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“I’m not afraid,” he said a little too quickly. “But I like what I’m used to.”
Well, existence on the other side was definitely not something Danny was used to. It crossed my mind to tell him that he’d most likely return to this world at some point, since I could tell he was a young soul with a lot more learning to do, but I decided against it. Many people were frightened of the idea of reincarnation, viewing it as a punishment rather than a chance to learn valuable lessons, and I guessed he would probably fall into that camp.
“I understand,” I said. “But right now, I’m just trying to figure out exactly what’s going on here. What I do know is that what killed you was a huge dose of digitalis.”
Danny blinked. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” I said. “You extract it from foxglove plants, but since it sounds as though they’re fairly popular in yards around here, I’m not sure that helps that much. Still…did you date anyone who had a garden with those sorts of plants in it?”
He reached up to scratch the back of his head as he pondered my question. “They look sort of like purple-y bells, right?”
“Yes, something like that.”
A moment or two of quiet while he thought, and then he shook his head. “Not that I know of. Jennifer Espinoza has a nice rose garden, but that’s not the same thing, right?”
“No,” I said, trying not to be too disappointed. After all, it had been kind of a long shot…and I knew I hadn’t seen any purple, bell-like flowers in Jennifer’s yard when I’d visited her house. “But that’s all right — I’ll keep working at this, and I know Henry’s on the case as well, obviously. Between the two of us, we should be able to come up with something soon.”
I sounded a lot more confident than I felt. Almost anyone in Globe could have brewed up the poison that had been slipped into Danny’s drink. The real question was who would have had the motive to do such a thing, and so far I hadn’t been able to find any real answers.
“I’ll keep thinking on it, too,” Danny said. “Maybe I’ll have a flash of inspiration.”
That would be nice. At the moment, it felt as though my inspiration had decided to take off for the Bahamas.
The bells on the door jingled, and a couple I didn’t recognize, older and in hiking clothes, entered the shop. Tourists, obviously.
As soon as I said, “Welcome to Once in a Blue Moon,” Danny disappeared. They took no notice of him, of course, reinforcing his claim that I was the only person in town who could see this particular ghost.
The next few minutes, I was busy showing my customers around, guiding them to the bookshelves and pointing out the collection of crystals. It seemed clear that they wanted to continue browsing on their own, however, and so I retreated behind the counter and pretended to be busy rearranging the items in the jewelry case.
The tourists ended up buying almost a hundred dollars’ worth of merchandise, so the interruption had been worth it. After they left, however, Danny didn’t reappear. Which was fine. I needed to do some research of my own.
I went over to the bookshelves and pulled down a couple of volumes on herb lore and potions. Maybe I could have found the same information online, but I tended to trust what I read in books a bit more, since at least I knew that books put out by a reputable publisher had to be vetted in some way.
Figuring the herb book would probably be the best place to start, I leafed through it to find the entry on foxglove. It didn’t tell me much I hadn’t already heard from Calvin, but one sentence in particular stood out to me.
Foxglove can be confused for comfrey, and it’s this confusion that often leads to cases of poisoning.
I stared down at the book for a long moment, my brain churning away.
What if the passing thought I’d had earlier had been correct, and someone hadn’t been trying to poison Danny at all?
What if they really had been trying to slip him a love potion?
The more I thought about it, the more plausible that scenario seemed to me. No wonder I’d felt as though I was barking up the wrong tree when it came to trying to figure out who of the women Danny had dated might be the culprit. None of them were the killer — the person involved was someone who’d wanted to be with him, but wasn’t.
Mind thrumming, I headed back over to the bookcase and found a volume on love spells and potions. This area of the craft was something I’d never practiced, because love potions could backfire in spectacular ways if you weren’t careful. Far better to let nature take its course and not force things.
But clearly, this potion had backfired terribly…if my theory turned out to be correct.
I thumbed through the pages, looking for the particular combination of ingredients I had in mind. And there it was, right on page 153.
Cinnamon, comfrey, geranium, and orange oil.
Exactly the ingredients that had been found in the spilled wine. Well, except the comfrey. Digitalis had taken its place, probably because the person mixing the potion hadn’t realized that they’d made a deadly mistake.
My hands shook slightly as I closed the book. Once again, I had the unassailable feeling in my gut that I was on the right track here.
However, this discovery didn’t really change the central conundrum that continued to plague me. I might have found out that this wasn’t a murder at all, only a horrible accident, but I still wasn’t any closer to finding out who had brewed the fatal potion.
