Chapter 9
Sweetened by sugar or salted by brine, a pickle
strikes a nice balance . . . unless the pickle’s a
jam and you’re caught in the middle.
—Henny Penny Farmette Almanac
Leaving sleepy Las Flores for the mountains on Monday, Abby looked forward to spending the day in Fiona’s cottage, helping her brother pack her belongings. Last night, she’d told Clay she needed another day or two to stow things away and make room for his stuff. Surprisingly, he had accommodated her without too much protest, but he hadn’t spared her his sad-faced Eeyore expression.
As for Jack, she sincerely wanted to lend a helping hand. Apparently, he didn’t know a soul in town other than his sister and her estranged husband. But as Abby thought about it, she realized that sometimes in the most innocuous of settings and situations, one learned things. One little detail, overlooked at first, could sometimes break a case wide open. Abby took her time negotiating the Jeep around ever-higher curves until the fog abruptly yielded to sunlight. In the forest clearings, she observed the low ceiling of clouds still hanging over the valley floor. But once she’d pierced the gray shroud of fog, the sunlight of the mountains dazzled through canopies of towering blue-green redwood trees. The morning air carried the humid scent of pine sap, wild thyme, and decayed plant material.
At Dr. Danbury’s big red barn, Abby turned onto the weedy gravel driveway and drove up to Fiona’s cottage. She cut the engine and sat for a moment, wondering if she should have dressed more conservatively. It was going to be a hot day, and she’d chosen loose, cool clothes—a lacy black camisole and a see-through white cotton shirt with three-quarter sleeves. The shirt hung several inches over black cropped pants with side and rear pockets, in case she needed to stash a note or two for safekeeping. The only thing not color coordinated was the chartreuse bandanna around her shoulder-length red-gold curls. But why am I thinking about clothing now, as if changing anything at this point is even an option?
She glanced at the shed that served as Dr. Danbury’s garage. The door had been thrust wide open. Inside, a partially covered, mud-splattered all-terrain vehicle, or ATV, had been parked at the rear, behind the spot where the doc customarily parked his Volvo. The Volvo was gone. Abby couldn’t help wondering where the doc had gotten off to so early today. The other weather-beaten shed—the one closest to Fiona’s cottage and where she kept extra stuff for her store—had a sturdy lock hanging from its latch. Abby grabbed the cloth bags of breakfast fixings from the passenger seat. She scooted out of her Jeep and strolled to the cottage door.
Surprised that the banshee door knocker was missing, Abby knocked three times before the door swung open. Jack, fresh faced, with his brown and silver curls bouncing in every direction, greeted her in bare feet. Wearing blue jeans and an unbuttoned white shirt with the cuffs turned up a couple of rolls, he seemed happy to see her and made a sweeping gesture for her to enter into the step-down living room. Light flooded the interior through the bank of windows offering a sweeping vista of green mountain ridges running north and south, parallel to the Pacific Ocean. Stacks of boxes awaiting assembly, bags of packing peanuts, and rolls of tape had been piled in a corner by the fireplace for the work ahead. The fragrance of freshly brewed coffee and the soft strains of Celtic music playing in the background created an ambiance that Abby liked. A lot.
“I’ve got eggs, herbs, an onion, a bell pepper, cheese, whole-grain muffins, and some andouille sausages,” Abby said, hoisting the bags into his arms. “All I need is a frying pan, a bowl, and a wire whisk. In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, I’ll cook up breakfast.”
“Sounds wonderful,” he said, leading her to the kitchen and placing the bags on the rustic barn-plank table, which, with its ladder-back chairs, took up most of the room.
He finished buttoning the shirt over his exposed muscular chest and tucked the shirttails into his trousers. “What can I do to help?”
Everything about him seemed different—gone was the anger of their first encounter and the forlornness of their second. Today he exuded a quiet self-assurance. Abby could only speculate that the shock of his recent loss had morphed into acceptance of its undeniable reality.
In a voice exuding sweetness and warmth, she replied, “Could you empty the bags?”
“That, I can do,” he said in a tone tinged with relief. “Holding my breath, I was, out of fear you’d ask me to cook something. I’ve eaten all the canned fish and devoured the box of crackers. Any more of that diet, and I’ll be growing me feline fangs.” His eyes shone with impish mirth.
Abby smiled back. “Someone’s in rare form today.”
“I finally got some sleep . . . and a hangover . . . to thank for it.”
Abby reached for a spatula from a glazed crock of utensils on the counter and pulled opened a cabinet door. “Where can I find a bowl to scramble the eggs?”
“There.” Jack pointed to the adjacent cabinet.
“So,” Abby said, taking down a bowl, “what happened to the door knocker?” She gave him a sidelong glance. Faint laugh lines on either side of his blue eyes crinkled while he seemed to be thinking through a response.
“Just . . . well . . . gone.” He reached into the bag nearest him and pulled out a carton of eggs and the hunk of cheese wrapped in plastic. After peeling away the plastic, he removed a knife from the set on the table, sliced off a sliver of cheese, and popped the piece into his mouth.
“Yeah? Where?” she asked, probing.
“Back there,” he said, waving the knife toward the back of the house. “Or there.” He pointed the knife in the opposite direction.
Abby set the bowl on the counter and gave him a bewildered look. “Well, which is it?”
“I suppose the landlord disposed of it when he cleaned up the broken glass.” Jack chewed his lip like a small boy confronted over having been caught red-handed in some questionable act.
“Wait. What glass? I’m confused. The cottage door has no glass.”
“Oh, right you are. So, it was the glass window at the back of the house.”
Abby detected a bit of beating around the bush. “This sounds like a fishy story, which you need to start from the beginning, now that you’ve hooked me.”
“Heaved it, I did,” he admitted, feigning a thick Irish brogue, “toward the East Coast, and I might have uttered a curse as I sent it flying.” His face bore a sheepish expression. “Aye, and nearly ripped my arm from its pit.”
Abby sucked in a breath. “Ohhh, so you tossed that pretty little knocker away?”
“That I did. The winds were howling something fierce, and there was nothing to slow the wailing over the mountaintop. But the gusting was to my advantage, or so I thought. Once thrown, the object would be carried by the wind even farther from me. The problem, I soon discovered,” he said before pausing to swallow, “was that the wind was blowing directly at me. But I, being a wee bit tipsy, hurled that banshee with all my might. I could have sworn it was gone for good.”
“Was it?”
He exhaled heavily. “Nay. She landed a foot away. But the Irish have a saying. ‘He who isn’t strong must use cunning. ’ So, I summoned my strength and hurled it in the opposite direction.”
Seriously? Not only did he look like a leprechaun with that wild hair, but now he sounded like he’d kissed the proverbial Blarney stone. She resisted the urge to laugh out loud.
“I suppose ’twas then I heard the window shatter.”
“Oh, no . . . Don’t tell me.” Abby put her hand over her mouth to hold back the laughter. “That door knocker was an art object, Jack. Surely you didn’t believe it had anything to do with Fiona’s passing.”
“No, of course not.” He continued in his affected dialect. “But I had a deadly buzz on. Opened the door for a little night air, I did. Then I spied it hanging there. It ignited my anger something fierce. I ripped it off and sent it flying away from the cottage. And then I picked it up and turned to fling it again. That’s when the glass shattered, and the landlord came staggering out to ask what the bleep I was doing.”
“What did you tell him?”
“What could I say? Out chasing ghosts? I didn’t mean to break his window.”
Abby leaned over the bowl and howled with laughter. “Oh, Lord, have mercy,” she said after regaining her composure.
His deadpan expression shifted to a sly smile. He did a shoulder roll before laying aside the knife to reach into the other bag. He pulled out the mushrooms. “Ah, fungi. These will add flavor without the hallucination that some find so annoying.”
Her laughter erupted again.
“Ever been to a fungus fair or foray?” he asked. “I hear that in California, mushroom connoisseurs engage in those sorts of activities.”
“Well, I don’t.” Abby took the button mushrooms from him. “My luck, I’d pluck a basket of deadly toadstools.”
“Or a psychoactive Psilocybe species with hallucinogenic properties,” he uttered in a flat monotone.
“That too.” She had expected a somber mood from Jack, but she found the unexpected display of humor rather delightful. However, it did seem strangely juxtaposed against the deep sadness she’d witnessed in his eyes during their first encounter. Abby understood only too well how shock and mourning could take all kinds of expression. Just because someone felt grief deeply didn’t necessarily mean he or she couldn’t experience moments of lightness and humor. Laughter could serve as a counterbalance to the burdensome, at times unbearable, weight of sorrow. She liked this side of him—it was so very much like Fiona.
Jack took the bowl back, washed the mushrooms, and laid them on a cutting board for slicing. “These will taste great in the eggs,” he said, dropping the accent.
“Absolutely,” Abby said. “Especially with chives, parsley, and a teensy bit of English thyme. Just a little of each.” She focused on chopping the herbs, along with the onion and bell pepper. Next, she grated a half cup of cheese. Removing the casings from the sausage took a minute more. She cut them into slices under his watchful gaze. “I’d ask you to beat the eggs, Jack, but with your sore shoulder from all that heaving . . . well, I’m happy to do it,” she teased.
“I’ll be in your debt for that,” he said.
When the eggs were frothy, Abby made the omelet. “So, tell me, did Fiona always share your interest in plants?”
Jack set plates and silverware on the table. “Not in an academic way. Fiona loved edible garden plants and herbs she could grow and eat. I, on the other hand, harbored an interest in all kinds of plants in cultures, and how indigenous people use their plants throughout their lives in foods, medicine, and spirituality practices. That is the very definition of ethnobotany—my field of study.” He tore two paper towels from a roll to use as napkins. “Fiona got serious about herbs after she suffered a bad reaction from taking milk thistle for a liver cleansing along with the allergy drug a doctor had prescribed for hay fever.”
“Here in California, milk thistle grows wild like a common weed. So Fiona used it as a liver tonic?”
“Yes. She would often fast and cleanse. But after that adverse reaction, she was much more diligent, reading voraciously about herbs and never using them as tonics or medicine unless she understood their drawbacks, as well as benefits.”
Abby turned off the burner. She cut the omelet in half with the metal spatula and slid the halves onto the plates.
Jack pulled a chair out for her and sank into the other one. “In fact,” he said, “tradition holds you can use milk thistle in emergency situations involving poisoning by Amanita phalloides, the death cap mushroom. That’s because milk thistle seeds have silymarin—a chemical that protects liver cells from toxins.”
Abby held the whole-grain muffin in her hand in midair. “So, if Fiona knew that she’d come in contact with some toxin or poison, she’d likely know the antidote to take, right?”
Between forkfuls of omelet, Jack said, “Oh, yes. I think so.”
“Unless she couldn’t,” Abby said, speculating, before she pinched off a piece of the muffin and ate it.
“Wouldn’t that beg the question of why she couldn’t?” he asked.
Abby nodded. “When we know that, I think we’ll have the key to solving her murder.” Abby washed the bite down with a swig of coffee. “Tom spent the night with her and left here early in the morning on the day she died. Would she have gotten up and made breakfast for him?”
“Of course,” said Jack. “For Fiona, making a meal was a means to demonstrate love.” Jack leaned in, as though sensing Abby was about to make a point.
Abby set the muffin aside. “On the day the cops found Fiona’s body, this kitchen—in fact, the whole house, according to my sources—looked like a cleaning crew had just serviced it. Two people for breakfast and showers meant a kitchen to clean, a bed to make, and bathroom laundry and towels to throw into a basket or the washer. Someone cleaned up.”
“It had to be Fiona,” Jack answered. “She kept a tidy house.” He forked a sliver of green on the edge of his plate and stabbed a piece of omelet, then ate it with masculine gusto.
“Suppose that makes sense. Did you know she was coming to have lunch with me on my farmette?”
He shook his head. “If she told me, I didn’t remember. So you see, my memory is selective.”
“Talk to me about poisoning. What kinds of poisons might she have encountered around the environs up here?” Abby asked, using her fork to break apart the omelet. She took a small bite, savoring the taste as she chewed.
“Well, around the cottage, most likely, the doc keeps pesticides, herbicides, fungicides to deal with weeds and pest infestations. Could be that there are several species of spiders, insects, snakes, mold, mushrooms, and all manner of plants, perhaps even some that possess powerful neurotoxins. Certain plants can exert a paralytic action or adversely act upon the cardiopulmonary system, causing stoppage of the heart.”
“For example?” Abby eyed him intently.
“The death cap, for starters. Some say it took the life of the Roman emperor Claudius, although it is possible that eating a mushroom painted with a poisonous toxin could have done him in. The death cap has taken more lives throughout history than any other mushroom, but it’s not quick. After ingestion, it could take maybe fifteen to sixteen hours to kill.”
“What might someone ingest that would have a shorter action time?”
“You mean fast-acting plants?” He pursed his lips and blew air through them. “You’ve got deadly nightshade, monkshood, and hemlock, which killed Socrates. Let’s not forget Digitalis purpurea, also known as foxglove. For generations, it’s been grown at the back of flower gardens, but every part of the plant is poisonous. Its leaves look like comfrey leaves, which also has toxic properties. People who are allergic to foxglove could experience fatal anaphylaxis. But I believe there would be signs of an allergic reaction to foxglove contact or ingestion.”
“Like what?”
“Hives.”
“I didn’t see any hives on Fiona,” Abby said, deciding to spare him the details about Fiona being clothed and burned, which had limited her view of Fiona’s exposed skin. “If Fiona had ingested a plant poison, I think it would have had to be fast acting or at least have taken her life within the few hours given as the time frame for her death.”
“Well,” said Jack, “depending on the poison, the coroner or medical examiner might find traces of it in her body or possibly the by-products. Plant alkaloid poisoning, such as you might see in monkshood, could happen as quickly as within half an hour of ingestion.”
“But wouldn’t the medical examiner or coroner need to be looking for those alkaloids?”
Jack turned his gaze on her. “I couldn’t say. Do you think someone used a poisonous agent to kill her?”
“My sources in the police department tell me they are taking a hard look at Tom as a person of interest,” Abby said matter-of-factly. “Do you think Tom capable of hurting her?”
Jack trembled slightly and shook his head in an immediate denial. “Not the Tom I know.”
Abby took a slow sip of coffee, giving him time and hoping he might elaborate.
“Fiona loved him, you know. Right up to the last. She believed their marriage would work if he could just break his ties with the cult. I guess she saw something in him that he couldn’t see in himself.”
“What was that?”
“Fatherhood. Fiona wanted to start a family. I’m not saying there weren’t issues.”
Abby brows shot up. “What kind of issues?”
“Fiona tried to wrest Tom free from the clutches of the commune, which she said of late had become a cult. She told me they blocked her at every turn. But she kept trying. She told me that she thought they had changed tactics and had someone keeping tabs on her.”
“Like a stalker? Did she say who?”
He folded his arms across his chest and stared off into space. “I don’t know. Maybe more than one person.”
“Did she ever mention the name Laurent Duplessis?”
“To her,” said Jack, sipping his coffee, “Duplessis was a dalliance, nothing more. But I gather, to him, she was everything good about America. He believed they had a future.”
“I’m sure he did.” Abby reached for the pot and refilled Jack’s cup before pouring the last of the coffee into her own. “So why was it so hard for Tom to break free from the cult?”
“Brainwashing and rigid rules. You are required to relinquish all your possessions, money, and all links to the outside world, except if you are making money, which you must give to the compound. Fiona couldn’t bring herself to return to such a tight structure and swore she’d never raise a child there. According to her, they were grooming Tom. They had convinced him that he had the potential to be the new leader when the time came for the current cult leader and the commune manager to start new branches throughout the world.”
“Do you mean Hayden Marks and Premalatha Baxter?”
“Yes, those two.” Jack finished the last bite on his plate, dabbed his mouth with the napkin, and nodded. “I can’t imagine Tom hurting Fiona. Kill the goose who lays the golden egg? What would be his motive?”
“Yeah. My thought, too. But maybe it was someone else who had the motive and some way to stack the deck against Tom. In effect, forcing him to kill,” said Abby.
Jack shook his head. “No. I can’t see it.”
Abby wondered if he knew about the jewelry incident. She took a deep breath and watched Jack’s expression closely as she broached the subject. “Tom was caught pawning their wedding rings and jewelry.”
The color blanched from Jack’s face. His eyes locked onto hers.
“You didn’t know?”
He shook his head in disbelief. “That makes me sick.” He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Abby said, “Hard to believe, I know. But it’s true. I was there.” She rose and collected the dishes, placed them in the sink. “I wonder if you might show me Fiona’s garden. I’ve seen what she grows in front of the house, but she has a patch on the north side, right?”
He ran his hands through his hair and looked up. “Yes. It’s lovely.” After pushing his chair back from the table, he rose and strolled from the kitchen to the back door. “Mind the hole there.” He pointed to an opening in the floor large enough for a child to climb through to reach the crawl space beneath the house leading to the rear of the structure. It was partially covered with a rug.
Abby sidestepped the hole. “I’ve been up here to see Fiona a couple of times and never noticed that hole. Wonder why Dr. Danbury hasn’t fixed it.” Abby let the back door slam behind her.
“Because of Paws, Dr. Danbury’s cat. The good doctor would forget to feed and water the cat when he was drunk. At least, that’s what Fiona told me,” he said, leading Abby to a large area uphill from the cottage, fenced to keep out the deer. “Paws liked hanging out with Fiona, and why wouldn’t he? There was all the canned fish in the world in her cupboard.” He chuckled, holding up a large tree branch for Abby to pass beneath.
“I’ve yet to see that cat,” Abby said.
“The cat wasn’t the only creature to enter through that hole, either.” Jack leaned down to unwire the gate.
“As floor holes go, it’s pretty large,” Abby said.
Jack wrestled open the garden gate. “Finding a lizard in her shoe,” he said, “freaked Fiona out. Another time, a chipmunk found its way in and raced around the house until Fiona got it to go back out through the hole.”
Abby smiled. Leaning down near a row of parsley, she plucked a green leaf and chewed on it. “So Fiona took in strays of all kinds, not just humans?”
“That she did.”
Fiona’s garden had clearly reached it apogee, evidenced by the riotous color of both sun-drenched and shade-loving plants—the latter protected by two apple trees with thick, stubby trunks on the garden’s southeastern axis. In the full sun, crimson climbing roses sprawled over the wire fencing, while sunflowers dazzled with their bright yellow blooms.
Pointing to a stand of colorful hollyhocks, Jack asked Abby, “Did you know that evidence of Alcea rosea, or the hollyhock, was found in the grave of an early human—a Neanderthal dating back some fifty thousand years?”
“No, I didn’t know that.” Abby enjoyed his ability to pull out—seeming out of the blue—facts about common plants, as it enriched her experience of being in the garden with him.
“Foxglove blooming right on schedule . . . late May,” she said, pointing to the purple and white blooms atop four-foot spires along one side of the fence. “And just look at those delphiniums,” said Abby, “just beginning to show color. They’re gorgeous.”
“And deadly,” Jack said. “Seeds and very young plants, if ingested by cattle or other farm animals, are highly toxic.”
“And over there, feverfew!” exclaimed Abby. “I love its daisy-like flowers, always so cheerful. And chives, bee balm, and lots of herbs I don’t recognize are growing along that row there.”
“Just point to them, and I’ll tell you what they are,” offered Jack. He stood near a narrow footpath. With green shoots poking up everywhere, it looked like the others Fiona must have tried to weed without success. As Jack strode the narrow paths, he began to point out to Abby various plants, calling out their Latin names, as well as their common ones. “Fiona favored the old heirloom perennials and open-pollinated plants,” he said. “She liked seed saving, because plant diversity all over the planet is shrinking with every generation, and she wanted to do her part to save some of these old favorites, which soon will be gone forever.”
“Well, I believe she was right about species loss,” said Abby. “It also happens to be my philosophy.”
He stopped and turned to look at her. “I see why my sister liked you so much. Fiona may have been, as you say, a free spirit, but I detect an independent spirit in you, as well. I like women who know their minds, blaze their own trails. I’d love to see your garden.”
His proclamation had taken her by surprise. Abby hoped her expression revealed only her amusement and not her concern that it could be awkward for her if Clay was present. But despite her misgivings, she heard herself say, “Sure.”
They returned to the house. Jack wrote out his cell phone number and, grinning, handed it to Abby.
Abby felt a subtle ripple of excitement. She plucked the paper from between his fingers and tucked it into her back pants pocket. “We’d better get to packing,” she said.
The morning hours quickly passed, and by the time Abby glanced at the clock over the fireplace, her stomach was growling. It was nearly four o’clock. They hadn’t eaten since breakfast, unless you counted the stale nuts, crackers, and cheese that had fortified them as they sorted, cleaned, wrapped, and packed each room in turn. Fiona’s books had been carefully placed into boxes, and the boxes labeled with the word LIBRARY printed with a black felt-tip marking pen. These they had stacked behind the front door. She had counted out the items in Fiona’s dish pattern and had noticed only one cup missing, while the remaining dishware and extra pots and pans had been wrapped and tucked into boxes for Jack to decide how to dispose of them. Fiona’s clothing and shoes had gone into bags for the women’s shelter and had been piled along the living-room window. Perishable food items and toiletries had gone into garbage bags. Jack would go through everything else when he had the time.
Abby stood and stretched as the CD of Portuguese fados finished. She had listened to the music of the world: country tunes, Peruvian pan flute, Urdu ghazals, folk music, Hindi devotional bhajans, movie scores, and Gregorian chants. Fiona’s eclectic musical taste was nothing short of amazing. Who but such a free spirit could feel inspired by music spanning such diverse traditions and cultures? And Jack seemed to enjoy it, too. He had chosen to spend his life in a discipline that would take him to diverse cultures in the world as he studied plants and their uses. Had they both received some exotic gene in their makeup, or had they been influenced by someone in their formative years? Abby made a mental note to ask him.
Picking up a towel to fold, Abby gazed at Jack, who stood in the kitchen doorway with glasses of iced tea. She put down the towel and sank onto the couch. He handed her a glass and stretched out next to her to sip from his. After catching sight of a picture among family photos scattered about on the floor, he picked it up and stared at it. In a field, a boyish-looking man embraced a young, dark-haired woman who was attempting to tuck a dandelion flower in his hair. The sun seemed to be rising and casting its warmth and glow upon them.
“She met Tom,” Jack said, his voice cracking, “at the Wash and Dry in Boulder Bluff. It’s where she landed when she first came to California. She was in a group of women who shared a vision of living a more spiritual life apart from religious dogma. They learned to be midwives and herbalists and earth mothers in every way. It was her journey, and try as I might to dissuade her and point her toward a real education, she stayed with that group.”
“Marching to her own drumbeat,” Abby said after swallowing a sip of the tea. “You have to admire her for that.”
“By their expressions, you can tell they are in love, can’t you?” Jack asked.
Abby stared at the image and nodded. “Yes, seems so.”
A moment of silence ensued. Jack swallowed several sips of tea and then announced, “I want to see Tom. Is he in jail or at the commune?”
“Easy enough to find out,” Abby replied.
“I have to ask him,” Jack said. “I have to know.” His tone sounded resolute. He impaled her eyes with a soulful gaze. His expression appeared full of strength and determination.
She nodded in agreement.
“You take her journals. See if you can learn anything. Before we put Fiona in her eternal resting place, let’s you and I face him. I will know if he’s lying.”
Abby looked up to meet his gaze. “I do hope so, Jack.”
Tips for Creating Drama in a Garden of Flowers
• Color: Plant drifts of plants with blooms in the same color for maximum impact.
• Paths: Create paths from pea gravel, stones, packed earth, or another material that meander into secret sitting/viewing areas. Or use the paths as linear elements in formal gardens.
• Statuary and Garden Art: Choose garden art or statuary that finds resonance with the type of garden you are creating. For instance, use whimsical pieces in cottage gardens and regal pieces in parterres or other formal garden designs.
• Surprise: Tuck a tea table, a whimsical element, a stunning mosaic birdbath, or a fountain in a hidden place, to be discovered by visitors to the garden.
• Theme: Consider a theme-oriented garden. For example, include plants with red and orange blooms to symbolize seduction, plants with white blossoms to represent purity and peace, or plants with flowers in primary and secondary colors to symbolize impressionism.
• Tiers: Use the three-tier approach to plant height: place the tallest plants in a bed to the rear, those of medium height in the middle, and the smaller bedding plants at the front.