The Poisoned Pen

by E. Joan Sims

  I started to thank Jake for saving my life but he didn’t give me a chance. He tore his pants and shirt from my body, and ripped my own clothes as he retrieved the money from my pockets and blouse.

  “You’re more trouble than you’re worth, Cousin,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought I would need you for the rest of the trip, but a worn-out, beat-up hostage is nothing but a drag. Sorry.”

  He took the gun out of his shirt and pointed it at my head. I didn’t even have time to scream before he pulled the trigger.

  “Damn! Damn! Damn!” he swore, as he tried over and over again to fire the water-logged gun.

  Terrified and shaken, I crawled away from him. He was too furious to even notice until I had almost reached the edge of the woods.

  “Come back,” he shouted. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Even if this damn thing doesn’t work.” He turned and threw the gun as far as he could in the direction of the river.

  “Thank you, boy,” said a voice from somewhere on the other side of the clearing. “That’s just the kind of stupid thing I was hoping a jackass like you would do.”

  “Who the hell is that?” yelled Jake. “That you, Baby? Daddy’s going to be mad if you brought somebody with you.”

  “Jake, darling! You must forgive me,” cried Bethlehem Davis as she rushed into the clearing. “I couldn’t help it. I’ve lost everything—my house, my car—everything but the clothes I’m wearing. I had to have some help. It’ll be all right, I swear, my darling. Oh, I’ve missed you so!”

  Beth would have thrown herself into his arms if Jake hadn’t held out his hand like a traffic cop and stopped her.

  “Who the hell are you talking about?” he demanded.

  Beth’s face was white and anxious in the bright beam of a flashlight.

  The man who held the light on her like a Broadway spot stepped out into the clearing. “Me,” he laughed, “just little old me.”

  “And who the hell are you?” insisted Jake.

  “It’s Mike, Michael Davidson,” explained Beth nervously. “You know, Mr. Wizard, the man from the newspaper who knows everything about everybody. ”

  I pulled myself up and leaned back against a tree, trying to gather my strength, hoping to make a break for it when I got a chance. The moonlight shone brightly on all the players on my little stage. I watched intently, fascinated, as they acted out their drama.

  Beth turned back and forth between Mike and her lover, her orange skirt—the same one she had worn to my interview—swirling like a cheerleader’s uniform with her movements.

  “Mike’s going to help us, Jake,” she explained. “He’s got a car, and some dry clothes, and….”

  “And a gun,” Mike interrupted with a snicker. “So if you don’t mind, Jacob, sit down on that wall and put your hands up!”

  Beth whirled on Mike, for once her words short and to the point.

  “What are you doing, you horrid little man? You promised to help me!”

  “And you promised to bring home the bacon, missy! You’re the one who screwed everything up. I had the perfect plan! All those idiots with skeletons in their closets that only I knew about—and those beautiful videotapes! We could have cleaned up if you hadn’t wasted all that time romancing this rotten little felon!”

  “But I love Jake!” shouted Beth. “And he’s innocent! A better lawyer….”

  “Any lawyer worth his salt would soon find out the same thing everybody in Rowan Springs knows but you—that Jacob Bradley got drunk and killed a man in a barroom brawl.”

  Beth turned back to Jake, her face streaked with tears.

  “But you told me it was your wife’s fault, right, Jake? She was flirting with that man—coming on to him. You were just defending your family’s honor.”

  “Yeah, like Jacob Bradley gives a damn about family honor! He stole money from his old man the whole time he was growing up, and he sent his mother to an early grave. The only useful thing he ever did in his whole life was to give you a reason to help me with my blackmail scheme. I deserved that money,” Mike whined. “Those rich wastrels looked down on me all their lives. To them I was nothing but the ink-stained little man who helped print the society page of the newspaper—the page that showed them enjoying the kind of life I’ve always wanted. And I could have had it all! With the kind of money they were coughing up I could have left this miserable little town and lived the rest of my days in comfort.”

  “But what about me and Jake?” cried Beth.

  “As soon as I get my hands on the money, you are going to join my dear little wife Gladys in the eternal celestial dirt nap. And as for Jacob, well, who would believe a thief and a murderer?”

  “You beast!” screamed Beth as she launched herself at Mike like an orange torpedo.

  Mike raised the gun slowly and deliberately, aiming over her head. One second after he pulled the trigger Jake slipped to the ground with a look of utter disbelief on his handsome face, his hands covering the dark red stain on his wet tee shirt. Mike grinned as the younger man fell to his knees, grunting in pain.

  “So much for true romance,” he laughed.

  Beth’s heartbroken screams ripped through the night. She turned back to Jake, still screaming as she ran to his side. In her haste, she tripped—an ungainly step, as unexpectedly awkward as a stumbling gymnast whose beauty and grace is stolen by the sudden encounter with a splinter on a balance beam or a wrinkle in the floor mat. She hit the low stone wall with enough momentum to force the air out of her body. That grunt turned into a startled cry as she realized she was going over the cliff. There was a bright flutter of orange—the flicker of a dying flame—as she fell end over end to the dark waters below.

  “Well, well, well,” said Mike with a wondering tone in his voice. “The gods must indeed be crazy. I really didn’t expect that little bit of good fortune.”

  He approached Jake’s body with caution, circled him once, and kicked him in the stomach to make sure he posed no further danger before he bent down to retrieve the money.

  I was numb with shock and exhaustion, but I knew I had to get away while his attention was elsewhere. I backed slowly out of the clearing and into the darkness of the surrounding forest.

  The blinding light from his flashlight found my face and stopped me as surely as a bullet.

  “Not so fast, lady,” he ordered. “Now I guess you know why they say curiosity killed the cat. You should have kept your nose out of other people’s business.”

  “Drop the gun, Davidson,” commanded a familiar voice from the darkness.

  “Who…who is that?” screeched Mike, as he flashed the light around the edge of the clearing. “Is this some kind of a joke?”

  “I could say, ‘the joke’s on you,’ but that is an unbelievably hackneyed phrase. I prefer to suggest that you are merely a greedy little scofflaw who is too careless and stupid to take even the most elemental of precautions. Or maybe it was arrogance that kept you from covering your tracks and thereby allowing me to follow you and your pitiful little protégé out here tonight.”

  “Horatio!”

  “Be still, Paisley, dear. Don’t come any closer, please. Mr. Davidson and I have some business to negotiate.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I strained my eyes trying to pierce the darkness, trying to discover where Horatio was hiding. One moment he seemed to be behind me, and the next he was ten feet to the side. Mike must have been just as confused. His voice went up an octave as he shouted out apprehensively, “Stop moving around! If you want to talk to me, dang it, then you’d better be still!”

  “Of course, I want to talk to you, but you’ll have to put the gun down before we can get serious,” explained Horatio, from the other side of the clearing. “Guns make me nervous. Don’t guns make you nervous, Michael?”

  Mike’s hand trembled as he held his weapon straight out from his body and turned in circles trying to aim in the direction of Horatio’s ever changing position.

 
“Stop! Stop it!” he cried, rubbing his bald, sweaty forehead. “You’re making me dizzy!”

  “Oh, dear,” offered Horatio politely, from a completely different spot, “I do apologize.”

  “Then, stop right now, or the little lady’s going to pay for it.”

  I was the one who let Horatio down. I didn’t see it coming. Mike lurched across the clearing and grabbed me before I knew what had happened. It was my startled cry that caused my dear friend to make his first mistake.

  “Let her go,” he said, stepping out of the protective cover of darkness. “Be a gentleman, and let the lady go.”

  Horatio looked lean and dangerous dressed in black. His white hair was covered by a black knit cap and his handsome face was smeared with camouflage grease paint. The tall, dignified, man about town who was my mother’s bridge partner had once again become the intrepid cloak-and-dagger operative of his youth. He leaned casually against a tall pine and stuck his hands in his pockets.

  I tried to turn, to pull myself away from Mike; but for the second time that night a gun barrel was shoved painfully against my ear and I was forced to endure the rough embrace of a desperate man.

  “Let her go,” repeated Horatio calmly. “She had nothing to do with this.”

  “The hell she didn’t,” spat Mike. “Bethlehem Davis was totally under my thumb until she met this bitch. Then she’s all, ‘oh, a real writer is going to read my manuscript!’” he mimicked cruelly. “Stupid little twit! I never realized she had written down all the dirt I told her about everybody in Rowan Springs until then. That’s why I had to get it back. It was the blueprint for my future. I was going to make a million bucks between that and the videos we had of certain people’s lunchtime quickies. That was all my idea, too,” he boasted. “I had her set the stage—buy all that sexy underwear and stuff, and I brought in the big fish who couldn’t refuse that kind of bait.”

  His laughter had a vicious edge. “Beth didn’t want to operate the camera. Stupid girl said it wasn’t romantic. Said it wouldn’t look good for her so-called writing career. I had to start filming at night and depend on those little audiocassettes. Made it harder to identify my, er, clients. Cut down on the profit.”

  I bit back a cry as he jabbed the gun into a tender spot on my temple.

  “So, don’t tell me this gal had nothing to do with making it all fall apart. And for that she deserves to die right here on the spot.”

  “Wait….” began Horatio.

  “I didn’t say I was going to do it,” interrupted Mike. “I’m not an idiot. I know she’s my ticket out of here—her and Jake’s money. At least I got that,” he muttered to himself. “So throw down your gun and starting climbing down that cliff to the river. Once you’re down there I’ll her go and make my escape.

  “Don’t go!” I cried involuntarily before Mike jabbed me in the stomach with his free hand.

  “Don’t worry, Paisley. I don’t believe him,” assured Horatio. “No, Michael, you must release Paisley before we negotiate any further.”

  “Then here!” screamed Mike. “Take her!”

  He shoved me to the ground and fired three times at Horatio. I raised my head and saw my friend close his eyes and stiffen in pain.

  “Horatio!’ I sobbed, then watched unbelievingly as fire blossomed from his pocket and a neat little black hole appeared in the middle of Mike’s bald pate. The man collapsed slowly, dying as he fell.

  I scrambled hastily across the clearing on all fours to Horatio’s side. I tried to brace him up against the tree, but his dead weight was too much for me.

  “Anna,” he whispered hoarsely. “Tell Anna…” and together we slid to the ground where my tears mingled in the dirt with his blood.

  I cried all night, that night. I cried softly as I knelt by Horatio’s side in the ambulance as it screamed through the darkness to Weiuca City and the Intensive Care Unit. And later I sobbed hysterically beneath the hot spray of the shower in the nurse’s lounge as I cleaned up. I sobbed with complete abandon as though the tears would wash away the horrible memory of what had happened. And, against my will, I cried again when I called Mother to tell her where I was and the terrible thing that had happened.

  By the time Mother and Cassie arrived it was almost dawn, and, thankfully, I was all cried out for their tears were just beginning.

  They let Mother in to see Horatio just before they took him to surgery. Don’t stay long the doctor said, I shouldn’t waste any time but you may not have another chance to say goodbye.

  Horatio was in surgery for hours. I finally persuaded Mother to get some rest after the surgeon came out at noon and said we couldn’t see him until that evening—if he lived until then.

  The hospital offered motel rooms across the street to visiting family members. My thoughtful daughter had gone ahead and found us a suite with two king-size beds and a kitchenette. When we arrived, she had hot cocoa and sandwiches waiting.

  I was still wearing the scrubs a considerate nurse had lent me after my shower. My own clothes were ruined—torn and covered with Horatio’s blood. After hugging Cassie almost hard enough to break her sweet bones, I gratefully slipped into my own pajamas and robe that she had brought along with some clean underwear, shirts and jeans.

  “My, this feels good,” I said with a grateful sigh as I lay back on the pillows. “Oh, my.” And the flood of tears started all over again.

  Cassie and I fell asleep hand in hand on the big bed.

  I don’t know if Mother slept at all. When I woke up, stiff and sore and barely able to walk, around six o’clock in the evening, she was still sitting in the rocking chair by the window—her own bed as neat and tidy as she looked.

  “Good evening, Mother,” I whispered, anxious not to awaken Cassie. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, dear,” she answered, her voice a soft monotone.

  “Eat anything?” I asked, as I hungrily eyed the unappetizing film over the cold cocoa and the hard crusts of the sandwich bread.

  “No, dear.”

  I stuck my finger in the cocoa and swirled it around, removing the chocolate scum before I raised it to my lips and drank it down. Pretending the hard crusts of the pimento cheese sandwich was toasted bread, I ate one and had started on another when I heard a quiet sob.

  “Muufther?” I asked with my mouth full.

  “What have I done, Paisley?” she cried, her voice full of the deep searing pain in her soul. “Oh, dear, God! What have I done?”

  Horatio’s heart stopped twice during the early hours of the evening. Only his valiant spirit and the skill of his doctors brought him around, but the surgeon warned us that he might not have much time. We should make the most of it, he cautioned, because Horatio did not have the strength left for another rally.

  Mother went in to see him first. Unable to tear my eyes away, I watched through a small slit in the blinds over the window to the ICU as she patted his sheets softly into place and smoothed the white hair back from his brow. Her touch was gentle and full of the love she had come so close—might still be close—to losing forever.

  “Horatio,” she whispered softly. “Horatio, my darling. You must get well. We have a wedding to attend.”

  He opened his tired eyes slowly and, too weak to speak, questioned her with a look.

  “No, dear,” she smiled. “Not Cassie, or Paisley, either. It’s ours—our wedding, dearest Horatio.”

  The corner of his mouth turned up slightly in the sad parody of a smile before he lost consciousness again.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  During the next two weeks, Horatio underwent two more operations. His doctors gave us little hope at first; but then, surprised by the miracle of his will to live, they fought as hard as he did to save his life.

  Mother never left his side. When Cassie and I went home to Meadowdale Farm, she rented a small efficiency apartment near the hospital so that she could spend every waking hour with her patient.

  Horatio was discharged from the hospital in
to a rehab center where, for two months, Mother worked diligently with the nurses and therapists to help Horatio regain his former strength and agility. It was a hard, back-breaking job and the nurses soon learned to love and respect the woman they all called ‘The Iron Maiden’ as much as her patient did.

  Cassie and Aggie I missed them. The big old house seemed bleak and empty without their presence. We found things to do: I finished the last draft of Leonard’s latest book, Cassie built a new web page for the coffee shop, and Aggie slept a lot, but we missed them.

  In early November, almost three months after that terrible night, Mother called with the happy news.

  “We’re ready to come home, dear! Isn’t that wonderful? I’ve convinced Horatio to occupy the summer suite, until the wedding that is.”

  I chuckled. I could almost see her blush.

  “So, if you don’t mind, maybe you and Cassie could get things….”

  “We’ve already done it Mother. We’ve aired out, cleaned up, and put on fresh new everything. Apollo watched the baby last Monday, and Mabel spent all day with me and Cassie. We went to the grocery and bought all of Horatio’s favorite things. And I made a wine run to Morgantown for that fancy Sherry he likes. Oh, and I even called Horatio’s houseman and asked him to pack a couple of bags. I’ll pick them up this afternoon. So, you can see, we’re all set.”

  “You’ve missed us,” she astutely observed.

  “A bunch!”

  The ride home exhausted Horatio. He sat in the library before a blazing fire for only thirty minutes before he begged our pardon and asked to be excused.

  Cassie and I stayed when Mother told us they would be fine. She had gotten used to tucking her invalid into bed. We sat and stared at the fire, neither one wanting to be the first to admit how weak and frail our friend looked.

  I broke the ice first. “Mother doesn’t seem to notice,” I added.

  “I guess that means he looked much worse before,” guessed Cassie.

  “I’m afraid you’re right, Toots. And I feel so guilty.” I looked away, unable to stop the tears.