Heaven Preserve Us by Cricket McRae Page A

think about that a while and turned to me.
"So do they know where the botulism originated?"
    "Apparently the people at the Health Department think Ruth
Black's beets were contaminated. They found some beets in Philip's kitchen, and she brought beets to the preserves exchange. The
problem is that Philip got sick before the preserves exchange, and
the beets they found are different than the beets Ruth cans."
    Meghan jumped in. "The Health Department came by this
afternoon. They took away everything we got from Ruth at the
exchange."
     
    Wow. They moved fast. I thought about the beets in my closet
with a twinge. Should I have done that? With a sinking feeling, I
asked, "Did they take everything else?"
    She shook her head. "No. But they gave me a heck of a lecture
about home canning."
"
    I bet they did."
    Erin laid her fork down on the table. "Isn't botulism the same
thing as food poisoning? Zoe got food poisoning last year. She felt
really bad, but she didn't end up in the hospital or anything. Could
she have died?"
    "Your friend probably had ptomaine, honey," Tootie said. "That's
another kind of food poisoning, and it's a lot more common."
    "Then botulism is worse?"
    "It certainly can be," I said. "It's a toxin released by an active
bacteria. Thing is, there are a lot of inactive spores of that bacteria
around all the time, and most of the time they don't hurt anyone.
They need a warm, wet environment without any oxygen in order
to activate. That's when the toxin is released."
    Meghan wrinkled her nose. "This is lovely dinnertime conversation."
    "Sorry."
    But she was the one who continued. "Doesn't acid kill the bacteria, too?"
    I nodded. "And high heat. That's why the food needs to contain
a certain amount of acid naturally, or you have to add an acid like
vinegar or lemon-pickles, for example-or use a pressure cooker."
    "What's a pressure cooker do?" Erin asked around a bite of
salad.
     
    "Don't talk with your mouth full," I said. "It uses pressure to
raise the temperature of the jars without letting them explode."
    Meghan grimaced. She felt pressure canners and pressure cookers were dangerous.
    "I can't believe they use the botulism poison to erase wrinkles."
Tootie snorted. "Idiots"
    I shrugged. "I don't care if someone else wants to inject a toxic
substance into their face, but I sure don't want to." Botox was all
about muscular paralysis to preserve beauty. Not high on my list
of priorities right now.
    "Did you know the paralyzing agent in botulism can benefit
people with Parkinson's disease or muscular dystrophy?" I asked.
Like digitalis, botulism was both poison and savior.
    Meghan changed the subject then, but as we continued plowing through the mountain of food on the table, I kept coming back
to what Tootie had said earlier about the mother who'd poisoned
the brothers in retribution for hurting her daughter.
    What had Philip done to make someone want to kill him?

    Meghan returned from taking Tootie back to Caladia Acres after
dinner and went into her office to check her schedule for the weekend. Erin was up in her room doing homework. I tried watching a
little television, but nothing caught my attention. I really needed
to talk to someone about what had been weighing on my mind.
Meghan, as my best friend, won the honor.
     
    "Got a minute?" I asked, setting a steaming cup of strong black
tea on the desk in front of her. "There's something I didn't want to
talk about in front of Erin."
    She closed her laptop and sat back in her chair, lacing her fingers
across her abdomen. "The stalker truly is dangerous, isn't he? What
else has he done?" Her narrowed eyes said she'd been expecting this.
    "What? No, no. This has nothing to do with that guy. I swear
to God, Meghan, earlier he actually asked when it would be convenient for him to call back. What kind of nut does that? I'm sure
he's harmless."
    The expression on her face didn't change an iota. "We'll see. So
something