Bucket List: Maple Syrup Mysteries

by Emily James

  Something about his story upset his wife.

  “Gordon confessed what happened to me.” Leonard sat the cookie in front of himself without actually eating it. “He begged my forgiveness, and I gave it and dropped the suit. At that point, my concern was finding him help, but he told me he’d already been clean for a while and had a sponsor. He was even willing to make amends if that’s what it took.”

  Mrs. Albright hadn’t reacted again, but she was staring at her cup. She’d been almost as hard to read as Leonard until now. That could mean a lot of things, but my instincts said it’s because Leonard was lying to me. He’d also gone off whatever script they’d come up with together.

  “Could you give me the name of Gordon’s sponsor? I want to make sure he really was clean. If he slipped, he might not have had the money to pay his dealer and that could have gotten him killed.”

  The holes in that story were big enough that Velma could have slept in them. A dealer wouldn’t have bothered dragging Gordon’s body into Clement’s home to frame him for the crime. A dealer would have shot Gordon and let him lie where he fell.

  “The A in NA stands for anonymous.” Leonard rose to his feet. “Even though Gordon’s no longer with us, his sponsor’s privacy should be respected. I’m sorry, but I don’t think there’s anything else we can tell you that would help. We wish Clement hadn’t done this, but it looks like he did. Not everything in life makes sense.”

  Leonard saw us to the door.

  I climbed back into the car, but didn’t let my posture or expression change until we were down the street and I was sure Leonard Albright couldn’t see me anymore.

  I pulled a face. “I’m certain they’re lying about something.”

  “I’d hate for the prosecution to call him as a witness in any of my cases. He was unshakeable until you went for his wife. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they were lying. It’s possible they just didn’t want to tell you about Gordon’s past drug history. If they think Clement did it, they had to know you would argue what you did and try to present that as reasonable doubt for getting Clement acquitted.”

  I wanted to argue, but he was right. It was possible Mrs. Albright had reacted because she and her husband had decided they weren’t going to tell anyone about Gordon’s drug history. It was also possible she’d reacted because she hadn’t known about his drug problem.

  If that was the case, one thing still bothered me about it all. Neither Clement nor Darlene had mentioned Gordon had a drug problem when I asked them about people who might have wanted to hurt Gordon. There was no way they wouldn’t have noticed a drug problem in someone they spent so much time with. They’d either hid it from me or something else was going on here—potentially something that led to Gordon Albright’s death.

  10

  I dropped Anderson off at his car, but before I could decide whether to head home or try to make it to where Clement was being held before they closed to visitors, my phone dinged with a text notification.

  I’m worried about Russ, Stacey wrote. He had chest pains today.

  Stacey’s text validated my concerns for Russ. I’d been afraid I’d been overreacting. Though knowing I’d been right wasn’t much of a comfort. It seemed like Russ had stopped caring about his health after Noah and my Uncle Stan died. But he didn’t want to talk about it or acknowledge it in any way.

  The fact that Stacey texted me meant she expected me to have some solution. And I didn’t.

  When my Uncle Stan had his drinking problem, my dad’s solution had been to pretend like it didn’t exist. At the time, I’d thought it was because he didn’t want to tarnish the family image by admitting his brother was an alcoholic. Understanding my dad a little better now though, it could also have been because he didn’t know what to do about it, and the one thing my dad hated more than anything was to feel helpless or inept.

  All of us pretending Uncle Stan didn’t have a problem resulted in him developing a dangerous heart condition. I refused to do the same with Russ.

  I backed out of the parking lot and headed to Fair Haven. I’d wait to talk to Clement until tomorrow. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on his case properly right now anyway.

  Forget concentrating, I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I had some sort of plan for how to help Russ.

  My parents believed a lot of things that I didn’t, but one area where we agreed was that if you needed information on something or you needed something done and you weren’t an expert in that area, you should find the best person in that field and ask or hire them.

  The best specialist when it came to health would be Russ’ doctor, but he wouldn’t discuss a patient’s health with someone else without the patient’s express permission. Even though I technically had power of attorney for health for Russ, that legally only took effect if he couldn’t make decisions for himself anymore.

  But Saul might be willing to give me some advice as long as I kept the conversation general. He dealt with people’s health concerns on a daily basis, and he’d probably seen more than I could imagine. He also knew I had permission to pick up Russ’ medications, so it wasn’t like I was being nosy for the thrill of it.

  Once I hit main street, I took the next turn rather than heading straight through the traffic light to continue on to Sugarwood.

  The pharmacy was busy when I entered, so I wandered the aisles for fifteen minutes until all the other customers had picked up their prescriptions and left.

  The whoosh-whoosh of wheels turning behind me told me Saul had decided to seek me out rather than wait for me to return to the counter. This was the first time I’d ever browsed the aisles rather than coming in and heading straight for something specific.

  I turned around.

  Saul sat in his chair a couple of feet behind me. “I don’t remember filling anything for you, Nicole, and I know Russ’ medications aren’t due for a refill. Did you need help finding something on the shelves?”

  I returned the vitamin bottle that I’d been reading the label of for the third time to the shelf. “Sort of. I have a health concern that I was hoping you’d be able to give me some advice on.”

  Saul rolled himself backward manually. “Why don’t we head to the counter.”

  It felt like something had lodged in my throat where my neck met my torso. I wouldn’t have had any problem coming to Saul for a recommendation on cold tablets or even something more gross like athlete’s foot. This was different. It felt more personal in a strange way.

  I hopped up onto the seat next to his consultation counter. When I’d first met Saul and he’d still been walking, he used to sit on a stool on the other side. His chair was too low for that now. Instead, he maneuvered his chair next to me.

  His back tire caught on a display rack of discounted sunscreen. It lurched to one side.

  I leapt for it, but it toppled over, spewing sunscreen all over the floor.

  I dropped to my knees and collected them.

  Saul cursed. “The aisles aren’t wide enough to be wheelchair accessible. This happened last week too, and I had to call in Victor to clean it up.”

  It would have been humiliating for him to have to call his boss over that. Nothing in this place was accessible for people with disabilities. Not really. It’d been built so long ago and never upgraded. “That’s something else you can change when it’s yours. I’ve seen some people with those wheeled walkers struggling too.”

  Saul’s fingers stretched out, then contracted. “Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.”

  I stopped re-stacking the tubes on the shelf so I could swivel for a better look at his face. His lips were tight like he was clenching his teeth. Had he looked into it already and renovating the pharmacy after he bought it was too expensive? His medical bills from his surgery had likely been massive. Maybe they’d eaten through his savings. “I’m sure if it’s a cost thing we could put out a call for help in the community. There are a lot of people with construction or mechanical skills who I’m sur
e would be willing to help.”

  Saul must have realized he was clenching his body so tight he looked like he was ready to shatter because he visibly shook it off. His hands flattened on the arms of his chair. “Victor sold this place to someone else. He gave me the news yesterday.”

  Oh no. For as long as I’d been coming here, Saul had been talking about the changes he wanted to make when this place was his. It was what originally got us past the professional pharmacist-patient level because I’d worn myself down with managing the changes I’d been making at Sugarwood and came in asking about vitamins and immune boosters.

  I set down the tubes I was holding and dropped to my bottom on the floor. “I’m really sorry. He didn’t warn you or anything?”

  He shook his head. “He said he knew I couldn’t match the offer the new owner made him. The new owner is a pharmacist as well, so I’ll be lucky to even keep my hours.”

  The tone in his voice reminded me of how I’d felt the first time I screwed up in court and almost destroyed our client’s whole case. It’d been the moment when I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake that I’d regret my whole life. I’d spent years in school and clerking.

  If he’d been planning the rest of his career and his retirement based on the belief that he’d be able to buy this store, Saul could feel like he’d thrown away his future the way I’d felt I sabotaged mine. It was exactly what I didn’t want to happen to me ten or twenty years down the road. I didn’t want to make the wrong choice now and look back later to see I’d made a huge mistake.

  Had I known him better, I would have hugged him. As it was, I didn’t know what to do or what to say. I didn’t have the ability to fix it—which seemed like a pattern for me lately—and everything that came to my mind to say sounded trite.

  I settled on, “I’m sorry.” It might have been a cliché, but it was true.

  His shoulders bounced slightly, like an exhausted man’s version of a shrug. “You had a question for me, didn’t you?”

  I’d almost forgotten why I’d come in the first place. I scooped up another cluster of sunscreen tubes and arranged them on the next shelves, trying to match them to the price labels since I wouldn’t actually be helping Saul if he had to come back and fix what I’d done later. It felt like the least I could do to make his day the tiniest bit better.

  Now that I knew he had a new boss, I also wanted to be extra careful how I phrased my questions. I didn’t want him getting in trouble on my behalf for violating confidentiality. His old boss gave him a lot of freedom. The new owner might keep a tighter watch.

  “I need some advice. There’s someone who is very important to me, and I’m worried about their health.”

  His expression was patient and he wasn’t fidgeting, but I could see the tiny shift in his gaze that said why are you talking to me about this?

  “Anyway, since you’re Fair Haven’s only pharmacist, I figured you’d seen people with a lot of different conditions and you might have some tips for me on how to talk to my friend.”

  “You want me to help you figure out how to get your friend to take your concerns seriously?”

  Taken on its own, his reply could have implied I was being ridiculous, but his tone said he was merely trying to make sure he’d understood me correctly. I nodded.

  He ran his hands back and forth along the top of his wheels in the same way someone else might pace while thinking. “I don’t know that I can advise you as a pharmacist, but maybe I can as someone who lost a person they cared about to a health condition.”

  I finished replacing the sunscreen and sat cross-legged in front of him. I felt a bit like a student with a mentor. “I’m grateful for whatever guidance you can give me.”

  “My only sister had anorexia. I tried to talk to her, but her husband liked his women skinny and she was willing to do anything to keep him from leaving her for someone thinner or younger or prettier.”

  I bit down on my bottom lip. He’d used the past tense. It could be that he meant it in the sense of my sister once had anorexia and now she doesn’t but the undertone of anger in his voice told me that wasn’t where this was headed.

  “It eventually killed her. Her heart couldn’t take the strain anymore and gave out.”

  His voice was calm, but he rubbed his thumbs along the tips of his fingers, leaking the emotions that I was sure were rolling around inside. I had a theory that you never really got over the death of someone you loved. You re-learned how to live your life in a world where they didn’t exist, and you found joy again, but you never stopped missing them.

  Even a year later, I still had a lot of moments where I wanted to ask my Uncle Stan’s advice on something, or talk about the latest mystery novel I’d read to see if I’d guessed the murderer before him, or just hear his laugh because I couldn’t remember what it sounded like anymore.

  I couldn’t lose Russ too soon as well. I just couldn’t. Not if there was anything I could do to prevent it.

  Saul flattened his palms on his knees. “So I can’t give you advice as a professional, but I can tell you what I wished I’d done. If I could do it over again, I wouldn’t have tried to talk to her alone. I’d have collected a group of people who loved her. And I would have tried to convince her to go to counseling.”

  I crawled to my feet and brushed off my knees and bottom. Then I held out my hand to Saul. Granted, you didn’t normally shake hands with your pharmacist, but this was a bit different. “Thank you.”

  Saul took my hand. “I won’t say it was my pleasure, but I hope it helps.”

  As soon as I was back in my car, I called Mark and told him about Stacey’s text and what Saul recommended.

  “You’re really starting to be a local, you know,” Mark said. “You know almost more people than I do in the town at this point.”

  I highly doubted that since Mark was not only the county medical examiner, but also a Cavanaugh and his family ran the local funeral home. But I took it as a complement anyway. “Do you think an intervention might work? You, Stacey, and I aren’t the only people who care about him and are worried.”

  In the silence, I could hear him moving papers around, so he must be in his office. I’d gotten good at knowing where he was based on the noises in the background and whether he answered his phone immediately or not. If I had to leave a message, he was either at a crime scene or in the middle of an autopsy. Mark was very careful about being professional about his cell phone use.

  “Russ is extremely private,” he finally said.

  Russ was someone who eschewed the small-town gossip mill. He didn’t like to discuss any local news and he was extra-careful not to say anything about anyone that could make its rounds of the town and come back warped. He certainly hadn’t reacted well the few times I’d tried to pry into areas he felt I didn’t belong.

  But I was out of other ideas if Mark shot this one down. “I’m worried about him.”

  “I know. I am too. We just can’t rush in. Why don’t you set up a time for you, and I, and Stacey to meet and talk about it. If we approach it wrong, or invite too many people, it’ll backfire on us. If we embarrass him rather than making him feel loved, he’ll take worse care of himself not better.”

  11

  When the guard ushered me into the private visiting room reserved for inmates meeting with their lawyers, Clement was already waiting for me.

  Based on the visits I’d had with him in the Fair Haven police station, I’d expected to be brought down to his cell and have to talk to him through the bars while all his neighbors listened. Though perhaps that wasn’t allowed here or Clement hadn’t wanted anyone to overhear us or both. I wasn’t complaining. Going into the actual cell block wouldn’t have been a safe or smart idea.

  Clement looked a little better than the last time I’d seen him. His skin wasn’t as translucent, and the dark circles under his eyes were more smudges than purple paint smears now. It’s amazing what a little hope would do for a person. Knowing I had a lead on anot
her possibility for what happened to Gordon should bring his spirits up even more.

  The guard let me know he’d be outside the door and showed me how to contact him when I was ready to leave.

  The door closed with a clang, and Clement and I were alone. My mind tried to freeze. Because if he decided to hurt me, my odds of notifying the guard in time weren’t good.

  I gave myself a mental shake. That was the PTSD talking. I could recognize it now. Recognizing it didn’t stop the jittery feeling in my body like a nest of spiders was trying to crawl out of my stomach, but it meant I could keep it from controlling me.

  We haven’t proven Clement is a killer, I reminded myself. You don’t need to be afraid of a potentially innocent man.

  The little fear devil that liked to sit on my metaphorical shoulder and whisper in my ear tried to remind me that if Clement was guilty, he was the kind of person who couldn’t control his actions and no one was safe with him.

  One of the things I’d been talking about with my counselor was techniques I could make to use myself feel more safe. Planning an escape route was one of them. I’d found it especially helpful in situations where I didn’t have the time to repeat Bible verses to myself.

  I edged my chair back so that I could evacuate it quickly and use it as a barricade to buy myself time. Just in case. “I spoke with Leonard Albright and his wife. They told me a few things about Gordon that could point to other people who might have had a motive for hurting him.”

  I left out the question floating on the back of my tongue about why he and Darlene hadn’t mentioned it. It would have sounded accusatory no matter how I phrased it. My dad had drilled it into me that you had to keep your client feeling like you were their ally. The worst thing you could do was to make them feel like you were attacking them as well.

  “They weren’t as forthcoming with details as I needed though,” I said, “so I was hoping you could fill in the gaps.”