He frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“Nell’s favorite cat, the one she dotes on, is named Chester.”
He scratched his temple. “Okay.”
“I think she’s been in love with him all these years. I think she put Frank Cape up to killing Carl.”
“That’s a pretty big leap, Roxann.”
“No. I remembered something that Cape said when he told me he killed Carl. He said a lot of good it did him, and that nobody keeps their word. I think Nell struck a bargain with him—kill Carl, and she’d find out where Melissa was living.”
“Did she find out?”
“No, but not for lack of trying. She asked me several times, and my supervisor said she’d even been in touch with him about the case. And I distinctly remember a conversation where she asked about Melissa and Renita.” She shook her head. “I never mentioned their names.”
“But how would she have gotten in touch with Cape?”
“I’m guessing through Elise James—she ran with a pretty bad element.” She wet her lips. “Elise is dead, by the way. Overdose on prescription drugs that were laced with something. But I’m starting to wonder… “
“Go on.”
“I wonder if Nell was the one who gave her the drugs. She’s been ill, and I stumbled across enough prescription painkillers in her cabinet to take out a herd of elephants.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “What else do you have?”
“She tried to divert suspicion in the Tammy Paulen case to Angora, tried to convince me that Angora was guilty and unstable. I’ll bet she told others the same thing.”
“To protect Seger.”
“Probably.”
He pointed to the file between them. “Do you remember the date the Paulen girl was killed?”
“Yeah, it was December second, 1992.”
“Look in that folder for a copy of Dr. Seger’s bio. It’s four or five pages stapled together.”
“Why? What am I looking for?”
“Just a hunch, but check the dates on his list of speaking engagements.”
She found the paper, which listed Dr. Seger’s accomplishments. A resume of sorts, including an exhaustive list of seminars he’d given. Roxann scanned the dates, then stopped. “November twenty-ninth through December third, Carl was giving a seminar in Philadelphia.”
Capistrano whistled low. “Think he loaned his car to anyone to use while he was gone?”
“Someone who doesn’t have a car.” She closed her eyes. “I can’t believe it. Angora said that she told Carl she’d seen his car leaving the scene.”
“So he knew that Dr. Oney had done it.”
“Right. Maybe he called Nell, threatened to blackmail her. Maybe that’s when she contacted Cape and made the deal or sped up the deal they’d already made.”
Capistrano’s mouth tightened. “If we realized that Seger wasn’t around when the Paulen girl was killed, someone else will eventually notice, too. And without Angora around to testify… “
She nodded, reeling. Nell… lonely Nell. Had she stayed holed up in her little house quietly going mad?
He picked up the phone. “What’s the name of the hospital?”
“Holy Cross.”
He punched in a number and asked directory assistance for a direct connection. “Security please,” he said. “This is urgent.” Then he frowned. “What?… When?… Thank you.”
He disconnected the call. “The hospital has been evacuated for a possible fire. The fire department is on its way.”
“Think it’s a coincidence?” she asked.
He pulled a blue siren from beneath his seat, rolled down the window, and stuck it to the top of the cab. “Darlin’, there are very few coincidences in this world.”
Chapter 34
Angora allowed Nell to plump her pillow and brush off the crumbs. “Thank you.”
“I brought you something,” Nell said, holding up a white bag. “Jelly doughnuts and milk.”
Angora smiled—maybe she’d misjudged Dr. Oney. She’d thought for some reason that the woman didn’t like her. “Thank you. The food here is terrible.”
Nell handed her a doughnut and opened a pint carton of milk. “Go ahead and eat. I had one already.”
She frowned at the message still playing over the intercom. “If there’s no fire, why don’t they turn off the alarm?”
“They probably have to wait for the fire department to reset it.”
Angora bit into the doughnut—the food of all foods, in her opinion. Dee wouldn’t even allow them in the house. Ooh, and whole milk. Wow. She took a big drink, then winced. “This milk tastes funny.”
“It’s fresh,” Nell assured her. “I just bought it in the cafeteria.”
“Oh. I’m used to drinking skim.”
“That must be it,” Nell agreed.
She took another large bite and swallow of milk, “Roxann said she was coming over.”
“I’m sorry I’ll miss her. I can’t stay very long.”
“Roxann really thinks the world of you, you know.”
Nell looked sad. “I think the world of her, too.” She stood and walked around the room with her hands clasped behind her, as if she were in the classroom giving a lecture. “I hear that you’ve been spreading lies about Dr. Seger.”
She stopped mid-chew and talked through a mouthful of jelly. “Huh?”
“Mike Brown said you told the police that you had a sexual encounter with Carl in his office.”
She swallowed and tried to speak, but her throat was dry and tingly. She downed another drink of milk, then laid her head back. “I wasn’t lying. It… happened.”
“You lying little glutton of a bitch,” Nell said in a calm voice.
But Angora wasn’t sure she heard her correctly, because something was wrong. Her head felt funny, and her stomach burned—inside and out.
“He also said that you saw Carl driving away from the scene the night that Tammy Paulen was killed.”
“I… did.” She moaned and clutched her stomach.
“That makes two lies, Angora. I was driving Carl’s car. I saw that little slut in the road and I ran over her.” She laughed. “Not only did I not slow down—I actually sped up. She was pregnant, you know. She told me it was Carl’s baby, but she was a liar, too.”
Nell walked over and lifted Angora’s hand, then dropped several capsule halves from her own gloved hand and closed Angora’s fingers over the bits of plastic.
Angora couldn’t resist her—she had no control over her limbs. She watched as Nell guided her hand over the tray table and allowed the empty capsules that now had her fingerprints on them to fall out and roll next to the carton of milk.
“But those are our little secrets, Angora. You can take them to your grave. Which should be very shortly considering the amount of painkiller I put in that milk.”
Angora’s tongue seemed to overflow her mouth. She couldn’t talk, but she could hear every word the sick woman was saying.
“I thought they’d lock you up for sure. I set you up with a dim farmer who thinks he’s F. Lee Bailey. He told me things because he thought I was trying to help you.” She laughed. “I think the poor clod is in love with you.”
“Help… me,” Angora whispered.
“Oh, but I am. You see, you have the reputation of being unstable. Did you know there’s schizophrenia in your family? It’s hereditary. I know because my mother was schizophrenic.” She laughed. “But I digress. You were depressed, Angora. You were just jilted at the altar, then all this business with Carl, then your surgery. You were so overcome with grief that you took your own life with pills you stole from my kitchen cabinet. I made a point of telling my sister when I went to Indy that someone had been pilfering my medicine.” She sighed. “So you see, everyone will believe you simply gave up.”
Angora fought the urge to give in to sleep. This was the third time in as many days that she’d thought she was dying, and Dee always said that the third time was the cha
rm. Where was that senior guardian angel? Oh, boy, she was a goner this time, taken down by jelly doughnuts.
Chapter 35
Roxann ran down the hall, looking for Angora’s room number. The acrid smell of smoke was even stronger on this floor, although she didn’t see smoke. Capistrano was behind her, followed by two security guards. She was short of breath from running the eight flights of stairs.
“Here!” she shouted, moving the “room evacuated” door tag to try the handle. “It’s locked.” She peered through the narrow frosted window, but she couldn’t make out anything.
Capistrano threw his weight against the door, but it wouldn’t budge. He pulled down the sleeve of his sweatshirt to cover his fist, then rammed it through the glass and looked in. “Angora’s in there. Alone.” He reached through the window and down to unlock the door from the inside.
Roxann rushed into the room. Angora was deathly pale. Next to her sat an open bag of doughnuts and a small carton of milk, surrounded by a mound of broken capsules. “Call a doctor,” she yelled to the guards. “Tell them she’s been drugged, maybe poisoned.”
“Stay here,” Capistrano said to Roxann. “I’m going to look for Oney.”
But Roxann was right behind him. He borrowed a two-way radio from one of the guards and stuffed it in his coat pocket. Then he fished a card out of his wallet and punched in a number on his cell phone while he moved down the hall, peering into adjacent rooms.
“This is Detective Capistrano of the Biloxi PD. I have an emergency at Holy Cross Hospital. Possible murder attempt. The suspect is Dr. Nell Oney, Caucasian female, approximately fifty years of age, five feet five, one hundred ten pounds. Suspect may have left the building traveling on foot. Requesting periphery surveillance. Also, inform Detectives Warner and Jaffey.”
They found one of the sources of the smoke—a smoldering bin of used linens in a supply closet. The detective used the radio to alert the security guards and closed the door. There were probably similar fires throughout the building. They systematically checked rooms, then moved down one floor, but Roxann was afraid that Nell was long gone. On the seventh floor, however, a gravelly sound reached her ears—coughing. Apparently the smoke from the fires Nell had set was too much for her. Roxann nudged Capistrano and pointed to a women’s lounge. He radioed the security guards and told them to notify the police. Then he drew his weapon, which brought tears to her eyes. He gestured for her to stay put, then crept to the door.
“Dr. Oney,” he called. “It’s Detective Capistrano and Roxann. We know you’re in there, and we know what happened. Come out and we’ll work through this together.” He backed away from the door.
A few seconds later, Nell emerged, her pallor gray, and her eyes red-rimmed. She had her hand to her mouth, coughing so violently, her entire body shook.
She gasped for air, and pointed a bony finger at Roxann. “I tried to protect you,” she said. “I loved Carl, too, but I was protecting you when I sent you away.”
Roxann swallowed, unable to reconcile the wild-eyed woman before her with the nurturing mentor Nell had once been. “All those years ago… you made up the story about Carl being investigated because you knew I’d leave.”
“Yes. He was crazy about you, but I knew he’d never change. The man unzipped his fly for any pretty girl who walked by.”
She looked to Capistrano who gestured that she keep Nell talking. “You were sure he wouldn’t come after me once I left South Bend?”
“No, I wasn’t sure. But I told Carl if he didn’t stay away from you, I’d reveal that Tammy Paulen was pregnant with his baby when she died.”
Roxann blinked as another piece of the puzzle fell into place. “You killed Tammy, didn’t you?” she asked softly.
She smiled. “You’re smarter than Carl.”
“He didn’t know until Angora told him.”
Nell lapsed into another coughing fit and sagged against the door. Roxann started to go to her, but Capistrano held out his arm. “Do you need to sit down, ma’am?”
Her next inhale expanded her frail chest. She shook her head. “No, I want to have my say before they take me away.” She swallowed, then wiped her mouth with her hand. “Carl called me the night that Angora was at his house. Said if I even thought about revealing the Paulen girl’s pregnancy, he could prove that I’d killed her. He said he was still in love with you, Roxann, and that now I couldn’t stop him from pursuing a relationship with you.”
A bittersweet revelation. “So you sent over Frank Cape, with the scarf you took from my room?”
Nell made a regretful sound. “That’s where things went bad. I told Frank that if he did me a favor, I could find out where Melissa was hiding.”
Bile backed up in Roxann’s mouth that Nell was willing to betray a woman who took refuge in the program she had created.
“The idiot was supposed to make it look as if Angora killed Carl. Later he told me the scarf was already in the library, and he thought it was hers. I could have killed Frank myself for incriminating you.”
“Carl was at the restaurant where you and I dined,” Roxann murmured. “I must have lost my scarf and he must have found it.”
Nell’s smile was rueful. “An unforeseeable mix-up.”
“How did you meet up with Cape?” Capistrano asked.
“Elise was screwing him in Biloxi.”
Roxann wet her lips. “Elise is dead, you know.”
Nell’s laugh was punctuated with a hacking cough. “Oh, yes, I know. Elise and I were close when she went to school here. Carl nearly destroyed her, too, so I took her under my wing. She was strung too tightly to cope with any disappointment. Over the years she called me when she was in the midst of one crisis or another. I tried to help her when I could, find jobs for her.”
“You sent her to Biloxi,” Roxann said in sudden comprehension.
Nell nodded. “When your picture ran in the alumni newsletter, I could tell Carl was getting restless. He asked me to let him off the hook—he wanted to see you again.” She smiled sadly. “I told him no, that you were still off-limits. He’d poisoned enough women with his wickedness, me included.”
Roxann couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “So you sent Elise to spy on me?”
“I was trying to protect you, don’t you see?” Nell’s bottom Hp quivered. “I never had a child, Roxann. You’re like a daughter to me.”
She set her jaw to hold back her emotion. Nell’s love was so twisted, it was inconceivable. “B-but why did you kill Elise?”
“I didn’t plan to, but I listened in on her call to you at my house. I went to see her, to stop her from telling you everything. She wanted pills in return for her silence. Those pills wouldn’t have hurt her if she hadn’t taken more than one.”
But anyone who knew Elise knew that one of anything was never enough. Anger stirred in Roxann’s stomach. “Angora had better live,” she whispered. “She’s innocent in all of this.”
Nell’s ghostly face suddenly turned malicious. “Because of her, I had to have Carl killed.” Then she narrowed her eyes. “And I finally figured out your little secret. How can you say that Angora is innocent?”
Roxann’s heart pumped harder.
“It took me a while,” Nell admitted. “But I started thinking about what Tammy had told me—that it had something to do with a blond wig. It suddenly dawned on me while I was at my sister’s house. I checked, and it all fit.”
The exit door swung open and Detective Jaffey appeared with two uniformed officers, weapons drawn.
“It’s okay,” Capistrano called. “Dr. Oney isn’t going to cause any more trouble.” Then he looked back to her. “Are you?”
She shook her head and succumbed to another coughing spasm until blood appeared in her mouth. “I’m dying,” she said to Roxann, with tears in her eyes.
“What?”
“Lung cancer. Doctors say I have about three months left to live.”
Roxann broke away from Capistrano’s restraining ar
m and went to her. They hugged for several long minutes, and Roxann pretended Nell was the woman they both wanted her to be. Jaffey walked up. “We’ll take it from here.”
She watched them lead Nell away, the woman’s walk little more than a shuffle. Roxann slid down the wall and sat on the floor, weak and spent after the day’s revelations. Capistrano was talking to Jaffey, filling him in on the high points of Nell’s confession. Then he spoke to someone over the two-way radio, and walked over to sit down by her.
“Your cousin is going to make it.”
She closed her eyes and breathed a prayer of thanks. “Is this nightmare finally over?”
He pursed his mouth and nodded. “Unless you have a confession to make?”
He was referring to the secret Nell hinted at. “Nope. I’m done for the day.” She pushed herself up and he followed. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she murmured.
“Yes, you do,” he said, his brown eyes serious.
But her head was too full to deal with yet another demand. “Sorry, Detective. That’s not on the table.” Then she walked toward the exit sign.
Chapter 36
“We could postpone the trip back for another day if you don’t feel up to it,” Roxann said, pushing the wheelchair down the hall.
Angora craned her head around. “I’m feeling fine. I just want to get out of here and on the road.” She wore the crown Roxann had given her, and a blue pashmina shawl around her shoulders. She looked like a celebrity leaving the hospital, and indeed, she had become somewhat of a town icon since news of Dr. Oney’s treachery had broken.
Everyone at the nurses’ station waved. “Goodbye, Angora.”
“Goodbye,” she sang, waving at her adoring audience. “Thank you, everyone. Thank you.”
Roxann wheeled her to the side entrance where a refurbished Goldie awaited them. And Mike Brown. He was dressed in work clothes, including a John Deere ball cap, but he looked fresh-scrubbed. He smiled at Angora and juggled the items he was holding to take off his hat when they came closer. Without preamble, he thrust a wildflower bouquet into her hands.
Got Your Number ((a humorous romantic mystery)) Page 27