The Fool Dies Last, page 4
Morris sighed. ‘I don’t envy you, Detective. I’ve had to break my share of bad news over the years, too. Speaking with Roberta’s family won’t be an enjoyable task.’
Hope gave a strangled gasp. ‘Roberta King is dead?’
‘I’m afraid so, dear,’ Gram confirmed.
‘But–but how?’
Gram looked expectantly at Morris, who in turn looked at Detective Phillips.
‘Go ahead,’ the detective told him. ‘With the understanding that the medical examiner will make the final determination, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Morris agreed. He hesitated a moment. ‘And should I …’
‘Go ahead,’ Detective Phillips said again. ‘If either of them is going to be of any help, then they have to see what we’ve got.’
‘Yes. Yes, certainly.’ Standing a bit taller and assuming a slightly more formal tone, Morris turned and started walking toward the rear of the room. ‘If you will follow me, please.’
Dylan, Gram, and Detective Phillips immediately accompanied him. Hope hung back. Were they going to look at Roberta’s body? She didn’t really want to see Roberta’s body – or any dead body, for that matter. She was also having difficulty understanding why she was there. Morris was a doctor. Dylan was also a doctor. And Gram must have witnessed the event, or been the last to talk to Roberta before it happened, or something similar. But none of that explained why Hope had been called to the scene.
The group – with Hope reluctantly bringing up the rear – stopped next to a long table that was lined with an equally long row of disordered folding chairs. The table was decked with a navy cotton cloth. On it were pitchers of water and soda, Styrofoam cups with coffee, and numerous plastic plates holding pasta and sauce, garlic bread, and chocolate chip cookies. Roberta’s death had evidently occurred toward the start rather than the conclusion of dinner, because the plates were more full than empty.
‘Before I make any comments,’ Morris said, ‘I’d like you to take a look at her, Dylan. Give your first impressions without influence from me. See if we draw the same conclusions. That’s why I asked you to come.’
‘All right.’ Dylan took a step forward.
Hope intended on hanging back again, figuring that there was no need for her first impressions or drawing conclusions in regard to poor Roberta. But it didn’t do her any good, because instead of Gram and Detective Phillips also stepping forward, Morris moved back, giving the whole group all at once a clear view of the deceased.
Roberta King lay on her side on the gray speckled carpeting, and it didn’t take a medical degree to realize that she had died in considerable pain. The woman was curled up in a ball, with her knees drawn toward her chest and her hands clutching at her stomach. But her hands no longer looked like hands. Instead, they were two large, misshapen, flesh-colored lumps. And Roberta no longer looked like Roberta. In fact, if Hope hadn’t been told that the person on the ground in front of her was Roberta King, she might not have recognized her. It wasn’t because there was so much blood, or heavy bruising, or ferocious wounds. It was the extreme swelling. Like her hands, Roberta’s head had become a bulging, distorted lump, only much redder in hue. Her eyes and nose were swollen shut. Her lips and mouth were swollen into her face, which was swollen into her neck.
‘Anaphylaxis,’ Dylan declared. ‘No question about it. The flushing of the skin. The facial swelling. Hives, too.’
‘Your father said the same thing,’ Detective Phillips told him.
Morris nodded.
‘So, then, you’re both reasonably confident that the throat swelling closed is the cause of death?’ the detective asked.
‘No,’ Dylan corrected him. ‘I’m sure the throat is swollen, as is undoubtedly the entire lower airway, but that isn’t what killed her.’
Detective Phillips looked at him questioningly.
‘In cases like this,’ Dylan explained, ‘it isn’t the lack of oxygen that kills. It’s the sudden, dramatic drop in blood pressure. That’s why it’s called anaphylactic shock and not anaphylactic suffocation.’
His tone was cold and clinical, as if he was discussing tire pressure in a hunk of rubber rather than blood pressure in a fellow human being. Taken with his attitude toward Betsy Hughes, Hope found the man’s bedside manner abysmal. But although she doubted Dylan’s benevolence toward his patients, she didn’t doubt his medical knowledge. There was a level of confidence and acumen in the way he spoke that convinced her Dylan Henshaw knew his business.
‘The question,’ Dylan continued, more to his father than to the rest of them, ‘then becomes the trigger.’
Morris nodded again.
Dylan studied Roberta’s body a minute longer before surveying the surrounding area. ‘Considering the severity of the reaction, I would ordinarily suspect either insects or latex. But there don’t appear to be any wasps, bees, or fire ants in the vicinity, and I don’t see sufficient latex to produce such an aggressive response. Which leaves us with the next most likely culprit: food.’
In unison, the entire group turned toward the table with its plastic plates and Styrofoam cups.
‘Good heavens,’ Gram exclaimed. ‘I’m the one who brought Roberta her supper!’
‘Were you? Excellent,’ Dylan said. ‘Then you can tell us what she ingested.’
‘What she ingested?’ Gram’s brow furrowed. ‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that. I didn’t watch her eat it. I just brought it to her.’
‘What exactly did you bring?’
‘Well, it was the same thing as everyone else. Spaghetti and bread and cookies.’
‘You’re certain?’ Dylan asked.
‘Yes.’ The furrow in Gram’s brow deepened. ‘I think so, at least. I can’t honestly say I paid that much attention. I went to where they were putting it all together.’ She gestured toward the far corner of the room where a makeshift buffet was set up. ‘I took a plate with the pasta. Then somebody – Marilyn Smoltz, I believe it was – put a piece or two of garlic bread on the side. And—’
‘And I added a cookie,’ Morris concluded for her.
Gram smiled at him. ‘That’s right, Morris. You so kindly volunteered to hand out the dessert.’
There was a pause as Dylan looked from his father to Olivia and back again. An expression of comprehension glided over his pale blue eyes. Regardless of what he might have supposed before, it was clear that Dylan now realized some sort of a relationship existed between the pair. Hope watched him, curious how he would react to the discovery. Both Morris and Gram were well liked in the community, and no one – at least as far as Hope was aware – had ever voiced any disapproval of their intimacy. A long-absent son who had been raised by his maternal grandparents might take a different view, however.
Whatever his thoughts were on the subject, Dylan kept them to himself. He returned instead to the more immediate issue.
‘How many plates did you bring?’ he asked Gram.
‘Only one,’ she replied, with some surprise. ‘Although it might be difficult to see now, with her as bloated as she is, Roberta wasn’t the type to gorge herself. Granted, we weren’t especially close, so we didn’t share that many meals, but I don’t remember her ever eating more than a normal-sized portion. I suppose normal can be somewhat relative depending on age and body type and—’
‘No, no,’ Dylan interrupted her. ‘I didn’t mean how many plates you brought to her specifically. I meant, did you serve all the food, either to everyone in the room or to this particular table?’
Hope thought he said it in a manner that implied Gram was part of the hired help for the occasion, which many women in her situation would not have viewed kindly. But Olivia Bailey wasn’t one to easily take offense.
‘Serve all the food?’ Gram burst out laughing. ‘Gracious, can you imagine? Back and forth a hundred times with heaping plates? My cane would be all worn out!’
Morris laughed along with her, also taking his son’s remark as a joke. Hope, however, wasn’t amused, and she gave Dylan a resentful look. He frowned, visibly irritated by the laughter.
Gram must have noticed the frown, too, because she suppressed any further chuckles at his expense. ‘Aside from my own,’ she informed Dylan equably, ‘the only plate that I served was to Roberta.’
The frown remained, but it became less irritated and more thoughtful. ‘Why hers?’ he asked. ‘You just said that the two of you weren’t especially close.’
‘I was coming over for some reason or other … oh, yes, I was going to talk to Sylvia Norquist. Sylvia was seated down there.’ Gram gestured toward the end of the table. ‘As I passed by, I saw that everyone had their plate and cup, and was merrily chewing and chattering away, except for Roberta. She wasn’t talking or eating, which was odd all in itself, because usually everyone who stays for supper, eats supper. Those who aren’t interested in having dinner leave immediately after the bingo.’
‘True. Very true, Olivia,’ Morris confirmed.
‘Roberta looked pale,’ Gram said, ‘and she was sitting kind of funny, leaning against the table with her head propped up in her hands. I stopped and asked her if she was feeling all right. She told me that she was dizzy and somewhat faint. I thought that maybe it was hunger. I get a little dizzy myself on occasion if it’s been too long since I’ve eaten. My doctor’ – she winked at Morris – ‘tells me that it’s low blood sugar.’
‘True. Very true, Olivia,’ he repeated earnestly.
‘So I offered to get Roberta her supper,’ Gram went on. ‘When I came back with the plate, she was flushed instead of pale, and she seemed so drowsy that I almost thought she might fall asleep. I suggested that she eat to get her energy up, and she started to push the food around a bit. How much of it she actually ate, I don’t know – as I said before – because that was when I turned to talk to Sylvia. Sylvia was in the middle of a most interesting discussion with Kirsten Willport, and Roberta began—’
‘I will need to confirm the spelling of all these names,’ Detective Phillips interjected, scribbling in a notepad.
Morris pulled a pen from his shirt pocket. ‘I would be happy to write them down for you, Detective.’
As his father and the detective exchanged sheets of paper, Dylan tapped his foot impatiently. ‘And Roberta began …’ he pressed Gram.
She nodded. ‘And Roberta began to complain about the heat. To be frank, I didn’t think much of it. The room was warm – as it usually is – filled with so many people all afternoon. Then she started to cough. I assumed that it was some crumbs from the garlic bread that went down the wrong way, so I gave her a cup of water. She tried to drink it, but she couldn’t. She was coughing too hard.’
Dylan nodded back at Gram, encouraging her to continue.
‘Roberta couldn’t stop coughing,’ she said, ‘and she was sweating profusely. She was dripping wet like she had just stepped out of the bath. That was when I realized it was more than crumbs in her throat or the warm room. Something was seriously wrong. I was about to get Morris to come and help, but all of a sudden, Roberta stood up. She grabbed her stomach, and a moment later, she collapsed on the floor. She convulsed a couple of times, and then’ – Gram swallowed hard – ‘nothing.’
Everybody’s gaze went once more to poor Roberta King lying on the gray speckled carpeting.
‘I should have done something else,’ Gram chastised herself. ‘When she first began wheezing or her face started to swell. But at the time … I didn’t really understand … It all went terribly fast.’
‘Don’t blame yourself, Olivia. You did what you could.’ Morris wrapped a sympathetic arm around her shoulders. ‘It’s difficult to anticipate the best course of action when everything happens so quickly—’
‘Too quickly,’ Dylan said, cutting short his father’s soothing sentiments. ‘Which means that it wasn’t the food.’
Detective Phillips glanced up from his notepad. ‘Not the food?’
‘Not this food.’ Dylan pointed at the pasta and bread. ‘If she was exhibiting signs of dizziness and flushing before she got her plate, then her body was already having a reaction. So it must have been something that she ingested earlier. Some other food – or drink.’
‘Any idea what?’ The detective studied the remaining items on the table. ‘Not the water, obviously. How about the coffee?’
‘It’s unlikely,’ Dylan told him. ‘Shellfish is a common offender. Kiwi fruit, also. And nuts, of course.’
‘So it could have been an appetizer.’ Detective Phillips turned to Morris and Gram. ‘Were there any nut mixes available during the bingo?’
‘Roberta wasn’t allergic to nuts,’ Hope said.
The group looked at her with a collective expression of surprise. Not having spoken in so long, Hope had the impression that the others had forgotten she was there.
‘How do you know that?’ Dylan’s tone was dubious. ‘You can’t just guess on something like this.’
‘I’m not guessing,’ Hope responded tersely. ‘I know that Roberta wasn’t allergic to nuts, because I’ve watched her eat a bowl of them and walk away without any need of medical treatment. Last December, during our annual holiday open house at the boutique, Rosemarie Potter and Roberta got into a tiff, because Rosemarie caught Roberta picking all the cashews and pistachios out of the nut dish and leaving everything else.’
Gram chortled. ‘I can see Rosemarie getting upset about that. She is awfully protective of her snacks.’
‘Rosemarie? Is she the chatty redhead with the pug?’ Morris said.
Hope nodded. ‘Percy.’
‘And was this Rosemarie here today?’ Detective Phillips asked, once again scribbling in his notepad.
‘No. As a matter of fact, she was at the boutique this afternoon.’ Remembering how Rosemarie’s admiration for Dylan’s fit figure and chiseled jaw had been superseded by a desire for her to find something bad in a reading of his palm, Hope raised an amused eyebrow in Dylan’s direction. ‘You can confirm that. You met her.’
He evidently remembered also, because the chiseled jaw twitched with annoyance. ‘Forget the nuts. Let’s talk about your herbal nonsense instead.’
Hope’s gaze narrowed. Maybe Rosemarie was right. Maybe she should read his palm and tell him something bad about his future.
‘You and your silly sister with your stupid concoctions!’ Dylan snapped. ‘Did you give this woman one of your home-cooked remedies? Is she dead because of you? Is that why you’re here?’
Hope’s eyes flashed with anger, but before she could lash out at him, Gram spoke.
‘Herbs aren’t nonsense. They have been used in every culture around the world for thousands – probably tens or even hundreds of thousands – of years. And I would appreciate you not calling my granddaughters silly or stupid—’
‘I didn’t call them stupid,’ Dylan argued. ‘I called their supposed remedies—’
Gram didn’t let him finish. ‘Summer’s tinctures are not why Hope is here.’
‘She’s here because of this,’ Detective Phillips said, holding up a small, clear plastic evidence bag.
Inside the bag was a single card. A Tarot card. The Fool carrying his sack on a stick, whistling a merry tune in the sunshine, his little dog barking at his heels as he walks blithely off the edge of a cliff.
FIVE
‘Roberta had a Tarot card?’ Summer looked up in surprise from the box of scented candles that she was unpacking on the floor of the boutique. ‘Just one?’
‘Only the Fool,’ Hope said.
‘How odd.’
‘Apparently, Roberta’s handbag has one of those open front pockets where you can slide in a pair of sunglasses or a phone, and the card was sticking out of it.’
‘How very odd,’ Summer amended.
Hope nodded. ‘Odd enough that Gram thought I should see it, and she convinced the detective likewise.’
‘What did the detective say when you explained the card?’
‘Not much, because I couldn’t explain much to him. I kept getting interrupted.’
‘Typical.’ Summer rolled her eyes. ‘I’m sure that he knows nothing whatsoever about the Tarot, and therefore automatically assumes that it’s all rubbish.’
‘Surprisingly enough, the detective was fine,’ Hope told her. ‘He asked if he could come by the shop today to get more information. The guy who kept interrupting me – and I’m glad that you’re already sitting, because this will really throw you for a loop – was the same guy who marched in here yesterday and accused us of trying to kill Betsy Hughes with a tincture of lemon balm.’
‘What! Why was he there?’
‘That’s the mind-boggling part. It turns out that he was telling the truth. He actually is Betsy Hughes’s doctor. Temporarily at least, until his dad’s back heals. The guy is none other than the illustrious Dylan Henshaw, only son of Morris Henshaw.’
Summer gaped at her.
‘My reaction exactly,’ Hope said. ‘And in case you’re wondering, the younger Henshaw – unlike the elder – doesn’t improve one bit on further acquaintance. He was just as cocky and full of himself at the community center as he was here. And you should have seen Morris beaming at him with such paternal pride while Dylan was pouring forth his medical knowledge and enumerating potential allergy triggers.’
‘Allergy triggers?’ With a frown, Summer returned to unpacking the box in front of her. ‘They think what happened to Roberta was due to an allergy? I don’t remember Roberta ever mentioning any allergies. Granted, she only came in occasionally, but I always ask about possible sensitivities before— For criminy sake!’ she exclaimed, abruptly interrupting herself. ‘They shorted us!’
‘Oh, no.’ Hope groaned. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I ordered twenty candles. We paid for twenty candles. This box is designed with twenty slots, and see’ – Summer held open the lid and tilted the box toward Hope – ‘sixteen slots are full and four are empty. Four candles short. Again.’
