Page 73 of A Light in the Dark
“So, the woman tries to poison you while calling you a hussy for bringing peace to the street?”
“That’s right. But this year, I get to keep the dish, and it’s a nice one. It has flowers and butterflies on it.”
“I’m concerned.”
“It’ll be all right. She hasn’t killed me yet, and I have no intention of letting that old woman take me out using cobbler.”
TWENTY-TWO
Death smelled sweet with a hint of baked crust.
An hour after arriving,we finished unloading the SUVs and both men went to park in Joel’s garage. I left the front door open while I engaged Elenora’s cobbler in a staring contest. For the most part, the baked dish won. Unfortunately for me, I identified at least four types of poisonous berries, one I’d never seen before, and a few questionable berries that were notorious for sending their victims to the bathroom for a few uncomfortable hours.
Pride demanded I taste the cobbler so I could report if it was sweet, tart, or something else.
I worried even a taste may do me in.
Joel led the charge into my kitchen, glared at the dish, and said, “Please don’t eat that.”
Laughing at the luna moth’s request, I shook my head, grabbed a butter knife, and pointed at the nastiest of the berries I’d spotted. “See this one? This one would have mecalling out sick for at least three days. I will not be eating this. I’m trying to figure out how to tell if it’s sweet or tart.”
Joel and my boss took turns sniffing the dish.
“It’s sweet,” both men reported.
I eyed them, narrowing my eyes. “Are any of them tart?”
“It smells like she added more sugar than berries in that death dish.” Joel eyed the berries. “And none of the berries, except the strangleberry, are tart—and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of strangleberry this time.”
I eyed the dish, dipped my finger into the berries, and took a closer sniff.
Death smelled sweet with a hint of baked crust. Shuddering, I went to my sink, washed my hands, retrieved a garbage bag and dumped the whole thing in. Something crinkled, and puzzled, I checked the garbage to find a foil-wrapped package. Plucking it out, I tossed it into the sink, washed my hands again, and rinsed off the shiny metal. “I suppose I wouldn’t have found that if I hadn’t dumped the whole thing out upside down.”
“You would have found it after a slice or two looking at the size,” my boss commented, and he grabbed my dish gloves, snapped them on, and invited himself into checking out the foil, taking care with unwrapping it. Inside was a silicon pouch, the kind capable of withstanding being baked. He pulled it out and held it up, revealing some paper inside. “In a way, I admire this level of cunning. On the other hand, I’m concerned about what’s going on.” Peeling open the pouch, he pulled out the sheets of paper, opened them, and spread them out on the counter.
One proved to be a check for the amount she claimed she owed me for installing the steps. A second proved to be acheck for a thousand dollars with a memo claiming it was for the inevitable hospital visit I would be facing for eating any of the dish. Two sheets of paper included recipes, and I recognized them all as the dangerous concoctions she’d given me over the years.
According to the list of ingredients, a single taste would have sent me to the ER, and just touching the damned stuff would result in a bad time, as three toxins were noted as having strong absorption through the skin. The symptoms included a headache, blurry vision, irritability, and thirst, but the symptoms would fade after two or three days without causing lasting harm.
One final sheet of paper congratulated me on having handled her immunology experiment and to enjoy my new tolerance to all the dangers of Stonecreek.
“Joel? Did she do this to you, too?”
“I got a metal lasagna dish,” he informed me, shaking his head. “I hadn’t realized she’d done this to you, too.”
The memory of her first ambush still amused me; had I known the truth, I would have avoided the viper to spare my stomach and my nerves. “Joel, she gave me the first dish the day after I moved in, telling me to be a dear and enjoy her cobbler and don’t stress too much about getting everything sorted inside, as I’d done such a good job of not blocking the street or sidewalk for long. I’d assumed I’d gotten ahold of bad fast food for the first few times she sent cobbler because I didn’t getthatsick. The first time she nailed me with strangleberry, I ended up at the doctor and scolded for accepting food from questionable people.”
Joel bowed his head and sighed. “You didn’t stop to think,for a second, something was seriously wrong with her cobbler?”
“But Ilikestrangleberry,” I complained. “Her cobblers are delicious. And only like half of them made me sick.”
“Her cobblers are lethal!”
“Only if you don’t graduate from her immunology program,” I countered, taking the time to read the note and giggling the entire time. “But seriously, only half of them made me sick.”
“Only because her immunology program was starting to work,” Joel muttered, shaking his head, taking the gloves from my boss, and washing the dish. “You have no idea what sort of dish this is, do you?”
“It’s pretty,” I replied. “And it will look beautiful on my counter, where I will lovingly use it anytime I need to do a roast, which is fairly often.”
