2 Lowcountry Bombshell

by Susan M. Boyer

  “Dear girl, I do wish you’d let Warren write you a prescription for something to help you sleep. It’s important that you get proper rest,” said Dr. Gadsden.

  “I appreciate your concern. I’ll have some herbal tea. It really does help. You know why I can’t take pills,” said Calista.

  The doctor sighed. “Calista, we have got to work more on this obsession of yours. It is causing you to make inappropriate choices that can be harmful to you. Try to get some rest. I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

  “Good night,” Calista said.

  “Oh,” said Dr. Gadsden, “I need to move our Monday appointment to ten o’clock.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll let Elenore know to expect you.”

  “Good night, my dear.” The doctor hung up.

  Something about him made my skin itch. I’d never seen a therapist, but it was hard for me to imagine it was commonplace for them to call patients on the weekend absent some crisis.

  Blake scowled at me. “Are you listening in on someone’s phone conversation?”

  I closed the app. “Not anymore.”

  “That’s illegal, you know,” Blake said.

  “Not if she gives me her phone and I tell her what I’m installing. She’s my client. I’m looking after her best interests.” I wondered if that’s what the good doctor was doing. “Did you get any fingerprints off that shopping list?”

  Blake sighed loud and long. He shook his head. “None except Calista’s and Elenore’s. We printed them for elimination.”

  “Did you run Elenore’s prints?” I asked.

  “Why would I do that?” Blake asked.

  “I don’t know. She’s just odd. She has a murky background. I didn’t find anything incriminating—nothing I didn’t already know—when I profiled her, but there are still some holes I can’t fill,” I said.

  The waitress appeared with our shrimp and oysters.

  I pulled out my hand sanitizer and slathered some on. I offered it around and got three sets of exasperated looks. “Fine. One of us has to stay healthy.”

  The waitress left and, while we served ourselves, Blake took the opportunity to lecture me. “If I ran the fingerprints of every odd person on Stella Maris, all I’d get done is running prints.”

  I tilted my head at him. “I know full well you don’t do that yourself. You could have someone do it.”

  “Would you like me to get DNA samples as well?” Blake asked.

  “That’s a great idea. Why don’t you swab Elenore, Niles, that therapist, Calista’s crazy family—”

  Nate said, “Slugger, your food’s getting cold.”

  I gave him and Blake both a look of disapproval. Then I dipped an oyster in cocktail sauce and popped it in my mouth. I hadn’t even finished chewing when my phone trumpeted again. I glanced at the screen. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

  “What now?” Nate asked.

  “It’s just the yoga instructor checking in with her again.”

  “She still at home?” Nate asked.

  I pulled up the GPS screen. “Yep.”

  “Since you’re checking locations anyway—just dotting i’s—where’s Jim Davis?” Nate asked.

  “Nate, he’s harmless,” I said.

  Nate shrugged. “What’s Harmless’s current location?”

  I tapped the screen a few times and pulled up the GPS tracker we had on Jim Davis’s car. “Sonavabitch.”

  “What?” Nate and Blake spoke at once.

  Sonny had a mouthful of shellfish. He gave me an inquiring look.

  “He’s at Calista’s house,” I said. “Probably parked out front just mooning over her.”

  “If he really is harmless, that may not be a bad thing. Another set of eyes,” Blake said. “Do you want me to have Rodney run him off?”

  I pondered that for a moment. Rodney was one of Blake’s patrol officers. “No. Have Rodney drive by just to make sure he is parked across the street and not in her driveway. Nate and I will go by and speak to him on the way home.”

  Blake made the call. We polished off the food and said our goodnights.

  At eleven forty-five, I pulled the van to a stop under a live oak in front of Jim’s car. He was right where I thought he’d be. “Poor guy,” I said. “He’s pined after this woman a long time, and she’s never going to want him again. You have to feel sorry for him, even if he is kinda stalking her.”

  Nate reached for the door handle.

  I put my hand on his arm. “Let me talk to him. He needs a gentle touch right now.”

  Nate rolled the window down. “Holler if you need me.”

  I got out and walked towards the car. It was pitch black under that oak tree. Shadows danced around in the breeze. I approached the driver’s side window. Jim was leaning against the door. Must have fallen asleep. I reached out to knock on the glass.

  My hand stopped inches away. Blood covered the window and windshield. I stumbled backward.

  Nate came out of the van. “What’s wrong?”

  “He’s been shot.”

  A siren blasted from Calista’s house. The alarm had been triggered.

  I bolted towards the house. There was nothing we could do for Jim Davis. Nate’s legs were longer. He got there first. He took the right side steps two at a time. I went round the left. Nate waited at the door. We drew our weapons. I tried the door. Locked.

  “Calista!” I pounded on the door.

  No response. I ran around the porch to her room. Nate followed. The blackout shades were drawn. I knocked on the glass. The siren continued to wail. By design, the house was impenetrable without codes and keys. There would be no picking locks and no knocking down these doors. Where the hell was Elenore? I ran around to the pool house calling to her over the shriek of the alarm. I pounded on the glass doors.

  “Checking the other side of the porch,” Nate said.

  “Got it. Elenore!” I put my face to the glass. Movement inside.

  Long seconds later, Elenore unlocked the door and slid it open. She was in pajamas and a robe, and appeared groggy. “What is the meaning of all this noise, Ms. Talbot?”

  I gaped at her. Could she not hear the alarm? Was she holding me responsible for it? “The alarm’s been set off. I can’t get inside to check on Calista. Let me in—now.”

  She glared at me with open hostility. “One moment.” She stepped away and came back a few seconds later with a set of keys. Unbelievably slowly, she weaved towards the house. Was she drunk?

  I was hopping mad, and ready to snatch those keys away from her. It took her three excruciatingly clumsy tries to get the key in the lock. Finally, she opened the door to the great room and slid it open.

  “Can you put in the code and kill that noise?” I shouted and didn’t look back.

  “Calista!” I ran towards her room.

  In a pile of covers and pillows, she laid very still.

  Thankfully, the siren stopped.

  I ran to the bed. “Calista.” I placed two fingers on her neck. Her pulse was strong. But she wasn’t moving.

  Nate came into the room. “I had to punch in the code for the housekeeper. She’s snockered. What have we got?”

  “She’s alive, but not responsive. Call 911.”

  “Already done.”

  “Dammit, someone should have already been here in response to the alarm. Get me some water.”

  I sat on the bed and raised Calista’s head. She was limp.

  “I didn’t hear a thing until you knocked on my door.” Elenore appeared a few feet away.

  “How is that possible?” I asked. “That screeching would’ve woke the dead.”

  She looked very unsteady on her feet. “I don’t feel very well,” she said. Then her knees buckled.

&
nbsp; Nate set the water on the bedside table and caught Elenore just before she hit the floor. He eased her into a chair. “They’ve both been drugged. Whatever it was, Calista got more of it.”

  I patted Calista’s face and wrists. I wet a corner of the sheet and dabbed at her face. Her eyes fluttered.

  I shook her gently. “Calista, wake up.”

  She didn’t rouse further.

  “Did you see anyone—anything?” I asked Nate.

  He shook his head grimly. “Nothing.”

  “Did you unlock the front door?”

  “Yes. I’ll see—”

  Voices and the sound of fast moving feet announced the EMTs.

  “In here,” Nate called.

  Two EMT’s, Blake, and Rodney Murphy came spilling into the room.

  I moved to let the EMTs take care of Calista. “She’s been drugged. Mrs. Harper, too.”

  One of the EMTs went to check Elenore.

  “Liz, brief me,” Blake said.

  I motioned towards the great room with my head. Blake, Nate, Rodney and I moved out of the bedroom.

  “Jim Davis has been shot in his car out front,” I said.

  “Rodney, check it out,” Blake said. He tapped a few buttons on his cellphone. “Coop. Wake up Sam and call Warren Harper. We’ve got a body in a late model Camry in front of the McQueen place.”

  “Did you get a call from the security company?” I asked Blake.

  “No. Just the 911 call from Nate.”

  “I knew it,” I said. “The audible alarm was going crazy. The monitoring service should’ve been alerted and called you immediately. In theory, one of their teams should show up here any minute. Someone inside that office is tampering with her system.”

  The EMTs rolled Calista out on a gurney. “We’ll be right back for Mrs. Harper,” one of them said.

  “Where are you taking them?” I asked.

  “East Cooper Medical Center.”

  I looked at Nate. “I’ll go with Calista. You want to stay here in case Blake needs anything from us?”

  Blake started to say something, then looked at Nate and shut up.

  Love or something like it, fear, and frustration battled on Nate’s face. Resigned, he nodded. “Watch your back.”

  “You do the same,” I said. I wasn’t any happier separating than he was. We were both safer together. I darted out of the room and headed for the van.

  “Wait just a damn—” Blake hollered after me, then laid into Nate. “What the hell are you thinking? I depended on you to keep her here. She’s got no business whatsoever running around by herself—”

  Something else must have demanded Blake’s attention. He had a crime scene to process.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I hate hospitals. I’m afraid to breathe in them. People catch things in hospitals, sometimes worse things than what they came in with. I tried not to touch anything in the ER waiting room at East Cooper Medical. After what seemed like days, a nurse came out and told me Calista and Elenore were being admitted for observation. She gave me a room number for Calista and told me I could wait there—she’d be brought up shortly. I punched the elevator button with my elbow and held my breath for the ride.

  I found the room and perched on the edge of a chair. Eventually, two nurse’s aides rolled Calista in and moved her to the bed. She was so still.

  “When can I speak to a doctor?” I asked, wondering when someone was going to ask me who exactly I was. I’d known going in that sooner or later I’d have to lie and say I was family. I had zero time to discuss HIPPA regulations.

  One of the aides smiled. “Someone will be in shortly.”

  Shortly turned out to be forty-five minutes. An Asian woman, whose nametag read Dr. Sharma, came into the room. “Hello, you are with Ms. McQueen?”

  “Yes. I found her, unresponsive, at home. Is she going to be all right?”

  “Are you a member of her family?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m her sister.”

  “I see. Yes, Ms. McQueen should make a full recovery.”

  “Do you know what she ingested?”

  “Yes. It was flunitrazepam. Rohypnol. You may have heard it referred to as the date-rape drug. It’s unusual for us to get patients quickly enough to verify it was Rohypnol. It’s only detectable in the blood for four hours. Longer in urine. But, most often in the patients we see, it’s out of their systems.”

  “And Mrs. Harper…she had the same thing in her system? She’s Calista’s housekeeper. We’re all the family she has.” I gave her a look that added, the poor thing.

  The doctor hesitated. “Yes, Mrs. Harper had the same drug in her system, though her symptoms were not as pronounced. It can affect people differently. Also, your sister had alcohol in her system. That dramatically increases Rohypnol’s adverse effects.”

  “Thank you, doctor.”

  “You are very welcome. We’ll just keep them both until they’re fully alert and make sure there are no complications. The nurses will check on them periodically. If you need anything, press the button.” She smiled and left the room.

  I pulled out my iPhone and opened the app that monitored Calista’s phone. She’d been fully alert when she spoke with the therapist. That had been at ten fifteen. When Niles texted her at ten forty-five, she never replied.

  She’d told the therapist she was going to have tea. Had Elenore made tea for both of them? Had she spiked it, then drank a little herself to avoid suspicion? Possibly, but I didn’t peg her as having shot Jim Davis. I had a bad feeling he was dead because of who he’d seen coming or going.

  Calista stirred. “Liz?”

  I jumped out of the chair and to the bedside. “Hey. How are you feeling?”

  “Like I have a bad hangover. I only had one glass of wine.”

  “I thought you didn’t drink.”

  “I told you I don’t drink hard liquor. I do have wine occasionally, though not much of it. What happened? Where am I?”

  “You’re at East Cooper Medical Center. We had a hard time waking you up.”

  “I don’t understand. Isn’t it nighttime?”

  I looked at my watch. “It’s almost two-thirty in the morning.”

  “So why were you trying to wake me up to begin with?”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Ummph….” Calista screwed up her face. “I had a glass of wine to relax me. But I still felt wired. Mrs. Harper made us a pot of tea. We drank it together in the living room.”

  “Was anyone else there?”

  “No. Just Mrs. Harper and me.”

  “Do you remember setting the alarm and going to bed?”

  “No.”

  I’d tell her about Jim later. “Nate and I were driving by on our way home. We heard your alarm.” I told her about waking Elenore to let us in. “I think Elenore must have had less tea than you did.”

  “No, we each had two cups.”

  “Did she have wine?”

  “No. Mrs. Harper doesn’t drink alcohol.”

  “Okay. Just rest. I’ll be right here.”

  “Did someone poison our tea?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “Is Mrs. Harper all right?”

  “She’ll be fine. Rest now.”

  Calista drifted back to sleep.

  Did the wine account for Calista being that much more drugged than Elenore? Had someone else been there?

  I needed to know Jim Davis’s time of death. I couldn’t think of a solitary reason why Elenore would go across the street and kill him. Unless maybe it was to keep him from mentioning that no one had come or gone. But how would she have known he was there to begin with?

  And would she have been able to d
o such a thing after ingesting the Rohypnol? From what I knew about the drug, and the timeline of when Calista stopped responding to phone activity after she’d said they were going to have tea, it was fast-acting.

  Who set off the alarm? Was it accidental? If not, why would anyone do that? Who turned the system on to begin with? So many questions swirled in my head. But one thing was clear. Elenore had made the tea. How could anyone else have poisoned it without her knowing? It would appear either she did it for her own reasons or at someone’s instruction. Considering the professional scale of the other crimes committed, I was betting on the latter.

  I needed to have a serious talk with Mack Ryan. I still didn’t completely trust him. But I trusted him more than I trusted the rest of his team. If he was clean, he’d be just as interested in getting to the bottom of this as I was.

  Bright sunlight spilled into the room when I jerked awake. I sat up straight and snatched my arms from the armrests. I pulled out my sanitizer and rubbed a thick layer on my hands and arms.

  “You’ll probably die from alcohol poisoning,” Calista said. She was propped up on pillows and grinning at me.

  “You’re awake.”

  “Yes, but still a bit muddy-brained.”

  “How long have you been watching me sleep?”

  “Just a few minutes.”

  “I just dozed off.”

  “You need to go home and get some rest.”

  “No, I need to stick with you. And we need to haul Mack Ryan in here and find out how his high-dollar system failed so miserably last night. Again.”

  “But you said the alarm went off.”

  “The audible alarm went off. But no one from the monitoring center responded. Something didn’t work right, or Blake would’ve gotten a call, and one of SSI’s teams would have been dispatched.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes widened. “What were Mrs. Harper and I poisoned with?”

  “Rohypnol.”

  “But neither of us were harmed. Why would someone knock us out just so we’d go to sleep?”

  “That’s one of several very good questions I don’t have the answer to—yet. Have you remembered anything else?”