I traveled four thousand miles across the ocean and two thousand miles across the prairie to marry Liam Callahan, Kathleen said, stepping off the stagecoach in Baker City, Oregon.
The next afternoon, I walked back into Higgins’ General Store, feigning an interest in household cleaning supplies. The store was blessedly empty.
“Mr. Higgins,” I began, my voice deliberately casual, “I’m in need of some lye soap and… do you happen to have any iron filings? For polishing, you see.”
Elijah Higgins, behind his counter, eyed me with his usual gruff suspicion. “Iron filings? What in tarnation for, Miss Burke? Never heard of polishing with iron.”
“It’s an old Dublin trick,” I replied, trying for an air of confidence. “Brings a shine to cast iron pots like nothing else. And a little cider vinegar, if you have it. For cleaning copper.”
He grunted, but his curiosity was piqued. He retrieved a small sack of fine iron filings and a jug of cider vinegar from the back. I set them on the counter next to my basket.
Then, from the folds of my apron, I carefully produced a small, corked vial. It contained a few drops of Liam’s cough syrup, collected from the bottom of one of the empty bottles.
Higgins watched me, his gruff demeanor faltering as he saw the vial.
“Mr. Higgins,” I said, my voice low and earnest. “I believe this medicine, sold under the premise of healing, is actually poisoning Liam Callahan.”
His eyes widened slightly, a flicker of shock in their depths. “Poison? Miss Burke, that’s a serious accusation.”
“I am trained in apothecary work, Mr. Higgins,” I stated, looking him directly in the eye. “I know the signs.”
I poured a small amount of the cider vinegar into a clean glass. Then, using a splinter of wood, I added a tiny pinch of the iron filings. The vinegar fizzed faintly.
“Lead acetate,” I explained, gesturing to the vial. “A sweet-tasting compound, often mistaken for sugar. But it reacts with iron in an acid solution.”
I carefully added a drop of Liam’s cough syrup to the glass.
For a moment, nothing happened. Higgins leaned forward, his expression a mixture of skepticism and dawning horror.
Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the clear liquid in the glass began to change. It darkened, a faint, murky orange-brown spreading through it, growing deeper with each passing second. The metal filings, previously dull, seemed to take on a faint, bruised sheen.
Higgins gasped, a raw, guttural sound. His face, usually ruddy, went pale.
“That’s… that’s the color of rust,” he whispered, staring at the concoction.
“It’s the color of lead poisoning, Mr. Higgins,” I confirmed, my voice firm despite the tremor in my hands. “The dissolved lead in the tonic reacts with the iron and acid, causing this tell-tale discoloration. It might taste sweet, but it attacks the nerves, the brain, the gut. And it slowly, surely, kills.”
Higgins stared at the glass, then at me, then back at the glass. The silence in the store was heavy, broken only by the distant clatter of a wagon. His gruff exterior had cracked. The reality of what I had shown him, the evil that had seeped into his quiet town, settled over him like a shroud.
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