Chapter 9
Barnaby helped the others slide the gurney into the back of Luke’s truck. No sense in calling for a medivac chopper if they were dealing with a deceased person.
And Amelia Burnhauser was most certainly dead. He guessed that she’d been dead for at least a day, maybe longer. A piano student had pounded on her door and gotten no response, which was when Luke had gotten the call.
A moment after that, Luke had called Barnaby, since the volunteer fire department’s only paramedic was off the island. But as soon as Barnaby had seen Amelia sprawled face-down on her kitchen floor in a pool of coagulated blood and vomit, he’d known she was dead.
The firefighters loaded back into their rig and headed out. As they drove off, Barnaby caught sight of Heather and Gabby across the road, each holding a bike and watching the show. Figured they’d be here, like seagulls on fish guts.
He ignored them and helped Luke strap the gurney into place. “Could have been natural causes,” he said. “She was really old.”
“Eighty-two,” Luke said curtly. “And it didn’t look like natural causes. It looked exactly like the other cases.”
Barnaby’s throat tightened. “You’re right, sorry.”
“I’m going to have to call in the Harbortown police.” Luke let out a frustrated groan. “First Denton’s murder, now this. Second suspicious death in one summer. This looks really bad.”
“Let’s see what the autopsy says before we jump to conclusions.”
“I already know what the autopsy says. It says I need to bring Tamara in for an official interrogation.”
Fuck. Barnaby knew his brother was right. The reason was in his phone right now—a photo of the calendar pinned to Amelia’s kitchen wall. The name Tamara and the time 10 am was written on the previous Saturday’s little square. “You know that doesn’t prove anything. Tamara treats a lot of people.”
“And you know I have to question her.” Luke rounded the truck, on his way to the driver’s seat, then paused when he spotted Heather and Gabby wheeling their bikes across the road toward them.
“I can’t say anything to the press,” Luke growled.
Heather flung up one hand. “Understood. We just want to know if we can help.”
“Like how?”
This ought to be good. Barnaby propped his rear against the truck and folded his arms across his chest, prepared to listen to a song and dance.
“We’re all about the research,” Gabby said. “We can find her family. Her friends, her piano students. We’ll just bring you the information and you can take it from there.”
“You have to take her body into town, right?” Heather waited for Luke’s reluctant nod, then continued. “By the time you get back, we can have everything you need so you can notify the people closest to her.”
Not bad. Barnaby had to hand it to them. With Marigold, Luke’s assistant, currently on her honeymoon, he could use someone to do that legwork.
“Fine,” Luke said after a long pause. “It’s not a crime scene yet, after all.
But just in case it gets there, don’t go inside the kitchen at all.
Keep it short, and don’t move anything in any of the rooms. If you see anything that seems suspicious, call me right away.
Take a picture instead of touching it. Touch as little as possible.
If you do touch something, put it back exactly where it was. ”
Barnaby almost laughed at the look on Gabby’s face, the eye-roll she was so clearly holding back. She gave a mock-salute. “Got it. No one will ever know we were there.”
Luke and Barnaby stopped at the constable’s office first for a body bag from the back storage closet. “Gonna have to order more,” he grumbled. “What’s going on on this island?”
With the help of a contingent of firefighters, they got Amelia loaded onto Luke’s lobster boat, the Izzy C, at which point Barnaby told Luke he was staying put.
Luke frowned, but he was too busy navigating the high chop and the rising and falling float to interrogate him. It was better if he didn’t know, anyway, because he might try to interfere.
“Can I borrow your truck?” he called after Luke when he was already several yards away from the dock. Even though his brother couldn’t hear, he added, “Thanks, it’ll be here by the time you get back.”
Of course he wouldn’t mind if Barnaby borrowed his truck. But he would definitely mind what he planned to do with it.
He drove to the old southwest woods but parked off the road, a healthy distance from the end of the cul-de-sac. He didn’t need anyone speculating about the constable’s truck being in the vicinity.
The wind was busy here too, causing chaos in the treetops high above his head. The woods here always seemed to have a voice, either a dreamy whisper on calmer days or wild whining on windy days. He’d once asked Tamara about that, and she’d said, “The trees know everything worth knowing.”
Typical cryptic Tamara. Did the trees know that she might be coming under suspicion from law enforcement? Maybe the woods needed a little extra help from a human being this time.
He found Tamara in her greenhouse, which was built partly into a slope and made of recycled windows. He’d helped her install a wood stove in it to extend her growing season even longer. Now she could grow her herbs and vegetables for most of the year, except for the harshest of cold winter months.
How was she going to manage when she got even older?
She must be in her late seventies, though she never seemed to know exactly how old she was.
She liked to call herself a crone. He couldn’t imagine her in one of the retirement homes on the mainland, and there was nothing like that on Sea Smoke.
Several times, he’d offered to hire a live-in helper for her, but she insisted her place was too small for another person. She wasn’t wrong.
“You look like trouble’s on your mind,” she said, looking up from the lemon balm she was harvesting. He knew it was lemon balm because she carefully labeled all her herb beds, not because he knew much about plants. They all looked the same to him.
“Amelia Burnhauser is dead.”
Tamara plopped down on the low stool she dragged along with her as she worked on her beds. “Oh dear. I hope she didn’t suffer.”
It seemed an odd response. “You don’t sound surprised.”
“I’ve been expecting this news. She’s been ill. ”
“So you were treating her?”
“I helped ease her symptoms. But I doubt there was anything that could have cured her, as she was hoping.”
If Amelia really had been terminally ill, that would let Tamara off the hook. He took a slightly easier breath. “You didn’t give her any potentially toxic plants, did you?”
Her eyes, set deep in a nest of wrinkles, widened. “Why do you ask that? Was her passing similar to the other people Luke mentioned?”
“Exactly similar. You’re probably going to have to talk to the police.”
“I did talk to your brother. He’s very lovely. We’re lucky to have someone so kind representing the law on this island. And his friend, that beautiful girl, what was her name?”
“Gabby,” he said after a moment of internal resistance. He didn’t want to get distracted from his main point, and Gabby was always a distraction.
“I hope she comes again. She has a way about her that delights me.”
“Well, I’m sure she will if she has more questions. She’s in the journalism field, that’s how they are.”
“I’m not afraid of questions, not from her or from your brother.”
“Okay, fair enough, but it might be someone who’s not my brother. If they determine that Amelia’s death wasn’t accidental—or even if it was an accidental overdose of some kind—you’re going to be at the top of their list. Your name is on her calendar. Did you give her something recently?”
“Yes, but nothing that could have caused her any harm. I hope it eased her suffering at the end.”
Tamara was always so vague about her herbal concoctions. “Do you have records of what you gave her? Is there any chance you could have made a mistake?”
She blinked at him in a way that made him feel like he was being a jerk by pushing this. “Why would you say a thing like that?”
“Because I’m worried about this situation and I want to get ahead of any potential trouble. If I know everything, I can protect you better.”
“I need protection?” For the first time, her voice faltered. It made his heart twist to hear it.
“Maybe. I’m just trying to be prepared.” The heat inside this greenhouse felt humid and oppressive, and he tugged his t-shirt away from his body.
Looking agitated, she murmured something under her breath, something that sounded like “not again.” He wondered if it was a mistake coming here.
After long moments of thought, her fingers on autopilot as they tied lush leafy stalks of lemon balm into bundles, she finally spoke. “You will be my champion. If anyone wants to talk to me, you will stand next to me and represent me. Like a medieval knight.”
If that was how she wanted to think of it, so be it. “Agreed. You still have that cell phone I gave you, right?”
“Of course. How do you think I make my appointments?” she said tartly. “You need to stop thinking I’m helpless. I managed for many years before you crawled up my rocks asking for help with a scraped knee.”
“You’re right.” He gave a rueful laugh. She’d had to remind him of that first meeting many times over the past few years, since he’d started worrying more about her. “Sorry.”
“Of course I forgive you, darling child.” She peered more closely at him. “Have you been taking your turmeric?”
“I don’t know. Occasionally I pop one of those capsules you gave me. I don’t know what’s in them.” He hadn’t collapsed in a heap of bloody vomit, so that was something.
“Well, take them more often. Your stress is too high. And bring that girl back with you next time.”
Already gathering himself to depart, he paused. “What did you two talk about? What kind of questions did she ask?”
“Questions you should be asking.”
“Me? Why?”
“You’ve never asked much about my side of your family at all. She did. She was curious about my family lineage. There’s a journal that she wants me to read, and some references she thinks I might be able to explain.”
“References to what?” he asked suspiciously.
“I suppose I’ll find out soon enough, but you should stop pretending you don’t like her.”
“I’m not pretending anything.”
“How is your father?” She shifted the conversation so abruptly that he answered without thinking twice. She never spoke about John Carmichael III, not once that he’d ever heard, except for the time she’d told him about his mother.
“Not great. Three neurologists have confirmed he has vascular dementia, not too bad yet but bound to get worse.”
She nodded gravely, her forehead furrowing. “Then time is running out.”
“Time for what?”
He waited patiently for her to explain. Did she want to make peace with the man her daughter had loved? As far as he knew, she hadn’t seen him since Sophie had died.
After a long struggle, she brought forth words that stunned him. “Time for him to say what really happened to my Sophie in that cursed hospital.”
”What are you talking about? You said she died having me.”
Tamara shook her head gravely. “She was alive when I left her. She was holding you and so happy and healthy. They told me she had a blood clot, but I had made sure she was taking her motherwort. I never believed what they said. They told me to go home and hold my tongue. They even said it might have been the herbs she was taking, as if I would harm my own…child,” she ended in a broken voice. “They threatened to report me.”
He sucked in a breath. This was shocking news, and she’d never breathed a word of it until now. But he believed her, because his own father had threatened the same thing if he told anyone about his real mother. And now, with this spate of poisonings…was Tamara in more danger than ever?