invited Nova to join us, then sent some rolls home with her when she said she didn’t have time. Garner thinks I ought to get friendly with Nova. I like her and all, but she’s a bit too old for me, not to mention really far out there with her belief system. You come much closer to hitting the mark—outdoorsy, friendly with the wildlife, bold.”
“You’re not too shy yourself.”
He glanced up at her for a second and grinned. “No time to be shy. Too many cool people to meet. And I get the idea that you’re a Christian?”
“Yes.”
“Spectacular!”
His eyes scanned his computer screen again.
“Dr. Ransom gave Nova food? Could that have been what made her so sick?”
Trey shrugged. “Dinner sat fine with me, and Garner seemed okay last time I saw him.”
“Which was when?”
“Sunday morning before I went out. Look here: I’ve been searching for ‘Catherine Ransom, MD’ and can’t find squat. She’s listed on the state license board, but her license is barely a year old. She’s only been in Burnt Rock that long.”
Beth moved to the sofa and sat next to him where she could see the computer screen. “So maybe she’s from another state.”
“True. I can’t remember where she’s from. But I don’t get any hits at all on her name, not anywhere, and she’s not on any of the physician listings.”
“If she’s only been practicing for a year, they might just not be up to date.”
“That’s weird, isn’t it? She’s what—fortyish? And if Nova’s right about Cat poisoning her, maybe she’s trying to hide a malpractice history.”
“Poisoning someone is worse than malpractice,” Beth said. The day was taking far too long to get underway. Beth gripped Trey’s arm. “What if she poisoned Garner?”
“Yow! Your hands are Iceland!” Beth let go of him and sat on her hands. “Cat wouldn’t hurt him. They’re like this.” Trey crossed his fingers.
“Until I know for sure,” Beth said, “I’ll keep the option open. The rolls that Cat gave Nova—did all of you eat some?”
“No. I seriously swear off gluten. That offended her. But when I pointed out that she wasn’t eating any either, she dropped it.”
“She didn’t have some? What about Garner?”
“He ate a bunch—one for each of us and two for himself.”
“Trey, think about this—”
“Mind’s a-whirling.”
“What kind were they?”
“I don’t remember. Does it matter?”
“I don’t know, but Nova and Garner ate some, and you and Cat didn’t. It was less than three days ago. Come on. You have a head for details.”
Trey closed his eyes for two seconds. “Rye. They were rye.”
Beth sighed. Rye meant nothing to her. And what did she know about poison? She scoured her mental files for anything: her very limited experience with bread baking . . . high-altitude baking . . . rye. There were a few farmers in the valley who farmed rye. It was an easy dry-climate crop that was good for livestock feed. Sometimes the rye from neighboring farms took root in the wild and spread quickly onto grazing lands, where the cows noshed it with other grains and grasses.
“When I was a kid, we bought some rye to supplement our herd’s winter feed. It had been a really good year—lots of rain for the crops, but also lots of good warm weather and grazing in the mountains. We didn’t have the usual losses that year and had a few extra mouths to feed. So Dad bought this supply from a new farmer who was getting into the market with some great prices.”
“You’re not going to tell me that the farmer poisoned the rye and killed off your herd, are you?”
“Not exactly. The crop was infected with this fungus that grows on grain crops when the weather is particularly wet and warm. I can’t remember what it’s called. This farmer was so green that he didn’t realize what he had going on. It didn’t kill our cows, but it caused gangrene in a few of the older animals. They lost parts of their hooves. A few lost ears or tails. But what made me think of it is that a whole bunch of our pregnant cows miscarried.”
“Like Nova?”
“It’s a stretch, isn’t it? That something like that would have a similar effect on a human?”
“The weirdest possibilities are the ones that usually turn out to be true,” Trey said. “Did you know that the actress Hedy Lamarr patented a frequency-hopping technology in the 1940s that was used in the development of cell phones?”
“What does that have to do with rye bread?”
“Not bread,