No, that’s insane, I admonish myself. Claire had high blood pressure and there’s no proof she died of anything but a heart attack. And maybe Hannah was so busy kissing up during the garden tour that she didn’t pay attention to what Claire was actually saying about various plants. Besides, even if Hannah is some kind of sociopath, as Billy insinuated, how could she have pulled off poisoning Claire? She could hardly have tucked a few blossoms into Claire’s sandwich on Sunday because she would have noticed them. And, in fact, Claire didn’t even eat her sandwich that day.
I have to calm down and step away from the vehicle. There must be an explanation for the missing foxgloves that I’m too wired to see.
And more than anything right now, I need my mom. I fish my phone from my pocket and call her cell.
“Oh, Sara, hi,” she says. “What a nice way for me to start a Monday.”
After I launched my acting career and started referring to myself as Summer, my dad came on board, but my mother has never switched over, and I’ve tried not to mind it too much.
“Hey, Mom, nice for me to hear your voice, too. You and Dad good?”
“Yes, and I was actually about to call you today. We were driving to some friends’ house last evening and heard a commercial for sunscreen on the radio. We’re positive it was your voice.”
“A sport cream, paraben-free?”
“I believe so, though I have no clue what paraben is.”
“Yup, that was me.”
“Oh, what a kick for us. I may have to even go out and buy some now.”
“That’s so sweet of you, Mom. But actually, there’s a specific reason for my call today.”
I blurt it out then, trying not to blubber as I do. Because the Keatons live in Manhattan, I’ve spent more time with them in recent years than with my own parents, and I don’t want my mom to think that I was closer to Claire than to her—because I wasn’t.
“Goodness, no,” she exclaims. “Oh, Sara, this must be so hard for Gabe. And for you, too.”
“Yes, everybody’s very shaken.”
She peppers me gently with questions, and once I’ve told her what I know, she says how sorry she is. “Dad and I will come down to New York for the funeral, of course.”
I explain that the service is being held here in Bucks County and for only immediate family. A brief silence follows, and I sense she’s hurt.
“I would love to have you and Dad here,” I add. “But I want to respect Ash’s wishes. Wendy’s and Keira’s parents won’t be here, either.”
“I understand,” she says. “For some families, a small service works best.”
“I’d better go,” I tell her. “But I’ll call in a day or so and fill you in.”
“Let us know if there’s any way we can help, honey.”
“Will do.” I’m about to say good-bye when I catch myself. “Mom, just one more thing. Do you have any words of wisdom on the right way for me to support Gabe right now?”
“That’s such a good question, Sara. I . . . I would say that the best thing you can do is follow his lead, and sense what he needs from you rather than simply deciding. And don’t tell him how he feels or should feel.”
My heart aches a little. I know she’s basing her advice not only on her experience as a social worker, but also on how people treated her when my brother, Leo, died.
“Thanks, Mom, that’s very helpful.”
After signing off, I mull over her advice, still making my way to the cottage. My mother’s words remind me of a lesson they pound into your head in drama classes: the best acting is reacting, really listening to the other actors and responding to them instead of constantly focusing on the line you’re supposed to say next.
Have I been doing that with Gabe? Mostly, I think.
Stepping inside a minute later, I discover a note from him saying that he and Henry have taken the dogs for a walk again, which sounds like a perfect way to normalize things. I serve myself the remaining coffee from the carafe and wander with the mug into the sitting room, where my laptop is still on the table. It seems to shoot me a withering look that says, Your play’s not going to get any better if all you do is sit on your ass, so I plop down and hover the cursor over the document. But I don’t open it. Instead, I google two words for the second time: foxglove poisoning.
Since the missing flowers aren’t in a vase somewhere on the property, it suggests someone had a plan for them that wasn’t decorative. But just because foxgloves are toxic doesn’t mean it’s easy to poison someone with them. If the process is really complicated, and unlikely for someone here to have pulled off, then I can quit obsessing. Needless to say, there’s no post titled “How to Poison Someone with Pretty Purple Plants from Your Garden,” so I start reading some of the additional posts on dangerous plants to see what turns up.
It doesn’t take long for me to learn that over the years foxgloves have definitely been linked to homicides. Plus, there were instances of accidental poisoning back in the day when the plant was used medicinally because it was hard for medical practitioners to get the dosage right.
Accidents have also occurred more recently, and not from an incorrect dosage. It says in one of the posts that the leaves of the foxglove plant have been mistaken for comfrey, a plant from the borage family that’s sometimes used to make tea.
To make tea. I sit up stick straight as an image flashes in my mind. The pitcher of herbal iced tea that Claire drank from nearly every day during the summer. The one that was sitting on the kitchen island the last time I spoke to her.
Could Claire have accidentally poisoned herself? Would she have mistaken foxglove leaves for borage—whatever the hell that is? It seems impossible, given her expertise with plants.
But someone could have brewed poisonous tea for her.
My pulse racing, I keep scrolling, and deep into another post, one from a medical journal, I find this: “An unusual side effect of digoxin is a disturbance of color vision (mostly yellow and green) called xanthopsia. Van Gogh’s ‘Yellow Period’ may have somehow been influenced by concurrent digitalis therapy . . . . Evidence of his use is supported by multiple self-portraits that include the foxglove plant.”
Again, I picture the main kitchen as it was during my very last conversation with Claire: the curtains oddly closed on a sunny day, the lights off. And then there was her final question: “Have you colored your hair lately, darling? It looks lighter to me this weekend.”
I choke back a sob.
Frantically, I google heart attack symptoms again to refresh my memory. A few are similar to the ones associated with digitalis poisoning, like nausea and tiredness, but there’s no mention of distorted vision—the green or yellow halo effect. Was Claire’s vision yellowed because she’d been poisoned with digoxin?
Finally, I search for digitalis. Though the drug is still prescribed in certain instances for heart problems, there are newer meds now. In one of the posts is yet another detail that makes my breath quicken: An overdose of digitalis is more likely to be fatal if a person’s potassium levels are low. And one cause of lowered potassium levels is the use of a diuretic.
Which Claire was taking for her high blood pressure.
If someone intent on murdering her knew what drugs she’d been prescribed, they were probably aware that the diuretic improved their chances of success.