The Bitter With The Sweet

by J A Whiting

  Courtney used an even tone when she asked, “Did you and Perry have a relationship?”

  Megan’s cheeks turned pink. “Me? No. We were friends, that’s all.”

  “Did you want to be more than friends?” Courtney questioned.

  Even though Megan said no, the pink in her cheeks brightened which seemed to contradict her negative response.

  “Are you seeing anyone?” Angie asked.

  “No. My boyfriend and I broke up right before I moved here for school. I have to be in pharmacy school for years and he didn’t like the idea of being separated for so long. I had to agree with him.”

  “Did you have feelings for Perry?”

  Megan swallowed and her eyes darted around the garden before saying softly, “We were friends.” There was a long silence before she added, “I think Perry felt the same way. I knew he didn’t want anything serious.”

  “Did you want something serious?”

  Megan let out a long sigh and some moisture glistened at the edge of her eyes. “Perry was a great guy. We were similar in a lot of ways. We got along really well. Maybe if we met at another time in our lives, something would have happened. Honestly? I liked him, but I held back because I knew it wasn’t something Perry wanted.”

  “Did you resent him?” Courtney asked.

  “Of course not. Perry was clear about wanting to remain friends. It would have been stupid for me to fall for him.”

  “He told you he only wanted to be friends?” Angie asked.

  “Not in so many words.” Megan straightened up. “Perry talked a couple of times about why he broke up with Maura. It wouldn’t be any different with another woman. Perry was putting his attention solely on reaching his goal of being a doctor. He didn’t have the energy necessary for both his studies and a relationship.” The young woman passed the back of her hand over her eyes. “Sure, I would have liked things to move beyond being friends, but it was never going to happen and I made sure to stay within the bounds of friendship.”

  “Did Perry know how you felt about him?” Angie questioned.

  “I was very careful never to let on.” Megan’s lips were tight. “Anyway, I want to know what happened to Perry. Hasn’t the medical examiner figured it out yet? What’s taking so long to get an answer?”

  “We’ll probably hear very soon,” Angie said.

  “Well, I need to go inside and get ready for an exam.” Megan stood up. “Thanks for chatting. I’ll see you around.”

  As soon as Megan disappeared into the house, Courtney turned to her sister. “I get a weird feeling from Megan. Do you think she isn’t being upfront with us? Is she keeping some things to herself?”

  Angie ran her hands over her arms. Despite the morning’s increasing temperature, goosebumps formed over her skin. “That’s exactly what I’ve been wondering.”

  8

  Sitting on a lounge chair under the pergola in the backyard of the Victorian, Euclid lifted his orange head to sniff at the delicious aromas floating on the air.

  Wearing barbecue aprons, Josh and Tom stood near the fire pit grilling steak tips, vegetables, and eggplant cutlets and chatting with Angie and Mr. Finch about the case. Circe was curled on Finch’s lap enjoying the man’s petting.

  “I think Megan knows more than she’s saying.” Angie put a clean platter on the stonewall next to the fire pit.

  “Do you have an idea what she’s holding back about?” Josh turned the steak tips with a large grilling fork.

  “I don’t. Courtney doesn’t know either, but she got a feeling from Megan that she wasn’t being upfront with us about something.”

  “What about Maribeth? Did you talk to her?” Josh asked.

  “We did. I didn’t realize the tragedies she’s had to deal with over the years.” Angie poured a drink of iced tea for Finch and then proceeded to tell the men about Maribeth losing her husband and son. “She’s quite upset over Perry Wildwood, because of the man’s death and because she’s afraid she’ll lose her livelihood should her residents decide to move away and no one else will lease from her.”

  “I don’t think Maribeth needs to worry about that.” Tom adjusted the grill’s flames. “I don’t think Perry’s death would turn people off from living in the boarding house. It’s an unfortunate event, but they can’t blame Maribeth. I’ve heard she’s very careful about security at the house, updating the locks and the windows and keeping everything in good working order. If someone broke in, then they must have broken a window or used a sophisticated tool to bust open the lock.”

  “Can somebody break a window without making noise?” Courtney carried over a tray of glasses and a pitcher of lemonade and set them on the side table near the grill.

  “What if the person placed a couple of suction cups on the window and then used a glass cutter to cut it open,” Josh said, “then reached inside the hole in the window and unlocked it?”

  “That would work,” Tom agreed. “The suction cups would keep the window from shattering. There wouldn’t be any noise.”

  “So the break-in would have been planned,” Finch said while running his hand over the black cat’s fur. “And the plan probably included killing Perry, don’t you think?”

  “I think murdering Perry was the plan,” Courtney said. “Perry had an overdose of melathiocaine in his system. No one just happens to carry around a syringe of melathiocaine with them. If someone broke into the boarding house, killing Perry was the reason.”

  “Have the police made a determination about a break-in?” Josh asked.

  “We haven’t heard.” Angie sipped from her glass of iced tea mixed with lemonade.

  Ellie came out through the backdoor carrying a green salad with tomatoes, onions, walnuts, and sliced strawberries and put it on the patio table. “You all look very serious. Are you discussing the case?”

  Angie and Courtney brought their sister up-to-date with the latest news.

  “I think it was someone who lives in the house.” Ellie had a pair of shears in her back pocket and she removed them and went to the garden beside the carriage house to cut some flowers for a vase. Euclid followed her and sniffed the ground around the bottom of the huge tree.

  “You think it was one of the residents who killed Perry?” Angie asked. “Why do you think that?”

  “Nobody heard anything,” Ellie explained. “That pharmacy student, what’s her name? Megan, right? She has the room near Perry’s, but she heard nothing that night. I don’t think anyone broke in. I think the person was already in the house. Did Perry have a visitor that evening?”

  “No one told us there was a visitor,” Courtney said.

  “That doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.” Ellie snipped some blooms and slipped them into the white vase. “Perry made it clear he didn’t want a relationship at that point in his life. He might have wanted an occasional one-night stand though.”

  Angie stared at her sister. “Huh. I didn’t think of that.”

  “It didn’t have to be a woman who dropped by to visit,” Ellie said. “A friend of Perry’s might have come by. People in the house might have been familiar with the friend so they paid no attention to the person being there. That could be the reason no one claims anything was unusual.”

  “Maybe you should be a detective,” Angie said with a smile.

  Ellie glanced over her shoulder at Angie and shook her head. “It’s not rocket science. It’s common sense stuff.”

  “But common sense stuff is often overlooked,” Finch stated. “We all tend to ignore the ordinary or the familiar. Our brains go into autopilot which can make us miss the little things.”

  Euclid sat next to the garden swishing his tail, and then he leaned his head back and let out a loud, shrill howl.

  Tom jumped slightly from the wildcat sound and almost dropped the tongs he was holding. “Gee, Euclid. Give me a warning when you’re going to do that, will you?”

  Jenna came down the back steps carrying an apple pie and she chuckled at Tom’s
startled reaction to the cat’s noise. “I thought you’d be immune to Euclid’s vocals by now.”

  “I’ll never get used to that.” Tom moved around the foil-wrapped ears of corn on the grill and shivered. “It’s unworldly.”

  After putting the pie on the table, Jenna went up behind Tom, wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist, and rested her cheek against his back.

  “I’ll never get used to this either,” Tom smiled at his wife’s attention. “It’s heaven.”

  Courtney groaned. “No public displays of affection, please.”

  Jenna gave her sister a sly smile. “That can only happen when Rufus is here?”

  Courtney ignored the comment about her boyfriend.

  “Where is Rufus this evening, Miss Courtney?” Finch asked.

  “He and Jack are working late today. They’ll come by later. Ellie and I told them we’d put some food aside for them.”

  “I had lunch with Jack today.” Ellie put the vase on the side table and fussed with arranging the flowers. “They picked up a new client and it’s turned into more work than they expected.” Jack, Ellie’s boyfriend, owned a law firm in town and he and Rufus, a newly-minted attorney from England, worked together in a beautiful, grand, old building just off of Main Street.

  Just as the group was sitting down to eat at the table under the pergola, Angie’s phone buzzed with a text from Chief Martin. “The chief has something important to tell us. He asks if he can come by.”

  When everyone encouraged Angie to tell the man to come over for dinner, she sent the text and within ten minutes, Euclid and Circe padded over to the driveway to greet the chief.

  “I’m always barging in on your meal.” The chief walked across the lawn to the table.

  “We’re always glad to have you join us,” Finch said. “Have a seat.”

  The serving bowls were passed over and Chief Martin filled the plate they’d set for him. Before digging in, he said, “I have some news about the Perry Wildwood case. Do you want to hear it now?”

  “We can talk about it now. What have you found out?” Angie asked.

  “Perry’s laptop was taken from his room by investigators. We found something on it.”

  “Tell us.” Courtney was eager to hear what had been discovered.

  The chief cleared his throat. “A note.”

  The people around the table and the two cats on the lounge chairs were silent.

  “It was written by Perry … he talked about his struggles with the headaches. He wrote that it was difficult to go on, that he didn’t think he’d be able to achieve his lifelong goal of becoming a doctor.”

  Ellie’s hand moved to her throat. “A suicide note?”

  Courtney’s eyes narrowed. “No way. I don’t believe it.”

  “Why don’t you believe it?” Josh asked his sister-in-law.

  “Becoming a doctor is what Perry wanted all of his life.” Courtney’s face was angry. “People reported that he was single-minded about becoming a physician. He worked hard. He took care of himself. He refused to become involved in a relationship until he finished his studies. Suicide doesn’t fit.”

  “Sometimes people reach the end of their rope,” Tom pointed out gently. “Sometimes, people give up.”

  Courtney’s brow furrowed. “He deliberately injected himself with an overdose of medication?”

  “It seems so,” the chief said.

  “Didn’t the medical examiner mention that a dosage that strong would have hit Perry like a ton of bricks?” Jenna asked.

  “Not in so many words, but yes, he did.” Chief Martin drank from his water glass.

  “Didn’t the medical examiner say the syringe might have remained in Perry’s arm because the drug would have instantly put him out?” Jenna asked. “Or that it would have fallen to the floor?”

  “Yes,” the chief said.

  “If that much medication was self-induced,” Jenna said, “then where is the syringe?”

  The chief said, “We discussed previously that someone might have found Perry, panicked, and hid the syringe either to keep themselves from falling under suspicion or to keep people from finding out Perry ended his own life.” The chief looked from family member to family member. “Now there’s a note that indicates Perry was under strain, was depressed, was feeling hopeless.”

  “No.” Courtney folded her arms and leaned on the table. “I don’t think so. Someone wants the world to believe that poor, sad Perry took his own life. That’s not the impression I get of Perry. We can’t fall for this. It’s a trick.”

  “I think Courtney’s right,” Angie said.

  Jenna chimed in with her thoughts. “Courtney makes good points. I don’t think we should take this at face value. We need to look into this before we accept that Perry wrote a suicide note.”

  The corners of the chief’s mouth turned up a little. “I’m glad to hear you say this. It’s what I think as well.”

  Ellie had been listening closely to the comments. Dabbing her lips with a napkin, she set it to the side of her plate and gave Mr. Finch a long look before turning to face the chief. “Can we see the note?”

  “I can share it with you, yes,” the chief said. “I have a paper copy of it in my briefcase.”

  “Can we see Perry’s laptop? Can we see the note on the laptop?” Ellie asked. “Not a printed version.”

  “Sure. We can go down to the station whenever you like.” A confused expression passed over the chief’s face. “But why do you want to see the laptop?”

  “Because,” Ellie said, “Mr. Finch needs to touch the keyboard.”

  9

  Mr. Victor Finch had the unusual ability to pick up information from people and objects simply by touching them. The only problem with his ability was that it could be unpredictable, sometimes strong, sometimes not working at all. No one understood the reason for the erratic nature of the skill and there didn’t seem to be a way to control it, but when it worked, it could provide valuable clues to an investigation.

  Finch took a seat at the scuffed old table in the police station’s conference room and Angie sat on one side of the man and Courtney took the chair on the other side. The harsh brightness of the overhead fluorescent light burned Finch’s eyes and he had to close them for a few moments.

  “I see you’ve improved the lighting in this room,” Finch kidded the chief.

  “Should I turn off the lights for you? Would that help?” Chief Martin asked. “I could bring in the lamp from my office.”

  “It will be all right,” Finch smiled and slowly opened his lids. “My eyes are adjusting.”

  Ellie leaned against the wall near the door and Jenna, holding Circe in her arms, stood next to her. Watching the proceedings with interest, Euclid sat on a wooden chair beside them.

  Chief Martin left the room briefly and returned with a box. Inside was Perry’s laptop. The chief placed the box on the table and then, wearing surgical-type gloves on his hands, he set the laptop in front of Finch. “Is there anything you need? Can I get you some water? Should the lights stay on or will they interfere with … with what you do?”

  “Thank you, Phillip,” Finch said calmly as he slipped his hands into gloves provided to him by the chief. “Everything is fine. I’ll begin now.”

  Everyone in the room went still as the older man closed his eyes again and slowly rested his fingertips on the keyboard of Perry’s laptop.

  Finch’s face changed expression from serious to concerned over the several minutes that passed, and then he leaned back in his chair. “I am unable to pick up anything.”

  “Is it because of the gloves on your hands?” Angie asked. “Are they preventing you from feeling the sensations?”

  “I don’t believe the gloves should interfere,” Finch said staring at the keyboard.

  “Should we leave the room, Mr. Finch?” Courtney asked. “Is it distracting to have all of us with you?”

  Finch patted the young woman’s hand. “It is comforting to m
e to have all of you with me. Perhaps the sensations from the laptop have disappeared into the air or have been wiped away somehow.”

  Circe wiggled in Jenna’s arms trying to get down so the young woman set the cat on the floor. The small, black feline darted to Mr. Finch and jumped onto his lap.

  Surprised by the animal, Finch chuckled and patted her back as Circe put her front paws on the edge of the table and flicked her tail back and forth. The cat turned her head to Finch and then put her little paw on the keyboard.

  “Try again, Mr. Finch,” Courtney encouraged. “I think Circe wants you to give it another try.”

  “It can’t hurt,” Finch agreed. As soon as the older man said the words, the black cat contentedly settled on his lap.

  Finch took in a long breath and closed his eyes and while his hand stroked the feline’s fur, a look of calm came over his face. The family and Chief Martin waited and watched.

  Finch’s hand touched the keyboard and his fingers skimmed over the keys slowly moving from side to side. Ten minutes passed before Finch opened his eyes.

  The man’s facial muscles sagged showing signs of heavy fatigue and his shoulders slumped. He took in a long breath and removed his gloves. “I’m finished.”

  Circe placed her paws on the man’s chest and licked his cheek while Chief Martin hurried in with a cup of water.

  “No luck, Mr. Finch?” Courtney asked with a kind voice.

  Finch sipped the cool water and cleared his throat. “On the contrary, this time I was able to pick up a few sensations.”

  “You were?” Angie said with excitement and she had to hold back from firing questions at the man.

  “Much of what I picked up most likely belonged to the laptop’s owner, Perry Wildwood. I was able to sense his ambition, his diligence and perseverance, and some of the pain he experienced from the migraines. I did not pick up any feelings of hopelessness.”

  “You didn’t sense anything that indicated Perry had given up because of his headaches?” Jenna asked as she took a seat at the table.

  “Nothing like that whatsoever.” Finch smiled down at Circe who had settled again on his lap. “I also felt the sensation of two others when I touched the keys. One person who used the laptop seemed to have friendly feelings for Perry. I can’t tease out if that person is a man or a woman. The second individual who used the keyboard did not convey feelings of friendship … in fact, I picked up hostility from this person as well as anger, jealousy, and resentment. Again, I cannot tell if this individual is male or female.”