“They haven’t completed the autopsy yet. Things like that take time.”
“But you’re here to talk to me about it, so you must suspect something.”
Erin’s instinct was to deny that was what she had gone to Adele’s to talk to her about it. She could say that she had just gone there for a visit, and that the conversation had just led naturally to Joelle. But Adele wasn’t an idiot. She knew something was going on.
“I… I saw Joelle just before she died. She said that you had made her the tea. Comfrey tea.”
She wanted Adele to deny it. Joelle had been hallucinating or had some reason to make trouble for her. Adele hadn’t even been over there. Why would she be? She didn’t even know Joelle.
“I made her comfrey tea,” Adele agreed.
Erin sighed. She looked around the little cabin.
“Why does that upset you?” Adele inquired. She was so calm.
Too calm.
“Because there wasn’t just comfrey in that tea. They tested it. It also had foxglove in it.”
“Foxglove.” For the first time, Adele looked anxious. “There couldn’t have been foxglove in it.”
“There was. I could smell something. I knew it wasn’t just comfrey.”
“You smelled it? What were you doing there?”
“I stopped by with some soup. She wouldn’t take it. All she wanted was the tea. She drank some… and then she died.”
“Foxglove doesn’t kill that fast.”
“It wasn’t the first time she’d drunk the tea. What day did you give it to her?”
Adele didn’t answer.
“Could you have picked foxglove instead of comfrey?” Erin prompted. “Vic said they look similar. If they’re not in bloom. One could be mistaken for the other.”
“I would not mistake foxglove for comfrey.” Adele’s gaze was unfocused. She wasn’t looking at Erin. Was she thinking back to when she had collected the comfrey? Picturing it in her mind and trying to determine if she could possibly have been wrong? “But you said the autopsy hadn’t been done yet. They haven’t determined cause of death.”
“No. It could have been something else. But if her tea did contain foxglove… well…” Erin shook her head. “Digitalis is poisonous. What are the odds that something else killed her?”
“You were there when she died? Tell me what happened. Describe it to me.”
Erin described the scene with as much detail as she could. When she was done, Adele didn’t ask any questions, but sat there thinking about it.
“I don’t want it to be the foxglove in the tea,” Erin said. “But if she’d been drinking it for a couple of days… well then, it makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Deaths don’t always make sense,” Adele said. “I couldn’t say whether Joelle died of digitalis poisoning. No one could say, not yet.”
“No.”
They sat in awkward silence for some time.
“Did you know Joelle?” Erin asked. “How did you end up taking her the comfrey tea?”
She didn’t think Adele was going to answer her. But Adele was a person who didn’t mind silences, and she took her time to consider things before answering. Erin found it unnerving, but she was getting more used to Adele’s rhythms, so she waited.
“Sometimes women in town ask me to provide them with remedies,” Adele said slowly, weighing her words. “They know that I am familiar with herbs and have decided I am good at more than just wreaths of dried herbs for use in their kitchens.”
Erin was surprised. She raised her eyebrows at this revelation. “Does that mean they know that you are…”
“Wiccan?” Adele considered the question. “I think we’re following the old army policy of don’t ask, don’t tell. They probably suspect, but they’re willing to believe I’m just a wise old woman experienced with herbs. As long as they don’t actually ask me if I’m a witch, they’re not under any moral obligation to shun my teas and tonics. Remedies are okay; potions are not.”
Erin nodded. She had always trusted Adele’s ministrations before but, for the first time, she questioned her own blind faith in the woman’s knowledge and abilities. What did she really know about Adele? Could Erin really be sure Adele could tell the difference between comfrey and foxglove? How much could she really be trusted?
“So Joelle sent for you? Asked you to bring her something to help her heal faster?
“I heard she was hurt, so I offered my services.”
“Did you give comfrey to anyone else?”
Adele measured her words. “Not lately.”
“I just thought… you wouldn’t want to harm anyone…”
“I did not harm Joelle. I don’t know what happened to her, but she was not poisoned by my comfrey.”
No, not by her comfrey. But by her foxglove?
Adele rose to her feet, which Erin took as a signal that it was time for her to leave. She got up as well and turned toward the door.
“Okay. I just wanted to let you know what had happened, so you wouldn’t be blindsided if the police came around. I didn’t tell them that Joelle said the tea was from you, but I suspect they’ll figure it out. Especially if you’ve been preparing remedies for other women.”
Adele nodded. “It’s not a secret. I imagine they’ll be by here sooner or later. Will it be your friend, Terry?”
“No.” Erin hesitated, not sure how much to tell Adele. Her tendency to be reserved and not jump in with any personal information made Erin more reticent to share with her. “They consider me a suspect, so it’s not really right for Terry to lead the investigation.”
“A suspect? You make it sound like they think it was murder.”
“Since they haven’t determined cause or manner of death yet… that has to be a possibility.” Erin choked up, thinking of Joelle lying in her bed, weak and gray. “I was just there to help her. But it seems like I can’t get close to someone in this town without them dying. I’d suspect me.”
Adele paused in walking Erin to the door. “But you’ve told me about those other cases. You might have been close by, but you were exonerated. The police know it was nothing to do with you. You were just being used.”
“It doesn’t make me feel any better. I still feel like it’s my fault. Stuff like this wasn’t happening before I came to Bald Eagle Falls. I must have some kind of… karma.”
Adele gave her a smile. “But you don’t believe in karma.”
“No. But I don’t know of any other way to explain it. Why else would these things start happening when I got here?”
“How would you explain it to Vic, if she said it was some kind of divine destiny?”
Erin sniffled and thought about it. “I’d tell her that it was just random or coincidental. That she was just associating disparate events with each other…”
“The other possibility is that your arrival here threw something out of balance. Before you arrived, it was in stasis, but you… jarred something loose. Not in some kind of karmic or mystical way. You just changed the dynamics of the people here. Threw something new into the mix.”
“Because I opened the bakery? That meant that the town didn’t need Angela’s bakery anymore, so Gema decided to fight back instead of being pushed around?”
Adele shrugged. “I don’t know. But I have seen that things in this town are very unsettled. They are in a state of change instead of stasis.”
“It makes me wish I hadn’t come. If I’d just stayed away, sold the house and shop instead of coming and setting up here… everything would have just stayed the same.”
“Maybe it’s good that things changed. Still waters grow stagnant. A new source of water clears things away, freshens them up. Rather than being something harmful, maybe you are helping to heal this community.”
Erin sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t like feeling responsible for all of this stuff.”
“Then stop.”
How could Erin stop feeling responsible for all of the mishaps a
nd death that had happened since she had arrived in town?
“Well… thanks for letting me vent. I hope you don’t run into any trouble because of all of this.”
“Don’t worry about me. And don’t worry about the investigation. It will all work out.”
“I don’t know how to not worry,” Erin said with a bleak laugh.
Adele opened the door for her. “I could help you with that.”
Erin didn’t know whether Adele was suggesting an herbal remedy, or some sort of Wiccan ritual or prayer. Either way, she didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
Chapter 10
Erin knew Sheriff Wilmot, but she’d never really had anything to do with him directly. She knew him through Terry. Even though he was Terry’s boss, she’d always gotten the impression that he didn’t have the skills or experience that Terry did. He was always in the background, covering when there was too much for Terry to do, but never taking point. It was odd to have him taking over the investigation into Joelle’s death.
She was summoned to the police department, a small business office in the civic building. Erin had attended interviews with Terry there, back when he was still mostly a stranger to her. Later, as they grew closer and she was no longer a suspect in any active cases, she had become more familiar with the offices, coming and going as she visited with Terry or stopped by to drop off a plate of cookies.
Terry’s door was shut when Erin arrived to meet with the sheriff. Not by accident or coincidence, she was sure. Neither one of them wanted the awkwardness of trying to deal with their relationship while Erin was there as a suspect. With his door shut, Erin couldn’t tell whether he was in or out, and that was probably for the best.
“The sheriff will be with you shortly,” Clara Jones advised, her face as grim as if Erin were a known serial killer. “He’s a busy man.”
“I’m sure he is,” Erin agreed. “But he did ask me to come over. If now isn’t a good time, I could set up a more convenient time for both of us.”
“I said he won’t be long. Just have a seat, and he’ll be with you shortly.
Erin conceded, sitting down in one of the tubular metal chairs in the waiting area. It was longer than a few minutes, but then, Erin had expected it to be. She stood up when the sheriff appeared in front of her.
“Miss Price,” Sheriff Wilmot greeted. “Thank you for making the time to come in to talk with me. I know you are a busy woman and I appreciate you making the time.”
“I want to help in any way I can,” Erin said, “but I don’t know what I can do for you. I’ve already given Terry—Officer Piper—my statement. I don’t think I have anything else to contribute.”
“No, no, understood. That’s fine. I’d just like you to run through it one more time, just like you told Officer Piper. You pick up a lot more nuance talking to a person face-to-face than you do just reading a typed-up statement. I’m sure you understand.”
“Yes, of course. That makes sense.”
“Good.” He ushered her into his office, crowded with old file cabinets and blanketed with a layer of paper that looked like it had been there for as long as he had held the job.
Erin sat down on an uncomfortable couch with scratchy material and upholstery buttons that bit into her flesh. Not furniture designed to make her comfortable while she told her story. The sheriff sat down at his desk and looked at Erin, his eyelids at half-mast.
“Go ahead, any time you’d like to start.”
“You don’t want to ask anything particular? You just want me to…”
“Just tell me about what happened.”
Erin wasn’t sure where to start. When they got into the house? When they decided to go? When they first saw Joelle? She decided to bypass the sticky part about how they got into the house, and went with what had happened from the moment they entered Joelle’s bedroom. She kept going until the arrival of the paramedics and stopped there.
The sheriff nodded slowly and thoughtfully. Erin waited for the questions. Sheriff Wilmot did not disappoint.
“How did you know Joelle Biggs?”
“I didn’t really know her well. We weren’t friends. I met her when she was in town before, with Davis, for Trenton’s funeral. Saw her at the bakery once, and then a couple more times around town after that. She didn’t stop in at the bakery this time. I guess she just got whatever she needed at the grocery store.”
“She didn’t call on you?”
“No.”
“Then why did you decide to pay her a visit?”
“I heard about her hurting her leg. I just thought it would be neighborly to take her some soup. We didn’t know whether she could get around and look after herself.”
“Why didn’t you just leave that to her friends?”
“I… don’t really know if she had any friends in these parts. She was from out of town, and she wasn’t the type who made friends quickly. She was a little… abrasive.”
“But you decided that in spite of that abrasiveness that you would look in on her.”
Erin shrugged. “Yes.”
“That was a very Christian thing to do.”
Erin raised her eyebrows. “I’m not a Christian.”
The sheriff shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t mean you’re a Christian, just that it was the kind of thing that… a Christian would do. That we’re taught to do. Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. Don’t judge.”
“She wasn’t my enemy. We weren’t friends, but that doesn’t mean she was an enemy.”
Sheriff Wilmot tented his fingers, gazing over them at her. “You wouldn’t have called her an enemy?”
“No.”
“It was my understanding that you accused her and Davis of trying to burn your house down. You believe she was complicit in Trenton Plaint’s death.”
“Uh… well, yes…”
“Why would you take soup to a person who had tried to burn your house down? Out of neighborly concern? She wasn’t exactly next door, now, was she? You had to go halfway around town to get to her house. Why not just assume that other people would look in on her? Let someone who wasn’t her enemy look after her?”
“I said she wasn’t my enemy.”
“But you were hers. She’d tried to burn your house down. You don’t do that to a friend.” He raised a finger, silencing any response from Erin. “And don’t try to tell me that just because you weren’t her friend, that doesn’t mean you were her enemy. I think it is quite clear that Joelle considered you her enemy. If I’m to believe what you claim.”
Erin couldn’t think of any response.
“And if she didn’t try to burn down your house, then she had good reason to hate you because you accused her of it.”
“I just… I wasn’t really thinking about that. I was just thinking that someone should look in on her and make sure she was okay. I made a bigger batch of soup than I needed. It wasn’t any extra bother, other than actually running over there to give it to her. I thought it would take half an hour, and then I’d be home again.”
His expression suggested that he found the whole thing a little hard to swallow.
“I’ve been a caregiver before,” Erin said. “I know that people need help when they are hurt or sick, even if they’re disagreeable or hard to get along with. I just didn’t consider what had happened in the past or the fact that she wasn’t my friend. I was only thinking about the fact that she might need someone to help her out.”
“I see.” The sheriff made a few notes on a piece of paper in front of him. “Moving on, then. You said that you made her soup. You didn’t say anything about making her tea.”
“No, I didn’t make her the tea. She already had that on her bedside table. I didn’t even know what it was.”
“You didn’t know what it was, but you gave it to her to drink?”
“Yes… wouldn’t you? Someone has a mug on their table and asks you to pass it to them, wouldn’t you do it? You wouldn’t investigate what was in it first, you’d j
ust hand it over.”
“You didn’t think to make her fresh tea? This stuff had been sitting on her table stewing and getting cold and maybe even fermenting for who-knows-how-long. I wouldn’t drink tea that had been sitting out for half the day. Or longer.”
“I told her it was cold and that I’d make her some more, but she just wanted me to give it to her. So I did. I couldn’t have drunk it either.”
“And how did she seem after you gave her the tea?”
“No different. I put it back where I got it. She closed her eyes and went back to sleep. She seemed to be fine, so I left her and went out to the kitchen. I wanted to see if there was any more tea, so I could make her some fresh stuff. But there weren’t any leaves. Not that I could find. She must have used the last of it.”
“Or you did and didn’t want to leave any trace of it behind.”
“I didn’t make the tea,” Erin said firmly. “It was already there when I got there.”
“It was already there.”
“Yes. If I made it to poison Joelle, why would I have left it out like that? Why would I point it out to Terry? If I was trying to poison her, I would have dumped what was left down the loo after she died. I would have washed out the cup and not left any trace of it.”
“People make mistakes. People do stupid things, and they think they won’t get caught. I’ve dealt with a lot of stupid criminals before, Miss Price, it wouldn’t be anything new for me.”
“I didn’t bring the tea. I didn’t put anything in her tea. I didn’t poison Joelle. Period. I just happened to be there, trying to be a good neighbor, when she passed away. If I could go back and change that, I would. But I can’t.”
“No. You certainly can’t. Miss Biggs is beyond help now.”
Erin looked down at her hands. “I know. I feel really bad about that. I wish I could have done something for her. I wish someone had figured out that there was foxglove in the tea a day or two before, when maybe the doctors could have saved her. But that’s not what happened.”
Sheriff Wilmot scowled. “How do you know there was foxglove in the tea?”
“I…” Erin mentally apologized to Terry. She was going to get him in trouble for talking to her. But she couldn’t lie, and she couldn’t leave the sheriff thinking that the reason she knew there was foxglove in the tea was because she had put it there herself. “Office Piper told me. Before he handed the case over to you. We both thought it was better if he wasn’t the one investigating it. Because…” Erin trailed off.
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