Peril in Paperback (20 page)

“Power,” I said, reminding him that if the electricity went out, Grace’s generator would jump into action.

“Good,” he said. “I plan on winning some money at that pinball game tonight, so I’ll need the power working at full capacity.”

“Really? Who are you playing against?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Suzie. And she cheats.”

“Get out of here,” I said, chuckling, and pushed him onward. “Let’s go find us some poisonous plants.”

It took almost two hours to examine every deadly tree and plant in the conservatory for telltale signs of scratched tree bark, torn limbs, or missing leaves. We almost overlooked it, but finally found what we were looking for in the most unlikely place. The dirt. Someone had dug up, then patted down, the dirt around the base of a cassava plant.

“Cassava roots are used to make tapioca,” Gabriel said.

“How do you know that?”

“One of the many useless facts I’ve collected over the years.”

I read the blue-tipped informational plaque that described the multileafed plant. “It says right here, ‘The starchy tuber of the cassava plant is the basis for tapioca pudding and serves as an important staple crop throughout South America, Africa, and parts of Asia. The roots, leaves, and bark of the plant are used in herbal remedies to heal skin sores and snakebites.’” I looked at Gabriel. “Doesn’t sound poisonous to me.”

“Keep reading.”

I skipped a few sentences, then continued. “‘If prepared improperly, the starch can produce cyanide, a deadly compound when consumed.’” I frowned. “But how?”

He shrugged. “When the root is chewed, it releases an
enzyme. That’s what turns into cyanide if it’s not processed right.”

I stared at him for a few long seconds. “You know way too much about this stuff.”

“It’s a gift.”

I frowned. “My mom makes tapioca from a package.”

“Pretty sure you’re safe with that,” he said.

I studied the cassava leaves that fanned out from the thin branches like green fingers. “There must be a few million people eating this stuff on an everyday basis. Are they all getting low doses of cyanide with every bite?”

“Some are,” he said. “If it’s consumed raw as part of a regular diet, it can cause poor vision, bad hearing, paralysis—all sorts of complications. In places where cassava is the main food source, malnutrition is rampant.”

“I don’t get that. Except for the whole cyanide issue, it sounds sort of nutritious.”

“It’s filling,” he corrected. “But it’s also very low in protein, so if that’s all you’re eating, you’re going to be malnourished.”

“Great,” I muttered, frowning.

“Hey, guys.”

We both turned and saw Ray walking toward us.

“Hi, Ray,” I said. “How’s Shelly doing?”

“Hundred percent,” he said, thrusting his thumb up. “She’s back to work and feeling good. Thanks for asking.”

“Glad to hear it,” Gabriel said, then waved him over. “Take a look at this.”

We showed him where the cassava plant had been dug up and shared our suspicions with him.

“So you want me to dig it up again so you can check the roots?”

“If you have a few minutes and wouldn’t mind,” I said.

“I’m on it. We’ve got tools right over here.” He jogged over to a small utility closet built out from the wall next to the house. Opening the door, he stepped inside and
came out a few seconds later, holding a spade in one hand and a short heavy-duty shovel with a very sharp serrated blade in the other. “These should do the trick.”

“I’ll say,” I murmured. That shovel would do some serious damage if it were used as a weapon.

Ray walked back to the cassava plant and began digging. Within a minute, the tops of the thick roots were exposed. A few minutes later, he was pulling out the three-foot-high plant and plopping it onto the dirt.

“Wow, those are big suckers,” I said, staring at the chunky root ball. Extending out from the fibrous mass were eight or nine thick, gnarly tubers that were as big around as a healthy parsnip and as long as a good-sized carrot.

“These are actually kind of small,” Gabriel said, tapping his knuckle on one of the roots. “They can grow as long and wide as my arm if given enough sun and good soil.”

Ray touched his spade to the root ball. “Looks like a bunch of them were broken off here.”

We both stared at the jagged stumps. Then I frowned at Gabriel. “So someone stole some tubers? Who in this house knows how to produce cyanide from cassava?”

He shook his head, equally mystified. “No botanists here that I know of.”

“What’s going on?” I muttered. It occurred to me that with the thousands of books in Grace’s house, there might be one or two that described how to get cyanide out of a cassava plant. Or not. But you could certainly Google the information in seconds. Which meant anyone might have done this. But why?

Ray pointed toward the closet where the shovel was stored. “If someone wanted cyanide, they wouldn’t have to dig up any roots and grind them into mash. They could find it easily enough in there.”

“What have you got in there?” Gabriel asked.

“Drain cleaner.” He shrugged. “Weed killer.”

“Why do you need drain cleaner out here?” I asked.

“Once in a while the drains back up,” he explained.

I looked around the room at all the drip lines and hoses and the rows of misters above our heads. “Of course. There would have to be drains.”

He gestured down at the path we were standing on. “Underneath this layer of pebbles there’s a whole system of drainage troughs that collect the excess water and send it down to a main pipe. That pipe leads to a filtration system. The water is recycled and pumped back inside to be reused by the plants.”

“Very clever,” I said, then thought of something. “But wouldn’t the drain cleaner also be recycled back to the plants? That could kill them.”

“No,” Ray said. “When we’re spraying for bugs or washing the windows or unclogging drains, we use an alternate runoff pipe. That one leads to a lead drum that gets changed every month or so.”

“Smart.”

“Grace designed the whole thing,” he said proudly.

“Figures,” Gabriel said. “There’s a complicated brain in that head of hers.”

“I’ll say.” But I was thinking more about the hanging bookshelves in my bedroom and the holograms and all the switched carpets and hallways and panels inside the house, not some water-drainage design out here.

“Can I see what you’ve got in the closet?” Gabriel asked.

“Sure.” Ray opened the door and reached inside to switch on a light. Gabriel walked in.

“Is this door kept locked?” I asked.

Ray shook his head. “Nope.”

I nodded. Why would it be locked? Grace would never suspect anyone she knew of using the conservatory for such nefarious reasons as the ones we were considering.

“You might want to look at this,” Gabriel called from inside the small room.

I walked into the closet and looked around. The space
was well-lit and bigger than I thought it would be. It was wide enough to fit a narrow, waist-high workbench along one edge. Plant pots were stacked next to other pots that held small gardening tools, cloth gardening gloves, small stakes, spray bottles, and all sorts of other supplies, including bottles of plant food and weed killer. Leaning against the wall at the far end were shovels, rakes, and an extension ladder.

Under the workbench were two stools to sit on, plus a row of plastic clogs and some thick, colorful foam squares. I recognized them as kneeling cushions for working in the garden. My mother used them all the time and she swore they kept her poor old knee bones from crumbling to dust.

“This is the stuff,” Gabriel said, holding out a red plastic container of weed killer.

“That’s a brand-new one,” Ray said from the doorway.

“It’s half empty,” Gabriel said, jiggling it lightly.

Ray frowned. “Just bought it a few days ago.”

“But you said you didn’t do much gardening,” I said. “Did someone ask you to buy it?”

“Yeah, Ruth gave me a list of things to buy at the hardware store. She needed some weed killer, a bag of potting soil, and some small pots to start some seedlings. Guess it’s coming on that time of year.”

I exchanged looks with Gabriel. Ruth again. Her name kept popping up wherever there was a mention of poison. As Grace’s close friend, Ruth also had easy access to Grace’s balcony. Had she loosened the railing that almost killed Shelly? Had she put poison in the glass that killed Bella? Was she trying to kill her best friend?

Grace had allowed Ruth to live on her property for free. She considered Ruth her dearest friend. She had established a trust fund for Ruth’s use in case Grace died. I had a feeling Grace would give the woman anything she wanted, so why would Ruth try to kill her own personal golden goose? Did she need the money that desperately?

It was premature of me to mentally arrest, try, and convict Ruth of murder, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t suspect her.

But could I really picture her digging up the cassava plant to concoct cyanide? So if it wasn’t her, then who? And what about the bottle of weed killer that was already half gone? Was someone in the house in the planning stages of yet another murder?

Nathan wasn’t in the library, so Gabriel and I made ourselves comfortable at the center table with more cups of coffee and some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies I’d pilfered from the kitchen. We made lists of suspects and motives, then tried to draw lines between the two. I drew up a timeline and we attempted to fit the guests into it, trying to figure out who had been where, when they had been there, and what they had been doing. Then we tried to predict the killer’s next move.

After an hour, I still had no clue. And even though Gabriel was an expert in this kind of stealthy home surveillance and was willing to search every guest’s room for clues, he didn’t know exactly what to look for, either.

I tried to help. “You should look for a bunch of gnarly old cassava roots. Check everyone’s sock drawers.”

He raised an eyebrow. I wasn’t exactly being helpful. I tried again. “Could someone have set up a chemistry lab in their bathroom?”

“Think it would take a chemistry lab to process cassava?” he asked.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? I don’t have the first idea of what it would take to turn a cassava root into a deadly poison.” Remembering what he’d mentioned earlier about chewing the root, I said, “Bella wasn’t chewing
anything; she was drinking. So the cyanide had to have been delivered in something closer to liquid form.”

“True,” he said. “But if they used weed killer, they would have to mix it with a strong-flavored drink to disguise the taste.”

“The iced tea.” I thought back to the séance. “When Ruth handed Grace the glass of iced tea, she told Ruth that passion fruit was her favorite flavor. Ruth said she knew that. Who else in the house would know that passion fruit iced tea was a drink that Grace wouldn’t turn down?”

“Anyone who knows Grace knows that’s her favorite drink.” Gabriel shrugged. “Even I know it. Her staff makes it for her every day. It tastes awful, by the way.”

“So why would Bella drink it?” I wondered. “She’d been drinking alcohol pretty heavily. Either cosmos or vodka tonics, I think. Why would she suddenly gulp down a glass of iced tea?”

“Maybe she figured she should sober up a little.”

“Maybe.” I had considered that very possibility earlier that week.

“Let’s get back to the cassava conundrum,” he said, then frowned. I had a feeling he was going through all the cassava facts he had on file in his brain. Finally he shrugged. “I guess you could put it in a blender. That might turn it to liquid.”

“A little risky if you ever want to make margaritas again.”

“But the cassava in liquid form would have a milder, more acceptable taste than weed killer.”

“I’m glad you know that.” I moved to my desk and powered up my laptop. “I’m going to do what I was taught to do years ago in library science class.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to look it up.”

“Good plan,” Gabriel said, stretching his legs out under the table. “I’ll sit here and drink coffee.”

“Excellent.” I logged on to Google.

“These cookies are amazing.”

“I know.” I grabbed another one, tore it in half, and took a bite. “God. I want to hire Chef Tang. And Merrilee. And Shelly and Ray. I’ll take the whole staff.”

“It’s a good group,” he said.

Forty-five minutes later, I glanced up from my computer screen and looked around. Gabriel was gone. Huh. Hadn’t noticed him leaving. And Nathan still wasn’t back. So maybe I’d gotten a little carried away with my research, but the good news was, I had answers.

I would track down Gabriel in a few minutes, but first I read over my notes. Cassava had turned out to be an interesting little food product. It was relied on as the main source of calories by some five hundred million people around the world. And yet I’d never even heard of it. But that said more about my provincial upbringing than about the plant itself or the people who consumed it.

Of course I’d heard of tapioca, one of cassava’s main by-products. As I’d mentioned to Gabriel, my mom used to make it for our family on a regular basis. She would layer it with whipped cream and…well, thinking about Mom’s fresh, fluffy tapioca and whipped cream just made me hungry. I had to get back to my notes.

While researching the subject, I’d found out something awful that was totally unrelated to our murder investigation. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so irritated, but the first article I read said that in many third-world countries, the women of the towns and villages were the ones who were in charge of processing the cassava plants. This left them all vulnerable to the cyanide gas that escaped in the process. A snarky voice inside me wondered why men couldn’t get in on some of that action.

That was a little harsh of me, I guess. It’s not that I wanted men to suffer, but why was it the women who were forced to endure the debilitating effects of cyanide poisoning? There had to be better, more modern ways to accomplish the job.

I dragged myself back to the exact question I’d been trying to research: How did someone process the cassava root so wrongly, so defectively that he produced cyanide? I tried to Google that phrase but got nothing, so I worked backward and searched for the
right
way to process the root.