“Died peacefully in her sleep,” she muttered. “So how is that being poisoned?”
But of course no answers were to be found. As she sat here, pondering the lack of information, Nan called her. “Hi, Nan,” she greeted her grandmother.
“Oh my dear, we’ve discussed it here at the home.”
“Uh-oh,” she replied. “What have all you lovelies at Rosemoor decided?”
“We’ve decided that we’ll help you.”
“Nan, I told you when I was there last that I couldn’t get you involved.”
“Of course you couldn’t,” she replied. “But it’s not you getting us involved. It’s us getting us involved,” she stated on a determined note. “You know that could be any of us. Just because it was Chrissy who died doesn’t mean it couldn’t be us next time.”
“Are you thinking she really was poisoned?”
“The food here can be just awful sometimes,” Nan replied. “I mean, there’s that one cook here who we’re pretty sure is not trained at all.”
“That’s not the same thing as killing a person,” Doreen noted in exasperation. “Just because somebody’s cooking might feel like it’s killing you doesn’t mean it is. That’s like saying I could kill you with my cooking.”
“You probably could,” Nan replied.
Doreen gasped and Nan laughed. “You left yourself open for that one, dear.”
“Nan, that’s a terrible thing to say, even as a joke.”
“Well, have you learned to cook better?”
“I’m working on it,” she stated.
“Work harder and work faster. You know that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
“Well, that won’t work then because Mack takes care of his stomach just fine.”
“Oh, so you have accepted that you’re working on getting closer to Mack? That’s … that’s very good.”
Doreen heard a bit of scratching going on. “Nan, you’re not taking bets on my love life, right?”
“Of course not,” she replied, as she continued to scratch away on paper.
“I don’t believe you,” Doreen stated bluntly.
There was a moment of silence on the other end. “I might not be taking bets, but I certainly don’t want anybody else either.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, people will talk, my dear. And, if I don’t give them something to discuss, they’ll make it up.”
“Nan, I don’t want anybody talking about my private life.”
“Of course not, of course not,” she noted in that soothing tone that was immediately getting Doreen’s back up.
“Oh, goodness, Nan,” she stated. “You know how I feel about lack of privacy.”
“Yeah. I wondered about that though,” Nan replied. “Because really, you’ve been in the media an awful lot for somebody who doesn’t want to be.”
She snorted. “That’s not fair. I didn’t get there on my own.”
“No, you sure didn’t,” she answered quietly. “You had lots of help. From Mack. And now we’ll help you with this case too.”
“Which case?” she asked.
“Chrissy, of course.”
“But you can’t go around accusing cooks of trying to kill you,” she stated.
“Why not? That’s what Chrissy did. And then look what happened to her.”
Doreen cried out, “What do you mean, what happened to her?”
After a moment of silence, Nan asked, “Are you feeling all right, dear?”
“Nan, you’re making me crazy.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t think anybody needs to make you anything. You’re getting there yourself,” she replied. “We were just talking about the fact that Chrissy has been poisoned. And so, therefore, that’s what happened to her.”
Doreen groaned, reached up, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know that you think she was poisoned, but we don’t have any proof of that.”
“No, but we’ll get it,” she stated quietly. “She was a friend of mine. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier.”
“Think of what?”
“Chrissy never got any justice. She could have gone on for another six months.”
At that, Doreen’s eyebrows rose. “Was she that close to death?”
“Well, I don’t know, but, in a place like this, we certainly don’t measure time in years anymore. You know that lots of people can come and go in a heartbeat, who you thought could have lived for much longer,” she stated in a harder tone. “No, we are quite happy to just judge by months.”
“Great.” Doreen wondered at the strange turn of conversation. “You also don’t have to, you know, judge at all.”
“Of course not.” She laughed. “Don’t you worry about it. We’ll help.”
“Great,” she muttered. “You won’t get me into any trouble though, will you?”
“No, of course not,” she replied. “I mean, it’s not like we’ll deputize ourselves or anything.”
“You can’t,” she said in alarm. “Nan, you know that, right?”
“Sure I do.” But then Nan laughed and laughed and laughed.
Doreen wasn’t sure if she was being teased or not. She sighed. “I looked into Chrissy’s family and her death,” she noted to change the subject. “I can’t say I’ve found a whole lot yet.”
“No, there’s probably more on our little newspaper here.”
“What do you mean, your little newspaper?”
“The one we have for Rosemoor. One of the residents always takes it on for a while and does up a few local interest stories,” she explained. “I’ll have to see if I can find the copies from back then. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can—if I find anything.” And, with that, she hung up.
Doreen stared down at the phone in her hand. “Local interest stories,” she said out loud. “And how is it I’m just hearing about that now?” she snapped to nobody in particular.
She looked over at Mugs, who stared at her, his head tilted. Goliath just ignored her, and Thaddeus appeared to be sound asleep on her shoulder.
“All this time and Nan hasn’t once mentioned that to us,” she muttered. “Why is that?” She glared at the animals, but they all ignored her. “Yep, that’s the story of my life right now.” She sighed. “Everybody’s got all this information, and nobody tells me, so I miss out on stuff,” she muttered. “That’s just not cool.”
And, with that, she brought out her notepad, flipped to a new sheet, and wrote down the little bits and pieces she knew about Chrissy. The fact that it wasn’t even necessarily a murder made this whole thing more futile than anything. What she really wanted was something that she could bite her teeth into, and that seemed more to be like the guy who worked at the grocery store who had been poisoned. And then, of course, the Poison in the Pansies case that was Mack’s.
She wanted to return to the beach park, but she’d already checked, and the poison was long gone. Since it was a public beach, there could be all kinds of traffic. So there could be all kinds of reasons and explanations as to who might have picked up the rat poison. She grabbed her phone and quickly sent Mack a text. Did the police pick up that poison?