Hemlock for the Holidays Read online

  After an hour or so, the gallery had cleared out with the exception of a retired couple who were leisurely making the rounds and studying every painting on the walls.

  Pamela joined Dorothy and me as we chatted about the progress we'd made in our Christmas shopping.

  “I'm a little worried about our Christmas party Sunday night,” Pamela confided. “After what happened at the high school fair, I'm not sure people will want to chance eating pot luck.”

  “Oh, I'm sure that was accidental,” Dorothy said. “And I haven't heard about any more food poisoning since that poor man died the other night. Besides, we know everybody who's coming, and none of them are members of the Pioneers.”

  “What do you think, Amanda?” Pamela asked.

  I remembered how I'd felt when I thought I'd eaten one of the poisoned carrot bars. “I suppose I'd be a bit cautious, but, like Dorothy said, we know everybody, although . . . .” I hesitated.

  “What is it, Amanda?” Dorothy prompted.

  “If it wasn't an accident . . . .”

  “I don't know. I heard the chief suggest that possibility, but it's hard to believe.”

  “So you don't think we should cancel?” Pamela asked.

  “I don't,” Dorothy insisted. “The members look forward to the party. If you need an official food tester, I'll volunteer.”

  We laughed at her suggestion, but I certainly understood Pamela's concern, and I had to admit that I felt a wee bit uneasy, too. I didn't have time to dwell on my concern, though, because Lonesome Valley's vivacious mayor popped into the gallery just then. She wore the same dramatic red velvet cape trimmed with white faux fur that she'd worn in the Christmas parade. I'd assumed the cape was strictly a holiday costume, but, evidently, I'd been wrong. Melinda's lips were as red as her cape, thanks to her expert application of lipstick, and, with her dark brown hair and creamy complexion, she looked quite dramatic in an old-fashioned Hollywood glam kind of way.

  “Hello, Melinda,” Pamela exchanged a quick hug and an air kiss with the mayor. That bright red lipstick definitely would have left its mark if she had connected with Pamela's cheek, so it was a good thing that hadn't happened.

  The mayor turned to Dorothy and me and apologized for not remembering our names. I'd met her in person only once before myself, so it was no wonder that she'd forgotten my name. I probably wouldn't have remembered hers, either, except for the fact that she appeared on the local news so often.

  “I'm here to buy a painting for my den,” our mayor announced, “and I need a big one. Maybe a landscape.”

  Chapter 14

  Before I could say a word, Melinda looked past us to the wall where Ralph's Western landscapes hung. If Melinda wanted a realistic painting, she couldn't go wrong by choosing one of Ralph's. My heart sank as she looked at one large elaborately framed depiction of a lake with birch trees in the background.

  “This would be perfect for Bob's office, and it solves my annual problem of what to get him for Christmas. Could I arrange for it to be delivered? I'd like to surprise him.”

  “Of course,” Pamela said. “We'll take care of it.” She quickly moved to put a discrete “sold” sign next to the painting.

  “Now, for our den, I'm looking for something a little more—I don't know—uh, artsy, but not so abstract that it's unrecognizable.”

  Pamela nudged me.

  I don't know why I didn't speak up right away. “Melinda, I have some paintings you might like to see,” I volunteered. I led her around the divider wall to the back of the gallery, where my landscapes were displayed. I thought she looked interested, but I hoped I wasn't indulging in wishful thinking.

  She spent several minutes looking at the paintings before pointing to one of the smaller ones. “I like the colors of this one, but it's way too small for my space,” she said, gazing at a woodland scene in soft greens, blues, and shades of yellow. “Do you have anything larger in similar colors?”

  “Yes, I do. It's in my studio. You're welcome to come by to see it, or I'd be happy to bring it to your house, so that you can see how it would look in your den.”

  Jolly strains of “Jingle Bells” burst forth, and Melinda reached into the folds of her velvet cape and came up with her cell phone. She stepped away from me and turned her back. From what little I could hear, the conversation concerned some official city business.

  “I'm going to have to go now. Do you have a card?”

  I reached into my pocket, produced one, and handed it to her. Knowing that she was leaving without making a commitment, I felt disappointed. The big sale I'd hoped for wasn't about to materialize.

  “I'll call you to arrange the delivery of the painting to Bob's office,” she said to Pamela, as she hastily headed for the door.

  “You win some; you lose some,” I muttered, after she left.

  “If I were you, I wouldn't give up,” Pamela advised, “Melinda's a good prospect. Maybe you could contact her later and suggest bringing the painting out to her ranch, where she can see how it looks in her den.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Yes,” Pamela and Dorothy said in unison.

  “What do you have to lose?” Pamela asked.

  “That's true. All right, it couldn't hurt to give it a try, I guess.” I could have kicked myself for not being a bit more aggressive in my sales pitch. Typically, I stood back and let potential customers decide what they liked without pushing them too hard. I consoled myself that at least I'd had the presence of mind to suggest an in-home viewing. Even though I knew I'd never be super at sales, at least that had been a start in the right direction.

  Pamela and Dorothy decided to take a look at the list of food that members had pledged to bring to our Christmas party, scheduled to be held in the Roadrunner's large classroom. While they put their heads together over the sign-up sheet, my mind wandered back to the poison carrot bars, and I wondered how the maker had managed to put hemlock in them.

  “No carrot bars, I see,” Pamela announced. “That's good.”

  I didn't remind her that if hemlock could be put in carrot bars without its being noticed by the person who was eating them, then it could possibly be used to poison all sorts of other food, too. A shiver went up my spine as I contemplated the possibility that the carrot bars at the high school holiday crafts fair had been poisoned deliberately. Then another thought occurred to me. Before I realized it, I'd said it out loud: “Where would someone find hemlock around here?”

  “What's that?” Dorothy asked.

  “Oh, sorry. I was just wondering if hemlock grows anyplace in Lonesome Valley.”

  “Hmm. I can't tell one plant from another myself,” she said, “but I know someone who can. She used to teach botany and biology at the high school, but she's retired now.”

  “I bet you're talking about Sylvia Costa. I had her for biology in high school,” Pamela said.

  “Yes, so did Dawn. Mrs. Costa was Dawn's botany teacher, too. I remember she took the class on a couple of field trips.”

  “She sounds like an expert on the local flora. I wonder if she'd mind talking to me about it to satisfy my curiosity.”

  “I doubt she'd mind,” Dorothy said. “She's been retired for several years, but I think she's still pretty active. I saw her at the supermarket the other day. It looked like she was about to start her holiday baking big time.”

  “You don't happen to have her phone number, do you?”

  “No, but I'll bet she has a landline.”

  “OK, I'll try directory assistance.”

  “No need,” Pamela said. “We have a really old phone book on the top shelf of the bookcase in my office. Why don't you try that first? We'll hold the fort while you give her a call.”

  “Thanks. This shouldn't take long.”

  I walked down the hallway to Pamela's office and spotted the phone book right where she'd said it would be. Sylvia Costa's name was easy to find. She was the only Costa in the old phone book. I ran my finger across the l
ine of tiny print, which listed her address as well as her phone number.

  The street name sounded familiar, but why? At first, I couldn't place it, but then it came to me.

  Eric Thompson had lived on Copper Valley Road. Quickly, I flipped the pages, hoping to find a listing for the Thompsons. Sure enough; there was one. They had a landline, too. At least, they'd had one twelve years ago, but it wasn't their phone number that caught my attention. It was their house number—792. It, also, had sounded familiar, but I couldn't remember it for sure. Sylvia Costa's house number was listed as 794. She was Eric's next-door neighbor.

  Chapter 15

  The very same next-door neighbor Brian's nephew Josh had called a “witch” knew all about local plants and enjoyed baking, to boot. I wondered why Josh had yelled only at Mrs. Costa but ignored all the other neighbors the night his uncle had died. Before I called Mrs. Costa from the landline in Pamela's office, I speculated about what that might mean. When she answered, I immediately mentioned that Dorothy and Pamela had recommended her as an expert on local plants before inquiring whether she'd mind satisfying my curiosity about hemlock that grew in Arizona.

  “I'm a little confused,” she said. “What's your interest in all this? Are you working with the police?”

  “Just curious,” I told her. “My friend and I were the ones who called for help for Eric Sunday night, and we were at the high school crafts fair, too. We'd been working in the Roadrunner's booth in the afternoon, and we saw the ambulances arriving as we left. I'm not working in any official capacity.”

  “You say you know Dorothy and Pamela?”

  “Yes. We're all members of the Roadrunner Gallery. I'm calling you from the gallery, as a matter of fact.”

  “Well, all right. I'd like to speak to Dorothy for a moment, if you don't mind.”

  “I'll go get her. I'm in the office, and she's out front,” I explained hastily. I put the receiver down on Pamela's desk and went to tell Dorothy that Mrs. Costa wanted to speak with her. Although a few browsers had come into the Roadrunner, Pamela was assisting them, so Dorothy was free.

  “Oh, I bet I know what she wants,” Dorothy said, as we walked back to the office. “I offered to lend her one of my old cookbooks that I put together for a fundraiser years ago for the high school PTA. When I saw her the other day, we got to talking about some of the recipes that were in it that we just never seem to hear about anymore. They're good recipes, but maybe they're out of fashion now. Anyway, she wants to make some of them for the holidays.”

  It turned out that Sylvia Costa did indeed want to borrow Dorothy's old cookbook, but she also wanted to make sure that I really knew Dorothy. After Dorothy vouched for me, she told Sylvia she'd drop the cookbook off to her later and handed the phone back to me.

  “How about tomorrow at ten at my place?” she suggested.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Costa. I appreciate it. I'll see you then.”

  After I hung up, I wondered if I'd gone too far. After all, the police were investigating the poisonings, and I was no detective. But then again, it couldn't hurt to gain a little knowledge, I thought. Aware that I was deliberately procrastinating, arranging to talk to Sylvia Costa when I probably should have been more concerned with contacting the mayor in an effort to revive her interest in my landscape, I returned to the gallery and processed several sales before closing time rolled around.

  We all left the Roadrunner a little after five, going our separate ways to our cars. Quite a few shoppers headed in the same direction I was going, toward the downtown parking lot. It was dark by this time, but the street lamps on Main Street provided plenty of light. The Downtown Merchants' Association had decorated the lamp posts with greenery and huge red bows, and most of the merchants' holiday window displays featured twinkling Christmas lights, adding to the festive mood of the shoppers.

  When I backed out of my parking spot in the downtown lot, I came within inches of being clobbered by a large van that had whipped around the corner going way faster than any driver should in a crowded lot. I slammed on my brakes, just in the nick of time, and the van's driver sped away, oblivious to the near miss.

  Having avoided a potential accident, I was happy to arrive home, none the worse for wear. I pulled into my carport and trekked across Belle's front yard to her door, where Laddie waited for me on the other side. When I stopped to give him a hug, Mr. Big, not wanting to be left out, squeezed his way in for a snuggle, too.

  “How'd it go at the gallery today?” Belle asked. She knew I'd been concerned with my finances of late.

  “Oh, the usual. We had some sales, but I didn't sell any of my own paintings. I came close, though.” I told Belle about the mayor's interest in one of my landscapes and that we'd been interrupted, after which she'd had to leave before she'd made a commitment.

  “That sounds like a good opportunity,” Belle enthused. “You can't afford to pass it up.”

  “I know I should contact her. I'm just not sure what the best approach would be. I don't want to come across as too aggressive.”

  “There's no way that's going to happen. You said the large landscape with the colors she wants is in your studio, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Why don't you send her a personal invitation to attend your Friday open studio, along with a note reminding her that the landscape she's interested in will be on display?”

  “That's a good idea. Should I email it?”

  “She probably gets a ton of email, and it's far too easy to ignore. I think it's worth delivering a handwritten invitation to her office.”

  “OK, I'll do it. You really think it might work?”

  “You never know, but it can't hurt to try. If she's really interested, she might show up. If she doesn't, you can always call her later.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Later that evening, I rummaged through my packets of note cards featuring my artwork printed on them that I sold during studio tours. I didn't make a lot of money from them, but they sold consistently, and people often liked to make a small purchase during Friday night studio tours.

  Finally, I found the card I was looking for. Printed on the front was the image of the painting I hoped to sell the mayor. I sat down at my desk and wrote an invitation to her to drop by during tour hours Friday, adding that I could show her the painting another time if it would be more convenient. I took pains to write neatly and legibly, since I had a tendency to scrawl. Satisfied, I slipped the card into its envelope, wrote the mayor's name on the front, dribbled some blue sealing wax on the tip of the flap, and pressed my seal of an artist's palette into the wax. Satisfied that I'd made a crisp impression with my seal, I left the envelope on my desk to retrieve the following morning before I left to meet Mrs. Costa. I figured I could drop the invitation off at the mayor's office in Lonesome Valley's city hall on my way.

  The following morning, I left the house in plenty of time to stop by the city hall before meeting with Mrs. Costa. Since she hadn't seemed especially eager to see me, I didn't want to upset her by showing up late, but when I walked into the mayor's reception room, her assistant wasn't there. The door to the mayor's office stood wide open, and I could see that Melinda wasn't there, either. Ordinarily, I would have waited, but since I had no idea how long it might be, I placed the invitation front and center on the assistant's desk. As I turned to leave, a young woman came in through a side door and sat down behind the desk.

  “Hi, I'm Cassie, the mayor's assistant. May I help you?”

  “I just dropped off an invitation for the mayor. It's right there,” I said, indicating the envelope I'd placed on the desk.

  “I'll see that she gets it,” she promised.

  My errand accomplished, I drove to Copper Valley Road and parked in front of Mrs. Costa's house. Before I went to the door, I called the mayor's office to make sure my invitation had been delivered, but my call went to voicemail, and I opted to try again later, rather than leaving a message. As I got out of my SUV, I glanced at
the house and saw a curtain dropping back into place. Mrs. Costa must have been looking out for me. When she opened the door while I was still climbing the steps, I knew I'd been right. It was the same maneuver that had upset Josh when he'd arrived at Eric's house, only to find police cars with flashing lights and neighbors gawking at the officers' activity.

  “Amanda?”

  “Yes, I'm Amanda, Mrs. Costa. Nice to meet you.”

  “Call me Sylvia, dear,” she said, as she stepped aside. “Come in.”

  I stepped into her living room, which looked like it hadn't been redecorated in decades. Worn beige shag carpet covered the floor, and a sofa and chair sported a matching, oversize brown plaid pattern that had once been popular. The coffee table was covered with knickknacks and stacks of books. There were so many pillows on the sofa that, at first, I didn't see the black cat nestled among them, and I was startled when it leaped down from the sofa and scampered off, disappearing behind a bookcase.

  Although I'd never believed the superstition that a black cat crossing someone's path brought bad luck, I couldn't help thinking about it when Sylvia's cat ran across mine.

  “What's your kitty's name?” I asked.

  “That's Midnight, but I call her Middie for short. She's skittish around strangers. She'll probably hide for a while.”

  “I have a cat, too. Mona Lisa's her name. She has all sorts of hiding spots.”

  Sylvia smiled and led me through the living room to the kitchen in the back of the house. Scents of vanilla and cinnamon filled the air, and the countertops were filled with gift plates of cookies and candy done up in red cellophane and tied with green ribbon. The oven timer dinged as we came into the room, and Sylvia took a pair of potholders, reached into the oven, and pulled out a cookie sheet. She set it aside so that the cookies could cool and turned off the oven.

  “Have a seat, Amanda. Let’s have some coffee.”

  I slid into the bench seat in her kitchen alcove, where a ceramic snowman decorated the table before me.

  “Milk or sugar?”