Free A Case of Vineyard Poison by Philip R. Craig

my account, because if it had been me, I’d have taken it out in cash and I’d be spending the money down at the Harborview right now, being waited on hand and foot by devoted servants, instead of here with you characters being entertained with the sports pages of the Globe.”
    â€œNonsense,” I said. “Here you are surrounded not by paid lackeys, but by ardent admirers ready to heed your slightest whim. Nothing could be better for you. What’s more, tonight you get to eat a supper that I’ll personally cook. The Harborview has nothing comparable to offer.”
    â€œWell, all right,” said Zee. “I can be happy here. But only if I get the crossword puzzle. Who’s got it?”
    â€œRats,” I said, and handed it over.
    But I was thinking about what Dave had said, and later I read the article myself. Interesting, even to a computer illiterate like me.

— 8 —
    I wondered if being computer illiterate was going to prevent me from becoming a successful twentieth-century criminal. It seemed likely. If not that, some other flaw in character or talent would forbid such ambition. Oh well.
    I mixed up some stuffing, put it between bluefish fillets, and put the fillets in the fridge, where they would keep until suppertime. While I was there, I got myself a Sam Adams.
    â€œI thought you stuffed the whole fish,” Said Dave, who was watching from the kitchen door and drinking a beer of his own.
    â€œThat’s one way to do it. This way, though, you don’t have to mess with the bones.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œEvery trade has its tricks. For instance, did you know that you can boil lobster in your microwave, and save all that messing around with a big pot of water on your stove?”
    â€œYou don’t have a microwave.”
    â€œNo, but one comes with Zee when we get married. She has a television, too. She comes fully equipped.”
    â€œShe does indeed. Does she have a camcorder? If she has, you can film your lobster cooking in your microwave, then watch it all on your television set.”
    â€œIt’ll probably be good for me to enter the twentieth century before it ends.”
    The telephone rang. It was Tony D’Agostine calling from the police station.
    â€œI thought you might be interested to know the results of the autopsy on the Ellis girl,” said Tony.
    â€œI am. Something toxic, I presume?”
    â€œVery toxic. It’s got a scientific name I can read but not pronounce. I wrote it down.” He read a Latin-sounding name that I couldn’t understand. “Or something like that. Its English name is water hemlock.”
    â€œLike Socrates drank?”
    â€œNah, I think that’s some other kind of hemlock. Don’t ask too much from me. Poisons aren’t my specialty. Anyway, it seems that this water hemlock grows wild around these parts. In swamps and places like that.”
    â€œHow’d she get it in her system?”
    â€œShe ate it. The medical examiner says there’s no doubt about it.”
    â€œSuicide?”
    â€œProbably not. Suicides usually don’t go out for rides on their mopeds while they’re waiting for the poison they took to kick in.”
    â€œA point well taken. Murder?”
    â€œNot likely. According to the doc, poison plants aren’t too dependable as murder toxins, because it’s hard to know how much of the plant it’s gonna take to do the job. Big people need more than kids. Healthy people need more than sick ones. That sort of thing. No, this looks like an accident. The girl ate some water hemlock roots and died before anybody could help her. The doc said that people do that sometimes, thinking the roots are eatable. Maybe some kind of carrots or potatoes, I guess, or maybe ginseng, whatever that is. Anyway, he said a lot of people have been poisoned by this stuff.First time I’ve heard of anybody dying from it here on the island,