Peach Pies and Alibis (18 page)

Suddenly wanting to escape the living room and its overstuffed couches and floral
pillows, Ella Mae stepped out onto the back porch. Most of the guests were gone and
the musicians were snapping their instrument cases closed and making their way across
the lawn, heads bent as if they were leaving a funeral, not a wedding. Lynn and Vaughn
gathered the last of their serving platters, said their good-byes to Ella
Mae and to Rudy’s parents, and practically tiptoed to their SUV.

Sissy, Dee, and Verena joined Ella Mae’s mother near the wooden arch where Candis
and Rudy had exchanged their vows. In wordless synchronicity, the four women blew
out the flames of the lawn torches. They then collected all the stray champagne glasses
and dessert plates from the backyard and made their way onto the porch.

“Was it my imagination or were you talking to Sloan before Freda…became ill?” Ella
Mae’s mother asked, her hazel eyes dark with disapproval.

Ella Mae nodded unhappily. “He showed up with Loralyn. And believe me, this is the
last place on the planet I want him to be. However, I’ll have to deal with him now
that’s he’s here. But not tonight. Tomorrow.” She gestured at Reba and her aunts.
“Forget about Sloan and tell me what’s going on. You all seem stricken.”

“We’re worried about Freda,” Dee whispered quietly.

“She’ll be okay,” Ella Mae said with more confidence than she felt. “It’s just the
flu or a virus or something.”

Reba’s eyebrows shot up. “Last time I had the flu, I felt like I’d been hit by a Mack
truck, but I didn’t have the fits or wake up not knowin’ what was goin’ on. We’re
thinkin’ that this might not be the kind of thing that a handful of Advil and a bowl
of chicken soup can fix.”

“Oh no.” Ella Mae felt a chill pass through her. “Do you think someone got to Freda?
That someone’s trying to stop her from volunteering—like they stopped Melissa Carlisle?”

Sissy shrugged. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but we are
very
concerned. Right before the wedding started, Verena learned that Melissa Carlisle
died from food poisoning, and while that sounds
somewhat
accidental—”

“What type of food poisoning?” Ella Mae interrupted. She’d studied the subject at
culinary school and was familiar with the signs and symptoms of many types of harmful
bacteria. Anyone who worked with raw food knew to take precautions when handling,
preparing, storing, or cooking it. Melissa Carlisle would have known all about these
precautions. After all, she’d been producing her own honey for two decades.

“Listeria,”
her mother said. “And before you ask any more questions, I don’t have any more details
than that. Verena is friends with the medical examiner and received a voice mail message
from the ME’s office minutes before the wedding ceremony began. So we now know what
killed Melissa, and none of us believe that it was an accident.”

Ella Mae glanced over the back lawn and lifted her eyes to the dark sky as if the
answers were written in the stars. Her mind churned as she searched her memory for
facts about
Listeria
. “I remember a half-dozen cases from a few years ago. There was a crop of infected
cantaloupe,” she said. “The melon came from a single source—a farm with contaminated
soil. The bacteria can be transferred into raw fruits and vegetables through the soil
or the water supply, and I believe both were tainted at the farm producing those cantaloupes.”

Dee shook her head. “How would that apply in Melissa’s case? She bought her fruits
and vegetables at the Havenwood farmer’s market, so it doesn’t make sense that she
was the only person to be infected. Wouldn’t other people come down with symptoms?
Wouldn’t a few of them get as sick as she did?”

“That’s why the whole thing stinks to high heaven,” Reba said with quiet anger. “Why
would one woman die from this bug? A woman who was the front-runner to become the
next Lady of the Ash?”

“It’s like Snow White’s poisoned apple,” Ella Mae murmured and involuntarily imagined
the pristine, white pulp of a juicy apple squirming with wormlike bacteria. She could
almost see the parasites swimming through Melissa’s
veins, a million microscopic invaders bent on destroying their host.

Verena grimaced and then cleared her throat, instantly transforming into the eldest
sister and the leader of their band of women. “Sissy, you and I will go to the hospital.
We need to tell the doctors to check Freda for signs of
Listeria
poisoning. Adelaide, will you and Dee keep the Lurdings company? Calm them down and
then talk them into going home. I’d like the house to be empty so Reba can do a thorough
search.”

“I saw a computer in the Shaws’ study,” Ella Mae said. “Why don’t I try to log on
and research the symptoms as well as possible sources for this type of food poisoning?”

Her mother gestured at the house. “You’d better get rid of your future ex-husband
first. We don’t need any outsiders snooping around, especially now.” She sighed heavily
and looked at her sisters. “I thought Freda was safe—that we were all alert to danger
and that surely, this time, we’d see it coming. The harvest is a week away. This isn’t
the flu. This is an attack on the next Lady.”

Verena straightened to her full height, squaring her shoulders and narrowing her eyes.
“We won’t fail Freda! Let’s go, Sissy. The rest of you, take care of things on this
end.”

Once her two aunts had left and Dee and her mother went off in search of Rudy’s parents,
Reba cracked her knuckles and inhaled a deep gulp of night air. “You get on the computer.
I’ll send Sloan packin’.”

Ella Mae was about to protest when Reba held out her hand. “No one gets close to you
right now, you hear? There’s a bona fide threat in Havenwood, girl, and you heard
your mama. This isn’t the time or place for an outsider. I’m afraid things are gonna
get worse before they get better.” She flashed a wicked, little smile. “Don’t you
worry. I’ll use my best manners with Sloan.”

“Your best manners might include kicking in his teeth,” Ella Mae pointed out.

“That’s not where I kick men I don’t like,” was Reba’s bland retort before she jogged
down the porch steps and disappeared around the side of the house.

Ella Mae knew she should be talking to Sloan herself, but she was too worn out to
argue with him. And while he was obviously trying to impress her, he’d chosen the
wrong place and time to insert himself into her life, and so she reasoned that there
was nothing wrong with letting Reba chase him off like a farmer shooing a hawk from
the hen house.

It was a relief to enter the quiet solitude of the Shaws’ study. The room was a blend
of masculine and feminine, and it was clear to Ella Mae that both Freda and Peter
shared this space. For one thing, there were two desks. Peter’s was extremely cluttered.
Along with a scattering of papers and manila file folders, it was covered with framed
photographs of Freda and Candis, as well as a pair of golf tournament trophies. His
desktop computer was turned off.

Freda’s desk was tidy. A laptop sat squarely in the middle of the polished wood, and
a brass lamp rested in one corner while a bronze statue of a woman wearing a toga
and holding a set of scales took up the other. The sculpture of Lady Justice was the
only ornament.

No distractions for the judge,
Ella Mae thought as she took a seat in Freda’s chair. She opened the laptop and was
relieved to find that someone, most likely Freda, had obviously been browsing an Internet
site on wedding etiquette, saving Ella Mae from having to deal with passwords. The
page showed a beaming father of the bride dancing with his beautiful daughter as the
guests looked on in delight. Several of the links on responsibilities of the mother
of the bride had been clicked, including one called, “If You’re the Bride’s Stepmother.”

“You loved Candis as well as any biological mother loved her daughter,” Ella Mae whispered
to the quiet air as if Freda’s spirit were already haunting the room.

Realizing that she’d spoken in the past tense, Ella Mae swore under her breath, angry
with herself for assuming the worst. She shook her head, banishing the morose thought
that Freda was fatally ill, and typed “Listeria” into Google’s search box.

The results didn’t make her feel hopeful. Freda’s symptoms matched those for listeriosis
as listed on the Center for Disease Control website.

“Headaches, stiff neck, fever, convulsions, confusion,” she read aloud, a sickening
feeling growing in her belly. “But it shouldn’t be that bad for a healthy adult. Freda
wasn’t elderly, she wasn’t pregnant, and she didn’t have a weakened immune system.”
Ella Mae paused to consider her last statement. Freda had been both stressed and sleep
deprived. Would those issues have been enough to compromise her immune system?

The question caused Ella Mae to initiate another search. By the time Reba entered
the study, her sharp gaze sweeping the room as she approached Freda’s desk, Ella Mae
was staring at the screen in dismay.

“What’d you find?” Reba asked.

“Nothing good. Freda’s immune system wasn’t functioning at its best. She was stressed
over the wedding, and undoubtedly, over her decision to become the Lady of the Ash
too. She mentioned that she hadn’t been sleeping well, and all of her symptoms match
the ones for listeriosis.” Ella Mae passed her hands over her face, wishing she could
wipe away the anxiety. “What about your search?”

Reba frowned. “Nothin’ jumped out at me. I went through the fridge and the pantry,
but that isn’t gonna tell us what Freda’s eaten over the past few days.” She pointed
at the
computer. “Does that say how long it takes for this bug to show itself?”

Ella Mae scrutinized the Department of Health’s website. “Its incubation period is
anywhere from three to seventy days, but most people will show signs of being infected
within a month of eating tainted food.”

“How the hell am I supposed to track thirty to sixty days’ worth of meals?” Reba began
to pace about in a tight square, looking like a caged tiger. “She could have been
given poisoned food anywhere. I keep goin’ back to what you said about Snow White.
Someone could have had a beautiful red apple prepared just for Freda. Or a ripe, juicy
cantaloupe.”

Ella Mae scrolled farther down the web page until she reached the list of foods documented
as having previously been contaminated by
Listeria
. She’d just finished reading the examples of tainted raw fruits and vegetables and
was about to start on the list of ready-to-eat chilled foods when her mother entered
the study.

“Freda’s condition is grave,” she said in a leaden voice. She had her cell phone in
hand and was holding it so tightly that her knuckles were white. “She’s slipped into
a coma. Verena and Sissy called from the hospital. They told Peter to have Freda’s
blood checked for
Listeria,
and he insisted that the test be done right away. Maybe the doctors can give her
the right antibiotic or whatever she needs to fight this thing in time.”

“I hope so,” Ella Mae said. She turned off Freda’s computer and looked out the window.
The darkness had taken over, painting the tree limbs black and casting deep, impenetrable
shadows over the plants and grass. Like the night itself, a dark thing had come, uninvited,
to the wedding, to a place of joy and light. It had taken Freda away and left the
rest of them wondering what to do next. Ella Mae shuddered.

“Rudy’s parents went home,” her mother continued.
“Sissy’s with them. I doubt they’re in danger, but she wanted to see them safely to
their house.”

“If someone did this to Freda, and I’d bet my Buick that it was no accident, then
the deed was done days ago,” Reba said. “Tell your mama how this bug works.”

Ella Mae shared the details she’d read on the Internet, and then a thought struck
her. “Melissa and Freda could have been infected at the same time. The incubation
period varies from person to person. So the question is, where could they have eaten
the same contaminated food? Who could have offered them something to eat without raising
suspicion? You know these two women. I don’t. When did their paths cross?” she asked
her mother. “Are there other festivals like the harvest? Was there a meeting of our
kind where they could have been given tainted food?”

Her mother looked at Reba. “The Midsummer Rites?”

“No.” Reba dismissed the notion. “This was done in secret. In private. And with stealth.
There were too many guardians at the summer solstice. We would have known somethin’
was wrong. And no one came to this weddin’ with ill intent. I didn’t sense a threat
and I haven’t taken my eyes off Freda for more than a few seconds. Trust me, the evil
had already been done long before today. I think you’re right about someone gettin’
to Melissa and Freda at the same time.”

“But who?” Ella Mae demanded. “What about Loralyn? If she and her mother and the rest
of the Gaynors want to choose their own Lady of the Ash, couldn’t she be involved?”

Reba snorted. “As sure as the river flows, but that girl had another kind of mischief
in mind tonight, and I believe she did exactly what she came here to do.”

Ruining my date with Hugh,
was Ella Mae’s anguished thought.

“Indeed.” Her mother looked at her with an uncharacteristic expression of sympathy.
“I’ll have Verena talk to Peter
about Freda’s diet—see if she tried a new restaurant or received a gift of food that
he didn’t eat. Other than that, I don’t know what else we can do.”

The three women fell silent.

“Poor Candis,” Ella Mae whispered. “She’s going to wake up tomorrow morning filled
with a rosy glow of happiness. And just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“it’ll
be swept away like a winter wind.”

She saw her mother absently touch the thin, gold wedding band glinting on the ring
finger of her left hand. Her face was unreadable, but the involuntary movement told
Ella Mae that her mother still grieved for the man she’d loved, married, and lost.