She let it drift long enough that I risked a question, “You thought what?”
“I thought maybe he’d die. Right then and that would solve everything. But after a while, he started screaming less and then he was sort of gulping. He got past the gulping, breathing slower and slower…”
“I asked if he wanted water. Sort of automatic, you know? He said yes. I went to the back of my SUV and there it was … beside bottled waters for camp, the box with things from the Ferguson house that couldn’t go in the trash or recycling or get sold, because they were medications. Even without expiration dates you could they tell were old. Really, really old. And there was one Mary Ferguson used a marker on that said…”
“Sleeping pills,” I supplied.
“Yes. I put … a few in a water bottle. I had no idea what it would do, if it was enough to… I just wanted him to sleep. To be quiet.”
Or for that breathing to get slower and slower until it stopped.
“He sat there drinking that water and he talked and talked and talked about how he’d crush the reenactment and the camp and then he’d take on Clara and the museum and make it tell history the way he wanted. When he finished — the water, not the talking — I asked if he wanted more. He said yes. This time I put more pills in. He said it tasted odd, but he drank it anyway. Only now he was getting sleepy. Really, really sleepy. And I started thinking how wonderful it would be if he slept until after the reenactment. I’d have to quit when he woke up and told people, but the events would be safe…
“But I couldn’t have him in my SUV. I mean, what would I do with him?”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
“Getting him out was a nightmare. I opened the door on his side, ran around to get back in, braced my back against the driver’s door, then pushed him with my feet. In the end, he popped out so suddenly, I slid out after him. He sort of staggered around. I thought I could get him into the house, but he wanted to curl up and sleep. If he’d gone down, I’d never have gotten him up. Truly a nightmare.”
Not the best for Palmer Rennant, either.
“His truck was right there in front of the steps, closer than the front door and I didn’t have to get him up the steps. I was so grateful it wasn’t locked. I tried to get him in the driver’s side, but he stumbled around and I couldn’t steer him. When he went close to the passenger door, it was like a miracle. I opened it and sort of guided and supported him. I had to really push to get him up in the seat. I thought, I really thought he’d fall out on top of me and I’d have to leave him on the drive — sleeping—”
Sleeping.
Did I hear the beginning of a defense forming?
“—and I didn’t know if anyone would find him and that didn’t seem … right. I barely got him in and then he curled up, with his knees drawn in and his side against the door—”
A near fetal position against the side of the car door. That explained the rigor mortis position and the lividity Aleek saw.
“—and it wasn’t closed all the way and then that damned dog showed up, barking and barking and jumping on the side of the truck and I had to shove the dog away, then shove him back in and reclose the door — three times before it latched right.”
She panted — from talking fast, but possibly also from the remembered exertion.
“I thought… I thought he’d just sleep there. Sleep off the pills. It wasn’t hot or real cold, and he was in the truck. Lots of people sleep in their trucks.”
Definitely a defense.
“That dog wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept jumping up. On me. On the truck. On my vehicle. On everything.”
“The dog tried to follow you when you went in the house to look for the keys to the truck.” Not a question.
“I thought … I might need them. I didn’t break in. The house was open. I was hardly inside and the dog was scratching and scratching. Thank heavens, I found keys on a peg in the kitchen. When I came out, the dog was still there. It kept barking and barking as I backed out my SUV. It’s a miracle I didn’t hit him.”
Leaving Palmer Rennant dead or dying in the passenger seat of his own truck. No wonder she focused on the dog.
“I got out of there as fast as I could. But then there wasn’t a word. I was tense about it all day Friday. He’d wake up and he’d be screaming from the rooftops or someone would find him and I had to be calm. Totally calm. To show I wasn’t crazy. That he was the one. He was the one.”
Except he hadn’t fed himself sleeping pills. Pills she kept from a house she’d cleaned.
“But when I went back Friday night, he… he wasn’t … awake. We drove to the butte. I’d seen teenagers do it. It wasn’t hard.
“He was curled up against the door and he wouldn’t … move. I didn’t know how I’d get him out. Then I remembered how I’d gotten him out of my SUV the night before. So I did that.”
She’d used her feet to push him out. She did the same to get him out of his truck and left him where he landed. With rigor mortis not yet past, he stayed in the curled-up position.
“But there he was with his shirt off and you didn’t like that,” I said.
“I didn’t. As if— After I’d told him no. But he took it off anyway. And tried to grab me and kiss me, while he was telling me how he’d ruin everything. Then, later… He looked so bare and I tried to put his shirt on but I couldn’t and I thought of the paint and it seemed like a way to cover him. But I didn’t make it real symbols, I’d never do that. Never.”
To cover his bareness or to cover the lividity that signaled his position in the truck? Either way, she wore gloves. Consciousness of wrongdoing — as if dumping him weren’t enough. And then she leaned her left hand on the rock and the three-leaved plant that grew against it to steady herself.
“You knew he’d be found at the butte.” And when.
“I … I acted on instinct. It didn’t seem right, his not being found. His family wondering…”
Not concern for his family. Palmer had to be found before Teague died so there’d be no question of who inherited.
I spoke quietly, but with no doubt. “The museum, your programs, all that good was so close, so very close to what actually happened today, when they got everything. But as long as he was living, they’d lose everything. He’d ruin the programs you built, ruin you, ruin the museum, ruin history itself. You knew because he told you about the will. And how the museum could inherit. He did that … talked about things without thinking how it would make others feel.”
“No. No.”
I wanted to push. Oh, how I wanted to push.
I pulled in a slow breath through my nose, and backed up. “You dated during the summer, but you said you’d met him before.”
“Years ago, when he was looking for ancestors. He was married, so nothing happened. Plus, he got really angry about what he found in the local archives. Wouldn’t ever talk about that. Then I saw him the day Paige and I did the estimate on the Ferguson house and he was next door to see Kamden Graf. After that, he called me and I thought, why not? Clara never handled him right or he wouldn’t have refused to let us use the property. If it had been me— But that didn’t matter anymore. We found someplace better. So why shouldn’t I go out with him? Why shouldn’t I have … romance.
“After a couple weeks he was really excited one night and told me Russell Teague was sick, maybe dying. I couldn’t imagine why he reacted that way.”
I held my breath.
She was at the precipice again. So close…
“He said he would use all Teague’s money to shut us down and go against the museum. I couldn’t believe it at first, but the more he talked, the more I could tell he meant every word. It wasn’t fair.”
Then she added, far more prosaically, “I couldn’t go out with him after that.”
I could keep at her to connect the final dot that she’d known that Rennant dying would make the museum the major beneficiary.
But that defense-building bothered me. A lot.
&n
bsp; I did not want to be called as a witness to say I’d tried everything I could to get her to confess, but she stood by her denial.
It sucked, but better, in the interests of justice, to let Shelton have his inning.
“Nadine, it will come out that you didn’t get insurance this year.”
“It was a mistake. That’s all. With the inheritance, the museum can make up the difference.”
“You need to tell everything to the sheriff’s department.”
“I… I can’t. It’s been so awful. Telling you… It’s helped. But now, now I have to go.”
She opened the SUV door and got out. Something white dripped from her grocery bag. Ice cream.
“Nadine, did you know Palmer had cleaners come to his house?”
She turned to face me. “Yeah. A couple times a week.”
“Do you know which days?”
“Not Friday,” she said with bitterness and started away.
Lights and sounds froze her after three steps.
She was going to talk to the sheriff’s department very soon.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
“…think she’d known about the inheritance for a couple weeks. Long enough for the injustice to fester.”
“Why tell her and not other women he dated? Or did he?” Diana asked.
“No way did he tell those other women, or it would have gotten out. Besides, the reason he told Nadine was Teague was so sick. Plus, she cared as passionately about the topic as he did — just on opposite sides.”
It was odd recapping this with each of us being a face on the screen, but by the time Shelton decided he’d rather talk to the suspect than the witness and released me, Diana had gone home to her children, Jennifer to her parents, and Mike, of course, was in Chicago.
Actually, my chat with Shelton came after he’d let me loose to do a live breaking news segment on the arrest on the Ten — accompanied by predictable Thurston Fine apoplexy — before I returned to the sheriff’s department, as I’d promised.
The old softy didn’t even insist I wear an ankle monitor to the station.
“What about Vicky Upton? She works at the museum shop,” Jennifer said.
Mike shook his head. “She’s not interested in history. As I bet she let him know first time he expounded his theories.”
“Right,” I said. “But Nadine was perfect. It’s like someone finding a rare stamp. Who better to understand the achievement than a fellow stamp collector even if — maybe especially if — that person’s a rival? Far more satisfying than telling someone who says, Oh, yeah. Weird stamp.”
“But she didn’t admit to you she knew about the will. How do you prove he told her when it was the two of them and he’s dead?”
“She did admit it in a way,” Diana said.
“No, Mike’s right. She didn’t completely confess to that. Maybe Shelton can get her to say it. Otherwise, the sheriff’s department will have to make do with all the other evidence, including her stopping for the paint at the camp, using gloves, and all the forensics they’ll get from his truck, her SUV.”
“Why’d you ask her about the cleaners’ schedule?” Jennifer asked.
“If she’d known they were coming Saturday, she could have left Rennant at his place — actually he would have been found earlier, because they came in the morning.
“But to her view, they failed her Friday. I failed her Friday by not going there to interview him. She wasn’t about to wait any longer, so she took him to the butte to be sure he was found Saturday and she’d see it — from a safe distance.”
“I get that the answer to why take him to the buttes? is her need for him to be found before Russell Teague died,” Mike said. “But there’s poison ivy other places around the county. That doesn’t say she’s guilty.”
“Her confession doesn’t persuade you?” Diana asked.
“I’m persuaded. Just trying to figure out how Elizabeth figured it out.”
“The poison ivy? She spent last week at the camp almost from early morning until sunset. Except when she came into town Thursday to go to the Ferguson house and the committee dinner, then Friday, to try to persuade me to go to Rennant’s house. From Sunday on she was in the office with Clara. No opportunities for poison ivy in any of that.”
“You think she really killed him because of the insurance? As you pointed out it was coming out, no matter what.”
“Yeah, but with him alive she’s caught over the insurance and he kills the camp and reenactment. With him dead, they keep going, the museum gets bundles, and maybe she survives not getting insurance. But more than anything, I think the insurance was the catalyst after she’d festered about the inheritance and what Rennant would do with it.”
“Explain the insurance from the start,” Jennifer requested.
“Nadine failed to get insurance for the events this year, redirecting that money to the kids. Verona mentioned Saturday not seeing Nadine when she expected to. But then Paige said she’d seen Nadine with Kamden Graf and that led me — and probably Verona — to think Nadine got insurance from him.
“Except, he told me he didn’t know Nadine. Not only was there no reason for him to lie about that, but there was no sign of recognition between them today at Teague Ranch. That meant he hadn’t sold her insurance.”
“Paige was just wrong? If she hadn’t screwed up, you could have figured this out days ago?”
“I don’t think she was entirely wrong and no way could I have figured it out days ago. What she said was she’d seen Nadine with Kamden — or was it with your new client? The new client Verona said came in about damage to his truck from hitting an animal.”
“Devil,” Diana said. “Her new client was Palmer Rennant. He hit Devil on Tuesday and went to check with his insurance agent when he was in town Thursday, running errands like the pharmacy and supermarket.”
“Exactly. Verona gets chatting with him and unknowingly gives him enough to figure out Nadine didn’t get the insurance. He knew Kamden, so easily could have checked with him, too.
“That same day at the Ferguson house, Paige saw them together, with Kamden, which is why she mixed up which man she saw Nadine with. Nadine was there to pick up things she was supposed to dispose of, including the old sleeping pills Penny told us Mary Ferguson kept — and kept using — even though they were off the market for decades. Your Aunt Gee saw them in the back of Nadine’s SUV that night,” I said to Mike in an aside. “Palmer and Kamden were at the Grafs’ house, no doubt working on their big literary project, cutting its teeth on proving history wrong about the Rennants, then taking on the Teagues.
“Where was I? Oh, yes, so Palmer sees Nadine and lets her know he knows about the lack of insurance and what he plans to do with his knowledge. He was completely engrossed in his own viewpoint and tuned out her devastation.
“She goes to his place that night to try to reason with him. He thinks she’s there for sex … all the while boasting about what he’s going to do to the programs she’s devoted so much of her life to and getting more and more worked up. According to her, the pills were an impulse to calm him down and make him stop talking.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“I have my doubts. Though even she might not know what was in her mind, especially with the second round.”
“So that’s our three mysteries,” Mike said. “Nadine says she killed Palmer so he wouldn’t ruin the events — though we think she knew about the inheritance — Luther Tipton died in the cave after a barroom fight, and Mrs. P was worried about Sally and Nadine, because she’d figured out the first two way before us.”
My mind stuck on Mrs. P.
Had she suspected Luther was in the cave? Had she sent me up to view the reenactment thinking or hoping I’d somehow find the body?
After draining a glass of water, I decided she hadn’t.
Not that she wouldn’t, but hadn’t. Because it left far too much to chance.
Although… What if she planted a thought abo
ut the cave in the ear of Paytah or another reenactor? I was sent as backup? And Rennant being left there was a fluke?
Unless she’d suspected Nadine and—
No.
I was getting as paranoid as Shelton.
My phone rang.
“I’m almost afraid to answer it,” I told my friends’ faces on the larger screen.
“Who is it?”
“Local number. Don’t recognize it.”
“Answer,” Jennifer urged me.
I probably couldn’t have withstood the curiosity anyway.
It was the strong-minded nurse from the hospital.
“Sally Tipton died a few minutes ago. I believe Mrs. Parens would like to see you.”
* * * *
“I do not know what that nurse based her assumption on that I wanted to see you, Elizabeth. Sally has died. Gisella and I shall deal with the practical matters here, then she will kindly drive me home. It is a shame you were brought out to the hospital at this hour of the night for nothing.”
I didn’t tell her that her hour of the night was my prime old-movie watching time, but tonight I’d spent it, uh, chatting with Wayne Shelton, then debriefing with my friends.
Especially since Aunt Gee said, tartly, “That nurse is astute enough to think you might tell the truth now and get that load off your back. Since you won’t tell me, she thought of Elizabeth.”
“Nonsense. There is nothing—”
“The truth can’t hurt her anymore, Mrs. P.”
That brought her up short. I didn’t know if it was the wisdom of the words or my calling her Mrs. P to her face.
She glanced toward Gee, released a sharp breath, then said, “Perhaps you are right, Elizabeth. I have been so accustomed to protecting that woman from potential consequences… I’m not at all sure I did the right thing all those years ago, nor through the years that have followed. If she’d been forced to own up…”
Two incomplete sentences nearly back-to-back. Mrs. Parens was beside herself.
Body Brace (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 10) Page 31
