“So there must be foxglove growing around here somewhere. No one has said where it was growing. If I could find that, maybe it would point to someone.”
“Maybe,” Vic said doubtfully. “It could grow in more than one place. And if it’s in the woods around here, we could be looking for days. We could search for years and never find it.”
Maybe it was the wrong way to go about solving the case, but it was the only course Erin could think of. Find the source of the foxglove. Find out who knew about its existence and could have gathered it. Who could have made the poultice and applied it to Joelle’s leg?
Vic had covered the shop while Erin had been in hospital, so even though it was Erin’s scheduled day off on Saturday, with Vic and Bella minding the shop, she had suggested Vic should get the Saturday off. But Vic had firmly instructed that they needed to stick to their written schedule, and Erin let herself be talked into it.
So Saturday morning found Erin traipsing through the woods, looking for foxglove plants. She had saved a picture of foxglove to her phone, so she had something to compare it to whenever she found anything that resembled the green rosette foxglove grew in. While she had stopped a lot of times to examine plants, she had concluded that none of them was foxglove and was still on the hunt.
Erin reached the river that bordered one side of her wooded property and, mindful of the series of accidents that had eventually led to Joelle’s injured leg and ultimately her death, Erin was careful not to get too close to the edge of the embankment and kept an eye out for any roots that might trip her up or any other hazards. She didn’t want to end up getting hurt out in the bush and having to call for help.
As Erin rounded a bend in the river, she was startled to find that she was not alone. A man stood nearby, staring out at the river, lost in thought. Erin took in his tall, thin frame, and studied his face.
“Roger…?”
Roger turned his head and looked at her. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” he asked in an accusing tone.
“My name is Erin Price. We haven’t really met, but I know your wife.”
“Mary Lou.”
“Everybody knows Mary Lou, right?” Erin asked. “When you—when she needed help, I couldn’t believe how many people turned out. Bald Eagle Falls really is a nice community.”
“And Mary Lou knows you, Erin…?”
“Erin Price. Yes. I own the bakery in town. We really like your Jam Lady jam. We buy cases and cases of it.”
“The Bake Shoppe?”
“No. Auntie Clem’s Bakery. The Bake Shoppe had to close when Angela died. They haven’t reopened it. But I run a gluten-free bakery that caters to all sorts of special diets.” Roger didn’t have much to say, and Erin found herself trying to fill the silence with words. “I really like helping to provide people with good food that’s safe with their restrictions.”
“Angela.” Roger said her name with a sneer, clearly remembering her. “She’s dead and gone now. Dead and buried!”
“Yes. I know. I feel bad for what happened to her, but I know she caused you and Mary Lou a lot of trouble and heartache.”
“She was an evil woman. It’s a good thing she’s dead.”
Erin was uncomfortable with this. “I don’t know…”
“I went by there the other day.” Roger frowned. “There was a man in The Bake Shoppe.”
“A man?” Erin tried to think of who it would have been. A lawyer or trustee? Maybe a real estate agent giving an estimate? Or was he thinking of longer ago, and had seen Trenton or Davis there? “I don’t know who it would have been. That’s not my bakery. My bakery is across the street. Auntie Clem’s. My Aunt Clementine used to have a tea room there. Do you remember that?”
She was afraid she was being patronizing. She had no idea how much he remembered. She didn’t want to treat him like a dementia patient, but her past experience as a caregiver was kicking in, and she was testing him, exploring the limits.
“No, not there,” Roger said. “I saw a man at The Bake Shoppe.”
“Okay. You very well might have. People come and go… I don’t keep track of who goes in there.”
“I was afraid at first, at the woman screaming. I was afraid someone would find me there. When I went back again… he wasn’t there anymore.”
Erin chewed on her lip. A woman screaming? A man coming and going? She couldn’t tie it together, but it didn’t sound like it was anything to do with her current investigation. He was off in another time and place. Erin wanted to focus on the present, and on finding the plant that would help to prove Adele’s innocence.
“Roger, you know your way around these woods, right?”
Roger’s eyes went to her. They were blue. He seemed to be calmed by the water, not agitated like he had been when Terry had found him and brought him back to the church.
“I love the woods,” he said simply, like a child.
“Do you know what foxglove looks like?”
“Of course I do. My grandmother taught me the names of all of the flowers.”
“But do you know what the plant itself looks like when it isn’t in bloom?”
“Sure.”
“Is there any growing in these woods?”
There was no immediate response from Roger.
“If I wanted to pick some, where would I find it?” Erin persisted.
“Why would you want to pick it?”
“I don’t know. If I wanted to make something with the leaves.”
“You shouldn’t touch it. The leaves are poisonous.”
“You’re right.” Erin changed tack. “I actually wanted to pull it, if there was any around here, so no one would get poisoned by accident. I wouldn’t want someone’s child or pet to eat it.”
Roger looked at her and Erin knew that he was not fooled. Roger Cox might have some issues with his brain, but he wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t buying into her changing story.
“Mary Lou talks about you,” he said. “Our little detective, she calls you. Always trying to figure everything out. She says you’re very smart.”
Erin swallowed. She looked around for Mary Lou. Was it possible she was the poisoner? While she had previously told Erin that she didn’t have any secrets, Erin highly doubted that was true. Everybody had secrets. And the people who were most reticent to reveal them were the ones who had the most to lose. Maybe Mary Lou wasn’t the perfect mother and wife. She blamed her family’s downturn in luck on her husband, but was that really true? What if she were the one who had made the bad investment with Angela? What if she had tried to kill Roger to cover it up, rather than it being a suicide attempt? If Joelle had something on Mary Lou, would Mary Lou have silenced her permanently?
Erin didn’t like to think it could have been someone she knew, but Mary Lou had always been an enigma. She’d always been a little aloof, someone Erin couldn’t quite connect with, even though she seemed like a very nice woman. Most of the time.
And while she hadn’t been in Erin’s house, she’d had access to the jam. She was the one who had given it to Erin. She’d had the opportunity to tamper with it before giving it to Erin.
“How is Mary Lou?” Erin asked, forcing a smile. “Does she know you’re here?”
“She’s having a nap. She hasn’t been sleeping very well lately.”
Was the reason Mary Lou was so tired and testy lately not because of her husband, but because she was being pressured by Joelle? Or because she had poisoned Joelle and was worried she might be caught? Maybe the reason she had been reluctant to call the police department when she couldn’t find Roger was because she was afraid they would find out what she had done. Or maybe she was afraid Roger knew what had happened and would tell someone.
“I’m glad Mary Lou is getting some sleep,” she told Roger. She felt her phone in her pocket. She should call Terry. See if he thought Mary Lou or one of the others Joelle was blackmailing might be the poisoner. Let him know that Roger was wandering again, unsupervised. “I guess I sho
uld be getting on my way.”
Roger nodded vaguely. Erin didn’t go back the way she had arrived, which had been a long, meandering path. It would be faster to get home by cutting across the woods. When she was sure she was out of Roger’s hearing, she slid her phone out and dialed Terry.
“Hi, Erin,” he greeted cheerfully. “Enjoying your day off?”
“I always do.”
“What are you doing today? Catching up on your errands?”
Erin thought of the long lists of things she needed to do around the house or in the city and felt guilty for being out wandering in the woods looking for foxglove instead of focusing on the rest of the items on her list.
“Uh, actually, no. Just taking some time to walk in the woods. Smell the roses.”
“That’s good. I’m glad you’re taking some time to relax. I was afraid you were doing too much so soon after being poisoned.”
“I suppose. I feel like I’m back to normal, but the doctors did say it could be a while before I am fully recovered.”
“Exactly. You need to take care of yourself.”
“So, the reason I was calling you…” Erin wasn’t sure how to approach the subject. “I wondered whether you had looked into Mary Lou. As the person who poisoned Joelle, I mean. And who poisoned me.”
“Mary Lou. What makes you ask about her?” Terry asked, giving nothing away.
“I don’t know. I just wondered… if Joelle was blackmailing her, then Mary Lou might have tried to—”
“What?”
“If Joelle was blackmailing her—”
“Who said Joelle was blackmailing her?”
“I don’t know if she was. But she was putting pressure on others, so I’m just assuming she would get whatever she could on everyone. Mary Lou is one of those people who keeps her own counsel, and—”
“Erin. Stop.”
Erin stopped. She didn’t just stop speaking, but she stopped walking too, startled by his sharp tone.
“Where did you get the idea that Joelle was blackmailing anyone?”
“Oh… well…” Erin realized she had let her enthusiasm get ahead of her. “I mean, she could have been… that would have been a good motive for murder.”
“You didn’t just come up with blackmail out of thin air.”
“Um… no.”
“Was Joelle trying to blackmail you? Picking up where Alton left off?”
“No. Not me.”
“Then who?”
“Well, a couple of the women in the community… and I thought if she was blackmailing a couple, there were probably more.”
Terry let out an exasperated breath. “You didn’t think this might be something that was important to tell the police?”
“I assumed you knew.”
“Don’t assume anything. If you find something out about an active investigation, you need to let someone know, not just go off and investigate it on your own.”
“I didn’t. It just occurred to me that maybe Joelle was blackmailing Mary Lou, and then I called you. So I did tell you. I’m telling you now.”
“And I’m not the one investigating the case. You need to see the sheriff about this. Right away. Do you understand?”
“Yeah. Okay. Absolutely.”
“Where are you now?”
“In the woods, like I told you.”
“Not on your way to Mary Lou’s house?”
“No! Of course not.”
“What are you close to? I’ll come pick you up, and you can get in to see Sheriff Wilmot right away.”
“I’m just about home.” Erin scanned the trees around her, feeling suddenly disoriented. “You can pick me up there, if you think it’s that urgent.”
“Whoever the poisoner is, she’s already tried to kill you once. If you’re making inquiries and she thinks you’re closing in on her…”
“Okay. I’ll see you in a few minutes then.”
Erin hung up the call, a little irritated that he’d been so brusque with her. But she knew he cared about her. That was where he was coming from. She hurried along a less-worn path, looking for the connection to the main route she and Vic usually used. But as houses came into view, she realized she’d gotten herself turned around. She must have gone the wrong way when she had left Roger. Instead of heading back toward her house, she’d been heading for the opposite side of town.
Erin walked toward the houses so she could see what street she was on and get herself turned back around. She’d need to hurry to get to the house before Terry arrived. Or maybe she’d just call him back and have him pick her up wherever she had come out of the woods.
Erin studied the houses up and down the street, looking for any recognizable landmarks. She was at the complete opposite side of the woods from the house.
She stared at Joelle’s house, reminded again about how close it was to her own, even though to drive there, she would have had to go all the way around to the opposite side of town. She turned and went back into the woods, cutting straight across to get to her house. There weren’t any well-established paths through the middle, for some reason. Most of the paths that had been worn into the dirt tended to wander around the edges of the wood, shortcuts from one person’s property to another, to Adele’s cottage, to the river. Erin was moving quickly, pushing herself through the bushes and undergrowth, knowing she was going to end up with her legs all scratched up.
And then her way was blocked. She nearly ran right into Roger.
Chapter 29
Erin moved to the side to let him pass, but he didn’t go by her, standing right where she wanted to go.
“Hi, Roger,” Erin greeted, as pleasantly as she could. “If I could just squeeze by you…”
He still didn’t move.
Erin remembered Terry saying that he had found Roger near the river. She hadn’t realized how close the river ran to Joelle’s house. She hadn’t pictured Joelle’s odd accidents being in Erin’s wood or Roger Cox wandering around her property.
Her stomach tightened. She looked back the way she had come, and then left and right, looking for established trails that she could use to get around Roger and back to the house. She shouldn’t have gone back into the woods. She should have just had Terry pick her up on the other side. Instead, she had dashed right back into it, acting like there was no danger, when he had warned her there was. The poisoner had already tried to take her out once.
“Did you find the foxglove?” Roger asked.
“Uh, no. I got turned around; I was just going to go home. I think… I need a nap.”
“You shouldn’t do so much after you are poisoned.”
Erin nodded, swallowing hard. “I know. Officer Piper was just telling me that.” Erin looked back over her shoulder as if Terry might be right behind her. “I really do have to get on my way…”
She decided to make a dash to the side and continue to press forward toward her house. Terry would be waiting for her there. But when she tried to move to the side, Roger’s hand snaked out and he had her by the wrist.
“You know!” he accused.
“Know what? I don’t know anything. I just thought it was time to go home…”
“That woman. That snake in the grass. Coming to me and demanding money.” Roger’s face was pale, his eyes wild. “I told her I didn’t have any money. We can barely scrape by on what we’re bringing in, even with the boys working after school. She didn’t believe it. She said she knew I had money, and if I didn’t pay her, she would tell!”
Erin didn’t move. If she tried to pull away from him, he would just tighten his grip, but if she didn’t struggle and just let him talk, he might let her go on his own. That was the way it worked with a lot of the patients she had dealt with. Get them agitated, and they would just get more violent. Let them talk themselves down. Deescalate. Give them time to just calm down.
“She would tell what?” she prompted.
“My secret.” Roger said it in a strained whisper, as if the trees had ears. He l
ooked around, eyes wide and unblinking. “She said she would tell Mary Lou.”
Erin’s curiosity prompted her to ask him what his secret was, but if she knew his secret then he might deem her a danger to him as well. Had Joelle gone one step too far by trying to blackmail Roger? It had never occurred to her that the poisoner might be a man. Poison was always seen as a woman’s weapon, and the fact that it had been given in a poultice by someone who knew something about folk medicine had made her sure it was a woman. What man knew anything about herbal remedies and applications?
“Your grandmother,” Erin said softly.
Roger’s eyes riveted on her. “What?”
“You said your grandmother taught you all of the names of the flowers.”
His expression softened. “Yes,” he agreed. “I used to go out with her when she was gathering herbs. She told me all the names of the flowers, all of the different uses of medicinal plants.”
“And which ones were poisonous.”
“What is medicinal in one dose becomes poison in a higher dose. If you don’t know how much to use, it’s better you don’t use it at all.”
“So she was the one who told you about digitalis. And belladonna.”
“After that woman fell and hurt herself, I helped her back to her house. She was in a lot of pain. I dressed her leg for her. Told her I would be back with something to help it to heal faster.” Roger’s eyes blazed. “She said it didn’t matter if I helped her; she still expected me to pay up, or she was going to tell Mary Lou…”
Erin marveled at Joelle’s nerve. Roger rescued her, gave her first aid, and offered his services as an herbal practitioner and, instead of being grateful, she had threatened him. Erin, Adele, and Roger had each put aside their grievances to help Joelle when she was hurt, but the woman had selfishly continued her campaign of blackmail.
“She shouldn’t have done that,” Erin told Roger, trying to pitch her voice to be low and soothing. “She should have been grateful to you. She should have shown you some respect.”
“Yes,” Roger nodded his agreement. “She should have acted like a decent human being. People like her and Angela, they can’t be allowed to go on destroying good, innocent people. They have to be stopped.”
Brewing Death Page 18