Scene of the Brine (18 page)

Piper followed Emma into the room, her heart sinking at sight of the once-lively woman appearing to barely cling to life, her breaths shallow and her skin nearly transparent. Mrs. Tilley's eyelids lifted halfway and she smiled weakly. “Piper.” One palm rolled upward and Piper laid her own in it, pained at the total lack of strength she felt. “So . . . good,” Mrs. Tilley breathed out.

Piper covered the dry hand with her own second one, wanting to somehow pump warmth and energy into the older woman's wasted body. “It's good to see
you
,” she said. “We all want you to get over this and be back with us soon.”

Mrs. Tilley smiled. She drew a long breath. “Trying.”

“I know you are. Mrs. Tilley, I'm so sorry it was my brandied cherries that made you this sick. I don't know who put something in them, but I'm going to try my best to find out.”

Mrs. Tilley made a slight nod, more with her eyelids than her head. “Not . . . your fault,” she said. She drew another breath. “Find . . . who.”

“We will, Joan,” Emma said. “We'll find who did this. Won't we, Piper?”

Piper's impulse was to admit how difficult that might be. But she saw Joan Tilley's pale blue eyes brighten at Emma's promise. How could she not keep that spark alive?

“Yes, we will,” she agreed. “The person who did this to you is going to pay. I promise to do my best to see that nothing like this will happen again.”

At that, Mrs. Tilley's eyes slowly closed, but her lips had curled into a smile. Piper gently squeezed the woman's hand, then tucked it under the sheet. She followed Emma out of the room, thinking that she'd made a promise and had meant it. She'd better get busy at keeping it.

22

T
he following day was just as deadly quiet at Piper's Picklings as the previous one, and Amy's cell phone ring was the only bright interruption to the gloom. Amy chatted a few minutes, her comments making it clear that it was her long-time friend, Megan, on the other end. When the call ended, Amy turned to Piper.

“Megan said a strange woman stopped her a couple of days ago, asking where Franklin Street was. And by strange, Megan didn't mean that she didn't know her. She meant
strange
.”

“I think I know who she means,” Piper said. “Gwen Smyth. She stopped in here, too, wanting to know where the Porters' house was. I thought I gave her good directions but she might not have been, um, able to absorb them very well.”

“Why was she going to the Porters'? Who is she?”

“She said she's Lydia Porter's sister.”

“What? Megan described her as looking like a homeless person.”

“She might well be.” Piper retied her apron strings, which had loosened. “Or she might just be someone with a very, um, casual lifestyle. Either way, she seemed to expect Lydia and Jeremy to take her in.”

“Well, that should be interesting.”

Piper thought so, too, but she had other things to think of besides Porter relatives. She had told Amy about the lukewarm reception she got from Mrs. Tilley's friends at the hospital. She was grateful to Emma Leahy for standing up for her, and she knew Aunt Judy would do the same. But Piper also knew it would mainly be up to her to salvage what she could of her shop's reputation.

Piper eyed the rows of jars on her shelves surrounding the large gap left by the brandied cherries Sheriff Carlyle had carried off. “I may have to destroy all my handmade pickles and preserves to convince my customers it's safe to shop here again.”

“Don't!” Amy cried. “I checked all the vacuum seals on the lids. Every lid is absolutely tight. Absolutely nothing out here or in the back room has been tampered with.”

“Good to know, and thank you for checking. We can be just as sure that the spices I bought from dealers are sealed and safe. But will my customers be as certain? I'm afraid nothing other than a total replacement of my inventory will convince people who worry about poisoning.”

“But . . . can you afford to do that?” Amy asked. “I mean, that must be thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise.”

Piper knew she couldn't, really. But she said, “Let's worry about that later. I promised Mrs. Tilley I'd find the person who caused all this, so I'm going to concentrate on that first.”

When it came time for Amy to leave for her restaurant job, she did so reluctantly, clearly more concerned about Piper and her predicament. Piper appreciated the sentiment but shooed her assistant off, doing her best to appear upbeat. She managed that until Amy was out of sight but quickly felt the realities of her situation come crushing back down. That was not good.

She'd agreed with Gil that keeping Piper's Picklings open was the smarter thing to do. But sitting alone in the empty store, feeling unfairly shunned, was more difficult than she'd expected. For the first time in her life she didn't want to put up any pickles or preserves. The thought that others would look at the jars with suspicion was just too defeating. But she had to keep busy or find herself sinking into self-pity.

Amy had already given Sheriff Carlyle a list of buyers of the brandied cherries, going back to December. Piper decided she might as well search the purchases for the weeks before that, time-wasting though it felt. She herself was convinced the bloodroot had been added to the one jar that Mrs. Tilley ended up with. But if the sheriff wanted the full list, she'd give it to him. The tedious, mind-numbing job might actually help free up her thoughts for identifying the person responsible for it.

Piper sighed and pulled out a stool to get to work, opening up her laptop and her charged-sale records. She'd been at it for possibly ten unhappy minutes when rescue appeared in the form of Tammy Butterworth. Anyone at all would have been a welcome reprieve, but Tammy, with her unfailing cheeriness, was like being handed a glass of ice water while dragging through the desert. Piper hopped off her stool and managed to keep from wrapping her arms around the woman.

“How did the radish pickling go?” she asked once Tammy had breezed through the door.

“Great! At least, so far. We'll see how they taste later on.” Tammy's megawatt smile dimmed a few units. “I heard about your problem, the tainted cherries and all. I wanted to say don't worry too much. Sure, you'll lose business for a while”—her glance swept the quiet shop—“but I think you'll find people have short memories. That's been my experience, anyway.” Her grin turned slightly wicked at that, making Piper smile while wondering what this model cleaning lady's experience might have involved.

“Thanks, Tammy. How did you hear?”

“From Lydia Porter. I was polishing silver in the kitchen when she and Jeremy came in looking for coffee. Jeremy wanted toast, too, but couldn't find any jam to go with it. I know he really likes jam, so I said I wouldn't mind running over here to get him some, that yours was the best in town. That's when Lydia reared up and said in effect
no way
, then explained why. I stood up for you, which didn't go over well. Lydia doesn't like being crossed, in case you haven't noticed.”

“I've noticed,” Piper said. “I hope you didn't put your job at risk.”

Tammy shook her head. “That's one thing Jeremy insists on—keeping me on the job. I moved to Cloverdale at his request, if you remember.”

Piper nodded. “So that's worked out for you, huh? I mean, you picked up enough other cleaning jobs to make it worthwhile?”

“Oh, sure,” Tammy flapped a hand. “No problem there. Word spreads fast in my line of work, especially in a small town.” She chuckled softly. “Just like it's going to spread about Lydia's sister.”

“You met her?”

“In a way. I had finished up at the house and was loading up my car when she came by. She asked me if that was the Porters' house, and I said yes but warned her they weren't good for soliciting. I really thought that's what she had in mind. But she said, ‘That's okay. I'm family.' Of course, I didn't rush off after hearing that.”

Piper smiled. Neither would she. “Who answered the door?”

“Lydia herself. I'm betting she spotted who was heading up the walk and rushed to pull the woman in and out of sight. All I heard was the stranger cry, ‘Sis!' before she was hustled inside.”

“Well, I guess her claim of being family was true. Her name's Gwen Smyth, by the way. She stopped in here, looking for directions.”

“And in a few other places, too, from what I'm hearing. If Lydia hoped to keep her out of view, that ship has sailed.”

“She might be a perfectly nice, respectable person, of course.”

Tammy grinned. “Could anyone be respectable enough for Lydia?”

Piper thought about Lydia's immediate hints to Mrs. Tilley and other Cloverdale Women's Club members concerning her impressive ancestry and her not-so-casual mention to Piper of a high-ranking congressman-uncle. No, no sister below a Nancy Reagan was going to be good enough for Lydia, and Nancy herself might have had a struggle, considering her Hollywood background. Gwen Smyth, from what Piper had seen, was a goner.

“Well,” Tammy said, giving a brisk tap to Piper's counter, “I've got to be going. Don't forget: Keep that chin up!”

“Will do. Thanks, Tammy.”

Tammy took off, leaving Piper in a much better mood than before. So much so that she had a sudden inspiration. She put aside her depressing sales search and locked up her shop, painfully aware that closing for a few minutes wasn't going to make a whit of difference to her day's sales. She trotted down to the office supply store a couple of blocks away, where she bought a large sheet of posterboard and a set of markers, among other things, and carried them back to the shop.

She got to work, and within minutes Piper was taping the finished sign in her front window:

“Get well soon, Joan Tilley!

Sign our card and leave any gifts here

We will deliver them daily”

Piper set a large wicker basket beneath the sign, then stepped outside to judge the placement of both. She then went inside and waited.

Nothing happened for the first hour. Then one by one, people dribbled in.

“How is Joan?” the first woman—unknown to Piper—asked. “I can't get over to the hospital, but I'd love to sign the card and send my best wishes.”

“Joan is very weak but getting better.” Piper slid forward the super-size card she'd made on the office supply store's card stock, decorating it with ribbons and glitter. She was quite proud of it.

The second person—Patsy Morris—arrived a few minutes later. “I saw your sign and wrapped up this little book of inspirational quotes that I thought Joan might like to read when she's feeling better. Do you think that's okay?”

“It's perfect,” Piper said, and waved toward the basket into which she'd previously set a pickling cookbook, to prime the pump, so to speak.

Two more ladies came in a few minutes after that to sign the card. “That's a great idea,” one said, nodding toward Piper's sign. “Getting to the hospital is such a long drive.” She scribbled her name and a greeting on Piper's card.

“We should take up a collection from the group for something nice,” the second woman said to her companion. “All right if we bring it by tomorrow?” she asked Piper.

“Absolutely. Mrs. Tilley would really appreciate that.”

“That's so nice of you to do this!” the second woman said, adding her name to the card.

Piper smiled modestly. “Not at all. Please spread the word.”

The two promised to do so and left—of course without buying anything, but that didn't concern Piper. Just getting people into her shop in a positive way was enough at that point, and Mrs. Tilley, she was sure, would be thrilled with all the remembrances.

Piper's handmade card and basket slowly filled with signatures and small gifts or promises of gifts to come. One or two drop-ins broached the subject of Piper's tainted brandied cherries but did so delicately and with obvious sympathy for her as well as Mrs. Tilley. No one showed up with any of Piper's pickles or preserves asking for a refund—which Piper would have agreed to. She suspected, though, that none of those jars were being opened, either, if they still actually remained in cupboards.

Talk of Lydia Porter's sister, whose appearance in Cloverdale was surprising in more ways than one, began cropping up. Apparently, Gwen Smyth had spent a good amount of time wandering about Cloverdale before finally arriving at her destination. If Lydia had hoped to keep her sister's visit private, those hopes were definitely quashed.
Had that been Gwen's intention,
Piper wondered? It did seem an odd way to start a visit.

“She came into Niki's while we were having lunch,” one customer told Piper. “Frankly, we wondered if she'd be able to pay. Imagine our shock when we learned who she was!”

Another of Piper's customers, Nancy Phillips, mentioned having chatted briefly with Gwen at the park off the town square. “I was walking Oliver, my little Yorkie, and she came over to pet him. She seemed perfectly nice, but”—Nancy lowered her voice—“I think she might have been drinking. In the
afternoon
,” she added.

Gil Williams stopped in and seemed to be one of the very few who hadn't encountered Gwen Smyth. He did, however, approve of Piper's Tilley Project, as he called it.

“I've been hearing about the gift collection from my own customers and brought something she might enjoy.” He held out a paperback copy of Carolyn Hart's latest mystery. “I happen to know Joan is a fan.”

“Who isn't?” Piper asked with a smile. “Like me to wrap it for you?”

“Would you mind? All I had were my shop bags.”

Piper found a sheet of pretty paper and began cutting it to size. She was taping it over the book when Ralph Strawbridge came in looking very much like he had something to tell.

“News of Zach?” Piper asked hopefully.

“No, I'm afraid not. We still don't know where he could be.”

“Then what?” Piper's fingers had halted midtaping. Gil had straightened up in concerned anticipation.

“It's the Realtor,” Ralph said. “Stan Yeager. Now he's missing.”