Pick Your Poison

by Leann Sweeney

  “So where’s your father?”

  “He . . . passed on,” I answered.

  Kline sighed, the release laden with fatigue. “Sorry to hear that. So how long did the victim work here? You know that much, right?”

  “Maybe three months?”

  The detective removed his pack of gum and folded another stick into his mouth. He tossed the balled-up wrapper into the wastebasket adjacent to the bar, and chewed for a second before continuing. “Tell me about today. I assume you spoke with the victim?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I know you went over this with the responding officer, but I’d like you to repeat everything you remember about today.”

  What I recalled most was Ben’s odd behavior this afternoon by the pool. He’d never approached me like that before. But I hadn’t mentioned this to the other policeman, maybe because Homicide wasn’t part of his job description and it had never crossed my mind that Ben died from anything but natural causes.

  But now, with this intense man whose rigid blue stare could knock a tank off course, the earlier conversation took on added significance. So after filling Kline in on my otherwise boring day, I said, “Out by the pool, Ben asked to talk to me about something, but wanted my sister present.”

  “What something?”

  I hesitated, and the room seemed so quiet I swore I could hear my hair growing. “I—I don’t know what something. He wouldn’t say.”

  “Repeat his words as best you recall.” He had his pen poised over the notebook, and his jaw was working the Big Red hard.

  But the details seemed to have left my brain like powdered sugar through a sifter. “I can’t remember. The feeling I got was that he was troubled.”

  Kline said, “Troubled? That’s it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And this was the first time he’d ever seemed troubled?”

  “Well . . . maybe I just didn’t notice before today.”

  Another huge sigh. “Yeah, okay. What about access to the property? Any recent history of strangers hanging around? Or break-ins? Anything unusual?”

  “No.”

  He wrote this down, as if somehow my complete lack of knowledge was worth saving for posterity. If Ben had been murdered, I couldn’t offer a clue to help find his killer. And unless I turned up information in Daddy’s files, I couldn’t help find his relatives, either. I was beginning to feel about as useful as an outhouse on a submarine.

  Someone knocked on the door—a welcome interruption.

  An officer stuck his head inside and said, “The other Rose woman is here. And this one’s lawyer.” He nodded my way, his expression looking as if he’d just picked something green out of his teeth.

  Kline flushed, his hard stare turned back on me. “You called a lawyer?”

  “I didn’t call a lawyer,” I snapped back. I could do surly, too.

  Kate squeezed past the policeman into the cabana and rushed over to me. “Thank God you’re all right! You are all right, Abby?”

  I nodded. “I’m fine.”

  She fixed a strand of humidity-damp chocolate-brown hair behind her ear. “When I saw those police cars, I—I didn’t know what to think. But the policewoman at the gate said it was Ben. She said he collapsed.”

  “He’s dead, Kate,” I said quietly.

  “Dead?” She looked at Kline and then at me. “Oh, my gosh! Did he fall? Get cut with the lawn mower? Bleed to death? And do this many police always respond to accidents?”

  Kline addressed Kate. “Ms. Rose? Can I ask you to step outside for one second?”

  “Why?” She looked down at me again. “Abby? What’s going on?”

  “No problem, just routine,” Kline answered for me, sounding a whole lot gentler than I would have thought him capable of.

  “What about the lawyer?” the cop at the door said. “You want him in here, Sergeant?”

  “It’s just Willis,” Kate said.

  “Oh. Willis,” I replied. “Please keep him outside.” How the heck had he found out about Ben? Had Kate called him? Or was this just one of his routine drivebys so he could offer to run my life?

  The uniformed officer took Kate by the elbow and they left.

  “If you didn’t phone the lawyer, what’s he doing here?” Kline asked.

  “He shows up unannounced on a regular basis. More friend of the family than attorney,” I said.

  “But you have a gate and a security system, right? I mean, that’s standard equipment in this neighborhood,” Kline said.

  “With all the rent-a-cops hanging around, I rarely activate the alarm,” I said, trying to slip this past him like it made perfect sense.

  “So no alarm, and the gate was unlocked today, is that right?”

  “Right.” This guy probably thought I was born dumb and went downhill from there.

  “One more question. Did you notice the burn on Mr. Garrison’s hand during your last conversation with him?”

  “The burn?”

  “A large burn on the side of his right hand, from his small finger down to the wrist.” He demonstrated the spot.

  “I never saw any burn.”

  His lips tightened and he started writing more notes in his book. “Thank you, Ms. Rose. I would appreciate it if you keep today’s conversation with the victim to yourself until I’ve had a chance to finish my interviews. That’s all.”

  “That’s all?”

  He didn’t look up. “You have something important to tell me, ma’am?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Then that’s all.”

  Maybe in his mind. But that wasn’t all. Not by a long shot. And you could write that on the wall in ink.

  2

  After I left the cabana, Kate and I exchanged a hug, and she went in for her little chat with the curdled detective. Meanwhile, Willis Hatch stood behind the crime-scene tape strung between the oaks lining the driveway. He waved for me to join him.

  The uniformed cop at the cabana door apparently noted my hesitation to acknowledge Willis’s presence, because he said, “Want me to get rid of him? I’d like to tell a lawyer where to go.”

  I sighed. “No, I’ll talk to him. Are we allowed in the house?”

  “Far as I know.”

  A short man with graying hair and glasses, Willis wasn’t looking too lawyerlike this afternoon. He wore a T-shirt, gym shorts, and tennis shoes. Must have come straight from the health club. Though in his sixties, he’s in better shape than I am.

  “What are you doing here?” I said, ducking under the tape.

  “I’m minding my business on the treadmill thirty minutes ago, and what do I see on the television above me? A news-chopper shot of your house, the lawn full of patrol cars. Your house, Abby. Does that answer your question?”

  Oh, yes. Question answered. I’d have to send a thank-you card to Channel Five. “Let’s go inside, Willis. The mosquitoes are preparing for their evening feast and I don’t want to be on the menu.”

  He followed me up the driveway and along the winding brick path to the front door, jabbering about the outrage of the police invading Daddy’s property and how Charlie wouldn’t have let them run rough-shod over the place if he were still alive.

  The policewoman previously stationed at the entrance earlier was gone, and we went inside.

  “Why didn’t you phone me right after you called the police?” Willis asked.

  “Because I didn’t need to call you.”

  I crossed the marble foyer—you could hold a political convention in the entry alone—and went into the study. Daddy had done all the household business in this room.

  The heavy forest-green drapes were drawn, and the small study—small by the standards of the rest of the castle—still smelled like Old Spice and cigars. Since his death, I’d come in here just to sit where Daddy had spent so much time. With his scent still so strong and his stacks of books, computer CDs, and disks piled in the barrister shelves, I could feel his presence, catch in my mind’s
eye a glimpse of his wide, free smile.

  Today, however, I went straight to the giant mahogany computer desk, plopped down in the red leather chair, and booted up the machine. I’d done this only one other time since his death. It had felt then like an invasion of his privacy, and today was no different.

  “What in God’s universe are you doing?” Willis said.

  “Helping the police locate Ben’s family, or at least I hope so.”

  “On Charlie’s computer?”

  I typed Daddy’s log-in password, and the icons on his desktop started to pop up.

  “At least he told you his password,” Willis said, pulling up an upholstered side chair. “I planned to ask you about that—see if you wanted me to clear out anything I have duplicated in my office files.”

  “He never told me the password. Took me the better part of an afternoon to figure it out. He’s challenging me even after he’s gone. So typical, huh, Willis?”

  His gaze glued to the screen, he said, “Indeed. But I still don’t understand how his computer will help you locate Ben’s family.”

  I explained about Ben’s lack of identification and said, “I’m hoping Daddy scanned in the job application showing a previous address.”

  “Knowing Charlie, I doubt if an application exists.”

  “Daddy may have been disorganized—I mean, look at those shelves.” I gestured at the far wall. “But you know how well he documented his business and his personal life.”

  “This is different. Charlie hired that man on impulse, and if he’d heeded my warnings about checking references before taking on these drifters, today’s horrible events might not have occurred.”

  “Ben? A drifter? He seemed like a pretty stable, commonsense guy to me.”

  Using the search feature on the start menu, I typed in Ben’s name. No files appeared in the window. When I replaced the entry with “employment applications,” plenty of document names appeared, but the most recent was dated more than a year ago. I then expanded the files on the C drive, but saw nothing that even looked like a file related to Ben, just household budgeting, tax files, and copies of programs Daddy created early in his career as a software developer.

  “Maybe you misjudged Mr. Garrison,” Willis said. “Likable doesn’t translate to upstanding citizen.”

  I turned to Willis. “Why are you so down on him? He’s been murdered, for God’s sake.”

  “Maybe my attitude isn’t related to Ben. Maybe I’m still angry with Charlie for dying on me. One of our last disagreements involved Ben—how Charlie gave him the job without consulting me. He usually always asked my advice.”

  I sat back, understanding now. I was still pissed off at Daddy myself for making such an abrupt exit. “So Daddy consulted you about more than CompuCan business, then?”

  I currently pretend to run CompuCan, the company Daddy left behind, seeing as how I’m the daughter with the computer science degree. But about five years ago Daddy phased out the software side, and now CompuCan vies for its share of the “you want it, we’ll build it” desktop-laptop business. Since it’s well managed by others with far more expertise in sales and marketing than I possess, I pretty much keep my distance.

  Willis said, “To answer your question, Charlie was my best friend first, my client second, and we talked about everything. But he hired Ben without my input, and now that choice seems to have landed you smack in the center of a scandal.”

  “Have you forgotten we have a victim at the center of this so-called scandal, Willis?”

  He hesitated, his cheeks infusing with color. “I-I guess I was sounding pretty callous. But my main concern is for you, Abby. If Ben was murdered, a killer sneaked onto your property while you were nearby.”

  “I-I never thought of that.” And this realization jolted me. But not because I was worried about myself. No, the fact that Ben might have angered someone so much that they wanted him dead was what really bothered me. And the killer probably walked right past my sleeping body to do him harm. I’d heard nothing, and I should have.

  “I’m going back to the club,” Willis said. “I dropped everything when I heard the news. Left my clothes in my locker. You need anything, you call me, understand?”

  “Sure,” I replied, distracted. Why hadn’t I heard anything this afternoon? Could I have saved Ben’s life if I hadn’t fallen asleep? Or if I’d locked the gate? Or turned on the alarm? And how could I live with myself if I could have prevented Ben’s death?

  Kate returned to the house about fifteen minutes later. She too couldn’t offer Sergeant Kline any information about Ben’s family. Together we searched the study for any documents Daddy might have saved concerning Ben, but came up with nothing. Within the hour we were back outside, watching them load Ben into the medical examiner’s van.

  The setting sun created an apricot-and-red backdrop to this macabre scene—perfect colors for what was a far more emotional moment than I would have imagined. Tears slid down my cheeks and onto the front of the tank top I’d changed into. A hardworking man had been murdered while I slept by my fancy pool alongside my lavish home in my ritzy neighborhood. And wasn’t I proud?

  The number of police on the property had dwindled to one: Sergeant Kline. He stood somberly by as the stretcher was hoisted into the van. Without acknowledging Kate’s or my presence, he then strode toward a white Crown Victoria.

  I caught up to him as he was about to pull off the lawn.

  He rolled down his window when I tapped on the glass.

  “You remember something about that conversation with the victim?” he asked.

  “No. Sorry. But I did check for the application we talked about.”

  “And?”

  “I couldn’t find one. But we own an old house in Galveston that Daddy used as a mini-warehouse for his document collection. He saved every scrap of paper he ever touched, so he could have stored—”

  “Thanks, Ms. Rose. Let me know what you turn up.” And with that, the window whirred back up.

  I stepped away from the car and he drove off.

  Sheesh, I thought, rejoining Kate. That man’s mother probably had to feed him with a slingshot.

  She and I walked back toward the house arm in arm, Kate’s head on my shoulder. Though I felt a powerful sadness at what had happened here, guilt grabbed at me the most. I knew nothing about a man who had lived right next to me for months. Nothing except his name. What were his dreams? Who had he shared them with? Where did he come from?

  I kept imagining his family somewhere, maybe watching TV or reading books or taking a walk, completely unaware they had lost someone they loved. And so, before I fell asleep that night, I promised myself I would find out if Ben had a wife . . . children . . . or even aging parents. And I would speak with his family, offer them my sympathy. As Daddy always said, conscience is like a baby. It has to go to sleep before you do.

  3

  The next morning I lay curled under the quilt with Diva asleep on my hip. She’s a calico with plenty of attitude, and my best friend, next to Kate.

  White morning light sneaked between the slats in the blinds, and the central air-conditioning hummed its reminder that this would be another scorching day in the Bayou City. But there would be no languishing by the pool. I was committed to tracking down Ben’s family.

  I stroked Diva’s back, then eased her off me. She settled into the quilt folds and closed her eyes while I sat on the edge of the bed and stretched, ready to head for the shower.

  The nightstand phone rang before I put a foot on the floor. I picked up.

  “Abby?” snapped a female voice I recognized as belonging to my aunt Caroline Lemoyne. She comes on about as gentle as a mouthful of spicy gumbo, and even though she’d uttered only a single word, I knew she was hot.

  “Hi, Aunt Caroline,” I replied, trying for nonchalant.

  “Tell me what happened. Every detail. And I especially would like to know why I had to read about this murder in the Chronicle.”

&n
bsp; “I didn’t have much chance to—”

  “Very unflattering picture of you and your sister, by the way. The newspaper used that awful shot from the Ackerman Charity Ball. The one with you in that red dress that makes you look so . . . plump.”

  Oh, brother. That “unflattering” picture in the hands of reporters? A true social emergency.

  “The Chronicle said it was a murder, then?” I said, focusing on the one interesting thing she’d managed to say. “Because the police wouldn’t confirm that yesterday.”

  “I’m not sure it’s confirmed even today. You know how vague newspaper reporters get when they don’t possess all the facts. And who died, may I ask? Because apparently his identity is being withheld.”

  “Remember the yardman, Ben Garrison?”

  “Oh. Him. Well, then this murder theory makes no sense. Gardeners work with poisons all the time. Do you have a rodent problem? Is that how this cyanide affair played out?”

  Cyanide? Yes! That’s what I’d smelled in the greenhouse. Almonds. “I didn’t even know about the cyanide. Did the article say anything else of interest?”

  “Are you saying a man dies violently on your property and you know nothing? And you don’t bother to call me?”

  “We were kind of overwhelmed by all the police searching the place, collecting evidence, asking questions. Then a slew of reporters hung around outside the gate even after the police left. You’ll be pleased to know we didn’t talk to them, by the way.”

  “At least you have some sense left, but you still should have contacted me. We may not be blood relatives, but I have cared for you all your life, and with Charlie gone, I’m the only person you girls have left in this world.”

  I bit my lip to keep from saying something I might regret. Would a day go by when she would not remind me that Kate and I were adopted?

  “You’re right,” I said. “I should have filled you in.”