Free Murder Under the Tree by Susan Bernhardt

what will you four have today?”
    After Marissa left the room, Sarah said, “The Christmas tea started at one o'clock.”
    “Leaving three hours for someone to tamper with the food,” I said.
    “They probably sent someone from the kitchen staff to pick up the order,” Martin said.
    “Or at least someone who would have access to the kitchen,” I added. “Or it could have been poisoned right in the van, before it ever reached the kitchen.”
    We all looked at each other, not saying anything. Anne seemed rather quiet.
    She shrugged. “How would we ever know?” After taking a sip of her tea and putting her cup down on the saucer, she said, “Maybe the lonely woman who was enamored with Les saw him flirting with other women.”
    Anne had said something similar on the way over. She seemed fixated on Les flirting with the old ladies. Could Anne have been one of Les' lonely ladies at one time herself?
    I thought back to the first time I saw her in the lobby of the retirement home when Les told her to save him a seat at the tea. It was a comment in jest that no one was meant to take seriously; it seemed like it was just Les' familiar way of talking with the residents. Maybe that informal joking with the wrong person had indirectly caused his death. Anne was a mystery writer; she knew all kinds of ways to murder people. Didn't she say his food allergy was the perfect crime? But if she had anything to do with his death, why appeal to me for help? To get the heat off herself? But there wasn't any heat, it was an accident. I'd have to ask Sarah about Anne. Everyone had a story. What was Anne's?
    I heard Sarah clear her throat and looked up. She nodded her head, drawing my attention back to what Anne was saying. “If it was someone from outside the kitchen, it would have been faster to replace an item with peanuts, than to doctor it up in the kitchen. I once wrote a mystery about something similar, only it was a tart laced with arsenic.”
    So Anne even wrote about doctoring up food in a mystery book. One of her growing repertoire of murder methods.
    Marissa came back with our orders. “Erica said she left the boxes labeled for “Hawthorne Hills” in the kitchen by the back door. They were gone when she came back from her break, so she never saw who picked them up.”
    “Well, that's a dead end. Now I need to find out if anyone noticed someone—a staff member...or a resident—tampering with the food in the Hawthorne Hills kitchen,” I said, after Marissa left.
    Anne's complexion grew pale.
    “Are you all right, Anne?” Sarah asked.
    “Fine. Fine. I feel a little dizzy, probably low blood sugar. I better start eating.” She turned her attention toward a fruit tartlet.
    While eating, we talked about our Christmases. I told them about Phil's aunt and uncle being friends with Jim Barnowski, a resident at the Home.
    “He's an annoying old trout,” Martin said. “I try to avoid him whenever I can.”
    “What do you mean, Martin?” Sarah said. “He's younger than you.”
    “Only on paper,” Martin replied. “I'm much younger at heart and better looking.”
    “Martin just doesn't like having competition with the ladies,” Sarah fired back with a smirk. “Especially from a younger man.”
    Martin waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. He turned and winked at me.
    I smiled; Martin was so incorrigible. “Anyway, I mean to visit him sometime when I'm at the Hill,” I said. “Perhaps he saw or heard something.”
    “Wait until Lent,” Martin said. I gave him a questioning look. “Then you can kill two birds with one stone. Visit him and do penance for your sins.”
    After we were finished, Martin drove us back to Hawthorne Hills, my fists clenched all the way.
    I wanted to get home and spend some time with the family. But first I'd hit a few stores on the way back for the post-Christmas sales. I'd be in and out in no time at all. Before I left Hawthorne Hills, I asked for Les' girlfriend's name and made my way