Sweet Ginger Poison (18 page)

“But since Lacey was Danny’s girlfriend, I’m afraid
she’s in danger too.”

“That’s true.”

“So, I really wish you would send an officer over to
her apartment to keep watch.”

“I’ll do that right now. See you in five minutes.”

“Thanks so much, Chief.”

**********

Ginger woke up the next morning to bright sunlight in
her eyes. She checked her alarm clock. It was nearly 8:30. She had forgotten to
set the alarm. Usually it didn’t matter—she was awake by 6:30, with or without
the alarm.

Last night she had tossed and turned for hours
worrying about Lacey and trying to unravel the mystery of the two murders.

As she sat up and looked directly into the blinding
sun coming through her windows, a revelation struck her. What if Navy’s murder
had nothing to do with the recipe book? What if it had nothing to do with
jealousy or money?

But if those motives were eliminated, what was left?
Something in Navy’s past? The only suspect Ginger knew of with that kind of
motive was Addie. Her dear friend couldn’t have done it.

One of the comments in Navy’s senior yearbook had
continued to nag at Ginger. But since it was clear now that Ellegora thought
Addie had killed her son, Ginger would not feel comfortable going back to the
house for another look at the yearbook. She wished she had spent more time
studying it.

She took a shower, got dressed and walked to the
public library, which was located a couple of blocks west of the square. On her
way, she called the bakery. Ginger was surprised when Lacey answered. She
decided she’d rather come to work than lay around all day feeling sorry for herself.
And yes, there was a police officer hanging around to protect her.

Cheryl Iper had taken the day off. Ginger made a
mental note to check on Cheryl later. She couldn’t imagine what Cheryl must be
going through, having just lost her son.

The library had a copy of the Coreyville High School
yearbook for each year of the school’s long history. Ginger grabbed the one for
Navy’s senior year and sat down at a table. She didn’t know what she was
looking for. Maybe there would be a picture of the football team with one of
the players staring at Navy as though he hated him. Anything. She knew she was
grasping at straws.

She studied the pictures of every student in Navy’s
graduating class. Then she decided to look through all the other classes as
well, starting with the freshman.

She came across a girl who seemed oddly familiar. Yet
she didn’t recognize the name: Molly Castorside. She started to flip to the
next page, but stopped. She couldn’t take her eyes off Molly. She told herself
that it wasn’t that unusual to see a picture of a stranger and think you might
know them.

Ginger tried to imagine how the girl might look six
years later. Then she pictured her with different hair and no glasses. No—it
couldn’t be her. Or could it?

Ginger had assumed that any motive for Bull or Cash
would have been related to the stolen recipe book. Cash might have decided he
couldn’t trust Navy to keep quiet about stealing it. Bull could have killed
Navy thinking that police would pin it on his brother—once they discovered Cash
had paid Navy to steal the recipe book.

But it might not have been about the recipe book at
all. What if one of the brothers had held an old grudge against Navy? After
Ginger had learned what Navy had done to Addie’s granddaughter, she didn’t put
anything past him.

Another thing that was bugging Ginger was the matching
potted plants in Cash and Bull’s offices. Cash told her that Silvy had given
him the plant. Yet Bull had one just like it. He must have had some type of
relationship with Silvy. Did his brother know about it?

Then she remembered what she had seen at the funeral:
Bull and Silvy had made eye contact in such a way that they seemed to know each
other well. And since Bull and Cash hated each other, that seemed
odd—especially since Silvy had only been in town a few weeks.

Ginger had hoped to walk out of the library with the
name of the killer. How naïve, she thought. She had accomplished nothing. She
might as well walk to the bakery and have her breakfast coffee and cake. She
was really starting to need that cup of coffee.

She was about to leave when she thought of something
else she just had to look up. What
were
those unusual-looking potted
plants in Bull and Cash’s offices? She went to the gardening section. She’d
wait a few minutes longer for her caffeine fix.

**********

When Ginger finished at the library, she hurried over
to Bull Crawley’s Bar & Grill.

“I need to speak with Bull. It’s urgent.”

“Bull just left for the emergency room.”

“What happened?”

The waitress leaned in, lowering her voice. “He had
diarrhea most of the night. He thought he was over it this morning, but then it
hit him again. He looked very pale and weak. We
made
him go to the
hospital.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Ginger. “Look, I know
you’re busy, but could I ask you one more thing?”

“Sure.”

“Do you know Silvy Knox?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“She’s young, blonde—very attractive.”

“Oh.” She leaned in closer and whispered. “That might
be the woman I saw in Bull’s office the other day. I knocked on his door and
went in. He was in the middle of something, if you know what I mean. She was a
beautiful young blonde.
Way
too young for
him
, if you ask me.”

“I see.”

“But please don’t tell anybody I said that. I need
this job.”

“I won’t say a word.”

Ginger left Bull’s and quickly walked around the
corner to Cash & Carry Donuts. She went directly to Cash’s office. He was
slumped over in his chair, obviously in great pain.

“Where is she?” said Ginger.

Cash could barely speak. “Who?”

“Silvy.”

He jumped up from his chair and hurried around the
desk and out into the hallway, pointing to the back door as he ran into the
bathroom. Judging by the sounds coming from the bathroom, he had not quite made
it in time.

Ginger rushed out the back door, into the alley. She
saw Silvy sitting in a Ford Ranger pickup, starting the engine.

Ginger ran over to the truck.

Silvy rolled down her window and smiled. “Good
morning, Ginger. How are you today?”

“I’m fine. But I can’t say the same for Cash or Bull.”

“Yeah. Must be something that’s going around.”

“So,
you
had nothing to do with it?”

“Well…” Silvy’s smile took on just a hint of evil.
“Maybe a little bit. But they had it coming. They
used
me.”

“So they deserve to die?”

“Die? It’s just a strong laxative. I put it in their
coffee. It won’t kill them. But hopefully it will make them
wish
they
were dead.”

“What about Navy? What did you have against him?”

“I didn’t even
know
Navy.”

“Maybe
you
didn’t. But Molly Castorside did.”

Silvy’s smile disappeared.

“What did he do to you back in high school, Molly?”

Silvy reached for the gearshift.

“You’re just going to drive away? Come on, Molly, you
know you want to get if off your chest.”

Silvy took her hand off the gearshift. “You can’t even
imagine.”

“Then tell me,” said Ginger.

“My mom and I moved here the summer before my freshman
year. There were only three new kids in high school that year. The other two
were boys—basketball players. And they were pretty good. So kids accepted them
as though they had lived here all their lives. I wasn’t so lucky.”

“They picked on you?” said Ginger.

“My hair was long and oily, and I had to wear stupid,
ugly glasses. And a name like Castorside is just too easy to make fun of. Some
guy called me Molly Castor Oil. The nickname stuck. I was suddenly the best
known, most hideous girl in the whole high school. Even upper classmen began to
recognize me in the hall and call me by name.”

“That’s awful. Kids can be so mean.”

“I started wondering what would happen if I had a major
makeover. Maybe then I could get rid of the nickname and people would start
liking me. My mom took me to the eye doctor and got me some contacts, even
though she couldn’t really afford it. Then she got my hair styled and taught me
how to put on makeup.”

“Did it work?”

“Yeah—at first. I decided to try my new look at Navy’s
graduation party. I wasn’t invited, but I thought if I looked pretty enough
they would let me in anyway. I made up a name—I can’t even remember it now. And
I couldn’t believe how nice everybody was—especially the guys. Nobody
recognized me. And Navy really liked me. He took me up to his bedroom and—”

“—and
raped
you?”

“No. He didn’t
make
me do
anything
. I
wanted
it. And it was wonderful…being in his arms. He wanted me so badly. It made me
feel good. But then later, one of the girls realized it was me and started
telling everybody. They laughed at Navy for sleeping with Molly Castor Oil.
Then he started making fun of me too. I ran out of there crying.”

Ginger shook her head.

“And that’s not all. Navy wouldn’t answer my calls.
And when I went to his house they wouldn’t let me through the gate. He wanted
nothing to do with me—even after I found out I was pregnant with his baby.”

“Oh, no.”

“Then I lost the baby. But I told Momma I could not go
back to that school. We moved to Gilmer and she got a job working for a
florist. I worked there too, part-time.”

“That’s how you knew about Castor plants.”

Silvy hesitated. “Yes.”

“And I guess that’s how you kept them alive in the
winter. You had access to a greenhouse.”

“You’ve done your homework.”

“But why did you give Castor plants to Cash and Bull?
Were you planning to kill them?”

“Not really. But I figured they’d find out how
dangerous the plants were after I’d gone, and realize how easily I could have
poisoned them. Maybe they’ll think twice about how they treat women in the
future.”

“But you
did
kill
Navy
.”

“It was easy. I knew about his allergy to shellfish.
At his graduation party one of the kids brought crab dip. Navy’s mother freaked
out when she thought he’d eaten some of it. She demanded to know where his
Epi-Pens were. When he told her he only had one left, and that it was in the
car, where he always kept it, she yelled at him for not having any in the
house.
This is life or death stuff, Navy. And one of these days your
stupidity is gonna get you killed
, she said.”

“So, you figured he still kept it in the car.”

“Yeah. I did it while he was delivering your recipe
book to Cash. Once I had found the Epi-Pen in the glove compartment, all I had
to do was inject the fish oil into the coffee cake.”

“And you knew if somebody else ate the cake, it
wouldn’t hurt them.”

“Right. The worst thing that could have happened was
some old lady at the nursing home getting an extra-moist coffee cake.”

“And you figured the police would suspect Cash as the
killer once they found out he had hired Navy to steal my recipe book.”

“Yeah. But I never thought about Lacey getting the
blame. I’ve got nothing against her. She was one of the few kids who didn’t
make fun of me.”

“So, you moved here to Coreyville just to get even
with Navy,” said Ginger. “Why did you wait all these years?”

“I wasn’t really waiting. I hadn’t
planned
to
do it. But then after my mother died…”

“I’m sorry. What happened to her?”

“She had a brain tumor. She had been having these
awful headaches. I finally talked her into going to the doctor. Two weeks later
she died.”

“I’m so sorry, Silvy.”

“It’s no excuse for what I’ve done. I know that. But I
had to do it.”

“The thing I don’t understand is why you killed
Danny
.”

“I didn’t kill Danny.” Silvy rolled up her window.

Ginger saw Silvy reach into her pocket and take out a
handful of small, multi-colored jelly beans. She threw them into her mouth and
began to chew.

Wait—those weren’t jelly bean, thought Ginger.

Silvy drove away.

“No,” yelled Ginger, “don’t do it, Silvy! Come back!”
But she knew it was probably already too late.

Silvy drove out of the alley and onto the road.

Ginger took out her cell phone and called the chief.