Savory Spring Waffle (The Diner of the Dead Series Book 11) Page 3

  Stepping through the open cottage door and past the desk, they spotted Bertha still laying on the floor muttering nonsense to herself. Her skin had quickly become drenched in sweat, her hair matting to her forehead.

  “Oh, no,” Frank muttered, kneeling next to the woman and instantly switching to police mode. “What did she have?”

  “I have no idea,” Sonja admitted. “She said she was coming to the cottage for another cup of tea.” The amateur sleuth glanced around the room for the French press the garden owner had been pouring her tea from. It was nowhere in sight.

  “Bertha?” Frank yelled. “Bertha, can you hear me?”

  “Burn the witch,” she said, her eyes lolling back and forth. “Buuuurn heeeer.”

  “She’s delirious,” Frank noted. “And her eyes are completely dilated.” Reaching down and gripping her wrist, he took count of her pulse. “Hurry,” he insisted, turning to Alison, “Call an ambulance and tell them to get here as fast as possible.”

  * * *

  Sonja rode with Frank in his sports car behind the ambulance on the way to the hospital. “What about her sister?” Sonja asked, realizing they hadn’t even thought to look for Elanor before leaving. “Shouldn’t she be the one at the hospital with Bertha?”

  “Her sister was there in the garden?”

  Sonja nodded. “I better call Alison when we get to the hospital and tell her to look for her.”

  “Good idea.”

  “She seemed so worried about Bertha, today.”

  “She did?” Frank asked, turning the wheel to continue trailing the ambulance.

  “She was trying to warn her about something and seemed really concerned that Bertha was in danger.”

  “What kind of danger?”

  Sonja shrugged. “I don’t know, for sure. Bertha seemed to think it didn’t matter, said her sister was just trying to convince to come back to the family business.”

  “But you don’t believe that,” Frank stated, reading his girlfriend easily.

  “No, I don’t,” she admitted. “The frightened way she was talking, it sounded more like she was afraid for her sister’s life.”

  “Did you see anything weird when you went inside the cottage?” Frank asked, his train of thought now following a logical conclusion. “Anything at all?”

  Sonja shook her head. “No, nothing I can think of. Besides Bertha and the broken mug, everything was the same as earlier.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Sonja shrugged, taking a moment to go over her memory carefully. “Wait. No, there was something. The French press Bertha was using to make her tea was missing.” Sonja gasped, “It probably had something in it.”

  “It’s possible,” he agreed. “We need to make sure we find that French press as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll tell Alison to look for that as well.”

  “No,” Frank instructed her, “I’ll send one of the deputies over. If this really is an attempted murder case, I don’t want anyone inside that cottage at all.”

  “Do you really think someone was trying to murder her?”

  “I hope not,” Frank noted. “It is just as possible that it was a simple heart attack, or that she accidently drank something she didn’t mean to.”

  “But Bertha is a herbalist, she knew every plant in that garden inside and out. How could she drink something that was poisonous?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t poisonous, but something that she reacted poorly to.”

  “I just hope she’s okay.”

  “Maybe they paramedics can save Bertha because of your fast action,” he reassured her.

  “Do you really think she might die?”

  “Her pulse was very irregular, and she was extremely cold and clammy. I’m not a doctor, but it looked like cardiac arrest, to me.”

  “Oh no.”

  “The doctors will do their best. All we can do is pray that she’ll be okay.”

  She nodded. “Maybe the stress was too much for her?”

  “Maybe,” Frank answered, his mouth twitching skeptically.

  * * *

  After calling Alison and telling her to keep an eye out for Elanor, the couple sat in the ER waiting room for any news about Bertha.

  After about a half hour, the doctor came out. “Sheriff?”

  “Albus?” He said, standing up.

  “You were the one who found Bertha?”

  “No, Sonja was. I brought her along.”

  “Sonja, can you tell me the patient’s symptoms when you found her?”

  Sonja stood up, trying to remain composed while she remembered the horrible scene. “Well, she looked pale, her breathing was strained, her pupils were dilated, and she didn’t seem to recognize me. She was blubbering incoherently.”

  “After I came on the scene,” Frank added, “I checked her pulse. It was very irregular. She was cold and sweating uncontrollably.”

  Sighing, the doctor shook his head. “I’ll be honest. This doesn’t look good.”

  “So, you know what it is?”

  “I can’t be sure until I run some more tests,” he admitted, “but it is all very similar to accidental poison cases I’ve seen before in children.”

  “Poison?”

  “Like I said. I can’t be sure until I’ve run some tests.” He looked Sonja in the eye. “Do you know what she had to eat or drink today—especially in the last few hours?”

  “Just tea,” Sonja shrugged, “But her French press is missing.”

  The doctor opened his mouth to ask another question just as the door to the ER swung open and a nurse poked her head out. “Doctor, come quickly.”

  Turning, Albus darted out of the waiting room. Sonja and Frank followed, stopping at the door to listen in on what was happening. There were various voices overlapping, carts and instruments being moved about, and even the electrical shock of the paddles.

  After a few moments, the commotion died down, accompanied only by the uncomfortable hum of a flatline.

  “She’s gone,” the doctor declared.

  CHAPTER 7

  * * *

  “For the time being, I’m treating this as a homicide case,” Frank commented as they walked out of the hospital and into the warm spring sun.

  “I thought you said you weren’t sure, yet,” Sonja responded. “And the doctor said all the other cases he saw like this one were accidental poisonings.”

  “We can’t know that for sure. Whenever there is a sudden death like this, it’s procedure to approach it like a homicide—at least until we have evidence otherwise.”

  “I see.”

  “And you know what that means, right?”

  Sonja sighed. “I shouldn’t go poking around by myself, especially if it might be dangerous.”

  “Correct.”

  “But, you still want me to share any insights I have?” She asked hopefully.

  Despite the grim case before them, he couldn’t help but smile. “At this point, Sonj’, I’d trust your insight and judgment over most.”

  She nodded, returning a smile in agreement. After solving almost a year’s worth of murder cases together, the two had become quite the crime solving team. Heck, she’d basically cracked half those cases alone.

  “Great,” she exclaimed, clasping his hand in hers.

  “Just don’t get ahead of yourself,” he reminded her, “and especially don’t get ahead of me. Always consult me first if you think you have new information.”

  “I’ll try,” she shrugged. Sometimes, if a new lead came from a ghost, she couldn’t share it with Frank before she did a little more digging herself.

  “Any solid theory you might have, don’t hesitate to call me.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “Will do.”

  “Now, I’ve got to track down Bertha’s sister and give her the bad news.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Honestly,” he admitted, “It’s the hardest part of my job.”

  * * *

  Arriving back at
the garden, everyone was searching for eggs among the plants. Not wanting to cause any alarm, Alex had taken over running the egg hunt in place of Bertha. The hope had been that Bertha would come out of everything okay and no one would be the wiser.

  Unfortunately, Bertha was dead and Frank was now facing a potential homicide case.

  “Everyone, can I have your attention please,” the sheriff yelled, standing up on a wooden stool. “I’m so sorry to interrupt the festivities, but it looks like we’re going to have to shut things down prematurely this year.”

  A chorus of disappointed groans came from the crowd, and there some especially loud complaints from the kids. “I only found one jelly bean egg,” one boy shouted. “I didn’t get any chocolate,” another little girl cried.

  “I’m truly sorry. If you could all please gather your things and quietly go about the rest of your day, the Haunted Falls Police Department would be very grateful.”

  Slowly, and not without a few more grumbles and complaints, the partygoers filtered out of the garden and to their cars.

  “Is Bertha okay?” Alison asked, as she walked by, her purse in hand.

  Sonja mournfully shook her head.

  “Oh, no.”

  “Is Elanor here?” Sonja asked. “Did you find her?”

  “No, I think she left earlier.”

  Sonja couldn’t help but sigh. “Frank can track her down,” Sonja noted. “He’ll make sure to get to the bottom of things.”

  “Was it another murder?” Ally whispered, stepping close to her best friend.

  “We’re not making any definite statements on that yet,” Frank added, having overheard. “So, you and Alex please just head home and enjoy the rest of your Easter.”

  “What about all the diner stuff?” she asked, motioning back toward the booth.

  “We’ll worry about it later,” Sonja comforted her friend. “Just go and see Cynthia. Enjoy your day together.”

  Alison gave a half smile. “So much for our double date, huh?”

  “I’m really sorry about that.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. Something like this always comes up when we’re supposed to hang out.”

  “We’ll reschedule, for sure.”

  “If you say so,” Alison sighed, taking Alex’s arm and walking off.

  After they were gone, Sonja couldn’t help but let out a loud sigh. “She’s right, you know. Things like this always seem to come up right when we’ve planned something.”

  “It’s not your fault, Sonja,” Frank comforted her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “How can you plan for death? You just can’t.”

  “You don’t understand,” she whispered. There was no way he could ever understand. He had no idea about her supernatural abilities. He had no idea that she seemed to draw murder toward Haunted Falls.

  “Here’s to hoping we didn’t trample all of our evidence,” Frank commented as he surveyed the garden which had just moments ago been filled with people. “Luckily, no one was inside the cottage.”

  “That’s true. Should we start there?”

  Frank raised a single eyebrow. “We? No, we don’t start anywhere. I’ll start looking over things on my own. My deputies will be along shortly.”

  “They aren’t here?”

  “Greg is already on his way. He was on call at the station today. Danny isn’t much for family gatherings like this.”

  “You can use my help until they get here, then.”

  Frank shook his head. “No. You might be my girlfriend, and you might have a better nose for investigation than most people, but you just aren’t part of the police force.”

  “Maybe I should be,” she teased.

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “You’re a civilian, like everyone else.” Leaning down, he kissed her on the mouth. “Now, go home. If I need your thoughts, I’ll give you a call.”

  “Alright,” she replied, feeling a little dejected.

  “Maybe I’ll see you tonight if I get a chance for a dinner break.”

  “Okay,” she noted, kissing him one more time and heading toward her van. While she completely understood Frank’s need to keep everything professional and up to procedure, it didn’t bother her any less.

  She wanted to be right there in the middle of the action, helping to figure out all the clues.

  Getting out her keys, she was about to open the van when she spotted the little car still sitting up the road—the same one Henry Haboth had been hiding behind earlier.

  Henry! Of course, why hadn’t she thought of it before? He had been lurking outside and acting suspiciously right before the murder occurred.

  Her first instinct was to run right back into the garden and tell Frank, but her intuition—and mostly her curiosity—stopped her. She decided she’d go and have a quick look around the car. Since she wasn’t allowed to help in investigating the garden, she could at least look at this.

  Jogging up the road, while glancing back to make sure Frank didn’t see her, she stood by the car. Now, what had Henry been doing back there?

  Sonja thought of his argument with Bertha earlier that same day. Would that little fight be enough to commit murder over? Perhaps he was getting so desperate to succeed in business that he finally snapped, and Bertha saying “no” to him was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.

  He probably spent his life being turned down or managing failing endeavors.

  Giving the car a once over, she didn’t notice anything too out of the ordinary. She assumed it might very well be Bertha’s car. It wasn’t parked too far from the cottage where she lived and worked.

  However, Sonja also knew it could just as easily not be Bertha’s.

  It was a small town, and many families had been out for Easter. The car could belong to anyone. She felt suddenly silly for poking around. The car probably had nothing to do with the murder case at all and Henry was probably just hanging around because of the garden party. Nothing so suspicious about that—except for the fact that he’d run away when he’d seen Sonja looking at him.

  The amateur sleuth was about to give up finding anything significant when she suddenly noted that the front right tire on the car was as flat as a pancake. The sound of a pop echoed in her memory, and she put two and two together. Henry Haboth had slashed the tire on the car, likely thinking it belonged to Bertha.

  If he was angry enough to slash her tires, was he angry enough to commit murder?

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  After writing down the license plate number from the car, just a precautionary measure, she used her smartphone to look up Henry Haboth’s address. She knew that Frank didn’t want her poking around on her own, but he had also asked her to contact him if she had any solid theories.

  How could she present a solid theory to her police officer boyfriend if she didn’t do a little digging first? She needed more concrete evidence that Henry may be the murderer before she brought it forward to Frank.

  At least, that was her justification for what she was about to do.

  The only issue now, would Henry be open to talking? He had seemed less than thrilled with his life earlier that morning, and then he had slashed someone’s tires.

  Finding Henry’s name in the online directory was easy, seeing as he was the only Haboth in Haunted Falls.

  Pulling up in front of Henry’s apartment building, a tall brick structure that looked like it had more than a few screws loose, Sonja got out and walked inside. Going up two flights of narrow steps with tattered carpeting, she came to face door number nine. Knocking, she waited patiently. After a few moments of silence, she knocked again.

  “Hold on just a second,” came a hoarse voice from inside. A moment later, the door opened a crack revealing the scruffy face of a man Sonja didn’t recognize. “What do ya’ want?”

  The stale stench of cigarette smoke, old alcohol, and wet musk came from inside. She tried not to cough or gag, praying she wouldn’t have to go inside to talk
to Henry.

  “Hi, is this Henry’s apartment?” She asked, forcing a broad smile.

  “Yeah, I’m his roommate,” the sallow-looking man groaned. “But he ain’t here.”

  “Well, could you tell me where I might find him?”

  “I don’t know, lady. I’m not his old woman, kay?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Besides, he spends all day running around like a chicken that got its head cut off.”

  “Oh, okay,” she nodded, wanting to escape the smell. “I’m sorry to bother you.” Turning to go, she paused when she heard the man say something else.

  “You might try the Macamery Pool Hall. Sometimes he goes down there for a drink.”

  “Thank you very much,” she smiled and headed down the stairs, holding her breath until she got outside into the fresh air.

  * * *

  The Macamery Pool Hall was less of an actual pool hall and more of a dive bar. Calling it a pool hall was just a nice name to cover up what the place really was.

  The building was a short thing, with sheet metal siding and peeling paint, on the road out of town where truckers and bikers often stopped by. It was a wonder that a man such as Haboth, who seemed to dress so well, patronized a place like this. However, after seeing his apartment building, Sonja was beginning to realize that Henry was probably in the habit of putting on a show.

  Stepping into the pool hall, she was instantly hit with a cloud of cigarette smoke. The room was dark and hazy, only illuminated by a few buzzing neon lights and dusty hanging lightbulbs. The only pool table in the entire room sat in the corner, the green felt torn up in one spot. The rest of the room was made up of a few round metal tables and, of course, the bar.

  “Can I help you, lady?” The man from behind the counter yelled.

  Turning toward him, she saw his face drop in surprise. “Why, Miss Sonja. What the heck are you doing down here?”

  Charles Flannery was the bar owner and a kind man at heart but was known for putting up a rugged front. He was a true staple of the old west, transplanted into the modern world.

  “Hi, Charles,” Sonja smiled, walking over and leaning on the bar.