by Edie Claire
Light flooded Leigh’s clouded brain. God bless her daughter’s memory! “Of course!” she agreed. She turned to Bridget. “Olympia didn’t intentionally poison Lucille! Don’t you see? She would have had to carry a tainted cup around for who knows how long, not taking a single sip of it herself, just waiting for a chance to offer it to Lucille! How much sense does that make? Especially when you always kept a glass of water on hand? Did Olympia ever offer Lucille a drink before that? Did she ever offer her anything?”
Bridget’s air of confidence faded. “No.”
“But the water glass conveniently spilled just before then, didn’t it?” Virginia insisted.
“I spilled it,” Bridget admitted glumly. “It was full before.”
Everyone went quiet again.
“Well, hell’s fire,” Virginia muttered. “If Olympia didn’t put poison in the cup, then what happened to Lucille? Did she really just kick the bucket? Surely that little bit of cognac couldn’t have done it!”
Frances moaned louder. From the porch behind the railing came a gasp, then a muffled whimper.
There were some other abnormalities in the bloodwork that led the ME to order a full toxicology screening… Maura’s voice floated through Leigh’s brain like a heavy, noxious cloud. A medication overdose…
“Hello, there!” a deep voice called out. Melvin had to stretch his neck to stick his head out the window of his car, which he had just double-parked in front of the house. “I’m here for Olympia… She seemed very anxious to leave in her text. Is she inside? Is everything all right?”
A sudden coldness burned in the pit of Leigh’s stomach. Kind, gentle Melvin. He had been so upset at Lucille’s death. Genuinely shocked. Genuinely horrified.
Of course he was.
He’d intended to murder someone else.
“No,” Leigh answered quickly, no less than three times louder than necessary. “She isn’t here.”
Melvin looked at her with confusion, raising one thick, bushy eyebrow. “Well, where is she then?”
Good question. Curse her lousy lying ability!
“She couldn’t wait,” said a small voice from the vicinity of Leigh’s elbow. “She saw there was a rideshare, like, a block away. So she just took that.”
Melvin appeared slightly disgruntled. “Well. That was fast.”
“Yeah,” Allison said brightly, smiling. For once, the girl was intentionally acting like a twelve-year-old. “I showed her how to use the app. It’s pretty neat.”
Leigh’s heart pounded in her chest. Melvin Dumke the proctologist looked so impossibly normal. So thoroughly, fantastically, boringly mundane. Olympia had a lot of medication on hand, Allison had reported. Probably stuff that could have been bad for Lucille. A doctor would know just what to do with that medication, wouldn’t he? Just what would, and wouldn’t, be good for a woman with Conn’s syndrome.
It was tough to dose correctly.
Leigh turned her head slowly up toward the porch. She had no idea what the Floribundas were thinking. They could rat her and Allison out at any second, and she would be at a loss to explain herself. She doubted seriously that Melvin carried any weapon, and both Warren and Mason were standing a few yards away, pretending not to be watching the man with every muscle tensed. Still, Leigh’s teeth practically rattled in their sockets. If Lucille hadn’t had that coughing fit… If Olympia had drunk her own cup of punch… Would she have passed out first? Then died of… what? A heart attack?
Leigh’s gaze passed over the front of the house. The Floribundas had moved. They were all standing on the porch now, clumped up in a close, odd formation like they were expecting someone to take their picture, but hadn’t gotten their order worked out yet. They were staring down at the people in the yard with chins and eyebrows raised, their arms folded mutinously across their chests.
They looked scary as hell.
Melvin followed Leigh’s gaze. He twitched a bit. “Well,” he said awkwardly, averting his eyes. “I suppose Olympia went on home, then?”
“I suppose,” Leigh answered mildly. “She didn’t say.”
Her thoughts, as she gazed back at the good doctor, were anything but mild. Yes, if Olympia had drunk her own punch, she might have passed out. She had passed out anyway, just from the shock of seeing Lucille. Someone had been acting then, hadn’t they? But the person acting had been Melvin, when he pretended to be surprised to find his wife on the floor. What really surprised him was finding out that she was perfectly fine.
Melvin had expected Olympia to have a fatal attack, hadn’t he? And he expected that no one would question it. Because her condition predisposed her to that risk. There would be no reason for a toxicology screening at her autopsy. Not if he didn’t request one. Not if there was every reason to believe that her stroke or heart attack was brought on by natural causes, like the stress of the occasion, or—
It’s snowing anthrax over there!
Leigh’s breath shuddered in her chest. Of course. Who better to push Olympia’s buttons? To stoke her worst fears and phobias to a fever pitch? The timing had been perfect. Olympia would have collapsed in the middle of the chaos, and no wonder. After all, she was a known hysteric when it came to contagious disease!
“Are you all right, Ms. Harmon?” Melvin asked with concern. “You look a little peaked.”
He looked so sincere. So humdrum. So harmless.
He was counting on that, wasn’t he?
“I’m fine,” Leigh answered. “Just a little cold.” Indeed she was cold. Every part of her body was freezing. But she had no business complaining. The Floribundas were all far older than she was, and every one of them had rushed outside without a coat.
She shot another look at the porch. The women hadn’t moved. To a one, they glared at Melvin as if daring him to breathe.
“I… uh… guess I’ll be getting along then,” he said uncertainly.
“Have a good day,” Leigh lied. “I hope you catch up with Olympia.”
He smiled back at her, displaying yellowed teeth with a hint of black at the gums. How the heck had a germophobe like Olympia handled being married to a proctologist, anyway? “I’m sure I will,” he said heavily.
“Merry Christmas,” Leigh lied again.
He exchanged polite waves with the others in the yard, then drove away.
“Oh, my God,” Bridget said in shaky voice. “I’ve got to get out of here. I want to talk to the police!” She pranced about skittishly, looking down the street and wringing her hands. “Oh… my car’s parked two blocks away! What if he comes back?”
“We’ll walk you back to your car, Bridget,” Warren offered, gesturing to Ethan. Then he stepped up and gave both Leigh and Allison a quick hug around the shoulders. “Tell everyone not to worry. I texted Mo. She’ll be here soon.”
Up on the porch, Virginia and Anna Marie were pulling Olympia to her feet. “Come on, now, dear,” Delores chirped, reaching up to pat Olympia’s pale cheeks. “It’s not that bad. Why, my second husband used to threaten to kill me all the time!”
“All the time!” Jennie Ruth confirmed, nodding emphatically.
“That sneaky little mole!” Virginia ranted, stamping her foot. “The nerve of him! And to try such a thing at an official Floribunda function!”
“He thought he was so clever!” Anna Marie said snidely. She had thrown one of Olympia’s arms around her own shoulders and was supporting her sagging frame. “Well, I guessed what he was up to!”
“Oh, sure you did!” Virginia scoffed. “Maybe thirty seconds ago, right along with the rest of us!”
“But why?” Lenna called out with suitable melodrama as she clung to her grandfather’s side. “Why would her husband want to kill her?”
The Floribundas exchanged odd glances. Leigh wondered if they were shocked by the insensitivity of the question. Then she realized that was stupid. “Yeah!” Virginia clamored, looking at Olympia. “Why would the old fart want to do you in, anyway?”
“Did you g
et him to marry you without a prenup?” Anna Marie asked excitedly.
“I would never accept a prenup!” Delores said fiercely. Then her tone thickened to syrup. “I would simply explain that my wifely favors are to be shared only within the confines of eternal wedded bliss.”
“Pants on fire!” Jennie Ruth snickered.
“I’m so cold,” Olympia said dully.
“Well, of course you are!” Virginia replied. “Let’s get her inside, women, and we’ll warm her right up! Don’t you worry about a thing now, Olympia. We all know what happened. The police are going to catch up with that slimy little scumbucket, and when we all start talking they’ll be sure to lock him up and throw away the key!”
Olympia hobbled toward the house, supported by Anna Marie on one side and Virginia on the other. “Really? You’ll do that for me?”
“Why of course!” Delores cooed. “You’re a Floribunda, aren’t you?”
“But… you thought I was a murderess!” Olympia protested meekly.
“Murderesses aren’t all bad,” Virginia said lightly. “Besides, we were defending another Floribunda, then. But Melvin is nothing to us. We protect our own.”
“And that’s you, lady,” Anna Marie said, beginning to breathe heavily as she moved Olympia through the doorway. “You’re one of us, now!”
“For-ev-er, Flor-i-bun-das!” Jennie Ruth sang. She brought up the rear of the procession, waited a moment for Frances to join them, gave up with a shrug, then pulled the door closed.
Frances, whose face had only slighter more color than Olympia’s, had sunk down on the steps again. Her eyes stared out at nothing. Leigh and Lydie exchanged a defeated glance. Allison looked up at her mother with confusion, just as Lenna threw an equally baffled glance at her grandfather. “What’s wrong with Grandma Frances?” she asked.
Leigh shivered. The sky was darkening to a thick, smoky gray. Frances had no coat on.
Mason took a step toward her. “It wasn’t your fault, Francie,” he said.
Frances startled as if she’d been struck. “What did you say?”
“I said it wasn’t your fault,” he repeated. “That someone tried to commit a crime in your house. With your bowl of punch. It’s still nothing to do with you.”
Frances made no response. She went back to staring straight through him.
“Go on back in the house,” he suggested, his voice mild. “You’ll freeze to death out here.”
“No, thank you,” Frances said listlessly.
“Mason’s right,” Lydie agreed. “It’s too cold to sit out here. If you won’t go in your house, then come on over to ours.”
“I don’t think so,” Frances said robotically. “But thank you.”
Lydie’s face clouded. Leigh could feel that same, angry heat radiating off her body again. “Girls,” Lydie said, her voice mild again, albeit strained, “please go back on over to my house. I’d like you to put some hot water on. We’ll all have hot chocolate in a bit.”
“Okay, Grandma,” Lenna agreed, releasing her grandpa and grabbing Allison’s coat by the sleeve as she passed. “She said you, too!” she nagged her cousin. “I don’t want to go alone, and it’s cold out here. Come on!”
Reluctantly, Allison moved off.
“All right, Frances,” Lydie spouted the second the girls had closed the front door behind them. “Now, you listen to me. I’ve had enough! I’m sorry about everything that’s happened, but I am not going to let you keep treating the man I love like he is a piece of gum on the bottom of your shoe!”
“Lydie,” Mason implored, “Don’t—”
“You be quiet!” Lydie fired back.
“What?” Frances replied, looking at her twin with genuine surprise. “But I— I’ve been perfectly polite!”
“Well, ‘perfectly polite’ isn’t good enough anymore!”
“Lydie,” Mason said firmly, taking his fiance’s hand. “Please, now isn’t the time for this. Look at her, will you? She’s not even here. She’s back in the nineteen sixties.”
Frances’s head whipped up toward Mason. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said haughtily, sounding more like herself.
Mason smiled a bit. “Oh, I’m sure you do. It wasn’t such a big secret back when we were young, remember?”
Frances’s face drained of color again. She threw a panicked glance at Leigh.
“Yes, Mom,” Leigh admitted softly. “I know about your sixteenth birthday party. What I know is that it was the kind of mistake that could happen to anybody. You’ve only made it into something huge in your mind. And what happened then has nothing to do with what just happened here.”
Frances looked like she wanted to crawl underneath the porch and die. “Doesn’t it?” she moaned. “A woman was murdered because she drank punch that was served in my house!”
“You didn’t poison that punch,” Mason stated flatly. “And frankly, I’ve always had my doubts about that damned potato salad, too!”
Frances’s eyes shifted. She looked fully back at Mason for the first time all night. “What are you talking about?”
“Food poisoning!” he answered. “I’ve had it myself. Seen it more than once. And it never happens like Lydie’s described it at your party — with everybody getting sick all at once like that. That story never did make sense to me.”
“A doctor said so,” Frances replied. “He said I sneezed and it poisoned them.”
“Yeah, well,” Mason said skeptically. “The doctor wasn’t there, was he? He was getting the story from other people. Didn’t sound like he ran any tests or anything.”
“For heaven’s sake, Mason, what are you getting at?” Lydie asked. “The doctor said it was food poisoning. It all happened ages ago. What does it matter now?”
Mason huffed out a breath. “It might have happened ages ago, but if it didn’t still matter to your sister, she wouldn’t be so messed up in the head she can’t tell her butt’s sitting on frozen concrete.”
As if taking some cosmic cue, the Christmas lights on the house suddenly switched on, bathing them all in a kaleidoscope of color. Evidently, Warren and the boys had used a timer.
“Gary threw up his s’more you know,” Frances said feebly, oblivious. “I haven’t been able to eat one of those things since. He threw up all over a bunch of people. And then one of them threw up, too.”
“Frances, stop,” Lydie said with frustration. “This isn’t helping anything. Why can’t you just forget about it?”
“Let her talk,” Mason argued. “I never heard about the s’mores before. I thought they threw up the potato salad. That’s one of the reasons the story didn’t make sense! Food poisoning doesn’t happen instantly. Some people get sick in a few hours, other people take half a day. It’s spread out.”
“Oh,” Frances said thoughtfully, remembering. “Well, they ate the potato salad earlier in the afternoon, but nobody got sick right away. They got sick when it started to rain. The rain ruined everything.”
“So one person threw up, then another?” Mason asked. “For all we know, the rest could have gotten sick to their stomachs just seeing the mess from the first guy!”
“Oh no, they were far too ill for it to be just that,” Lydie insisted. “No one wanted the party to end. We were all having a good time. Even with the rain!”
“Wait,” Mason interrupted. “How did you make s’mores in the rain? Didn’t your bonfire go out?”
Lydie laughed. “Our father? Approve a bonfire? Are you kidding? We used a charcoal grill, same as with the hot dogs.”
Mason’s brow furrowed. “On your back patio?”
Lydie shrugged. “I don’t remember where we had it. It was a little portable thing.”
“Describe the scene to me,” Mason insisted, turning to Frances. “Tell me what it looked like. When the very first person got sick.”
“Mason!” Lydie objected. “I really don’t see—”
“Please,” he begged, his blue-green eyes be
seeching as he looked into his fiance’s face. Always the charmer, Mason’s earnestness made him look boyishly attractive as he stood in the glow of the Christmas lights, and Leigh doubted her aunt could stand up to such pressure. In fact, she could not. Lydie cracked a smile.
Mason smiled back at her, then turned to Frances. “Tell me,” he repeated.
“They were making s’mores,” Frances began. “Gary was irritating me, because he was flirting with Patsy. I had asked him if he wanted a s’more, and I brought all the supplies out, and then he offered to make one for her.” Frances’s lips drew into a thin, tight line.
Leigh perked an eyebrow. Mason was right. Her mother’s mind really was stuck in the sixties.
“It was raining,” Frances continued.
“Where was the grill?” Mason asked.
Frances thought a moment. “It was out in the yard. The patio was the dance floor. It had been sprinkling on and off all day, but when it started to rain hard, I got an umbrella. We had gathered a bunch of rain gear and everyone grabbed something and made the best of it.”
“Gary got sick then?” Mason asked.
“No,” Frances answered. “Only after they made the s’mores.”
“You mean you stood there with umbrellas roasting marshmallows?” Mason asked. “Come on, now. Think hard. Try to picture it.”
Frances’s brow furrowed.
“Gary didn’t have an umbrella,” Lydie interjected. “Don’t you remember? He and Patsy and that crowd, they were the ones that got the tarp. They threw it over their heads like a tent.”
“They did what?” Mason demanded.
“But I don’t remember them making s’mores,” Lydie continued. “All I remember is them being out in the yard, giggling and cutting up. And then Gary vomited and after that everyone started getting sick.”
“Of course they were making s’mores!” Frances retorted. “But did they have a tarp? All I remember is trying to hold an umbrella for him.”
“You got mad at him for flirting with Patsy!” Lydie insisted. “You stomped off somewhere, I think.”
“Did I?”
“Oh, good Lord, above!” Mason said dramatically, slapping his knee. He grabbed Frances’s hands and pulled her forcibly to her feet. “Francie!” he cried, smiling broadly. “Can’t you see what happened? What really happened?”