I have a few villagers who are dying "randomly." One of my side characters, an old woman and retired medicine woman, starts getting sick and sicker over time. no one knows why or what to do to help her. Its revealed that her granddaughter (also a healer) has been killing people and began poisoning her grandmother when she discovered it. The granddaughter is the skilled apprentice to the village's current medicine woman. she would be the ideal person with the know-how to kill someone on the sly. my only problem is..... how would the current medicine woman NOT know what's going on? how can this character get away with poisoning so many people and the medicine woman not see the signs? earlier in the story, when my FMC suggests the MMC is using one of the drugs as a sleep aid and might have almost OD'd on it, the apprentice tells her she's wrong and that that prolonged use of that particular drug tints the gums (-hint hint- -nudge nudge-). So the signs of the drug has already been pre-established.... what would make the head medicine woman miss this?
Maybe she's blinded by her love for her granddaughter, who she helped raise and has very fond memories of. Maybe for some reason she really invested her love into the granddaughter, and refuses to see that she does anything bad. I mean something like—maybe her husband died around the time the granddaughter was born, and she was so wracked with intolerable grief that she put all her love and faith into the little girl, and saw her as her own salvation, or as a little angel or something. Maybe she dreamed of her that way and assumed those were true, prophetic dreams, but really they were driven by her own need for someone to put all her love on. So she desperatley needs to believe she's a good girl. Something like that anyway.
Okay, so as I understand it you have three medicine women - the homicidal grand-daughter, the retired grandmother (who is being poisoned by her granddaughter) and the current medicine woman who is oblivious. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that we do not notice event A if we are focused on event B. So maybe you can give the current medicine woman something that occupies all her attention and distracts her from what is under her nose.
Where is the story set? Some cultures have a habit of chewing various plants that also discolour the mouth, such as betel nuts. This used to be common in south-east Asia and the habit made it to the Caribbean during the colonial era. Wood sorrel has the same effect - the oxalic acid can turn your mouth blood-red. I don't know what colour tobacco would turn it, perhaps a dark brown. If it's a habit that only the older generations still do, perhaps this could disguise the discolouration from the poison.
Tough to tell without more context, but I would just eliminate that gum stained giveaway and come up with a different mechanic for this: But that might be an important thing that can't be changed for all I know. Have beta-readers flagged this as a plot hole? This could be case where it will slide UNLESS you make a point to explain it. The last thing you want do is shine a giant light on a plot hole by trying to make it not a plot hole, assuming, of course, that you can get away with it. I think it was Roger Ebert who said there are two kinds of plot holes: the ones people notice will the movie is still playing and walk out, and the ones they don't think off until they're driving home from the theater. The former is obviously fatal but the latter essentially can be found in every story ever told.
Perhaps the bad actor is administering two distinct medications as a combined poison. This might diminish some primary symptoms and create others as a red herring. The wise woman doesn't check the gums because she's already ruled out that particular medication. The symptoms don't match. It's an oversight I would see a seasoned person being more likely to make than a newbie. You can find examples of doctor malpractice that's in a similar vein of assumption ruling out procedure because the assumption is right 99% of the time.
This reminds me of the Showtime series Dexter, where the character was too smart to get caught by family members, including the sister who was a Miami detective. Every step of the way, he was careful and covered his tracks. In fact, this is part of what really made the series good.
I can make these work! The apprentice has killed 2 other people. If i switch up the method (or poisons she uses from one murder to the next) it would keep the current medicine woman distracted and not looking for the signs of that certain poison (discolored gums) in the grandmother! Woot! Thanks guys!
I may be a little late, but I'd like to say that this reminds me a great deal of Agatha Christie, who was quite adept with poisonous plots. In particular, it reminds me of her book Sad Cypress - especially this bit (from wikipedia): This makes a huge difference to the case, of course. The victim could not have been poisoned this way. ===================================== So, maybe you could use this element in your literary poisoning? Your medicine woman is fooled because of incomplete data - there's not enough information to say what's going on. Or ... maybe the daughter is administering the poison in secret, and in very small doses, in the old lady's food. Then, she gives the old lady a bigger dose, and the old lady dies. (Again, this is from Agatha Christie -- but I'm sorry to say I can't remember which book it is from! Possibly it is a short story. All I remember is that Poirot receives a long letter from the old lady who stresses she wants "no publicity". Poirot comments that there might not be anything to it, but travels there with Hastings. They arrive at the house, and the door is opened by a teary housemaid who comments that she will not say anything, but says a lot anyway. Poirot and Hastings walk away, and Poirot reproaches himself. If he treated the letter more seriously, an old woman might have been alive ... etc.) But I can't remember what the story is called. Any ideas? Sigh. I've been trying to make this clever and devious, and I can't even think of the story's name. Don't mind me ... *blush*
