The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Fifth Course of Chaos

by J. Alan Hartman

  “I’m sorry. Can I help you out?”

  “Thanks, but I don’t need it. Not anymore.” Alicia gave a bitter laugh. “Dad was always saying there wasn’t any money. Well, joke’s on him.”

  “Why?”

  She turned to me. “Dad’s life insurance policy pays at least half a million. Guess we have the money to do whatever we want now, huh?”

  *

  I left Alicia standing at the front window and strolled through the house. Drawn to the family room by the TV, I found Jack, his attention glued to the 50-inch flat screen—the most modern furnishing in the house—a bag of chips in his lap.

  He shoved a handful of chips in his mouth and cried, “Touchdown!” Bits of soggy chip flew everywhere.

  I leaned against the doorframe. “Uh, Jack? Your brother is dead. Maybe you should, you know, go comfort the widow or something.”

  “She’s busy.” Jack popped the tab on another Budweiser. There were several cans in front of him, presumably empty. “Besides, there won’t be dinner now. A man has to eat.”

  “You don’t seem upset.”

  “Everybody knew Harry had a bad ticker. Just a matter of time.” Jack slurped from the can. “Come on, get him, get him!”

  “And the blow to the head?”

  “Dunno.” He ate another handful of chips. “Holding? Come on, ref. He barely touched him.”

  “You could at least pretend.”

  He glanced at me. “Look, everybody would know I was faking it. Except for the cops. I’m sorry Harry is dead. But don’t expect me to get all weepy.” He craned his neck around me. “Besides, if I acted all sad, Marian and Alicia would tell the truth: Harry and I didn’t really get along. We played nice for the holidays, but that was about it.”

  I walked to the TV and snapped it off. I was a deputy coroner. I was used to dealing with death. But whether Jack and Harry got along or not, Jack should at least act like he cared, if only for the sake of his niece.

  “What the hell? It’s third and long.”

  I snapped my fingers. “Jack, focus for a minute. Harry mention anything to you about money? Issues he was having with Marian? Anything with Alicia’s grad school bills?”

  He washed down the chips and belched. “Bastard didn’t tell me shit, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if the asshole was having money problems.”

  He really wasn’t oozing with grief. “What makes you say that?”

  Jack shifted on the couch, avoiding my gaze. “If you must know, I asked Harry for a loan a couple weeks ago. Nothing big, a couple thousand. Construction is slow in the winter and I needed something to cover some expenses I hadn’t planned on.”

  “Harry turned you down.” If Harry wouldn’t take the wife he loved on a cruise, or fund his own daughter’s tuition, he wouldn’t fork over cash for a brother he could barely tolerate.

  Jack’s face flushed, an angry mottled red. “What a brother, huh? Like he’s never been short on cash. Pompous ass dared lecture me. I’d have bashed him on the head myself if I’d had the chance. Which I didn’t. I’ve been right here, watching football. Bastard won’t give me a loan, at least I can use his television.”

  I was quite sure that Jack had given as good as he got on the lecture front, but I let the comment slide. “You came to dinner anyway.”

  “Sure.” He leaned back. “I never say no to a free meal. Now, if we’re finished, would you turn the game back on?”

  *

  My interview with the cops was brief. I relayed the information I’d learned from Alicia and Jack.

  “Did your uncle often quarrel with people?” the detective, Adamson, asked.

  “Not in my experience. Uncle Harry was pretty easygoing. Terrible sense of humor, but otherwise okay. I don’t remember him ever telling his wife no, but I can easily see him telling his brother to go jump in the river. Uncle Harry didn’t believe in financing other people’s mistakes.” I put air quotes around the last four words.

  Adamson scanned his notes. “You say you’re a deputy coroner?”

  “Fayette County, yes.”

  “How do you think he died?”

  “I wouldn’t want to speculate. Not without an autopsy.”

  Adamson snorted. “You think of anything else, let me know.” He handed me a business card.

  I pocketed the card and left. Alicia had convinced Aunt Marian to go lie down. Mom cornered me in the hallway. “I think we should leave. We’ll get takeout or something.”

  “Yeah, in a minute. I want to check something.” Before Mom could argue, I headed for the bathroom. I found what I was looking for in the cabinet. One bottle of metoprolol tartrate (Lopressor), a common high blood pressure medication. I twisted off the cap. The bottle was half empty. I checked the date on the label, put it back, and went looking for Alicia.

  She was in her bedroom. “They won’t let me clean up yet,” she said as she picked at the embroidery on her bedspread. “I don’t know why. Not like Dad was poisoned with that dressing.”

  I sat next to her. “Alicia, I just had a look at your dad’s heart medicine. It’s half gone, but according to the refill date and the dosage instructions, it should be almost full.”

  “Is that important?”

  “If he overdosed, it could have caused dizziness or heart failure. You said he was complaining about pain earlier?”

  “Yes, he was rubbing his arm. Now that I think about it, his words were a little slurred, too. Not so bad I noticed it at first, but definitely not right.”

  I stood. I’d be willing to bet that hit on the head wasn’t fatal, but if you put it all together, the picture wasn’t a good one. I shared DNA with these people. It wasn’t an idea I wanted to consider, but I had to. “So, in theory, he could have passed out, especially if someone whacked him on the head. Face down in a soft material, like the dressing, he could have easily suffocated. That head injury was fresh.”

  Alicia’s eyes widened. “Tom, that’s…that’s crazy. That would mean…”

  “There’s a killer at the family dinner table.”

  Alicia and I went to find Jack. He was still watching football, of course. The late afternoon game this time. I shut off the TV and stood in front of him, arms crossed.

  Jack set aside his beer. “You’re really busting my chops, kid. I don’t get dinner. You could at least let me see the game.”

  “You could go home and watch it,” I said. “I know the police said you could go.”

  “My TV isn’t as good.”

  And his kitchen probably wasn’t as well stocked. “You said Harry had a bad heart. Do you know what kind of medication he was on?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Do you know what the effects of an overdose are?”

  He tried to use the remote to turn the TV back on, but I blocked the infrared sensor. “No clue. You’re the medical genius, right? Isn’t that what your degree was in?”

  I waved my hand. “We’re not talking about me. For your information, Harry was on a beta blocker. An overdose could make him pass out. Someone takes the dressing pan—a heavy glass pan with rounded corners—smacks him on the head, makes sure he was face down, no more Harry.”

  “That’s bullshit. Someone would hear it.”

  “Not with your TV volume set at fifty.”

  Jack looked from me to Alicia. “Wait just a damned minute. You suggesting I… I’m not in this house often enough. If he overdosed on his pills, I had nothing to do with that. And I damn sure didn’t hit him with a stupid dressing pan.”

  Alicia glanced at me. “You were here on Sunday. That’s the last time you argued. You could have crushed the pills or something, and put them in a drink. Glass of water. There’s a pitcher of unsweetened tea in the fridge that only Dad drank. That way you wouldn’t have to be in the house before today.”

  Jack jumped to his feet, chips and beer can falling to the floor, a puddle of fizzy gold liquid forming at his feet. “Why the hell would I do that? Just because Harry had a rotten sen
se of humor?”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “You asked him for money and he turned you down. I seem to recall you said he lectured you. You called him, what was it? Oh yeah. A pompous ass.”

  Jack’s lip curled. “Nobody kills a brother over a lousy couple thousand dollars.”

  “You’d be surprised what people kill over,” I said.

  Jack looked from me to Alicia and back. His nostrils flared and his breathing was heavy. “Let’s get one thing clear. I didn’t like my brother and he didn’t particularly care for me. Family get-togethers were hardly scenes from a ‘50s TV show. But I didn’t kill him.”

  I kept my professional cool. “How early did you get here, anyway?”

  “Around noon. He was dead at one thirty according to you, Mr. Fancy Pants Medical Degree. Overdose going to kill him that fast?”

  It probably wouldn’t. Jack seemed to read my thoughts from my expression. “Told you. Now get the hell out of my way before I crack your skull open and commit murder for real.”

  I guided Alicia back to the kitchen. I was pretty sure my idea was right. The contusion on Harry’s skull was consistent with the rounded edge of the pan the dressing had been in. But Jack was also right. The overdose might not have worked in an hour and a half. The dressing hadn’t been served until one o’clock. Aunt Marian liked all the food to be on the table before calling the family in. She’d been in the kitchen carving the bird when we found Uncle Harry. Trying to give herself an alibi?

  Alicia turned to me. “Tom, I don’t like the look on your face.”

  “I don’t like the thoughts in my head.” I took her arm. “I need you to think. You said Harry has been objecting to a lot of things your mom wanted to do: the cruise, the windows, the paint job. Did you think that was normal?”

  “No.” Alicia frowned in thought. “I mean, the cruise was a little pricey, but objecting to a couple gallons of paint? That was weird. I…I guess Dad has been off kilter for a couple weeks.”

  “Off kilter how?”

  “I don’t know, not himself. He’d be happy one minute, angry the next. Sometimes at nothing. Then he’d seem almost depressed. I figured he was getting used to the new meds.”

  Mood swings, depression. All side effects of Lopressor. All things that would be worse with an overdose. “When did this start?”

  “I don’t know. The last argument Mom and Dad had, the one over the paint, was maybe a month ago? Two months? Not more.” The color drained from her face. “Tommy, you’re scaring me.”

  “I’m sorry.” I gave her a hug. “But you’ve got a place in Oakland—near the Pitt campus—while you do your grad work, right? There’s only one person—”

  Aunt Marian entered the kitchen. “Alicia, dear, there you are. Tommy, sweetheart, your parents have left. I’d have thought you’d have gone with them. If you’re waiting for dinner, I think that’s out of the question.”

  “I know, Aunt Marian. I’m not. Waiting for dinner, that is.” I shot a glance at Alicia. “I was wondering, when was the last time Uncle Harry refilled his heart pills?”

  Aunt Marian rummaged in the cabinet. “Oh, I don’t know, dear. I don’t track that sort of thing.” The kitchen was dated. Just like everything else in the house. Suddenly, I wondered if Aunt Marian had only been after paint.

  “Mom,” Alicia said. “You always take care of refilling Dad’s meds. You said otherwise he’d never do it. You’ve been doing it for years.”

  “Aunt Marian.” I laid my hand on her shoulder. “Were you trying to scare him? Get back at him? Over two cans of paint and a cruise?”

  She kept her back to us. “I…I don’t know what you mean, Tommy. Whatever put that into your head?”

  “Mom, how could you?” Alicia’s voice trembled and her eyes got watery. “Why?”

  “How could I? Why you deceitful little brat.”

  A horrible idea dawned on me. Alicia had told me she served the dressing. Her recitation of the overdose symptoms was letter-perfect, as if she’d been reading from the warning label. Or she’d memorized them. “Aw, shit Alicia. You didn’t.”

  Alicia’s eyes hardened, tears gone.

  Aunt Marian’s grip on the cabinet door tightened. “Almost thirty years I’ve taken care of that man. I’ve never asked for anything. You don’t understand, Tommy. Nothing. I finally ask for a couple of little things—a nice vacation, some decent windows, a house that doesn’t look like a seventies-era sitcom—and he turns me down.” She faced Alicia. “And you. All you needed was a bit of money to finish your degree.”

  Alicia’s voice was like ice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Marian’s mouth was a mean line. “I had it. Had. It. At first I was just going to scare him a little. Make him think his heart was giving out. But then today…he complained that the dressing was dry. Can you believe it? Thirty years and he’s never lifted a finger to help with Thanksgiving. He had the nerve to complain?”

  “Aunt Marian, I hear you, but—”

  “I picked up his dirty socks. Washed his clothes. Ironed his shirts. I gave up a career as a nurse to raise a child and keep a house. What do I get? Nothing. Not a ‘thank you,’ not a blessed word. Can you get that through your head, Tommy? Yes. I told Alicia to do it.”

  I turned to my cousin. “Aunt Marian drugged him. You went in with the pan, one quick smash, and done. Did you make sure he was face down in the bread so he couldn’t breathe? Just to be sure?”

  “I don’t think I want to say anything without a lawyer,” Alicia said. “Mom’s right, Tommy. You don’t get it at all.”

  “Oh, I think I do. I’m just sorry you didn’t talk to me first.” I stepped out of the kitchen to go get Detective Adamson. I paused and turned back. “One thing’s for sure. You’re not my favorite cousin any longer. And stop calling me Tommy.”

  The Golden Potato

  Terrance V. Mc Arthur

  “We could get you something to eat in Bakersfield,” Davy said over the sound of freeway traffic. He didn’t take his eye off the tail lights of the cars ahead while he added, “I don’t see why you say you’re hungry. I’m still stuffed from my family’s Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “Just because I ate this afternoon,” Carl said, “does not mean I will never eat again. After all, eating is an accepted thing to do, unless you happen to be a supermodel.”

  “But, it’s Thanksgiving,” Davy insisted. “The turkey, the green-bean-and-fried-onion casserole, the pumpkin pie, the Golden Potato, the….”

  “The what?”

  “Huh?”

  “The Golden Potato?”

  Davy glanced at Carl and asked, “Your family doesn’t do the Golden Potato?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s the most important part of our Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “Yeah? Well, I never heard of it.”

  “The Golden Potato? Never?”

  “Never. What’s the Golden Potato?”

  “Wow, if you don’t know about it, how do I explain it?”

  Davy drove silently for thirteen seconds, then a blue-tinged smile by the dashboard light lit his face. He said, “Okay, you know my family, right?”

  “Yeah, I know them. We grew up in the same neighborhood. Of course I know them.”

  “At Thanksgiving, everybody shows up at Granma’s. There’s Cousin Ralph, with Marie and their baby, Lisa. Have you seen her? Lisa, I mean, not Marie.”

  “Nope.”

  “She’s a cutie. Then, there’s my sister, Sonja, and her husband Bobby, and their kids, Billy and Suzy. My uncles are there, Tommy and Big Johnny. And of course, Little Johnny is there with Heather and their little Nora.”

  Carl asked, “How do all those people fit at the table?”

  “The kids are at a card table in the next room, but Marie is still holding Lisa in her arms at the main table. The little one isn’t quite ready to fight it out with her cousins. Of course, at the head of the table, there’s Granma Alice calling the shots.”<
br />
  “Yeah. She’s the boss in your family, isn’t she?”

  “She sure is,” Davy said. “Nobody crosses Granma Alice. When it comes to the kitchen, she’s all business, and business is very good: a turkey that could be mistaken for a golden-brown Volkswagen, gravy with happy mushrooms floating in it, a ham with skin that went snap-crackle-pop when you touched it, salads from Romaine lettuce to multileveled gelatin to macaroni, sweet potatoes with marshmallow caps, foil-wrapped baked potatoes, that green bean casserole everybody makes for holidays, a spinach soufflé that could probably float to the table on its own, and a pile of pies waiting in the kitchen.”

  “Oh, man, you’re killing me,” Carl said.

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “But where does your Golden Potato fit into all this?”

  “Stay with me. We’ll get there,” Davy said, signaling for the next exit.

  “Where are we going?”

  “There’s a safe house not far from here, Carl.”

  “Why’re we going there?”

  “You’ll understand when we get there. I’ll explain it to you,” Davy said, waiting at a red light.

  They didn’t talk while they drove through the town. Once they were out on country roads, Davy cleared his throat and said, “All right. The Golden Potato?”

  “Yeah,” Carl said, looking out the window into the darkness of the fields.

  “We start the meal with a prayer, and Granma chooses the person who prays. This time, she says, ‘Billy is growing up. It’s time for him to say the prayer,’ so Sonja gets Billy from the little-kids table, folds his arms, and starts whispering into the boy’s ear. It’s pretty obvious the kid hasn’t had much experience with praying, and my sister looks nervous, like she’s afraid she won’t come off like a good mother. I mean, she doesn’t want to be known as a mother who isn’t raising her children the right way.”

  “So, how’d the kid do?”

  “He started out,” and Davy switched to a higher-pitched voice, “‘Lord, we thank thee for all our bessings…’”

  “Bessings?”