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“Around there, in the kitchen. We already cleared the house and made sure there was enough room for y’all to get through,” Chip advised, aiming a finger at a narrow path through the waist-high mess.
“Thanks,” Nox said as he offered the younger deputy an encouraging clap on the shoulder. They needed all the friends they could get in New Castle and Duncan had been far more helpful than his uncle in the past.
“Good luck,” Duncan whispered without a hint of facetiousness and shuddered as he leaned against the door jamb. He pulled his shoulders in and tugged the collar of his black polo together like he was cold. But if Nox had to guess, he’d say the interior of the trailer was sitting at around 70 degrees.
“Everything’s going to be fine.” Nox reassured him, then followed Nelson through to the kitchen.
Dr. Bixby was hunkered down next to Ma’s curled corpse when Nox and Nelson came around the wall. He was dressed in coveralls, a mask, and wearing elbow-length gloves. “Don’t touch anything or get too close until we know what caused this,” he advised as he stood, offering them a cheerful wave. “But between the three of us and Jones here…” Bixby paused to indicate the younger tech taking photos of the mountains of detritus on the counters and the floor around the victim. Cartons, bags, and cans littered every surface and the overflowing wastebasket by the back door had been long forgotten, swarming with flies and squirming maggots. “I’m damn glad to see you two. Boyle’s been out back puking since we arrived, he can’t take more than a few minutes in here before he’s running for the door.”
“Let him stay out there. That’s probably all he’s good for,” Nox said under his breath, earning a hum of agreement from Bixby. “What do you think we’re looking at?” Nox asked him and Bixby hissed as he turned back to the small, frail-looking body on the dingy yellow linoleum.
“Possibly poison. Whatever it was, it was painful, judging from these tracks by her feet,” he said, waving at the floor. Lonnie MacCrory was on her side, in a fetal position. Shrouded in a ratty, powder blue housecoat, her skin had taken on an ashy hue. Her filthy pink house slippers had kicked the trash and dragged through what appeared to be coffee grounds and ketchup and created smeared arcs on the already filthy floor. “But it could be anything she touched or ate,” Bixby advised.
Nox tucked his hands under his armpits as he craned his neck and edged closer to the body, searching for anything that might have been consumed recently. Every dish and utensil he could see was caked, sticky, or crusted. He spotted an overturned coffee mug in a small swath of clean space on the table and went to get a closer look. Two chairs had been cleared and brought around for a conversation, based on their positions by the stove. “Just one mug?” Nox said, turning and hunting for another. He bent and sniffed the one on the table, earning a hard grunt of disapproval from Nelson.
“You heard Bixby. Don’t get too close.”
“I won’t!” Nox sniffed again as he wafted at the dried, pulverized waxy green needles still clinging to the inside of the porcelain mug. They didn’t look at all like a typical tea blend. “Does she show signs of petechial hemorrhage?” Nox asked Bixby and he hummed in assent.
“Under the eyelids and inside the lips.”
Nox squinted at the contents of the mug, considering the toxicological properties of various coniferous trees and their needles. Some types of pine needles were consumed in teas for their piney and citrusy flavors and healing properties, but he didn’t detect much of a woody or zesty aroma. “Yew!” Nox whispered loudly, drawing confused looks from Bixby and Nelson.
“Me?” Bixby asked as he gestured at himself and Nox shook his head.
“Not you. Yew,” he said, with a roll of his eyes. He flapped a hand impatiently until Bixby offered him a glove and quickly pulled it on. “Y. E. W.” Nox picked up the mug by its handle and held it out while Jones hurried over with an evidence bag. “Known as the Tree of Death and Rebirth, Taxus baccata, is one of Europe’s and folklore’s oldest trees. All parts of the plant except the flesh of the berries are toxic and just two seeds can kill a horse,” he explained.
“She drank it,” Nelson guessed. “And she had company.”
Bixby made a thoughtful sound as he circled the table and the body. “So was it suicide or murder?” He wondered out loud.
“You mean an execution?” Nox corrected, pointing at the other chair. “Hard to say,” he admitted with a shake of his head. “We now know that the MacCrorys have been worshiping and practicing their hillbilly magick out here for generations. An old witch like Lonnie would pick something anciently symbolic like hemlock or yew if she wanted to off herself. And she’d know what she was drinking so this wasn’t an accident, but I can’t tell you if this was her choice.”
Beware, mo leanbh!1
Nox’s head whipped around at the impassioned whisper and he heard an echo of the old woman’s scream. “What was that?”
“What?” Nelson asked, watching Nox closely.
“Nothing,” Nox lied. His ears rang and Nox heard a muffled argument at the table. One of the tones was weak and feminine, Lonnie MacCrory. The other was a vicious, seething murmur but it was too low and distorted for Nox to understand. “I don’t think she wanted to drink it.”
“Nox.”
“What?” He gave himself a shake and raised his brows at Nelson. He and Bixby were staring as if Nox had grown antlers like the ones painted on the side of the barn.
“You just said something in…Gaelic, I think,” Nelson said as he flipped open his notebook and quickly scribbled. “Deoch2.” He murmured the Gaelic word for drink to himself, making Nox grimace.
“I know,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “Just thinking out loud.”
“In Gaelic?” Nelson confirmed.
“I do that sometimes.”
“Since when?”
Nox spluttered, stomping a foot. “I don’t know, since I was a kid? Is that relevant to this?” he asked and gestured at the body on the floor. But he could tell from the furrow in Nelson’s brow that he wasn’t buying it.
“Could be…”
