Drizzled With Death (3 page)

“I can only hope that’s true of the other competitors since I’ve got my eye on the pewter pitcher.”

“Nobody puts me off my feed, especially not with my favorite cheerleader here to egg me on,” Grampa said, blowing a kiss at Grandma. He took his spot between Alanza’s seat and the one held for Jill Hayes, who had yet to appear, then nodded at the high school boys on the far side of Alanza. Myra took a break from flipping sausage to be sure the competitors were ready. It was already ten minutes past when the contest was scheduled to begin, and even though Jill still hadn’t arrived, Myra announced we should get started. She signaled for the pancake servers to stream in from the kitchen. The official referee blew his whistle and the competition began.

Cheering erupted from the hall and children stood on their folding chairs to get a better view of adults eating in a way they’d be sent from the table for imitating. Roland held his own for the first three towering stacks of pancakes despite his heart troubles and his wife’s admonishments to consider his health. The teenagers came on strong at the beginning but faded fast once the fourth and fifth stacks were placed in front of them. Only Alanza and Grampa remained by the sixth stack of steaming cakes.

Grampa shifted in his seat in just the way he did every year at Thanksgiving to make room for pie. Alanza seemed to favor saturating the pancakes with so much syrup they dissolved into a pile of mush and needed no chewing. Only slowing to swat his beard out of his plate, Grampa maintained a steady pace through his seventh stack. Alanza, however, began to slow down. Her shoulders slumped and her eyes became glazed. Squinting at her carefully, I noticed a bit of foam forming at the corners of her mouth. Before I could ask if she was all right, she swayed gently, let out a deep moan, and pitched face-first into her plate.

I stood, stunned, unsure whether to cheer or to call for the
ambulance. It looked like a win for Grampa, bringing his streak to thirty-seven in a row. The junior firefighters were on their feet attempting to administer first aid. One pulled Alanza’s face out of her plate, the other felt her syrup-covered neck for a pulse. Grandma, a nurse before her marriage, stepped up to help him. After a couple of moments she looked at me and shook her head.

I looked out over the crowd, searching for Bob Sterling, the town’s only full-time EMT. Graham materialized beside me.

“I guess now might not be the right time for my announcement,” he said. I was distracted from answering him by Lowell Matthews, the police chief and my godfather, emerging from the kitchen, his business look on his face. It was the one he pulled out for speeding teenagers, men attempting to get friendly with underaged girls, and drivers with boozy breath. I worked my way closer to Grandma once more. She placed her bony hand on my elbow and squeezed harder than I can remember her doing other than the time I started to tell Aunt Hazel what I really thought of the birthday present she sent me when I was six. Suddenly, she looked frail and not entirely like the grandmother I knew.

I felt a cold wash of fear pour over me, as if Alanza’s death had suddenly made death real for us all and I wanted its cold fingers off my loved ones. I scanned the room for my mother and siblings but couldn’t make them out in the chaos. Even though I stood on the stage area, many of the breakfast goers were still taller than me and blocked my view. At least Grampa was in sight. He bent over Alanza along with Lowell. They seemed to be conferring and I nodded at Grandma before sliding closer to them.

“Does it look like a heart attack?” Lowell asked Bob Sterling.

“Maybe. No outward signs of what happened. But then again, you never know.” Bob raised an eyebrow like he had his doubts.

“Considering how popular she was and that she died eating something she didn’t prepare, I’m going to play it safe on this one.” Lowell said. Then he did something I’d never heard him do. He hollered. A deep, rumbling, frightening holler that stopped all noise in the grange, just as Alanza had when she traipsed through it earlier. Back when she still could move her body.

“I need everyone to remain here. I’m going to need to ask a few questions and to take attendance of who was here this morning. But first, has anyone else here taken ill? Anyone who feels the least bit off?” Lowell scanned the room, as did everyone else. All heads rotated in unison, curious about their neighbors. “Please, don’t eat anything else. I expect no one is in any danger but I don’t want to take any chances. Please remain seated and an officer will be by to take your statement or collect your contact information just as quickly as possible.” Grandma stretched to whisper something in Lowell’s ear and I saw him nod. “Families with children will be spoken with first in order to let them get on home. Thanks for your patience.”

He nodded at Mitch Reynolds, my tall, blond, and almost handsome ex-boyfriend, who headed for the the stage, an open notepad in his hand.

Lowell had a notepad of his own out and was jotting down things my grandparents were saying about timelines and consumption. Mostly, I heard Grampa evaluating Alanza’s technique as a pancake-eating contestant until Grandma reminded him that Lowell was more interested in learning how she died. The two high school boys looked both scared and excited at the same time. This was going to be a really big deal at school on Monday.

I looked over the assembled group and thought about how a town that could be counted on to turn out for a firefighters’ fund-raiser could also be one that would murder someone at the same event. Not that I was sure it was murder. Someone as rotten as Alanza might well be poisoned by her own spit. Considering the toxic things she said, it was a miracle it hadn’t happened before now.

Mitch was dismissing families with small children at a surprisingly fast clip. The hall was steadily thinning out. He looked up from the Johnson family and noticed my gaze. He pointed at me and then at a seat at the table in front of him. I was tempted to ignore him and wait for Lowell to be available but decided that if everyone else was doing their best to behave like good citizens, I could, too. I plunked myself down in the chair he indicated.

“What were you doing up there with Alanza at the time of her unfortunate demise?” He towered over me, his notebook in one hand, a pencil with a freshly sharpened tip in the other.

“I was cheering my grandfather on, of course. Alanza just happened to be one of the other competitors.”

“You aren’t going out of town anytime soon, are you?”

“You know we never go anywhere for Thanksgiving. You know how the family is about all the decorating. After the effort that goes into gussying the place up, they want to stick around and soak in the sight of it. Why? Are you telling me I’m a suspect?”

“Of course you are. All the Greenes are suspects. Not only did she die while eating your syrup, you were standing right there when she died. For all I know, you slipped something into her food or drink when no one was paying attention.”

“Why would any of us want to kill her?’

“The pewter pitcher, of course.” Mitch shook his head and rolled his eyes at me.

I looked back over to the stage. Lowell was carefully placing Alanza’s plate into one plastic bag, her jug of syrup into another, her coffee cup into a third. I tried to remember if I’d touched anything on the table, but the only thing I could think of was the coffee I’d handed to my grandparents. I wondered if they would check the surfaces of the items for fingerprints as well as the contents for poisons. There were so many people involved in an event like this, it seemed like fingerprints wouldn’t be much help. Everyone on the kitchen staff could have touched the plates, cups, and flatware. The patrons could have touched anything, including plates they decided not to use. I’d noticed children being asked to stop touching things all morning long. Their fingerprints wouldn’t make them murderers. Then there was my family. We had all helped handle the maple syrup jugs the night before. Who knew whose prints would be on each bottle? There was nothing special about Alanza’s other than her name being on it to serve as a place marker at the table.

“You think one of us would kill over a pancake-eating competition?”

Every year Celadon takes a lot of care writing each contestant’s name on a maple leaf shaped paper tag, which she then ties to a bottle of syrup. The tradition started years ago when Celadon wanted to show off that she had mastered cursive. Grandma even created a scrapbook with Grampa’s tag from each year mounted next to a photo of him holding his pewter pitcher trophy. The trophy meant a lot to all of us since Grampa loves to win, but none of us would kill over it.

“I think if anyone thought they could get away with murder in this town, it’s your family.”

“There are plenty of other people in this room who are happy to see Alanza buttered side down. If I were you, I’d start talking to some of them.” I stood and started to stomp away. It had been a rough few days, and the thought of being accused of murder was bringing on a headache that was much closer to a real migraine than I liked. Mitch grabbed my arm and held me in place.

“No matter what you say, I’ve got my eye on you. If you or any of your family had something to do with this, I’ll go right over the chief’s head to the state police if I think he can’t be objective.” Mitch shoved his pencil into his breast pocket so hard the tip punched through the fabric.

“I’ll be sure to let him know you said that. It will do your career a world of good for him to know you are a man of such integrity.” I wrenched my arm away. “And speaking of your career, don’t you think you ought to hurry up and question the Shaws? You don’t want to keep a seated selectman waiting longer than necessary.” Mitch scurried over to the table where Kenneth was seated with his wife, Nicole. Kenneth checked his watch twice in the amount of time it took him to cross the twenty feet of the grange hall.

I found a spot in the corner to sit and let my eyes wander the room. Everywhere I looked, there were people who might celebrate Alanza’s death. The snowmobile club had more members than the church; her neighbors Roland and Felicia Chick and even many syrup makers like the curiously absent Jill Hayes had good reason to celebrate her sudden demise. If she had been poisoned, suspects would be thicker on the ground than ticks in an unmown field. I sat wondering about how my family could stop being among them until Lowell came over to dismiss me about a half hour later.

“What do you think they’ll do about the pewter pitcher?” Grampa asked as soon as I slid the minivan door into place.

“What do you mean, do about it?” Grandma asked.

“Well, I won, didn’t I? I kept on eating after Alanza so I’m clearly the winner.”

“I’m not sure it counts as a win if the competition dies,” my grandmother said quietly. She isn’t given to a lot of words like her husband and never has much to say that isn’t worth hearing.

“I ate more than she did before she keeled over, too.” Grampa leaned forward excitedly, causing his seat belt to cinch tightly across his belly.

“But no one can be sure she wouldn’t have eaten more if she hadn’t died.”

“Ahh, but she did die, now didn’t she? Making me the winner. I shouldn’t think a thing like this should break my winning streak.” Grampa pulled at his beard, stopping to inspect a bit of dried food stuck in the end of it.

“But Mitch already asked me if we poisoned her to make sure you won the pewter pitcher. I think you’d better lie low with this for a bit,” I said, feeling a knot of worry tighten in my still empty stomach.

“Besides, Emerald, you know that is simply unseemly. You are absolutely without feeling carrying on like that.” Grandma smoothed her skirt the way she always did when she felt the unusual need to rebuke Grampa.

“But, Olive—” Grampa said.

“Don’t ‘but, Olive’ me. I will speak to Myra Phelps tomorrow after church but you will not, I repeat, not bring this up to anyone else. Dani is right. We don’t need that sort of headache. If you insist on behaving like that, we’ll all come down with one of Dani’s migraines.” Grandma skewered me with a knowing look that made me glad I had confessed earlier rather than having that to look forward to at the end of a long, hungry morning.

Grampa harrumphed and sank back against his seat, uncharacteristically quiet for the remainder of the five-mile journey. It was too early in the season for potholes and I was able to get a good smooth view off into the woods along the side of the road. Maples and hemlocks filled the woods with scatterings of beeches, their dried leaves clinging to the branches like old people wearing the hairstyles of their youth. Through the trees I spotted something moving oddly. After my encounter with the mountain lion the night before, my senses were on high alert. I leaned forward, pressing my snub nose to the tinted glass. I blinked, then blinked again. Last night the game warden had said wine was the culprit for my hallucinations. Now I was asking myself if it was low blood sugar.

Hustling between the trees, I was sure, sure enough to bet my bossy oldest sister Celadon’s life on it, was a large donkey in a black-and-white-striped costume. I squinted and blinked some more. Sure enough, it was still there. No one I knew of in town had a donkey. The Spencer family had one in the past to keep predators away from their flock of chickens but it had unfortunately eaten some siding off its enclosure and died of internal bloating. Unless I was looking at the striped ghost of a gluttonous donkey, something else was up. Or I really was hallucinating. If I thought for sure I was seeing this apparition, was I still certain I had seen the mountain lion the night before? Could that obnoxious man from the state have actually been right about me seeing things? Then, I remembered what Graham had said about the escaped animals. Alanza’s death had driven that bit of exciting news right out of my mind.

“Did you see that?” I asked Grandma, reaching toward her with my closest hand, not taking my eyes off the creature in the woods. But before she answered, the animal disappeared. I leaned back in my seat but continued to scan the trees for another glimpse of it. The road bends away from the woods, and before I knew it, we were out of sight.

“I’m sorry, Dani,” Grandma said. “See what?”

“Never mind. I must have been imagining things. Besides, whatever it was is gone now.” I didn’t tell anyone about my mountain lion sighting, but they could find out down at the Stack or the general store or even the post office if the gossip about Alanza didn’t manage to sink it deep enough under the feet of old news. I found myself hoping gossip would run amok and Myra wouldn’t have any tidbits to share concerning me. Or that even if she did, no one would be interested. But since she was at the police department, it seemed like she would be the most favored conduit of information concerning the possible murder and that my secret was safe as long as the guy from the state didn’t say anything.

Even if he did, it wasn’t likely he’d say anything to anyone I knew. He could blab all he wanted to the other guys back at the Fish and Game station house, wherever that was, and tell them about the crazy woman who’d been drinking and thought a mountain lion was padding across her porch like a house cat. It probably gave him something fun to share with his coworkers, a good laugh, a deep rumbling chuckle, but nothing that affected my reputation as long as he didn’t attach the name of the sugarhouse to the story.