Drizzled with Death(27)
“We got to know each other up at Alanza’s last spring when I was tapping her trees. Hanley takes care of the trees on the property so he was always around. One thing led to another.” And he wasn’t working at Alanza’s anymore since there wasn’t any Alanza. I wondered if Jill had heard about her death.
“Jill, did he tell you what happened to Alanza?”
“No. He hasn’t said anything besides ‘Is there any more beer?’ to me since he did this.” Jill gestured at her face.
“Alanza’s dead. She keeled over in her stack of pancakes at the competition yesterday morning.” I watched her face, looking for surprise or worry, but it was hard to make anything out with all the bruising and swelling.
“That’s terrible. Did she have a heart attack or something?” Jill pulled the afghan up closer to her chin like she was warding off the bad news.
“Not exactly.” I wasn’t sure how much Lowell wanted the public to hear yet so I felt like I was on slippery ground. “The police are treating it as a suspicious death.”
“Oh my God.” Jill slumped back, clutching the afghan even higher up on her chest, so high, in fact, her chin and lower lip disappeared behind it. “Do they have a suspect?”
“I don’t think anything is certain yet, not even exactly how she died. It looks like it could have been poison.”
“Poison. That’s terrible. How did she take it?”
“Badly.”
“That’s not what I meant and it’s not something to joke around about either.” I think Jill was glaring at me but I couldn’t be sure with the way her eye was swelled shut.
“It looks like it may have been in the syrup bottle at her place setting.”
“Didn’t your sugarhouse donate the syrup?”
“We did.”
“You must be frantic. What if the whole batch was tampered with?” Jill sat up again and loosened her grip on the blanket in her distracted state. “You’ll have to recall everything sold since the last year. Or even before that if the syrup wasn’t from this year’s batch.”
“We sold out last year. It was definitely this year’s batch.” That got my dander up. Selling out is something I pride myself on. Sometimes we have so many orders we have to dip into the family’s private stock just to not have to disappoint customers before we can put the sold out announcement on the website or up in the store.
“Well, that’s good. Still, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. It’s going to do a lot of damage to your business if people think they’ll get poisoned using your products.” If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn Jill was trying to hide a smirk. I wanted to hit her myself, but of course, that would be the wrong thing to do. I decided it was time to go.
“Is there anything I can get you before I leave?” I thought she needed some soup or maybe a stiff drink.
“Just promise me you won’t tell anyone about this, Dani. Things will only get worse if Connie finds out.” Jill looked at me cockeyed.
“I can’t promise I won’t say something to the police if I see this again. But I won’t go around telling anyone else. It isn’t anyone else’s business. But if something happened to you and I hadn’t said anything to Lowell, I’d never forgive myself. That’s the best I can do.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to accept that.”
“I make a mean maple martini. Would you like one?” I had to at least offer.
“Drinking’s what got me into this mess in the first place. I think I’ll pass.” Jill twisted her puffy lips into a smile. “But thanks for offering. Maybe some other time when I have something to celebrate.”
“Are you going to be all right here alone? What if Hanley comes back? He didn’t seem like he was in a good mood.”
“My brother will be here any minute. He’ll be staying overnight.”
“It sounds like you’re all set then.” I waved good-bye and let myself out, making sure the cat didn’t slip out with me. With a mountain lion on the loose, Sugar Grove was no place for a house kitty.
• • •
Nothing starts the day right like a walk through the sugar bush. Any time of year the trees and the quiet and the fresh air make me glad to be alive. Which is why my early morning wanderings so often take me to the spot on the property where my father died.
I had just reached the spot, the one I had made my brother take me to after I got home from the funeral and needed to see just where it had happened, when I heard the kind of crackling underfoot that meant someone wanted to be noticed.