The Pumpkin Muffin Murder by Livia J. Washburn

Author:Livia J. Washburn [Washburn, Livia J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Mystery, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780451231321
Publisher: NAL Trade
Published: 2010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Phyllis stared at Detective Largo for a moment, unable to comprehend what the woman had just told her. Finally, she said, “I don’t understand. How could Logan’s death be murder when you said he died of a heart attack?”

“Mr. Powell had a number of different medical conditions, Mrs. Newsom. Were you aware of that?”

Phyllis shook her head. “Not at all. Every time I saw him, he looked so . . . so healthy.” She paused, then added, “Well, except for the last time, of course.”

“Evidently he drank heavily when he was younger and damaged his liver. That caused him to be hypoglycemic. Do you know what that means?”

Phyllis thought that Largo’s question was a little condescending, but she was too interested in what the detective was telling her to be offended. “Of course I do,” she said. “It means he suffered from low blood sugar.”

Largo nodded. “That’s right. It was aggravated by the fact that he was slightly diabetic and was on medication for that. He had to maintain exactly the right dosage, taken at exactly the same time every day, and stay on a very strict diet, or else his blood sugar would either spike to dangerous levels or plunge so low that he risked going into a coma and dying.”

“I didn’t know any of that,” Phyllis said. “Of course, I only met the man a few times.”

“According to what Mrs. Powell told us, her husband tended to disregard his doctor’s orders. He was always busy with his work, and he would sometimes forget to eat a meal when he should, which could cause problems for him.”

Something clicked together in Phyllis’s head. “That’s why he was always eating those peppermints he carried. He used them to keep his blood sugar from dropping when he wasn’t eating properly.”

Detective Largo nodded and said, “That’s right. He was self-medicating, in a way, and in the end it backfired on him. He came to rely on those peppermints to keep his blood sugar up.”

“How did that backfire on him?” Phyllis asked.

“Because someone switched the peppermints he normally carried for sugar-free ones. They were in the same wrappers as the ones with sugar in them, and I guess they tasted similar enough that Powell didn’t notice the difference until it was too late.”

“You said he died of a heart attack,” Phyllis reminded the detective.

Largo nodded again. “Brought on by the stress caused by his plummeting blood sugar. Powell must have been incoherent and only semiconscious there at the end, and if his heart hadn’t given out on him, he would have slipped into a coma and died from that if he didn’t receive immediate medical attention. Either way, it would have been murder.”

“Because someone switched the peppermints.”

“That’s right. The fact that whoever it was changed the wrappers and made the sugar-free candies look just like the ones with sugar in them means it was deliberate.”

Phyllis sat back on the sofa, trying to process everything that Detective Largo had just told her. She had

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