in several of my salads.”

  Millie cleared her throat. How to begin? She couldn’t believe no one had told Adam and hadn’t intended to be the one to do it. “So, Martin…”

  “I wondered why I hadn’t heard from him.” Adam shook his head. “And his grandson, Sam, hasn’t been getting back to me either. At first I thought it was because the season was over and they were busy with other things, but now…”

  “Season?” asked Millie. “What season do you mean?”

  “Martin and Sam were foragers,” said Adam. “It began as a hobby for them, part of their hiking experience, but they were really good at it and started to get more involved. Some months back, they decided to make it a minor business venture as well and approached me about buying some of what they found for the restaurants. It’s almost September. The seasons are changing. There’s still plenty to forage for in the fall, but Martin and Sam’s specialty, fiddlehead ferns, they’re almost gone.”

  “So as you might know from our messages,” Millie bit her lip—this was the awkward part, “I couldn’t help but overhear you talking about Martin and Frank. You said something like you thought Martin was ‘on the up and up.’ Does that have something to do with the ferns?”

  Adam nodded. “I trusted Martin. I didn’t ask him where he got his supply. He owns plenty of land. I assumed he found it on his own property. Frank seems to think Martin was getting everything from his land. Now I don’t know if he’s gotten any kind of photographs or video. If there’s any evidence that Martin actually did this. Frank is—well he’s been known to leap before he looks. But I got the feeling there was some substance to this accusation. I did talk to Martin, and he was evasive about it. I don’t know that he got all his ferns from Frank’s land, but I think he did get some.”

  Millie and Peter exchanged a dark look. Chloe had said that Frank had some sort of argument with Martin. But were poached fiddlehead ferns enough to kill over?

  It was Adam’s turn to ask a question. “You’re not asking all this because Martin died a natural death, are you?”

  Millie wrung her hands. “I work for the library. We found him in the bookmobile. The paramedics—I thought they said he had a heart attack, but now the police have been asking questions and… You probably better talk to them about this.”

  Adam let out a deep sigh. “I wish I’d responded to your messages earlier. I just got so busy. You’re right. I better call them.”

  Millie still had Detective Allen’s business card in her wallet. Adam pulled out his phone and dialed the number immediately. No luck. Busy signal. He left a brief voicemail as Peter and Millie got up to leave.

  “Wait,” said Adam as he hung up the phone. “Thanks for talking with me about this. Why don’t you try the last of the fiddlehead ferns on the house? There’s only a handful left. It’ll take me just a moment to sauté them in some butter.”

  Millie checked her phone for the time. She still had forty-five minutes to get to the library before Pauline Coombs’ talk about her book. They agreed to stay.

  It really did take only a moment for Adam to whip up the last of the fiddleheads for the year. Millie and Peter were eager to try. Neither of them had had fiddleheads before.

  “You’re in for a real treat,” said Adam. “Beware, though, one taste of delicious wild food and you might find yourselves becoming foragers.”

  Millie and Peter each speared a fiddlehead with their forks and took a bite. Bright, fresh, buttery and nutty. Millie had never tasted anything like it. It was indeed a real treat. But not, she thought, worth murder.

  10

  Chapter 10

  Millie and Peter arrived at the lib
rary with plenty of time before Pauline’s talk began. A few people were already taking their seats and a large meeting room. Millie and Peter followed suit.

  They spotted Abby at the front of the room, alongside Flor and a red-haired woman at the podium whom Millie assumed must be Pauline.

  “I wonder if the rest of the hiking club is here,” said Peter.

  “I think you’re right,” said Millie. She pointed out Ricky, who was milling about with some others near the front of the room. “Maybe we should go talk to them while we have a chance.”

  But someone else passed them in the aisle. “Detective Allen!” Once again, Millie was too loud in her surprise.

  Detective Allen turned around. “Nice to see you, Millie.”

  “You too.” She fumbled with her satchel.

  “I just spoke to Adam on the phone. Thank you for asking him to call me,” she said with the tone that Millie thought was genuine gratefulness, “but…”

  Yeah, there was bound to be a but.

  “It’s official now. This is a murder investigation, and that means this is dangerous. If you think of anything I need to know, even if it’s someone you think needs to talk to me, please call me first. Don’t go asking questions on your own.”

  Millie nodded. “I understand. So, what are you—are you here to talk to Flor again?”

  Detective Allen smiled. “No. And please don’t worry about Flor. It’s nothing you need to be concerned about.” She proceeded down the aisle toward the podium.

  Easy for her to say. She didn’t throw her boss under the bus.

  Millie and Peter watched as Detective Allen approached Pauline and then led her aside to a corner of the room to talk, Pauline with an annoyed frown on her face. There were questions for Pauline, were there? Pauline’s book, Millie had noticed, did not provide an index of plants that were poisonous. That was not its purpose after all. However, Pauline was careful to note similarities between edible plants and poisonous ones so that foragers could easily distinguish between the two and not accidentally poison themselves. Millie knew better than to ask Detective Allen, but she desperately wondered what exactly it was that had poisoned Martin.

  If only she could get a little closer…

  Detective Allen flashed a warning look in her direction. Millie merely smiled, waved and pivoted toward the group of the hiking club members, Peter trailing after her.

  “Let’s sit a row or two back,” she whispered to Peter. “Just close enough to listen.”

  But too late. Ricky turned and waved upon seeing her. “May I join you?”

  Millie nodded. “Of course.” Rats. Spotted.

  Ricky slid into the seat next to Millie near the end of the row of chairs. Millie introduced him to Peter, who sat on her other side.

  “Having a snoop, are you?” asked Ricky in a low voice.

  “No… I am just…” Millie fiddled with her red braid hanging over her shoulder.

  “I don’t blame you,” said Ricky. “It’s awfully exciting. Just watch your step after what happened to Martin.” He grimaced. Ricky acted helpful and nice enough, but Millie hadn’t forgotten he was still present when Martin was poisoned. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down.

  Detective Allen was still talking to Pauline, both faces quite serious. If the poison had been plant-based, maybe she was the prime suspect now.

  “You’ve not met most of the other board members before, have you?” Ricky whispered.

  “No, we haven’t.”

  “Pauline’s a bit obvious. I’m sure I don’t need to point her out.” Ricky gestured in her direction anyway. “She’s always gotten along well with Martin. I can’t think of a reason for her to hurt him. But you never know, I suppose.”

  Then he pointed to a young woman with blonde hair scribbling in a notebook. “That’s Sadie Northrup. She’s a teacher. Again she’s never had any kind of conflict that I know about with Martin. With Frank, sure. We’ve all had arguments with Frank, but not Martin. Nevertheless, she was there too.”

  Next, he gestured to two men standing near the front row of seats, deep in conversation, one older, with wild curly gray hair growing redder and redder in the face. The other man Millie recognized: the grandson, tall, nice looking, how she imagined Martin must have looked fifty years prior. Very blue eyes. No, Millie, she thought. Stop thinking about people‘s eyes. First a detective and now a suspect. What’s wrong with you?

  “Of course, you’ll have seen Sam, the grandson before, on the day it all… happened. He always seemed to get along with his grandfather, but he has now inherited quite a patch of land.”

  Peter leaned across Millie. “Was he hard up for money?”

  Ricky shrugged. “He does website design or something like that. He acts like his business is doing well, but you never really know. Now, the man he’s talking to is Frank Fowler, and he and Martin have been arguing over one thing or another for years. At least as long as I’ve lived in Winding Creek.”

  “And what were they arguing about?” asked Millie in what she hoped was an innocent-sounding voice.

  “Everything, just about. The cell towers, who parked their car closer to the post office, plenty of things I don’t even know about. They just seem to have hated each other, and it didn’t matter what the other did. It was their mere existence that was the problem.”

  Millie wondered how much Detective Allen had spoken to Frank. She leaned down and lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “Who do you think did it?”

  “Frank is an angry man. He’s a violent man. He’s gotten into fights when he’s had a few. And he once rear-ended Martin‘s car on purpose. I think you know my conclusions.”

  At that moment, Pauline strode to the podium and cleared her throat. The audience settled down. Detective Allen also took a seat at last.

  “I need to talk to her at the end of this,” said Ricky.

  Millie shot him a quizzical look. “Nothing about the… the word beginning with M,” Ricky explained. “A lot of stuff has been going missing for my place in the last few weeks. At first I thought things were misplaced, but now I’m sure there’s a thief in the neighborhood.”

  The room fell silent as Pauline began her presentation. “Good afternoon, Sorrelville Library, and welcome to the exciting world of wild edible plants,” she said. “A hiking enthusiast all my life, I first began foraging—that is gathering edible wild plants—over thirty years ago. I’m excited to share with you all some of the basics of finding food safely in the wild, so you can enjoy the special treats you won’t find in any grocery store aisle.”

  The talk began with a discussion of the seasonality of foraging, the way plant availability varies through the four seasons and how a forager could get in touch with nature and the land around them by watching each species come into season and then wane as new species replaced them. There was also a portion on conserving protected species and making choices to leave enough food for wildlife. Another conservation option in the forager’s toolbox was choosing to eat invasive species over native ones. Throughout the presentation, Abby assisted Pauline by passing around small samples that the audience could look at and hold, including several dandelion leaves and a jar of dehydrated wineberries. “I love dehydration,” said Pauline at one point. “It helps me still enjoy the sweet flavors of spring all year round. And through dehydration I’ve been able to make this delicious and portable all-wild herbal tea.” She smiled and lifted her travel mug. She took a long, satisfied sip. Millie felt a squirm of discomfort. Millie didn’t know if she’d be proudly drinking a travel mug of wild herbs in public less than a week after a poisoning. She breathed a sigh of relief as Pauline set down the travel mug and continued her talk with the vigorous glow of full health. “Now as you can see on our next image…” She gestured to the screen behind her.

  But at that moment a strangled cry rang out. All faces turned from Pauline to the source of the sound, Abby, collapsed on the floor of the meeting room. Her own travel mug lay dropped
at her side, a pool of tea eking out and creeping toward the waiting crowd.

  11

  Chapter 11

  The large Maine Coon cat wound itself around Millie’s legs. She sank to the floor of the cat sanctuary section of Cats ‘N Tats and let the big soft kitty hop in her lap and purr. Peter had been right in dragging herself and Flor there in the aftermath of everything that happened at the library that afternoon—Abby’s collapse, Pauline rushing to her assistance, the ambulance taking Abby (who was thankfully recovering) away, and the many, many police interviews that followed. Fluffy kitties were exactly what they all needed. Now the three of them each cuddled a cat on the floor, while Jody sat with them on a piece of carpeted cat furniture about the size of an ottoman, sketching out a potential design for a client.

  “Who could’ve wanted to hurt Abby?” asked Peter, scratching the chin of an orange tabby. Peter looked especially pale since the incident at the library, not that he could ever be described as not pale. Nor Millie either with her red hair and freckles. They were a family of not much melanin. The choices were milky white or burnt by the sun.

  “I can’t think of a soul who’d want to hurt her,” said Flor from behind the fluffy body of a friendly tuxedo cat. “But I couldn’t think of a soul who’d want to hurt Martin either.”

  Millie and Peter exchanged a look. Flor had known him well from his work at the library, but she hadn’t known the side of Martin that trespassed on other people’s land and poached their property. In this moment, Millie and Peter made an unspoken agreement not to enlighten her if they could help it.

  “They didn’t want to hurt Abby,” Millie explained. She’d paid careful attention in the commotion and overheard some important details. “Abby and Pauline got their mugs mixed up. The poison was meant for Pauline.”