Ladies Courting Trouble Read online

  “…who spend a good portion of their lives in kitchens, preparing foods for unappreciative men to consume? If time’s no object, and a wife can afford a leisurely pace, it could be done simply by loading up the husband with salt, sugar, and saturated fats. Women do that all the time. Perhaps that’s why we have so many merry widows.”

  “I had no idea you harbored these murderous impulses.”

  “Not at all. And especially not toward my own lean and lovely husband. You asked me a question, and I replied with a creative scenario. The bottom line is, yes, poison is a woman’s weapon. Same as a medical worker’s first choice might be drugs, and good old boys favor guns.”

  “But not necessarily a woman’s weapon.”

  “Especially if you wanted to make it look like a woman’s work.”

  “So I’m back to square one.”

  “No, because you’re a clairvoyant. You’ve already seen where the poison hemlock grows. It’s only a matter of time before you see who’s been harvesting it.”

  “If I find that stand of hemlock, I’ll root out every bit of it. Before there are any more deaths. It’s a mercy, though, that this criminal herbalist didn’t use water hemlock instead of plain old poison hemlock.”

  “What’s the difference? Poison’s poison.” Phillipa busied herself making cappuccino for two.

  “Water hemlock is a root, also known as cowbane. It’s even more painful and deadly. Supposing you survive the convulsions, there’s still liable to be heart damage. And it tastes better, sort of like parsnips, to which it’s related. Poison hemlock is ferny, works more slowly, and tastes fetid. Thankfully. Because that’s why I ate only half of that brownie.”

  “Many people don’t have a finely honed sense of taste.” Phillipa held a metal pitcher under the steamer nozzle to froth the milk. “If I were to use poison hemlock, I’d double up on the vanilla, maybe throw in a shot or two of crème de cacao.”

  “Now that you mention it, there was a stronger taste of vanilla than is usual with brownies. I wonder if we should warn people about the taste of hemlock, maybe write a letter to the Pilgrim Times.”

  “Don’t be a fool. The public will be lynching self-confessed herbalists like you if this poison gambit continues, as I guess you believe it will. You think the poisoner will strike again.” She handed me my cup of cinnamon-scented cappuccino. “And here I thought this was a one-time hit. Some disgruntled parishioner holding a grudge against the church. Drummed out of the choir perhaps, or she found one of Peacedale’s sermons personally libelous.”

  “I feel this isn’t the end of our troubles. More I don’t know.” I took a sip. Perfection!

  “Well, I can’t see how we would be involved again. There, how do these look?” Phillipa had arranged her breads on a large wooden cutting board and surrounded them with fake fall leaves.

  “Superb. When’s the taping?”

  “Tonight, actually. Live audience, too. Want to come?”

  “Thanks, but I’m expecting a call from Joe. They’ve reached Miami, and as soon as they’ve docked and made their point, he’ll be on his way home. And I can’t very well bring my cell phone to your taping.”

  “All right, loyal helpmate, false friend. Stay home and pine away if you wish. Just remember that Joe’s probably out carousing with the crew in Miami’s hotspots.”

  I sighed. “Maybe. Okay. What time?”

  “Oh, good. Five-thirty sharp. Bring the Wagoneer, will you. I hate transporting food in my BMW. So messy.”

  So there I was, in the studios of WSOS-TV, the South Shore’s community access cable station where Phillipa tapes Kitchen Magic. The show was aired on various PBS channels, and sometimes on the Food Network at odd hours of the night. The taping’s small but appreciative audience included the Myles Standish Free Library’s Cookbook Club, some members of the Sizzling Seniors with their chaperone, Patty Peacedale, who waved to me gaily, and a cooking class from one of the local schools with their pink-cheeked teacher, Miss Synge. When the taping was over, the breads were cut up and passed around among the audience, who had clapped madly whenever prompted to do so. Pumpkin Cranberry, Ginger Pear, and Spicy Brandied Apple. Lucky me, all I got was a taste of the Ginger Pear, because I really couldn’t have stood another round with the stomach pump.

  The Pumpkin Cranberry Bread was strongly flavored with spices, which must have masked any odd flavor. As we learned later, some common but highly poisonous berries had been tossed in among the dried cranberries that wound up in the bread. The poison-laced loaf was the last one that Phillipa had mixed on camera. By the time that one came out of the oven, warm and aromatic, the audience had petered away. So the camera crew, Gus and Greg, decided that demolishing the pumpkin bread was a legitimate part of cleaning up. Shortly thereafter, the two guys had been in severe gastrointestinal distress. After the incident at the church, Phillipa lost no time in calling 911 and her husband.

  We raced after Gus and Greg in my Wagoneer to Jordan Hospital, where we met Stone. Our favorite detective was pacing the hall while his partner leaned against the wall making notes. The dose had been small, gastric lavage had been swiftly administered, and the crew’s recovery seemed assured before we left them.

  The studio with the kitchen set used by Phillipa was duly locked up and designated a crime scene, a major inconvenience to other cooking shows taped at WSOS. Stone ordered all foods on the premises to be analyzed. Privet berries were found in the bag of dried cranberries in the off-the-set real kitchen—a converted storage room really—where the ingredients were measured out by Junie Hershey, a production assistant. A few members of the audience, Junie didn’t remember exactly who, had popped in to watch her at work. Later Junie had set up the elegant dining table and placed the finished breads among decorative gourds and fall leaves.

  Three loaves of each bread had been prepared. The first group had been perfectly garnished in Phillipa’s own kitchen for the on-camera buffet. The second, also precooked at Phillipa’s, was ready for her to remove from the oven as if freshly baked. The final trio of breads was mixed on the set and placed in the oven to bake in real time, simply not to waste them. In this latter group, only the Pumpkin Cranberry contained a poisonous substance, ligustrin, found in all parts of privet hedge.

  “To think we were just discussing poisons!” Phillipa wailed to me on the phone the next day. “This may be the end of Kitchen Magic, you know, if the cameramen decide to sue. Public broadcasting’s budget is not what I would call ‘deep pockets.’”

  I was in my cellar workroom, formerly a cold room where my grandma used to store preserves and home-canned foods. The pine shelves were perfect for stocking the supplies to fill herbal orders. I’d left Scruffy upstairs, in case the odd field mouse might have found its way in through the ancient stone foundation. My dog could never rest once he caught that scent but would paw at the shelves, destroying carefully stacked bags of herbs, until he found and dispatched the culprit with a single canine wallop—no feline games for him!

  With the phone held in the crook of my neck, I kept on working. “No one died, or even sustained permanent injuries,” I countered. “And none of the audience ate the poisoned bread. They’d all left before that last Pumpkin Cranberry was even out of the oven. And it isn’t as if you have sponsors who will cancel.”

  “You’re such a comfort, Cass. Say, you don’t suppose someone really is targeting you, do you? At this point, you’re the only common denominator between the two poisonings.”

  “Not unless the poisoner has prescience. No one, not even myself, expected me to be at your taping. On the other hand, we’re both Wiccans. Could that be the link? No, I really think that’s unlikely, don’t you? By the way, Phil, you were wonderful. I don’t know how you talk off-the-cuff that way, so smooth and coherent, while whipping up beautiful foods.”

  The phone had become uncomfortable, so I stopped trying to fill dream pillows and sat in my old cane chair. A green-shaded lamp hung over the gateleg table that was miss
ing its gate leaf but was a good sturdy work surface. Cobwebs in the corners added to the mysterious ambience.

  Phillipa seemed to perk up a bit at the praise. “It’s not difficult to talk if you know your material.”

  “I find it difficult. My talk on Samhain and Wicca at the Ladies’ League sounded really stilted to my own ears. But back to the poisonings. It’s hard to imagine what the common denominator can be.” The green lamp began to swing back and forth of its own volition, like a pendulum. I watched it idly as we talked, realizing that the cellar was fading away. At that point, I must have dropped the phone.

  Suddenly I was in the Peacedale kitchen, a room I had barely glimpsed before, although I had been in their parlor and Wyn’s study several times. Now I could see the counters—rather messy, with cereal boxes not put away and dishes still in the sink. The refrigerator was open. Someone, I couldn’t quite see who, was pulling out a crisper drawer, opening a package of salad greens. Looked like baby lettuces. The scene faded. Like all visions, it had a timeless quality. I never know how long in real time I’m traveling that astral plane, unless someone else who is present tells me. I just know I found myself at the cellar table again, feeling nauseated and disoriented as usual.

  I picked up the phone. “Hello,” I said in a weak voice. No answer. I hung up, thinking I’d better call her back as soon as I got my wits together. Then I went upstairs to fix myself a bracing cup of Assam tea, a welcome-home-from-the-hospital gift from Phillipa. I’d need to decide what this vision meant and what I should do about it.

  Before the kettle had boiled, Phillipa was at my back door pounding on the wooden frame of its glass panel. The Sterns live less than a mile down the road, with Jenkins Woods between us. Although it’s called Jenkins Park now, since we saved it from developers and their seaside condominiums by establishing the place as a wetland and bald eagle preserve. My friend’s face looked pale and anxious as I unlocked and opened the door.

  “You’re just in time for tea,” I said.

  “Sweet Isis, Cass—I thought you’d had a stroke or something. What happened?”

  “What usually happens to me? Psychically speaking, I was having a look around the Peacedale kitchen. Take down the cups, will you? I think I’d better call Patty. What I saw was rather peculiar.”

  I punched in the parsonage’s number. She answered at once. “Hell-o,” in a musical two syllables. “Patty Peacedale here.”

  “Patty! I hope you won’t think this bizarre, but I’ve just had a glimpse of your kitchen. Well, it was more like a vision. And I saw something that worried me.”

  “Oh, lovely!” she caroled.

  “Patty, this isn’t an epiphany. Would you look in the crisper drawers in your refrigerator and tell me what you find there?”

  “So exciting! Just give me a minute, Cass—I’m in my little office. I’ll pick this up on the kitchen phone.” A few moments passed, and Patty spoke again. “Gosh, Cass—not much. Three onions on one side, and a few Granny Smiths on the other. Wyn does love a cold, juicy apple when he’s composing a sermon.”

  Phillipa, who was shamelessly listening in over my shoulder, muttered, “Onions? In the refrigerator?”

  “Hush! No, not you, Patty. No salads, then?”

  “Well, you see, Cass, we’re scheduled for some dinner function or other every night this week, so I haven’t bothered with any grocery shopping.”

  “I don’t mean to intrude, Patty, but as you look at your counters, are there any open boxes of cereal standing there?”

  “Oh, dear. This is a bit like having a surveillance camera in one’s kitchen, isn’t it? No cereal boxes right now, Cass, but it has been known.”

  “Okay, don’t give it another thought. But when you do go grocery shopping, be especially careful about salads, will you? A whole head of lettuce is your best bet, maybe a few tomatoes.”

  “Iceberg, no doubt. Ugh, boring,” whispered Phillipa.

  “But wholesome,” I said when I’d finally got a chance to hang up on Patty’s enthusiastic curiosity.

  Chapter Four

  “The mundanes do tend to panic when their sixth sense kicks in,” Fiona said abstractedly, apropos of nothing we’d been talking about. The subject was Samhain, where and how we would celebrate this year. “Not to mention their seventh and eighth senses.”

  “Which are?” asked Deidre. Her cap of golden curls and her impish grin brightened the gloom in the crowded, book-crammed living room of Fiona’s fishnet-draped cottage in Plymouth Center. Once she’d lost custody of her darling grandniece, Laura Belle, Fiona had reverted to her former haphazard housekeeping.

  “Oh, you know. The sixth is generally a foreboding of accident or death—the impending-doom thing. Next, there’s the perception of bodiless spirits, of course—ghosts, you might say—which is the special province of mediums. Eighth is the ability to detect auras and, often, diagnose illness as well. Ninth…

  “Ninth!” exclaimed Deidre.

  “Ninth is remote viewing,” Fiona continued. “The CIA loves that one! But you gals know the drill.”

  “What about the glamour, your special province?” asked Heather.

  “Oh, that. Glamour is not extrasensory—it’s like hypnotics, a subtle illusion that can make you the center of attraction or, if it suits the situation, practically unnoticed. But, anyway, what I’m saying is, if it weren’t for their tendency to panic at extrasensory perceptions, most people would be able to tell when trouble is imminent.”

  “And do what?” Heather asked.

  “Duck, of course. More tea anyone? Another scone?” Fiona’s Persian companion Omar Khayyám walked delicately across the coffee table and gave the milk pitcher a quick lick with his pink tongue. Fiona scooped him up with one arm and passed the plate of crumbly morsels with the other. Her tiny cream scones are always delectable, but I make it a point never to look in the kitchen from whence they came.

  “That’s all very well for Cass with her visions and Phil with her tarot,” Heather complained, “but what about me? I never know what’s going to hit me until it does.”

  “But you do, my dear,” Fiona disagreed. “That’s my whole point. There’s a place within yourself from which you can reach out in many more than the ordinary sensory ways. Let your higher self guide you, whatever you call it.”

  Deidre brightened. “Oh! I call that my angel.”

  Phillipa looked skeptical. “Catholic holdover?”

  “Wiccans have angels, too,” Deidre said, pouting.

  “I call that little voice in my ear ‘conscience.’ I suppose that might be Torah-based,” Phillipa said.

  “Ghost of my grandma,” I said.

  “Oh, that voice!” Heather said. “That’s Hecate speaking to me.”

  Fiona laughed, with her full-bodied, infectious laugh that none of us could resist joining. “Call it whatever, ladies. It’s the timeless and eternal spirit of you. So…what do you say we have Samhain at Cass’s while Joe is away—did you say Miami? I always prefer an empty house, in case of psychic fireworks. My place is a bit small. I’ll take a turn in spring when we can celebrate in the backyard.”

  Thus it was arranged, and I was delighted, my imagination already spinning off into decorating an indoor altar with symbols of the season. Samhain is the last harvest, meaning I had to bring in any fresh rosemary, sage, and parsley I needed. After that, any plant still growing belonged to the fairies and pixies. I didn’t know if I believed in fairies per se, but it wouldn’t do to take chances with my herb garden. Anyone who’s a serious gardener appreciates the quirkiness of nature.

  “I have something special I want us to work at Samhain,” Heather was saying. “The Nature Conservancy wants to buy some sixty acres of land near Bonds Pond. This would include an important feeding and nesting place for the red-bellied turtle, which is, as you know, an endangered species. Also we’d be getting a pristine pond shore for the Plymouth gentian, which is globally rare. And a nice pitch-pine forest for our declining s
ongbirds and some exceptional insects.”

  “Nature lover though I am,” Phillipa said, “if there’s one species that does not evoke my concern, it’s creepy, crawly insects, other than to keep them off my body and out of my flour bin.”

  “No bugs, no songbirds, Phil,” Deidre said. “So what’s the problem, Heather? Doesn’t the Conservancy have the money?”

  “Oh, sure—gifts and donations, you know, from individuals who care and companies who want to be seen as community-minded and environmentally sensitive, never mind that they produce beer or handguns. Anyway, the problem is there’s a central part of that acreage that used to be working cranberry bogs, owned now by a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee who refuses to sell.”

  “Well, we’ll have to soften him up with a few well-chosen words. Name?” Fiona rubbed her hands together briskly, as if for a psychic warmup. The silver bangles she always wore tinkled madly.

  “Clarence Finch.” Heather sighed. In small towns, the mention of one name can carry a great deal of anecdotal baggage.

  “Uh oh,” I said. “Words of dynamite might be more like it. Isn’t he Iggy Pryde’s father-in-law-to-be?” We’d already had a run-in with Iggy over the illegal dumping of hazardous waste at his pig farm, and the arguments over who would be made to pay for the cleanup, Pryde or the companies involved, were still going on in the courts. As for the Finch connection, Wanda Finch, Iggy’s fiancée, a formidable, frizzy-haired redhead, had once threatened Heather and me with a rifle for trespassing. Clarence Finch, her father, owned a produce farm near Carver and several acres of cranberry bogs scattered around Plymouth.

  “I’d venture a guess that Clarence Finch doesn’t give a damn about the red-bellied turtle,” Phillipa said. “Tight-fisted old sod. Bought all those abandoned cranberry bogs for next to nothing, and now he’s probably holding out for big bucks from some developer. The Bonds Pond Estates.”

  “Never underestimate our powers of persuasion,” Fiona said. “But we’ll get to that later, at Samhain, when we are working between the worlds, such a lovely place to be. Perhaps we’ll invoke some spectral help.”