Page 78 of A Light in the Dark
A thought occurred to me, and puzzled, I got out my phone, checked through my contacts, and found Elenora’snumber, which I’d added from my phone book at home. I dialed, put the cell to my ear, and waited.
“Hello?” Elenora answered.
“Hey, it’s Valerie. I had an odd question for you.”
“What do you need, you sweet thing?”
“What made you start making your cobbler for the new folks in town?”
“Oh, aren’t you just a curious little thing. Why, them donkeys up the hill like telling the new folks to pick the berries, and they’ve been doing that for some years now to weed out the weak. Every street with sense has someone passing around cobbler to those they like if they’re new. But if you’re curious about the berries, just head up the hill and act like you don’t belong. Someone’ll be by to suggest you go picking down there during the season. Us cobbler makers do our best to clean out all the known bushes, but it’s public land, so we can’t just kill the lot of them. We would if we could. But there ain’t no laws about picking them—we just can’t remove them. So, we pick all the things we need for our cobbler and leave the rest for the new folks, bless them.”
A chill went through me. “How long has this been going on?”
“Oh, I’d say about twelve years now, ever since that Oustenhaus fellow started campaigning for leadership. I remember that quite well. The first part of his campaign had him suggesting we do more harmonious living off the land, and that we should all strive to go see nature—and pick the berries as we went.”
“And how’d you learn to make the cobbler?”
“Oh, now, that would be telling secrets, but I’ll say this much. Us old farts know about the berries—and anyone welike has had our cobbler enough, because some of them berries can’t be distinguished from some that are in the grocery store, not until you take a bite and find them to be a bit sweeter than normal. And those sweet ones are the ones that’ll kill you if you eat a pint.”
“Has this happened before?”
“If you want to do some digging, I recommend you make some calls to education centers outside of Stonecreek and ask about the Red Death here about a hundred or so years back. You’ll learn a lot. Now, I’ll let you go. How’s that head treating you?”
“I just have a mild headache,” I reported.
“Then you’ll be good. Have that pretty country boy tuck you in tonight and drink plenty of liquids. You’ll be fine. And if you happen to know anyone new, make them a piece of that first cobbler recipe I got you, you hear me?”
Madeline. My worries grew, and I said, “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I came over and made a batch with you since I can’t bake all that well?”
“I can help you learn how to make cobbler, don’t you worry. Come on over when you have some time, and we’ll whip up a good batch together. You take care now, you hear?”
“Thanks, Elenora.”
The woman hung up on me, and I spent a long moment staring at my phone before sending Roger a text to suggest that they do a toxicity report on the bodies they’d found to determine if there was any evidence of poisoning, and then I gave him the entire rundown of the berries that Elenora included in her death cobbler.
A moment later, Roger confirmed they’d look into it, asthey still had most of the bodies in the morgue, frozen for the investigation.
With that done, I regarded Joel with wide eyes. “You ever hear about something called the Red Death from a hundred or so years ago?”
“No. Why? I know some people I can ask, though.”
I wondered if news of such a thing would reach outside of the city—and if the powers in control of Stonecreek at that time had permitted the media to do its job. “That’s the reason why this town has a cobbler recipe, and if we want to learn more, we should go read about the Red Death. Also, they started making the cobbler when Mayor Oustenhaus started his campaign for office. I’m guessing someone remembered this Red Death and read the writing on the wall. Elenora recommends that we do our research outside of Stonecreek.”
“But why not have everyone do it, then?” Joel muttered, and he scowled.
“Because we grow up knowing what berries are toxic, we know not to go picking in the flood plains, and we double check for evidence of the wrong berries hitting the market when we go shopping,” Meri replied, and her face paled. “It happens, and all we do is move the berry basket aside. If there was a massive stocking of them, the only people who’d get caught would be those whohaven’tgrown up here all their lives. The tourists, transients, refugees, and those who don’t live right on the outskirts of Stonecreek would be hit hard. Most of those berriesonlygrow right in the flood plains around here.”
“And by the time someone thought to complain or tellstore staff the berries are wrong, a lot of people will be eating them and dying,” I guessed.
“Unless you’ve been eating that cobbler frequently, yeah. That’s correct. Strangleberry is one of the more dangerous ones, because by the time you realize you’ve been poisoned, you’re choking and can’t get help easily.”
“But it’s delicious.”
Joel sighed and glared at me yet again. “It’s deadly.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so fixated on this whole poison thing. I’m going to go to her house, and I’m going to eat my poison warm out of the oven.” I prodded his chest with a finger. “And you can’t stop me.”
Lois laughed, dug into her purse, and handed me a bottle of pills, which she rattled. “If you eat more than you can handle, take one and give me a call. A mild headache is acceptable. Any other symptoms are not. If you take one without having been poisoned, go to your neighbor and ask for a few berries to pop, and that’ll solve that problem. Otherwise, induce vomiting. It’s not good for you if you haven’t had one of the toxins it addresses.”
