Game, Set, Murder

by Judith Mehl

  She asked the detective if he’d interrogated Andrew Noble and admitted she found no signs of a motive in the man. Burrows remained noncommittal. This was still a police investigation after all, and Katharine a mere citizen.

  He gambled and asked her if she knew Cindy Wolfert. The name was unfamiliar to her but her ears pricked up. Cindy must be important if Burrows was asking about her. She couldn’t think of a way to hedge, so admitted openly that she’d never heard of her. At first Burrows wouldn’t reveal why he was asking, then finally admitted that the name was found on a slip of paper in Ambrose’s hotel room, which he kept during the tournament even though he stayed often with Lauri. This Wolfert must not be a local if the police didn’t have a lead on her. Kat wondered where she fit in the picture.

  Burrows quickly closed off the conversation with his routine reminder to stay out of trouble. She listened to his customary snort as she made her usual rejoinder, “I always do,” before hanging up.

  Kat immediately called Rita Mae. Hopefully, here was a task the woman could pursue without danger. She mentioned the police’s interest in Cindy Wolfert. Could Rita check the campus scuttlebutt, without revealing her source, and report back?

  Rita Mae was a marvel. By morning she had her information. According to Sue Ellen, who’d told Betty in utter confidence, Cindy was Ambrose’s newest fan, “if you know what I mean,” Rita Mae stuttered. “You know. A real close fan.” Kat could almost see her face turn red over the phone line.

  “Anyway, Cindy had a hotel room right next to him at the last tournament. She followed him here. Apparently didn’t need to bother with a room this time, according to Sue Ellen. I’m surprised the cops didn’t find her sleeping in his bed.”

  Kat thanked her for the information and pondered whether to call Detective Burrows immediately, or hold the information like money in the bank, for when she’d need some for trade?

  Chapter 20

  Loyalty is shown by a picture-perfect i-dot with no tail in any direction. Loyalty is a commitment to stand by those people or ideas that they consider worthy.”

  Handwriting University International

  “Kat, you really know how to call your killers!”

  Kat’s Giuseppe Zanotti ballet pump toppled from where it was dangling on her toes with a mild thump to the floor as she simultaneously dropped the phone. She scrambled for the phone first.

  “Dennis! What did you find?”

  “Your suspect’s computer is covered in guilty innuendoes. Too bad it’s not enough to nail her.”

  She recovered her shoe and her aplomb together as she straightened in her desk chair and concentrated on Dennis’s description of the incriminating information from Lauri’s computer. When he explained about the laurel poisoning research she jumped ecstatically. And rapidly hit despair a second later when he reminded her that to him and her, it shot Lauri to the top of the guilty list. To the police it was an entirely different matter. It would benefit their research if they could confirm the chemical formula of the tea.

  “So what do we have?”

  Dennis promised to provide her the printouts later that day, and made it clear she had to brush up on some math. “We’ve got her interest in buying grayanotoxin III. She checked into it through the on-line Sigma-Aldrich Chemical catalog. That’s where your math comes in. I’ll show you later.”

  He added, “We’ve got her interest in laurel poisoning stories, myths and legends, folklore and supposedly herbal fact. What we don’t have is any record of her buying the stuff. So we’re pretty much nowhere.”

  Kat rose from her chair and grabbed her raincoat as she asked, “Where are you? I’m on my way there.”

  The rush out in the middle of the workday didn’t surprise anyone. Kat worked long hours when needed. Those that heard might have been surprised at her excuse to her boss, Tom Edberg.

  “Tom, I’m suffering from a touch of grayanotoxin. I’m going to check it out.”

  The normally blustery man offered his sympathy and told her to take all the time she needed to recover, frowning slightly as he returned to his press release. She made a special effort not to laugh as she saw him wondering what in the heck was grayanotoxin? He probably figured it was one more female complaint he didn’t need to know about.

  Kat drew the rain hood over her hair as she walked across campus to Dennis’s office, taking careful steps to avoid ruining her new pumps in the puddles. Students sauntered through the drops as if they weren’t there but employees scurried around and struggled with umbrellas. She reviewed the computer information with Dennis and was especially intrigued with the details on laurel. She enjoyed the stories about the soldiers being defeated due to gorging on contaminated honey from laurel blossoms like the tale Glinna told her. Had Lauri found them amusing, or was she too far into her death search to care?

  Kat reminded Dennis that Lauri’s handwriting showed instability, but the handwriting was inconsistent. She always advised that one needed to see four or more traits to declare a person actively dishonest. They hadn’t seen enough in the sample they had to determine that.

  He said, “To buy the poison, grayanotoxin III, which is the new name for carbohydrate andromedotoxin, by the way, it would cost $341 per 5 mg. A lethal dose for mice is apparently eight-tenths of a milligram per kilogram.”

  Dennis put the papers back together and slipped them into her briefcase as they spoke. “Can you figure how much it would take to kill a man? And whether grayanotoxin really is the same as what you would get distilled from laurel?”

  Kat’s mind spun as she headed for the library. Even if their surmise was correct that Lauri was the killer, if she hadn’t bought the chemical, how did she manage to poison Ambrose?

  Beyond that, Kat wasn’t even sure Lauri had a motive. She obviously loved the man. Of course, Kat’s research so far proved that he bilked her out of much of her inheritance from the property to start a business that failed. She learned from Paul more details about the sale of the woman’s property. Though Ambrose wasn’t one to reveal his amorous business schemes to anyone, Paul had been curious about the other third of the up-front money. The man reluctantly admitted it was a loan from Lauri obtained from the sale of her property.

  Burrows confirmed that Lauri sold twenty acres of prime land to the university just a few years before. Kat didn’t need the final price to know that property values in the Poconos were skyrocketing then. New housing was at a standstill now, with the rest of the economy. But earlier there was high value per buildable acre.

  Kat wondered how she would feel if she’d sold off her inheritance for a man who later lost it all without a qualm. She remembered the grand opening of the tennis center and subsequent rumors as to its demise.

  Add that to Ed’s womanizing. Did someone on the edge like Lauri need more than that to poison him? To get the pain to stop? The humiliation? Had Lauri known about the other women? Burrows hadn’t said. She needed to ask some more questions.

  Not many students vied for space in the library on such a rain swept day. Since noon the temperature had dropped considerably, the ending tennis matches were postponed, and those on campus bustled directly to their destinations without meandering on the flower-lined walkways like they had just days before.

  Inside the chemistry section of the library it was warm enough, and well lit. Study carrols stood empty sentinels to the tireless research of days gone by. Now the scientific knowledge needed to complete papers was on line, with the latest information changing daily to impart the newest statistics and insightful findings. The bank of computers to the far right were almost all occupied.

  One tall, lanky fellow with a crew cut and cool green eyes was the lone exception. He had even been helpful when Kat, with her lack of formal chemical background, became mired in chemicalese. Before she could turn away in disgust he offered his assistance and aided her greatly. His scientific calculator punched out answers way beyond her elemental math capabilities, leading her in the needed direction. />
  Kat could hardly contain her laughter when he was claimed quietly by a blond female who artfully flung the rain from her hair as she leaned over and kissed him hello. So much for the lone wolf persona she’d been developing about him as they conversed. The rain-drenched female laid permanent claim and Kat mentally bowed defeat in a battle she had not been playing.

  Her eyes roamed the book spines for the ones most likely to impart the balance of what she needed. When Kat found only some of her information in the dusty tombs, she grabbed the last open computer terminal and discovered the rest.

  For a 180 pound man it would cost over $5,000 to buy a lethal dose. The cost was off-putting but not impossible.

  Other more serious problems developed over the complexity of the poison. The constituents—-the other compounds hanging off the carbon unit that are different—-include at least three compounds, according to her library research. If Lauri did buy the poison, it would be only one compound of the family. In that form it would be lethal, though not natural to have only one. From laurel bushes themselves you would have at least three of the compounds mixed. So an autopsy would reveal if it was from a chemical compound rather than a natural poison. If Lauri, or someone else, hoped to claim it was an accident, they would have researched that and not bought the grayanotoxin.

  Hours later she had only some of her answers, but they were painting an image of a vindictive person possibly gone amuck. Had anyone searched for a beehive in a clearing in the woods? Could Lauri have made honey cakes and fed them to her lover?

  Should Kat look for a beehive herself? Or was Lauri already too suspicious of her questioning?

  Remembering all of Nick’s warnings to stay on the safe side, not to mention Burrows’ constant reminders, she decided her first effort would be to convince Burrows to confide more about the tea. Was the liquid in the thermos a tea made from the natural substance laurel? Or something more chemical?

  The sun broke through the raindrops and started its downward swoop in a blaze of glory as Kat arrived home. Nick was fixing a chili that endangered the house. Her mouth watered when she tested a spoonful and she mentally reminded herself where the fire extinguishers were located.

  While Nick completed his concoction she finished her efforts to find the detective. Burrows couldn’t be reached and she’d tried all the locations she’d ferreted out in the past. The evening stretched ahead, but she exerted special effort to make it pleasant for Nick, especially when he’d troubled over such a fine dinner.

  Kat settled down with another glass of wine to listen to Nick’s tale of woe, or so he called it, despite the elation in his voice when he admitted they’d solved the carpet caper.

  “And this was so horrible because?”

  “How would you like to get caught in a roll of carpeting when you’re trying to apprehend a suspect and deliver her to the police?”

  Kat’s response was muffled and she attempted to keep it that way. She buried the laugh in a sneeze and another sip of wine. Nick was no fool. He began to laugh with her.

  But the story unfolded, literally, as he reported what happened.

  The morning began like any other in the sneaky spy profession as Nick and G.L. worked their way out of the stuffy carpeting, after once more discovering nothing untoward happening at Magic Carpets, Inc.

  Nick claimed the brainstorm to switch routine.

  They had Don Chaste pretend to let them out the front door as usual, while Shag settled in the back room for his morning’s session at the computer. As soon as Shag left for the customary bagel run, they slipped into some rolls of carpet near his office by the back door. “We hoped to hear him incriminate himself on the phone, or at least reveal some clues to help them proceed. At that point the investigation was at a standstill.”

  When Kat analyzed Susan’s handwriting, she barely got a sense about Shag’s character. Post-it notes lacked the space to develop a full analysis. A complete techie, he seldom hand wrote anything, so his protective instincts and misplaced loyalties went undiscovered. Nick reminded her of that now, as he finished his story.

  Shag regularly locked the back door when he left, a rule reconfirmed once the carpeting started its disappearance act. Before they wriggled into comfortable positions, the door opened and in slipped Susan. Nick could barely see her from his angle; G.L. was probably totally perplexed, his position revealing nothing but the sound of furtive movements.

  Nick realized his carpet roll was moving. He’d inadvertently slid into a roll that helped form the bottom layer of an inverted V stacked on a trolley. Susan was rolling the trolley quietly and stealthily out the back door. Or at least he assumed it was Susan, he could no longer see who was behind the cart.

  Don was way upstairs in the front office, awaiting his usual sesame seed bagel. Little did he know that his bagel money was sliding out the back door on a trolley. Nick debated the right time to move. Should he opt for surprise? Wouldn’t someone be startled at a person hopping out from a roll of carpeting? Or should he wait for G.L. to act?

  Did G.L. have any idea what was happening? Nick mentally pictured the location of G.L.’s carpeted home. Was he near enough to the door to have the advantage of incredulity on the suspect’s part? Not one to favor inaction when the offense was called for, Nick chose the moment when the trolley rolled over the raised doorsill to spring his attack. He made the mistake of trying to pull his gun as he wriggled from the fine Aurberson carpet roll, delaying him a few moments. G.L. heard the commotion and blithely sprung feet first out of his all-purpose tweed. He rammed the trolley, Susan attached, into the side of the van awaiting its prize. Though the van doors were open and Susan technically could have scrambled inside and escaped to the driver’s seat, she was so startled to see a man step from the roll she just stood there, entrapped by a trolley of carpeting and a man holding her at gunpoint.

  Shag returned a few moments later, saw Susan in danger, and raced to her rescue. Even he wasn’t naive enough to challenge a gun, however, so he merely encircled her shoulders with his arm and stood beside her, awaiting their joint destiny. Nick, meanwhile, had extracted himself from his cover and shouted for Don. They motioned Shag and Susan inside to confront Don as he tumbled clumsily down the stairs in his haste to respond to Nick’s call.

  Don followed last, sliding unbelieving looks repeatedly at the carpet trolley outside the door lodged next to the van emblazoned with Susan’s store logo. The story of anger and revenge unfolded, as Susan vented her venom against Don. It seeped out with each word, while Shag listened supportively, revealing his love for Susan with a comforting squeeze of her shoulder, a nod, and eyes burning with devotion.

  His motive was clear. Quickly, almost proud of his conniving, Shag explained how he provided Susan with the code so she could slip in the back door while he was out buying the day’s bagels. Before Shag left he always had the carpet rolls on a trolley ready to haul out the back door to the van. Susan had rigged a chain and pulley to catch the carpeting from the trolley and swing it into the van. The system allowed her to do it alone. She didn’t want Shag nearby, she explained.

  He bragged how it only took a few minutes on his end. He exhibited no remorse. Shag was smitten and he couldn’t see it. He praised Susan for her ingenuity.

  The plan worked because Don always struggled with the paperwork upstairs, which piled up excessively since Susan had left. He was not close enough to the back door to hear her enter and slide the trolley out.

  As the police arrived and escorted Shag out the door, he expounded on the raw deal he felt Susan had gotten from Don. Susan, suddenly realizing her predicament, went quietly with the police.

  As Nick completed his tale, G. L. arrived at their home with a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Crème and the celebration temporarily obliterated Kat’s concerns over Ambrose’s mysterious death and the lengths women go to when angered by a man.

  Chapter 21

  When the body of the writing and the signature are in accord, it is a sign of a
genuine, up front person, with an open, honest personality—someone like Kat, herself.

  “Handwriting: A Key to Personality” by Klara G. Roman

  The ball sliced across the net, slammed into the backcourt, and landed at a teenager’s feet in the third row. The crowd roared. Ted was back on course and the set pivoted from bleak to intense. Kat watched Maddy stride up the stairs between points, not realizing what role her arrival played in the numbers. She didn’t even know he’d seen her arrive, a peripheral sensing that provided his spurt of energy.

  She’d come to watch Ted but apologized to Kat between games. “I’m so sorry! I know we need to do more handwriting analysis but it’s been so difficult. The time Ted and I have in the evenings is precious.”

  Knowing how complicated it had been for Maddy lately, Kat nodded acceptance of her apology and continued making notes on the game.

  Kat watched the play, took more notes, and wondered fleetingly if the local paper would like to feature the love affairs behind the romantic game of tennis. Glancing at Maddy, she swiftly dropped the idea. Her agony was too apparent to use as a good public relations ploy. Friendship warranted privacy and trust.

  They agreed to find a few minutes to meet the next day as the tournament entered its climax. The “jinxed” competition, from paint splattered on the court to death in the woods, to upsets throughout, had survived. Kat was pleased, Maddy almost in tears, and the fans ecstatic. They’d come to be entertained. Despite it all, they had been.

  Kat studied the crowd, hoping to put a face to her qualms. Most seemed the same clean, crisp bunch you’d find at any tennis tournament, an upper-crust look engendered by spotless, well-fitting clothes, barbershop hair for the men, and salon styles for the women. It was an attitude, monumental in its preciseness, befitting the sport.

  Exceptions existed, and most of the students defied category. Nearby, a young, male student with matted ends of hair extending past the ridge of his NASCAR cap, and baggy, gray, fleece hanging ragged below the thighs in an attempt at cool, marred the otherwise pristine appearance of the bunch. As a whole, the fans didn’t fit with the image of vandalism and fear perpetuated by the early tournament events.