Floral Depravity (9 page)

But it also occurred to me that an herbalist might have been able to identify monkshood and know of its deadly qualities. And Nick did say he got his herbs from the camp herbalist. Only monkshood root looks more like a vegetable than an herb. Nick wouldn't have made that mistake.

But that would have to wait until next time, because Liv's excited squeals told me she'd found the butter vendor. There'd be no haggling there. The pretty . . . well, I guess I'll have to call her a wench. Or maybe a dairy maid. Either way, the well-endowed brunette in the tight, low-cut bodice knew a sure sale when she had one. It wouldn't surprise me that the price had doubled since Nick bought his. She handed Liv two butter balls crudely wrapped in waxed paper.

“Here.” Liv handed me one.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked.

“You like butter.”

“I know, but I've got nothing to carry it in. It will melt in my hands by the time I get it back home.”

The dairy maid pointed across the aisle. “The woman over there is selling homemade bags. I send a lot of business her way.”

“Great!” Liv headed over.

“Thanks,” I said to the clerk.

“Anything else I can get for you? I also have some nice cheeses.”

I scanned her selection of cheese, which, I must admit, I prefer to see in plastic wrappers or at least behind a glass case. The flies seemed to like them, though.

“Just looking.” I aimed for a casual tone. “Some excitement here Saturday night, huh? Did you know the guy who died?”

“Trawling for information?”

“What gave me away?”

“Just about everyone here saw that sheriff deputize you. Word's gotten around that Joan of Arc is on the case.”

There'd be no clandestine snooping here. “Thanks anyway.”

“Hold on. I didn't say I wouldn't help. Brooks was no saint, but I can't say that I disliked him enough to wish that his killer gets away scot-free.”

“Did you know him well?” I asked.

“Only on the circuit. Many of the vendors—we go to a lot of these. Some of the enthusiasts travel, too. Brooks would go to a few of these every year, so you get to know him.”

“I heard he likes the ladies.”

“Is that why you came to me?”

I could feel the blood rush into my cheeks. “I didn't mean—”

“Of course you did. And don't think it offends me. It's my schtick. How do you think I get most of my business? Couples walking through here. He holds the purse strings. She's all, ‘Honey, can we get one of these, one of those?' and he's like, ‘But it's so expensive,' and then she's like, “Can we at least get a pound of fresh-churned butter?” and he's about to say no, but then he sees me, and I might lean over a little. And suddenly it's all, ‘Whatever you want, honey.'” She laughed. “Happens every day.”

“I—”

“But to answer your question. Yes. Brooks liked the ladies. I used to have to fight him off with a stick. Well, not literally . . .”

“Did you ever see him with Richard Wilson?”

“The priest?”

Liv came rushing back with her newly purchased bag.

“Funny you should say that. Once I swore I saw him watching Brooks.”

“Who?” Liv asked.

“The priest,” the dairy maid said. “Richard Wilson.”

“Oh, Audrey. A clue!” Liv practically squealed for the whole bazaar to hear. “Do you think the priest could be our killer?”

“No.” I turned to the dairy maid. “Thanks anyway.” I spun on my heels and started walking back.

“Audrey?” Liv called.

I didn't stop. Didn't turn. Just kept walking, almost wishing I were a child again so I could stop my ears and stamp my feet. I didn't slow until I heard Liv running behind me.

“Audrey, wait!”

I froze in my tracks until Liv caught up. “Audrey, what is it?”

“We need to go back,” I said.

“But we . . .”

I turned to look at her, doing little to hide the tears now streaming down my face.

“There's something I don't know, right?” she said.

I nodded.

“Come on, kiddo. Let's go back.” She took my arm and we negotiated the deer path to Larry's. We didn't talk as I helped her climb the short fence. Nor did we talk as we walked down that steep driveway.

Her car was waiting at the bottom. I managed to jockey the bike into her trunk. She drove me home, tapping her fingers in nervous energy on the wheel.

Suddenly I felt like I was seven, being driven home from school when the nurse realized I had the chicken pox. And almost just as itchy. I'd have to tell Liv something.

I swallowed and watched the fence posts passing.

Eric was gone by the time we pulled into the cottage driveway. He must have left before Liv had arrived, to allow her the opportunity to raid my closet and sneak off to the camp. As soon as we were in the back door, Liv put the kettle on the old electric stove and we both sat at the table, silent.

I closed my eyes. “It's my father.” Then I opened my eyes quickly to see what Liv's reaction would be.

Only confusion. “Your father?”

“Richard Wilson, the priest, is my father.”

“The priest is your father?”

“He's not a real priest.”

“But you knew your father. His name wasn't Richard Wilson.”

“It is now. At least when he's not known as suspect number one.”

Liv tacked another three-by-five card onto the board we normally used to track arrangements for large events.

“Do we have another job?” I asked.

“No. Slow week. These are suspects,” she said. “I thought we could use this as our murder board.”

“A murder board? You can't be serious.” I looked up at the cards she had placed: Chandler Hines. Andrea and Mel Brooks. Raylene Quinn. Kathleen Randolph. I pulled down one card. “What's an unsub?”

She snatched the card back and tacked it up again. “It stands for ‘unknown subject.' Don't you watch any television? Really, Audrey. You should make more of an effort to learn, especially since you're now officially in law enforcement.”

I barely resisted the temptation to roll my eyes, but I got her point. Whoever killed Brooks might not even be on our radar. Then my eyes fell to the card in her hand. “You got another one?”

Liv bit her lip. “I wasn't going to put it up.” She hid it behind her back.

But Amber Lee was one step behind her and whisked the card away from her.

“Hey!” Liv cried. “Give it back.”

“Highest bidder?” Amber Lee teased, fanning her face with the card. “I'll settle for my own parking space.”

But our expressions must have dimmed the mood, because her smile faded and she handed the card back to Liv. “Wow, someone's got the grumpy bug today.”

Meanwhile Opie pulled open the back door and returned to her pile of books stretched out on one of our worktables. Although business was too slow to categorize ourselves as shorthanded, Opie had begged some of Darnell's and Shelby's hours while they attended the re-creation. She was working on her paper between deliveries.

I held out my hand and Liv handed me the card. “Richard Wilson.” I shrugged and pinned it onto her board, gaining just a little too much satisfaction as the push pin stabbed through the corkboard.

Liv winced. “Sorry, Audrey.”

“Who's Richard Wilson?” Amber Lee asked.

“He's the friar, right?” said Opie. “Father Richard?”

I nodded.

“That's one spooky dude,” she said. “Oh! And it makes sense! He's the friar, and Mr. Brooks was killed with monkshood. Why, that's diabolically clever. Like a signature.”

“I think a truly clever killer would divert suspicion
away
from himself,” Amber Lee said.

“Unless by obviously pointing to himself, he becomes less of a suspect,” Opie said. Then she knit her brows. “I don't know if that's clever or just confusing.”

“But it reminds me . . .” I reached for my language of flowers guide and thumbed through until I found monkshood.

“What does it mean?” Liv asked.

“Knight-errantry,” I said.

“Okay, you have to admit, that's spooky, too,” Opie said.

“Spooky?” Liv asked.

“When you said the friar was spooky,” I said, “what did you mean?”

Opie put the cap on her highlighter. “Nothing scary. Just very quiet. Always watching. Like he was studying everything and everybody. At first, I thought it went with the persona he was playing, but I don't know. He looked almost nervous, and it didn't seem like he was there because he enjoyed it.”

“And that's not typical?” Liv asked.

“Well, a bunch of the college kids are like that, because we had to be there.” She looked down at her stack of books. “And now I wish I was there. But Father Richard didn't seem all that thrilled with the place.”

“Yet nobody was making him stay,” I said.

“Sounds like he's a good suspect then,” Amber Lee said, then stared at me. “But you're not happy.”

I swallowed hard. I wasn't ready to share the news of my father's return with more people. Especially since he was now a suspect in a murder investigation. I'd felt much relieved to have shared the news with Liv. And she'd promised to discreetly see what she could learn from her mother and the Internet. Liv had a black belt in Google.

But I wasn't ready for everybody to know about my father just yet.

I was rescued from having to answer Amber Lee by the ding of the bell over the door.

“Audrey?”

I rushed to the front room and found Mrs. June hovering over the potted plants.

“You know,” she said, “I still have a few of the perennials your grandmother gave me. I'll bet some of them could be grown from cuttings. Feel free to help yourself whenever you want.”

“That's great,” I said. I'd contemplated asking her. It would add another touch of Grandma Mae back into the old place. “I'll stop over and take a look.”

Mrs. June leaned closer. “The plants are only one reason why I've come. I have news on the investigation.”

I shook my head as imperceptibly as I could, even though Liv was in the back room. “Eric still wants to keep her out of it, but I don't think I can.”

Mrs. June nodded.

“You might as well tell her now,” Liv called out. “Because I will find out later.” She peeked her head in the doorway. “There's no harm in just listening, right?” Liv smiled her cutest pixy-like smile, perhaps her most effective weapon. Those dimples alone were deadly.

Mrs. June looked to me, then to Liv. “First,” she said, “we got some toxicology results back.”

“That fast?” I said.

“Yes, it seems Sheriff Foley decided to contribute to the investigation, after all, and called in a few favors. He made a case to the FBI that if someone had tried to poison the whole encampment, we could have a serial killer on our hands, so they tested the stew in the pot, and the remnants that Brooks had apparently thrown on the ground, as well as the, uh . . .”

“Vomit?” I suggested.

“That's the word.” She then waited—that flair for the dramatic again.

“And?” I finally said.

“The large pot was clean. But the food he'd thrown on the ground and the . . . other sample did contain some remnants of aconite. So—”

“So whoever put the monkshood in the stew had targeted only Brooks,” Liv said. “That's good news, although kind of what we were going with.”

“We?” I asked.

“
You
, I mean.” She raised her hands in mock surrender.

“Does this mean the FBI has now taken over the case?” I wondered if my deputyship were now obsolete.

“Doesn't work like that,” Mrs. June said. “I mean, they might have had more interest had the whole pot been poisoned, but as it stands now, local law enforcement has the case. Which means Foley, who's more than happy to delegate to Bixby. And you. But there's more. Just as I was getting ready to leave, a woman popped into the station and asked where Jans and Son was.”

Jans and Son—the son in this case being Joe, whom the locals called Little Joe—were the local morticians.

“They need a bigger sign,” Opie said. By this time Opie and Amber Lee had made their way to the front.

“But all the locals know exactly where they are,” I said, “so this would have been . . .”

“The not-so-grieving widow,” Mrs. June said. “She was mighty anxious to make arrangements, even though the body hasn't been released yet.”

“Making arrangements here?” I asked.

“I guess she wants the remains cremated so she can travel with them more easily. That's all I really got from her. She doesn't seem the chatty type.”

“That seems cold,” Liv said.

“Or just pragmatic,” I said. “I suppose I should go talk with her. Maybe get a feel from her if Brooks thought he was in danger. Or if she knew of anyone who might have wanted to hurt him.”

“She's staying over at the Ashbury,” Mrs. June offered.

“I'll go with you,” Liv volunteered. “Just to pay my respects, of course.”

I held up a warning hand. “Just to the Ashbury, and then you come right back. I have to go back to the encampment.” I sent Liv a knowing look. “I suppose I need to ask Richard Wilson a few questions.”

“Oh!” Opie said. “If you're going back, could you find Carol for me? She has a book I need.” She scribbled the title on a piece of paper and handed it to me.

“
Daily Life in the Middle Ages
?” I read. “Isn't that something she's going to need at the camp?”

Opie shook her head. “I think she knows it by heart.”

Liv gnawed her cuticle. “Maybe you should take Opie with you.”

“I'm not allowed back,” Opie said.

“Or Amber Lee,” Liv said.

“I already took my costume back to the shop,” she said.

“Maybe I could just—” Liv started.

“Come to the Ashbury?” I said. “Sure.”

*   *   *

The front desk
was empty when we pulled open the restored doors of the historic inn. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but there was nobody at all in the lobby. It wasn't until we poked our head into the bar area that we saw an interesting assortment of characters. More than one were in medieval dress, but sitting in a Revolutionary War Era inn complete with up-to-date electric lighting and modernized to meet Virginia code. Apparently one didn't need a blue police box to travel in time. I only hope the merry men who sneaked off to frequent the local tavern didn't all cut through Larry's property and trample his plantings.

We found Kathleen Randolph sitting at a table with a blond woman with big hair and wearing a black pantsuit. A half-empty bottle of some kind of liquor—I'd say scotch, but I'm not an expert in potent potables—stood on the table between them, and based on their slouched postures and loud cackling laughter, I'd say they'd been at it for some time.

Liv leaned closer to me. “They don't seem all that broken up about it, do they?”

Kathleen raised her gaze to meet mine, smiled, and beckoned us over, managing to knock the liquor bottle over in the process, which was met by more raucous laughter. “Audrey, Liv. Come sit down and drink a toast with us. We're toasting the dear departed.”

Kathleen tried to rise out of her seat, but lost her balance and fell hard against the old wood chair, which creaked in protest. Not that Kathleen was a large woman, just that the chairs were all exceptionally old.

Liv waved her back down and slowly lowered herself onto the third chair at their table. I pulled another one from an empty table and joined them. No, as Liv pointed out, neither of these women seemed especially distressed by the recent death. But on the other hand, it hardly proved their guilt, either. But maybe while their lips were sufficiently loose . . .

“We need more glasses,” Kathleen said.

The big-haired blonde pointed to Liv's belly. “Maybe they want something else,” she said in a drawl I suspected was as much booze as it was Texas. Maybe sixty-forty.

“Oh, right. Good idea.” Kathleen signaled the waiter, who rushed over. Liv asked for a lemonade and I seconded that.

“See?” Kathleen told the blonde. “That's how they stay out of trouble. Make a lot fewer mistakes that way.” And then she stared morosely into her glass.

Yes, apparently misery loves company, but only if that company is also suitably miserable. Or comparatively toasted. So much for loose lips.

The blonde, whom I had decided must be Mrs. Brooks, seemed to pick up on Kathleen's mood shift. She lifted her glass and stared at the amber liquid. “I wonder how many bad decisions they pack into every bottle.” She pushed herself into a straight posture. “I was drunk when Barry Brooks proposed to me. Not that it was one of them romantic proposals. He was drunk, too. Suggested we drive to Vegas and get hitched. Hardly the proposal of a girl's dreams. Apparently I was fool enough to go along with it, even though I was sober by the time the limo pulled into that chapel.”

“That doesn't sound like the Barry I married,” Kathleen said. “What? No prenup?”

My ears perked up at that. Even though Mrs. Brooks wasn't at the reenactment, she'd have a motive if she was going to inherit part of the estate. She could have hired someone.

“Ah,” said the blonde, “apparently I signed that before I sobered up.” So if the current Mrs. Brooks, who seemed to be enjoying her new single status, had wanted to divorce Barry Brooks, she would have done so without any of his money. I wondered if his will offered her better parting gifts than his prenuptial agreement. If it had, the victim might have handed his wife a really great motive.

“That's my boy,” Kathleen shouted. “Liked his booze. Liked his women. Loved his money.”

“Hear, hear!” Mrs. Brooks said, and raised her glass before downing it in one gulp.

The waiter slid two glasses of lemonade onto the table and wisely skedaddled while Kathleen refilled the whiskey glasses, sloshing a good part of the bottle onto the tablecloth in the process.

Liv sipped her lemonade while I cradled my glass in my hands, trying to figure out how to approach this woman. “Mrs. Brooks,” I finally said.