I sat down and studied the second cupcake. I suspected I already knew the answer, but I went ahead and asked, just for the hell of it. "Where did this package come from, Eilene?"
"Kevin brought it home this morning from that supermarket where he's working. When he went in last night, I gave him a grocery list. It didn't have cupcakes on it, but he decided on his own account to get a few other things. I had to take the cupcakes away because he's not allowed to have chocolate on account of breaking out."
"I suppose I'd better talk to him," I said. Eilene told me he'd gone to Dahlia's house. I asked her for a bag, scooped up the evidence, and went to find him.
Dahlia and her granny lived out past Raz Buchanon's place. The porch didn't look strong enough to support her granny, much less Dahlia. However, I traversed it without trouble and rapped on the door. I wasn't surprised when Kevin opened the door, but I certainly was when he yanked me inside and said, "Thank God you're here, Arly! We got to do something fast! Dahlia's been poisoned!"
I dashed past him and found the object of his affection on her hands and knees in a tiny bathroom. She regarded me over her shoulder, then jerked back in time for a brief episode of severe gastric disorder.
Kevin shook my arm. "Should I call an ambulance?"
"Shut your mouth," Dahlia said before I could answer. She backed out of the bathroom to the hall, where she had room to get to her feet, and proceeded to do so, albeit ponderously. "I must've told him twenty-seven times it's just another touch of that stomach flu. I ain't about to go off to a hospital again. I liked to have rolled right off that narrow ol' bed they made me get on last time. And the nurses were the snottiest people I've met in all my born days."
"But, beloved," Kevin protested, "what would I do if'n anything happened to you?"
"Visit that fat, pious pig by yourself, that's what."
"You're awful pale."
"You're plain awful, acting like you did and tearing a hole in my best blue blouse."
"I told you I was sorry."
"You can be sorrier than an undertaker for all it matters to me."
"Both of you hush," I said. "Kevin, did you bring Dahlia anything from the supermarket-such as a package of cupcakes?"
His jaw dropped and his Adam's apple shifted into fifth gear. "I paid for everything I took this morning. You can ask that checker with the black ducktail if I didn't pay for everything."
"That's not the question. Just answer me before I shake it out of you."
"I brought my sweetheart a peace offering," he mumbled.
Dahlia had her hand on her mouth and she was beginning to look a little bug-eyed, but she managed a nod. "Kevvie brought me a package of those little gold-colored sponge cakes. He knows they're my favorite."
I realized time was of the essence. "You ate them?"
"I didn't stick 'em in my ears." Her cheeks bulged, as did her eyes, and she pushed past me to fall to her knees in front of the commode. The entire house shook; we're talking six or seven point something on the Richter.
Not wishing to invade her privacy, I grabbed Kevin's elbow and hauled him to the front room. It took a good while to get his story, what with Dahlia appearing and then thundering away every three minutes or so, but after a half a dozen more episodes, she seemed to recover and admitted that the sponge cakes hadn't been up to snuff but that she'd eaten them anyway. Kevin assured the both of us he'd taken them and the cupcakes off the shelf beside the checkout counter, and no, he hadn't examined the wrappers, but why would he do that?
When I left with the cellophane wrapper safely stashed in a small plastic bag, I knew there was something going on at the SuperSaver that was at best malicious and at worst murderous.
Once I got to the highway, I debated whether to go directly to the SuperSaver or stop by the PD and call Harve first. I opted for the latter, and found Sergeant Plover seated in my chair, behind my desk, talking on my telephone. There was a scratch pad in front of him and a much maligned expression on his face.
"Yes, ma'am, I'll give her the message," he was saying as I came inside. He wiggled his eyebrows at me, listened for another minute, and said, "Yes, ma'am, as soon as possible. I do understand the urgency, but Chief Hanks is out on an investigation at the moment. I'm just helping out for the afternoon. No, I don't know where she is. Yes, ma'am. Goodbye, ma'am."
"Now what's going on?" I demanded.
"You're asking me? How in blazes am I supposed to know what's going on in this bucolic bedlam of yours? I came by to see if you were still in the mood to rip my ears off. The telephone started ringing, and I've been taking calls for a good twenty minutes."
I tried not to wince. "Any messages of interest?"
He came around the desk and put his hands on my shoulders. "I didn't mean to insult you-okay? You're a very efficient chief of police."
I ducked out of his grasp and took possession of my chair. "As much as I'd enjoy remaining in a foul, immature, unprofessional snit, I've got too many other things to worry about for the time being." I glanced at the names on the scratch pad in front of me: Ruby Bee, Lottie Estes, Millicent McIlhaney, Perkins (who, like his eldest daughter, has never been honored with the usage of a first name, if he has one), and someone named Barbara Buteo. "Anybody report an emergency?"
Plover looked at me. "Your mother said the big game's at three o'clock sharp, and she and Estelle will do everything possible to get to help out at practice this afternoon. The next three callers presumed you might be interested in their gastrointestinal upheavals. The Buteo woman said she'd call back, because what she had to say was too delicate to discuss with me."
"You're not going to believe this," I said, not too sure what I myself believed. I told him where I'd been the last half hour or so and what I'd learned about the goodies from the shelves of Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less.
"Holy hell," was all he could say when I had finished.
"It sounds as if we'll be there shortly, " I said. I rubbed my face, then called Harve and reiterated the facts, along with the presumption that three of the previous callers had suffered ill effects also.
"But I got the report from the health department right here on my desk," Harve said unhappily. "This doesn't have anything to do with the inspection, and the deli's closed. Unless you think Eilene Buchanon stuck a pin in a cupcake to add a little crunch, you'd better take my word for it and back me up when I go close down the SuperSaver in five minutes," I said. "State Police Sergeant Plover from the barracks in Farberville is here in my office. Jim Bob won't be able to ignore him, but I've got to have your okay on this, Harve."
Harve told me to do whatever I had to do and he'd get himself organized and be there shortly. Plover offered to drive. As we went outside, I asked him if he'd encountered a similar problem before.
"We've never seen any product tampering in this area," he said, opening the car door for me as if we were heading out for dinner in a prefeminist (read: prehistoric) era.
I managed to close it all by myself. "But it's been in the news within the last two or three years," I said. "Do you honestly think someone's so opposed to this new supermarket that he would stick pins in cupcakes and dribble some substance on the packaged desserts and on the free samples the other day?"
"A substance like syrup of ipecac?" Plover put on his sunglasses and assumed the stony demeanor of a state trooper.
"Why'd you say that?"
"Because I called my ol' poker buddy at the state lab earlier. You won't get the report until late this afternoon, so I came out here to tell you what he told me."
I sank down in the seat and turned the air conditioner on high. "Ipecac is used primarily to induce vomiting in the case of accidental accidental poisoning by a noncaustic substance," I intoned. "Third week of emergency first aid at the academy. The one thing it's not is an ingredient in chili sauce. Mandozes said something to me about the sauce tasting like sweet catsup. Ipecac has a nauseatingly sickly sweet taste to it." I switched the air conditioner back to low, partly out of a heightened awareness of the need for global energy conservation and partly because I was shivering like a dashboard hula girl.