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needed.
    I found Eddie Brady celebrating spring by drinking out of a paper bag on Main, near the hardware store. It wasn’t worth the paperwork to fine him, so I wrote him out a warning and let him go. I wanted to get down to Paint Hollow and interview more Colliers.
    Boris must have known we were going back. He squirmed with excitement, sniffing the morning air slipping through the cracked-open window. You’d never know he’d lived out of a dumpster to look at him, glossy-furred, bright-eyed, ready to commit more mayhem. Clearly, Boris felt he’d won the fight against Delbert, and no wonder. Aunt Marge had poached him an egg in cream, then flaked salmon into it. For a woman who doesn’t condone violence, she certainly does reward it in my cat.
    I stopped by Harry’s office. Once he’d finished laughing at my bruise, he flourished an unlit cigar in my direction. “Have a seat, Lil, we have momentous tidings.”
    I sat, gingerly, on the edge of his desk. “Okay. What?”
    “Got a preliminary call. There are signs that Vera Collier did not die of natural causes indeed. If our ME is correct‌—‌and I mean the gentleman at the district office, not our local bumbler‌—‌she was poisoned with mushrooms.”
    “Injected or ingested?” I asked. The delivery method might help us narrow down the list of suspects.
    “Ingestion is probable.”
    That still left the needle mark to explain. “The ME’s sure?”
    Harry nodded grimly. “He’s willing to guess it was genus Amanita .”
    To which belong such illustrious poisoners as the death cap, destroying angels, and the fool’s mushroom. Typically, it can take up to a week or even ten days to die from the toxin, and it’s not a pretty death. But a woman of Vera’s age? It could certainly act more quickly. And it would depend on the amount ingested.
    I’d seen this kind of death once before, though it had been accidental. Some damn fool had fancied himself a mushroom expert, and served them up at a family picnic. Three dead, and a lot of people with banged-up innards. It’s a hard death, made harder because symptoms don’t usually appear for up to a day. The first thing that hits is the stomach cramping and diarrhea, which fade on their own. By the time most people feel sick enough to see a doctor, the damage is already being done. People do survive Amanita poisoning if treated, but not always.
    There are plenty of poisonous mushrooms around besides the Amanita genus. But I’d seen Amanita listed in wild food guides for our area under the heading of “Toxic”, so I had to assume some were around. Mushrooms like woods and damp, and we had plenty of both. But it was early in the year for mushrooms. Harry and I nodded at the same moment. Early, yes, but you could dry mushrooms. I didn’t know if the toxin would remain active; I’d have to check.
    “We need to get an inventory of Vera’s house,” I said abruptly. “See if she’s got any homemade cream of mushroom soup in the fridge.”
    “That too,” agreed Harry. “Who do you want to help?”
    I could really only trust Tom Hutchins. The county police belonged to Chief Rucker; the state boys had their own agendas. Harry watched all this chase around my face a minute before he suggested, “You could deputize a few people.”
    Tempting, but I shook my head. “Tom and I will do it. I’ll ask Lieutenant Breeden to have a car roll through town a few times while we’re at Vera’s.” Breeden was a state cop, and his mother and Aunt Marge were part of the web of older women who run things. “There goes the weekend.”
    “The week, Lil,” said Harry.
    I nodded, wishing my life would get easier sometime soon. “He’s sure about the mushrooms?”
    “He’s sure enough,” Harry replied, and for a minute, he looked like some old Roman statue. “The appearance of the internal organs was apparently quite distinctive.” He picked up a notepad, and read, “Fatty degeneration and necrosis.”
    I winced.