Arsenic in the Azaleas

by Dale Mayer

  Doreen’s eyebrows lifted, and she studied the couple. “Oh, isn’t that nice.” Yet inside she wondered if that was a neighborly thing to do. It just seemed weird. When she was with her husband, nobody would ever do something like this. Of course they couldn’t get past the security gates anyway.

  The man thrust a tinfoil-covered pan into her free hand and said, “Here. We brought over a dish for you. It’s one of our favorites.”

  She looked at the pan in surprise but felt she had no option but to accept it. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “It smells wonderful. It’s very kind of you.” And it was. She’d seen little kindness these last few months.

  He beamed at her. “Well, we’re very kind people,” he said.

  The woman, still gripping Doreen’s other hand, said, “Oh my, yes, we certainly are.” She turned to look at her husband and added, “I’m sure you’ll find everybody here is very friendly.”

  “So far, that hasn’t been my experience,” Doreen said in a dry tone. “Then again, it’s not every day a dead body is found on your property.”

  Instantly the two visitors gasped.

  “That must have been just terrible for you,” the woman cried. At that she blushed, waved her hand, finally releasing Doreen’s. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. I’m Cindy. This is my husband, Josh.”

  Josh stuck out a big mitt to shake hers. “Pleased to meet you.”

  She nodded and tried to nicely free her hand from his. It was impolite to grab onto her hand and hold it so long. Still, they were being friendly, and she certainly hadn’t seen many friendly faces since her arrival. “I’m Doreen,” she said. “Nan is my grandmother.”

  The woman, slightly younger than her partner, clasped her hands in front of her and almost gave a little hop and skip, like a twelve-year-old. “Oh, my dear, that’s lovely. Nan is such a sweetie.”

  At that Doreen smiled naturally for the first time. “She certainly is.” She didn’t know if she should invite them in, but for some reason, she was loath to do so. She turned to the man and asked, “How long have you lived here?”

  “Oh, must be thirty years now, possibly more,” he said with a beaming smile. “Best place to live. Nothing ever happens here. It’s nice and peaceful.”

  She avoided pointing out that something had happened here and just nodded, figuring they were here when Jeremy Feldspar was in Nan’s house. “Interesting. Was Nan here when you moved in?”

  They both nodded. “She certainly was. What a colorful character. She was always out and about the city with the neighbors.”

  Doreen smiled. “I’m learning a lot about my grandmother since coming here. What you know about somebody on one level is a whole different thing when you step into their lives.”

  Cindy patted Doreen’s shoulder. “We’re so happy that Nan has you. She shouldn’t be alone in the special years of her life.”

  “She won’t be alone now.” Doreen looked for a place to put the dish down, but Mugs, having completely inspected the front porch, was now sitting at her side, staring up at the couple. He wasn’t being overly friendly, and if she wasn’t mistaken, a slight growl came from the back of his throat.

  She squatted down slightly and stroked his head. “This is Mugs.”

  The couple bent down to greet the dog with what must be their usual overexuberance. They must be exhausting to be around for very long. Who had the energy for all that ebullience?

  “And what about Nan’s other pets? Is Thaddeus still here?” Josh asked.

  Instantly the bird was behind her, as if hearing his name. Thaddeus landed on her shoulder. She was startled for a moment but quickly adjusted.

  The couple smiled. Josh gently stroked Thaddeus’s neck.

  “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”

  The couple laughed gaily.

  “Isn’t he just wonderful?” Cindy said, beaming. “How lucky for Nan that you’re here to look after her animals.”

  “Yes, how very lucky.” Doreen tried hard to be polite, but something about these people made her depressed. Surely nobody was nice all the time.

  Just then Goliath came up the front steps to weave his way through everybody and to join in the melee. Doreen glanced at him and then asked the couple, “Do you have any pets?”

  Josh shook his head. “We had, but we lost them a couple years back, and it was just so traumatic we didn’t feel we could go through that again.”

  Doreen nodded. That she understood. She wasn’t sure what she would do when she lost Mugs.

  Cindy stepped back and said, “We’ve taken up so much of your time. So sorry if we were bothering you.”

  Doreen wondered if she had been unfriendly, if she should’ve invited them in. But they were already halfway down the steps, waving.

  “Stop by anytime you want to visit,” Josh said. “I work from home most days, so one of us is always around.”

  Cindy chuckled. “And thankfully I don’t have to work. Josh looks after me very well,” she said with a big smile. “If you’re ever feeling friendly, or just don’t want to be alone anymore, come over and have a cup of tea.”

  With a big wave, the two of them left.

  Doreen stood in the front door, feeling like a fool. She’d been raised better than that. In the background she could hear Nan’s voice in her head. What was that all about, dear? Why didn’t you invite those nice people in?

  And that was the crux of the problem. They were too nice. Maybe it was just her suspicious mind, but it did seem to her as if they had been fishing for information.

  She didn’t have any information to give them. The thing was, they would know when the house was empty. They would know when Nan was in or out, and if they had wanted to bury the body on the property, there was plenty of time for them to do so between Nan’s exodus and Doreen’s arrival. Still, these neighbors had come under Doreen’s critical review just for being on the spot and having access. So chances were good they’d have moved the body elsewhere for just that reason. Unless of course, they couldn’t carry him far or didn’t want to get caught with a dead body in their vehicle. Both of which were very valid points too.

  Still, she couldn’t imagine trying to move a dead adult male body.

  She gave herself a shake and walked back inside. “Come on, Mugs. Let’s go in.”

  With the dog and cat at her heels and Thaddeus on her shoulder, she slowly closed the door. As she did so, she caught sight of a woman on the other side of the cul-de-sac, staring at her. She gave her a half smile. The woman turned around and walked inside, slamming her door.

  Well, not everybody was friendly apparently. What did Doreen expect? Since she’d arrived, there had been nothing but kerfuffles at her house. Anybody who wanted peace and quiet probably thought the neighborhood had gone to the dogs with Doreen’s arrival.

  Unable to help herself, she locked the front door behind her and headed to the kitchen. When she took the tinfoil off the pan, she found fresh-baked buns of some kind. She had to admit they smelled delicious. Were they homemade? Feeling much more endearing toward her neighbors, she picked one, ripped it in half, buttered it and took a big bite. In truth, it was very good.

  That was exactly what she needed right now.

  She made a cup of tea, buttered a second bun and then took both upstairs. The only reason she could think of for not inviting Josh and Cindy inside was because of the stuff she’d found in the attic. And, yes, she felt guilty now that she’d tasted the wonderful buns.

  She still didn’t want anybody to know what she’d found. Anyone but Mack. But, before she told him about her latest find, she had to go through all the boxes. Once he got here, he would likely take everything away. And then he wouldn’t share any further information with her about them. Although she innately trusted Mack, for whatever reason, still the evidence found in these boxes could initially point more fingers in Nan’s direction.

  Chapter 22

  Upstairs Doreen went back to the job of sorting through the boxes she�
��d found. Mugs lay contentedly at her side. Of Goliath there was no sign. Thaddeus had been on his roost in the living room as she’d walked through but she suspected he wouldn’t be able to resist seeing what she was doing. She methodically went through every item of clothing, checking all the pockets for bits and pieces of paper, business cards, the odd candy and, of course, money. She shook her head to think that so many people left money in their pockets and wondered if she had done so too—before.

  There was her life before the separation and then her life after the separation. She wished she’d saved some of the money that had passed into her hands before. But life was life, and it changed. When she’d gone through all the pockets of the men’s clothing, she reloaded the two cardboard boxes, stacked them up again, repositioned the stepladder under the attic hatchway and climbed up again.

  Carefully crawling on the plywood patches, she slowly dragged the rest of the boxes closer to the attic opening, dropping two more of them to the closet floor. The ones that she’d already repackaged, she had set off to the far side so she wouldn’t get them mixed up. These next two boxes held more of the same, men’s clothes. Still, if this represented the entirety of one person’s life, not a ton was here.

  Repackaged, she added these two boxes to the first two she’d gone through, and then brought down the rest of the boxes. It took her several trips because some of them were very heavy. She closed the attic access door and folded up the stepladder, just in case somebody came inside and wondered what she was up to.

  “All done, Mugs.”

  Woof. Then he dropped his head back onto his paws and went to sleep.

  She opened the flaps on all four boxes, found another one full of men’s clothing and chose to go through that first. This one had outdoor coats, jackets and a sweater. Again a bit of money was in each pocket, plus a couple notes that made no sense and a key.

  She stared at the key in amazement. A key to what? It was small, possibly a safe-deposit box key. Almost a mailbox-size key. Certainly not a house key.

  She placed the key in the bowl with the money. When she was finished with that box, she closed it and moved it off to the side.

  The next box was a little more interesting—books. So maybe these were his personal possessions. She carefully went through them all to find a motley selection of novels and hard-copy books. Everything from a Webster’s dictionary to the latest New York Times best seller from thirty years earlier. Studying the collection, she frowned. She didn’t understand why these had even been kept. She carefully opened and shook each book to make sure nothing important was inside any of them.

  When she was done, she had a few more dollar bills, a couple bookmarks that appeared to be more like business cards and that was it. She repackaged the box and set it off to the side.

  Now she was down to two boxes. She was hot and dusty and tired. But she knew she had to get through these, just in case somebody came by.

  As she had that thought, the doorbell rang. Mugs barking like a loon skittered off the bed and around the corner. She went to the window and looked out to see who was on the front step.

  She cautiously went back downstairs. Mugs stood at the front door, barking like a crazy man before she got there. “Mugs, please calm down.”

  For somebody who’d come here not expecting to know anyone, Doreen was getting way too much traffic through the place. She opened the door to find Mack standing on her front porch, his arms across his chest and a frown on his face. Mugs stopped barking and started whining instead. Somehow he’d taken a liking to the big detective.

  “What took you so long?”

  She frowned up at him. “I was busy,” she retorted. “Sorry if it took me a moment or two to come downstairs.”

  He looked at her clothing and darned if he didn’t hold back a grin.

  She stared at her jeans; her trips to the attic had covered her in dust. And likely cobwebs. She brushed her hair back and groaned as her hands were covered in dirt too. “Crap.”

  “What have you been doing? Going into the attic or something?”

  She swallowed her answer, not wanting him to know—yet—what she had been doing. She opened the door wider. “What do you want now?”

  He stepped across the threshold, taking her opening the door as an invitation, though her tone was much less than welcoming.

  With a bright cheerful smile he said, “I came to ask a few more questions. But now I’m checking on what you’re up to.”

  She glared at him, feeling her mouth pinch into the same expression after she’d sucked a lemon. “What I am doing is my business.”

  “Not if it pertains to the murder, or murders, that surround this property,” he said with a hard glare. “So, you’ve been in the attic, from the evidence on your clothing. What have you found?”

  She didn’t even know how to begin. She wasn’t sure she had a choice here. She upped the wattage of her glare. She only needed another hour, and then she’d be done. Darn him anyways.

  He laughed.

  “Do you have a warrant?” she argued but without any heat.

  “Do I need one?” he asked, frustration rippling through his voice.

  “I just figured I’d go through it all first. If I found something, I would let you know.”

  He grabbed her shoulder. “Stop.” He gave her a little shake. “Just think about what you are doing. Remember this is a murder investigation? Everything you find concerning this case is information I need to know.”

  With the animals milling around their legs and generally getting in the way, she slammed the front door shut, put her hands on her hips and said, “I found some boxes in the attic. But I’ve barely looked through them all yet.”

  He snorted. “Oh, no. I want to see exactly what you found.”

  She ran to the staircase and stood on the bottom step, arms across her chest. “Only if I let you. You don’t have the right to go upstairs and see what I found.”

  He picked her up at the waist, turned and put her down beside him. “I can get a warrant if you want. And that’ll be nasty because then more officers will come through and make a mess of this place, and they won’t care that it was Nan’s special possessions or that anything here might be of value to you in one way or another. And the more you try to hide something from me, the more pissed off I get.” He glared at her. “Do you understand me?”

  She groaned, closed her eyes and said, “Why do you have such crappy timing? I was just getting to the good stuff.” She snuck past him and ran up the stairs with him hard on her heels.

  “What did you find?”

  “Jeremy Feldspar’s clothing.”

  “What?” he roared.

  She laughed and darted toward the spare room almost tripping on Mugs as he tried to run past her. “They were all neatly folded and stored in boxes upstairs in the attic. And then I found a box of books with his name on the inside of each one, and I’m down to the last two boxes now.”

  “Anything interesting in the clothing?” he asked in a hard voice. “I want to see it all. Not just what you think I should see.”

  She shook her head. At the door to the spare bedroom, she stopped. “So far there hasn’t been anything interesting, just little bits of money, little bits of paper, business cards. I went through the clothing pretty intently, and I didn’t see anything that had any information pertaining to his death or his life.” She pushed open the door, stepped inside and pointed to the boxes on the far side of the room that she had gone through and packed up again. Mugs took advantage of the wider doorway and jumped to retake his spot on the bed beside Goliath who opened one eye then closed it and continued his nap.

  “Feel free to look. Everything here on the bed and in that small bowl is what I found in the pockets of his clothes.” She turned and pointed to the dresser. “That bowl is tidbits from Nan’s clothing. I kept it separate.”

  He studied the stack of packed-up boxes, turned to look at the bowl in the center of the bed, breezed through its conte
nts—the couple of business cards and some coins—picked up the notepad and realized it was more a shopping list. “Are you sure you checked each item of clothing carefully?”

  She nodded. “Those boxes against the wall are clothing, but feel free to help yourself. The last box was full of coats.”

  He walked over to them, opened the flaps on one of the boxes and pulled out a jacket. He held it up, looked at the style and said, “Definitely older-style clothing.”

  She nodded. “From the eighties maybe.”

  “How long has Nan lived here?”

  “Since forever. She mentioned being here forty years. But I really don’t know the exact year she bought this place. You’d have to ask her.”

  She watched as he pulled the pockets inside out, and then he did something unusual. He scrunched up the bottom of the jacket, as if looking for something inside the lining. He put the jacket down, pulled out another one and did the exact same thing.

  She shrugged and opened the box in front of her. But then he walked over to the light of the window and held the jacket upside down. She walked closer and asked, “What did you find?”

  “Something inside the lining.”

  He turned the jacket inside out and found the seam that had been opened and sewn shut again. He pulled a knife from his pants pocket, quickly cut the stitches, and reached inside.

  When he pulled out a sheet of paper, she gasped and said, “Oh my. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to hide that.”

  He tossed her a hard gaze. “Most killers often do.”

  “That makes no sense. He was the victim. So why would he go through all the trouble to hide this?”

  Mack carefully unfolded the paper. Together they could both see a simple number and also an address.

  He glanced at her and she shook her head. “I don’t know that address or the number.”