LOVE, HOPES, & MARRIAGE TROPES

by Abby L. Vandiver

  “Maybe that’s the someone who put the poison in it.” She raised an eyebrow.

  “Maybe,” I said. “We need to try and figure out what happened to it.”

  Auntie shrugged. “We’ll ask.”

  “Who?”

  “Everyone who was around him, up in that gazebo.”

  “That’ll work,” I said.

  “So someone put a slow-acting poison into that inhaler he had?” Auntie said.

  “Or even in several inhalers. There were so many floating around, and that way they could be sure he got the poison inside of him.”

  “Is that possible?” she asked, looking at me. “For it to be several of them? Wouldn’t that mean it was more than one person who killed him? That people were acting in concert with each other?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, that would match my theory,” she said. “Coach Buddy and Shane Blanchard is who I think did it. And maybe even LaJay was involved with them.”

  “I don’t know that they had access to Bumper’s inhalers, though,” I said. “They weren’t even at the wedding.”

  “LaJay had access, and he was at the wedding,” Auntie said. “They could have planned it together and assigned him to be the one to carry it out.”

  “I thought you liked him,” I said, and scrunched up my eyes. She could turncoat on a friend in five seconds flat. “You were nice to him when we went to see Mrs. Hackett.”

  “I like him fine. He’s a good football player. But he’s still a scoundrel.”

  I chuckled. “How so?”

  “Going after your friend’s girl is how. I told you he did that, remember. I heard even some say that he might be the father of Jorianne’s baby, and that’s why she was in such a rush to marry Bumper.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said, and sucked my tongue. “That would be hard to hide. LaJay is black. Bumper and Jorianne are not. The baby would tell the story as soon as it arrived.”

  “I’m just telling you what I heard.”

  “Rumors are just that for the most part, Auntie. Can’t rely on them.”

  “Maybe not, but they give you something to go on. It helped me to form my opinion about who might have killed Bumper.”

  “But we’re going to follow the facts,” I said. “We’re not going to pick a person who you think did it and try to make the facts fit them.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” she said. She pursed her lips and frowned, her feelings evidently hurt.

  “That’s what you did on the last murder we tried to solve.” Her sad face wasn’t going to alter the truth of the matter.

  “We didn’t try to solve it,” Auntie said. “We did solve it.”

  “That we did.” I smiled at her. “Still we are going to go about this the right way.”

  “Okay, so what do we do?”

  “First things first,” I said. “I have to finish up here—get the labs sent off and type up a report for Pogue.”

  “Don’t tell him what we found out,” Auntie said.

  “I have to,” I said. “Remember we’re playing fair. And anything significant we find out we share.”

  “I’m not telling him about my theory,” she said.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Because your theory is waaay out there. I think he’d appreciate me not telling him about that.”

  And, I thought, he’d have a conniption if he knew Auntie had a hand in any of this.

  “You finish the report, then what?”

  “Then I think we need to figure out where the inhalers came from, and where the inhaler he had when he collapsed went to.”

  “I don’t know about the one he had, but didn’t Delores say she had had the ones that got passed out?” Auntie said.

  “Some of them, but I thought she said some of them were new.”

  Auntie shrugged.

  “Either way,” I said. “We need to know. Do you know where she would have gotten them from? Who Bumper’s doctor was?”

  “No,” she said, and shook her head. “But McDougal is the only pharmacy in town. She would have probably gone there. Plus, he gives the football team a discount.”

  “Giving gratuities to the football players seems like a common occurrence around here,” I said. “The pharmacy. The caterer. I don’t understand how you figured those same actions precipitated a murder.”

  “It’s different when outsiders are involved. Those men—Shane and Coach Buddy are from big universities, and even bigger cities. Criminal behavior is stitched into their fiber.”

  “That’s not a nice thing to say,” I said.

  “May not be nice,” she said, “but in this case, I think it might be true.”

  “And what if it’s not? What if they didn’t do it? After you’ve talked about these people, practically defaming them. Damage done. Then what?”

  “Well, darlin’, then I’ll just apologize.” She smiled. “Now come on, I’ll be up all night embalming Bumper if we don’t get a move on. I’ll have to call Rhett to bring the hearse over. My good, sweet friend, Delores Hackett, is counting on me, and I can’t let her down.”

  “Okay.” I flipped over page the I was working on and signed the request, finishing up all I needed to do for the lab. Then I shuffled through the papers to find the release form I needed to give to the funeral home. I read the name and address of who’d be picking up the body and I cringed. That’s when I realized that my ride home was going to be awful.

  I put down my pen. “Auntie,” I said and took in a breath. “I have something to tell you.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “That woman is as loyal as Benedict Arnold!”

  It was the next morning after she’d gotten the news and Auntie Zanne was still upset that Delores Hackett had gone with another funeral home to handle the remains of her only child.

  We’d planned to go to McDougal’s Pharmacy first thing, but I didn’t know if I could take another car ride with her. She had fussed all the way home the night before, and it looked as if she still wasn’t going to let the perceived slight go even though it was a brand new day. I just knew if I rode in the car with her, having to endure another round of kicking and screaming, I was going to have to prescribe myself a sedative.

  Auntie Zanne was sitting at the kitchen table when I came down, three pots boiling on the stove filled with who knows what each with as much steam coming out of it as she had coming out of her.

  “How dare her not entrust her son’s remains to Ball Funeral Home.”

  “Maybe it was because it had bad memories for her,” I said. “This is where...” I rocked my head from side to side. “You know... Where it happened.”

  “Oh just spit it out. Where Bumper was murdered. You don’t have to be discreet when it’s me you’re talking to.”

  Pogue had had to let Mrs. Hackett know the reason I was doing the autopsy, and I thought, and thoroughly understood how that could have played a part in her not choosing Auntie’s place. She hadn’t had any say over what happened with her son once I made my determination because state law requires that if an ME or justice of the peace deemed one necessary, the family couldn’t fight it.

  It must have been hard for her to lose her son at our house, and me being the one to determine he’d been murdered.

  “Auntie, maybe you should just have a cup of tea,” I suggested.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” she grumbled.

  “I’m not, but you have to be in a better frame of mind when we go to the pharmacy.”

  “There is nothing wrong with my frame of mind.”

  “Do you want me to just go by myself?” I asked. “I can share notes when I get home.”

  “Oh you want to snub me, too?”

  “Oh, geesh.” I shook my head. “No. I don’t want to snub you. And I don’t think Mrs. Hackett did ei
ther.”

  “How about if we just go?” she said.

  I didn’t have much choice but to agree with that. She wasn’t going to let me go by myself, and she wasn’t going to get over not being given the care of Bumper.

  “I’m driving,” she said and snatched the keys off the wall caddy.

  That made me so nervous that I started to run upstairs and grab my St. Christopher medallion.

  “So what’s our plan?” Auntie glanced over at me from behind the steering wheel. I’d made sure my seatbelt was tight and I braced my hand against the dashboard. We’d driven half way there in silence. I had kept a watchful eye wondering if I was going to see steam rising from her t00-high hairdo. Her words now, though, were even and much calmer than they had been before we left the house.

  I shrugged. “We ask him questions. Primarily, I guess, if he knew who wrote the script for Bumper’s inhalers.” I shook my head. “I hope that he won’t give us a problem about sharing the information without Pogue around.”

  “We don’t need Pogue, Sugarplum.” She smiled for the first time. “I’m the justice of the peace, I can initiate an investigation.”

  “Auntie, I’m aware of what you can do, but you having that power is scary.”

  She produced a wide grin that showed all of her teeth.

  “Hi Babet,” Mr. McDougal said as we walked in the door, the bell overhead jingling our arrival. He’d been the town’s pharmacist probably for the last thirty or more years.

  “Morning,” she said. “How are you this fine morning?”

  “I can’t complain,” he said. “And don’t tell me this is Romaine? I haven’t seen her in years.”

  I usually came into town, visited my family and got out before anyone in town could see me. And I had planned to keep a low profile while I waited my time out this time. But with the murders that kept popping up, I might not be as low key as I’d planned.

  “Oh. My. Lord. Will you look at this!” Auntie said. She grabbed a newspaper from the stand in front of the pharmacy counter, completely ignoring Mr. McDougal’s comment. She threw the paper on the counter and planted her hands on her hips.

  “What is it?” I said picking up the paper.

  “Can’t you read?” Auntie voice had gone up several octaves and decibels. “I swear! Are they trying to put me out of business?”

  The headline read: “Another Murder at a Roble Funeral Home.”

  “Oh wow,” I said.

  “Wow doesn’t cover it,” she said. “Who in the world is writing this stuff?”

  “Shame what happened over at your place,” Mr. McDougal said, his expression not changing. “When I first heard about it, they were sure he’d pull through because it had been only been an asthma attack. Too bad, he was one of those really nice boys, was going to make something of himself.”

  “Well, it wasn’t asthma that done him in,” Auntie huffed.

  “Hi, Mr. McDougal,” I said interrupting her before she shared information best kept secret for the time being. “Good to see you.”

  I knew to be polite to him, not just because I was brimming with questions, but because it was how I was raised. Auntie Zanne was giving me enough grief, without me “causing her embarrassment by not minding my manners.” Although, her attitude so far that morning hadn’t been exemplary.

  “How is everything with you?” he asked. “And with Chicago?”

  “She’s back to stay,” Auntie stopped huffing long enough to disseminate some misinformation. “She’s taking Doc Westin’s place as the ME.”

  I frowned and opened my mouth to correct what she’d said. Why she continued to tell people things about me that weren’t true, I just couldn’t understand. But I didn’t want to make a scene and call her out in front of a man we needed. I wanted him to see that we were on the same accord.

  “We wanted to ask you some questions,” I said and nudged Auntie Zanne to the back of me. “About Michael Hackett’s asthma.”

  “She means Bumper. No need to be formal, right, McDougal?” Auntie Zanne said, stepping back up next to me. “We want to know what went wrong with his inhaler.”

  “Wrong with it? I don’t know of anything that can go wrong with an inhaler. It’s not a mechanical instrument.”

  “It didn’t work,” Auntie said.

  “The only reason I’d know that it wouldn’t work would be that it was empty or outdated.”

  “I don’t think that happened either,” she said.

  “You think someone tampered with them?” he asked.

  “We don’t know,” I said, “because we don’t have the inhaler he used to look at.” Auntie Zanne just couldn’t control herself. I was going to have to speak with her about how to conduct an investigation.

  “Who prescribed the inhalers for him?” I asked.

  “And remember,” Auntie Zanne said, “I’m the Justice of the Peace. I’m sworn by law to find out what happened, and you have to uphold it by cooperating.”

  “I voted for you, Babet,” he said smiling. “And I have every intention on being helpful. I just think it’s awful what happened.”

  “Well, thank you for your vote. I will make sure I live up to the confidence you have in me.”

  “Uh. Back to the inhalers,” I said and again side-stepped Auntie. “Can you look up the name of the doctor who prescribed the inhaler for him?”

  “Of course, I can, but I don’t need to. When he was younger it was his pediatrician, Dr. Granger over in San Augustine, but during his last few years in high school it was Doc Westin.”

  “Doc Westin?” I said, surprised. “Are you sure?”

  “One hundred percent. But still I hadn’t seen one of those prescriptions since Bumper left for college.”

  “That was two years ago,” Auntie said. She looked at me. “Were all of them from back then?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Would his mother give him something that old? It’s no wonder they didn’t work.”

  “They didn’t have to work,” Auntie Zanne, “they just needed to hold the poison.”

  “Poison! What kind of poison?” Mr. McDougal said. “It didn’t say that in the paper, only that cause was undetermined, but not natural.”

  “Is that what you put on your paperwork?” Auntie said and looked up at me. “Undetermined?”

  “I have to wait until the toxicology report comes back to make a definite determination.”

  “Can you imagine? Another murder in Roble,” Mr. McDougal said. “And both of them at your place.”

  “They weren’t both at my place,” Auntie said. I knew she was going to get indignant.

  “Let’s go, Auntie,” I said and tugged on her arm. “Thank you, Mr. McDougal.” I waved bye as I pulled Auntie out of the door.

  “So all we’ve discovered,” Auntie said fastening her seat belt after we got back into the car, “is that Delores used a bunch of old inhalers to care for her son’s asthma, and someone took one of those and filled it with poison.”

  “I wish we had that inhaler. Then we’d know exactly what poison was used and that might just help us narrow down who it could be.”

  “Well, we’re going to look for it,” Auntie Zanne said. “Plus, I thought you were sending a toxicology request.”

  “I did, although there are some poisons you have to specifically ask to be tested. I checked all the boxes, but I don’t know what we’ll get seeing this is such a small place.”

  “We are just as good as those labs up in Chicago,” Auntie said.

  “I’m not saying you’re not,” I said, then shook my head. “I only wish I had it, that’s all.”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about this, and with us needing that information, it might just be a good idea.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “We have to go the funeral,” Auntie Zanne said. />
  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you can’t go starting trouble at a person’s funeral because they didn’t pick you to do it.”

  “That’s not why I think we should go.”

  “Okay. What’s your reason then?”

  “Because the killer might be there. And we can ask around and see what happened to that inhaler that Bumper had.”

  “You think?” I said, my interest in attending now piqued.

  “Of course. The killer won’t tell the truth about its whereabouts, but someone else who doesn’t have anything to hide, might just share.”

  “That does sound like a good idea,” I said.

  “And, they always say that the killer comes back to the funeral,” she added

  “Who is ‘they’?”

  “The people... they... You know. People who solve murders.”

  I chuckled. “Okay. Well, if they say we should, I guess we should.”

  She waved a hand at me. “We can keep a look out and listen for any clues from all the people there.”

  “That’s a lot of looking out and listening in for two people.”

  “I’ll get the Roble Belles to help us.”

  “Did you tell them about this?”

  “Of course I did.”

  My phone rang and saved Auntie from me fussing at here. I really was going to have to talk to her about not telling everything she knew.

  It was Alex.

  I glanced over at Auntie, she would be all in my conversation, but I wanted to talk.

  I knew I’d probably regret doing it in front of her.

  “Hello,” I said, connecting, trying not to let on to Auntie who it was.

  “Hey, baby,” he said. “I’ve been busy all in day in the seminars.”

  “I wondered why I hadn’t heard from you. You knew I was worried about your exposure to the poison.”

  “I’m good. I’ll be better if I can see you,” he said. “How about dinner tonight?”

  “You’re coming here?” I asked.

  “I was thinking we could meet somewhere halfway in between?”

  “Okay,” I said.