by Paula Matter
“No. Just needed a shampoo.”
A loud laugh burst from me. I clamped my hand over my mouth and looked at him. Fortunately, I saw a glint in his eyes and he grinned.
“I know it’s not funny, and I don’t want Chris to go around doing stuff like this, but …”
I agreed. “She was being a loyal friend, that’s all, and that’s a good thing to be. As long as no one was hurt, no harm done. Just a little prank, a nuisance. Hey, speaking of nuisances, why did you walk out with Bobby Lee?”
“I wanted to ask him about your car accident the other night, and if the toxicology reports on Jack Hoffman came in yet.”
“Daddy, Heather’s mom’s on the phone!”
We walked back to the kitchen. Michael took his phone call with Terri out to the hallway, and I got busy rearranging my notes at the table. I turned to the page where I’d written down all of my questions, and wrote down some more.
What did I remember from the last night I worked? Jack had bitched about women joining and ruining the place, how they never should’ve allowed women in. What else had he said that night? Something about loyalty, working together, and him being a past Commander. How things were done right back when he was in charge. Then he’d mumbled something I didn’t catch. Damn. But I bet someone around him had heard. Who all was there that last night I worked? I closed my eyes to concentrate.
Pete had sat at the table with Abby. Kevin in his usual place at the end of the bar, near Jack, Pam, and Scott. Diane flitted around between cleaning the kitchen and sitting at the bar. JC and Dick were in their office most of the night, and Sam wasn’t there at all. Unless it was the next night when he was training Abby. Something nagged at the back of my brain and I couldn’t think now what it could be. Maybe I’d remember later.
For now, I wanted to focus on Abby. We still hadn’t talked to her, found out what her story was. Michael hadn’t seemed as excited about the scenario I’d dreamed up. The fact that Jack had married a Korean woman, they had a child, and that child’s name was probably Gayle. Abby. Abigail. I didn’t think it was too much of a stretch. Of course, the age was all wrong, but maybe Abby was Jack’s granddaughter. And maybe she … I rubbed my temples, trying to ward off a huge tension headache. So much to think about, keep track of. What else did we have to do?
We had to find out who all had been in the club Saturday night when Abby worked. Probably safe to assume Kevin, JC, and Dick. Sam might remember, but maybe not. How could I find out who was there that night?
The book! The daily book, of course. Whoever was there that night had to have signed in. Except that may not completely help. Damn.
People like Sam, JC, and Dick who come in before the club opens sign the book, so their names are on the top of the page. But since they’re usually in every night, there’s no way of telling what time they came back. Then there are the ones like Phil, the woodies who come in only to sign the book when the pot’s high. To be fair, Phil had stuck around and had at least two glasses of wine. Yeah, but—
“Maggie, you okay?”
I opened my eyes. “Yeah, why?”
Michael laughed. “You were sitting there with your eyes closed, moving your head and hands around. Like some little dance.”
My face felt warm. What the hell was going on with me blushing so much? “I was concentrating, trying to picture the last night I worked. I guess I forgot to open my eyes when I started thinking of other stuff.”
He sat down. Chris was still concentrating on the computer, and I saw earbud cords trailing down the sides of her head and connecting Michael’s cell phone sitting on the desk. “And what did you come up with?” I told him and he said, “Let’s plan on going to see Sam tomorrow and take a look at the book. We’ll see who was there the night Jack was murdered.” He leaned back in his chair and frowned. “Did you really think you’d go back to work at the club once this is all over?”
“Yeah, I did. I wasn’t looking at it realistically. Somehow I thought they’d decide to keep me once the suspension was over and they had their meeting. Total denial on my part, I guess. But that’s over now.”
“You can always raise my rent until you find another job.”
“Hey, you better not be joking. I might have to. So, what did you find out from our illustrious chief of police about my accident and the toxicology reports?”
“He’s not a bad cop, Maggie, not really. The chief doesn’t share his investigation with civilians, and”—Michael raised his voice a little—“he is still investigating Rob’s murder.”
“Yeah, he told you that?” My eyes stung and I blinked tears away. Not now.
“He did. The chief says it’s an ongoing investigation. And I believe him.”
I had no intention of getting into a battle with Michael. I knew how I felt about Bobby Lee’s incompetence, and that was that. I crossed my arms tight against my chest. “Okay, so what else? Anything?”
“He checked out the tire treads left at the accident scene. Said they’re very unusual and he was interested in them. But, and this is the most curious part, the tox results came in and—”
“Already? The newspaper said it’d be a couple weeks.”
“I told you the police don’t share everything in an ongoing investigation.” He arched an eyebrow. “Anyway, Jack was stabbed twice, yes, but that wasn’t the cause of death.”
“What?” Talk about making me sit up and take notice.
“Jack Hoffman was poisoned.”
Twenty-Two
“Poisoned? It was the green beer, wasn’t it? Jack said it tasted bitter, but I didn’t believe him.” I jumped up, twirled around, not sure what to do first. “We need to talk to Abby. Can we go see her tomorrow? Ask your friend to babysit Chris. I’ll drive, no, we’ll take your car. We can—”
Michael grabbed my arm. “Maggie, calm down. Breathe. Yes, we’ll go see Abby tomorrow.” He dropped my arm. “There’s more to tell you, but not until you sit down.”
“More?” I sat. “Okay, what else? I’m listening, I’m calm.” My feet tapped in rhythm with my pounding heart. I tried to keep still. I blew out a deep breath. “Okay, now I’m ready.”
“Here’s the thing. Doc Shenberger did the autopsy and he discovered something suspicious near one of the knife wounds. A small needle mark. The initial drug screen didn’t show anything other than the alcohol level in Jack’s system. While the level was high, Doc knew it wasn’t high enough to cause death, so he ran further tests, which came back today and he called the chief immediately.”
Damn. Not the green beer.
“Wait. How’d you get Bobby Lee to tell you all this? One cop to another type of thing?”
He shook his head. “Not really. The chief knew I’d be able to get the information anyway, so he shared it with me once I reminded him of that. Anyway, let’s plan our day for tomorrow.” Michael slid the pad of paper closer to him and wrote while he talked. “While you’re at the hospital talking to the administrator, I’ll map out our road trip, make hotel reservations, gas up my car. Heather’s mom said Chris can stay overnight. We’ll drop her off on the way to the club to find out what we can about the book.”
Finally. I felt like we were making progress.
He continued, “It’s a six-hour drive to Ft. Walton Beach, so we could leave in the early afternoon. The website said the first show where Abby works starts at eight.”
I pictured a smoky, dark place with scantily clad women sliding down poles. Topless waitresses serving drinks. Back rooms down dark hallways that provided a more personal type of entertainment. What the hell would I wear to a place like that? Be nice if I could lose forty pounds and grow six inches taller by morning. That’d be nice anytime. Since that wasn’t going to happen, I got up to get a beer, and offered one to Michael.
“Sounds good, thanks,” he said. He took a long drink from the bottle, then set it o
n the table. “We still have to talk to Dick, y’know.”
I groaned. “I know, but I’ve been doing my best to stay away from him. Him and JC. Although I am surprised how nice JC was to me at his store a few days ago. Will we need to talk to him again?” I really hoped not. He was nice that one time and I didn’t want to push my luck. I told Michael as much.
“We might. I don’t know yet. A lot of this is winging it. What one person says will lead us to another, and so on and so on.” He chuckled and said, “You found that out on your own.”
My phone rang and I got up to answer it. “Oh, hi, Diane.” I rolled my eyes, making Michael grin. “No, I’m sorry I won’t be able to clean this weekend. I’m going out of town. Yeah, just a little trip. How about I call you early next week?” We spoke for a few more minutes and I hung up. “I suppose you gathered that was Diane Reid. Okay, now, where were we?”
Instead of answering, he rubbed his hand across his mouth. A sure sign he was apprehensive. “What is it, Michael?”
He looked back to check on Chris. She didn’t turn around. “I’m not sure what to make of something. It’s only happened a few times, but I think someone has broken in. Nothing’s ever missing, but things are moved around, weird stuff.” He squirmed in his seat then chuckled. “Chris thinks we have a poltergeist.”
“And what do you think? Why didn’t you tell me this before, when it happened?”
“It’s been silly stuff, not worth mentioning. Like a glass of milk left out on the kitchen table. I don’t drink milk, and Chris swore she hadn’t done it. Another time a book I’d been reading was in the refrigerator. Once an umbrella I’ve never seen before showed up on the couch.”
My mind flashed back to last month when I thought I’d misplaced my umbrella. I kept it in the umbrella stand by my secretary desk, and one day I couldn’t find it.
“A Daffy Duck umbrella?” I asked.
He blinked several times, and I figured I had my answer. “What the hell? I’m definitely going to see the hospital administrator tomorrow. These sound more like pranks, though.”
Michael said, “I agree. Like I said, silly stuff and nothing taken.”
“Except for Daffy. And he was just moved to another spot in the house.”
“And he—I mean, the umbrella—then later disappeared. I never saw it again,” he said.
Poltergeist?
“I brought this up now because I think you need to use more caution with telling people you’ll be out of town.”
My phone call with Diane. Damn.
“Okay,” he said, “let’s get back to planning tomorrow’s trip. We’ll figure out the rest of the weekend after we’ve talked to Abby. We—”
“You really don’t think Abby did it, do you? But it makes so much sense.”
He shrugged and said, “We have to be open to all possibilities. We still have to talk to Kevin, Pete, Sam, Diane, and Dick. I think it’s obvious at least two people are involved, considering what Gussie told you about the cars she saw that night. We’ll see what we find out, if anything, from Abby. Then we’ll go from there.”
“Okay. And this Sunday will be good because we can find all of them at the club. The fourth Sunday of the month they have a brunch, so Pam and Diane should be there working with their husbands. Pete doesn’t leave to go on the road until Monday. Kevin’s off that day too. And we’ll talk to Sam tomorrow.” As soon as I said Sam’s name, whatever was nagging me flashed through my head. Damn, I wish I could figure it out.
“Something’s bugging me about Sam, but I can’t put my finger on it,” I said. “And since two people are involved, it doesn’t make sense that Sam’s one of them. He simply doesn’t hang out or socialize with anyone when he’s not at the club. But, still … I wish I could remember what he said.”
“Are you sure it’s something he said? Maybe you heard something from someone else, or maybe you saw something?”
“I don’t know.” I took a good long swig from my beer bottle. “How about we focus on what we do know? Is there anyone we can rule out?”
“Not at this point,” Michael said. “I left someone out—what about Scott Nelson? Have you talked to him?”
“Scott? I hadn’t even considered him. But, again, we’re talking about two people. So who would be with Scott? His father? His mother? In-laws?” I laughed at that. “Somehow I can’t picture Scott and Dick doing anything together. They don’t get along real well. Dick’s so stuck on the military and hates it that Scott wasn’t part of it. He also hates that Scott smokes. Hell, all of them hate that. That was one time Dick didn’t get his way. Active members voted on whether to ban smoking in the club. Without JC to help, Dick couldn’t get enough guys to show up to vote their way. Man, he and Pam were pissed. The ones who did show up to vote were heavy smokers, couldn’t quit if they wanted to. After the meeting that night, they all came to the bar as usual. Jack bitched about the non-smoking rule not being passed, and Scott deliberately blew smoke in Jack’s face. He denied it was intentional, but I told him to knock it off and make sure it didn’t happen again. Jack made a big deal out of having to use his inhaler that night.”
“His inhaler? Jack had asthma?”
“Oh, yeah, really bad. Of course that night, he made it seem even worse—made a big show.” I swallowed the last of my beer and considered having another when Michael glanced at his watch. I wanted to pick his brain some more, so kept talking. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. What about motive? We still haven’t figured out why Jack was murdered.”
“Some of the more common motives are money, jealousy, fear, crime of passion, mental illness, hate crimes, elimination. I saw just about everything when I was a police officer. People will kill for the stupidest reasons. Makes perfect sense to them at the time. Then there are the ones who accidentally kill. A crime gone wrong, for instance.”
“Like Rob’s murder.”
“Yes. Bobby Lee says it was most likely a robbery that went wrong. Maybe the killer thought no one was downstairs and Rob surprised him.”
“He was supposed to be upstairs with me painting the bathroom. I had told people about our painting plans. The same people who knew Jack Hoffman.” I blinked hot tears from my eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “Tell me more about the poison that killed Jack.”
“Have you ever heard of propranolol?”
I shook my head. “Pro—what?”
“When I finished making arrangements for Terri to watch Chris, I did a quick Google search. Propranolol. It’s used to treat angina, high blood pressure, migraines, hypertension. Patients shouldn’t drink alcohol while taking it, and it can be harmful to people with asthma. Even fatal.”
“So someone injected this drug into Jack knowing what it would do since he was asthmatic and had been drinking.” Damn. “Who would have that drug? I don’t know of anyone who takes it. I’m assuming this stuff is prescribed? Doesn’t sound like something you could get over the counter. Hell, you can’t even get some cold medicines that way anymore.”
“That’s true.” Michael laughed. “I have to ask the pharmacist for Coricidin. As far as who? You’d know that better than I. Does anyone have a history of heart problems? Anybody make it a point to not drink alcohol?”
“Pam and Diane. Pam has a history of drug abuse, but I don’t think alcohol.” I told him how Pam helped with the D.A.R.E. program in the school district. I also told him about the powder on her shirt. I couldn’t be sure it was really coke, but the expression on her face was priceless. If nothing else, she was embarrassed to be caught unkempt. Oh, the horrors!
“It’s no secret that she was once addicted to pain killers. I think she considers herself some type of hero now that she’s clean. So she just stays away from alcohol now, as does Diane. Oh, oh! Dick has a heart condition. Diane doesn’t drink because of Pam and she says Dick shouldn’t drink because of his heart condition.” I almo
st jumped out of my chair again. “It must be Dick’s medication!”
He laughed again, but this time at me. I didn’t care. I bounced in my chair.
“Don’t hurt yourself, Maggie. You really want to jump up and down, don’t you? Now, before you do, ask yourself why Dick Reid would want Jack dead.”
Damn. My shoulders slumped making me feel like a deflated balloon. Michael had gone and ruined what I thought was a good clue. Truthfully, I didn’t know why anyone would want Jack Hoffman dead. I said as much to Michael.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to burst your bubble, but we have to always think motive. Why was he murdered? What did he know? Or what did the killer think Jack knew?” Michael stood and put his empty beer bottle on the counter. “Keep thinking along those lines and we’ll get there. You surprised yourself by remembering that Dick Reid has a heart condition. Bits of what may seem like useless information could be the key. We’ll have plenty of time to talk more tomorrow on our drive. Right now Chris and I should get going. It’s been a long day for all of us.”
“Yeah, it has.” I tossed both beer bottles in the recycling bucket. “Chris can keep the computer on. I’m too keyed up to go to bed just yet.”
“Will do. But don’t stay up too late. You’ve got an early day ahead of you tomorrow.”
“Yes, dear,” I mumbled. I followed them downstairs. I flipped on the porch light and opened the door.
Damn. One of North DeSoto’s finest sat in his cruiser across the street. If Michael saw him, he gave no sign. We said our good-nights, I locked up, and headed to my computer.
One e-mail from Brenda letting me know her phone was beyond repair, so no photo and she was really sorry. I wondered about what Michael had said regarding tire treads and Bobby Lee’s interest. Could he track down the driver by looking at tire treads? I supposed nothing was impossible. I knew they did it all the time on those TV crime shows. Yeah, and all within an hour.
