The Diva Digs up the Dirt (28 page)

“It was Mindy,” I pronounced.

They stared at me.

“Who had the most to gain from Audie’s death? Mindy! If Roscoe’s only child was out of the way, wouldn’t Mindy think she would be in the best position to inherit Roscoe’s entire estate?”

“But she was poisoned, too,” said Nina. “Maybe she has the motive to kill Roscoe and Audie, but she hates the garden. She wouldn’t know which plants were poisonous.”

“You can look up anything on the Internet these days,” said Francie. “You don’t have to be a pro at gardening to poison someone.”

“Nina, if you wanted to poison someone with plants, how would you do it?” I asked.

She cocked her head at me like I was being silly. “You already told me the easiest way is to make a tea.”

“What would you put in the tea?”

“I’m not on trial here!”

“I’m not accusing you. I’m trying to make a point.”

“I guess I’d put in foxglove and that monkshead stuff.”

I grinned at her little distortion of the plant’s name. “What does it look like?”

“I don’t know,” she wailed. “Was the foxglove pink or purple? But I’m not stupid. I’d look it up… ohhhh. I see what you mean. She couldn’t research poisonous plants on her computer because the cops could track it to her. So she chopped up bits of plants, hoping she was getting some poisonous ones.”

Francie perked up, her eyes shining. “That’s what we saw, Sophie! Audie didn’t go home to meet Mindy. He probably didn’t even know she was there. She snuck into his house to switch out the bottle of dressing.”

I placed my finger on my nose like we were playing charades. “That’s exactly what I think.”

Francie rose and brought me her phone. “You have to call Kenner right away and tell him.”

“Wait!” shouted Nina. “Why did Mindy poison herself?”

“That wicked minx,” growled Francie. “She used plants so it would cast suspicion on Olive, the garden expert. I knew Mindy was trouble. Then, when Roscoe didn’t die, I bet Mindy thought it was safe enough, so she took some of her own poison so no one would suspect her.”

Mindy had opportunity and motive, not to mention that we had seen her entering Audie’s house, but something was bothering me. “Why would she kill Roscoe first? Assuming her goal was to inherit everything, it would have been a huge risk to poison Roscoe before Audie died.”

I thought Nina might spew her sherry.

Francie sat down, deflated. “Maybe she thought the digitalis would take longer to kill Roscoe. If she gave it to him in small doses, his eventual death would have been chalked up to a heart condition.” She shook her head. “Poor old stupid Roscoe.”

Nina snapped her fingers. “Then, when Roscoe went to the hospital, she became nervous. What if he died before Audie? So she had to hurry up a new batch of dressing and run it over to Audie’s house!”

“That blows our theory entirely. If she chopped up plants because she didn’t know which ones were poisonous, then how did she manage to avoid giving Roscoe monkshood? If he threw out his digitalis prescription like he said, and she didn’t know one flower from the next, then how would she have poisoned him with foxglove?”

Francie sat back. “I’m exhausted. I don’t know how you girls manage without sleep. Sophie, promise me you’ll call
Kenner and tell him about Mindy when you get home? He should know that we saw Mindy going into Audie’s house.”

“I must be getting older because I no longer bristle when someone calls me a girl.” Nina kissed Francie on the cheek. “Get some sleep.”

It was ten thirty when we left Francie’s house. “Should I call Kenner now or wait until morning?”

“Mindy’s in the hospital, so presumably she can’t do much damage. On the other hand, maybe he should know now. He could be on the way to arrest Olive.”

We went back to my house, and naturally, I couldn’t find Kenner’s number. When had he given it to me? At Wolf’s house. I’d worn a sleeveless top that day with skorts and regretted it when the bushes scratched my arms. I ran upstairs and found Kenner’s number stashed in the pocket of the skorts, along with the picture of Wolf and Anne on the beach that I’d swiped from Wolf’s house. I pressed in the numbers on my cell phone to call Kenner and slid the photo into my purse for safekeeping. I wanted to return it in good condition. Except for memories, pictures were all Wolf had left of Anne.

Kenner answered immediately. I told him we had a theory about Mindy based on fact, but when I started to explain it, he said, “Are you at home? I’ll be right there.”

The door knocker banged before I reached the foyer. When I opened the door, Mars and Kenner waited outside, breathless.

“Were you standing out on the street?” I asked.

“Actually, we were. Natasha has some kind of weird project under way, and she’s banging on metal,” explained Mars. “We were trying to get away from the clanging.”

They followed me to the kitchen. “Could I get you a drink?”

“Nothing hard for me, thanks.” Mars wrinkled his nose. “I think I’m off it for a while. I didn’t like what that scotch did to me.”

“Afraid of drinking and eating? How about a black cherry float?”

Kenner perked up. “Are you serious? I haven’t had a float since I was a kid!”

Was it just me, or was Kenner becoming slightly more personable?

I took down soda fountain glasses that I had snagged at a yard sale for next to nothing.

While Nina explained our theory about Mindy chopping plants, putting them into Italian dressing, and delivering them to Audie’s house on the sly, I pulled vanilla ice cream from the freezer.

Letting it soften for just a couple of minutes, I looked for old-fashioned black cherry soda in my pantry and brought several bottles to the island counter.

“I see another flaw in your theory.” Mars ruffled the fur on Daisy’s neck. “If Mindy didn’t know anything about gardening, how did she know about foxglove and digitalis?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe she saw an article in a magazine, or someone happened to mention it to her.” Nina suggested. “I’m always running across weird information.”

I scooped creamy vanilla ice cream into the tall glasses and poured the soda over the ice cream. One long iced-tea spoon and a straw went into each. I brought them to the table with blue napkins on a little tray.

In all the time that I had known him, Kenner had never looked so happy.

Mars had a mouthful of ice cream but said, “Mmm. Perfect.” He swallowed. “We should do this more often. Not the poison stuff, but the floats. I’ll take this over Mindy’s scotch any day. What’s that?” He pointed at the paper Nina held.

“I made a list to help us figure all this out. The victims are on the left and the suspects are on the right.” Nina shoved the list to the center of the table so they could read it.

“If you suspect Mindy, why isn’t she on the suspect side?” asked Kenner.

Nina added Mindy’s name to the other column.

“Heath is the odd man out here since he’s not a Greene,” mused Mars. “Shouldn’t you add Anne Fleishman’s name to the victim side? She was entangled with Heath in some way.”

“What about Audie?” I asked. “He could have killed Heath.”

I watched as Nina wrote Anne’s name, then added Wolf, Mona, and Audie to the suspects column. “I hardly think Wolf has been poisoning the Greenes.”

“No one ever said there couldn’t be two people trying to poison someone.” Kenner’s suggestion caught me by surprise.

“Of course! That would explain the two different poisons.” I squinted at Kenner. How could I convince him to tell us more? Maybe if I said something outrageous. “Is Wolf a suspect in Heath’s murder?”

Nina’s entire body jolted. “I need a drink. The hard kind, scotch, not soda. Mars, can I get you one?”

“No thanks. I’ve been off scotch since the day I had some of Mindy’s stash and felt so ragged afterward.”

Mars and I said it at the same time. “The scotch.”

“One of the poisons could be in the scotch. You didn’t have any, right, Sophie?” asked Mars.

“I don’t usually drink that early in the day. Well, maybe a Mimosa or something fruity. Nothing that strong anyway. Cricket didn’t have a drink, either. It was just you and Roscoe. We didn’t have any salad or dressing with lunch. Maybe you should call and warn Roscoe.”

Kenner held out a hand. “It’s okay. All kinds of things were taken from the house to be analyzed. I’m sure they’re checking the liquor, too.”

“They might not have known about it,” I said. “It’s in a globe.”

Mars chimed in. “It looks like a piece of furniture.” He picked up my telephone and dialed.

We listened to Mars explain the situation to Roscoe.

Mars placed his hand over the receiver. “Roscoe’s on his
way downstairs to remove the bottle so no one else will drink from it.”

“Ask him if Mindy drank any of the scotch recently,” I suggested.

We waited, eating the ice cream in our floats.

Kenner blew on the back of his wrist.

I recognized the blisters and bumps from my own encounters with a vicious weed. “Poison ivy?”

“I guess so. It itches like the devil.”

“It’s gone?” Mars shouted. “Yeah, good-night Roscoe.” Mars hung up. “Mindy’s scotch decanter is missing. Though he sounded more upset about the fact that Violet still hasn’t refilled his bourbon decanter. And Mindy had a couple of drinks the night before she fell down the stairs.”

“I knew it!” Nina waved her spoon. “Mrs. Danvers—er, Violet—is the poisoner. She probably poured out his bourbon on purpose to drive him to Mindy’s bottle of scotch.”

“I really drank poison?” Mars grabbed his throat with both hands and hacked.

It
was
frightening. Mars could have been seriously hurt. I knew his propensity to obsess over things, though. With the confident tone of a school nurse, I said, “You’re fine. Maybe the cops found the scotch and took it to test.”

Kenner remained silent.

“What are you thinking?” I asked him.

“Violet would be very clever if she had done that because it would appear that she had intended to kill Mindy, not Roscoe.” Kenner’s eyes narrowed, as though he was trying to figure something out.

“As cold and odd as Violet is, I think she truly loves Audie,” I said. “I can’t see her poisoning Roscoe or Audie. And since she does most of the cooking, she would surely realize that Cricket doesn’t like Italian dressing.”

“Good point,” said Mars. “I’m in total agreement. We can cross Violet off the list of suspects.” He frowned at Kenner. “I can tell you’re up to something. Come on, tell us.”

Nina aimed her pencil at Violet’s name but didn’t cross
it off. “So you think we’re right?” she asked Kenner. “Mindy tried to poison Audie?”

Kenner sucked the remainder of his soda through the straw. “I never said any such thing.” He stood up and stretched. “Thanks. I’d better get going, it will be an early day tomorrow.”

I walked him to the front door. “Overworked without Wolf?”

“Without him
and
because of him. Thanks for the soda. Wolf obviously has good taste in women. I just don’t understand what they see in him.”

He looked sort of wistful. I had thought the days of his romantic interest in me were over. Opening the door, I shuffled back, just in case he thought he was going to kiss me. I needn’t have worried. Daisy had followed us from the kitchen and immediately growled at him.

He stepped out quickly to get away from her. “I don’t know why you keep such a mean dog.”

I closed the door and hugged my not-at-all-mean canine. When we returned to the kitchen, Nina and Mars were high-fiving. “I wouldn’t be so fast to celebrate. We don’t know that we’re right.”

“Hah!” said Nina. “We nailed Mindy. I know we did.”

“Clearly the other person wants to eliminate Mindy,” said Mars.

Nina gloated. “Pretty ironic, don’t you think? There’s Mindy chopping up plants from the garden to get rid of Audie, and meanwhile, someone is trying to kill
her
. My money is on Mrs. Danvers. Remember how upset she was about Mindy wanting to throw her out?”

“I don’t know.” I slurped the rest of my soda. “Olive is the one with expertise about plants and herbs. Mindy ruined Olive’s life, practically pulled the rug right out from underneath her. I’d say Olive has the strongest motive.”

“I’ve been spending a lot of time with the Greenes,” said Mars. “It could be any one of them—Olive, Audie, Violet, even Roscoe. He was furious about the crown Mindy bought for herself.”

Nina chuckled and wrote Roscoe’s name in the right column. “Wait until he finds out about her shoe addiction.”

Mars looked confused.