Poison in the Pansies Read online

  “Which case?” she asked.

  “Chrissy, of course.”

  “But you can’t go around accusing cooks of trying to kill you,” she stated.

  “Why not? That’s what Chrissy did. And then look what happened to her.”

  Doreen cried out, “What do you mean, what happened to her?”

  After a moment of silence, Nan asked, “Are you feeling all right, dear?”

  “Nan, you’re making me crazy.”

  “Sweetheart, I don’t think anybody needs to make you anything. You’re getting there yourself,” she replied. “We were just talking about the fact that Chrissy has been poisoned. And so, therefore, that’s what happened to her.”

  Doreen groaned, reached up, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know that you think she was poisoned, but we don’t have any proof of that.”

  “No, but we’ll get it,” she stated quietly. “She was a friend of mine. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier.”

  “Think of what?”

  “Chrissy never got any justice. She could have gone on for another six months.”

  At that, Doreen’s eyebrows rose. “Was she that close to death?”

  “Well, I don’t know, but, in a place like this, we certainly don’t measure time in years anymore. You know that lots of people can come and go in a heartbeat, who you thought could have lived for much longer,” she stated in a harder tone. “No, we are quite happy to just judge by months.”

  “Great.” Doreen wondered at the strange turn of conversation. “You also don’t have to, you know, judge at all.”

  “Of course not.” She laughed. “Don’t you worry about it. We’ll help.”

  “Great,” she muttered. “You won’t get me into any trouble though, will you?”

  “No, of course not,” she replied. “I mean, it’s not like we’ll deputize ourselves or anything.”

  “You can’t,” she said in alarm. “Nan, you know that, right?”

  “Sure I do.” But then Nan laughed and laughed and laughed.

  Doreen wasn’t sure if she was being teased or not. She sighed. “I looked into Chrissy’s family and her death,” she noted to change the subject. “I can’t say I’ve found a whole lot yet.”

  “No, there’s probably more on our little newspaper here.”

  “What do you mean, your little newspaper?”

  “The one we have for Rosemoor. One of the residents always takes it on for a while and does up a few local interest stories,” she explained. “I’ll have to see if I can find the copies from back then. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can—if I find anything.” And, with that, she hung up.

  Doreen stared down at the phone in her hand. “Local interest stories,” she said out loud. “And how is it I’m just hearing about that now?” she snapped to nobody in particular.

  She looked over at Mugs, who stared at her, his head tilted. Goliath just ignored her, and Thaddeus appeared to be sound asleep on her shoulder.

  “All this time and Nan hasn’t once mentioned that to us,” she muttered. “Why is that?” She glared at the animals, but they all ignored her. “Yep, that’s the story of my life right now.” She sighed. “Everybody’s got all this information, and nobody tells me, so I miss out on stuff,” she muttered. “That’s just not cool.”

  And, with that, she brought out her notepad, flipped to a new sheet, and wrote down the little bits and pieces she knew about Chrissy. The fact that it wasn’t even necessarily a murder made this whole thing more futile than anything. What she really wanted was something that she could bite her teeth into, and that seemed more to be like the guy who worked at the grocery store who had been poisoned. And then, of course, the Poison in the Pansies case that was Mack’s.

  She wanted to return to the beach park, but she’d already checked, and the poison was long gone. Since it was a public beach, there could be all kinds of traffic. So there could be all kinds of reasons and explanations as to who might have picked up the rat poison. She grabbed her phone and quickly sent Mack a text. Did the police pick up that poison?

  He snapped back a response. It was a request. I don’t know if it was followed through or not, but I’m assuming so.

  She didn’t say anything. Then she sent back a message. It’s gone. It would be nice to know that the cops picked it up and not some random stranger. She got a thumbs-up after that, which didn’t tell her anything.

  She groaned, as she stared down at the message. “Okay, this isn’t helpful.”

  She didn’t want to ask him any more questions. That would just piss him off at the moment. She sighed and headed back to her laptop and the notes that she was taking.

  When Mack contacted her a couple hours later, he asked, “When did you go look for the poison?”

  “Early Monday morning,” she told him. “I wanted to make sure it wasn’t still there to hurt anybody.”

  He replied, “Well, the cops went there today to find it.”

  “Only today?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he replied quietly. “So it might be gone already, but the cops didn’t take it.”

  Chapter 5

  Tuesday Afternoon

  That afternoon, Doreen sat outside with a cup of tea on her deck, trying to appreciate being out of doors, trying not to worry. But she had things going on that were worth worrying over.

  Good intentions and all of that did not necessarily provide good information. To think that somebody else had cleaned up the box of poison at the park near the beach—and had even dug up maybe some of the loose sand containing the spilled powder in and around there—could have just meant anything from the city gardeners to a concerned citizen.

  Doreen would have been much happier if she and Mack had taken care of it themselves that Sunday. But, as soon as they had found the poison, Mack had put in the call to have it removed by a forensics team. Thus he’d thought, for sure, it would have been taken care of immediately.

  And it had been, just not by whom they had expected and just not near fast enough. She found that newest tidbit hard to forget about.

  Equally troubling was the fact that Nan and Richie were working on Chrissy’s supposed murder by poisoning, which was a whole different ball game. Trying to keep those two in control was like having two bears or lions in your backyard and trying to keep them out of trouble. Doreen didn’t foresee that going well.

  She let out a heavy sigh. Switching gears, she tried to figure out what on earth she could do to move either poisoning case forward, Chrissy’s or Alan’s, but she had no way to know what poison was used in either death – if Chrissy was even poisoned. Plus she had no tie to the rat poison at the beach. Really nothing came to mind. But, unless an eyewitness came forward, stating they had actually seen somebody down there near the beach with the box, well, Doreen had nothing to go on yet.

  As she sat here at her deck table, her pen flicking back and forth in her fingers, she wondered, considering it was summertime, just how many steady go-to-the-park-every-day people were around here. Would many have seen someone hiding the box to begin with? What about seeing someone take off with it? Surely it took a while to bury the box initially and more time to clean it up afterward. Would somebody have commented on it? She wondered.

  She wrote up a small sign on a sheet of paper, with her phone number added, and then, calling the animals to her, she hopped into the car and headed down to Sarsons Beach. She quickly affixed the sign to the message board, asking if anybody had seen the white powder in the box in the garden to contact her.

  As she stepped back, an older gentleman joined her, read her note, turned toward her, and asked, “Do I have to phone you?” She looked at him, her eyebrows up. He shrugged. “I come here for my walk almost every day. Then I go home and have tea and biscuits,” he confided. “It’s the only way my wife will let me have my biscuits.”

  Doreen wanted to laugh, but, at the same time, she didn’t want to offend him. But he saw the humor in her face.


  “But you can’t tell her that I don’t walk,” he stated, with a word of warning. “I just sit here and enjoy the view. Honestly, I think she’s doing me as much of a favor as anything,” he admitted. “I get to sit outside and just have a few minutes to myself.”

  At that, she did laugh. “Retirement a bit too much?”

  He shook his head. “Fifty years of marriage is a bit too much.” And then he cackled. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” she agreed warmly. “Did you see this box of rat poison that was in the garden?”

  He nodded. “It showed up there Sunday.”

  She frowned. “I was here Sunday afternoon, when we found it.”

  He nodded. “Yep. And I was here in the morning. It wasn’t there, and, when I came back in the afternoon, it showed up.” He shrugged. “I did contact the city about it, and I’m glad to see somebody came and cleaned it up.”

  “You know what? You’re right.” She nodded. “I’m happy too. I just wondered if you saw who had put the box there.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t. A couple people were around at the time, but nobody I would have looked at and said, Hey, he’s the guilty party.” Then he frowned. “Not that you can tell who’s guilty anymore. It used to be the shifty-eyed bad guys were easy to spot but not anymore.”

  She smiled at him. “No, you’re quite right. They tend to look just like you and me.”

  He laughed. “And how do you know I didn’t put it there?”

  She looked at him, her eyebrows shooting up. “Did you?”

  He shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t do that,” he noted. “Children come around here to enjoy the park and the beach. You never know what they would touch.”

  “That was my thoughts exactly,” she shared. “But it still would be nice to know who would have had that poison and why they would have put it out here.”

  “To get rid of it,” he replied. “Why else?”

  She chuckled. “Well, that makes sense. And did he just throw it, and that’s the casual pattern it made as it fell, or did he deliberately circle the pansies with it?”

  He stared at the garden. “Is that what those things are?”

  She nodded. “That’s exactly what those things are.”

  “Well, he must have hated the pansies to do that,” he suggested. “Maybe the flower bed was full of ants. That rat poison would probably kill them too. I don’t know.”

  She couldn’t stop smiling. With him at her side, she walked over to the garden bed. “Whoever removed it did a good job too,” she noted. “The bed barely looks disturbed.”

  “Well, wouldn’t have been hard,” he explained. Then he stopped, looked at it closely. “But most of the flowers are gone.”

  “Well, they were dying anyway,” she stated, noting, in fact, a big patch of soil had been removed. “And I don’t know if ants would have been affected by the poison or not. However, if you think about it, anything that’s strong enough poison to kill rats should be enough to kill small ants.”

  He laughed. “Well, I’m old-school. We sure as heck didn’t hire anybody to take care of rats in my day. You took care of them yourself. And something like this was fairly common back then too.”

  “In other words, what you’re saying is that a lot of people would have easy access to rat poison.”

  “It’s an easy-enough product to buy anywhere,” he noted, with a shrug. “So I can’t imagine anybody would have trouble getting rat poison, if they wanted it.” He looked over at her. “So is this your new case?” he asked, a curious twinkle in his eye.

  She realized that he’d recognized her. “So, I’m Doreen, as you already know. What’s your name?”

  “Milford.”

  “Nice to meet you, Milford. And I’m so glad you stopped to speak with me.” She shrugged. “As to your question about this being a new case, let’s just say it’s an oddity that’s caught my curiosity.”

  “It is, at that.” He frowned, as he thought about it. “An old guy sits here quite a bit. You should talk to him.”

  “Yeah? What’s his name? How old is he?”

  “Don’t know names out here, but he’s older than me,” he clarified, with a laugh. “And that’s saying something. I’m eighty-two. And this guy? Well, I think he’s like ninetysomething.”

  “Wow. And does he come every day?”

  Milford nodded at that. “He does. I often stop and say hi to him. However, he doesn’t talk a whole lot. I don’t know whether it’s because he doesn’t have any teeth or what, but he’s not the friendliest sort.”

  “Are you thinking he might have dropped the box here?”

  “No, I sure am not. He’s old-school like me. You don’t throw poison away. It’s not even so much about hurting other people, but you might need it one day.”

  She winced at that. “I’ve seen that sentiment a time or two. Some of the older folks, whose parents and grandparents went through the Great Depression, are reluctant to let go of anything. Some come very close to becoming a hoarder.”

  He snorted at that. “I don’t get those people.” He shook his head. “I mean, when you think about it, keeping stuff that you can use is one thing, but keeping stuff that’s garbage? Well, that’s a whole different thing.”

  “And I think that’s where the problem is,” she agreed, sliding him a sideways glance. “I think the perspective is all about who owns it and what they actually think could be of value. What you think of value and what somebody else will think of value …”

  He nodded. “Yeah, that’s like my wife and me,” he stated, smirking. “She seems to think that everything I’ve kept all these years has no value. Always trying to throw away my stuff, before I can stop her. I have to check the garbage constantly to see what she has dumped lately.”

  “Well, there you go.” Doreen laughed. “If you think about it, that’s exactly how hoarders feel. What they find in the garbage is gold, which is what other people throw away because they think it’s useless.”

  He glared at her.

  She just grinned. “Not saying that you’re a hoarder or that your things are useless. Just saying that theory applies.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t matter none. Anyway, this old guy comes around on a regular basis. But, like I told you, he doesn’t talk much.”

  “Well, maybe he would have some ideas to help me,” she added.

  “And besides, what difference does it make if he does know who put the box there? What difference does it make about whoever put the box there?” he asked. “It could have been anybody’s box. He might have picked it up out of the nearest garbage can, wondering what to do with it, and then decided he didn’t want it around and tossed it.”

  “All good points,” she noted cheerfully. “Just one of those things that I can’t really let go of in my head.”

  He stared at her for a moment. “And that means, there’s something to it.”

  “Not necessarily,” she cautioned. “I’m just looking at a few things.”

  “Hmm,” he replied, followed with a heavy harrumph. “Sounds to me like an excuse. You just don’t want me interfering in your case.”

  She smiled at him. “I technically don’t even have a case.”

  “Well, that’s because you keep getting into the police’s way,” he noted, laughing at her. “You know what? If you would learn to be subtle, you wouldn’t be getting into trouble all the time.”

  “Yeah, subtle has never exactly been something I’m very good at,” she admitted.

  At that, he burst out laughing.

  She could see that he was thoroughly enjoying the conversation. She flashed him a grin. “See? Now wouldn’t life be boring if I did nothing all the time and if I kept my nose out of things?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied, still with that big laugh of his reverberating around them. “When you think about it, I’m sure the police work would be a whole lot more smooth sailing though.” She frowned at that. He nodd
ed. “You and that big detective, whatever his name is, I’ve seen you two on the telly a couple times.”

  She nodded. “A couple times I’ve been on there,” she admitted. “And not like anybody asked me though.”

  “Nobody asks nothing in this world,” he spat, with a sage nod. “As soon as they got a story, they run with it.”

  “Well, I’m not all about stories,” she added. “I’m trying to be about the truth.”

  “Well, that’s the other side of the story, isn’t it?” he noted. “Your truth versus somebody else’s truth—they’re very different things.” And, with that, he looked around, checked his watch. “I think I’ve been gone long enough. I think I can go home and have a cup of tea and some biscuits.”

  At that, she smiled. “By the way, this old guy who comes all the time, any idea what time of day he comes?”

  Milford looked down at his watch. “You know what? He’ll probably be along pretty soon, if you just sit tight and wait for a few minutes. But remember, I get the credit, if I helped.” And, with that, still laughing, he turned and walked away.

  She wandered to the nearby picnic table and sat down on the top of it, with her feet on the bench. The animals busied themselves, while Doreen waited. Mugs rolled around in the sand beside her. Thaddeus walked back and forth on the picnic table, and Goliath sprawled out beside her atop the table.

  “Mugs, you can go in the water, if you want to swim.” She quickly unleashed him and then noted the posted warning sign, saying dogs must be on a leash only. But, by then, Mugs was already racing into the water. Doreen groaned, realizing that, hey, if somebody wanted to cause trouble for her, it would be right about now.

  And, sure enough, somebody spoke up. “Hey, dogs have to be on a leash.”

  She looked up to see an old guy yelling at her, and, yeah, as far as she was concerned, he was quite a bit older than Milford. She winced and nodded and tried calling Mugs back. He wasn’t very impressed, but eventually he returned to her, shaking tons of lake water off his coat. But he looked very happy. She apologized to the older man, who still glared at her. “You’re right,” she agreed. “I unclipped him, and then I saw the sign.”