In the brief moment before either woman spoke, I wondered whether Aunt Peg was remembering their last encounter as well. And whether her plan had taken their recent hostilities into account. Aunt Peg makes a habit of rising to the occasion, however; I never should have doubted her.
“I’ve come to apologize,” she announced. “Truly, I behaved like the worst sort of boor. When Melanie pointed out the error of my ways, there was nothing I could do but come straight here and tell you how sorry I am.”
It was a performance worthy of Old Vic; I was rather hard pressed to keep a straight face. But if my aunt was laying things on a bit thick, Betty didn’t seem to mind. She looked inordinately pleased by Peg’s remorseful tone.
“Not at all,” she replied. “Once Melanie explained that it was Henry’s awful daughters who’d gotten you so wound up, I understood immediately. Even Johnny, poor dear, makes himself scarce when those two are around. Too bad you didn’t arrive a few minutes sooner, you’ve just missed him. Perhaps you’d like to come in?”
Aunt Peg looked like she was about to agree. Next thing you know the two of them would be sitting down, chatting away, while our chance to search Henry’s house before Johnny returned disappeared. I grasped the back of Peg’s coat and yanked hard; a small reminder to keep her mind on business.
“I have some warm cider on the stove,” Betty was saying. “Surely you have time to share a bit of Christmas spirit.”
“I wish we could,” I said before Peg could reply. “But my aunt and I have a number of stops to make this afternoon. I’m afraid we don’t have time.”
“And you came all the way over here just to apologize to me.” Betty beamed happily. “Wasn’t that nice of you?”
“We were also hoping you might be able to let us into Henry’s house one last time,” said Peg. “As you know, I still have his dogs. Pepper and Remington have settled in reasonably well, but I was hoping to pick up a few things to make them feel more at home. You know—toys, leashes, maybe a dog bed.”
It wasn’t the best excuse I’d ever heard. Most dog people would have wondered why it had taken Aunt Peg more than two weeks to realize that she needed those things. Fortunately, Betty Bowen wasn’t a dog person. Nor, however, was she a pushover.
“I don’t know if I should. Robin and Laurel made a point of asking for their father’s key back. They were very anxious to make sure that nothing in the house was disturbed.” She paused, then added, “However, as Henry’s neighbor, I felt it was up to me to look out for his interests, too.”
“You copied the key before you gave it back,” I guessed.
“It seemed like the wise thing to do. Not that I’ve used it since, of course.”
“Certainly not,” Peg agreed amicably. “I’m sure it was only for emergencies.”
“That’s right. On the other hand, knowing the way Henry doted on those two dogs, he’d probably be the first to say that something that contributed to their comfort constituted an emergency.”
We waited outside while Betty fetched the key. It seemed to take her a long time. I was beginning to wonder whether she’d misplaced it when the door finally opened again.
“Here we are,” she said. One hand held out Henry’s key; the other gripped a tall insulated thermos. “I know you said you were in a hurry, but it occurred to me that since the thermostat’s turned way down in Henry’s house, you’re going to be cold over there. Here’s some hot cider to take with you. This batch has cinnamon in it and a few special herbs. It’s my mother’s own recipe, perhaps a little on the sweet side, but it will warm you up in a hurry.”
“That was very thoughtful,” said Aunt Peg. The promise of something sweet always gets her attention. She took the thermos and tucked it into the crook of her arm.
Betty was right; it was cold inside Henry’s house. Obviously, his daughters had no intention of burning any more oil than it took to keep the pipes from freezing. I shut the door behind us then walked through the kitchen, heading for the stairs at the front of the house. I was almost there before I realized I’d lost Peg. I retraced my steps and found her in the kitchen, opening cabinets.
“Why are you looking in here?” I asked.
“Because that’s where we’ll find glasses. Ah, here we are.” She lifted two glazed mugs down from a shelf beside the sink.
Chilly as it was, I had no intention of wasting what little snooping time we had sipping Betty’s cider. As Aunt Peg opened the thermos and poured out the steaming liquid, I left her behind and went to see what I could find. A few minutes later, she joined me upstairs in Henry’s office, carrying a mug in each hand. By then I’d opened the desk drawer where we’d found the pictures two weeks earlier. Now the drawer was empty.
“Damn.”
“What?” Peg came up behind me and peered over my shoulder.
“They’re not here.”
“Maybe you’re looking in the wrong drawer.”
Could be, but I didn’t think so. Starting at the top, I methodically opened each desk drawer in turn. Not only did I not see the missing pictures, I didn’t see much of anything.
Aunt Peg sipped from one mug and held the other out to me. “Maybe Robin and Laurel cleaned out their father’s papers.”
“Either that or Johnny has.” I took the mug she offered and set it down on the desk top. “I wish we’d taken a closer look at those pictures when we had a chance.”
“At the time, we had no idea they were important. Now that we know the pictures aren’t here, maybe we should start in a different room.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “We can split up and cover more ground.” I looked around, my gaze coming to rest on the squat file cabinet pushed up against one wall. “I wonder if that’s been cleaned out too.”
“We looked there last time we were here,” Peg pointed out.
“Yes, but then we weren’t looking for evidence.” I rolled out the top drawer and began thumbing through folders. Nothing looked terribly interesting.
So much for my hopes of being able to prove my suspicions to Detective Marley. I wondered if there was any point in contacting Henry’s daughters and asking if they were the ones who’d removed the pictures. And if they still had them. And if they’d let me look at them.
Which all sounded like entirely too much speculation to me.
“What was that?” Peg asked. She hadn’t left, after all.
“What?” I glanced up.
“I heard something.” She set her mug down next to my untouched one and crossed the room to the door. “Downstairs.”
Quickly, I rose to my feet. “Something like what?”
“I don’t know—” Aunt Peg looked suddenly pale. She leaned heavily against the door jamb.
“Yoohoo! Ladies! Where are you?” Betty’s voice came floating up the stairs.
“Up here,” I called back. Aunt Peg didn’t say a thing. “Looking for dog toys.”
I joined my aunt in the doorway as Betty reached the top of the steps. She was carrying the empty thermos and smiling happily. “There you are. I’m so glad you enjoyed my cider. Wonderful recipe, isn’t it?”
“Delicious,” I lied. I hadn’t even tasted it.
Peg, who had, nodded fuzzily. Both her hands were still braced heavily against the door jamb. I shot her a concerned look.
“I knew you’d like it,” Betty was saying. “Everyone does. Especially Henry. I told him it was my own secret recipe and he drank it right down. Such a neighborly man, Henry was. He’d never have thought of refusing a nice cup of cider.”
And just like that, it all came together. Despite what we knew about Johnny, he wasn’t the one we’d needed to be wary of. It was Betty, the helpful neighbor with her sweet, poison-laced cider who’d been the threat all along. Betty who was standing in the hall with her empty thermos gazing contentedly at me and Aunt Peg as though everything was going exactly according to plan.
“Tell me more about Henry,” I said. I didn’t want Betty moving past me into the office wh
ere she’d see that only one of the mugs on the desk had been emptied.
On the other hand, I really wanted to have a look at Peg’s mug myself. I needed to know how much cider she’d consumed. Her demeanor was beginning to alarm me; her breathing was rapid and shallow. I slid my arm around her, offering support if she needed it.
Aunt Peg stumbled briefly, leaning into me heavily as if I’d pulled her off balance. Her head bobbled; her lips passed close to my ear. She whispered a single word under her breath, “Act!”
Relief flooded through me, even as I struggled to rebalance my aunt on her feet. I almost smiled but caught myself just in time. Trust Aunt Peg to be on top of things right from the beginning. She must have guessed what Betty was up to, and was now giving the woman the result she’d hoped to achieve. But it was only an act, thank God.
“Henry was a snoop,” Betty said. “A busybody. Someone who had to have his finger in every pie. He never should have quit that high-powered job of his. After that he had too much time on his hands. He was always digging into things that didn’t concern him.”
“You must have hated him.” I propped Aunt Peg against the banister, where she listed to one side with a goofy grin on her face. Her acting skills, I decided, were a bit over the top.
“Didn’t hate him,” Betty said matter-of-factly. “Just needed to shut him up.”
“So you gave him some cider from your old family recipe.”
With a satisfied look at Aunt Peg, Betty didn’t even bother to deny it. “Yup. That did the trick, all right. Ambulance came and took him away, and the doctors decided he’d died of heart failure, just like they were supposed to.”
“Not for long,” I said. “They ran more tests and found out about the antifreeze.”
Betty merely shrugged. “Times are changing, I guess. Used to be, nobody looked into things that closely.”
“Used to be ... ?” I echoed. My voice trailed away as my thoughts whirled. Henry wasn’t the first victim. She’d done this before.
“The world’s a hard place,” said Betty. “A woman’s got to look out for herself and her own, because I’m here to tell you, no one else is going to. A man gives his wife a few pops with the back of his hand, there isn’t much the law can do about that. A woman who didn’t want to keep landing in the hospital might have to figure out a way to end her own troubles.”
I remembered the collection of framed photographs Alice and I had seen on Betty’s mantel. Pictures of her, pictures of Johnny. But none of her husband, Johnny’s father. I imagined his cause of death had been listed as heart failure, too.
“It was one thing when he only hit me,” Betty said. “But the day he took off his belt and went after Johnny . . . well, that was when I knew I had to do something. He thought he was the one with all the power. I guessed I showed him differently.”
“You certainly did,” I agreed. “And when Henry found out that Johnny was dealing drugs, that made him a threat, too.”
“Johnny’s a good boy, a little wild sometimes maybe. But he’s my son, and he’s all I have. Henry came to me with what he’d found out, can you believe that? Like he thought I might not know what my son was up to in his own home. He had the nerve to tell me that if I didn’t put a stop to what Johnny was doing, he was going to go to the police.”
So that was why Henry had never reported what he knew, I realized. He’d been hoping that Betty would solve the problem herself. And she had, just not in the way he’d anticipated.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“Why not?” said Betty. “Pretty soon it isn’t going to make any difference what you know. It’s not like I couldn’t figure out what the two of you were up to, the way you kept coming back and looking around. That one . . .” Her eyes shifted in Aunt Peg’s direction. “She seemed pretty smart. I’d been wondering what I ought to do about that when you two showed up today and gave me a golden opportunity.”
Like Betty, I glanced over at Aunt Peg. Her act was getting more convincing with each passing minute.
“It’s only a matter of time before the cider begins to work on you, too,” said Betty. “Doesn’t matter what I say now, you won’t be around long enough to tell to anyone else.”
I stepped out of the office and into the hallway. Peg was still on her feet, but she seemed only vaguely aware of her surroundings. Maybe she’d drunk more of Betty’s concoction than she’d realized.
“Aunt Peg?” I said. “Are you okay?”
“Of course she isn’t okay. You don’t listen too good, do you? I guess she must have been the brains of your outfit.”
“Oh, shut up!” I snapped as I moved to Aunt Peg’s side. Grasping the rail between cold fingers, she gazed at me with blank, unfocused eyes. “I thought you said you were acting,” I whispered furiously.
“No.” Shaking her head was an effort. As was answering. “I was telling you to act. I was hoping Betty might confess.”
Gently, I lowered Aunt Peg until she was sitting on the floor, her back propped against the banister. She needed help, and soon. “Betty did confess.”
“Did she?” Peg sounded surprised. Abruptly, she turned her head away. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Good. Best thing for you.” I held her until the spasms had passed, then stood up and pulled out my cell phone.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Betty dove toward me, reaching for the phone.
I held it away, blocked her with my other hand, and punched out nine-one-one. “I’m calling for help.”
“Too late for that now. By the time anyone gets here, you’ll both be gone.”
“No, we won’t,” I said. “I never drank any of your poison. And I’m going to get my aunt to the hospital where they can fix what you’ve done to her.”
“No!” Betty screamed. She lifted the thermos and brought it crashing down on my arm.
Busy with the phone, concerned for Aunt Peg, I didn’t see the attack coming. My fault for not taking a woman twenty years older than me seriously as an adversary. Pain shot up my arm; tears sprang to my eyes. My fingers flew open. The cell phone hit the hardwood floor, bounced, and skittered away.
Before I could go after it, the older woman was upon me. One of her hands grasped my neck. The fingers of the other clawed at my eyes. Desperation had lent her surprising strength.
I tried to retreat, but I couldn’t; Aunt Peg was on the floor beside me, the banister was at my back. There was nothing to do but grab Betty’s hands and try to wrestle her away. Both feet braced, she didn’t budge.
Her nails raked down the side of my face. I felt the skin tear. I scrambled for a hold of her wrists. She twisted and swore. An elbow jabbed into my stomach. Then she was pushing me away, my back bending painfully over the railing.
Betty had the leverage I needed. As one foot left the ground, I realized what she meant to do. Aunt Peg had drunk the tainted cider; I would die from a fall down the stairs.
Until that realization hit me, I hadn’t actually believed I would have to hurt her. I’d been trying to push her away, not inflict harm. But now I was fighting for my life, and my desperation matched hers.
I grasped Betty’s arms and tried to shove her aside. She didn’t move much, but it was enough for me to regain my balance. I got both feet back on the floor; my back pushed hard against the banister. When she launched herself at me again, I was ready.
And I was angry. We were wasting precious time. I needed to be getting help for Aunt Peg, not grappling in a hallway with a madwoman. As Betty came at me, I threw myself to the side, twisting in the air to reach back and shove her away.
She flew past me and hit the rail heavily, grunting with the impact. Briefly, her startled eyes met mine. Then momentum carried her further. Arms pinwheeling in the air, Betty overbalanced. For a split second, she teetered on the lip of the railing.
Scrambling back, I tried to reach her. My fingers grasped only air as her legs flipped up and Betty somersaulted over the edge.
She landed with a heavy thump on the stairs below, her body rolling like a limp bundle of old clothes until she’d reached the landing at the bottom.
Heart racing, gasping for breath, I gazed downward through the uprights. Betty lay sprawled on the floor below. She wasn’t moving.
Aunt Peg was next to me on the floor. Her dark eyes fluttered open. “I don’t feel very well,” she murmured.
“I know,” I said, reaching for the phone. She didn’t look very well either. “Help is coming.”
“Tell them to hurry,” she said.
30
To my enormous relief, an ambulance arrived within minutes. It was followed almost immediately by a police cruiser. Betty was lying in the front hall, moaning. I hurried the EMTs past her and up the stairs to Aunt Peg, explaining what had happened as we went. In no time, Peg was on her way to the hospital.
I wanted to go with her but too many things still needed to be sorted out with the police. I got Detective Marley on the phone and told him the story from start to finish. This time he was inclined to listen. The officers on the scene bagged the thermos as evidence. By the time I left. Henry’s house, Marley was on his way and a search warrant was being obtained for the Bowen residence. Johnny hadn’t returned yet; the officers were planning to detain him when he did.
I sped to the hospital behind the second ambulance carrying Betty Bowen. Aunt Peg’s stomach had already been pumped when I arrived and she’d been given an antidote to the ethylene glycol. Since she had already thrown up much of the antifreeze she’d ingested, the doctors were confident of her full recovery.
Betty wasn’t so lucky. The fall had broken her hip, her collarbone, and one of her legs. Those bones would mend, but her other troubles were only beginning. When she awoke at the hospital, she claimed to have no memory of the events Detective Marley was anxious to question her about. In the meantime, however, her house had been searched and her fingerprints lifted from the thermos carrying the deadly liquid that had killed Henry Pruitt and nearly done the same to Aunt Peg. The search also turned up a cache of drugs, enough to bring an indictment against Johnny as well.
Jingle Bell Bark Page 24
