Murder Under the Tree (8 page)

Martin headed out of the garage and turned onto the icy street, taking the corner a little too fast for my comfort.

“With the autopsy showing that Les died of anaphylactic shock,” Anne said, “how can we prove it was murder?”

“Proving murder is difficult, Anne,” I said.

“Don't I know,” she quipped.

“Nancy said they are very careful about peanut products in the kitchen. I know Marissa at the patisserie would never let anything like that slip by.” I told them about going to the police department and finding out they hadn't saved the food.

“That's not kosher in a police investigation,” Anne said.

Martin turned around and looked at me. “Remember we said some of the people at the tea were allergic to peanuts. A friend of mine sat at the table next to Les'. He was allergic.”

“Martin, the road!” Anne said in a hurried voice. He turned his attention back to the street, spinning the wheel wildly and overcompensating his course correction. The car went over the median with a violent bump. I let out a yelp before I could stop myself.

My right eye started to twitch. I put my fingers up to it to try and make it stop.

“The police called it accidental. Case closed. They aren't thinking about the others who didn't have a reaction and were also allergic,” Sarah said.

Phil had also said “case closed” yesterday at Christmas dinner when he was trying to quiet Elizabeth. Lots of people would be saying that. “So you've continued to ask around about people's allergies?”

“We call it 'semi-official interviews',” Anne said, smiling.

“That could be proof someone targeted Les' table,” I said, “or that different tables had different food.”

“Did Sarah tell you Les had a girlfriend in the kitchen?” Martin asked, looking at me in his rear view mirror. “A real looker.”

I opened my eyes wide. “I didn't know that.” I should talk to her.

“Hope that wasn't her way of breaking up with him,” Martin said. Sarah nudged me on my arm. All was quiet for a minute. I couldn't tell if that was Martin's sense of humor or he meant it.

“Les liked to flirt with the ladies.” Anne put her hand on Martin's shoulder. “Just like Martin here.” She smiled at Martin, hesitated, then continued, “Maybe some lonely woman took Les seriously and later became upset with him.”

“Oh there's a spot.” Martin went through a stop sign, then slammed his foot on the breaks, sliding into a parking space in front of the patisserie, inches from the car in front of him. I let out a long-held breath when the car finally came to a stop. I escaped from Martin's car with a sigh of relief.

We walked into the patisserie. “We should find out when Marissa's food was delivered. See if there would have been time for someone to tamper with it,” Anne said, dropping her voice to a whisper as Marissa swept past us with a ladened tray of pastries. Marissa fired a quick greeting at us over her shoulder and told us to sit wherever we liked.

Sarah nodded her head in agreement with Anne. We chose a table in a corner and settled in.

“We have the means. Now we need a motive and the opportunity,” I said. “Who
hated
Les enough to kill him?”

We looked over the menu for a moment. When Marissa came over with complimentary tea and to take our orders, I asked her, “Marissa, when did the patisserie deliver the pastries to the Christmas tea at Hawthorne Hills?”

“Someone from the retirement home came to pick them up around ten o'clock that morning.”

“Do you remember who it was?”

“I was in the back when they came. Erica gave them the boxes. So what will you four have today?”

After Marissa left the room, Sarah said, “The Christmas tea started at one o'clock.”

“Leaving three hours for someone to tamper with the food,” I said.

“They probably sent someone from the kitchen staff to pick up the order,” Martin said.

“Or at least someone who would have access to the kitchen,” I added. “Or it could have been poisoned right in the van, before it ever reached the kitchen.”

We all looked at each other, not saying anything. Anne seemed rather quiet.

She shrugged. “How would we ever know?” After taking a sip of her tea and putting her cup down on the saucer, she said, “Maybe the lonely woman who was enamored with Les saw him flirting with other women.”

Anne had said something similar on the way over. She seemed fixated on Les flirting with the old ladies. Could Anne have been one of Les' lonely ladies at one time herself?

I thought back to the first time I saw her in the lobby of the retirement home when Les told her to save him a seat at the tea. It was a comment in jest that no one was meant to take seriously; it seemed like it was just Les' familiar way of talking with the residents. Maybe that informal joking with the wrong person had indirectly caused his death. Anne was a mystery writer; she knew all kinds of ways to murder people. Didn't she say his food allergy was the perfect crime? But if she had anything to do with his death, why appeal to me for help? To get the heat off herself? But there wasn't any heat,
it was an accident.
I'd have to ask Sarah about Anne. Everyone had a story. What was Anne's?

I heard Sarah clear her throat and looked up. She nodded her head, drawing my attention back to what Anne was saying. “If it was someone from outside the kitchen, it would have been faster to replace an item with peanuts, than to doctor it up in the kitchen. I once wrote a mystery about something similar, only it was a tart laced with arsenic.”

So Anne even wrote about doctoring up food in a mystery book. One of her growing repertoire of murder methods.

Marissa came back with our orders. “Erica said she left the boxes labeled for “Hawthorne Hills” in the kitchen by the back door. They were gone when she came back from her break, so she never saw who picked them up.”

“Well, that's a dead end. Now I need to find out if anyone noticed someone—a staff member...or a resident—tampering with the food in the Hawthorne Hills kitchen,” I said, after Marissa left.

Anne's complexion grew pale.

“Are you all right, Anne?” Sarah asked.

“Fine. Fine. I feel a little dizzy, probably low blood sugar. I better start eating.” She turned her attention toward a fruit tartlet.

While eating, we talked about our Christmases. I told them about Phil's aunt and uncle being friends with Jim Barnowski, a resident at the Home.

“He's an annoying old trout,” Martin said. “I try to avoid him whenever I can.”

“What do you mean, Martin?” Sarah said. “He's younger than you.”

“Only on paper,” Martin replied. “I'm much younger at heart and better looking.”

“Martin just doesn't like having competition with the ladies,” Sarah fired back with a smirk. “Especially from a younger man.”

Martin waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. He turned and winked at me.

I smiled; Martin was so incorrigible. “Anyway, I mean to visit him sometime when I'm at the Hill,” I said. “Perhaps he saw or heard something.”

“Wait until Lent,” Martin said. I gave him a questioning look. “Then you can kill two birds with one stone. Visit him and do penance for your sins.”

After we were finished, Martin drove us back to Hawthorne Hills, my fists clenched all the way.

I wanted to get home and spend some time with the family. But first I'd hit a few stores on the way back for the post-Christmas sales. I'd be in and out in no time at all. Before I left Hawthorne Hills, I asked for Les' girlfriend's name and made my way towards the kitchen of the retirement home. I popped my head in the door and asked if I could speak to Lola Castillo. While I waited, I kept hearing Phil's voice in my head, telling me not to involve myself. Well...I was involved.

An attractive brunette in her thirties with large brown eyes and olive skin came out of the kitchen. I recognized her as one of the servers at the tea. Actually, she was
one of the servers who had attended Les' table. “Hello? Did you ask for me?”

I replied that I had and told her my name. We shook hands.

“You were Les' girlfriend?”

She nodded. I could see the pain in her eyes. “Yes.”

I looked up. A young black woman with beautiful, high cheekbones came out of the kitchen with a cart of dishes and proceeded to set the tables. “I'd like to learn more about Les. My friend and I were the ones who tried to help him at the Christmas tea.”

“I remember you.” Lola paused. “We were close...very close. Les and I.” A tear rolled down her cheek. She lowered her head then looked up at me. “We were going to be engaged.” She wiped her cheek with the palm of her hand. “Why....”

CLANG! The woman setting the table dropped a tray of silverware. We looked at her then I turned back at Lola. “I'm sorry. It's so tragic.”

Lola nodded. She wiped her cheek again.

“Were any of the residents in the kitchen the morning of the tea? Or the director, the doctor, anyone who isn't normally in there?”

She made a humph sound. “Are you kidding? The director?” I could hear the anger in her voice. “It would be beneath
her
to grace us in the kitchen. If she wants to speak to someone, she summons us...like a queen, to her office. No. I wouldn't have minded if the doctor would come into the kitchen. He is… Well, he's nice.” She put her head down. “But no, Sheila's the head of the kitchen. She takes care of everything.”

“What about the residents? Were any of them in there that day?”

“They pop in from time to time looking to see what we are serving or to visit a little. We all have our favorites. That morning?” Lola hesitated for a few moments. “It was busy, getting everything ready. I saw a few. Anne Niven popped in, said she was doing research on a Christmas book she was writing. A couple others, that nasty new man...Mr. Barnowski. Probably checking out the kitchen staff. He pinched my butt the other day. I gave him a piece of my mind. There were others. Can't remember.”

Hmm. Barnowski and Anne popped in. I wonder why Anne didn't mention this. “Who put the food on the trays that you served?

“Sheila arranged the trays.”

“Did every table receive the same foods.”

“A few of the residents on special diets sat at their assigned tables but otherwise everyone's was the same, down to the exact number of those little cookies on the trays.”

So why then would Les have had peanut products in his food, but not Martin's friend at the next table? “Were the trays marked for specific tables?”

“Why all the questions? You a cop? You don't look like—”

The kitchen door opened. “Lola, Nancy wants to see you in her office,” the lean, muscular woman looked at me. “Pronto.”

“You know, when you get summoned...” Lola hurried out of the dining room without finishing her sentence, the door swinging behind her. The muscular woman went back into the kitchen.

I started putting on my coat to leave. The young woman who had dropped the silverware came over to me and said in a low voice, “Don't believe Lola. I heard what she was telling you. Les broke up with her months ago. Several months ago. Lola was so angry with him. She looked like she could have killed him for days after he broke up with her. That being engaged talk is a lie.”

“Kill? Do you mean that?”

“I shouldn't have said
kill
. But angry, you bet.”

“I'm Kay Driscoll. What's your name?”

She looked between the swinging dining room door that Lola just went out of and the kitchen door. “Chelsey.”

“Chelsey, did Les have a new girl friend?”

She looked at me kind of strange-like and shrugged her shoulders.

“At the tea, Lola said the trays were marked for specific tables?”

“They were. We have numbers for all the tables in the dining room. Sheila put the numbers of the tables on the trays.” Chelsey looked over at the kitchen door again. “I need to get back to the kitchen.”

“Here. I'm going to write down my name and phone number if you remember anything else about the tea.”

“Les told me once that something funny was—”

Just then, the same muscular woman came out of the kitchen again and looked between Chelsey and me. She called out Chelsey's name and went back into the kitchen. “That's Sheila. She mustn't be kept waiting,” Chelsey said, with a roll of her eyes as she hustled into the kitchen. I had the feeling this wasn't the friendliest place to work.

A minute later, Nancy came into the dining room followed by Lola. Maybe Lola had told her I was asking questions about Les and she wanted to see if I was still here.

Her look was direct. Her sharp eyes had a warning of “back off” written in them. Then they quickly changed. Had I imagined that? “Hello, Mrs. Driscoll. Can I help you?”

“I heard Les' autopsy results. I was wondering which foods had the peanuts.”

She looked down at her watch. “As I told you before, it wasn't our food. This isn't any of your business.”

“I feel like I have a part in all of this since I tried to save the man.”

“I'm expecting a new resident in my office soon. You'll have to excuse me. Please show yourself out.”

She turned around and left the dining room. There was more to Nancy than met the eye.

Before I left Hawthorne Hills, I stopped off at Dr. Lee's office to find out why the food that was on Les' table wasn't saved. His office was dark.

* * * *

On the way home, I stopped at Goodman's and stocked up on Christmas gift wrap and bought a couple boxes of Christmas cards. I bought a scarf, similar to what Will gave to Frances' mom. It was on sale and a real steal. I tried on a few sweaters but had a hard time choosing one. I kept wondering what Chelsey had been about to tell me. Then I went into the book department and found a set of CDs called
Italian for Beginners
. I paid for my purchases and hurried to the car.

As I approached our house, I saw a moving truck in Ted's driveway. I knew I should go over to welcome the new neighbors, but Will would be going back tomorrow with Andy and Rose until they all returned on New Year's Eve for Phil's gig. I could welcome whomever they were some other day.

When I walked into the kitchen, there was a pile of games on the counter. It looked like someone wanted to spend the afternoon playing board games. The Game of Living, Evidence, Chess, and Masterbrain.