A Game of Murder (6 page)

“He was here, too,” Hope said, then lowered her voice and added, “but he didn’t say anything about poison. No wonder he interrogated me about how I prepared the food, could any contaminants have been introduced in the kitchen, things like that.” Hope’s voice took on a note of aggravation. ”I showed him the most recent health inspection certificate and let him know I pride myself on the cleanliness of my kitchen.”

Faith stood at the office window, which overlooked her nascent garden. Most of the plants were still small, despite profiting from a season of monsoon rains. The hummingbird feeder she’d hung on a pole appeared to need refilling. “Did he ask about Lorna?”

The squeak of a hinge and the thunk of a door closing sounded in the background before Hope responded. “He asked for her address and phone number. Oh—and how long Lorna has worked here.”
 

A hummingbird hovered at the feeder, poked its needle-nosed beak into first one, then another of the plastic flowers, looking for nourishment. Finding none, it darted away.

Just as Faith was about to say something, Hope asked, “You don’t think he believes Lorna poisoned Mira?”

“He might. He implied the competition for the game trophy might be a motive. I just don’t see Lorna killing anybody.” Faith thought of the Renaissance festivals with jousting and dueling and fake battles that Lorna and her husband participated in. “Not in real life.”

“But who else could have poisoned Mira’s salad?” Hope asked. “We’re the only ones who worked on the food. Do you think it’s safe to have her work here?”

The question confused Faith for a minute. Maybe she’d been focusing on her garden too intently. “What do you mean?”

“If Lorna poisoned one person, might she not poison another? I can’t take the chance if that’s a possibility. The Prickly Pear would be ruined; it’s bad enough one person died in the café. So far, no one’s said anything, but you know how fast news like this travels.”

Faith did. Even in a city the size of Tucson, bad news often traveled as fast as in a small town. “I can’t see Lorna as a murderess. I’ve known her for five years and nothing she’s said or done ever indicated that kind of temperament. I’d make a much more likely suspect.”

“Don’t say anything like that, Faith, even in jest. Someone might hear you and report it to the police.”

Faith sighed. “You’re right, of course. Until this murder is solved, we’d both better be on our best behavior.”

* * *

“You’re here!” Faith said as she opened the door and, gratefully, found John on the other side. He was always a welcome sight, but today she was especially glad to see his scruffy face and sparkling, ice blue eyes.

He grinned that rakish grin of his, the one that reached inside her chest and squeezed her heart.

“That bad, huh?” He stepped over the threshold.

Faith closed the door behind him. “No, but I’m not used to kids.” She raised a finger to her lips. “Luke’s asleep on the couch. I don’t know if you want to wake him or not.”

“I’ll let him sleep, if that’s okay with you. Anything you need to attend to?”

Faith shook her head. “Not right now.”

Their discussion turned out to be needless. Luke sat up, rubbing his eyes, which he stopped doing as soon as he saw John. “Daddy!” He hopped off the couch and ran into John’s arms.

“Hey, buddy.” John scooped the little boy up in the air and swung him around in a circle before clasping him to his chest and planting a wet kiss on his cheek.

“Yuck!” Luke rubbed away the kiss-slobber with his sleeve.

John laughed, and Faith’s lips lifted in a responding smile. There was so much love between father and son. Tears came to her eyes as she remembered her own father, how she’d run into his arms just like Luke, been hugged just like Luke, loved him just like Luke loved John.

“Are you hungry?” John asked the little boy, then glanced at Faith to include her in the question.

Faith tipped her head slightly, signifying her response.

“Yes!” Luke nodded his head vigorously.

“Where should we go?” This time the question was for Faith.

“How about the Prickly Pear?” She wasn’t sure the café was a child’s kind of food, but she wanted to talk to Lorna again.

“Tacos?” John asked Luke.

“Tacos,” Luke agreed.

Most of the tables were full when the three of them walked into the Prickly Pear Café, as they usually were during the lunch hour. While Hope was smiling as she mixed drinks and made sandwiches behind the counter, Lorna, who was waiting tables, looked a bit frazzled. She surreptitiously tucked in the tail of her shirt—one of the new ones with the turquoise rickrack—as she finished writing an order at the adjoining table and then hurried across the room to hand it to Hope.

When she appeared at Faith and John’s table carrying three glasses of water, the shirttail had come untucked again. A sheen of perspiration coated her face. “Do you need menus or do you know what you want?”

“We’re ready,” John said. “What about you, Faith?”

“Do you have the chipotle chicken salad today?” Faith asked.

“We do,” Lorna said.

“I’ll have that on a flour tortilla.”

“Beef tacos for Luke and me,” John said.

Lorna glanced in Hope’s direction where a group of three customers stood waiting for their take-out orders. “It may be a while before Hope gets to cook the beef.”

“We can wait,” John said, “As long as you bring us a basket of chips and some salsa for Luke to munch on.”

“That I can do.” Lorna hurried off to hand Hope the order.

“So much for my plan,” Faith said. She’d thought she might be able to casually ask Lorna some questions, find out if the detective’s suspicions had any grounding in reality.

John arched his eyebrows. “What plan?”

“I was going to”—Faith suddenly remembered Luke and thought murder wasn’t an appropriate topic for a four-year-old—“I’ll tell you later.” She looked in Luke’s direction and pointed with her chin.

John got her meaning. “Oh.”

Faith sipped her water. Lorna had been so rushed, she hadn’t asked about drinks with their lunch order, which was okay with Faith. She was pretty sure she’d reached her vanilla latte quota this week. “So, will you need me to sit with Luke tomorrow, too?”

“If you think you can handle it.” He cocked his head to the side as he gazed at her, his words more of a question than a statement.

Faith stiffened, but kept her teeth clamped together and her lips sealed, because Lorna chose that moment to arrive with the chips and salsa. As soon as she’d gone and Luke was contentedly munching on the food, Faith responded. “Are you saying I’m incompetent? We did fine today, didn’t we, Luke?”

The little boy paused in his munching. Salsa dribbled down his chin. “Uh huh.”

“Sorry. You seemed a bit overwhelmed earlier.”

Faith immediately regretted her outburst. Maybe she
had
been overwhelmed.

John picked up his water and drank. “I’ll take him to the church with me tomorrow, let him play in the church nursery. Thursday is my day to visit people in the hospital and shut-ins at home. If you can, I’d like you to watch Luke then.” He paused while Faith nodded. “Friday afternoon I’ll bring him back to Roni. She should be back by then.”

“Have you heard how things are going?” Faith didn’t dare be any more specific than that. It didn’t seem right to talk about his mother’s problem with addiction in front of the little boy. For the second time in less than fifteen minutes, she had to censor herself because of Luke. Carrying on conversations in the presence of a child would take practice—and some getting used to. She remembered how her parents had tried spelling when they wanted to communicate something private. A ploy that hadn’t worked for long.

John shook his head. “Not a word. I suppose I’ll find out when I see her.”

On Thursday, the weather was too nice to spend the whole day inside. Luke’s hand felt tiny enveloped in hers as the two of them walked down the street. After John had asked her to sit with the little boy again today, she’d scouted the neighborhood and found a park where she could take him to play. She was hoping Luke would run off some energy and, with any luck, take a nap afterwards.

“First we have to look both ways,” Faith said as Luke tugged on her hand when she stopped at the curb.

“I don’t see a car.” Luke’s voice held the same authority as John’s did when he was preaching a sermon.

“But we have to look anyway. First we look left.” Faith turned her head with an exaggerated motion to demonstrate. “Then we look right.” She suppressed a smile as Luke turned his head, mimicking her. “And then we look left once more to make sure.”

Of course, Luke had been right. There was no traffic on this residential street, especially at this time of day. “Let’s cross.”

Luke’s little legs pumped up and down in his eagerness to get to the park. Children of all ages and sizes filled the park on this fall afternoon. Two teams of boys played a soccer game on a field at one end, while other children climbed monkey bars and swung on swings in a small playground close by, their laughter bubbles of joy floating in the sunlit air.

“I want to play!” Luke pointed at the soccer game.

“I think those boys are too big for you, but we can go watch them.”

As soon as Faith loosened her grip on Luke’s hand, he slipped out of her fingers and ran toward the field. Faith quickened her steps to catch up with him before he could run into the middle of the game. Fortunately, he stopped at the edge, dancing first on one foot then the other in his eagerness. When Faith reached the sideline, she was surprised to see Lorna also watching the game.

“Hi, Lorna.”

Lorna took her eyes off the players for a second to look at Faith. “Oh, hi, Faith.” She immediately returned her attention to the game.

“No work today?” Faith searched her memory to see if she’d forgotten some holiday. Today was Thursday, so unlikely to be one, but you never could be sure. She remembered when Tucson decided to observe Cesar Chavez Day. Boston celebrated Patriot’s Day and Evacuation Day. Local holidays could easily trip you up.

“I took the afternoon off.”

The referee blew his whistle, temporarily stopping play. Lorna turned toward Faith and smiled. “This is the big championship game, so I had to come watch Scott Junior.” She turned her attention to the little boy looking up wistfully at the grown-up faces. “Hi, Luke.”

“Hi, Mrs. Ferguson.” Luke glanced back toward the field.

“Tammi, why don’t you take Luke over to the swings?” Lorna suggested to a smaller, thinner version of herself. The young girl wore a pink tank top that flared like a mini-skirt and the briefest of white shorts. Tammi made a face. “Please?”

“All right. Let’s go, Luke.”

Luke trotted off toward the swings, ignoring Tammi’s extended hand. Tammi shrugged and followed him.

The teams gathered around their benches, where the coaches animatedly proceeded to give them encouragement and instructions.

“Halftime,” Lorna explained. “I’m glad you showed up.”

Surprised, Faith asked, “Why?”

“That detective called on me three times.”

Faith raised her eyebrows. “What about?”

“Various things. The last time, he asked about Scott’s job at the pharmaceutical company.”

“Any idea why?”
What could Lorna’s husband have to do with the murder?

Lorna sighed. “It turns out the poison that killed Mira is commonly used as a preservative in laboratories. After the detective called, I asked Scott about it, and he acted as if sodium azide is as common as dirt. I’m sure the detective thinks I had access to it through Scott.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Although, putting together the availability of the poison with the incentive of the competition, and the fact that Lorna had been the last one to touch Mira’s salad, she did have motive, opportunity, and, now, means. It wasn’t looking good for Lorna Ferguson.

“You know that. I know that. The detective doesn’t know that.” Another sigh.

“Surely some of the guys are a lot more likely suspects,” Faith said.

“
I
think so. I’m pretty sure at least two or three of them were harassing her online, and somebody doxxed her.”

“Doxxed?” Faith had been out of the geek loop for a while, so the term wasn’t familiar to her.

Another whistle and the short half-time ended. The boys ran back onto the field and took their places.

“Posted her address and phone number online. The entire world knew where she lived. It really frightened her.” Lorna lowered her voice to a whisper. “Someone even posted links to nude pictures of her.”

“Yikes! Who would post such a thing online?”

Yells and cheers went up from the parents on the sidelines. Lorna turned her attention back to the game, raised her arms, and yelled, “Go, Scotty,” then groaned as he missed the shot on goal.

She turned back to Faith and shrugged. “Hey, you know these kids. They take photos with their phones and post them places where they think they’re only going to be seen by a couple of people. Pretty soon the photos are all over the web. Even if they delete them, they never truly go away.”

Faith nodded. Few people knew about sites like The Wayback Machine, which stored versions of websites going back decades. “So these guys were serious with their threats.”

“You might say that.”

“Didn’t she report the harassment to the police?” Faith asked.

Lorna shook her head. “Mira was terrified, but she didn’t want to let the guys know they were getting to her. She was determined to win the comp and show them all up.”

Faith understood that kind of bullheadedness. She had a bit of a stubborn streak herself.

“I’m thinking about withdrawing from the competition,” Lorna said, gazing down at her feet.

“Why?” Even before Mira’s demise, Faith would have thought Lorna had a good chance of winning.

Lorna raised her head, stared Faith in the eye. “I have two kids.” She gestured toward Scott Junior on the field, then Tammi pushing Luke on a swing. “I can’t risk their safety.”

“Do you really think the guys would go after your kids?” Some of Hope must have rubbed off on her. Faith couldn’t imagine anyone trying to get at a mother through her children.