Fed Up (12 page)

Because my parents ran an eco-friendly company, many of the clients were receptive. These were people who lived in Boston’s wealthy suburbs, where environmentalism was just beginning to influence landscape design and maintenance. Many of them had seen Al Gore’s film and were aware of the environmental impact of traditional landscaping and lawn care. Noise pollution was impossible to miss. There were days when I went to my parents’ house and found that we could barely have a conversation over the roar of the leaf blowers and gigantic lawn mowers that attacked the neighbors’ yards. Those machines guzzled gas. And then there were the ubiquitous sprinkler systems that sprayed water on every available surface, including sidewalks and streets, at preset times, even during torrential rainstorms.

My parents discouraged large, water-hungry lawns. They encouraged clients to plant shrubs and flowers that could survive with minimal watering, to install solar lighting, and even to make compost. As much as possible, Mom and Dad used recycled materials and herbal pesticides and herbicides. Fortunately, Jack and Bethany Carter’s switch to green design had been good for their business. Environmentally friendly gardening did not come cheap, but in their affluent area, homeowners could afford to go green.

And I was enthusiastic about something related to school! I’d spent my first year of social work school frustrated, irritated, and lost. My uncle Alan had stuck a clause in his will that required me to get a master’s degree in anything in order to receive my inheritance. The requirement, which had originally felt outrageous, was finally beginning to make sense. I’d been floundering through my early twenties, and it turned out that forcing me into school was the kick I needed to get me focused. Although a lot of the students at social work school were exclusively interested in one-on-one counseling and mental health, the school pushed us to get involved in what was called “organizational social work,” a field that included politics and larger social issues that trickled down to affect individuals on a daily basis. I’d discovered this summer that the one-on-one therapy tricks I’d acquired this year were incredibly helpful in talking with landscaping clients about their plans. Using my newfound people skills, I engaged clients in discussions about water conservation without sounding like an annoying, pushy salesperson who was just trying to make money.

I leafed through the pending jobs. A few of the clients were going to have prefab rain barrels installed and didn’t mind the large green plastic containers that would catch water from the gutters. Most clients, however, were going to have our new carpenter, Emilio, build encasements to cover the unsightly barrels. I hadn’t yet met Emilio, but from what I’d heard, he could do just about anything. In particular, he worked with eco-friendly materials and was skilled at making the barrels blend in with a house and its garden design. I was meeting up with my mother and Emilio later at my parents’ house, after I dropped Inga off at the Fancy Feline, a nearby cat groomer. The owner, Glenda, had promised me on the phone that she’d try to preserve as much of Inga’s fur as possible.

As I was reviewing the rain barrel projects that needed to be installed first, the phone rang. I reached behind me and blindly picked up. “Hello?”

I heard a man clear his throat. “I’m trying to reach Chloe. Chloe Carter.”

“Speaking,” I said as I scanned the installation requirements for a house in Needham.

“Oh, hi. Chloe, this is Leo. From the other day.” He spoke unsteadily.

I dropped my papers. “Leo. My . . . my gosh, how are you?” Under normal circumstances, I don’t go around saying
my gosh.
The circumstances of Francie’s death had, of course, been anything but normal. “I mean, how are you holding up?”

“I guess I’m doing the best I can. I’m not sure if the shock has worn off yet.”

“Well, I’m awfully sorry about Francie. I don’t even know what to say. Of course you’re still in shock. Josh said you might call. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Actually, there is. You were with Francie upstairs. You were the last person to see her before she lost consciousness and then . . .” His voice trailed off. “I am just wondering what she might have said. Did she have any . . . ? Did she . . . I don’t know. Did she say anything?”

I shut my eyes and tried to invent something comforting or profound to pass along. In truth, Francie’s last words had been “Oh, shit,” whereas it seemed to me that her poor husband needed her to have said, “Tell Leo I love him,” or, “It’s okay. I’ve lived a long, wonderful, fulfilling life with the man I adore.” Not only would Francie’s actual last words fail to ease Leo’s sorrow, but who in her right mind would want to be remembered for Francie’s real exit line?

I racked my brain for what to say to Leo. The first thing that came to mind was what Oscar Wilde had reputedly said on his deathbed: “Either that wallpaper goes or I do.” I sighed. The walls of the fatal bathroom, so to speak, hadn’t even had wallpaper, and if they’d been covered with some ghastly palm-and-flamingo pattern, Leo would hardly find solace in learning that Francie had departed this life while expressing discontent with the home they had shared. It suddenly came to me that someone—who?—had sat bolt upright on his deathbed and demanded, “Who is that?” Francie had been far too weak to sit up and had shown no sign of perceiving the approach of the Grim Reaper. Even so, I went ahead and attributed the words to her.

“She said that?” Leo asked dubiously. “Wasn’t that what Billy the Kid said?”

Damn. “Maybe she was quoting him. Or maybe she imagined she’d been shot.” I did my best to backpedal. “She wasn’t terribly lucid. And of course, I didn’t know her well. Maybe she was making a joke.” There. That put a positive spin on it!

“Francie had many . . . many good qualities. But a sense of humor really wasn’t one of them.” Leo paused. “Maybe she was asking who poisoned her? Or asking who you were? Or who Death was?”

“Well, if Billy the Kid was serious, I guess that she might’ve been, too. But, yes, she certainly might have been asking who poisoned her.” I took the opportunity to gather information. “Leo, do you know what the poison was?”

“I’m told that it was something called digitalis. That’s what the autopsy showed.”

I talked with Leo for a few more minutes but managed to hang up before I had to lie about anything else. Thank God he hadn’t asked me whether Francie had suffered. I wouldn’t have been able to tell him the truth about that, either: that she had indeed suffered an excruciating, humiliating death, a death that was apparently the result of digitalis poisoning.

What was digitalis, anyway? I had a half hour before I had to go to my parents’ house to meet with them and with Emilio. I Googled
digitalis
and quickly scanned Web pages for information. According to the first few pages I read, digitalis was a drug used mainly to treat congestive heart failure and some arrhythmias. Could someone with access to the food have added digitalis to one of the ingredients or dishes? Did anyone with access to the food have a heart problem? Everyone was too young for heart failure, I thought, and I’d noticed no one who seemed less than healthy. An arrhythmia? That condition might not be obvious. But what did I know? I was in social work school rather than medical school. I did know that Owen and his brothers had grandparents who lived near Boston. Maybe one of them was taking digitalis? It would’ve been just like Willie or Evan to swipe some of a grandparent’s medication to use in playing a practical joke.

I called Adrianna under the pretense of asking about Saturday’s wedding shower and baby shower and also about the wedding itself.

“I think we’re in good shape for the wedding,” she said. “Josh is doing the food, we have our dresses, the music will play over the speakers, and we’ve solicited various people to take pictures for us. No way would I pay some professional photographer five grand for a wedding album. With everything you can do to digital pictures on the computer, I think we’ll end up with great photos. And the shower is all set, too. I told your mom I wanted to keep it pretty simple and low-key. I’ll have enough to worry about with my deranged mother in town. I think the brunch idea was perfect. That way it won’t turn into an all-night event with everyone drunk and dancing on couches.”

“Will Owen’s mother be there?” I asked in my most casual voice.

“Yeah, his mother, grandmother, a few cousins, I think. Grampa will be at the wedding. Why?”

“Just wondering. I know he has a big family.”

“You’re not kidding. Owen’s mother, Eileen, isn’t totally happy about everything, but he thinks she’ll come around. The family as a whole is pretty relaxed, but Eileen is more traditional and still not completely rooting for me. The rest of them are all so excited about the baby that I’m afraid I might not even see my own kid for the first year. They’ve all got plans for holidays and birthdays, and they’re fighting over who gets to take the kid to Disney World first. Nut jobs,” she said, but I could hear the affection in her voice.

“That’s great, though, Ade. Your baby is going to have so many people in his life that love him. Or her. I can’t believe you haven’t found out if it’s a boy or a girl!”

“Yeah, Owen’s losing his mind over that, but I want to be surprised. All I care about is if the baby is healthy.”

“Of course,” I agreed. “You don’t have any reason to worry though, right? Is there, you know, any family history that you need to worry about?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know . . . diabetes, heart disease. Anyone in the family with a condition like that? Anything treated with medication?”

“What? Are you saying my baby is going to be born with a congenital heart defect? What a sick thing to suggest!”

“No! No!” I was backpedaling again today. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that at all. It’s just, don’t they ask you family history stuff when you get pregnant? I didn’t know if there was anything you were worried about.”

“Oh. Well, no. There’s nothing. Not that I know of. Everyone in Owen’s family seems to live well into their nineties. They’re all healthy as horses. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Seriously, Ade. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to alarm you.” God, I was an idiot. “I know your baby is going to be the most gorgeous, healthy, bouncing baby in the world. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

I hung up feeling appropriately mortified; I had really messed that up. In simply trying to find out whether Evan or Willie had had access to heart medication, I’d unintentionally suggested that there might be something frighteningly wrong with Ade and Owen’s baby.

Especially after that fiasco, I wasn’t about to call up everyone who’d been present at the filming to inquire about family health histories. Besides, the only person there I knew well enough to interrogate was Josh, who would be willing to answer any weird, prying questions I might ask but who would never, ever have poisoned food he was preparing. He’d never met Francie before and had had no reason to kill her. And if—inconceivably—he ever did decide to murder someone, he’d use a gun or a knife or any other weapon except the food in which he took such pride. I’d met Digger before the filming, but I knew him only as one of Josh’s chef friends. When I’d been with Josh and Digger, they’d traded anecdotes about restaurants where they’d both worked and about the local restaurant scene. It was possible, I guessed, that Josh knew something about Digger and his family. Not that I was aching to prove that Digger was a poisoner! But Francie’s death had been no accident. Furthermore, her killer had been willing to risk having any of the rest of us eat the poisoned food and die, too. Some us had been sick. For the first time, it occurred to me that the murderer had benefited from having people besides Francie get sick. When the police and the EMTs had arrived, it had been easy and natural for them to assume that the cause of Francie’s death and other people’s illness was food poisoning. I had a vivid image of Josh and me as we’d cleaned up the kitchen. Unknowingly, we’d been tossing out evidence! But the food wasn’t the only evidence. That annoying Nelson had had his camera going almost every second. Who had his film now? Nelson himself? Robin? Or maybe the police?

I called Josh while I was in the bathroom putting on makeup. Besides wanting to see what I could learn about Digger, I wanted to hear Josh’s voice.

“Yup?” Josh sounded as if we’d been in the midst of a conversation.

“Hi, honey. It’s me.”

“What’s up, babe?”

“Not much. Inga is going to the Fancy Feline later to get cleaned up. And I just wanted to thank you for dinner last night. Everything was delicious, as always.”

“Anytime. You know that.”

Josh clearly didn’t know that I’d paid for my dinner, and I wasn’t about to break the news to my overstressed chef that Gavin was no longer letting him comp food. “Hey, I heard someone from the health department was in to see you yesterday. How did that go?” Leaning against the basin, I practically had my face in the mirror as I tried to apply mascara without dropping the phone. Driving isn’t the only thing it’s risky to do while having a phone conversation. Applying makeup has its hazards, too. I should probably get a hands-free phone for the bathroom.

“Oh, fine. He asked me a lot of questions about the fresh herbs that I used on Monday. What kinds I bought, did I use them all, did I use anything from Francie and Leo’s house? Questions like that. Stupid questions, if you ask me, because there is no way anything I used was tainted. I told him the truth about everything, since obviously I have nothing to hide. I assume he’s going to go check out Natural High and pull some of their produce and herbs, though. Hold on a sec.” Josh must have covered the phone because I heard a very muffled
“I told you not to dress the salads now because they’ll be wilted by lunch. Come on!”
Then Josh said to me, “Sorry, I’m back. Hey, has a detective called you yet? ”

“No. Did someone call you?”