Read Still Life in Brunswick Stew Online
Authors: Larissa Reinhart
Tags: #Mystery, #humor, #cozy, #Humour, #Romance, #cozy mystery, #southern mystery, #humorous mystery, #mystery series
Still Life in Brunswick Stew (14 page)
“I suppose you think I did it.” His voice pitched higher and broke on the last word.
“I didn’t say that.” I shook off his hand. “I just meant it wasn’t necessarily Lewis.”
He seized my arm and backed me into the corner. The handlebar running the inside of the elevator pushed into my back. The doors slid shut.
“What are you doing here?” he growled. “And why are you asking so many questions?”
I jerked my arm and it slipped under his grip. He tightened his grasp and twisted it behind my back. Tears watered my eyes, and I bit my lip to keep from crying.
“You’re hurting me. Stop it.”
“You hit me in the stomach, and now you’re going to buy me a Coke? I don’t trust you.” He yanked my arm, dragging me to my toes. “You’re messing with the wrong guy, Scarecrow. I don’t care about Lewis getting poisoned. In fact, I hope he doesn’t make it.”
“Why?” I gasped.
“I told you at the festival. I hate him.”
“Hunter, you need to calm down,” I panted. “I’m not judging you. I’m just curious.”
The tension in my arm abated, but his grasp held tight. Spasms of pain rocketed through my shoulder.
The elevator door swished open. Hunter glanced behind him, and I jammed my knee into his crotch. He doubled over. My arm fell to my side, and I scurried around him. A tall, blonde woman wearing rhinestone-studded jeans and strappy heels strode into the elevator, blocking my exit.
Gaping, she pointed a finger at Hunter’s doubled-over form. “There you are. What’s going on here?” she asked.
As I tried to squirm around her, she grabbed my shoulder. I did my own wincing knee buckle.
“What did you do to my son?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” Hunter groaned, attempting to stand.
“Your son just put me in an arm lock,” I jerked my shoulder out of her grip. “So I kneed him where it counts. I’m thinking about reporting him to the deputy upstairs.” Which of course I wasn’t, since the last thing I needed was Luke to find out I let a suspect in a murder investigation pin me in an elevator.
“Shit,” said Hunter. “Not the cops.”
“I’m sorry. He’s got a temper. When he sees red, he can’t stop himself. I guess you don’t know that yet. You’ve got to watch what you say to my sensitive boy.” She glared at Hunter for a millisecond before turning to me. “Hunter, apologize to your girl.”
I opened my mouth to explain I wasn’t his girlfriend and noticed Hunter’s look.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I get mad easy.”
The woman hit the button for the second floor and the doors slipped shut before I could make my escape. She rubbed her son’s back. The scratch of her long tipped fingernails against his t-shirt gave me the shivers.
“I’m Janine Adams,” she said. “Hunter’s probably upset about the news of his stepdad.”
“He’s not my stepdad.”
Janine smiled tightly. “Of course not, you’re too old for a stepdad.” She leaned toward me and whispered, “I’m sorry. He gets his temper from his real dad.”
I rubbed my shoulder and glared at the pair. “Who’s his daddy?”
“He’s gone,” Janine said while Hunter delivered a death glare. “His stepdad owns Cotton Pickin’ Good Plantation.”
I glanced at her bare ring finger and wondered at the liberal use of stepdad. No wonder Hunter had anger issues.
“I’ve never heard of that farm,” I said. “My grandpa’s got a farm in Halo.”
“It’s agri-tourism, not a farm, although we do raise cotton,” she said. “Lewis also has horses. And I’m helping him market the name. I have an Internet site where we sell Cotton Pickin’ Good merchandise and we have a visitor’s center for educational purposes. Once I got the rights to the name, you wouldn’t believe how much the brand has taken off. Everybody thinks the name is sweet.”
The elevator pinged and the doors swished open. Janine strode out, pulling Hunter along with her. Hunter slowed behind his mom. She didn’t take notice. For all the talk about Hunter’s “stepdad,” Janine didn’t seem concerned Lewis was in a coma.
My eyes widened as I watched Hunter retrace his steps back to me. Hospital staff and visitors mingled nearby, so I waited without much worry. However, my fists clenched and my right leg drew back, ready to do more damage to his testicles.
“I didn’t poison Lewis and Marion,” he hissed.
“I didn’t say you did. But now you’re acting suspicious. That was a dumb move.” I folded my arms and delivered my own death glare. “You’re lucky I don’t scare easily.”
“Are you going to tell the cop?” A look of fear skittered across his features. “It’s your word against mine.”
“Then you’re in trouble,” I pointed out with a voice patient enough for a kindergarten teacher, “because I’m not the one who is a suspect in a murder investigation.”
“Murder?”
“Yeah, dillweed. Whoever poisoned everyone also killed my friend. And I want to know who did it.”
Hunter’s face paled. “I’m a suspect in a murder investigation?”
“If you’re not now, you will be.”
I squinted at the willowy figure with expensive hair and clothes. Janine either paid well to look young or wasn’t much older than Hunter when she had him.
“You and your mom had better cooperate with the police.”
“Will you help me?” said Hunter.
“Son, you just proved yourself a dangerous mess in that elevator. I’d have to be crazy to help you.”
“What if I can help you figure out who poisoned the stew and killed your friend?”
I chewed on that for a minute, but Hunter seemed a little too unstable for my comfort level. “You should tell the police what you know, not me.”
However, I was dying to find out more on this Lewis. What kind of man attracts a woman like Janine? I squinted past Hunter to see if I could tell which room the hospital assigned to Lewis.
Hunter glanced over his shoulder. His mom now argued with the nurse.
“I don’t want to be a murder suspect. I’ve been in enough trouble that this could get me put away. The cops will have their suspect and won’t even try to find anyone else.”
“They can’t put you away without evidence.”
“Of course they can.” His shoulders hunched. “I’m sorry for what happened in the elevator. I got scared and reacted bad. I have a real short fuse.”
“That’s more than a short fuse.”
Janine marched down the hallway toward us. People shrank against the wall as she charged past.
“Bring your friend if you’re worried. The one from the festival. He was cool.” He spun around to meet his mother before she could yank him from the conversation. “I’ll meet you at the Viper in Sidewinder tomorrow night. Seven o’clock.”
“I thought you were coming with me. This is not the time or place for making dates,” Janine said, grabbing Hunter’s elbow as she flew past. “Visiting hours are almost over.”
They disappeared into the elevator. I glanced back down the hallway, wondering if I could find Lewis and Marion’s room before I left, when I noticed someone waving from the nurses’ stand. Deputy Chris Wellington leaned an elbow against the counter, waggling his fingers at me.
I smiled sweetly, waggled back, and turned tail toward the elevator.
Dagnabbit. I’d been caught red-handed talking to a suspect.
There’s one more mark on my bad-girlfriend card.
Since I don’t ask for permission and asking for forgiveness wasn’t likely, I decided to dodge Deputy Wellington and do a quick reconnaissance of my own. Hunter thought Lewis poisoned the stew, while I still had my eye on Griffin. His threats toward me and attitude toward Eloise’s death needled me. I needed to determine if Griffin had been slipping Genuine Juice to anyone poisoned at the festival. Since I only knew of two other people who were sick, I thought the best plan was to find the one who was not in a coma. Marion Maynard.
One of the benefits of small town living is knowing many of the people you encounter in your day-to-day activities. This can also be a hassle if you’re doing something you don’t want the world to know, but the hospital was the perfect place to apply my small town networking skills. I knew a lot of night-shift nurses who swapped off child duties with their day-shift husbands. These women bore a strength of character I wish I had. During the day, they played mommy to their own brood and then caught the swing shift to play mommy with patients. One such angel of mercy, sparky Jess Chaney, walked a cart to the elevator. I pushed the button for her, and we began an informal catch-up waiting for the door to ding.
Then I hit her with the news about Eloise.
“That’s terrible,” Jess said, rocking the cart like a baby stroller. “I’ve been treating a lot of patients from the food poisoning epidemic, but that news hadn’t made it around.”
“I’m wondering if they know the source of the poisoning yet. If it was the stew, it could tear that festival clear apart.”
“You think they’d shut it down for good?” Jess bit her lip. “Sidewinder doesn’t have much more going on than the cook-off. Mike’s parents work it every year. His daddy’s got the garage and they sell more drinks that weekend than they do all year.”
“That’s a good point. I didn’t think about someone trying to deliberately ruin the festival. I was worried Griffin Ward had done it accidentally with his veggie drinks.”
Her eyes widened. “He was selling Dixie cups of that green stuff near the cook-off stands. And handing out business cards. You think it was off?”
The elevator door whooshed open and she rolled her cart inside. I followed, much to the satisfaction of Deputy Wellington. I gave him another wave as the doors closed.
“This is between you and me, Jess, but I heard arsenic tainted whatever everyone ingested.”
“No. Get out of here.” The cart rolled to and fro with her small shoves of disgust. “Arsenic? Like rat poison?”
“Dunno.” I rocked back on my heels and considered the possibility. “Where do you get arsenic?”
“I have no idea. Poor Eloise. Do you think it was done on purpose?”
“I don’t know that either,” I said. “How do you treat arsenic poisoning?”
“It’s a heavy metal, so if it’s known immediately, they’d probably use charcoal therapy or pump their stomachs. Maybe a chelation IV. If it’s only small amounts, your body will naturally get rid of it. It’s the large doses that are fatal.”
“You had a lot of people from the festival feeling sick. One died. One is in a coma. One is being treated, I guess. The rest were released? How can there be such a difference between the patients?”
“Depends on how much they ate, their body weight, if they already had any arsenic in their system. That sort of thing.” She shrugged. “I’d have to see their charts to know for sure. If the officials know it’s arsenic, they’re going to bring all those patients back in to get that arsenic flushed out. Guess it’ll be a busy week.”
The door opened on the third floor. As Jess pushed her cart through the door, I scanned for cops and trailed behind her.
“Are you taking care of any poisoning patients tonight?” I kept the eagerness out of my voice. “Particularly Lewis and Marion Maynard?”
“You said one’s in a coma? They’d be in ICU. That’s not my department.”
“How about Marion Maynard?”
She popped a hand on her hip and gave me a smirk. “Come on now, Cherry. You trying to mess with my rounds? You know I can’t let you do that.”
I crossed my fingers behind my back and stared at a smudge of paint I had neglected to clean off on my ankle. “No ma’am. You know I wouldn’t want to interrupt your work. I’m just overcome with concern about Eloise and the good people of Sidewinder who might have a lunatic poisoner on their hands.”
I looked up and caught her with a wink.
She laughed.
“You’re as crazy as ever.” She scanned her chart. “Miss Marion is in room 308. They’re keeping her for observation and to run more tests, but she’s much better today. You can sneak a peek while I start my rounds. Mrs. Maynard might like the company. She’s a talker.”
I gave Jess a quick hug and scooted in the direction of 308. “You’re the best, Jess,” I called over my shoulder, “even if you did marry a country bumpkin from Sidewinder.”
As this was a local county hospital, it didn’t take me long to find 308. I poked my head in the door.
The tiny Mrs. Maynard glared at the television screen parked high on the wall across the room. She jammed buttons on the remote with a stiff index finger and shook it like a maraca when it didn’t mind her.
“You need help?” I sauntered into the room and held out my hand for the remote.
“The silly thing won’t change the channel. I’ve been watching the news all day. They’ve run the same story three times about a gator crossing a highway and stopping traffic. You’d think they’d have something more important to pull out of their pocket than a gator.”
“You’d think.” I tried a few buttons with no luck and flipped the remote over to take out the batteries. I rolled them between my palms, reinserted them in the remote, and tried again. This time we got the switch to the Home Shopping Network.
“Thank you, you sweet young thing.” She beamed. “I owe you a debt of gratitude.”