Poison Heart Read online

  CHAPTER 2

  Claire smoothed her dark hair while looking in the rearview mirror. She had pulled it back in a low ponytail, but it did want to go into wisps around her face. She shouldn’t look too closely either; she was starting to see a few gray hairs. Rich tapped on the window.

  She pulled her light sweater around her and got out of the pickup truck in front of the bakery. The “sink,” as she called it, had begun. She could see evidence of the sink in the flower gardens outside the bakery.

  Actually, the sink was in full force.

  Since moving to the country, Claire watched for that time in the late summer when the plants reversed themselves. It came when they had grown to their fullest, stretched out and up as far as they could. One day, it seemed, all together, the plants began their retreat. The leaves pulled in on their edges, the petals fell, the trees lost their vitality. Seed pods formed. Everything diminished and went back to its skeletal form.

  Rich grabbed her hand, then sniffed the air. “It smells fallish.”

  “That sounds like something I would say.”

  “Not surprising. You’ve definitely had an influence on me,” he said, steering her toward the bakery.

  The main street of Fort St. Antoine, starting at Highway 35 and winding up the bluff, was empty except for a cluster of cars and pickup trucks in front of the bakery. But within a couple of hours, the streets would be lined with cars from the Twin Cities, folks out for a drive in the country.

  Before the tourists arrived, the kaffeeklatsch gathered every Saturday morning at Le Pain Perdu. The owner, Stuart Lewis, reserved the big table next to the window for them. Every week he put out a basket of French doughnuts, everyone’s favorites. The loosely knit group was made up of folks from the area—newcomers and old-timers alike—and it ebbed and flowed with the seasons.

  Claire loved having coffee with them. Rich had been doing it for years before she met him. As far as she knew, the group had coalesced on its own. There was no organization, no hierarchy, no structure, no purpose. They drank coffee, ate whatever sweets appealed to them that morning, and talked about their small community and the world at large. They hardly ever agreed on much, yet they didn’t seem to fight. Not that there weren’t occasionally snits and huffs and contretemps, but there was a lot of room to move in the group. Usually between five and ten people gathered at the bakery, but sometimes the group could number up to fifteen.

  This morning they were a smaller group. Ruth and Jake had grabbed the window seats—the luxury of the first comers. An artist from the Cities, Ruth had bought a farm on the outskirts of town and was growing herbs. Jake’s wife had run off, leaving him with their young daughter. He had started working for Ruth, and then they had moved in together. They made a very handsome couple, she with freckles and strawberry blond hair, he with dark eyes and broad shoulders.

  Lucas, the bookstore owner, was sitting next to them. He probably wouldn’t stay long; he opened his store at eleven o’clock.

  Claire was glad to see that Edwin Sandstrom, an older farmer from on top of the bluff, had come and brought Ella Gunderson with him. Ella had helped Claire with a case a couple of years ago, and Claire loved talking to her. The older woman had been a schoolteacher and still read the Christian Science Monitor every week—online, in 48-point type, because her macular degeneration had gotten so bad.

  Ella poured Edwin a cup of coffee and managed to get most of it in his cup. Edwin took a sip and smacked his lips. “Too thick to drink and too thin to plow.”

  Ruth said in a loud voice, “I can’t stand it. We’ve got to do something to stop this guy.”

  Claire sat down next to Ella and touched her hand to say hello. “Who are we stopping today, Ruth?”

  Ruth and Jake said hello, then Ruth added, “That son of a bitch.”

  Ella tsked. Edwin chuckled.

  Rich said, “Don’t tell me you guys are already talking about Reiner. Let me get a cup of coffee so I can join in. Claire?”

  Claire nodded, then turned back to the table to get the latest news. Daniel Reiner was one of the newest part-time residents of Pepin County. He had bought an old farmstead up on Lost Creek when its elderly owner had been forced to go into a nursing home by his kids, who wanted to sell the farm. It had been a nasty deal from the get-go.

  The first thing Reiner had done was tear down the old farmhouse and the barn. He had saved some of the lumber to use in his new structures. He’d put up one of those new “not-so-big” houses, which were a laugh as far as Claire was concerned. Admittedly, a six-thousand-square-foot house might be smallish by the standards of the fashionable suburbs of the Twin Cities, but it was four times as big as any farmhouse in Pepin County.

  Since his first purchase, Reiner had been buying up as much acreage around him as he could get his hands on. He was offering so much over market value that even the longtime farmers were having a hard time resisting. Claire felt as if they were watching a small fiefdom come into existence. Claire had never met him, so she hadn’t formed an opinion of the man. This same factor had not stopped other members of the group from feeling very strongly about him. As far as she knew, Reiner was oblivious to all the talk. He didn’t really want to have anything to do with the community along the river, which irked everyone. He just wanted his grand estate.

  Claire asked, “What did he do now?”

  Ruth flung her hair back behind her shoulder and said, “It’s hard to know where to start with that guy. . . .”

  Jake turned to Ruth. “Let me tell it. You get a little too emotional.”

  After shooting him a dirty look, Ruth picked out a French doughnut and ceremoniously took a bite. Claire thought that looked like a good idea and grabbed one too.

  “Reiner’s talking about putting in an airstrip,” Jake explained.

  Rich slid in next to Claire, handing her a mug of coffee. “An airstrip? How can he do that down in the valley?”

  “Not right next to his place,” Jake said. “He’s been buying land on top of the bluff.”

  “Then, of course, he’ll need a funicular to cart his guests down to his manor in the vale,” Ruth added with a snap in her voice.

  “Funicular?” Jake asked.

  “A fancy way of saying tram,” Ruth explained.

  Edwin stirred his coffee and said, “I don’t care for that man myself. I’ve had some dealings with Reiner, and I don’t trust him as far as I could heave him, and that’s not very far anymore.”

  “What about the zoning for an airstrip? Can’t the township board rein him in?” Claire asked.

  Ruth laughed. “The board. There’s nothing in place. No zoning to speak of. All the board sees is dollar signs in the form of more taxes on all Reiner’s buildings. They won’t stop him from doing a thing.”

  Everyone fell silent at the table. Holding his spoon in the air as if it were a small bird, Lucas remarked, “I’d like to ride in a funicular.”

  “I think that mode of travel would suit you,” Claire told him.

  “I could see getting a special outfit for it. Maybe something iridescent and glittery, with wings.”

  Stuart walked up with another plate of French doughnuts. “If you start wearing wings, Lucas, you’re eighty-sixed.”

  “Have you ever met Daniel Reiner?” Claire asked Stuart.

  “Yeah, he comes in for bread sometimes. His wife has a sweet tooth, so she’ll buy a bag of cookies.”

  “At least he’s supporting the local economy,” Ella said. She liked to see the best in everyone.

  “Only because he didn’t make it to some fancy bakery on his way out of town,” Ruth snapped.

  “What’s got you so dead set against him?” Rich asked Ruth.

  “Oh, I guess it’s that feeling the poor, starving artists have when they discover a place and then the rich businessmen come in and buy up the town so that everything that made it charming is gone and nobody with character can afford to live there anymore.”

  Claire was reading Ruth
and didn’t feel that this was the whole story. “What else?”

  Ruth took a sip of coffee. “In order to build his airstrip, he’s made an offer on some land that should be going to a friend of mine, Margaret Underwood. Do you know her?”

  Claire shook her head.

  “She and her husband live up top. She helps me out with my garden sometimes. They raise goats. It’s a long story.”

  Everyone at the table waited, so Ruth continued. “Some of you know what happened. Edwin, I think you know Margaret and Mark. They were both born and raised here. Margaret’s dad had a bad stroke about two months ago, and the new stepmother has been spending up a storm. Margaret just heard that Reiner has made an offer on her father’s farm. Her father always told her the farm would go to her. She’s been counting on inheriting it. She grew up on it. Actually, Claire, I’ve been meaning to ask if you could help her out with something.”

  Claire said, “Sure,” before she even knew what she was getting into. She had to learn not to do that. Just as she was about to ask, Rich turned quickly and stood up as he saw someone come in the door.

  When Claire looked to see who had caught his eye, she saw her daughter barging into the bakery in a state of distress. Meg looked as though she had run the whole way to town. Claire stood and tipped her chair over.

  “Meggy, what is it?”

  But Meg continued straight toward Rich. She flung herself at him and said, “You’ve got to come right now. It’s bleeding—it might be dying. You have to save it. You can’t let it die.”

  Margaret sat in her car outside the Lakeside Manor and cried. She cried every day. Sometimes it was just a small dribbling sniffle. Once in a while it erupted into wholehearted sobbing. However it overtook her, she tried to hide it from Mark. He couldn’t stand to see her cry. It affected him the way puppies got to her—he went weak in the knees and could barely talk.

  When the crying jags had first hit her, she’d thought she was going crazy. She had never behaved so erratically in all her life—the weeping, the crabbiness. Anxiety racked her body. She had considered going to a therapist. Then one night, her whole body flushed with heat and woke her up. As soon as she felt it and identified it, she was relieved. A hot flash. At least now she knew what was going on.

  Since then she had read many books on menopause. At first the books made her feel better, let her know that she wasn’t the only one feeling strange, that other women had gone through this and survived. After she read a couple more, she felt sick about what she was learning. You went through this horrible withdrawal from estrogen, and when you finally made it to the other side, you were old.

  One night she had tried to describe menopause to Mark. She told him it was like going cold turkey off any addictive substance. “My body,” she said, “has been on this estrogen for close to forty years, and now I’m in withdrawal.”

  Her bones ached, she woke up at three in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep, she was crabby, she cried every day. She wished her mom were still alive so she could talk to her about how to get through this period of her life.

  Mark suggested that she take something.

  “You mean like hormones?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  She guessed he wanted her to take a pill and be her old self again. She tried to placate him. When he got impatient with her, his anger would lash out on chairs and doors.

  “I might,” she said.

  Before she had time to consider her husband’s suggestion, she got the news that her father was in the hospital after having a bad stroke. They weren’t sure he would make it. For two long weeks he had been on the brink of leaving the world. Now she thought it might have been better if he had died.

  It was time to go see her father. Margaret wiped her face with the Kleenex she kept in the glove compartment, then looked at herself in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were a little red, but she didn’t think her dad would notice. He noticed very little these days.

  She entered the nursing home, hoping that her father was having one of his better days. She tried to visit him in the morning so that she wouldn’t run into Patty Jo, her stepmother. Patty Jo came in the late afternoon because she liked to play bingo with the patients.

  Margaret peeked into her father’s room. He was sitting in his wheelchair, facing the window. She couldn’t see if he was awake. His head hung down between his shoulders and his bad hand dangled toward the floor. She hated to see his hand hang so lifelessly. Her father had been a strong man all his life, but as he lost weight, his muscles melted like old snow. An IV pole was set up next to him with the feeding bag almost empty: the remains of his breakfast.

  After pulling a chair up to his good side, Margaret sat down facing him. He was asleep, his lips parted in slow breathing, his flannel shirt buttoned crooked, and two-day stubble on his face. She knew being well groomed didn’t matter to him anymore, but it hurt her to see him like this. He had always been a dapper dresser for a farmer, insisting on ironed shirts and, if needed, two shaves a day.

  “Dad,” she said gently, lifting up his dangling hand and holding it in her lap. She and her father had never touched much while she was growing up. They were not a demonstrative family. But after his stroke, she had taken to touching him more, since he couldn’t talk to her. It made her feel like she connected with him.

  He roused, stretching his head up. His eyes blinked open. He reminded her of a baby bird peering out of the nest, hoping for food. He looked so vulnerable.

  He grunted. It was his form of hello.

  “Hi, just thought I’d stop by for a few minutes.” Margaret tended not to stay long. It was too hard to stay when they couldn’t talk to each other. There was nothing for her to do. “It’s a nice fall day.”

  He nodded. He seemed to understand what she was saying.

  “How’re you today?” she asked.

  He pressed his lips together and blew.

  “Have you tried to eat today?”

  He didn’t respond. After the stroke, he hadn’t been able to swallow, so a feeding tube had been inserted directly into his stomach. Therapists were still working with him, trying to get him to be able to eat soft foods such as ice cream or yogurt, but he choked on them.

  As he woke up more, he got agitated. The fingers of his good hand picked at the blanket that covered his lap, and his lips mouthed words, but nothing came out. He shifted in his wheelchair and groaned.

  “What, Dad?”

  He looked at her with pleading in his eyes.

  “What do you want?”

  He moved his hand.

  “Are you thirsty?”

  He shook his head and moved his hand again. She knew he was trying to tell her something. What could he want?

  “Do you want something?”

  He nodded and held out his hand.

  “Something you hold in your hand?”

  He nodded again.

  Margaret wanted to understand. He had never tried this hard to communicate with her before. “A comb?”

  He groaned and shook his head. Then he looked down at his hand and moved it across the arm of his wheelchair. It looked like he was trying to write.

  “Dad, do you want to write something?”

  He quickly nodded.

  Margaret opened her purse and pulled out a pen. She handed it to him, and he started to write on the wheelchair arm.

  “Wait, Dad, wait. I’ll get you a piece of paper.” Margaret looked around the room and found a notice about activities left by the staff. The back was blank. She found the tray that they put over his wheelchair when they wanted him to work on something. When the tray was in place, she set the paper in the middle of it and took his hand and put it in the middle of the paper.

  He started writing. She was so excited, she thought of running out in the hall to tell someone. Her dad could write. But when she looked at what he had written, she couldn’t make any sense out of it. If it was a word, all the letters were written one on top of the other, mak
ing it illegible.

  “Dad, you need to keep moving your hand when you write. Let me try to help you.” She took his hand, but he pulled it away and went back to writing in a very tight space. Then he looked up at her.

  It still was a small mound of scribbles.

  She took his hand. “Let’s try this. Go.”

  As soon as he formed a letter, she gently moved his hand, giving him room to form the next.

  Margaret could tell the first letter was f. The next letter looked like an o, and the next letter looked like an n, and the final letter she couldn’t read at all.

  He looked up at her, expectantly.

  “I can’t quite make out the word, Dad. Is the first letter f?”

  He nodded, and his hand started writing again without her help.

  This time she could make out the first two letters: f-a.

  Margaret was afraid she knew what he was writing. But she wanted to be sure. “Dad, let me help you one more time.”

  She held his hand and guided him and he wrote out f-a-r-m. She could read the m, although it looked more like an n. She had said nothing to him when she heard that Patty Jo was thinking about selling the farm. She didn’t want to worry him.

  “Farm?” she asked.

  He nodded, happy.

  “Are you worried about the farm?” she asked.

  He nodded again.

  Margaret didn’t want to lie to her dad. She hardly knew how to do it. “I think it’s fine, Dad. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  Now she needed to make sure that was true.

  CHAPTER 3

  Rich’s heart sank when he saw the elk standing at the top of his driveway. Its large, antlered head hung between its legs in a stance he recognized. Years ago, when he had shot a deer and it finally stopped running, it had stood like that, an arrow in its chest, waiting for what was to come. He had never gone hunting again.

  There were two elk farms in the area—the nearest was on the Reiner estate, and he figured that had to be where this animal came from. He wanted to see how close he could get to the animal. The fewer people around, the better. A bull elk could be dangerous. But he needed to get closer to assess the animal’s problem. Slowly and evenly, he walked toward the elk.