Page 22 of A Light in the Dark
TWENTY-TWO
Death smelled sweet with a hint of baked crust.
An hour after arriving, we finished unloading the SUVs and both men went to park in Joel’s garage. I left the front door open while I engaged Elenora’s cobbler in a staring contest. For the most part, the baked dish won. Unfortunately for me, I identified at least four types of poisonous berries, one I’d never seen before, and a few questionable berries that were notorious for sending their victims to the bathroom for a few uncomfortable hours.
Pride demanded I taste the cobbler so I could report if it was sweet, tart, or something else.
I worried even a taste may do me in.
Joel led the charge into my kitchen, glared at the dish, and said, “Please don’t eat that.”
Laughing at the luna moth’s request, I shook my head, grabbed a butter knife, and pointed at the nastiest of the berries I’d spotted. “See this one? This one would have me calling out sick for at least three days. I will not be eating this. I’m trying to figure out how to tell if it’s sweet or tart.”
Joel and my boss took turns sniffing the dish.
“It’s sweet,” both men reported.
I eyed them, narrowing my eyes. “Are any of them tart?”
“It smells like she added more sugar than berries in that death dish.” Joel eyed the berries. “And none of the berries, except the strangleberry, are tart—and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of strangleberry this time.”
I eyed the dish, dipped my finger into the berries, and took a closer sniff.
Death smelled sweet with a hint of baked crust. Shuddering, I went to my sink, washed my hands, retrieved a garbage bag and dumped the whole thing in. Something crinkled, and puzzled, I checked the garbage to find a foil-wrapped package. Plucking it out, I tossed it into the sink, washed my hands again, and rinsed off the shiny metal. “I suppose I wouldn’t have found that if I hadn’t dumped the whole thing out upside down.”
“You would have found it after a slice or two looking at the size,” my boss commented, and he grabbed my dish gloves, snapped them on, and invited himself into checking out the foil, taking care with unwrapping it. Inside was a silicon pouch, the kind capable of withstanding being baked. He pulled it out and held it up, revealing some paper inside. “In a way, I admire this level of cunning. On the other hand, I’m concerned about what’s going on.” Peeling open the pouch, he pulled out the sheets of paper, opened them, and spread them out on the counter.
One proved to be a check for the amount she claimed she owed me for installing the steps. A second proved to be a check for a thousand dollars with a memo claiming it was for the inevitable hospital visit I would be facing for eating any of the dish. Two sheets of paper included recipes, and I recognized them all as the dangerous concoctions she’d given me over the years.
According to the list of ingredients, a single taste would have sent me to the ER, and just touching the damned stuff would result in a bad time, as three toxins were noted as having strong absorption through the skin. The symptoms included a headache, blurry vision, irritability, and thirst, but the symptoms would fade after two or three days without causing lasting harm.
One final sheet of paper congratulated me on having handled her immunology experiment and to enjoy my new tolerance to all the dangers of Stonecreek.
“Joel? Did she do this to you, too?”
“I got a metal lasagna dish,” he informed me, shaking his head. “I hadn’t realized she’d done this to you, too.”
The memory of her first ambush still amused me; had I known the truth, I would have avoided the viper to spare my stomach and my nerves. “Joel, she gave me the first dish the day after I moved in, telling me to be a dear and enjoy her cobbler and don’t stress too much about getting everything sorted inside, as I’d done such a good job of not blocking the street or sidewalk for long. I’d assumed I’d gotten ahold of bad fast food for the first few times she sent cobbler because I didn’t get that sick. The first time she nailed me with strangleberry, I ended up at the doctor and scolded for accepting food from questionable people.”
Joel bowed his head and sighed. “You didn’t stop to think, for a second, something was seriously wrong with her cobbler?”
“But I like strangleberry,” I complained. “Her cobblers are delicious. And only like half of them made me sick.”
“Her cobblers are lethal!”
“Only if you don’t graduate from her immunology program,” I countered, taking the time to read the note and giggling the entire time. “But seriously, only half of them made me sick.”
“Only because her immunology program was starting to work,” Joel muttered, shaking his head, taking the gloves from my boss, and washing the dish. “You have no idea what sort of dish this is, do you?”
“It’s pretty,” I replied. “And it will look beautiful on my counter, where I will lovingly use it anytime I need to do a roast, which is fairly often.”
“It’s an Earth vintage baking casserole dish, and it’s probably well over three hundred years old,” he informed me. When he finished washing the dish, he flipped it over to show me the stamp on the bottom, which was the same color of the dish itself and carved into it. “I spotted the stamp when you flipped it, and this is just not something people here counterfeit. She probably saw you hauling in your roses and acquired one for you.”
I stared at the dish with wide eyes. “Who did she murder to get it?”
“Before the portals were closed, Earth antiques were shipped across with shocking frequency, and Stonecreek is a hotbed of Earth antiquities. I only knew what this was because I have its sister dish at home. It’s very probably authentic, too. ”
“And she baked with it?”
“She baked poison for you in it,” he corrected.
“It was delicious poison, so she’s off the hook.” I grabbed the paper announcing my graduation from her poisoning class. “I have a degree now!”
Both men stared at me, and after heaving a sigh, Joel dried off the dish and placed it on one of my potholders on the counter. “My lasagna pan is also from Earth, but it was a more modern construction, and they’re designed to last a lifetime. It’s made with similar tech as our stuff, but it’s from Earth metals, and the specific line is resistant to rust. I treat mine like the treasure it is, and I even thank her for my pan every time I see her. In bad news, you will receive a monthly gift of poison for the rest of your life, because she will not want your immunity to toxins to expire. But at least you know what you’re eating, and she’ll give you directions for what to look out for.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you eating poisoned cobbler once a month, Joel?”
He nodded.
“And you’re sitting there yelling at me for not stopping to think there was something wrong with the cobbler?”
“I am.”
“I get a monthly hit of the death cobbler for graduating?”
“You do.”
I gave my hands a wash, huffed, and went to my front door, grabbed my keys, shoved my feet into my shoes, and skipped down the hill, hopping up the stairs and knocking on Elenora’s door.
Joel tagged along, and judging from his expression, he thought I’d lost my mind .
I probably had.
Elenora’s husband, a bent old man with an attitude, opened the door and regarded me with a raised brow. “Elenora!”
As the bastard was likely involved with the poisoning, I gave him a hug. “I am not a hussy, and I’m going to forgive you for thinking I am, but I have been told I get a monthly hit of the death cobbler.”
He patted my back and snorted a laugh. “I see Joel has been snitching.”
“Hey, Ritchy,” Joel greeted, coming up the steps behind me. “I was helping her bring in some things and saw the dish. It’s a beauty. I have the same one at home.”
“I’ve got the rest of the set for the little missy, but she gets it with her monthly deliveries of death cobbler until she’s gotten used to the idea. I am quite amused she’s named it death cobbler.”
“She was eating it because she likes strangleberry.”
“You’re an idiot, little missy,” Ritchy informed me. “Elenora! The little missy likes your strangleberry.”
Elenora showed up, spotted me, and grinned. “Did you actually eat the cobbler?”
“Hell no,” I replied, and I showed her my hands. “I got that crap all over my hands, though, so I appreciate the check if I need to go in. If I don’t, I’m going to raid a craft store and make a cozy for my new dish.”
“Good girl. Did you not eat it because you recognized all the nice ways I could kill you in it?”
I nodded.
“Then my work here is done. Excellent. Joel, take her on home, feed her up, and tuck her into your bed and keep an eye on her. The skin contact poisons pack a doozy, and I knew she’d be too smart to eat it; she’s got a good head on those pretty shoulders, and I was tracking when she’d brave the cobbler.”
Sneaky woman. “I admire your ruthlessness and willingness to inflict misery, ma’am.”
“And now you won’t get sick by anything Stonecreek has to throw at you. Joel got my tender, loving care because he’s a country boy, and them country boys ain’t the brightest at times.”
“I knew what you were doing from the first time you baked me a cobbler,” Joel grumbled.
“But you ate it anyway. You ate the entire damned thing, because pride said you had to. Then you were too damned dumb to tell the paramedics you ate an entire basket worth of strangleberry, resulting in chaos. I ended up having to come over and fibbing about how you’d gotten some baskets of berries, that way they’d know what to check for.”
“Joel,” I complained, planting my hands on my hips. “You have no grounds to be scolding me, sir.”
At the street level, my boss busted a gut laughing. “Please don’t feed me any cobbler, ma’am.”
“You’re a local, so you better know your berries by now.”
“I know my berries,” he promised.
Joel eyed our neighbor. “Why am I taking her home and tucking her into my bed?”
“The pretty girl and the pretty boy will make pretty babies together, and the only way that’s happening is if you at least try to get her into your bed.”
While the luna moth shifter gaped, I gave Elenora a hug, thanked her, and headed in the direction of home. “You may as well come with me, Humphrey. He’s going to be there a while, probably stunned senseless for the rest of the night.”
Joel spluttered.
My boss came with me, shaking his head the whole time. “You’re taking being poisoned rather well.”
“I figured she’d get me in one way or another, which is why I wait until Friday to see what she’s up to. I hadn’t realized I was earning points with her being sensible. I was trying to make sure I didn’t give her an excuse to actually try to kill me.”
“Except you kept eating the cobbler.”
“Well, not this one. It was clearly beyond my ability to handle. I’m not looking forward to seeing if the amount I got on my hands is sufficient to poison me.” I stopped on my steps and hollered, “Move it, Joel!”
The luna moth shifter obeyed, hustling up the street. “They called you a hussy.”
“That’s normal. Stop complaining. It doesn’t bother me. You’re also slacking, as you should be working to keep the hussies on the street happy and at home, probably pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen. If you ignore it, the problem goes away the instant you can’t hear them flapping their lips anymore.”
“Valerie!”
I laughed at him, headed into my kitchen, and cooed at my new baking dish. “Aren’t you just the prettiest little dish? You’re going to be my presentation dish, and I’m going to make you a cozy, and you’ll sit in the middle of my table and hold things for me when you aren’t doing your other presentation duties.”
“That must be the poison talking,” Joel muttered .
“No. I’m just a little crazy after a long week at work. I’m off, I have something new I really like, and I’m welcoming her into my home. You saw me cuddling with my project holder. This should not be surprising you right now.”
“I didn’t think it applied to any treasured inanimate objects,” he admitted.
“How long do you think the poison takes to kick in? I got another bonus, Joel. I want to go to a night store and play with my bonus.”
“It took her a few days to accept her bonus, Joel. But if we have to haul her to the doctor, letting her run around and spend some of her bonus isn’t a bad idea, especially if we visit night stores near the hospital.”
“My SUV or yours?” Joel asked.
“We’ll take both. Take Valerie. Yours is larger. I’ll also give Meri a call, tell her about the situation, and have her meet us at the store of Valerie’s choice. Let’s have a paramedic on hand just in case.”
“Meri is a paramedic?”
“She is. She’s part of our flutter.”
“We could call Lois,” Joel muttered, and he dug out his keys and twirled them around a finger. “Between Meri and Lois, she’ll be fine even if we do have to take her to the hospital.”
“And you literally have the recipe for the cobbler, so we can take a picture of it, send it to Lois, and have her handle the treatments while Valerie gets to blow off steam before we sort through resumes. Actually, I’ll go drop the resumes off at work and meet you wherever she wants to go. Where do you want to go while we wait for your symptoms to start showing up? ”
I could think of one way to spend some time while waiting to see if I had an adverse reaction to being poisoned. “Furniture shopping for my craft room and my basement, please. I also need to pick flooring and paint for my basement, and I may as well irritate Joel and his employees through the installation of new walls they will need to shore. I want a bathroom down there. The plumbing is already in place, but I didn’t actually do the install yet.”
“Show me your basement,” Joel requested. “I have my work phone, so I can do the preliminary work before you do your installation, and that’ll simplify the process.”
Unlike Madeline’s home, which only had a trapdoor in the floor, I’d gone through the hassle of having an actual stairwell installed, and I guided him to the door, disguised to be a closet in the hallway. I grabbed the flashlight from the shelf I’d installed, turned it on, and descended into the darkness, shining the beam on the place for the bathroom.
Joel came down, and he whistled at the cavernous space. “This is larger than your actual house, isn’t it?”
I moved the beam in the direction of my garden. “It goes right to the neighboring houses.” After a moment of thought, I pointed the light at the ceiling where the garden was. “Can you charge me a fortune for shoring that part?”
Joel checked his phone. “It’s already shored, so no. I’m going to have to refuse that request. There’s a contractor note that they shored the ceiling of this basement due to it not aligning with the house, and it was done as a bonus installation to save them time, effort, and aggravation later. And if it gave out, we’d be on the hook anyway. You paid for the basement shoring, so it’s not your problem we had to do the ceiling. ”
“I really like that contract. It is my friend.”
“It really is. You want a bathroom. What else do you want down here?”
I pointed my light at the fireplace area, which was already rigged for everything except the final chimney, which would run up along the wall near where my house connected to the neighbor’s up the hill. “I left that part of the garden undone, but the idea was to install a brick grill outside and a fireplace down here, with the chimney serving both.”
That caught the attention of both men, and my boss scampered into the basement to go have a closer look at the space.
After a few minutes of discussion with my boss, Joel turned to me and said, “You’ll invite us over to visit, right?”
“That depends on if you know someone who can help make that idea a reality.”
“Our flutter has at least six people capable of doing this, and five of them are certified with my company. I’ll probably get the whole lot of them helping with the project. I want to get the sixth one certified, but she has to have a base number of jobs that exceed our standards. This job is complicated enough to possibly get her on the certified list. And the rest of the space?”
I pointed across to the other side of the basement. “Two bedrooms there. The rest of the space will be a crafting area and a reading area. The fireplace will be on the side with the reading area.”
“Might I recommend a small bar so you can read with a drink?” Joel pointed at a spot near the designed fireplace.
“Sure. I don’t drink much, but having fancy non-alcoholic drinks while reading would be pleasant. I’ll have potted roses situated throughout this area.”
Joel pointed at the ceiling. “Hanging plant lights will be required.”
“Along with strong, manly men who can move those roses down the stairs.” I herded them up back to the main floor, closed the door behind me, and hunted for my purse, keys, and phone, all of which I’d need if I ended up paying a visit to the hospital. “I want a fancy chair for my basement, nice floors that are pleasant when barefoot, and a crafting station.”
“The hardware store will have your flooring options, so let’s start there,” Joel suggested. “We can then make the rest up as we go. Just give me a minute to give Lois a call and send her the recipe for Elenora’s death cobbler. Let’s not take any chances.”
“Next time, wear gloves,” my boss suggested.
“I think I will. But hey, I got a really nice baking dish for my trouble, and she even paid for the bill.”
“That doesn’t make her any less crazy, but at least she’s a considerate crazy. Also, why aren’t you reporting her to the police?”
“I never thought I’d literally experience someone trying to kill me with kindness. I have to respect that level of dedication. And do you think the police would even believe me if I told them my neighbor had spent the last four or so years of my life poisoning me? And I liked it.”
“We need to work on that part of things,” he muttered. “You are not supposed to like when someone poisons you.”
“Apparently, the way to my heart is through my stomach, and I have a taste for strangleberry. I could live without the others, though—although I will admit some of them are pretty tasty.”
“Until they kill you.” Joel glared at me.
“Don’t you glare at me. You ate the entire thing . I recognized she’d included poison and only ate enough to meet the basic requirements of being polite.”
“She has you there,” my boss said, and he gave Joel a push towards my front door. “Let’s just get going, and we’ll all meet at the hardware store so we can get flooring. Please limit your squabbling. And Valerie? He squabbles when he’s upset something has happened to someone he likes. Just stand your ground. He’ll work through it eventually.”
I snickered at my boss’s advice for dealing with my neighbor. “I think I can handle one little luna moth for the ride to the hardware store.”
“At the very least, wait ten minutes until you have any symptoms, okay?”
“While I can’t control that, I’ll try.”
Both men sighed but hurried up the hill to go retrieve their vehicles so we could venture out to the hardware store, the furniture store, and anywhere else my greedy little heart desired.