Hemlock Read online

  HEMLOCK

  Susan Wittig Albert

  Hemlock

  Copyright © 2021 by Susan Wittig Albert

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. For information, write to Persevero Press, PO Box 1616, Bertram TX 78605. www.PerseveroPress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or, in the case of historical persons, are used fictitiously.

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

  Names: Albert, Susan Wittig, author.

  Title: Hemlock / by Susan Wittig Albert.

  Series: China Bayles Mysteries

  Description: Bertram, TX: Persevero Press, 2021.

  Identifiers: ISBN: 978-1-952558-14-6 (hardcover) | 978-1-952558-15-3 (paperback) | 978-1-952558-16-0 (epub)

  Subjects: LCSH Rare books--Fiction. | Bayles, China (Fictitious character)--Fiction. | Herbalists--Fiction. | Blackwell, Elizabeth, active 1737--Fiction. | Women private investigators--Fiction. | North Carolina--Fiction. | Mystery fiction. | BISAC FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Historical | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Cozy

  Classification: PS3551.L2637 H46 2021 | DDC 813.54--dc23

  A Curse on Book Thieves

  For him that stealeth a book from this library,

  let it change into a serpent in his

  hand and rend him. Let him be struck by

  palsy and all his members blasted. Let him

  languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy

  and let there be no surcease to his agony

  till he sink to dissolution. Let bookworms

  gnaw his entrails in token of the Worm

  that dieth not and when at last he goeth

  to his Final Punishment, let the

  flames of Hell consume him

  forever and aye.

  Edmund Pearson, Old Librarian’s Almanack, 1909

  Table of Contents

  Hemlock

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  “The Curious Tale,” Part One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  “The Curious Tale,” Part Two

  “The Curious Tale,” Part Three

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  “The Curious Tale,” Part Four

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  “The Curious Tale,” Part Five

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  About Susan Wittig Albert

  Resources

  Books by Susan Wittig Albert

  Chapter One

  There’s hemlock—and then there is hemlock. The word refers to two very different plant genera, one so aggressively poisonous that you don’t want to mess with it, the other harmless, helpful, and hospitable.

  The bad guy first. Poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) and its cousin water hemlock or spotted hemlock (Cicuta spp.) are flowering plants in the carrot family. Infamous as the instrument of Socrates’ death, poison hemlock is native to Europe and North Africa; humans carried it with them to the Americas and Australia, where it has made itself at home. Water hemlock—which looks enough like Queen Anne’s lace to fool you—is native to North America. People have died when they mistook hemlock leaves for parsley, its root for wild carrot, or its seeds for Queen Anne’s lace. In spite of its dangers, hemlock has traditionally been used to treat lung ailments, pain, and cramps. (Not recommended unless you know what you’re doing and your insurance is up-to-date.)

  Now the good guy, the hemlock tree, Tsuga spp. A majestic conifer native to the Americas and Asia, this tree is said to have earned the common name “hemlock” from the Cicuta-like odor of its crushed leaves. Rich in tannins, the bark has been used to tan leather, while a medicinal tea brewed of the needles treated kidney ailments, colds, coughs, and scurvy. Hemlocks can live up to six hundred years and are important forest trees. But in the Appalachian and East Coast regions of North America, they are threatened with destruction by the hemlock woolly adelgid, an aphid-like sap-sucking insect that is devastating whole forests.

  China Bayles

  “Hemlock”

  Pecan Springs Enterprise

  It was a Monday afternoon on a mild spring day in Texas. I was taking advantage of the fine weather to pull a few early weeds out of the Zodiac Garden, one of the dozen or so theme gardens that surround my herb shop, Thyme and Seasons.

  The shop is closed on Mondays, making it a good day for chores—checking inventory or ordering or repainting a shelf or gardening. If you have a garden, you know there is always something to do. And when it’s done, it will need doing again. Sooner, rather than later.

  The Zodiac Garden is a large, brick-bordered circle that my astrologer partner, Ruby Wilcox, helped me divide into twelve sections, corresponding to the twelve astrological houses. Each is ruled by a planet—for instance, Venus rules Taurus, Saturn rules Capricorn—and contains herbs that have been assigned (for many reasons, some obvious, some completely obscure) to that planet. This morning, I was on my hands and knees in the first house, Mars-ruled Aries, where I’m growing a variety of spicy and thorny herbs traditionally associated with the martial planet. Thistle and nettle, both of which are medicinal. And some tongue-searing culinary herbs: horseradish, hot peppers, garlic, and several kinds of mustard, including my favorite curled-leaf brown mustard, Brassica juncea.

  Mustard reseeds itself with passionate abandon. Usually, I don’t let these plants go to seed so I won’t have many to thin out. But last fall, I deliberately allowed several plants to mature so I could demonstrate how to collect and use the seed in a let’s-make-mustard workshop. Nature did its usual fertile thing, and now, dozens of young plants were crowding their bedfellows. The fresh leaves would make a spicy dish of Southern-style greens for tonight’s supper, with plenty of lemon and garlic—tasty alongside the pork roast I’d put in the slow cooker that morning.

  I was enjoying this Monday garden chore, humming to myself and thinking of nothing more significant than tonight’s supper menu and what I might do that evening. Work on my cross-stitch project? More likely: settle down with the mystery I’d picked up at the library on Saturday. I certainly wasn’t planning anything out of the ordinary, anything like . . . well, like getting involved in a perilous situation in a faraway place with people I don’t know.

  Which is why I nearly turned down the invitation.

  I was still pulling baby mustard plants when I heard footsteps crunching on the gravel and a light and bubbly voice.

  “Hey, China. How are you?”

  It was Penelope Paxton, the newly elected president of the Merryweather Herb Guild and one of my favorite people. Fortyish and energetic, Penny has long blond hair that frames her face and curls on her shoulders. She was wearing tan slacks and a green T-shirt that declared “Thyme in a garden is never wasted.”

  I tossed a plant in the bucket. “Hey, yourself, Penny.” I lifted my trowel suggestively. “Happy to have you join me. The mustard got a little rowdy this spring. It wants Aries all to itself.”

  One eyebrow cocked, she glanced at my dirt-stained jeans, then stuck her hands in the pockets of her slacks. “Actually, I was hoping you might be ab
out ready to take a break.” She wore a serious look. “I have a question for you—and maybe a project, if you’re interested. But it’s a little complicated. Is there somewhere we can sit and talk?”

  If I had known what was on the other side of this conversation, I might have said something like, “Oh, gosh, I don’t think so, Penny. Not right now, anyway. I promised to—” And then make up some excuse to get out of whatever it was that Penny had in mind for me.

  If I had known, I could’ve. But I didn’t.

  “We can sit on the deck.” I pulled off my garden gloves and picked up the bucket of greens. “How about some tea?” Iced tea, the Texas state drink, which we serve even when there’s a blue norther blowing and icicles hanging from the gutters.

  “Sounds terrific.” Penny grinned, probably relieved that I hadn’t invited her to my solo weeding party.

  A few minutes later, we were seated at a table on the deck outside Thyme for Tea, the tea room that Ruby Wilcox and I launched several years ago. I had filled two tall glasses with iced hibiscus tea and put a half-dozen of Cass Wilde’s cookies on a plate. Cass cooks for the tea room, helps out with Party Thyme, our catering service, and manages The Thymely Gourmet, a meal-delivery service for people who don’t have time to shop and cook. All this is adjunct to my Thyme and Seasons and Ruby’s Crystal Cave. We keep busy.

  “Oh, lovely,” Penny said, reaching for a cookie. She nibbled. “Chocolate chips and mint. Delicious. From your garden?”

  “Right over there,” I said, nodding at the patch of mint next to Thyme Cottage. That’s the old stone stable-turned-cottage that I rent as a B&B. When it’s not spoken for, Ruby and I teach our workshops there.

  I added sweetener to my iced tea and leaned back in my chair, lifting my face to the sun. In another month, I wouldn’t be able to sit out here for more than a few minutes without sunglasses, a wide-brimmed hat, and sunblock. But today the sun was just right. There were early roses at the edge of the deck, mixing and mingling with late daffodils. A mockingbird poured a generous helping of song into the air, and an easy breeze teased the Texas mountain laurel blossoms, spilling their grape Kool-Aid fragrance into the air. It had been an unusually hard winter, with a pair of damaging back-to-back ice storms. Spring was especially welcome.

  “So what’s this about a project?” I asked. I contribute a lot of time to the Herb Guild, both because it’s good business (I am, after all, in the business of herbs) and because I genuinely like the Merryweathers and believe in what we do together.

  Elbows on the table, Penny leaned forward. She has blue eyes in a friendly face and she’s normally all cheerful smiles. Just now, though, she looked troubled, like somebody who needs a favor and is afraid that it’s too big an ask. She spoke slowly.

  “I had a phone call this morning. A friend of mine has a problem—a rather hefty problem, actually. She wanted me to talk to you about it.”

  Uh-oh. I frowned. “What kind of problem?”

  Penny hesitated, as if she were searching for the right word. She found it, and didn’t look entirely pleased. “I guess you might call it a criminal problem. I mean, that seems to be what she’s worried about.”

  “Ah.” Every so often, somebody brings up my former career as a criminal defense attorney. This usually happens when the person (or a family member or a friend) gets into some kind of legal hot water and would like to hop out of it in a hurry. “Who’s your friend?”

  Penny reached for another cookie. “Actually, she’s someone you know—Dorothea Harper.”

  Dorothea Harper. Of course. Over the years we have met a dozen times at various conferences and workshops around the country. Our acquaintance began when she gave an interesting presentation on English herbals from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—books that describe herbs and list their medicinal and culinary uses. We sat down to chat for a few minutes and wound up talking for a couple of hours. Dorothea taught courses in library and information sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she specialized in the conservation of old books. Herbs were a hobby for her, and she knew a lot about medicinal herbs in England during the Elizabethan era and through the eighteenth century, when almost all medicines came from plants and apothecaries had to know their herbs.

  “I always enjoy talking to Dorothea,” I said. “She’s a treasure trove of historical information.” I paused. “So what’s up?”

  “She has a new job. She’s the director of the Hemlock House Foundation in North Carolina, northwest of Asheville. She moved there last September, after the previous director left.” Penny hesitated. “Maybe you didn’t know—Dorothea lost her husband a while back. Pancreatic cancer.”

  “Oh, gosh.” I frowned. “That’s terrible, Penny. I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “It upended her life. She had to sell her house to pay some of the bills. Things were difficult for a while, and she felt that she needed to reinvent herself—although I’m not sure the Hemlock move was right for her.”

  “Oh, really? Why?”

  “The house is in the mountains and quite isolated.” With a thoughtful look, Penny sipped her tea. “The foundation manages a large estate that belonged to an eccentric old woman who collected rare garden books. There’s a residence, a rather odd old house with a garden that’s occasionally open to the public, as well as an extensive library. It was the library that enticed Dorothea, of course. It includes a valuable collection of botanical manuscripts and books, all of them old and some of them quite rare.” Penny gave me a sidelong glance. “For instance, there’s a copy of Elizabeth Blackwell’s book, A Curious Herbal. A unique copy. And very valuable.”

  “Oh, really?” I said, sitting forward in my chair, suddenly attentive. “That’s interesting.”

  Penny nodded. “Dorothea remembered that you once mentioned that book to her. She said you were fascinated by it.”

  Yes, fascinated—and for good reason. A Curious Herbal is recognized as simply the best of the eighteenth-century English herbals: books that contain drawings and descriptions of medicinal plants. But while her work is much admired and coveted by collectors of botanical art, Blackwell herself is curiously unknown to most modern herbalists.

  In fact, I learned about her only by accident—on (of all places) the PBS television program Antiques Roadshow. Someone brought in a copy of a later edition of the book, in such wretched condition that it was literally falling apart in the appraiser’s hands. Even so, he put an auction price tag on it of nearly $15,000, and for good reason. Besides the beauty of its illustrations, A Curious Herbal has the distinction of being the only English herbal, in any era, that was compiled, illustrated, and engraved and hand-colored by a woman. Little is known about its multitalented author, not even the date of her birth. More is known about her husband, Alexander, who seems to have been a first-class rascal with rather flexible moral scruples and a genius for causing trouble.

  “I’m afraid it’s the Herbal that’s the problem. One of them, anyway.” Penny waved off a yellow butterfly that wanted to perch on the rim of her glass. “The foundation’s copy is unique. It seems to have been a gift from Elizabeth Blackwell to Sir Hans Sloane, the man whose collections were the foundation of the British Museum. It’s signed. And valuable.”

  “How valuable?”

  “Somewhere north of a hundred thousand dollars.” She pursed her lips, looked straight at me, and said, “Unfortunately, it’s turned up missing.”

  “Uh-oh.” My skin prickled. “How?”

  “That’s what Dorothea would like to know. In fact, she’s frantic about it, since whatever happened to it happened on her watch.”

  “Recently?”

  “Ten days or so ago.” Penny leaned forward. In a lower, more intent voice, she said, “She’s afraid that she’s about to be accused of stealing it, China.”

  “She is?” I was surprised. Dorothea is the kind of person who l
ikes to follow the rules. If she can’t find a rule to follow, she will make one—and expect you to follow it.

  “Which is of course absurd,” Penny said indignantly. “There appear to be other items missing from the collection, as well. The old lady died some months ago and her library is a mess. Dorothea can’t be sure what they have. Or more to the point, what might be missing.”

  I asked the obvious. “The police have been notified, I suppose. Are they investigating?”

  “Yes to both, but as I said, the house is isolated. It’s in a rural county, and Dorothea says that the sheriff doesn’t have much enthusiasm for an investigation.” Penny pulled her blond brows together. “That’s why Dorothea’s afraid he may start focusing on her, for lack of other strong suspects—and for other reasons. She wasn’t very specific. I got the impression that she didn’t want to go into it on the phone.”

  “Sounds like a difficult situation,” I said.

  “There’s more, apparently. From time to time, Dorothea has mentioned odd goings-on at the house. And there’s a board of directors that sounds like something out of a bad dream.” Penny wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to be overly dramatic about this, China. But she’s hoping you might be willing to . . . well, investigate.”

  “Me?” I asked, making sure the skepticism in my voice was clear. “Investigate? Really, Penny, I—”

  Penny plowed on. “Dorothea says it needs to be somebody who can do it without attracting a lot of unnecessary attention. Sort of an undercover job. Under the sheriff’s radar, at least. She says she doesn’t want him to know. Or anybody else, for that matter. Including her board of directors.”