by Mary Bowers
“So this is straight from the horse’s mouth, by way of Jason, who didn’t see anything, and Candy, who told Jason, who told you, that nobody could have put anything into Fred’s drink but Edith. Am I getting this right?”
She stood majestically. “If there will be nothing else, ma’am, I’d like to retire.”
“Oh, so you’re ma’aming me now.” I collapsed back, making Bastet hiss at me. “We don’t stand on ceremony here, Myrtle. Go on up to bed if you want to. Enjoy your Housewives.”
It was a deliberate jab. She wants us to think she has a soul above reality shows and goes up early to say her prayers or something, but there’s a TV in her room, and she turns it up kind of loud.
After she’d left, I looked at Michael and saw him shaking his head at me.
“You could have made her happy by telling her that Candy herself had an excellent opportunity to put something into Fred’s drink when she took a swig out of it.”
“Using the spit technique? Without poisoning herself? And drawing everybody’s attention to herself, especially Fred’s, while she was doing it? No, I don’t want to get Myrtle started on that. You saw how she was digging for gossip to spread around.”
“Why do you still let her get to you?”
“She doesn’t get to me. We both enjoy it. It keeps our claws sharp. Right, Bastet?”
The cat deadpanned me and moved into Michael’s lap.
I told Michael about Patty’s description of what had gone on at the party before we got there.
“So what have you heard?” I asked. “You weren’t surprised when I told you he was poisoned.”
“Oh, they were talking about it on the golf course. Something about the emergency room doctor diagnosing the cause of death immediately.”
“Yeah, that was fast, wasn’t it? I heard it from Edith. We ran into her on the way back from the beach. She was bitter, angry. You might even say overwrought. Her husband came looking for her and took her home. He’s really worried about her. She seems completely broken up about Fred’s death, unlike the mysterious Candy, who’s still mad him, even though he dropped dead right in front of her. Did you meet her while I was in the kitchen?”
“No. I didn’t get a chance to circulate before Fred . . . went down, and afterwards it was all a blur. I wasn’t counting heads.” He thought about it a moment, trying to picture things. “She stood out in the crowd, with that hair. No, I don’t remember seeing her, but I might just have missed her. I was down on the floor for a long time, cleaning up the vomit.”
“Well, I never saw her in the kitchen.”
“What do you know about her?”
“Not much. One of the guys at the club said she moved here from up north about five years ago. She owns a condo at the Resort, but I don’t know whereabouts. My buddy warned us to stay away from her, because once she sets her sights on a man, she’s like a barnacle, and she can be embarrassing. She dated his brother for a while and got hysterical when he started seeing someone else. Now, Edith I’ve known all my life. She’s no fool. You haven’t seen her at her best. Don’t judge her too quickly. She’s a hoot. I’ve always liked her.”
“What’s she like most of the time? I didn’t know you knew her, but then you know everybody around here.”
“She taught Home Economics at a St. Augustine high school for years, until they phased the subject out. That was after I got out of school, but she must know what she’s talking about when it comes to poisons.”
“From teaching Home Ec? As I recall my Home Ec classes, we learned how to fold napkins and bake cookies. ‘Don’t suck your teeth while you’re eating.’ Stuff like that.”
“No, I mean because of her husband, Harold. He was a high school teacher too, only his subject was Chemistry.”
“Oh.” I sat back. “That’s interesting. So he’d know all about poisons.”
“And by extension, so could she. They were there. They saw how Fred collapsed, observed the symptoms. Maybe that’s why she told you it was poison. As far as I know, it’s not official yet. At least, it wasn’t when we talked about it on the golf course this morning.”
“We got back from the beach around 7:30 tonight. By then, apparently, it was official.” I told him what Edith had said.
“Oleander?” Michael said. “Yes, that’s deadly stuff. And the plant is so beautiful.”
“Well, Coco and Patty didn’t even know Fred, and they don’t know an oleander from a rosebush. They’re from Illinois. Oleanders grow like weeds around here, but there aren’t any in Illinois.”
Michael smiled. “Defending your friends already? You know you don’t need to. They didn’t even know him.”
“But it was their party. You know how people are. Even Edith implied it was Coco and Patty. Or me.”
“Edith is overwrought. You said so yourself. Don’t worry about your friends. No one in their right mind would accuse them of anything.”
“I know. It’s just that you don’t know them like I do. Patty’s okay. Nobody would ever think she’d do something like that. She has ‘granny the cookie baker’ written all over her. But Coco has a way of getting herself tangled up in things and saying the wrong things to the wrong people. She thinks Detective Bruno is cuddly.” I stood up. “It’s been a long day. I think I’ll get into bed and read myself to sleep, which shouldn’t take long.”
I gave him a quick kiss, irritated Bastet with a pat on the head, and walked out of the room.
At 2:30 in the morning, I woke up and got mad at Myrtle all over again. I should have gotten mad at myself, really. I didn’t even have to go over everything again; I suddenly just knew. I’d forgotten to ask her what she’d told Jason, if anything. I was convinced he’d been there to find out something specific. Had he asked about me or Michael? Just what questions had he asked? Of course, he could have just wanted to fix the cabin floor, but I didn’t think so.
Chapter 10
Myrtle, Michael and I were lingering over our coffee cups after breakfast the next morning when there was a knock at the front door. We turned and lifted our heads like startled cats. We weren’t expecting anybody, and we don’t get casual visits from friends. They call ahead to make sure we’re going to be there.
You have to be pretty determined to get to our front door. After you leave the asphalt of Old King’s Road, you have to bump along down a dirt road for the better part of a lifetime before you get to the house. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a nice dirt road. Wide, as such things go. But every now and then somebody has to go along the edges with a machete and do battle with the coastal scrub if we don’t want our windshields slapped and spanked all the way down the road. Top speed on that road: 20 mph. Twenty-five if your shocks are good and you’re in a hurry.
“I’ll get it,” I said, thinking it was Coco and Patty. But it wasn’t a friend.
“Aren’t you out of your jurisdiction?” I said as I opened the door to Detective Burton Bruno. He was without his partner, but still.
“This isn’t an official visit,” he said with a tired smile. “I was just on my way to work and decided to drop in.”
“Nobody drops in here,” I said.
“Hello, Burt,” Michael said from behind me. “Come on in. Had your coffee yet?”
The detective bypassed me with a nod and said, “Yes, but it never seems to wake me up. Let’s pour another cup down my throat and see what happens.”
* * * * *
When I followed them back to the kitchen, I saw that Myrtle had disappeared. Ever since the day she’d seen a body floating in the estate’s swimming pool, she hasn’t liked cops. In her opinion, they had been ungentlemanly.
The detective was already slouched over the breakfast bar looking exhausted, and he thanked Michael for the mug of coffee when it was set in front of him. Then, slowly, he turned to me.
“So those two ladies are friends of yours that you haven’t seen in a while?”
“Years. Decades. They popped up here and surprised me yesterday mornin
g. Mornings are getting to be full of surprises around here,” I added pointedly.
“Nice ladies,” he said.
“I think so.”
“Known them since high school?”
“You already know that.”
“They told me you were quite a handful, back in the day.”
I started. Surely they hadn’t betrayed me to law enforcement about that old incident with the glue? And surely the statute of limitations had expired for that particular crime?
While I stood there looking trapped, he cracked a smile. “Guilty conscience, huh?” He took a little sip of coffee. “We get that a lot, mostly from people who wouldn’t step on an ant. It’s the other ones we worry about. The ones who look us dead in the eye and calmly lie their heads off. Anyway, I’m not here to ask you about what you got up to in high school.”
A sharp question about just why he was there flew to my lips, and Michael read my mind and warned me with a look. Resting against the cooking island, he was in a good strategic position. When Bruno was looking at me, he couldn’t see Michael. I walked over and hiked myself up onto the seat next to the detective. My coffee cup was still sitting there, cold, and I took a sip anyway, looking blameless.
“Your friends are very tidy,” he remarked.
“If you’re referring to the way we cleaned up after the party, why wouldn’t we? We were all in a state of shock, and we didn’t know what was wrong with Fred at the time. Nobody thought he was going to die.”
“I suppose not.”
Another sip.
“Let me save you some time here, detective. You’re too late to spring it on us. We already heard it was poison.”
“Ah. How?”
“Edith Foote told me, and some guy on the golf course told Michael, and Myrtle and the volunteers and every dog in the kennel knows by now, I’m sure. Are you surprised?”
“Not really. And you know it was home-brewed?”
“They’re saying oleander. The only thing we don’t know is how he got it. Was it in his glass?”
“Uh huh. Probably. Can’t analyze the glass, of course, but it’s the only way he could have gotten the poison. Funny you should ask. Other than that there was nothing in his stomach but some chicken soup, which he’d had for supper before he went to the party. We found the soup can in his kitchen garbage at his condo. The poison was a liquid; whoever brought it had to have a little bottle or something on them. After the ambulance went, there weren’t that many people left in the condo. It would’ve been hard to get rid of it without anybody noticing. But then y’all got busy cleaning up, and . . . .”
“The wineglasses weren’t going to tell you anything, and you know it. And as for little bottles of poison, everybody left before you came with the forensics team. The poisoner took the bottle away and had plenty of time to get rid of it. You’ll never find it, and I’m sure you know that too. You need to go at it another way. Ask around. See if anybody saw anything suspicious.”
He shrugged. “It was a friendly crowd. People weren’t guarding their drinks. We’ve only done preliminary interviews. Maybe somebody will remember something, once they all settle down. So Edith Foote told you.”
“Rather forcefully. By the way, when you interview her again, drill down a little. I think she knows something that she’s holding back. She was a close friend of Fred’s.”
“Very close,” Bruno commented. “You know, she couldn’t have gotten the cause of death if she didn’t have a medical power of attorney over him. I wouldn’t be discussing it with you now, but I guess she’s spreading it around, so, oh well. Apparently, he had no kin. While you were busy cleaning up the condo, Mr. and Mrs. Foote were at the hospital watching Mr. Rambo die.”
He was gauging my reaction, and I suppose he got the effect he wanted. Edith hadn’t told us that part. It was incredibly sad. No wonder she’d been distraught. It’s bad enough to have a friend die, but she had to watch him do it.
“Well, I don’t know why you want to talk to us about it,” I said. “Neither one of us got anywhere near Fred’s wineglass. That is,” I added sheepishly, “until I washed it.”
“We think his wine was tampered with before you even got there. One of the ladies took a swig out of his glass, remember? She didn’t get sick. I sent my partner over with a couple of medics to check on her when we found out she’d drunk from his glass. She came to the door in some kind of fancy nightie. Embarrassed the hell out of my partner. He’s young. But the medics loved it. They described her as exceptionally healthy and lively at the time.”
“And oleander is pretty fast-acting, so she would’ve been sick by then, if not worse.” He nodded. “And you already know it wasn’t either one of us, so what’s bothering you?” I really wanted to say, why the heck are you here, but Michael was still giving me that look.
“I’m not bothered. And I can see that it was only natural to wash up the dishes. It’s just one of those things. I try not to be a pessimist, but sometimes it does seem like fate has it in for me.” He smiled wanly. “Nobody ever gives me a break and just confesses right away so I can get home at night. In fact, I haven’t been to bed yet. I fell asleep on my desk for a couple of hours, which was refreshing, but now I still have to finish the report I was working on. Such is life. Anyway, you know the ladies who threw the party. Nobody else really does. You knew Fred Rambo. You seem to be pretty good at puzzling things out.”
Unfortunately, Bastet chose that exact moment to arise from the cat condo and assume her favorite vantage point on top of it. She posed herself beautifully and became very still, watching us.
The detective transferred his mild gaze from me to the cat and back again. If he was thinking anything humorous, he kept it to himself. Instead, he asked me, “Any thoughts?”
“How should I know? Fred was a masher. You said a cop went to check on that woman, Candy Cutter. She’s the only one at the party I didn’t meet, by the way. She snuck out sometime after the ambulance left, which is either rude or suspicious or both. How did your interview with her go?”
“My partner just did that quick check-up on her and asked her a few preliminary questions. We’re going to do a more in-depth interview today. She’s number one on our joy list this morning.”
“Well, I hope she’s not sick.”
“She won’t be. One sip of what Mr. Rambo got would have been enough to give her symptoms by the time Carver checked on her. She was fine, but the medics checked her over and took samples anyway. But we’re working on the theory that his drink was tampered with during the last half-hour before you got there.”
I shot a look at Michael, confused about why he was telling us all this. Michael gave a tiny shrug and continued to watch the detective.
“Okay,” I said, “what happened in that half hour?”
“The only ones who left during that time were the Zachary family. Mom, dad, three kids, a dog.”
“Three bored kids and a dog,” I said speculatively. “Well, maybe the little girl wasn’t so bored. She was clinging to leg of the handyman the whole time, wasn’t she?”
He smiled. “Kate. Cute little thing.” He shook his head in a fond sort of a way. “Bright.”
I’m not a subtle person. I like to sum things up if people can’t get to the point. “So you’re suggesting that while the Zachary family was there, the kids were enough of a nuisance that people were distracted, and that gave somebody the opportunity to spike Fred’s drink, is that it?”
He shrugged. “It’s possible.”
“Do these Zacharys even know Fred?”
“They’re regulars at the Anastasia Resort. They come back to the same unit at the same time every year. And Mr. Rambo lived there. He was a sociable guy. They admit they knew him, in a general way, but that’s all. The dad talked to Mr. Rambo briefly, but he can’t even remember what they said. Just one of those touch-and-go things you do at a party.”
“And Fred? Did he get a little too friendly with the little woman? I’m sorry
, Patty mentioned her name but I’ve forgotten it.”
“Crystal. No. She kept her distance from him. Mrs. Zachary didn’t like Fred.”
“Oh?”
Bruno shrugged. “Either you liked him or you didn’t, especially if you were a lady. He could be touchy-feely. But of course, you remember that.”
“Please. That was sometime in the last century.”
“The last century wasn’t that long ago, but I get it,” he added before I could get huffy. “I’m not here to rake all that up. Personally, I don’t think you had anything to do with it, but you’ve got a good perspective on things.” He glanced briefly at Bastet again. “Nobody else is in quite the position you are.”
“Tell me you don’t think I’ve got a magic cat!”
He gave me a smile, old and tired, and on his homely face, almost sweet. “I’ll take any help I can get, Ms. Verone, but that’s not what I meant. You’re the only one who knows the women who threw the party.”
“You said that before. Oh. I see. You’re just here to gossip.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s what I do for a living, if you think about it.”
In that moment, looking at the sad heap of a man giving me the big brown eyes like an amiable old dog, I decided to cut him a break. I got off my chair, dumped out my cold coffee and refilled my cup from the pot, giving myself time to consider how far I was prepared to go.
Once I was sitting beside him again, I said, “You have to understand Coco and Patty. Mostly Coco. The fact that she invited a bunch of strangers she met around the pool to a party the very next day is typical of her. She’s more than a social butterfly. She’s kind of a social bazooka. Everything is over the top. She absolutely loves everybody she meets, and if they turn out to be creeps later on, she just can’t believe it. And Patty has been her co-pilot for so long, she doesn’t even think about telling her no. She just says, ‘Whatever,’ and goes along with all the harebrained schemes Coco hatches. If you want a real-world perspective on what happened, listen to Patty.”
