Snoop to Nuts (6 page)

The air in the garden had a current of chill buried beneath layers of heat and pure, hard sunshine. August. In one corner a sprinkler shot water in a large circle, bending flowers and leaving incomplete rainbows behind it.

I was in no mood now to look at flowers, but I needed to let Miss Amelia walk awhile, to get her breath back. I chose a path that led through beds of tall butterfly weed, purplish smudges of muhly grass, yellow bells, and pink gaura.

“Goodness,” Miss Amelia said after a time of letting out deep sighs. “Can you believe Dora and Selma, and probably most of the others in there, thinking I would do something like that to the good pastor?”

“They don’t really—”

“Don’t play with me, Lindy. I know what I heard and saw.”

“Everybody’s confused, Meemaw.” I steered her down the red dirt path toward the river. Since I was a little girl, I’d found that the peace and coolness along the Colorado’s banks calmed me when I was upset. Just watching the water flow on—sometimes swiftly, most times slow and easy—could make bad stuff go away. It was a place I associated with something much bigger than I was, something much older, something much more spiritual than I felt in places like the church, where good people gathered but just their presence deadened something I valued, and their perfumes made me sneeze.

That never happened to me on the tumbled shores of the Colorado River, where, from time to time, the wild hogs ran and scared me half to death.

“We’d better get going, Lindy,” Miss Amelia protested. “I don’t want to come up against any of the people in that house for a while.”

We were almost to the water. I could smell it, along with the sprinkler in the garden. The path sloped fast where the cultivated flowerbeds stopped and a tangle of weeds and tough wildflowers began. With my botanist’s eye, I swept the banks of the river—taking in huge plants with enormous leaves. I identified the tall plant:
Cicuta maculata,
with a purplish tinge at the base of the leaves. And another
apiaceae
, short-leaved, bipinnately divided. No flower umbrels but still I recognized it as Queen Anne’s lace.

“Watch yourself.” Miss Amelia pointed to a couple of deep holes in the earth. “Break a leg down here.”

I turned to climb the path, back among Selma’s manicured flowerbeds.

“I still don’t see how she does it,” I marveled despite myself.

Miss Amelia, too distracted to pay much attention to the garden around her, muttered, “Now don’t go giving yourself a major case of garden envy. The Riverville Garden Club does a lot, to tell the truth. I’m here every Tuesday. But maybe not this week. One of the deacons paid a landscape designer to work all this up. Now, can you get me home?”

She sniffed and turned away from the flowers as a group of ladies made their way ahead of us, out of the house and over to the parking lot. Miss Amelia put a hand out, holding me back. She slowed to let the ladies get in their cars and drive off before urging me to walk faster.

*   *   *

The road toward town was almost empty. I was heading for the Nut House when Miss Amelia leaned over to whisper in her best peremptory voice, “If you don’t mind, Lindy, I’m going home. I’m feeling . . . well, I don’t know how to say it, but I’ve got the feeling I should get back to the ranch and stay there.”

“Meemaw!” I frowned over at the woman. “You can’t do that. I’m taking you to the store. Treenie needs help . . .”

“You realize that Sheriff Higsby must’ve gone out of his way to tell Dora about me? I never woulda thought it. Not in a million years.”

“That’s his job. Dora was there. She’s just putting two and two together and getting nine.”

“What I’m sayin’ is . . .” The tired-looking woman took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “It looks like people around here want to believe the worst—and there’s not much we can do to stop them.”

“Yes, there is. I’m calling Hunter soon as I take you back to the Nut House. See what poison it was and if they ruled out your caviar yet.”

“Sure would help to know what that means: ‘volatile organic.’”

“Comes from burning fuels like gasoline or even natural gas. Diesel exhaust. Paints, glues—things like that. Formaldehyde. Dry-cleaning fluids.”

I thought awhile. “A lot of dyes, I think. Poisonous plants. Chloroform. Some ethers and alcohols. Lots of things, Grandma.”

She slouched in her seat and muttered, “You know we’re in this alone, Lindy. Just you and me. Thought the sheriff was with us, but it looks like maybe he’s thinking of playing one against the other.”

“Well, I’m with you, Meemaw. Just don’t cave on me. I need you. That brain of yours . . .”

Miss Amelia chuckled. “Your grandfather used to say I had a head like a criminal. Could always figure what they were thinking. Helped him when he was in the Texas State Senate, I’ll tell you.”

She said nothing more until I pulled in front of the store. “I meant it, Lindy. I want to go home. You and Emma and Bethany can work out a schedule here between the three of you. Bethany’s spending too much time with that Jeffrey anyway. I’m just tired now. For the first time in my life, I’m feeling old and kind of . . . well . . . maybe I just need to rest.”

Against my better judgment, I pulled out and headed home.

Ethelred Tomroy was the first one in after I opened the store. Miss Emma had been up to her ears in bookwork, and Bethany was off somewhere with Jeffrey Coulter, who’d come back from his property search and suggested a day in Columbus. Since Miss Amelia declared she wasn’t showing her face at the Nut House until things were a lot clearer, that left me, which seemed bad enough, and then here comes Ethelred.

“Where’s Miss Amelia?” Ethelred demanded, out of breath from climbing the three front steps. “I gotta talk to her. I don’t believe a word people are sayin’.”

Ethelred’s face turned an ugly shade of purple. “I hope to heaven you Blanchards got your wits about you and called Ben Fordyce. Ask me, these gossips got to be made to shut up. I’d threaten to sue the whole passel of ’em, it was me . . .”

“Why, Miss Ethelred.” I was filling one of the open counters with pecan gift boxes. I leaned back to eye the woman. “Thought you and Miss Amelia were enemies.”

Her wide mouth dropped open. “Enemies! Me an’ Amelia Hastings? You out of your ever-lovin’ mind, girl? Me and Amelia been friends since she came here, after your grandfather died over there in Dallas. I think I was the first one to welcome her to Riverville, comin’ from one of the oldest families, the way I do.”

“Well, all that competition . . .”

“That’s nothing but two friends trying to outdo each other. Amelia’s always winning those ribbons and I don’t, personally, think she’s that much better than me. Popularity contest is all it is.”

“Doesn’t seem that way right now.” I looked around the empty store. “Not like they were waiting on the porch to get in this morning.”

Ethelred frowned, eyes searching the usually bustling aisles. “Don’t go looking for trouble, Lindy. Everybody’s got other things to do.”

She stopped to straighten packs of candied pecans on the front counter. When she looked up, she squinted at me with one eye, like people do who are trying to get something out of you. “I’ve really got to talk to her. Think I’ll go on out to the ranch.”

“She’s resting right now.”

“I understand that well enough, but I gotta talk to her. About going with me somewhere tomorrow.”

“Sorry. It’s not a good time right now.”

She drew in her nostrils tight and fixed me with a mean look. “I’m going out there, Lindy. Don’t care what you say. She promised and, well, there’s no way around it.”

I threw my hands up, figuring Miss Amelia could tend to herself. Ethelred always did run right over me. It was all that stuff about respecting your elders no matter what bullheads they could be.

She was gone and I was thinking about closing up when the bell over the front door jingled again. I felt a shiver of dread.
Who next with questions about Miss Amelia?
That’s probably all I’d get today, I figured. People not so much interested in the Special Pecan Pies or cookies or boxes of nuts, but people looking for a tidbit of gossip to share with their neighbors:
You think she coulda done it? Musta lost her mind when Ethelred beat her out for that blue ribbon . . .

It was a relief to see Jessie Sanchez coming up the aisle at me. Her shirt was bright red, her wide skirt many colors. Her long black hair swung at her shoulders. My friend. Colorful. Sympathetic. Easy to be with. I truly hugged her and gave her the warmest smile I could muster. She smelled good. Like warm soap and books and just somebody who didn’t argue for nothing, didn’t gossip, and would make me laugh even when I was as far down as I was right then.

Jessie sank into the rocker with the red chair pads while I pulled a stool from behind the counter.

“Saw you in here when I was driving by. Miss Amelia all right?”

“She doesn’t want to come in anymore. Thinks everybody in town’s talking—and I suppose they are. More upset than I’ve ever seen her.”

“Can you blame her?” Jessie answered. “Library was buzzing with it. That’s really why I thought I’d run over and see how she was doing. I can’t imagine anybody thinking your grandmother would hurt a fly. Told a few what I thought today. Gossiping right there among the books. You know how much my family owes her. Even that first day we got here from Mexico—your grandmother greeted us like we were old friends. Helped us move into the house.”

Such a pretty, earnest face. She hadn’t always been treated well by Blanchards, despite what she said. It was my uncle Amos who proposed and then dumped her. The man had a lot going against him, including a taste for booze. Then I found him dead in my greenhouse. Made it even worse for Jessie, him coming home to do some good for once, and being murdered.

“Would you stop by and talk to her when you get home?” I asked. “Ethelred’s on her way out there. She might need a brighter face to look at.”

Jessie reached over and squeezed my hand, then stood. “I’ll stop by later. My mother’s waiting for the chilies I said I’d bring.”

“I’ll be out in my greenhouse later. I gotta catch up on my records. But if you want to come on out and talk? I feel like I’m going in circles on this. Maybe if the two of us tried to figure things out . . . Will you have time?”

“For you, my friend, I’d come anytime.”

“Let’s make it eight.”

She left with a Very Special Pecan Pie in her hands.

When the front door of the shop closed behind Jessie, it opened again immediately, Rivervillians coming in to buy a pie or some pecan candy or a box of pecans: one after another:
“Need a pie for supper, Lindy.” “Gotta pick up a jar of that Texas Caviar of Miss Amelia’s.” “Kids want some of the sandies.”

Another hour of one local after another. All, I suspected, there to show support, which made me feel good. And all telling me to give Miss Amelia their greetings. Nobody mentioned murder. These folks didn’t need to.

I was closing out the cash register as the bell jingled again, making me want to groan. I’d just said good-bye to Eula Hawley and was feeling drained of my last bit of strength.

Hunter Austen, still in uniform, made his way hesitantly up the aisle as if he wasn’t sure my greeting was going to be a warm one, or icy. He knew both moods well.

I chose a place between a pleased “
Happy to see ya”
and
a frigid “
Yes? Can I help you?”

“Hi, Hunter.”

He nodded. “See they got you working here. All that college just to end up pushing nuts?”

His tone was light, but I wasn’t in the mood to be teased by anyone, let alone by a cop investigating my grandmother.

“What’s going on?” I finished with the register and slipped the folded moneybag in my purse for deposit later.

“Wanted to see how you were holding up.”

I nodded. “Fine. Just fine. People been coming in all day to say how shocked they are that Sheriff Higsby suspects my meemaw of poisoning the parson.”

Hunter took off his stiff deputy’s hat that left a hat ring around his closely shaven head. He gave me an exasperated look. “You know darned well the sheriff’s saying no such thing. If anybody’s putting stuff like that around, it’s somebody else. Sounds like an Ethelred Tomroy thing, you ask me.”

“Ethelred was here this afternoon. Demanded to talk to Meemaw. Something about promising to go somewhere with her. Tried to head her off but there’s no stopping Ethelred under full sail. She went right on out to the house. Meant to call and warn Meemaw, but I forgot. Anyway, Meemaw will get rid of her fast enough. But I’ll tell you, Hunter, she
is
in a state. All this uproar about her poisoning the parson. Terrible.”

“Then what we’ve got to do is get her busy finding what happened there at the supper. She sure was a help when your uncle died. I’d like to get that mind of hers going again, sifting through things, coming up with what really happened at the fair. And to tell the truth—the way this one is going, we need all the help we can get.”

He watched as I thought over what he was saying.

“She was going a mile a minute over at the sheriff’s office,” he said, coaxing.

“That’s when she fell apart. Think it all sank in, that people could suspect she’d do a thing like that.”

“What we’ve got is maybe one hundred and fifty people who were there in the Culinary Arts Building at the supper or during the judging. What we don’t have is anybody who doesn’t have high praise for the pastor. Got no motive . . .”

“Except a disgruntled old lady mad at losing a blue ribbon.”

He went right on. “Got no way the poison was administered . . .”

“Except in a disgruntled old lady’s Texas Caviar.”

Now he sighed. “He could’ve eaten something right before coming to the judging. And then there’s the possibility we’ve got a crazy person on our hands. Somebody who really wanted to kill a whole lot of people and just got the parson.”

I thought awhile. “Did you find anybody in town buying ant poison? Or no—have to be ether or alcohol . . .”

“Don’t need to look. We know what killed him. ME called a while ago. Spotted water hemlock. The root ground up and put into whatever it was the parson ate.”

I leaned against the counter. “Hemlock? Like Socrates?”

Hunter spread his hands. “The homegrown kind.”

“Spotted water hemlock, eh? Grows right here in the swamps along the Colorado. Plain old
Cicuta maculate
.
Cicutoxin—
the stuff even wild hogs know to stay away from. Where the heck would the parson have gotten ahold of such a thing?”

I saw Hunter’s face and felt a chill run up my back. He wasn’t looking anything like normal.

“You’ve got something else to tell me, don’t you?” I demanded. “They tested Meemaw’s dishes. Is that it?”

He nodded slowly, pain—like lightning—written across his eyes.

“Well?”

“That first dish? The one the judges tasted? Traces of alum. Nothing else. No poison but somebody was out to sabotage her, for sure. Gotta take a look at that. The other one. The one Miss Amelia gave to the parson . . .”

“Oh, no,” I moaned and waited for the worst.

Hunter nodded. “Loaded with ground spotted water hemlock root. Just enough to kill the man.”

He kicked hard at the old wooden floor with one of his boots. “I’ll be out to the ranch in the morning.”

“Can’t I do it? I mean, bring her in. Be easier on all of us.”

“Sheriff said it would look like we’re going easy . . .” Hunter looked sick to his stomach.

No sicker than I was feeling.

“I’m gonna warn her,” I said.

“Wouldn’t expect you to do any less.” He turned to leave.

“And Hunter,” I called after him. “You know I’m never going to forget this. What you’re doing to my family. Anybody who goes after them is no friend of mine.”

His face was blank, as if he didn’t dare show a single emotion. I felt a little like that, too, wanting to hold everything in, and then wanting to scream at him not to ruin what we’ve got going between us—this new thing that felt a lot like . . . I don’t know . . .

When he turned and walked away, it was like a part of me was with him, a part being ripped out of my body as the door closed.