The Poisoned Pen

by E. Joan Sims

  “Someone hit me on the head. I…I can’t remember anymore.”

  Against her feeble protests I felt around under Beth’s hair, but I failed to discover any bumps, or soggy, mushy places that I supposed might represent a fractured skull.

  “Everything seems okay, but I really think you should have someone check you out. If you don’t have a personal physician….”

  “I don’t want a doctor!”

  “Mom’s right, Miss Davis. And her doctor is just great.”

  “How many times do I have to repeat myself? I can’t really remember a bitching thing, but I’m sure from looking around at this filthy dump that I’m not rolling in dough. No quacks! And no cops! Now move you arses and help me up!”

  Cassie and I looked at each other in complete surprise. I spoke first. “Okay, who are you, and what have you done with Beth Davis?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to get across to youse dames. I don’t know nothin’ about this Davis broad, and I don’t remember who the hell I am. What’s it to ya? Now, help me up off this stinking, lousy floor, or beat it.”

  Cassie and I pulled the woman formerly known as Bethlehem Davis up off the floor so fast she almost fell forward. She brushed off her yellow skirt and turned to face us. “Got any booze in this fleabag?”

  “I’m calling the ambulance,” declared Cassie. “This is just way too bizarre.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly with my daughter, so we held Beth’s kicking and screaming body until the Rowan Springs EMS team arrived to take her off our hands. One injection of their magic juice in her derriere, and Beth Davis—or whoever she was—no longer presented a problem.

  “We can’t knock her out completely because she hit her head,” explained the ambulance driver. “That injection was just to calm her down. Can’t have ’em runnin’ amuck on the way to the hospital. Who’s her MD?”

  “I don’t know if she has one,” I told him. “Call Dr.Dhanvantari on your radio, if you don’t mind. Tell him Paisley Sterling needs a favor, and ask him to meet you at the hospital.”

  “Sure thing,” he shouted, as he backed rapidly out of the driveway.

  “Let’s snoop around a bit,” I suggested to Cassie with a wink and a leer.

  “Mom!”

  “I know, I know. It’s totally un-kosher; but we may not get another chance, and I’d like to see how our little friend—whoever she may be—lives. Besides, even though I think she must have been mistaken, she did say someone hit her over the head. We owe it to her to see if there are any signs of a break-in.”

  “I don’t know, Mom,” worried my proper daughter. “What if one of the neighbors comes over to find out what happened?”

  “We can say we getting some of her things together to take to the hospital. As a matter of fact, that’s a great idea! You look in her bedroom for some gowns and slippers and stuff like that, and I’ll look around the rest of the house for her toothbrush.”

  “Mom!”

  “And hurry!”

  Darkness had gobbled up the interior of the house, but I could still see some daylight through the wide slats of the old-fashioned Venetian blinds in the parlor. I pulled the musty draperies shut before I turned on the lights so I wouldn’t be observed from the outside.

  The room had a depressingly faded look. Colors that had once been bright and vibrant had turned to sad and sorry beiges, and dark dingy maroons. The rug, the overstuffed chair and sofa, and the ancient ottoman looked as if they were cut from the same mangy old cloth.

  Everywhere dust could gather it had done so, and with a vengeance. The soft, gray veneer of years of indifferent housekeeping covered every surface to further rob the room of color and life. I could tell with one glance that nothing in here had been disturbed for months. I moved on.

  The kitchen was cleaner, but still had the same forlorn air of disuse. I checked the back door, just in case, but found no signs of forced entry. Of course, I had practically fallen in the front door, so that proved nothing.

  The freezer was empty except for a half-eaten ice cream cake with a garish picture of Barbie and the salutation ‘Happy Birthday Zel….” Ten little plastic containers of cole slaw from the Dairy Queen sat alone on a shelf in the refrigerator below.

  The knotty pine kitchen cabinets had that sticky feel of old grease which accumulates after years of frying food on an un-vented stovetop. I gingerly opened each cabinet door, but found only a few cans of tuna and some moldering roach tablets.

  “Any luck?” asked Cassie from the doorway.

  “Nope. And I’m bored. Let’s go. This house is making me depressed.”

  “Maybe you’d like to see what I found.”

  “What?” I asked, my interest perking up.

  “Follow me, my pretty,” she cackled in her best crone’s voice.

  Beth Davis had apparently spent all of her decorating energy and a great deal of money on her bedroom. The place fairly glowed and shimmered with rich velvets and lush satins. Spindly, imitation French Provencal night tables decorated with hand-painted cherubs stood on each side of a large canopied bed. Purple satin curtains with golden tassels hung from the canopy frame, partially hiding the heavy crimson velvet bedspread and the multitude of satin throw pillows scattered in an air of calculated abandon.

  “My God! It looks like a bordello!”

  Cassie laughed. “How many bordellos have you been in, Mom?”

  I shook my head and grinned. “Well, it looks like one of Leonard Paisley’s favorite bordellos, anyway.”

  “And guess what I found,” she said proudly, as she pulled back one of the heavy velvet panels behind the bed and pointed to a shiny, new stainless steel wall safe. “Wonder what’s in there,” she said, pointedly. “Does Leonard know how to open a safe?”

  “Sure, but I don’t—at least not without the key, or combination, or whatever.”

  “Key—in this case,” she said. “That’s kind of old-fashioned, isn’t it?”

  I got close enough to examine the mirror surface of the safe more carefully. The slightly distorted reflection of my face stared back at me against the opulent background of red velvet and purple satin, but there was not even a fingerprint to mar the finish. “She must polish this damn thing every day!”

  “The whole room is like that,” Cassie told me. “Spic and span—not a spot of dust or dirt anywhere.”

  “Did you look under the bed?”

  Her eyes and her mouth opened wide in speculation as she dropped to her knees by the side of the bed. I raced around to the other side and was there to meet her gaze as we stared at each other from beneath the fringe of the bedspread.

  “See anything?” she asked.

  “Not even a dust bunny,” I admitted.

  The thick plush carpet felt good under my elbows, and I relaxed for a moment. “I’m tired, and hungry, Cassie. You were right the first time. Let’s go home.”

  “Party pooper! It’s just getting interesting.”

  “So is…Hey, what’s that?”

  Cassie had gotten up, but she quickly lay back down and pulled up her side of the heavy bedspread. “What?” she asked, poking her head under the bed frame.

  “That little black plastic thingie tucked up under the bed rail right above your head. If you reach up and stretch as far as you can over to the right you can get it. There! What is it?”

  Cassie grunted with the effort of bending like a pretzel, then crawled out from under the bed. “Looks like one of those little audio cassettes.”

  “Take it,” I said.

  “Mom! That’s stealing!”

  “Then give it to me, and I’ll take it.”

  “That would make me an accessory,” she protested.

  “Okay! Then leave it on the table so I can ‘find it’ and take it.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” She stuck the cassette in her jeans pocket. “There! Happy?”

  Chapter Nine

  When we heard a tentative knocking at the front door we knew Cassie
’s prediction had come true: one of Beth’s curious neighbors had come to inquire about her. Fortunately, Cassie had already gathered our invalid’s clothes in an overnight bag so it was easy to explain why we were still here.

  “I do hope dear little Beth is going to be all right,” moaned Maggie Lyons through a forest of crooked, tobacco-stained teeth. “She’s such a pleasant neighbor. Such a quiet little thing. I hardly know when she’s home.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be fine, ma’am,” said Cassie, reassuringly.

  “How’s that?” shouted the old woman. “You’ll have to speak up. Young people don’t have any manners these days. Just mumble, they do.”

  As we followed Maggie Lyons outside and locked the door behind us, I noticed that the old woman practically got whiplash trying to see the interior of the house. Maggie Lyons might be a neighbor, but I had a feeling there hadn’t been many chatty invitations to share a cup of Beth’s coffee. Maggie didn’t know how lucky she was. I wouldn’t want a cup of anything from that kitchen.

  When Cassie offered to drive to the hospital, I didn’t argue. I wanted to poke through the overnight bag to see what she had brought for Beth.

  “Feathers?”

  “I couldn’t find anything without them, or something equally as ridiculous. Believe it or not, that little number was the most conservative nightgown she had.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding?” I held up the filmy fuchsia nylon, then paused to blow a bit of errant ostrich plume off the end of my nose. “Wow! A feather bosom—and this was the most conservative gown?”

  “At least that one has a bosom.”

  “Oh.”

  We found our patient was sleeping peacefully in room two forty-one when we got to the Lakeland County Hospital. Cassie busied herself by putting Beth’s scanties away while I went to find the doctor.

  Saijad Dhanvantari was just winding up the dictation of a surgical procedure on another patient when I spotted him.

  “Ah, Paisley, little sister,” he said with a warm welcoming smile. “How very pleasant to see you.”

  “How’s it going, Saijad? Married life agreeing with you?”

  Indira Dhanvantari was not as fond of me as was her husband—even though I had been the catalyst that had put the ring on her finger. After having me as a patient, she had threatened to return to Calcutta and become one of Mother Theresa’s nuns—until Saijad promised to marry her instead.

  “Ah! My life is full of charm and beauty,” he said with a wry grin. “My lovely wife has made me happier than I have ever been before. I know because Indira herself reminds me of this very thing several times a day.”

  “Goodness, Saijad!” I laughed. “I’m really sorry I had to pull you away from so much wedded bliss.”

  “Do not be sorry, little sister. My beloved bride is a strict vegetarian, and the one thing I find myself missing above all others is a double bacon cheeseburger. This unexpected medical emergency will allow me to satisfy my fondest desire before I return to my happy home.” He looked up at me and solemnly winked one handsome dark-brown eye. “Do you, perhaps, have a Tic-Tac on your person? I wish to enjoy this double bacon cheeseburger with onions and pickles.”

  Saijad carefully tucked away the lint-covered breath mint Cassie fished out of her pocket before he checked his patient’s chart one last time.

  “Miss Bethlehem Davis is very okay, I think. I found nothing untoward in her physical examination, and the radiological series of her skull was negative.”

  “Then how come she acted so strangely when she woke up?” I insisted.

  “Ah!”

  My learned brother would say no more except that he would return to check on his patient in the morning.

  “What’s his hurry?” asked Cassie.

  “It’s a marital thing,” I answered cryptically.

  Cassie and I sat by Beth’s hospital bed and listened to her snore for a full ten minutes before I complained. “This is stupid!”

  “It’s the right thing to do,” explained Cassie patiently.

  “What? Sit here all night—bored to death?”

  “We’re just being kind and neighborly.”

  “Well, I’ve never been accused of being kind, and I’m definitely not Beth’s neighbor. Let one of those plaster gnomes, or that old witch who lives next door sit here and watch her breathe for the next eight hours. I’m going home.”

  Cassie’s sigh was deep and heavy with unspoken criticism as she got up to leave with me.

  “Okay! So I’m not only being unkind, I’m a first-class pig with no redeeming social value whatsoever.”

  “You said it, Mom.”

  “Double bacon cheeseburger?”

  “Good heavens! Isn’t one flirtation a week with death enough for you?”

  I followed her out of the room and down the hall as she spouted dire nutritional warnings and predictions of my early demise. I let her pontificate on my total lack of character and self-control until we were back in Watson and pulling out of the hospital parking lot.

  “So! All said and done—double bacon cheeseburger?”

  “Sure. Why not,” she grumbled. “Life won’t be nearly as much fun without you. I might as well go along for the ride.

  “Hooray! Let’s get takeout—and something for Gran and Aggie, too. We can eat on the back porch by candlelight. And by the way, Tootsie, that was one of the sweetest things you’ve ever said to me.”

  “Good grief!”

  Mother left a note saying that she was at the Country Club with Horatio, and Cassie refused to allow me seconds, so Aggie had an abundant surprise in her doggie bowl. She gobbled down everything but the pickles.

  I gazed longingly at the empty dog dish. “I would have loved those pickles. Maybe I could wash them off and….”

  “Mom! You’re impossible!” declared my concerned daughter. “That’s it! I’m putting you on a sprout and Tofu diet tomorrow.”

  “Then we might as well go back for a hot fudge sundae while we can,” I retorted with what I considered to be my most winning smile.

  Cassie through up her hands in disgust and stormed off to her room with Aggie trotting behind her—well, maybe not trotting, waddling is more like it.

  I waddled off to the Dairy Queen all by myself, but I never got my sundae. On impulse, I decided to check out the Davis’s homestead by moonlight when one of Watson’s tires went flat and I discovered that I had no spare.

  I sat on the curb hoping that someone would come along, but after about fifteen fruitless minutes I gave up. Ten o’clock was late for folks who were early to rise, and most people in this quiet, working class neighborhood had gone to bed.

  I left Watson sitting forlornly by the curbside and struck off on foot in the direction of Beth’s house. Maggie Lyons had the look of a night owl to me. I hoped that if she were still up watching the evening news, or maybe an old movie, she wouldn’t mind letting me inside to use the phone. I forgot about her being partially deaf.

  I banged on the front door until my hands ached, then finally gave up trying to make the old bat hear me and decided to try and get her attention another way. I squeezed through the prickly hedges underneath the high front windows, but I was too short to reach the sill.

  “Damn!” I swore softly.

  The hedge pulled at my hair and tore my shirt as I backed out into the yard. I was trying to brush off any hitch-hiking creepy crawlers when I tripped and fell over the lawn sprinkler and wound up sitting in a big, squishy mud puddle. I pounded the wet grass with my fists and heels, venting my mounting frustration by cursing loudly and energetically in Spanish.

  I was cold—cold and wet up to my earlobes. The night wasn’t getting any younger and I needed a telephone. Beth Davis had one in her ugly little kitchen. I decided to get to that phone if I had to break the door down.

  It took me three tries before I managed to slip and slide to my feet. My moccasins were full of water and my jeans were soaked and caked with mud by the time I stood precari
ously upright. I kicked off my shoes in disgust and slogged through the muddy yard to the gravel drive in my bare feet. Hopping and cursing as the sharp little rocks bit into my tender insteps, I danced across the driveway into Beth’s yard like a spastic marionette.

  Two gnomes and a concrete mushroom were in the path I chose to lead me to the back of the cottage. Quite predictably, I managed to stub my toes painfully on both gnomes and fall over the mushroom.

  I lay on the wet grass trying to control my temper when I heard a police siren howling around the corners of the quiet neighborhood. With enormous effort, I struggled to my feet and ran clumsily toward the shadowy protection of Beth’s house.

  I raced around to the back—stumbling over empty clay flowerpots and making so much noise that the intruder already inside the house heard me. I only got a glimpse through the kitchen window, but the dark-hooded figure with the burning eyes filled me with primitive, spine-tingling terror. Then whatever-it-was grabbed a skillet off the stove and used it to smash the ceiling light.

  I stopped dead in my tracks—paralyzed with fear—waiting helplessly for the creature to fly out of the kitchen window and attack me. It was a huge relief to hear the sounds of pounding footsteps behind me and a deep voice shouting, “You, there! Hands up! And no funny business!”

  Chapter Ten

  I surrendered eagerly to one of Rowan Spring’s finest by throwing myself into his beefy arms and screaming, “Save me! The monster!”

  “It’s okay, lady! Calm down, now. I don’t want to have to give you a taste of this little old cattle…Opps!”

  The shock from the Taser sent me thudding to the ground where I lay speechless and unable to move even the smallest muscle. The big cop dragged my muddy, barefoot carcass to his cruiser and propped me against the back door while he retrieved a sheet of blue plastic from the trunk. With practiced ease, he wrapped the sheet around my filthy body, dumped me in the back seat, and slammed the car door shut.

  I tried my best to move, but the powerful electric current had left me paralyzed. We were half way to the county jail before I could summon up the strength to spit the mud and dirt out of my mouth. I coughed and tried to swallow, but my tongue felt as thick as a medium-sized boa constrictor.