“I couldn’t sleep,” Keisha said. “It’s calm in there. I took the champagne with me.” She did remember that. Hiding in Eleanor’s room, trying to get the haze in her crazy head to settle.
“You couldn’t sleep because of the argument.”
“Partly. A lot of things.” Within the panicked confusion of her brain, a solitary thought punched to the surface. Why hadn’t they mentioned the photograph yet? Why hadn’t they asked about that? That’s what Billy had been so angry about. So why weren’t they talking about it?
“Eleanor Radford had a vial of morphine and a packet of syringes and needles in her bedroom drawers that you knew about. You’d found some marijuana in the same place and smoked it with Marcie Maddox, am I correct?” She smiled at the lawyer. “Don’t worry, I can’t charge your client for that.”
“Where are you going with this, Detective?”
“When we found the yellow stain on the study carpet close to the empty coconut water carton, we took samples of both the stain and the carton to check that the stain was in fact from spillage when your husband collapsed.”
“I don’t understand,” Keisha muttered.
“One of the syringes from Eleanor’s drawer is missing. Ethylene glycol, better known as coolant—coolant bought solely for your car—had been injected into Mr. Radford’s coconut water at some point last night. There was a needle hole in the top of the carton. The yellow trace from the liquid splattered on the carpet when Mr. Radford threw it into his study trash can.”
Keisha’s thoughts swirled in kaleidoscope colors. Coolant in his coconut water?
“Your husband was poisoned,” the detective finished.
Poisoned? Keisha could barely breathe.
“You were almost very lucky,” Washington said, resting his thick arms on the table. “Mr. Radford did suffer a heart attack, either as a result of the injury sustained in his fall or as a side effect of the coolant entering, and starting to affect, his system. Ethylene glycol is broken down in the body relatively quickly. Given Mr. Radford’s head injury and heart attack, without the staining it’s unlikely that traces of coolant would have been found by the medical team before it had vanished. They wouldn’t have been looking for it. You could have gone home, gotten rid of the evidence, and then even if others had raised concerns it would be too late.”
“Mr. Radford was a powerful man. Powerful men have enemies,” her lawyer responded, leaning forward. “There were over a hundred people at Mr. Radford’s party. Any one of them could have done it. Do you have this syringe?”
“I’m sure we’ll find it.” Anderson this time, the two officers tag-teaming their attack. “We’re searching very thoroughly. Mr. Radford is a powerful man—and he has powerful friends. Trust me, this investigation is not going to be short on resources. And none of those two hundred and forty-eight, at last count, invited guests were about to be cut out of their husband’s will in preparation for divorce.”
Detective Anderson looked across at Keisha. “And then there’s the matter of the emails you’ve had from your relatives in England asking you when you’re going to be getting money for them. They were deleted, but you didn’t empty the trash on your laptop. I refer you to these two in particular.” She slid two sheets of paper across the table. “For the tape, I’m showing Mrs. Radford exhibits 11a and 11b. The first one is from your uncle Yahuba. That line, ‘you know what you have to do.’ And also this, from a Dolly Parker: ‘Hope you’re having fun! Is he dead yet? Love ya!’ Could you explain the meaning of those to me? Or is it as obvious as it seems?”
Keisha’s breath caught in her throat. No, no, no. “She was just—it was just—”
“I need some time to talk to my client,” the lawyer cut in, silencing her.
Cursed KeKe. It was all coming home to roost.
43.
The group had a late dinner at the club, perhaps the least intrusive place for them all given that William and Keisha were all over the news, but still everyone stared. Many of the other diners had been at the party, of course, and that added to the frisson of excitement in the air as they chattered about how awful it was, all said with a certain glee. William Radford’s life wasn’t turning out to be so charmed after all.
They’d only ordered salads, but Marcie couldn’t even pretend to eat hers as Noah filled them in with what the police had reported back. Things were not looking good for Keisha, and when he’d told them how William had been poisoned, Marcie’s eyes fixated on her plate as the world pounded in her ears until she was certain she’d have an aneurysm. She wanted to go home, take a pill, sleep, and then find when she woke up that this had all been some kind of nightmare. None of it made sense. That envelope arriving for Jason and then this happening to William?
“I can’t believe it,” Iris said. The tension between her and Noah was palpable. Iris had made sure that Keisha had good legal representation—Dan Temple was considered one of the best—even as Noah had been leveling accusations at her. “That girl may have problems, but I don’t see her doing something like this.”
“As Marcie told us, she has a Valium addiction and William made her stop taking it suddenly,” Virginia said. “Lord knows I’ve seen the effects of drugs with my work at the Mission. People can do just about anything when they’re in that sort of withdrawal, and bless her heart, she always seemed a bit heady to me. You know, a little too wild, too free? Damaged perhaps?”
“Well then, perhaps she was not in her right mind.” Iris flashed a glare at her husband. “I should speak to Dan about getting a full evaluation done. Even if she’s innocent, it won’t hurt to have one done.”
“You don’t think she did it?” Marcie asked. She’d expected Iris and Virginia—especially Virginia—to tear Keisha apart once the police had her. Common. Coarse. Money grubber. Whore. Not one of us. But no, if anything, they were rallying around. Was this a little rebellion on Iris’s part against her husband? Did any of them have good marriages at all?
“Do you?” Iris raised an eyebrow. “You were her friend, Marcie. Does this strike you as her sort of behavior? And if she did do it, I doubt it was in sound mind.”
“No, not at all,” Marcie muttered, wanting no black marks against her potential Magnolia membership if they survived this scandal. Maybe she didn’t quite believe that Keisha would poison William, but what could she do to help her? It was like Jason had said in the car. If the police didn’t go after Keisha for it, then they’d have to start looking elsewhere, and it wouldn’t be long before they turned Marcie’s way.
“Well, you ladies are at odds with the evidence,” Noah said. “Which seems pretty darned conclusive. They’re going to hold her for the full seventy-two hours, but I’m sure they’ll be charging her with attempted murder before then.”
“What’s this?” Jason asked, returning from the bathroom and retaking his seat. Emmett was moments behind him.
“Keisha. Noah thinks they’re going to charge her.” Marcie’s throat tightened. For all they knew, William could die at any moment. It would be a murder charge then. The death penalty probably. Her head spun. Keisha couldn’t have done it. She couldn’t, could she? But there were those times, so many times, she’d whispered, Why can’t he just die? with such longing. Had it all gotten too much? But this method—poisoning—was too cold, too clinical, for her. If Keisha was going to kill someone then it would be in the heat of a moment. She’d stab him or hit him with something. She was all passion, not planning.
“They want a quick result, that’s all.” Iris shot her husband an irritated glance. “You better than most know how often that happens. If she’d been smart enough to plan this, she’d have been smart enough to get up and clean up after herself and then go back to bed before he was found. Any fool would.”
“Do you know what was in her Internet search history on her cell phone?” Noah growled. He didn’t wait for an answer. “How many Viagra it would take to kill a man.”
There was a long pause. Iris drew herself
up tall. “There’s a lot of water between thinking about killing someone and actually doing it.” She looked at Noah again. “Trust me on that.”
“Maybe she was just worried he was taking too many,” Marcie said quietly.
Virginia let out a short nervous laugh, which went some way to breaking the tension, but Noah had made his point. There was an overwhelming amount of evidence against Keisha. Why would the police think to look anywhere else?
Marcie’s head was throbbing by the time they got home and it was late—nearly midnight—and she felt like she hadn’t slept in days. All she wanted was her bed, but her stomach was in knots about Jason and the envelope. What was he going to do? To say? They’d barely had a moment to themselves in all this, between their friends and the police and fielding phone calls from the nosy and curious disguising their craving for inside information with Southern care and concern.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told the police about the grass Keisha found,” she said, kicking off her shoes and trying to sound normal. “But I didn’t know they were fishing about the needles. They just asked if Keisha had ever taken anything from Eleanor’s things.” That wasn’t entirely true. It had been clear they’d been digging for something and she gave it to them, but only for her own survival.
“Sure,” Jason sneered. “Because you care so much. Would you rather they were coming for you?”
“I didn’t poison William!” she snapped, tears stinging her eyes.
“So you keep saying. But someone did. We just have to hope that whoever knows about you—whoever sent that yearbook—keeps their mouth shut for now, otherwise it could be Keisha out here and you in that cell. We have to keep our heads down, Marcie. Be William’s good friends. Stay in the background.”
Marcie’s stomach flipped again. He was right. Someone out there was watching them, watching her. “But who would have sent it?” she asked. “And why? Why now? And that accusatory note . . . Why didn’t they say what they wanted?”
“How the hell would I know?” Jason filled the coffee machine. “And to be honest, I don’t even care. I’ve thrown it all away. I don’t want to look at it. And I sure as shit don’t have the energy to think about it right now.”
“You’re making coffee?” Marcie stared. “Now?”
“I’ve got work to do. I need to cancel the audit, for one thing. That’s supposed to have started this morning but I’m keeping the office closed for a few days until we know how—well, how likely it is that William could recover.”
Was it her imagination or did he sound as if that wasn’t the preferred outcome? William was his best friend and yet he hadn’t shed a tear for him either yesterday or today. Maybe it was shock. Maybe she was being harsh.
“I’m senior partner in his absence so the buyout can wait for now,” he continued. “Until things have calmed down.”
“Don’t you want to talk?” she asked. “Tell me how you’re feeling. About us. About me. We can’t—”
“Not now, Marcie.” He looked at her. “I love you. I do. But I need time to process it. To figure out the best way to protect you, and I don’t have that right now. And until we know what they want we’ll be going around in circles anyway.”
“Do you think maybe Jacquie . . .”
“Don’t be so ridiculous,” he snapped. “And I said not now.”
She said no more and went to take solace in a hot shower, the only place she had space to think. He wouldn’t even countenance that Jacquie might have done it, and what kind of man defended his first wife to his second anyway? Marcie’s reasoning wasn’t exactly a leap of imagination. Jacquie had always been a complete bitch, and she obviously wanted to break them up now that she was back in town.
There were also Jason’s secrets. He was all holier than thou at the moment, but he wasn’t being honest. What about his fight with William that night? He hadn’t mentioned that to the police, had he? He hadn’t even mentioned it to her. Did he think she hadn’t heard? Well, she had, and Elizabeth had heard too, at least a little bit of it. Maybe she should throw that at her darling husband. Send a little worry his way and see how he liked it.
She moisturized and powdered and then crawled into her soft, vast bed. She thought of Keisha on a narrow cot, the mattress so thin the springs would be poking through, the blanket rough against her soft skin. The noise of strangers in the night. Catcalls. Abuse being shouted by the drunk and the damned. Would she get any sleep at all?
Marcie wrapped the cool, expensive Egyptian cotton sheets tighter around her own body. She did have feelings for Keisha, she knew she did. But how could she help her? She couldn’t. Not without drawing attention to herself, and there was no way she was going to do that.
She lay awake, tossing and turning, her hairline crinkling with sweat even as the AC cranked cool air around the house. She couldn’t relax. Nothing made sense. Yes, Jacquie could have sent the yearbook, but what about what had happened to William? What motivation would she have had for that? Games were being played and she felt like a pawn on someone else’s board. It couldn’t be coincidental that someone would raise her past and the very next day William was poisoned. She didn’t believe in coincidences.
Finally, her brain and nerves exhausted but with her heart still racing, she drifted into a restless sleep, and she dreamed of Jonny, her sleep choking in silent screams.
44.
When Marcie woke, tired and sweating, it was to the tread of Jason’s feet as he came along the corridor and stopped outside the bedroom door. The dark night had been replaced with the gray gloom of the hour before dawn, and she held her breath until, after a moment, he retreated once again. Jonny was forgotten, all thoughts back on her current husband. So, he wasn’t going to sleep with her again tonight. Was this how their marriage was going to be from now on? A quiet punishment? Separate rooms and smiles for the sake of appearances until he met someone else or had climbed so high up the social ladder they could finally slip into a polite second divorce? Or was he waiting for all this to settle down and then he’d screw her over to be with Jacquie again?
She lay there for a long thirty minutes and then pushed the covers away. What had he been doing all night? More late-night phone calls? Probably. He’d have his phone with him so she couldn’t check that—but what else? She crept through to his study and turned his computer on, relieved to discover the password hadn’t changed. She went to his sent emails and this time she read them all, not just looking for something that might hint at an affair.
He’d certainly been busy. A raft of messages sent to clients explaining that William was gravely ill and that given that they were a boutique firm, there might be a knock-on effect at the partnership for the next week or so and asking for client patience but he would be doing his best to make sure everything was running as smoothly as possible and to email him directly with any queries about their accounts. Next there were two to the auditors putting the audit on hold indefinitely and in no uncertain terms.
Then there was one to Emmett—sent first, at just after midnight—telling him to pick up his phone. She sat back in the leather chair and stared at it until the words blurred. Why would he want to speak to Emmett in the middle of the night? Jason and Emmett weren’t even that close. Were they? She closed down his email and stared at the home page, her mind whirring. All those late-night calls. Could they have been Emmett? But why at night? When she was asleep? Because Virginia was asleep too? What had they been discussing?
Money.
Investments.
That’s what Emmett did. Had Jason invested money with Emmett? She looked at the screen again and then she noticed. The untitled folder—the one containing the spreadsheet of numbers—had vanished. The only one on his screen to have been deleted. Jason had been tidying up.
The computers at the office all crashing.
The argument with William. What had he said? The audit starts Monday, Jason, and if this isn’t made good by then . . . How had Jason explained it? A transfer gone wrong.
She couldn’t breathe, the rush of information to her brain like pure oxygen, leaving her dizzy. That trouble with his father years ago that left his name tarnished and Jason having to claw his way back. Had Jason become like his father? Had he been embezzling from the company?
Money. Not a woman. His foul moods, the late-night calls, all down to money trouble, not a woman. Not Keisha. Not Jacquie. Not some cheap scheming waitress looking for a rich husband, but Jason covering his tracks. The fights over her expensive furniture and remodeling choices. This house. How had he paid for it? Other people’s money? And here he was judging her for her secrets, when he was on the cusp of ruining them both.
The fucking bastard.
She woke him with breakfast in bed: scrambled eggs, bacon, and home fries and a pot of fresh, strong coffee. There was even a flower in a small vase on the tray like he used to bring her when they first got together. She put the tray beside the guest-room bed, as he blinked, confused at the noise waking him.
“What are you doing, Marcie?” He glanced at the tray as if it were as dangerous to his health as William’s coconut water had been to his. “I’m not hungry.”
She pulled the drapes wide, letting bright sunlight stream in.
“Jesus . . .”
She turned to face him. “We need to talk.”
He groaned, one arm blindfolding him. “I need another hour’s sleep and then I should go see how William is doing. Show my face at the hospital.”
She poured two cups of coffee and sat on the side of the bed. Since shutting down his computer, she’d veered between laughing and crying and now she just needed to know the extent of the shit they were in. It was his turn to squirm a little.
“Don’t you worry?” she asked thoughtfully, before pausing and sipping her coffee. Their best china for a morning like this.
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