Murder by Mushroom (2 page)

Jackie reached for another plastic bowl and scraped the last of the banana pudding into it. Seemed like she had packaged enough leftovers to feed the whole town. A quick glance down the length of the table confirmed that all the food was either eaten or covered. She didn’t look the other way, toward the far table where a cluster of young women laughed over the latest episode of some stupid reality show on television. The girls at work talked about those shows all the time, but Jackie didn’t join in there, either. What was the fascination in watching a group of people turn on each other week after week, voting to get rid of one of their own? Jackie didn’t have time for nonsense like that.

Of course, she could have sat with the girls and listened. Maybe even pretended to be interested…

Impatient with the thought, she brushed it away. There was work to be done. Someone had to do the clean-up duty. Might as well be her.

She snapped on the lid and set the container near the edge of the table just as Mrs. Dressler walked up, leaning heavily on her cane with her right hand, a plastic grocery sack clutched in her left.

“Is this some of that good banana pudding?” the elderly lady asked.

“Yes ma’am, that’s the last little bit.”

“Oh, I hate to take the last.”

“It’s yours.” Jackie picked up the bowl and held it out to her. “Enjoy!”

“Well, if you think so.” Mrs. Dressler put it into the grocery sack along with at least half a dozen identical containers. “Thank you, honey.”

Jackie followed Mrs. Dressler’s progress down the table and hid a smile at the line of little old ladies flocking around the buffet with their sacks opened like trick-or-treaters. No HCC member past the age of seventy had to cook a meal for a full week after a church potluck.

She noted with satisfaction that none of the leftover containers of her casserole remained. Cooking would never be her claim to fame, but the sauce must not have turned out too badly.

Not far away, another pair of eyes studied the line of elderly ladies.

Old ladies liked to talk. But someone should remind them gossip was a sin.

A deadly sin.

“Y
ou know what I’m going to do, Linus?”

Linus the cat, seated in the center of the dinette table, paused his grooming long enough to give Jackie three seconds of undivided attention. Apparently deciding the interruption would not lead to food, he returned to the industrious licking of his left armpit.

“I’m going over to Mrs. Farmer’s house to get those boxes down from her attic.”

The elderly woman had been on her mind since the potluck. What if she tried to move the boxes herself? She might get hurt, and then Jackie would feel awful. Besides, after listening to Mrs. Farmer complain about how disrespectful young people were these days, Jackie figured she needed to see one doing something helpful.

She tossed the last bite of spring roll into her mouth and closed the lid on the remains of her chicken-fried rice. Not enough left for another meal, but if she added a slice of last night’s leftover pizza she’d have a good lunch to take to work tomorrow. She put the cardboard container into the refrigerator then rinsed her fork at the kitchen sink.

Leaning against the counter, she faced the yellow tabby. “After all, it’s Tuesday. There’s nothing good on television tonight anyway.”

Completely uninterested, Linus thrust his left leg straight into the air and continued his bath. He didn’t even look up as Jackie jotted down Mrs. Farmer’s address from the church directory and let herself out of the tiny apartment.

The old gray Toyota sputtered as Jackie pulled from the parking lot onto Elm Street. Alarmed, she shoved in the clutch and gunned the gas, hoping the fuel thingy wasn’t about to go bad again. Last year she’d paid almost two hundred dollars to have the whatever-it-was replaced, and she didn’t have that kind of money right now. Thankfully, an extra gulp of gas appeased the cranky engine, and the car rumbled toward Alice Farmer’s house without further protest.

Jackie shook her head at the memory of Mrs. Farmer’s fury over the poor UPS man. People tended to shy away from the woman because of her constant complaining, but Jackie was used to it. Her aunt Betty had been exactly like that in the years before she passed away. No one could do anything to suit her, and everything sent her off into long tirades of bitter whining. Of course, Aunt Betty had an excuse—she lived with the terrible pain of crippling arthritis every moment. Jackie almost thought of her passing as a blessing—relief from an agonizing existence, even though her death left Jackie completely alone in the world.

Alone. No family. No boyfriend. No friends of any kind, for that matter. An uncomfortable feeling twinged in the back of Jackie’s mind, but she pushed it away. Feeling sorry for yourself accomplished nothing. She didn’t regret her years of caring for Aunt Betty, even though she’d missed every single basketball game her senior year and had to drop out of the band because she couldn’t be gone for a full week of band camp. She didn’t care, truly. The need for friends fell by the wayside when your only relative needed you so desperately.

The drive to Mrs. Farmer’s house was pleasant in the evening twilight, the temperature just warm enough to leave the windows rolled down. It wouldn’t last. By the end of the month the high humidity would set in, making travel without an air conditioner impossible to endure. Jackie hated driving anywhere in the heat of the summer. Especially when the car’s air conditioner didn’t deserve the name. It was a disgrace to air conditioners everywhere.

Alice Farmer lived in a white frame house halfway down a wooded country road that led to the city dump. Big trees in the front yard cast a deep and welcome shade but deprived the soil of sufficient sunshine to produce anything resembling a lawn. A few hardy weeds provided the only green in the otherwise bare stretch of land.

Jackie parked in a dirt driveway behind Mrs. Farmer’s red Escort and climbed three cement stairs to the front porch. The doorbell wasn’t lit, and when she pressed it she heard no sound. Broken. A tap on the wooden frame of the screen door sent a chip of white paint fluttering to the porch. No response. She opened the screen and knocked loudly on the front door.

She thought she heard a sound from inside, like a moan, or a soft cry. The hair at the base of her skull prickled. Should she go in? What if nothing was wrong and she barged into Mrs. Farmer’s house uninvited? She worried at a stray strand of hair and tucked it behind her ear. But what if something was wrong? With a glance around the empty yard, she twisted the doorknob. Unlocked. She pushed the door open a couple of inches and called through the crack.

“Mrs. Farmer, are you home?”

Again she heard a moan from somewhere within the house—this time she was positive. Someone was in pain. Setting her jaw, she opened wide the door.

“Mrs. Farmer, it’s Jackie Hoffner from church,” she said in a voice loud enough to carry through the house. “I came over to help you get those boxes down from your attic.”

Silence.

“I’m coming in, Mrs. Farmer.”

She stepped across the threshold and heard a crash. Anxious, she hurried through the empty living room, following the sound.

The strong odor of vomit hit her like a physical slap when she stepped into the short hallway. She took a momentary step backward. Then, bracing herself and breathing through her mouth, she hurried toward the back of the house. The door to a bathroom stood open, displaying evidence that someone had been too violently ill to make it all the way to the toilet. She fought a gag reflex as the stench nearly overpowered her.

In the bedroom just beyond, she found Mrs. Farmer lying lengthwise across the bed, her nightgown saturated with vomit and sweat. An alarm clock lay shattered in pieces on the hardwood floor as though she had been trying to reach it. A telephone also lay on the floor, the receiver under the bed with the base upended. Mrs. Farmer looked at her through glazed eyes and moaned.

Jackie rushed to the bed, swallowing hard. She ignored the soiled nightgown and took the elderly woman’s hand.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Farmer. I’m here.”

A vein in the old woman’s throat pulsed with a wild rhythm, and her hand felt clammy. Sweat dampened her forehead and neck, and her skin was chalky-white. Her mouth moved as she tried to speak, but Jackie shushed her.

“Don’t try to talk. I’m calling 911. You’ll be all right as soon as the paramedics get here.”

Jackie grabbed the phone from the floor and held the button in until she got a dial tone, then dialed 911. After giving the address and a description of the emergency, she ran to the bathroom and snatched a washcloth off a towel rack. As cool water ran over the cloth, she whispered a prayer.

“Lord, I don’t know what to do here. Please help!”

Back in the bedroom, she sat on the mattress and wiped Mrs. Farmer’s face, whispering soothing words to the barely conscious woman the way Aunt Betty used to when young Jackie was hurt or frightened, and the way Jackie herself had during her aunt’s later years.

“It’s going to be okay. Don’t worry now. You’re going to be fine.”

Minutes later, Jackie heard the ambulance’s siren screaming down the road. She ran out to meet them and then was politely but firmly pushed aside as the paramedics went to work. Orders were shouted, a gurney retrieved, and Mrs. Farmer strapped onto it. As they whisked her away, one of the paramedics curtly commanded Jackie to follow them to the hospital so the necessary paperwork could be filled out. Then they were gone.

Jackie stood in the silent bedroom staring at the empty bed. Paperwork? She barely knew Mrs. Farmer and certainly knew none of the information the hospital would want. She needed to call someone.

A desk stood in the corner of the bedroom, and she opened the drawer hoping to find an address book. Bingo. An ancient-looking leather booklet with worn alphabet tabs lay inside. When she picked it up, her gaze fell on the church directory beneath it.

“Of course! I’ll call Pastor Palmer.”

Relieved, she dialed the Palmer home and quickly explained the situation when Margaret answered the phone.

“Find Mrs. Farmer’s purse,” Margaret ordered. “She’s bound to keep her insurance card in it. Earl is at a deacon meeting at the church, but I’ll call and interrupt him. We’ll meet you at the hospital in forty-five minutes.”

Relief flooded Jackie, leaving her limp. The pastor’s wife was a real take-charge woman, just the sort of person you wanted to call in an emergency. Jackie sagged onto the edge of the mattress. “Okay.”

She hung up the phone and found Mrs. Farmer’s purse on a table by the front door. She stared at it for a moment. Margaret would meet her in forty-five minutes? The drive to the hospital only took ten. Hospitals gave her the creeps. She wandered down the short hallway and stared at the empty bed.

Silence claimed the house. As her glance circled the room, nervousness overtook her; her fingers felt fidgety. Instead of spending half an hour sitting along in the hospital waiting room, she might as well make herself useful. Someone would have to clean up before Mrs. Farmer returned. The poor woman couldn’t come home to filthy sheets and a terrible smell.

Glad to have something helpful to do, Jackie went to work.

Forty minutes later, Jackie stepped through the wide automatic doors into the hospital emergency room behind Margaret and Pastor Palmer. In her hands she clutched a small overnight case she had found in the bedroom closet, filled with the essentials she knew Mrs. Farmer would want. Her nostrils tingled as the smell of antiseptic assaulted her. This place smelled just like the hospital where her parents had died. She could almost feel her small hand clutching Aunt Betty’s as the doctor delivered his terrible news.

With a conscious effort, she thrust the memory away. This waiting room was smaller, with brightly painted walls and a plastic box full of toys in one corner. A man and woman sat together in a row of cushioned chairs, the woman hunched over a clipboard filling out forms while the man stared intently at a television in the corner. A nurse in pink surgical scrubs behind a desk looked up from her computer monitor as they entered.

Jackie felt filthy after having scrubbed Mrs. Farmer’s toilet and bathroom floor. She’d thrown the soiled sheets into the washing machine, and planned to return to the house later to put them in the dryer. Thank goodness, Margaret had taken on the task of searching through the old woman’s purse when she met them in the parking lot. Jackie would have felt like an intruder going through another woman’s purse, no matter how important the circumstance!

Pastor Palmer approached the nurse. “We’re here to see Alice Farmer. She was brought in a little while ago by ambulance.”

The nurse gave them a measured look. “Are you relatives?”

“No, I’m her pastor. She doesn’t have any relatives that I’m aware of, but I’ve got her insurance card right here.”

Because Pastor Palmer was new to Heritage Community Church, he had called Russell Price, the head of the board of elders, to find out about Mrs. Farmer’s relatives. Mr. Price hadn’t been much help, though. He promised to make some calls to various church members and contact them later with any information he discovered. In the meantime, Margaret had instructed Jackie to search Mrs. Farmer’s purse to find her Medicare card and a set of keys so the house could be locked for the night. Jackie had reluctantly agreed to handle that chore. As far as she was concerned, a woman’s purse was even more private than her underwear drawer.

The pink-clad nurse’s gaze slid away. “Wait right here, please.”

“But could you tell me—”

The nurse ignored Pastor Palmer’s question and disappeared through a door behind the desk. Margaret looked questioningly at her husband, who shrugged.

Moments later the nurse returned.

“Could you come this way? The doctor would like to talk to you.”

Jackie, Margaret and the pastor followed her into the emergency treatment area, a wide corridor partitioned by floor-to-ceiling curtains that gave a semblance of privacy to half-dozen hospital beds. To Jackie’s relief, none were occupied, though several nurses sat talking quietly at the other end of the hallway.

They were led to a cluttered office, and after a moment a doctor joined them. He was a pleasant-looking man, but young. Jackie was glad she wasn’t there for treatment. She would have insisted on seeing his credentials before allowing him to so much as take her pulse.

“I’m Dr. Peters.” He closed the door behind him.

“Earl Palmer, and this is my wife, Margaret, and a member of our congregation, Jackie Hoffner.”

Dr. Peters shook their hands. “You’re Mrs. Farmer’s minister?”

Pastor Palmer nodded. “But I’ve actually only been at the church for about seven months, so I’m afraid I don’t know her as well as I would like. I do know she doesn’t have any relatives in town, so we brought her insurance information with us. Is she being admitted?”

“No, she’s not.” The doctor paused, and the look on his face warned Jackie of the news before he spoke his next words. “I’m afraid Mrs. Farmer passed away en route to the hospital. The paramedics did everything they could. They administered CPR until she arrived here, but we weren’t able to resuscitate her.”

Jackie took a step backward and sat abruptly in a hard plastic chair. Mrs. Farmer, dead. She could hardly believe it. Two days ago she had been complaining about the UPS man. An hour ago Jackie had wiped her forehead with a cool cloth. Now she was dead.

“But how?” Margaret’s face registered as much shock as Jackie felt.

“The paramedics’ report indicates that she was suffering from severe dehydration and was semiconscious when they arrived. She experienced a mild seizure in the ambulance and then she coded—uh, died. Heart failure.”

“She had a weak heart,” Pastor Palmer told him. “I’ve heard her say that often enough.”

“And she obviously had the flu or something,” Jackie added. “When I got there I could tell she’d been sick for a while.”

“Actually, the paramedics said the patient’s condition and the evidence they found at the house might indicate a rather severe case of food poisoning.”

Jackie’s eyes widened. Food poisoning? Could the cause have been leftovers from the church potluck? Mrs. Farmer had eaten some of her casserole. Had she taken some home with her?