Sweet Revenge (Dewberry Farm Mysteries Book 7), page 6
"I'm so sorry this happened," I said. "Do you have someone staying with you?"
"Chloe's here," she said. "She... she just made a pot of tea for me. I'll be okay. Just... help me get my sister out of jail, okay?"
"I'll do whatever I can," I promised. "Can I bring dinner tomorrow?"
"Sure," Aimee said, sounding more disheartened than I'd ever heard her. "But more than anything, I need my sister back."
"I'll do everything I can," I promised, and we hung up a moment later.
Tobias was watching me. "So it was murder."
"Apparently it was," I said. "There was strychnine in her tea. And Serafine's in jail for it."
"And you promised Aimee you'll try to get her out?"
"What else was I supposed to do?" I asked, slumping down into one of the kitchen chairs. "I can't believe Serafine would kill Priscilla. Why would she? I think the police are just being lazy."
"Did they suggest a motive?"
"According to Aimee, the police say she was involved with Nigel, and killed Priscilla so that they could be together and she'd have access to Priscilla's money to save her business. She mentioned today that things weren't as good as they had been; I know Honeyed Moon recently lost some accounts, but Serafine was working to diversify with the tea business."
"Is Nigel a suspect?"
"I don't know," I said. "He was there that night, and he and Priscilla did argue." I cast my mind back to that night. "He disappeared part of the way through the workshop, now that I think of it. Maybe he went and found Priscilla and spiked her drink. Someone locked her into that house."
"Strychnine works fast," Tobias said.
"Then why lock her in somewhere?"
"So she couldn't get help? So she wouldn't attract attention?"
I shuddered.
"Nigel had opportunity, and as for motive... he might have been in a better financial position if she died than if they divorced," Tobias pointed out. "It's possible she had some knowledge that would damage him if it came out in court."
"That's true. And he did show up at Serafine's today."
"Maybe he was obsessed with Serafine and sent her some texts that Priscilla saw. So he got her out of the way so he could be with Serafine?"
"They were already divorcing," I said. "Why bother?"
"Money?" he suggested. "You mentioned the director of the museum had issues with her, too."
"She was being railroaded by Priscilla," I said. "Priscilla was trying to control all the decisions... including putting the kibosh on the Warren house exhibit. Plus, she had to give Priscilla's brother a job, even though he made her uncomfortable." I sat up. "He's a possibility, too. I mean, his sister is rolling in it, and he's got a pity job at the museum. He was there that night. Maybe she made him mad."
"Strychnine indicates planning," Tobias pointed out. "And somebody had to have the opportunity to slip it into her tea."
I groaned. "I think it may be time for tequila."
"In the pie safe?" he asked.
"Top shelf," I said. "Let's get this cobbler going and sit out on the porch. I need some fresh air."
I slid the cobbler into the oven and set the timer as Tobias poured us two shots of tequila and cut up a lime from the bowl on the counter.
Together, we walked out onto the front porch. "Serafine was going to help me with my hives," I said.
"What's wrong with them?"
"They need new queens," I said. "And without Serafine's help..." It was hard to imagine life in Buttercup without Serafine's generous, wise presence. "How am I going to figure out what happened to Priscilla?"
"Start with the family, I'd say."
I sighed. "Looks like time to bake cookies and make some consolation house calls."
"And hang out at the museum a little more, too."
"It's a busy season here, though," I said.
"I'll help out if you need it," he volunteered. "And I'll be at the museum, too; I take care of the livestock, remember? I can poke around."
"But your practice..."
"If Serafine's innocent, she shouldn't be in jail. If we can help her, I'm in." He looked at me. "Are you sure she's innocent?"
I wanted to say yes immediately, but I kept thinking of that doll baby on the fence. A rush of guilt flooded me that I wasn't sure. "I think she's innocent," I said firmly. "And somebody's got to do a proper investigation."
"Well, if the police can't figure it out, I'm sure you can," Tobias said.
"I hope you're right." I said.
As soon as my chores were done the next morning, I checked the fences--Hot Lips had been looking restless lately, and I was worried she might make another break for it--then high-tailed it over to the Heritage Museum, hoping to get a chance to talk to anyone who might be able to shed light on what had happened to Priscilla.
Tobias and I had stayed up till way past our bedtimes, sitting in rocking chairs on the porch, watching the stars, petting kittens, and discussing everything under the sun.
Now, with a cottage cheese kolache from the Blue Onion cafe in my hand (I'd stopped by to say hi to Quinn), I was walking into the Heritage Museum, enjoying the breeze off the rolling hills surrounding the little compound of antique houses and barns and trying not to think too hard about what I'd found in the Warren house the day before.
"Lucy!" Alicia looked up from her cluttered desk as I stepped into the main office. "How are you doing?"
"As well as can be expected," I told her.
"Horrible thing yesterday," she said, clutching the abalone pendant she often wore. She'd told me once that she'd found the piece as a child in what turned out to be a Native American archeological site; it had been her North Star, so to speak, ever since. "I'm so sorry you had to be the one who found her. And I'm so upset that there's more bad press associated with the Warren house."
She didn't seem terribly broken up about Priscilla's death, I noticed. "What do you mean?"
"Mandy Vargas down at the Buttercup Zephyr has been doing some research for me into the archives so we can put together the history of the house; she's writing a story on the grand opening. It turns out that one of the former residents is a man who disappeared. He had just been acquitted of a minor robbery two days before he vanished." She shook her head. "Mandy thinks he was murdered.”
8
"Murdered?" I repeated. This must be the story Quinn heard at the café.
"There was a lot of... well, let's call it ‘vigilante justice’ back then. The crime was widely considered to be trumped up charges--normally nothing to get too riled up about--but apparently the sheriff's daughter was sweet on this man Garland, and the sheriff didn't like that much."
"A Kocurek?" I'd been told that our current sheriff, Rooster Kocurek, was just the latest in a long line of Kocurek sheriffs.
She nodded. "Mandy thinks that he was given a second, unofficial trial... and that he didn't make it out alive. It happened sometimes like that, unfortunately."
"That's awful," I said. "In other words, he was killed just because the sheriff's daughter had a crush on him?"
"That's what Mandy thinks. She hasn't found any evidence yet, except for an interview with a man named Ezra Bilton, who's 95 years old. He was Garland's best friend.”
"I can't imagine something like that happening," I breathed.
"The family left soon after; they said it was a bad-luck house." She grimaced. "I don't believe much in the supernatural, but to have Priscilla die there just before the grand opening... it makes you wonder."
"You know they arrested Serafine?"
"I heard," she told me, frowning. "And that she was supposed to have poisoned Priscilla with some tea. I think it's ridiculous. Just because Serafine argued with her doesn't mean she killed her."
"What do you mean, argued?"
“Priscilla told Serafine she didn't want her 'peddling her voodoo cures’ here. Serafine took offense, to put it mildly." Serafine hadn't mentioned that, I thought to myself. "On top of it, Priscilla found some little doll hanging outside her house the other day, too. She was sure it was Serafine who left it there."
"What did it look like?" I asked, thinking of the two I had already found.
"Some kind of wax thing wrapped up in cloth. I heard her accuse Serafine of leaving it there."
"What did she do with it?"
"The doll?" Alicia shrugged. "I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if she was making it up. Anyway, I had to tell the police what I had heard, of course, and I'm guessing they figured Serafine decided Priscilla was a problem and wanted to get rid of her. Priscilla didn't have the tea bottle on her when I saw her, though, but I'm guessing Serafine could have given her one."
"If Serafine was mad at her, why would she give her a bottle of tea?"
"To poison her, of course."
"Why would Serafine even have wanted to poison Priscilla?" I asked.
"Anger, I suppose," she told me. "Serafine felt Priscilla was trying to... well, whitewash history, so to speak. They had it out a few days ago, too, when Priscilla told her she should focus her talk on more European-based remedies. Serafine refused, and I defended her by trying to explain it to Priscilla."
"What did you tell her?"
"I told her that the salves Serafine was teaching about were often used in Buttercup back in the day... and almost certainly by some of the people living in the houses at the museum. Heck... most of the buildings here were built by enslaved people, and they almost certainly used remedies that had been passed down through the generations."
"I didn't know the buildings weren't built by the owners."
"Well, one of them was," she said. "The Krueger house was built by the family who lived in it. But the other two families, the Jordans and the Balls, used the labor of enslaved people to build their homes and take care of their farms. All the more reason to include multiculturally sourced recipes in our workshops. Besides, it turns out Serafine's from here; did you hear about her genetic testing results?"
"I did," I said. "She told me she's got kin in the area."
"Isn't it exciting?" Alicia lit up for a moment, then remembered where Serafine was. "I just hope she gets to meet them. She has no idea how they're related, but it's a whole branch. It's like someone just transplanted a couple of generations back and cut all ties."
"I wonder why?"
"It's a mystery," she said. "One I hope we'll have a chance to dig into."
"Well, we'll just have to figure out who really killed Priscilla," I said, watching Alicia’s face. Her smile wobbled a bit, but then she was right back on track.
"It's really thrown the board into a tizzy," she said. "I've been ordered to put a hold on everything until we've got things back in order; there's an emergency meeting to elect a new chair soon."
"Oh? I know Flora Kocurek's on the board; who else is?'
"Nigel, and Edna Mueller."
Edna and Flora were big rollers in town, I knew. I'd have to track down Flora and find out if she had any info on the situation.
"Any of them have an eye on the chair position?"
"Are you seriously suggesting that someone might have killed Priscilla just so they could be chair of the board? You do realize it's not a paying position?"
"So maybe it's crazy. I just thought... I kind of got the feeling Priscilla might have been at odds with other board members as to the direction of the museum."
"Well, she did want to gloss over some of the less pleasant chapters of Buttercup's history, I'll give you that," she said. "I think she really envisioned this place as a testament to the Jordan family rather than a history of Buttercup."
"Why?"
"Her ancestors came from Tennessee and started a cotton-farming operation back in the 1800s. And with her donating the 100 acres of land and the original farm house, she feels... well, ownership of the place, even though it's not her family's anymore."
"Was the rest of the board in line with her?"
"She was leading the charge. It's no secret that her husband was dead-set against her. If anything, he's probably the most likely candidate for killing her. They were divorcing, you know.”
"I heard," I said. "Was it contentious?"
"She was going to hire the toughest lawyer in Houston, from what I hear," she said. "She wanted it all."
"Sounds like her family is used to having it all," I commented.
"I think you're right," she agreed with a sigh. "Except her brother, anyway – and he’s adopted."
"I heard about that. That's got to have been hard to grow up with," I said. "Feeling like a second-class citizen."
"I don't think that changed. Now, she keeps—kept--him on a leash with an allowance. But she still made me give him work here. Total nepotism."
"I've heard that. He can't fend for himself?"
"I don't know if he's ever tried, and he’s certainly no use to me here either," she said. "Although I can understand why he’s like this, even if I wish I was rid of him. It's got to be miserable to be passed over like that, when there's just so much money."
"How much money are we talking?"
"Millions," she said. "Plus she still owns almost 3,000 acres of land."
"And none of it went to him."
"Apparently, everything was put into a trust that all went to her," she said. "Every penny. I think it was understood that she would 'take care of' her brother."
"That's not an approach geared toward family harmony, is it?"
She laughed. "Oh, the first rule of the Jordan family was to protect the family money. Everything and everyone who wasn't part of the direct genetic line was secondary." She snorted. "It's no wonder her marriage was falling apart."
"Hard to be with someone when you're not really on the same team, I guess. Still... I kind of got the impression her husband was looking elsewhere a bit, maybe?"
"You mean Serafine?" She sighed. "I'm pretty sure he has a major crush on her. But I'm also pretty sure she held the line with him."
"So you think she likes him, too?"
"What's not to like?" Alicia asked. "He's handsome, articulate, witty..."
"And married."
"Not anymore," she pointed out with a raised eyebrow.
"I hear the police have some evidence of their connection," I said.
"Well, it’s not a relationship. They’re just friends."
"Still. Not good for Serafine."
"No. I still don't understand when exactly they think she poisoned her," she said.
"Me neither," I said. "She was at the workshop the whole time. And I saw Priscilla at the beginning of the workshop; she didn't have a bottle of tea then."
"Unless she put it down outside somewhere. Or picked one up on the way out. Even so, when would Serafine have had a chance to poison it? She was in front of the room the whole time."
Or lock her into the Warren house, I thought to myself. "You might want to mention that to the police if you get a chance," I suggested.
"You think?"
"If Serafine didn't do it, it's not fair for her to go to jail for it."
"The question is," the director asked, "if Serafine didn't do it, who did?"
"Who would you put your money on?" I asked.
"I hate to say it," she said, pursing her lips, "but probably Nigel."
"Why?"
She shrugged. "No love lost between those two lately. Easier to settle an estate than fight for it in court."
"I thought all the money was in a trust. Who gets it?"
"That's an interesting question, isn't it?" she asked. "My money, so to speak, is on her son. But I guess we'll find out soon enough."
When I left the office, I walked across the meadow toward the barn where last night's workshop had been held. The galvanized tub that had held Serafine's bottled teas still stood near the barn door. I stopped to examine it. The remaining bottles had been removed, whether by the museum director or the police I didn't know, and all that remained was a little bit of water... and a fragment of a torn label, which had dried and stuck to the metal. I peeled the label off the side of the tub. It wasn't from one of Serafine's tea bottles. It was a piece of an Arizona Tea label, which was strange, really. I hadn't seen anyone drinking Arizona Tea.
I tucked the label fragment into my pocket and walked into the barn, wondering if maybe the label was from a previous event. The tables were still in the same arrangement they had been last night. I walked around the big dusty space, stepping on the bits of hay scattered on the wood floor. Dust motes swirled in the sunlight that streamed in through the high windows. I could still smell a hint of the herbs Serafine had used yesterday, along with a whiff of beeswax and the clean scent of hay, mixed with the must of old wood.
How had Priscilla gotten her hands on a poisoned bottle of tea? Had someone handed it to her? Or had she taken it from the tub and just gotten unlucky?
Something told me that Priscilla's death wasn't a result of a strychnine-based game of Russian roulette. Someone had either given her a poisoned bottle or introduced the strychnine after she'd opened it. I tried to remember if I'd seen her with a bottle of tea in her hand when she was talking with Alicia... or if she'd had one with her during her altercation with her soon-to-be-ex-husband Nigel.
I walked out of the barn and headed back toward the little house where I'd found Priscilla's body. The crime scene tape hadn't been up very long. It was already gone; just a small fragment fluttered in the breeze, dangling from one of the oak trees by the front corner of the house. I pushed open the door and stepped inside, shivering at the memory of what I'd found yesterday and making sure to leave the door wide open behind me; I didn't want to be trapped in here like Priscilla had.
There was nothing in the room I hadn't seen the day before; light leaked through the small windows--windows too small to fit through, making it a perfect room to keep someone from getting out to get help. The only change I could see was the absence of Priscilla's body. As I stepped back out and closed the door behind me, I examined the latch. It moved easily, but you had to lean against the door to make it fall into place. Which confirmed my suspicion: someone had intentionally locked her in.
