A Blooming Fortune

by Stephen John

  “Where you would have assumed control of the account and eliminated her quietly?”

  “Something liked that, but it didn’t work out.”

  “She never fully bought into the idea, did she?”

  He nodded, “That’s right. I almost had her, but she got cold feet. That jerk of an accountant she trusted kept undermining me—telling her the IRS would come after her, blah . . . blah . . . blah. After a while I lost my temper and yelled at her—it was huge mistake on my part. She decided to call the whole thing off. I was pretty upset and threatened to quit and leave her. She felt bad so she gave me that six-thousand-dollars. She called it a bonus, but I knew what it really was. It was an attempt to mollify me and keep me coming back. I took it and tried to make amends, but it was never the same. I’d lost her trust. She became more distant after that. She then began to ask me tough questions—her questions were making me nervous. She was becoming suspicious.”

  Bessie sighed.

  “She was catching onto your scheme so you decided to kill her.”

  “I invested a lot of time in her. She knew too much. I couldn’t let her live.”

  “I see.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” he asked.

  Bessie nodded.

  “Will I get a badge and a gun when I join your team?”

  Victor stood, fists clenched but somehow managing to maintain control, “Mr. Proctor, I promise you this. You will get everything that is coming to you.”

  “That’s great,” he replied, forming a huge smile.

  Victor smiled in return, “You have no idea just how great. Please excuse me for a moment.”

  Victor stood and walked into the bedroom where I was waiting and watching.

  “Victor, that was magnificent,” I said. “I’m so sorry you had to hear all that—it must have been tough on you and Bessie . . .”

  He held his hand in the air to stop me.

  “Were you able to capture the entire interview?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Thank you. Could I trouble you to burn the interview onto DVD for me, and then save an electronic file on my computer?”

  “Of course.”

  “Fortune, I appreciate everything you’ve done. Now, it is time for you to distance yourself from this operation.”

  I knew he was right and I knew why. Victor had used methods to extract a confession that could only be described as highly questionable, at best. He had carefully orchestrated this arrangement so that I would not be seen. Gus had no idea who I was or that I had been involved. He would not be able to call me in as a witness. Still, I felt bad for Victor and Bessie.

  “Victor, I don’t want to leave you here holding the bag all by yourself.”

  “I truly appreciate your willingness to help, however, the fewer people having to answer questions, the better.”

  “What about Beavis and Butthead in there?” I asked, referring to Chad and Jerry.

  “They are highly skilled at handling matters that . . . shall we say, nuance the boundaries in the matter of law. We will be fine. With any luck, no one will ever know you were here. Now, please. The back hall is to your right. It leads to a spare bedroom with a door leading to the back yard. You can slip out the back and Gus will never know you were here.”

  He pulled his cell and dialed. A moment later, he said, “Deputy Carter LeBlanc? This is Victor Bloom. I require your assistance.”

  Chapter Twenty

  It had been two weeks since Gus Proctor had been arrested and charged with the murder of Emma Peterson. The news of the arrest had reached Thibodaux and then spread throughout the state. It even made some national broadcasts.

  At first, Carter was highly suspicious of my role, but Victor and Bessie carefully nuanced a story that lacked any real knowledge or involvement on my part. Carter was no dummy, however. I struggled as to whether or not to tell him the truth. Fortunately, he never saw me there, and neither did Gus—and no one was asking questions of me . . . so far.

  With the confession in hand, an autopsy was finally ordered for Emma, and the cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation, not a heart attack. In addition, the liquid chromatography test revealed the presence of Aconitum alkaloids, confirming what we all knew—Emma had indeed been poisoned with Aconitum.

  Emma’s funeral was lovely. I don’t think I’d ever seen as many of Sinful’s residents gathered in one spot before. Victor and Bessie ordered a spread for the ages—every kind of food imaginable. At the funeral, Victor delivered a heart-wrenching eulogy and announced that he would continue with Emma’s wish to renovate the local high school theater, now renamed the Glory Peterson Theater. He also announced plans to build a performing arts center in Sinful, to be named The Emma Peterson Center for the Arts. Since the balance of Emma’s estate would not cover all the costs, Victor and Bessie Bloom decided to privately fund the balance from their own pockets. It was an incredible gesture. It would be a small, but lovely place for local music and theater, as well as a place where local musicians could play and area artists could exhibit their work.

  By the time Victor stepped off the stage, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Even Celia Arceneaux was seen wiping tears away. Well-wishers in town began lining up to offer their condolences to Victor and Bessie and to thank them for their contribution to the community. All of a sudden, Emma had become the most beloved woman in Sinful and Victor and Bessie were being treated like rock stars.

  Meanwhile, in Thibodaux, Thelma Slater’s relatives almost immediately came forward with their concerns once the news of Gus Proctor’s arrest became public. That came as no surprise. What did surprise us, however, was that yet another family came forward when they heard Gus Proctor had been arrested. The victim, Maggie Dupree, was a sixty-four-year-old widow from nearby Morgan City. She too, was an elderly widow, and thought to be well-to-do financially, though her son and younger sister would later admit that their relationship with Maggie was estranged. She had died suddenly of a heart attack as well, and no autopsy was performed. The family was perplexed that Maggie was not as well-off financially as they had thought. Gus Proctor was Maggie’s gardener as well.

  Poor Victor and Bessie had been subjected to hours and hours of questioning as to how they obtained the confession from Gus. They both testified that they had merely called Gus in to speak to him about the ongoing care of the garden. And technically, that was true. That is what they told Gus when they first called him. Victor’s story began to stray from any semblance of truth at that point. He told the authorities that during the course of their conversation, Gus broke down out of guilt and confessed without coercion. All of that seemed to line up nicely with the video. Two of Victor’s friends, Chad and Jerry, from Vermont, who happened to be in town for Emma’s funeral, testified they had met Gus only briefly before leaving and were not present for the confession.

  Though I wasn’t present at any of the testimony Victor and Bessie gave, news of it got back to Carter, who said the DA’s office believed that Victor and Bessie were credible and believable, and that the video confession was unlike anything they’d ever seen.

  At this point, I wish I could say, “and they lived happily ever after.” Some problems developed, however.

  Victor insisted that neither he or Bessie brought my name into it, but yesterday afternoon Assistant District Attorney Dan Wurgler, called me requesting an “informal meeting,” with himself, Victor and Bessie. When I offered to meet him at his office, he insisted on coming to us in Sinful. “It’s more casual that way,” he said to me.

  I invited him to meet us at Francine’s, and got there early to secure a corner booth, for privacy. Ten minutes before Dan Wurgler was scheduled to arrive, Victor and Bessie joined me. I hadn’t seen or spoke to either of them for several days.

  I was pleasantly surprised to see both of them smiling. Victor and Bessie both looked refreshed. Victor, in particular, looked as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

  A middle-aged co
uple approached them almost immediately after they sat. The man was tall, thin and bald. The woman was shorter and rounder, with heavily applied makeup.

  “Mr. Bloom,” the man began. “May I just say, that was the loveliest funeral service I’ve ever been to. The eulogy you delivered brought tears to our eyes. I’m Edgar Rains, by the way. This is my wife Edie.”

  “Thank you so much for your contributions to the community,” Edie added.

  “It was our pleasure,” Victor said. “It was what Emma would have wanted.”

  “My wife and I were wondering if you and your sister would care to join us at our house later this afternoon for tea?”

  He handed Victor a card with an address written on it. Victor looked at it and smiled, “What a lovely invitation. That sounds like such a pleasant idea. May I call you later?”

  The man and wife beamed. Edgar produced a business card from his pocket and handed it to Victor, “Certainly. My home number is at the bottom. And may I say you both are welcome in Sinful any time. Have a nice day.”

  They walked off.

  “Wow,” I said. “You two are quite the hit in town. I must say, I’m very surprised to see you accept a tea invitation from someone you’ve never met.”

  Victor looked at me as though he’d just seen a rabid possum.

  “Are you daft? I have no intention of going.”

  “But you just told them it was a lovely idea.”

  “Yes, he did,” Bessie interjected, “but when Victor says it, it actually means, ‘I’m not leaving the house today unless someone sets it on fire.’”

  “Oh,” I replied, managing a soft smile. I decided to bring the conversation around to the purpose of the meeting.

  “I’ve been on pins and needles thinking about this meeting. You two don’t look worried at all.”

  “I tend to worry about making the right decisions regarding things I can control,” Victor said. “Let’s just wait and see what this is about.”

  “So, you never mentioned my name at all?”

  “Not once.”

  Bessie nodded in agreement, “Nor I.”

  “Then how did he know to call me?”

  Victor shrugged.

  “I’m nearly certain that will come out soon after he arrives.”

  Ally was off, but another waitress, a petite young thing named Britney, who was no more than nineteen, took our drink orders. Victor spent two minutes describing in great detail precisely how he wanted his tea. Bessie rolled her eyes as the poor girl struggled to understand. Victor shook his head and sighed as she walked away.

  “That girl is not nearly pretty enough to be this stupid.”

  It appeared to me that Victor was indeed back to his old self.

  “Victor, please . . . be nice, will you? She’s not stupid. You just intimidated her.”

  “Not stupid? The poor girl couldn’t pour water out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.”

  “Fortune is right,” Bessie said. “Be nice.”

  “No, really, I wonder who ties her shoes for her in the mornings?” he said.

  “Guys, time to get back on the clock,” I said, nodding toward the direction of the door. “I think the ADA is here.”

  A balding man in a business suit walked through the door, and began to look around for us. He was in his mid-forties, just under six feet tall, and clean shaven. He made eye contact with me. I managed a small smile and waved.

  “Hi, I’m Dan Wurgler,” he said, extending his hand.

  Everyone introduced themselves. Victor invited him to sit.

  “Would you like something to drink, Mr. Wurgler?” Victor asked. “I ordered tea ages ago. I’m sure they’re back there cultivating tea leaves as we speak.”

  “I’m good. Thank you for meeting with me. I’ll get right to the point. I’m here on a fact-finding mission. This is a casual courtesy visit, off the record, I might add.”

  “How may we help you?” Bessie asked.

  “Well, as you might imagine, we’ve conducted a thorough investigation into Mr. Gus Proctor. It will probably come as no surprise to you that other families have come forward with concerns.”

  “Other families beyond those of Thelma Slater and Maggie Dupree?” Victor asked.

  Wurgler nodded.

  “We are not surprised in the least,” Bessie said. “How many others?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, but when news of his arrest hit New Orleans, we got other calls. Suffice it to say, this case extends beyond Sinful and Thibodaux. And, as I am sure you will all relate, finding enough evidence to build the cases is proving to be . . . challenging. Gus Proctor has proven to be quite adept at covering his tracks and forming alibis. Emma Peterson’s case is more critical than you might imagine, especially since there is a confession involved. I am here to dot all the ‘I’s and cross all the ‘T’s. We can’t afford a single mistake.”

  “What mistakes would you expect?” Victor asked.

  Wurgler looked around the dining room to see if anyone was paying attention or sitting within earshot. Satisfied there wasn’t, he turned back around.

  “As you know, Mr. Proctor is contending that both of you, Victor and Bessie, threatened him with jail and execution, and then coerced him into a confession by representing yourselves as government agents and offering full amnesty in exchange for the confession.”

  “You’ve seen the tape,” Bessie argued. “You heard him. Gus Proctor is a master at manipulating people. You heard how he manipulated Emma into making and drinking her own poison tea. You heard all about how he duped the lonely, elderly women into caring for him. He’s probably had a speech like that memorized for months in the event he needed to use it, and you, Mr. Wurgler, are chasing your own tail.”

  Wurgler smiled, “Be that as it may, Gus Proctor does sound most convincing.”

  Victor sighed in exasperation.

  “Bollocks, Mr. Wurgler, we’ve been through all of this already for hours on end. I never once said I was with the FBI, CIA or Homeland Security.”

  “I remember well, and there is some good news in that regard. The fact that, when pressed, Proctor could not name the government agency he alleged you claimed to be with, is a big point in our favor. And nowhere in the video recording do you claim to be a government agent.”

  It was Bessie who sighed next.

  “So, what is all this about today, may I ask?”

  “There has been a disturbing development.”

  “What development?”

  Wurgler glanced at me.

  “A concerned citizen has come forward alleging Miss Fortune Morrow was deeply involved in this whole affair since you two arrived. Her allegations could easily be interpreted as . . . a conspiracy.”

  “Oh, for heaven sakes,” Bessie exclaimed.

  “That’s why you’re here, Miss Morrow,” Wurgler continued. “The concerned citizen contends that you three have been inseparable since the Blooms arrived. Witnesses have placed you together with Victor and Bessie on many occasions, including twice at the Swamp Bar.”

  “That proves nothing,” Bessie fired back. “Fortune was a friend of our sister, perhaps Emma’s closest friend. When we arrived, she was helping us with all the arrangements, that’s all.”

  Wurgler seemed to disregard what Bessie was saying. His eyes were fixed on me, “Miss Morrow, what do you have to say?”

  “Say about what?” I replied.

  “Let’s drop the pretense. I am the ADA. I’m on your side. I want to see Gus Proctor go down for this. I wanted to puke when I saw that video of Proctor’s confession. It will sicken the jury, too, and they will want him punished for what he did, but only if they get to see it. So, I’ll ask you again Miss Morrow, but before I do, please know that the concerned citizen was visiting one of Emma Peterson’s neighbors from across the street, a Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The witness claims to have seen you entering Mrs. Peterson’s home about fifteen minutes prior to Gus Proctor’s arrival on the day of his con
fession.”

  That news stunned me into silence. I’d seen what I thought was Celia Arceneaux’s car across the street from Emma’s house and thought little of it. I felt stupid.

  “So, were you there?” Wurgler asked.

  “I may have stopped by to drop something off.”

  “The concerned citizen said you were there for at least forty-five minutes, and left through the back door, just minutes before Deputy Carter arrived on the scene to arrest him.”

  “How would this concerned citizen know she was there for that long?” Bessie asked.

  “The witness was . . . watching.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said. “Look, Mr. Wurgler, you have Proctor’s full confession... on video. Victor handed you a mountain of circumstantial evidence to support the confession. I don’t understand the problem.”

  “The problem is, Proctor’s defense attorney has only one option to save his client, and that is to have the tape of Proctor’s confession thrown out. He will latch on to anything to support his case that the confession was coerced and that the Blooms represented themselves as government agents offering a deal. If he were to accomplish that, the results of the autopsy will also be thrown out because it was only performed as a result of the confession. What we will have remaining, is strong circumstantial evidence, but circumstantial nonetheless. It will never survive the test of beyond a reasonable doubt. Proctor will walk. If you lie about being there, and the concerned citizen testifies you were, the defense would present an alternate theory as to why you were present, but not seen, that might convince a judge that coercion was involved. We can’t afford that.”

  “What about Mrs. Slater and the other victims?” I asked.

  “Alleged victims,” he corrected. “We are building our cases for the other victims now, but as I said earlier, Mr. Proctor does an excellent job of covering his tracks. It might take a while to build a case, and even then, it’s not a sure thing. Those cases are older and the older a case gets, the colder the trail becomes. I want Gus Proctor to be found guilty for Emma Peterson’s murder. We need him off the streets so he doesn’t hurt anyone else.”