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I found Denise as soon as the breakfast meal was over. She was replacing the used grounds with fresh ones in the coffee machine when I entered the dining room.
“There’s a little bit left in the reserves.” She motioned to the machine. “But if you can wait a few minutes, you can have freshly brewed coffee.”
“I’m not here for coffee,” I told her.
Her brow wrinkled but then her eyebrows shot high. “You’re not?” She glanced around the dining room. It was empty, but she lowered her voice anyway.
“Did you find out what it is?”
I’d debated whether or not to tell Denise what Aidan had discovered about the leaves found on Arthur’s plate.
I’d debated whether or not to tell anyone, really.
Bringing Anne in on the news was an absolute and obvious no. At least for now. If I mentioned to her that a poisonous plant had been found on the property, and that it might have been ingested and then caused the death of a resident, she’d bury that story faster than I could blink an eye. And probably find a way to blame me for the whole debacle. For her, Oasis Ridge’s reputation—and the ability to bring in more residents and shore up the company’s bottom line—mattered more than anything else.
Besides, I told myself, even though Aidan had been able to identify the plant, there was no actual proof that someone had put it on Arthur’s plate or in his food. I mean, it was possible that perhaps Arthur himself had laced his own food with it. A suicide. I had no reason to think he’d been depressed or planning to kill himself, but I was fully aware that I hadn’t known him that well. Maybe he’d gotten an alarming medical diagnosis. Maybe he’d decided he wanted to be in control of his exit from this world. I’d read up a little more about the plant after I’d gotten home from the meeting with Aidan. One web site had said that the plant had a bitter taste to it, so if Arthur had wanted to make the poisoning more...palatable...he might have decided to add it to a meal. Not that Lola’s cooking make anything terribly tasty, but still. It would have been better to eat it that way than forcing it down on its own.
I shook my head. I didn’t know that he’d committed suicide. And I didn’t know whether or not someone might have intentionally poisoned Arthur.
But the possibility was definitely there.
I just didn’t know who might do such a thing.
If I could figure out that piece, I would feel much better bringing the information to someone else. To Anne, the police...anyone but me.
Because I certainly didn’t know what to do with it.
“Earth to Sunny.” Denise waved her hand in front of my face.
I blinked. “Oh. Sorry.” I shook my head, more to clear my mind and focus on the present than as an answer to her previous question.
“Well?” she demanded, her hands on her hips. “Any news?”
“Not yet.”
I felt bad for lying, but I wasn’t ready to share. Not right then. Not when there were so many unanswered questions, and not when I knew that telling her the one thing I did know—that the leaves were from a poisonous plant—would set her off and confirm all of her worst fears.
Her face fell.
“I’m just curious, though,” I said as I followed her away from the coffee machine and back toward the kitchen. I could hear Lola singing in the back, a nasally version of some Broadway tune. “You said you’ve heard a bunch of gossip. Mentioned all kinds of drama.”
She rolled her eyes. “You could say that again.”
I leaned against the counter and watched as she pulled out a box of freshly laundered napkins. Anne was a fan of small touches that suggested a more refined living experience, and cloth napkins were one of these touches. Denise pulled out a stack of burgundy squares and began to fold them into triangles.
“So, in your opinion, who might want Arthur dead?”
Denise gasped out loud and clutched a hand to her heart. “What? Why in the world would you ask me that?”
“You were the one who said he might have been poisoned,” I reminded her. “I’m just wondering by who.”
“Lord have mercy.” She was still holding her chest, almost as if she were trying to physically keep her heart in place. “How would I know that?”
“I’m not saying you know,” I said. “I’m just wondering if you’ve heard anything that might point to someone potentially being a suspect.”
Her dark eyes rounded. “So now you think he was murdered, huh? Poisoned? You agree with me?”
“I never said that.” She was beginning to exasperate me. Which wasn’t exactly a new experience. “I’m just exploring all the options. And you were the one who seemed to think someone offed him, remember?”
She made the sign of the cross. “Don’t speak of the dead like that,” she hissed. “It’s disrespectful. Besides, they might hear you!”
“Hear me?”
She nodded. “Spirits.” She shivered. “Pretty sure this here place is full of them. All those souls who have died here...I’m sure there are a few who haven’t yet moved on to the next realm.”
I wasn’t sure what religion Denise belonged to, or if she had developed her own set of religious beliefs. But I wasn’t about to ask.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to get her back on track. “My word choice was insensitive.” I tried to rephrase. “You seemed pretty convinced yesterday that someone killed him with those leaves.”
She hesitated before offering a slight nod of agreement.
“So if you had to name someone who might have a bone to pick with Arthur, who would it be?”
“I hear gossip,” she said pointedly. “Not assassination plots.”
“Okay, but was there gossip where someone spoke unkindly about Arthur?”
Denise moved the stack of folded napkins so she could start another. “I don’t know,” she murmured.
“Just think,” I urged. “Think if there was someone who might have been disgruntled about something.” I thought about his dining room routine. “Maybe someone who was offended that they couldn’t sit with him and Mary for meals?”
Denise worried her bottom lip as her hands deftly moved through the piles of napkins, folding into triangles and then folding again.
“The only person who comes to mind is Ruth,” she finally said.
“Ruth?” I repeated.
“Ruth Simpson.”
I knew who she was talking about. Ruth was the resident who’d stepped in to help serve. Ruth was the woman who had been a carhop, and who loaded herself down with pounds of jewelry for every meal. “Why Ruth?”
Denise clucked her tongue. “Because she was in love with that man.”
“With Arthur?”
Denise nodded.
“So because she was in love with him, you think she poisoned him?”
“I think nothing of the sort,” she pointed out primly. “You asked for the gossip I’d heard. That’s all I’m giving you.”
“Fair enough. Ruth was in love with Arthur. And...?”
She looked at me as though I were daft. “And Arthur was in love with Mary.”
Of course.
“Ruth wasn’t too happy about that,” Denise said. “She tried everything: flirting with him, sitting with him out in the Gathering Room before the dining room doors opened. He just wasn’t interested.”
I pictured Ruth in my head. I had a hard time imagining her as a scorned woman, bitter over a man’s rejection. She was always sweet, always willing to lend a helping hand. Why, we’d witnessed that just the other night when she helped serve dinner...
My hand flew to my mouth.
Denise was too busy folding napkins to notice.
Ruth had helped serve dinner on the night Arthur died.
Could that have been a coincidence?
Absolutely.
But there was something else I knew about Ruth, something that immediately made me further question her involvement in all of this the minute I remembered.
I’d been to Ruth’s apartment.
And I knew one of her greatest passions was plants.
Lots of them.