Murder in Mystic Cove

by Daryl Anderson

  It was strange, walking through those familiar streets and pathways. I weaved my way from here to there to back again, my path as inscrutable as an ant’s. Next I passed the Commentator office. Pressing my face against the window, I imagined Mel in his plush office as he tied the ragged bandana around Jinks’s neck. At this point in his journey he must have had possession of his office key, though he would lose it soon enough. I couldn’t linger here. Though Founder’s Centre was deserted, I felt exposed. When I turned into Birnam Wood, I let out a shaky breath, welcoming the darkness.

  At Azimuth Circle the light was on in Fairley’s living room. I thought I caught a glimpse of her moving behind the pillowy curtains. Fearful of Fairley’s eagle eye, I didn’t linger here either. Besides, my main business was on Admiral Street, ground zero.

  I paused outside the Rand house, which was dark and ominous, no signs of life. I stayed here the longest. Maybe I was stupid, but I didn’t fear Alan Rand’s threats. Despite my trespasses, he had not called the law on me. Not because he was a nice guy—he wasn’t—but because he was afraid. Sleep tight, Alan. Before this is over, I’ll know your secret too.

  The Dick home was lit up like the town drunk, light pouring from every orifice. Perhaps the ghosts of Birnam Wood had come calling and Julie hoped to banish them with light. I considered checking in but didn’t. Julie had to make her own peace. They were her ghosts after all.

  I darted across the swale to Gigi’s backyard, covering the short distance in less than a minute. Mel would have been quicker on his cart. Then it was back into Birnam Wood and the murder scene. The short distances among the houses of the principles in this dark drama gave me pause and a disturbing possibility came to mind. Suppose Mel had returned home a bit earlier than Anita claimed.

  What if Anita had followed Mel to Gigi’s house, taking the thirty-eight with her? The wronged wife hiding in the bushes while her rival tended to Mel. How Anita must have seethed—what woman wouldn’t? People called her dull and slow, a cow. But even cows could be roused.

  Anita’s patience would have been rewarded when Mel left Gigi to search for his missing dog. Now Anita trails her husband to the clearing where Mel parks his cart. She watches for a bit and, when Mel is seemingly fast asleep, she approaches. She aims the gun at Mel’s temple and fires. The deed done, she returns home and calls Fairley, pretending that the argument with Mel has just taken place. This might have accounted for Mel’s shooting, but what about all the other stuff? The stolen hard drive, the deleted files, the missing office key, Jinks’s bufanda, Mel’s madness.

  No, there was more to this—much more.

  I sat cross-legged, breathed deep of the night air. The night-blooming jasmine was gone—the cold had killed it, at least until the spring. In the warmth the roots would send out shoots of green and it would grow again. But Mel and Anita were gone for good and I was no closer to an answer.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Wind in the Field

  The next morning—for the first time since leaving Baltimore—I went for a run. When I got back I was relieved to find Pop was still asleep. A quick shower and coffee and I sat down to review my notes. I looked busy, but I was just killing time until I could call Julie, not wanting to wake her too early from a sickbed. Finally nine o’clock rolled around. Julie answered on the fifth ring.

  “Yes, I’m feeling much better.”

  “Good,” I said, though I didn’t buy Julie’s return to health. She sounded dazed, like a prizefighter who’d taken one punch too many. “We should have news about the bullet match later today.”

  A long silence and Julie said, “What bullet?”

  “The bullet CSU recovered from Mel’s garage yesterday,” I said.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  So I told her.

  “I sort of remember talking to Sheriff Spooner at the morgue, but not much else. I guess this flu knocked me on my butt.”

  “I’ll be right over to fill in the holes,” I said.

  “No, no, give me a few hours—how about eleven?”

  I wanted to drive right over, but she was Mel’s daughter, so I agreed to wait.

  “What’s wrong, Adelajda?” I helped Pop into the recliner and offered to get him some coffee or breakfast, but he refused. All he wanted was an answer to his question. I sat back on the sofa. “I’m worried about Julie, Pop. She doesn’t remember CSU being at the house yesterday. I guess she was a lot sicker than I thought.” And my guess was she was still under the weather. On the phone she’d sounded lost, like a boat adrift.

  My cell buzzed. “It’s positive, Addie,” Brad said. “The bullet recovered from Dick’s garage also came from Mel’s thirty-eight. Anita was probably responsible for both shots.”

  “Which is awfully convenient,” I said, “because Anita can’t protect herself.”

  “Come on, Addie.”

  “Later, Sheriff.”

  “Now what’s wrong?” Pop asked.

  “This thing is spiraling out of control. It’s all smoke and mirrors and I can’t figure it out.” I laughed. “Maybe I’m not as ruthless as you think.” I regretted the words, but they had been said.

  “I hurt your feelings before. I’m sorry, but you didn’t let me finish.”

  “I don’t have time for this.” I made a move to leave.

  “Time is not my friend, daughter.”

  “Oh, Papa.” I ran over to him. We embraced. We were not a physically demonstrative family, but we had our moments. This was one of them.

  “I called you ruthless, Adelajda,” he whispered in my ear, his frail arms around me. “And I stand by that, but you are also compassionate.” He pushed me away, just a little, so that our eyes met. “That is a rare, powerful combination. That’s all I wanted to say.” Pop let go of me, folded his hands in his lap. I returned to the sofa.

  “I’m going to miss you,” I said.

  “Don’t be foolish. There’s no need for you to miss me. I’ll be with you, here and here,” Pop said, pointing to his forehead and his heart.

  “It’s not the same, Papa.”

  “No, but it’s the best we have.” Pop smiled. “When you were a little girl you called me Papa.”

  I was twelve or thirteen when I abandoned the faintly European Papa for the good-old American Pop. “I’ve been thinking of those old days lately, the old days in Highlandtown,” I said. “Remember how every Saturday you’d bring home a box of bear claws from Hoehn’s?”

  “I remember. These days I spend more and more time in the past. I can close my eyes to reality but not to my memories. But then the past is the province of the old and the dying.”

  And the province of those who would catch a killer. “There’s comfort in the past,” I said.

  Pop’s eyes clouded. “Yes, and other things as well.”

  So it was the same for my father. But maybe everyone’s past was a minefield—take a wrong step and it blows up. Oh, there were the bittersweet memories of love and youth, but there was also regret, shame, ignominy. Since leaving Baltimore I’d tortured myself, obsessing over lost chances and wrong turns, the awful song of what could have been sticking in my mind like an unwanted jingle. I guess the past was a blessing and a curse, but without it we would not be human. I looked at Pop. Maybe the time had come to speak of the past.

  Pop knew the prelude well enough. After a decade of false starts I decided to take up the family business and signed up for the academy. At first it went well. I graduated top of the class and was an exemplary police, my eyes always on the prize—the golden detective’s badge I knew would be mine. Being a cop was a means to an end and as long as I worked toward that end, I could toe the line. Then I grabbed the brass ring—homicide!—but I couldn’t hold it.

  “That first day in Homicide was one of the best in m
y life, but it didn’t take long for me to become...dissatisfied. It was the same old song, Pop. I felt constrained by the rules, and I didn’t like the way too many investigations went. I thought I knew better. Soon I gained a reputation as a troublemaker and nobody wanted to partner with me. Remember how Grammy Ludwika used to call me an old goat?”

  Pop laughed and shrugged. “You’ve always been stubborn, even as a child, but it’s not always a bad thing.”

  “Ask Joey Spoletto about it.”

  “Your partner.”

  “My last partner. I was supposed to meet him that night, but like always I was off pursuing my own trail.” I looked at Pop. “He caught that bullet because I wasn’t there with him.”

  “You can’t blame yourself. It was a trick of fate that the robbery happened when it did.”

  I faced Pop so he could see his daughter clearly. “I don’t know about that, but I’ve never felt guilt over Joey’s death, not really.”

  “No?”

  “Well, maybe in the beginning, but that wasn’t the reason I quit the job. I left because it wasn’t working and it wasn’t going to work.”

  “You had other choices besides quitting.”

  “Sure, I could have toed the departmental line, which would have made me miserable.”

  Pop smiled. “Easier for the scorpion to deny its sting.”

  “Or I could have continued on the road I was on, become a full-fledged loose cannon.”

  “A dangerous road, both for you and those around you.”

  “So I used Joey’s murder as an excuse to quit.”

  “An excuse for who, Adelajda? Was this excuse for you or for others?”

  I stared at Pop. “For both, I suppose—does it even matter? What matters is that my dream of being a detective was another failure. Another dead end.”

  “Then leave it in the past where it belongs. Leave it all behind!” He sounded almost angry.

  “Pop.”

  “Focus on the job at hand, daughter. That’s what matters now.”

  * * *

  Julie Breyer didn’t answer her door. The rational part of my mind said that Julie was just sleeping—undone by the virus that held her in its grip—but my reptile brain knew better. Danger was here and this time I was ready.

  The front door was locked and I saw no obvious point of ingress. I sprinted to the back patio, my eyes darting like lasers. The patio door was flung wide, as were the French doors that opened into the dining room. But what I smelled scared me more—a distinctive burning odor. I pulled the Glock from my shoulder holster and went inside.

  No smoke inside the empty dining room, but the burnt smell was much stronger. Moving quickly but quietly, I turned the dogleg into the kitchen and stopped short. Since yesterday a cyclone had struck the place—dirty dishes in the sink, a trail of crumbs around the toaster, the near-empty jug of Mel’s sweet tea forgotten on the granite counter. I spotted the source of the odor, a coffee pot cooking on its burner.

  The thick evil-looking sludge at the bottom of the pot testified to long hours on the heat, yet Julie Breyer had been oblivious, letting the noxious stew bubble and burn. With a potholder I grabbed the handle and placed the ruined carafe in the sink, where it hissed and cracked.

  Where was Julie?

  I cleared the downstairs first—living room, guest bedroom, Mel’s office—every now and then calling for Julie. I was headed for the bathroom at the end of the hallway when I heard a familiar sound from above. Someone had just flushed the upstairs toilet. Whoever was in the house was in the master bedroom suite.

  I hopped up the carpeted stairs and crept down the short hallway. The door to Mel and Anita’s bedroom door was slightly ajar. I tapped it open. When I saw what had been done to Mel and Anita’s bedroom, fear chocked my throat. A picture of madness, for only a madman could have done this. Tangled bedclothes formed a mound on the bed. Open drawers vomited Anita’s huge bras and Mel’s boxers. Several jewelry boxes were overturned, spilling knotted necklaces and old watches. But the thing that scared me most was the thin ribbon of light shining beneath the closed bathroom door.

  “Julie? Are you there? It’s Addie! Talk to me!”

  No answer.

  “This is Private Investigator Gorsky. Whoever is in the bathroom, I want you to slowly open the door.” I held the Glock steady as the door groaned open. A figure in striped pajamas wavered in the doorway. Mel? I thought madly. Then the shade laughed.

  “Julie!” I cried, holstering my gun. Moving quickly, I helped the disoriented woman to the bed. She radiated heat but was bone dry, as if in the final stage of heatstroke.

  “Addie?” Julie squinted at me, her pupils big as saucers. “I was trying to pee. Mom and Dad said you’d be by today. I’m thirsty, so thirsty.” She propped up on one elbow, reached for the glass of sweet tea on the bedside table.

  Mel’s sweet tea.

  “No,” I said, prying her fingers from the glass.

  EMS arrived minutes later. When they asked me what had happened, I told them but there was doubt in their eyes. So I put on my steeliest cop face and dug my fingers into the paramedic’s arm.

  “I am a private investigator working a double homicide. There is a high likelihood—very high—that Julie Breyer was poisoned with a plant-based tropane alkaloid. They need to check for it.”

  I called Brad, who headed to the hospital while I waited at the Dick home for CSU. After the technicians bagged the evidence—the nearly empty gallon container of Mel Dick’s sweet tea and Julie’s half-filled tumbler—I raced to Dexter General, ready to run over any sonofabitch who got in my way.

  * * *

  When I burst into the E.R., Brad brought me up-to-date.

  “Mrs. Breyer is stable, but still pretty confused. They’ll keep her here until she clears, but the doc said it was definitely anticholinergic poisoning, probably due to ingestion of tropane alkaloids.”

  “Probably? Didn’t the labs identify the type of poison?”

  Brad grinned. “Funny thing—I had to press Dr. Killweather a little bit on that. He kept saying that a urinalysis was medically unnecessary, that he had made the diagnosis ‘based on clinical observation alone.’” He supplied air quotes. “I had to push, but we came to a meeting of the minds.” He shot a sly look my way and added in a low voice, “Personally, I think the doc was just pissed off about the instructions you sent along with Greg.”

  “Who the hell is Greg?”

  “The paramedic you scared half to death,” Brad said. “I happened to witness Killweather reading the poor guy the riot act after Greg had given him your little message. Doctors are territorial bastards.”

  “So are cops.”

  When we were done laughing, Brad poked my ribs with an elbow. “That’s the peckerwood now.” He pointed at a pock-faced man in green scrubs headed our way. “Hi, doc,” Brad said, grinning and waving.

  Killweather flinched. I don’t think he liked Brad’s casual form of address. Then the doctor threw a pointed look in my direction.

  “It’s all right,” Brad said, “Private Investigator Gorsky is familiar with the case. Anything you say to me, you can say to her.”

  “Oh, you’re Gorsky,” Killweather said. “As I expected, the patient’s urine is positive for atropine and hyoscyamine, both of which are indicative of tropane alkaloid poisoning.”

  “Did the urinalysis identify the specific source of the poison?” I asked. My earlier research had identified several plants sources of tropane alkaloids, though my money was on Datura stramonium.

  “Of course not, and if you’ll excuse me...”

  “Hold on,” Brad said, making his hand a stop sign. “You got any problem with me interviewing Ms. Breyer now?” His icy voice told the doc he’d better not have a problem.

  To my surprise
Dr. Killweather grinned. “There is no medical reason why you can’t speak with her, though I doubt you’ll learn anything.”

  “Why?” Brad and I asked in chorus.

  “Amnesia,” he said. “Mrs. Breyer was quite amazed to find herself in a hospital. She told me the last thing she remembered with any clarity was leaving the morgue with Sheriff Spooner. Oh, there’s no need for concern, amnesia is common with this type of poisoning. And now, I have patients to attend to.”

  “I don’t care what that dickhead says, I’m still gonna talk to Ms. Breyer,” Brad said after the doctor walked away. “Amnesia, that throws a goddamned wrinkle in things.”

  This case was like a runaway train. I asked if Forensics had begun their analysis of the sweet tea.

  “Funny you should ask.” Brad pulled a folded paper from his shirt pocket and stared at it. “Our crime lab tech says there are a couple of available tests. Either a thin-layer chromatography or a mass spectrometry can confirm the presence of atropine and scopolamine, both of which are found in jimsonweed.”

  “How long with the test take?”

  “First off, our crime lab is not equipped to perform either of these tests so we’re gonna have to send it out. It’ll be at least a couple of weeks before we get the results.”

  I cursed under my breath. This was awful news, and yet Brad was cool as ice. “There’s more,” I said with a grin.

  “The tech said that a distillation of jimsonweed plant material placed on an eyeball will cause the pupil to dilate. Of course, it will never hold up in court, but...”

  “Oh God, he didn’t put the tea in his eye!”

  “No, but his twin brother raises rabbits and he brought one of the critters by the lab. Get this—when they put a couple of drops of Mel’s tea in the rabbit’s eye, it got big as a dinner plate. Like I said, it’s not evidence, but...”