Pot of Gold

by Judith Michael

  "And then what.^ What happened in the hotel, Emma.^"

  "Can't remember."

  "You went through the lobby. Did you talk to anyone.^"

  "Can't remember. Oh, yes, somebody told me what room."

  "Told you your room number.^ Why didn't you remember.'^"

  "Too sleepy. So sleepy. Heavy and sleepy and I fell down."

  "Then how did you get to your room.^"

  "Can't remember. Oh, somebody. Red uniform. He took off my shoes. Put me on the bed. The quilt was warm."

  "And then what.^ Did you get up after he left.-'"

  "Get up where.^"

  "Get out of bed. Go to the bathroom. Take any pills to help you sleep."

  ''Already asleep," Emma said with a touch of impatience. It was the first note of animation they had heard in her voice. "Couldn't move; too heavy, sleepy, I felt so sick." She lay still, the tears running silently down her face. "I'm dying."

  "No, darling, you're not. You're not." Claire paused. "You didn't want to, did you.'' Last night.^"

  Emma looked at her, wide-eyed. "Why.^" she asked clearly. "I only wanted to love."

  "The best answer," Dr. Marks said. She had come in quietly and was standing behind Claire. "Excuse me," she said, and moved forward. "Hello, Emma, I'm Claudia Marks and I'm your doctor while you're here, and I need to take your temperature and a few other things. It won't take long, and then you'll have your mother back again. Please," she added to Claire and Alex.

  Claire kissed Emma's forehead. "We'll be right back," she said, and she and Alex returned to the waiting room, Hannah and Gina were there, playing word games on pads of paper.

  "I brought some more food," said Hannah, gesturing toward the coffee table. Alex told them briefly about Emma while Claire sat on the edge of the couch, her hands clasped in her lap. It was twenty minutes before Claudia Marks came to them. Her face was radiant. "She's going to be fine," she said.

  TWENTY

  T

  H E police called on Brix on Christmas night. He had been at a party in one of the town houses a block from his own. It had not been a great evening; most of the time he had sat in a corner, drinking Scotch and water and looking at girls, trying to get interested enough to take one of them home with him. It was not like him: everyone commented on it and tried to get him to lighten up. But he couldn't; he couldn't even concentrate on the girls—he was having trouble concentrating these days, and, anyway, he was drinking steadily and he'd done coke all day—and after a while he stopped looking and wandered off, forgetting to say good-bye to his host. Outside, he pulled on his coat and walked a little unsteadily on the winding walk that followed the undulating line of town houses to his own door, identical to every other door in the complex. From the corner of his eye he saw a police car parked at the curb. Somebody's making too much noise, he thought vaguely. Disturbing the neighbors; shame on them. He walked up the front steps and stared at the door, making sure it was his. "Thirty-eight," he muttered. That was his address, so this must be his door. He reached into his pocket to pull out his keys.

  "Mr. Brix Eiger.?"

  He swung around. A policeman was there, standing a little too close to him. Another policeman sat in the car. "Got the wrong guy," Brix said. "I haven't made any noise; haven't made a sound. I've been somewhere else. Very quiet."

  "We want to ask you some questions about Emma Goddard," said the policeman, and Brix felt the earth slide out from under him.

  He stopped himself from falling, turning it into a stumble. He was trying to think, to get his leaden mind working, "Whoops," he said as he straightened up. "Had a little too much Christmas cheer, looks like. Emma.'' I haven't seen her. I know she's been in the hospital, but I didn't go; we had a fight, you know, lovers' fight, whatever, and I thought, better stay away. I sent her flowers, though; I hope she got them. She didn't call, so I guess she's really mad at me." He paused. "So, that's all," he added lamely. "I can't tell you anything about her."

  "We'd like you to come with us, Mr. Eiger."

  "What.^ Where.^ Oh. You mean—" He was sounding stupid, Brix thought. He couldn't afford to sound stupid. They wanted to take him to the police station for questioning. Maybe he should say no. If he didn't know anything about Emma, would he say no.'' Probably not; the smart thing was to cooperate. They were always easier on people who cooperated. "Sure," he said cheerfully. He looked at the badge on the policeman's uniform. "Janowski. Well, let's go meet your friend."

  "Sergeant Janowski," the policeman said in a neutral voice, and stood aside to follow Brix to the car.

  "Detective Fasching," Sergeant Janowski said to Brix, introducing the man in the driver's seat, who was not in uniform.

  "Detective," Brix said, trying to be friendly as he got into the backseat with the sergeant. "Like an Agatha Christie novel, isn't it.'' Well, I'll be glad to help you and your friend, but this can't take too long; I've got a date in half an hour." He had nowhere to go and nothing to do for the rest of the night, but his mind was working now and he figured he could handle these two guys without any trouble, but if he didn't give them a deadline, they'd never stop asking questions because that was how they got their kicks.

  In fact, he had rehearsed this meeting. The only difference was, when he'd practiced it the first few times, he'd been sure Emma would be dead. Now, from persistent phone calls, he knew she was alive and she'd be fine. Christ, he thought, she had the constitution of a horse; only two days since their dinner and

  already she was on her way to being fine. So he wasn't sure exactly how this would go, but he knew he was ready, and he knew he was smarter than a couple of cops off the street.

  In a small room at the police station. Detective Fasching sat on the corner of a metal desk and Sergeant Janowski leaned on a windowsill. In a corner, hidden by a folding screen, a young woman sat at a computer terminal. Brix sat between the two policemen; he had been nudged into a straight chair near the desk, and he turned his head as he talked to them, as if he were at a tennis match. "We need to know everything you can tell us about the night you had dinner with Miss Goddard at the Luberon Restaurant. That would be last Tuesday night."

  "Everything.'* That's kind of tough." They knew where he and Emma had had dinner. They'd been talking to people, looking for things. If they knew that much, why didn't they know she'd tried to commit suicide.^

  Because she'd told people she hadn't. And like a bunch of idiots, they believed her. An overemotional teenager, an empty bottle, despondency over a lovers' quarrel—they must have heard about that from the maitre d' and the clerk at the hotel—and still they believed her. Well, then, he had to try something else.

  He shook his head. "I can't tell you everything; it wouldn't be fair to Emma. She was upset and said things she wouldn't want repeated, you know, things that showed she was really out of control."

  "For instance," said Detective Fasching.

  "Look, I told you, she wouldn't want—"

  "But we want, Mr. Eiger, and it would be best if you just told us what happened and stopped telling us what Miss Goddard would or wouldn't like. What made you think she was out of control.'*"

  Brix shrugged. "Well, like, one minute she was telling me these crazy stories about how she used to talk to her dog, you know, have conversations with it, and then she started in on how she knows what men want and she's the only one who does, you know, like maybe the dog told her. It didn't make a lot of sense." He paused. "And then, a little later, she almost fought with the waiter when he tried to pull the table out for her, you know, when she wanted to go to the bathroom; she was shoving it, like it was

  in her way, but he was trsing to help her, except that she really couldn't control herself. She really ran to the bathroom, too; everybody was looking at her. In fact, when she got back, I told her to stop drinking because it would only make things worse, but she said I'd gone to all that trouble to plan the dinner and she was going to do it the way I'd planned it, the whole thing. I think she was trying, even
though we weren't getting along very well right then, she was trying to, you know, get me to say that everything was all right."

  "Why weren't you getting along very well right then.^"

  "Because she wanted to get married and I didn't. I mean, someday I probably will, but not now, and anyway, she's too young. I told her that; I guess I shouldn't have. It's not just her age, it's that she doesn't know anything. She's like a little kid, happy when things go her way and then having a tantrum when they don't. That's what she did at the restaurant: she had a tantrum and she ran out. She even left her coat, she was in such a hurry."

  "Was she sick when she left the restaurant.^"

  "Sick.'' Of course not; I told you: she ran out. She'd had too much to drink—I guess maybe I did, too, but it was supposed to be a Christmas dinner just for the two of us, so I ordered some really fine wines—anyway, she drank more than she should have, but she wasn't sick, just out of control, that's all."

  "What does that mean: 'out of control'.'"'

  "Just what it says. She couldn't control what she said—lots of really nasty things came out of that pretty little mouth—and I don't think she could control what she did, which is why I told her she should stop drinking. But it was like she didn't even know what she was drinking. Like she didn't have any idea what she was doing about anything. And I thought, she takes pills and if she doesn't know what she's doing, she could take too many of them. In fact, when she was in the bathroom, I looked in her purse so I could take her pills out and keep them for her until she was in better shape, but they weren't there."

  Brix stopped, pleased with himself, and waited for the next question. When it did not come immediately, he made a show of looking at his watch.

  "You didn't go with her when she left the restaurant.^" Sergeant Janowski asked.

  "Well, no, and I'm sorry about that. A gentleman shouldn't let a lady wander around New York alone. But, you know, like I said, she'd spouted some pretty nasty things at me and I wasn't feeling too mellow about her, so I let her go. I asked if she was all right, though, when I got to the hotel, and they told me she'd gone to her room. I thought she was sleeping it off, which was what she needed, so I went to my room and I didn't call her. Until the next morning, that is."

  "When was that.^" the sergeant asked.

  "Around seven. I thought we'd have breakfast and try to patch things up; we had to work together, after all; she was—she is— the model, you know, for one of the cosmetics lines we make in the company my father and I own. But the clerk told me she was gone, she was in the hospital; her mother had come to get her."

  The two men gazed at him in silence.

  "Of course I called the hospital," Brix said, conscious of the gaps in his story. "They said she was alive, but no one could see her. And then today they told me she'd be fine, so I guess my prayers were answered. And that's all I know. Cross my heart."

  He wished he could take back those last, flippant words, but they hung in the air, and the officers let the silence stretch out while they gazed steadily at him. "Miss Goddard had almost three milligrams of Halcion in her stomach," Detective Fasching said at last. "Do you know what Halcion is, Mr. Eiger.''"

  Brix nodded sadly. "Emma told me she took it; that's what I meant when I talked about the pills she took. It's a powerful drug and I told her so, but she said she needed it to sleep. I don't know how often she took it, but I always told her a glass of warm milk was better for her." He smiled, but neither of the policemen returned his smile. "Is three milligrams a lot.''" Brix asked, thinking he should have asked that first.

  "Enough to kill her if she hadn't been found as eady as she was. The bottle that was found by her bed—"

  "There was a bottle.''" Brix cried.

  The officer's mouth tightened in a quick flash of contempt. "The bottle was labeled for ten pills. There's no reason to assume she still had them all; she probably had taken some at other times, but even if she did, and even if she took them ail, they wouldn't add up to three milligrams. The only conclusion we can reach is

  that someone gave her enough additional Halcion to make it a fatal dose."

  Brix frowned. "I don't think she knows anyone in New York who would do that for her."

  "We have an idea that you did it for her, Mr. Eiger," said Sergeant Janowski casually.

  It took Brix a minute, but then he realized how perfect it was . . . and this idiot cop had just handed it to him. "Well, you're too smart for me," he said. "I guess you know what it is not to be able to turn a lady down." He smiled at them man to man. "I wouldn't have said anything if you hadn't brought it up, but Emma did ask me for more of that stuff—she was always asking, as if she was stockpiling it. Well, I mean, I didn't think that at the time, but now, looking back ..." Once again he shook his head sadly. "I should have watched out for her more; she really was—is—a child, those tantrums and everything ..."

  "So you provided her with Halcion," Sergeant Janowski said. "How much.?"

  "Oh, I don't know, over the last couple of months maybe ten, twenty pills."

  "What color were they.?"

  "What.?"

  "What color were they.?"

  "I didn't really look. Aren't all pills white.?"

  "And I seem to have missed something here. Where did you get them.?"

  "You mean . . . oh, well, a friend of mine gave them to me."

  "Without a prescription.?"

  "Well, yes, he knew he could trust me."

  "You told him they were for you.?"

  "Well, I . . ."

  "You said they were for you? You lied to him? You obtained a prescription drug by lying?''

  Brix wondered if there was a penalty for that. He was feeling dizzy; bubbles of Scotch were scooting through his brain, bursting on the edges of his thoughts, making them skitter away. "I didn't lie. I never lie. I told him they were for a friend."

  "I don't believe it," Detective Fasching said flatly. "Lenny, you believe this.?" he asked Sergeant Janowski. "No pharmacist

  would give drugs for somebody he's never met. Of course it's illegal either way, but even the ones who sometimes give drugs to friends, when they're caught they say they don't give them for third parties. No way they'd do that is what they say."

  "You're right; he's lying," Sergeant Janowski said. "Maybe he stole them,"

  "Oh, for Christ's sake," Brix burst out, "I told him they were for a friend and he didn't have to worry because there was no way she'd ever take too—"

  When he broke off his sentence, there was a long silence.

  Finally Detective Fasching sighed. "Because you knew she wasn't the kind who'd do that."

  "Well, I was wrong about her," Brix said a little wildly. "Women are hard to figure out; we all know that. And in a lot of ways she wasn't really honest, you know, she had her little games, little ways to pretend, to ... to seem like one person when, really, you know, she was . . . another ..."

  As Brix's voice ran down, Sergeant Janowski stood up and moved close to him, looking down at him. "What we think is, you didn't do a damn thing for Miss Goddard, Brix; we think you did it to her."

  Brix gave a little jump, hearing the officer use his first name. It frightened him; it changed everything in the room. He felt smaller, more at risk. They weren't treating him with respect anymore. Without thinking, he reached into his pocket for his coke, then, terrified, he yanked his hand out. But his fingers were twitching. God, I really need it, he thought.

  "Now, what we want you to tell us," Detective Fasching said, "is how you got Emma Goddard to take three milligrams of Hal-cion without knowing it. It's not likely that you could force her to swallow twelve or more pills at once, so what else could you do.'' You could have gone to that pharmacist friend—we'll get to his name a little later—and built up your own supply. And then you could have crushed them and dissolved them in something. In what, Brix.^"

  Brix was shaking his head; his dizziness was worse and he was having trouble thinking straight. "No," he said
, and hated the weak sound of it. He forced himself to speak more loudly and his voice came out like a bark. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "What did you dissolve the Halcion in? It doesn't dissolve well in water, so we probably can rule out the coffee, but it dissolves very well in alcohol. Which means the wine. Or the cognac."

  "No. This is stupid. You don't know what you're—"

  "The waiter saw you doing something with the cognac, you know. He told us about it."

  "He did not! He didn't see a goddamn thing!"

  "How do you know.-'" Detective Fasching said. He looked at Brix without expression, and Brix had no idea whether he was bluffing or not.

  "You're accusing me of murder!" Brix cried, finally putting it all together in his mind.

  "Attempted murder, Mr. Eiger, unless the young lady dies; then it would be murder. Of course you don't have to talk any more, without an attorney; you know that, don't you.^ Hold on." Sergeant Janowski took a small card from his pocket and read it aloud, rapidly and tonelessly. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, and to consult with an attorney before questioning ..."

  Brix heard the reading of his rights, all six of them, as if they came from far off. He was breathing in short bursts. Don't say anything. The waiter hadn't seen him doing anything with the cognac; how could he.^ There was no way . . . Don't say anything. They were bluffing. But they seemed to know so much. Halcion didn't dissolve in water.'' Brix hadn't known that. It dissolved well in alcohol.^ He hadn't known that either. But you re still smarter than they are; they're a couple of clods. Dont say anything.

  The silence went on and on. There was a roaring inside Brix's head, like the ocean surf, or an approaching storm. I'm afraid, Brix thought, and that scared him most of all: that these bozos could make him afraid. Somebody's got to help me, he thought. I'm all alone here. "I'm calling my father," he cried.

  Sergeant Janowski pushed the telephone across the desk so Brix could reach it. No one spoke. "Dad," Brix said when Quen-tin answered. He could hear sounds of a party in the background; women laughing, ice cubes in glasses, a man and woman singing a song from some Broadway musical. "Dad, you've got to help me! I'm at the police station in Westport. I'm all alone here and