by Raven Snow
Rowen knew that probably wasn’t ideal. The Lainswich Police Department wasn’t very large. Best case scenario, they could have some reinforcements from Terricville brought in tomorrow. Rowen sat there patiently even though Margo nudged her to go get in line. “We’re going to wait,” she told her. “We need to talk to Ben about all of this.”
Margo pouted a bit, but in the end, she waited like she had been asked. It took quite some time. Margo dozed off, but Rowen listened in on everything that was going on. It didn’t sound like anyone had really seen much of anything. There were some older folks who felt like it was their duty to recount every detail of Rhonda falling over. They didn’t exactly have any new details that were helpful. A couple of old ladies mentioned that she had never been their favorite inmate. She was always a little greedy at these things. She would go in for seconds or thirds when they still had another influx of prisoners to feed. She could be frustrating, sure, but obviously they hadn’t wanted her to die. They felt bad now for being so snippy with her before, but how could you foresee these sorts of things?
Gradually, the number of witnesses dwindled. They all retrieved their cell phones and went their separate ways. Rowen had retrieved her own cell phone at this point and texted Rose, letting her know something was going on. This was the first thing Ben commented on when he finally approached her. “You couldn’t let it wait a minute?” he asked, holding up his own phone. On the screen, there was a stream of text messages from Rose asking all sorts of questions. “It’s hard enough to keep my private life separate from work with you tipping her off all the time like that.”
“Sorry. It seemed like my duty as a journalist and loving cousin.” Rowen stood, stepping away from where Margo was dozing in one of the plastic chairs. Ben joined her in the corner. “So, what’s the story here?”
Ben frowned at her. He didn’t give her a lecture about how it was improper to ask those sorts of questions of him. He just answered her question with another question. “What did you see?”
“Not much,” Rowen admitted. “I was sitting with Grammy. We were talking. Margo was there and then that woman just fell onto the floor all of a sudden. The guy who was there with her checked on her. He seemed real freaked out, as I can imagine I would be. The correctional officers took over after that. They kept everyone back, called in the medics, but… well… She was gone by then, I’m afraid.”
Ben nodded as if that lined up with the version of events he had to work with right now. “Well, if you remember anything that-”
“Was she poisoned?”
“What makes you say that?”
Rowen shrugged. “That’s sort of what it seems like, doesn’t it? Dead woman? Room full of food?”
“It could have been allergies,” said Ben, meaning he didn’t know yet either. “We still have to wait for an autopsy and toxicology. That sort of thing. We’re not ruling anything out, but I wouldn’t jump to conclusions either.”
“That would have been one heck of an allergy. Besides, it looked like they made special dishes for inmates with allergies. Did the correctional officers say Rhonda had allergies?”
Ben shook his head. “Not that they know of.” He took a step back from Rowen indicating that the conversation was over. “But you don’t need to know all of this. We’ll release information for the media as it becomes available.”
Rowen snorted. “You say that all impersonally like I’m not helping your girlfriend move this weekend.”
He gave her a stern look, but he did crack a smile. “Give Rose my best. I’ll see you later, Rowen.”
There wasn’t anything else to learn here. Rowen woke up her cousin and herded her toward the car. Margo sulked the whole ride home. “Well, that isn’t how I like to spend a day.”
“As bad as it was for you, I imagine it was worse for Rhonda.”
Margo shrugged like that was arguable. “I don’t get it, though. Something big like that. It seems like one of us would have seen it coming. Especially Grammy. She can sense stuff like that, you know? There’s not a whole lot that gets by her.”
Rowen hated to say that Margo had a point, but she did have a point. “Well, there’s a chance the death was unplanned. Maybe it really was a food allergy or something.”
“Still.” Margo didn’t seem convinced. “Seems like Grammy would have sensed it, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t think Grammy murdered Rhonda.”
“I’m not saying Grammy murdered anyone! Well… Except that guy she murdered that got her sent to prison. I guess she did murder him… All I’m saying is that it’s strange.”
“It is strange,” Rowen conceded. She would give her that, at least.
Chapter Four
The next day, the toxicology report came out, and the Lainswich Police released the information. It appeared that Rhonda Doolittle had, indeed, been poisoned. The Lainswich Inquirer had already written about their suspicions, and Channel 2 had been reporting for hours that poisoning was a known fact.
Rhonda Doolittle was forty-six at the time of her death. She was serving fifteen years for possession of drugs with intent to distribute. This was year eight for her. By all accounts, she had been a fairly well-behaved inmate. Everyone who worked at the prison said she didn’t act up much. Sometimes, she could have an attitude, but there weren’t many who didn’t in that place. As far as they knew, no one really carried a grudge against her. She was survived by her husband, Dylan Doolittle, who was more than a little upset. He was all up in arms, trying to make a big fuss. He’d been all over Channel 2 lately, demanding justice be done. Rowen didn’t blame him. To say that what had happened must have been upsetting for him seemed like an understatement.
“That poor man,” said Aunt Nadine, shaking her head at the television as she paused in front of it on her way to the front door. She was carrying a box labeled, “Shoes.” They were all carrying something or another. Today was moving day. To save money, they had condensed moving both Rose and Willow out to one day. That way, they only had to rent a truck once. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. In practice, it was proving to be a whole lot of work.
The news being on was certainly slowing them down. It was the talk of the family right now. They all wanted to visit Grammy, but there was a ban on visitations while the police got all the questioning and such sorted out. “Losing a part of your family so suddenly.” Aunt Nadine shook her head, like what had happened to Dylan was just too sad for her to fully process.
“I know what that’s like,” Aunt Lydia said with a sad sigh, no doubt referring to Rose’s decision to move out.
Rowen rolled her eyes. Aunt Nadine actually reached into the box she was carrying and threw a sandal at her sister. “Have a little decorum,” she chided, continuing on to the truck.
“Any news?” asked Rowen when they got outside, handing the box up to Ben. He was in the truck with Eric, trying to sort out how to tie down a bed frame in the thing. He seemed to be having some trouble negotiating for room. They hadn’t sprung for one of the big trucks. It was just two women still living out of their childhood bedrooms. How much stuff could they have? A lot, as it turned out.
“News?” Ben repeated, taking the box of books from her. He frowned when he caught what she was getting at. “Come on, Rowen. Can’t I just take the day off?” He motioned to his jeans and plain black t-shirt, indicating that he was very clearly off duty at the moment. “I don’t get a lot of down time, and what down time I do get is being spent doing… this. Let me take a day off work, at least.”
“She’s just worried about her grandmother,” said Nadine, bringing the box of shoes up to the truck next. “We all are.”
“She’s trapped in that prison with a murderer. Why shouldn’t we be worried?” Aunt Lydia grumbled, loading up her own box plus the errant sandal.
“Well, your mother is a murderer,” Ben pointed out. “And I don’t doubt she spends a lot of her free time now with other murderers.”
Eric cleared his throat,
nudging Ben in the arm on his way past him to secure the other end of the bed frame. Eric was great with the Greensmiths. The family liked Ben, but he didn’t make it easy for them.
“What I mean is she’s safe,” Ben said quickly, grimacing slightly at his previous choice of words. “She should be fine.”
“Rhonda wasn’t fine,” Lydia pointed out. If anyone was going to be difficult about this today, it was her. With her daughter moving out, she was in one of her oh-so-dramatic moods. “How do we know this murderer won’t strike again?”
Ben frowned and looked at Rowen. He probably wanted her to help him out here, but she just shrugged. She was also worried. She couldn’t help it. The same idea had occurred to her. “We don’t know that the person who poisoned Rhonda is inside the prison,” he said with a sigh. “That lunch the church put together for the inmates was a big security risk. They let it happen because it’s a low security prison, and they let family bring inmates food during visitation anyway. There was ample opportunity for someone to poison that food.”
Aunt Nadine’s eyes widened. “So, you think it was someone who went to that church.”
“I didn’t say that,” Ben said, quickly.
The same idea had already occurred to Rowen. “Come on, guys.” She turned to face her aunts. “We need to keep moving if we’re going to get this finished before dark.”
They needed more answers, but Lydia and Nadine turned and headed toward the house anyway. “Thanks,” said Ben, but Rowen hadn’t done it for him exactly. She wasn’t heeding her own advice. She didn’t care if this got done before dark. She was much more interested in the murder.
“So, I was thinking-” she began.
“Of course you were,” said Ben, heaving a sigh.
“No, seriously.” Rowen moved closer to the truck and motioned for him to lean down to her level so that she could speak quietly. He did. “That food that was set aside. The one that was made special for someone with allergies? Someone warned me away from it. They told me it was for someone else. Do you think whoever made that was waiting for Rhonda? I mean, maybe it wasn’t for allergies at all. Maybe it was poisoned, and they were waiting to give it to Rhonda specifically.”
Ben no longer looked annoyed. “Do you remember what the food item was?”
Rowen shook her head. “It was in aluminum foil. I didn’t get a good look at it, but it was on the dessert table. So, it was a dessert, I guess.”
Toxicology had no doubt tested the food on Rhonda’s plate by now. They had to know what the poisoned food had been. The way Ben raised his eyebrows, she was sure of that. “Do you remember who warned you away from it?”
Rowen thought back. She remembered the face of an older woman, but there had been a lot of older women there. Rowen shook her head. “I don’t think so. But you have footage of the whole thing, right? There were cameras. If you showed me the footage, I could probably point her out to you.”
Ben considered that for a moment and nodded. “Okay. I’ll give the reverend a call. It’s not going to do us any good if you identify and still can’t name her. Are you free tonight?”
“Ben, we’re sort of busy with this,” she pointed out.
“Rowen, this is an important case.” Ben didn’t look like he was joking about this. Rowen wasn’t sure he knew how to joke.
“Fine.” She gave up. “If you can get the reverend to come on such short notice, I’ll be there. Who needs to rest anyway, right?” She headed back into the house to get another load of boxes. Her plan to get information out of Ben had more or less just backfired on her, it seemed.
The move went about as smoothly as could be expected once everything was boxed up. Willow came first. She was moving in with Benji, and Benji lived in a seedy little apartment complex in the middle of town. Aunt Nadine immediately began to fret over the place. She began to hound Willow with questions that came a little too late. Was she sure she wanted to live here? Did she just want her own room away from Peony? They could get her her own room. Willow mostly just ignored her, too busy calling Benji.
Benji came down the stairs, looking thrilled to see Willow. He was a small, sort of mousy guy, but Rowen found that kind of endearing about him. She liked the way he launched himself into a hug with her. The smile on her face when she hugged him back certainly looked genuine.
Honestly, Rowen was surprised the relationship had lasted this long and come this far. Willow had a tendency to use guys and toss them aside. She had never really shown an interest in carrying on a long-term relationship. Benji seemed to be a good, balancing sort of force for her. Even Aunt Nadine relaxed a bit upon seeing them together. “They do look like a good pair, don’t they?” she whispered to Rowen.
“They do,” Rowen agreed. “I know this happened fast, but there are worse guys she could have moved in with.”
“I just wish Peony wasn’t so angry at her about all of this,” muttered Nadine. “It’s bad enough she’s leaving so suddenly. It’s worse having Peony at home sulking all the time. Those two never fight. I can’t stand seeing them like this.”
“They’ll make up,” Rowen assured her. “They’ve argued before. They’ve always made up in the past, and they’ll make up again.” She gave her aunt a pat on the shoulder and headed for the truck to start unloading so they could move on to Rose’s house. Rowen fell up short when she heard raised voices. It sounded like Margo and David.
“Don’t say anything,” snapped Margo. “Just give it a few more days.”
“I’ve gone too long without saying anything already,” David said with the weary tone of voice that implied that they had this conversation before.
“But-” Margo began.
“Don’t be like that. Come on. Take a box.”
Rowen waited until she heard someone hop down from the truck before continuing on. She smiled at David as she passed him, trying to seem as if she hadn’t heard anything at all. She noted the appraising sort of look David gave her. In the end, he smiled back and continued on toward the apartment stairs with his box.
Margo was still standing in the truck. She had a box of her own in her arms, but she looked distracted. There was a frown on her face that was difficult to read. She didn’t even look up when Rowen approached.
“Okay,” said Rowen, making her jump. “What’s going on with you?”
“Huh?” Margo looked down at her cousin, an eyebrow raised. Rowen noted that she had gone to the trouble to fill it in. Who wore a full face of makeup when they were helping someone move? Seriously?
“You’ve been acting weird ever since you showed up,” Rowen said, plainly. “Which is also weird. Just showing up. Who does that? Not you. You usually let the whole world know you’re coming. You would have wanted Aunt Lydia to go to the trouble of baking a cake or something.”
“It was a last-minute decision,” Margo said, which Rowen believed. The real question here was why had it been a last-minute decision? “I don’t need anyone to make a fuss over me. I just wanted to see you guys.”
“What were you arguing with David about?” Rowen wasn’t finished pressing her for answers. She stepped up onto the metal ramp as Margo tried to come down it with her box.
“So, you’re eavesdropping on people now? What? This gonna show up in the Lainswich Inquirer?”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“That was a private conversation. It’s none of your business.” Margo tried to shoulder past her cousin, but Rowen stood firm.
“Look, if there’s something wrong-” Rowen didn’t have a chance to finish that thought. Benji and Willow had finished their hugging and had come to the truck for boxes. They had stopped short when they came upon Margo and Rowen arguing. “Um.” Benji cleared his throat, looking very uncertain.
“Family drama.” Willow waved a hand in a dismissive way, like he should just ignore it. “Come on, guys. We still have to move Rose after this. Save it for later, okay?”
Margo gave her cousin a meaningful look. “Do you mind?”
Reluctantly, Rowen got out of her way. This wasn’t over yet. She had a feeling Margo knew that, too. Now obviously wasn’t the time to push things, though. Instead, Rowen grabbed herself a box.
Benji’s apartment wasn’t on the ground floor, so it was a real pain to get everything upstairs into it. The fact that it was a one-room apartment did not do Aunt Nadine’s nerves any favors. It also didn’t help that Benji kept distracting the family with more talk of the murder at the prison. He’d moved up from intern to camera man recently at Channel 2 and all his assignments had been getting more and more B roll footage of that prison and the Sunshine Valley church, he said. “I used to go there when I was a kid. Everyone always seemed so nice… except the reverend. Do you think he was the murderer?”
“Why do you think the reverend did it?” asked Ben, not sounding terribly optimistic that the response would be a useful one.
“I dunno.” Benji shrugged. “He just seemed mean.”
Willow nodded, backing up her boyfriend on this one. “Well, most murderers are mean.”
“Your grandma seems nice, though,” Benji added, quickly. “I mean, she seems like a very… nice… murderer.”
Eric leaned down to whisper to Rowen, making an obvious effort not to laugh. “I hope these guys marry into the family. I’ll be the favorite son-in-law for sure.”
Aside from unfounded guesses at who the murderer might be, Benji did have some inside information on how Channel 2 was dealing with all of this. “Mr. Hawthorne can’t really spare a whole lot of time. He’s really busy with that whole divorce thing.” At this, Benji glanced at Rowen and Eric. Their investigative service had been the one that had been hired to find proof that Mr. Hawthorne was cheating on his wife, after all. “But Julia has really stepped up. I mean, she’s still sort of in trouble at the station a little bit, but she knows news, and she’s really good at her job.”
