“I-I’m sorry,” said Miss Betsy Powell. “I feel so very sick and weak. I don’t know what’s come over me.”
“Let me have a look,” said Dr. Benjamin. Flossie, Sam, Mr. Prophet and I stepped aside to grant him access to the patient.
After about fifteen minutes spent with the patient, the thermometer, his black bag and a good deal of poking and prodding, Doc Benjamin told Miss Betsy Powell, “I can’t find anything seriously wrong with you, Miss Powell. You might have a case of food poisoning. Perhaps it was something you ate.”
“Yes,” she said in a weak little voice. “It must have been. Maybe the ham loaf had gone off or something.”
“Ham loaf?” Dr. Benjamin lifted his eyebrows.
“Yes. It’s the only thing I’ve eaten that’s different from anything else I’ve eaten recently.”
“I see. Do you have any of it left?”
“Just a bite.”
“Well, then,” said the good doctor, snapping his black bag shut, “I suggest you toss out the rest of it. So many foods can go bad if they aren’t well refrigerated. I used to see many more cases of accidental poisoning and ptomaine than I see nowadays, thanks to refrigeration.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Miss Betsy Powell.
“Do you have a way to get home, Miss Powell?” Dr. Benjamin asked. He was such a kind man.
“Um…I drove myself to the church. I guess I can drive myself home again.”
Sam and Doc Benjamin exchanged a glance. “I think it would be better if I took you home, Miss Powell,” said Sam. “I’ll be happy to drive you in your own auto. Perhaps Dr. Benjamin will follow us and deposit me back here again. Will that be all right with everyone?”
It was all right with everyone except me, but I didn’t dare voice my objections without giving away several facts and theories Miss Betsy Powell wasn’t supposed to hear about.
“Thank you so much, Detective Rotondo,” said Miss Betsy Powell, lifting a hand to wipe away a few spilled tears. “You’re so considerate.”
“Happy to do it,” said Sam, sounding as if he were telling the truth.
“We’ll just wait here for your return,” I told Sam.
“You don’t have to wait here. Why don’t you just walk home?” He must have noticed my wide-eyed, appalled expression because his gaze fell to my polka-dotted gym bloomers, and he heaved a man-sized sigh. “Oh, yeah. You’re right. Wait here with Flossie and Lou. I’ll be back in a tick.”
Whatever a tick was.
“Thank you, Sam.”
“You’re welcome.” I could tell he was trying not to grin.
So, after Miss Betsy Powell was driven home in her own automobile by my own personal fiancé. Not that I thought for a single second Sam felt any attraction to her. He’d probably grill her like a frankfurter over an open flame as he drove her home, and she probably wouldn’t even know she was being cooked. My Sam was an excellent detective.
Oh, and Sam also remembered to unplug her stolen radio and take it with the two of them to Miss Powell’s home.
“Well,” said Flossie as Sam, Miss Powell and Dr. Benjamin exited Fellowship Hall and headed outside into the great grey-green out of doors, “What do you make of that?” Her question hadn’t been directed to Mr. Prophet or me individually. Hers was a group query.
Mr. Prophet opened his mouth before I could open mine, so he got in the first word. “I think Daisy’s auntie has been up to some clever tricks, is what I think. Just hope she don’t get caught.”
“Good Lord, no!” I cried, not having thought about the possibility of Vi getting caught tampering with the food she prepared for the gang of criminals.
Again, if she were being held by a gang of criminals and forced to cook for them. This was a terribly confusing time.
“I think Mrs. Gumm is clever enough not to get caught,” said Flossie, making me feel better instantly, although I don’t know why.
“I think she’s wily as a fox,” said Mr. Prophet, displaying his tobacco-stained teeth in a grin. “I’d bet on her before I’d bet on any of the folks we know who belong to the gang Sam’s cork-headed nephew is involved with.”
“Not even Lucky Luciano?” I asked him.
“Even gangsters have to eat,” said he. “And yeah. I’d back her over Luciano. He might be bad and smart, but your aunt is good and smart. To look at her, nobody’d guess she had a devious bone in her body.”
“True,” I agreed. “In fact, I don’t think she does have a devious bone in her body. That worries me, if she’s tampering with the food she’s fixing.”
“I guess there’s no good to be got from fretting,” said Flossie. “But I’m sure a prayer or two will help.”
Mr. Prophet looked horrified for only a moment before Flossie grabbed one of his hands and one of mine, bowed her head, and prayed for Vi and for Sam to find her. “Please keep them both safe, Lord, and bring Mrs. Gumm back to us whole and sound.”
I joined in the “Amen” at the end of her prayer. When I peeked at Mr. Prophet, I saw him mouth something, but I don’t think it was “Amen.”
“We might as well sit down and wait for Sam,” I said, pulling out a chair from the table in the front of the hall and depositing my polka-dotted bottom on same.
“I’ll just make sure the kitchen’s tidy,” said Flossie as she bustled off to clean the kitchen, something that hadn’t even occurred to me, kitchens and I not being on the best of terms even during times when no one was kidnapping anybody.
Grabbing a chair of his own, Mr. Prophet nodded at Flossie’s back and said, “Good woman, that one.”
“Yes. She’s a very good woman, and she’s a wonderful friend.”
“She says you saved her life.”
“I know she does,” I said upon a heartfelt sigh. “She’s wrong, but she can’t be made to see it.”
“Aw, you ain’t so bad, Miss Daisy. You just get your feathers in a fluff too easy.”
Squinting at the man, I said, “What does that mean?”
“You take everything hard, is all.”
“Doggone you, Mr. Lou Prophet, my aunt has been kidnapped!”
“Don’t get mad at me. I didn’t take her.”
“Fiddlesticks. If someone had kidnapped someone you love, you’d be upset, too.”
He didn’t respond right away. Rather, he sat on his hard wooden chair and pondered. I got the impression he was running through years’ and years’ worth of trouble and women in his mind. “Yeah. You’re right,” he said at last.
Well, this admission dumbfounded me. I didn’t say so, because Flossie rejoined us just then, taking the seat vacated by Miss Betsy Powell. “Daisy’s right about what?” she asked with a perky smile.
“She’s right I’d be upset if someone I loved was kidnapped,” said Mr. Lou Prophet.
“Well, I should think you would be!” Flossie exclaimed. “I remember when you told Johnny and me about that woman you loved. Louisa. You told us you rode over half of Mexico looking for her.”
I blinked.
Mr. Prophet blushed. I wouldn’t have believed such a thing possible if I hadn’t seen his wrinkled cheeks redden. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, let’s not talk about that now. Let’s talk about what kinds of things your aunt can put in food to make people sick.” His words were rather rushed, as if he hadn’t enjoyed having one of his more human foibles aired in a Methodist-Episcopal fellowship hall.
Poor guy. I knew he’d once loved a woman named Louisa Bonaventure. He’d told me she was the love of his life. Again I promised myself I wouldn’t be so hard on him. He’d lived a rugged life, and he’d loved and lost, as had pretty much all of us.
Although Louisa Bonaventure being the love of his life hadn’t prevented him from bedding thousands of other women. Maybe only hundreds. A whole lot of them, anyway.
All at once, I remembered a couple of verses from the Bible about not judging other people because we were all going to be judged by a higher-than-human power eventually.
Therefore, I decided to take Mr. Prophet at his word and contemplated plants that might grow in a backyard garden and which Aunt Vi might make use of to poison people.
“She probably wouldn’t use anything downright deadly,” I said, thinking that if my marvelous aunt became really annoyed with a gang of kidnapping thugs, she might just go for the holly berries. Holly bushes weren’t in fruit in April, however.
“Valerian can make people sleepy,” said Flossie. “I see it all over the place in border hedges.”
“Can it make a person sick to her stomach?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. I guess if you’re sensitive to it, it can make you sick. I know some of the ladies at church will use valerian leaves in a soothing tea if any of the Army folks are feeling sick and need rest.”
“I should go to the library,” I said mostly to myself.
“No time for that,” said Mr. Prophet. “Séance is tomorrow night, and then’s when we’ll get your auntie back.”
I stared at him. “It is? I mean, I know Sam wants me to perform a séance at Mrs. Bissel’s house, but I didn’t know his plans were so far advanced. In fact, I don’t even know the name of the person who wants the séance, or whom whoever it is wants me to raise from the dead and talk to.”
“He hasn’t had time to tell you,” observed Mr. Prophet.
“I guess not,” I said. But I was irked. I didn’t like it when Sam kept secrets from me, especially when they had to do with my missing aunt and a séance I had to conduct.
“Oh, I know of a good one!” Flossie exclaimed fairly loudly. Guess she didn’t want a fight to break out. “Wisteria!”
“Wisteria?” I said, surprised. “I had no idea wisteria was poisonous. I love it, because it has those wonderful drapey branches will cascades of flowers, and they smell heavenly this time of year.”
“The pods can be deadly, but I don’t think Mrs. Gumm would want to actually kill anyone. She sure could drop a couple of seeds into some soup, though. That might make a lot of people sick.”
“What a wonderful idea! And wisteria is blooming everywhere.”
“Don’t forget rhubarb,” said Mr. Prophet.
Both Flossie and I gaped at him. “Rhubarb? You mean, like the rhubarb pie Vi makes? That’s never made any of us sick.”
“Not the stems,” he said. “It’s the leaves. If a horse gets into a patch of rhubarb and eats the leaves, it’ll die.”
“How horrible!” It didn’t occur to me until much later that I was more concerned about a horse being poisoned than a bunch of people. However, in my defense, I’d never heard of a horse kidnapping an aunt or carrying a Thompson sub-machine gun with which to kill people.
With a shrug, Mr. Prophet said, “Wouldn’t hurt my feelings if your auntie killed off the whole gang of those rats who took her.”
Flossie laughed. “Nor mine.”
“Flossie!” I cried, not quite scandalized, but close.
She gave my shoulder a playful push, and I relented. “Oh, very well. I hope she doesn’t kill ‘em all off.”
“Who’s killing whom?”
After jumping on my hard chair, I turned to see Sam frowning at the three of us as he paused in the doorway to Fellowship Hall.
“Nobody,” said Mr. Prophet, heaving himself to his feet. “We were just wonderin’ if Daisy’s aunt had used some rhubarb leaves in her ham loaf, if she’s the one who made it.”
“I think she made it,” said Sam. “I had a nice cozy chat with Miss Powell as I drove her home.”
“You did, did you?” I said, frowning at my fiancé. Whom I trusted, but golly, can you blame me for being the slightest bit peeved?
Beaming at me, his teeth white against his olive complexion, Sam strolled over, grabbed yet another chair and sat in it. “Yes. She spilled her woes all over my manly shoulders.”
“She has woes, has she?” I asked in a dry, snide tone of voice.
“Woes upon woes. For one thing, her ‘Italian’ lover, Albert Costello, appears to be somewhat inconstant.”
“She doesn’t know he’s dead, I guess,” I said.
Frowning slightly, Sam said, “Evidently, he’s either not dead, or his brother is telling Miss Powell his name is Albert and not Donald. Or maybe they put Albert’s ID on Donald before or after bumping him off.”
“Sounds complicated,” said Mr. Prophet.
“Yeah, it does,” said Sam.
“Well, whichever man is Miss Powell’s sweetheart, you think he fools around with other women?” I said, feeling sorry for Miss Betsy Powell for the very first time.
“Not sure, but she fears he does. That’s because he doesn’t dote on her every hour of every day.”
“Well, how could he?” I asked. “She’s at the Underhill Chemical Company typing her fingers to little nubs for hours and hours every day.”
“Yes. But he doesn’t seem to telephone her to chat as often as she thinks he should.” Sam shook her head. “She’s kind of an odd duck, isn’t she?”
“Kind of?” I said. “She awful!” Instantly, I felt guilty. “I mean, she’s really annoying. And she chooses the worst men! At least they’ve been bad to me, don’t forget.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” said Sam. “But what really gets on a fellow’s nerves is the way she whines. She can’t say a simple sentence without whining.” He glanced at me. “Have you noticed that about her? She can say ‘how do you do’ and make it sound as if she’s being tortured.”
“Huh,” said I in a most unladylike manner. “I’ve never talked to her much, because I try to avoid her. There are hundreds of other people in the world I’d rather chat with than Miss Betsy Powell.”
“Makes sense to me,” said Sam. “But all is not lost. We discussed her gentleman friend, Mr. Costello, and I told her you aimed to hold a séance at Mrs. Bissel’s house tomorrow night. Then I told her perhaps she could get answers about whether or not Mr. Costello is being true to her if she asked you.”
“At a séance?” I asked. “Even you know that’s not why people hold séances, Sam Rotondo.”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t.”
Enlightenment struck. A little late, perhaps, but I finally understood. “Oh. You’re right. And since I’ve taken to reading tea leaves, I can probably look into her teacup, providing Mrs. Bissel serves tea. If I read her tea leaves, I’ll be able to tell her whatever you want me to tell her. You do want me to get information from her, don’t you?”
“Yes. Thanks, Daisy.”
“You’re welcome, Sam.”
“I didn’t know you could read tea leaves!” said Flossie, her lovely blue eyes as wide as saucers.
Although I hated to admit it, I told her the truth. “I can’t. But I can’t read tarot cards, palms or the Ouija board, either, so why not fake yet another spiritualistic power?”
Flossie sat on her chair and peered at me for a few seconds before nodding her head and saying, “Why not, indeed?”