The Sweet Scent of Murder

by Susan P. Baker

  “It’ll find its way over there today.”

  “Woodridge got any money?”

  I laughed. “You’re brutal, you know that?”

  “It’s a cold, hard fact that teenagers have to have name brand clothes.”

  “Thank God I don’t have any.”

  “God has nothing to do with it these days. Just stay on the pill—or better yet use it in conjunction with a prophylactic, and you’ll be childless and live a long life. You’ll also be a lot richer.”

  “As long as I don’t need a lot of legal help.”

  “Now you’re getting the picture. Oh, by the way, the prosecutor back when is no longer with us. Died in a car accident the following year. Willowood, the custody lawyer, moved to parts as yet unknown. Can’t find him in the Texas Legal Directory. How does that grab ya’?”

  “I’m ecstatic.”

  “I knew you would be,” she said. “Listen, I’ve got a client sitting here wanting to be serviced,” she said and chortled, “so I’ll have to talk to you later. Woodridge still in jail?”

  “Yes. They brought him to Harris County this morning. So you’ll see him then?”

  “As long as you guarantee me my money.”

  “He’s got some land he can sell if he has to.”

  “Let’s hope he doesn’t have to. Gotta go. See you in court,” Gillian said and hung up.

  I wasn’t exactly having second thoughts because obviously she was actively involved with my case, but during the day, I did reflect on what an interesting person she was. Should have known that any of Candy’s relatives would have a lot of character.

  Now all I had to do was be patient until lunch.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After I finished reading over the mail from the past few days, returned the other phone calls, and made out a check to Gillian Wright, I decided to pay a visit to the University of Houston lab. I left Gillian’s check for Candy to take over in the afternoon after she came in from school. Cousins, however many times removed, ought to be acquainted. Not that I felt that way about mine.

  Stanhope was exactly where I’d left him. If he hadn’t changed clothes, I would have sworn he hadn’t budged. I shook him loose from his microscope and climbed up on a stool next to him.

  “Stan, I’ve been reading about poisons. I still think Mr. Lawson was poisoned and the police do, too. Is there anything you can tell me that would pinpoint it?”

  He smiled. “Yeah. I’ve been called in to consult.”

  “Cool. By the ME? He’s a bud of yours if I remember correctly.”

  “You know that little bottle you didn’t pick up? It was cologne after all.”

  “Oh. But they wouldn’t have asked for a consult for that.”

  “No. You want the good news?”

  “What? Have you been teasing me again?”

  “They brought some tissue samples over for me to analyze. Seems some guy died the same time your victim did. Poison. They can’t figure out exactly what kind.”

  My spirits shot up. “Was it from Mr. Lawson?”

  He smiled. “I can’t say.” He winked.

  “Great.” I yanked on his shirtsleeve. “What was it, Stan? Tell me.”

  “So long as you didn’t hear it from me.”

  “Not a word, I promise.”

  “It looks like a combination of poisons.”

  “That’s weird. Like arsenic and something else?”

  “Like from plants, common house plants like philodendron, oleander, calla lily, fairy lily, azalea, hyacinth, foxglove, yew—”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Margaret got me some stuff from the Internet about house plants, but it can’t be all of those.”

  “I’m not sure yet. I’m just naming some of the most poisonous plants around but definitely some of those. It would help if I knew what houseplants there were at the victim’s home. Not that it would prove anything. Anyone could go about gathering up pieces of plants to make poison.”

  I thought about the beautiful landscaped properties of River Oaks. “There were calla lilies inside the house near the stairwell. Could that have been it?”

  “Not by itself. Can you remember any others? How about oleanders outside?”

  “Yes! Yes, oleanders out in the backyard by the pool. And gigantic philodendrons right outside the terrace door. I wish I knew my plants. No telling what I didn’t recognize.”

  “Of course, just having a plant in your yard doesn’t mean you used it to kill anybody,” Stan said. “Still, it’s a start knowing what some are.”

  “What a weird way to kill somebody. Don’t you think so, Stan?”

  “Yeah, it would’ve been much easier if they’d have just shot the guy.”

  “Yeah, quicker, but not by much.”

  “Why do you say that?” Stan asked.

  “I was there, remember? However they did it, it was really fast acting.”

  “Hey, that gives me an idea, Mavis. Thanks. You’ve helped me narrow it down. How about I call you later after I’m able to narrow it down more?”

  “Are you trying to get rid of me, Stanhope?”

  “Goodbye, Mavis.”

  Angela waited surreptitiously for me around the corner of the restaurant and popped out just as I opened the door. I got the distinct feeling that she did that on purpose because of the way I behaved the previous day but didn’t mention it.

  Benihanna’s is a Japanese restaurant smack in the middle of downtown Houston on the first floor of a major office building. If a person wanted to be covert, it was not the place to do it. Angela may have been of the opinion that the best way to conceal what one is doing is to do it out in the open to avert suspicion. I don’t know. As soon as I opened the door, though, and the aroma of Japanese cuisine wafted out to me, the only thing I thought of was food. It seemed like a long time since breakfast.

  I ordered steak and shrimp and plum wine. Ordinarily I’m not real big on wine, but that plum stuff—it warms the cockle berries of my heart, not to mention my stomach. I must have it when I eat anything Oriental. I’m not sure what Angela had. I was too immersed in myself.

  The kimono-clad lady sat us at a table for six which promptly filled up with four men in expensive-looking business suits. An Asian chef bustled in, slapped a hunk of garlic butter on the built-in grill, and began doing tricks with his butcher knife and my shrimp, chopping off the tails and flipping them into the air and down onto my plate. I got to pig out while their meals were still cooking. When, the chef settled down to shuffling the bean sprouts and onions around, and the edge of my hunger was gone, I came to my senses.

  Obviously uneasy, Angela watched the door until the place filled up. Satisfied that she wasn’t followed by Mandy or one of her spies, she told me in a low voice, “You were right. It could easily have been a setup.” She smiled at the men sitting around us. They were intent on their own conversations and most likely didn’t notice that her face looked like that of a girl trying to win Miss Congeniality. If anyone suspected she was up to something, she’d be a dead giveaway. The only thing missing was the canary hanging out of her mouth.

  “What does it show?” I asked, being careful to follow her lead so I wouldn’t piss her off.

  “It was subtle enough, but you or I would have questioned it. I think the caseworker must have been either new or stupid.”

  “Or paid off,” I said.

  She grimaced. “You can’t be serious, Mavis,” she said. “It could be since I’m not involved, I can spot it more easily. People were more shockable then. It’s easy to point the finger after the fact. A lot of the workers weren’t degreed in the right fields, either.”

  “I know. Is it obvious enough to do something with?”

  The chef had finished up and was portioning out the vegetables and entrees onto each plate. When he was through, everyone applauded, and he went away.

  “It’s not obvious at all. That’s what I’m trying to say. It is to me, but it wouldn’t be to an untrained eye or someone who
wasn’t interested or too horrified to look deeply.”

  “How did you figure it out?” I maneuvered a long slice of zucchini toward my mouth with my chopsticks. I pride myself on my ability to handle those two slim pieces of wood, but I’m not perfect yet.

  Angela unrolled her napkin and meticulously straightened it out on her lap. She picked up her fork and stared at it as though her next words were written on the prongs. “It’s ‘the mother reported that the girl said this’ and ‘the mother reported that the boy said that.’ Very few actual interviews with the children by the workers themselves. Or by the police. In fact, I don’t think the police ever talked to the children at all.” She pushed her food around on her plate before stabbing at a piece of chicken.

  I needed more than that. I needed something I could take to Gillian or the police. “That’s all?”

  “Oh, it’s a thick file. There are some quotes from the children from an interview someone did in the mother’s presence on the very first day—the day she made the complaint. There was a physical done by a doctor. It says the little girl had a vaginal irritation and some scratches on her upper thighs. There’s a report by a psychiatrist that says that the children wouldn’t have used the terminology they used unless someone had interacted with them. It says they were too young to otherwise know the names for certain parts of the body.”

  “In other words, all the usual bullshit.”

  “Right,” Angela said. “The police reported they searched the house and found some kiddie porn.”

  “That’s a bunch of crap. She had to go to a lot of trouble to plant it.”

  “I know,” she said. She sighed. “It makes me sick, Mavis. No one ever talked to the children out of the presence of their mother. No one had them make any demonstrations with any kind of dolls, much less the anatomically correct ones. There was no videotape of the children. The report just says the kids were real emotional every time they were brought to the office and the subject broached with them. Especially the girl.”

  “Did anyone interview Arthur Woodridge?”

  “A psychologist, not a caseworker. He was seen several times in the jail. The notes say that there was some hope that he could go into therapy and get straightened out and maybe the family could be reunited, but the psychological report says that he wouldn’t admit his guilt and until he would do that, there was no hope of rehabilitating him. Then it says that the mother was seen by the psychologist and that she stated that she’d, and I quote ‘lost all love for him and didn’t think she could ever allow him back into her home again.”

  “Puke.” The whole thing was making me lose my appetite. “Who was the doctor? I might want to pay him a visit.”

  Angela leaned over and reached into her purse. She pulled out a couple of pieces of paper and stuffed them into the side pocket of my purse. “It’s all there,” she said under her breath.

  “What would it take these days to clear the man?”

  She looked surprised. “You mean this man? Now?”

  I nodded and took a sip from my midget glass of wine.

  “It’s never been done before—that I know about.”

  “Well, the kids will tell their story, but I know that’s not enough because it’s obvious how much they care for their father. They made a big scene the other night when he was arrested. The police will just think they are emotional teenagers trying to protect him. I’ve got to have more than that to clear him.”

  “Jesus, I don’t know, Mavis.”

  “Would you make a statement? Would you give a deposition as an expert on what the file shows?”

  “I’d lose my job. Besides, the department would never allow it to be made public that they’d made this kind of horrendous mistake. With all the problems CPS has been having the last few years like in San Antonio, they’d be afraid they would lose all credibility.”

  Why did I know that she’d say that? “What if I could prove that some of what’s in the file was false? What if I could get a confession from one of the professionals that was involved that it was a weak case? What if I could prove that Arthur Woodridge’s wife was having an affair with the man who was his defense lawyer back then?”

  Her eyes widened at my last statement, but she shook her head. “I don’t know. I feel sorry for the guy, but I can’t lose this job. I know Mandy would fire me. I’d have to get her permission, and she wouldn’t give it. If I went on and did it, I wouldn’t stand a chance in hell of keeping my job.”

  I could feel myself coming to a slow boil. That was the kind of bureaucratic bullcrap that caused me to leave the department. “Would you at least come to the police department with me and talk to Captain Milton about it? Or have you already done that.”

  “Are you nuts? All I did was take the file to be copied.”

  “Well maybe he wanted it so that he could do a little after-the-fact investigation himself. If you’d come with me, it might give him a boost if he’s as suspicious as I was.”

  “Nah, Mavis. He wanted the file so that he could take it to the district attorney’s office together with the old police file so that it would help get an indictment on the guy for kidnapping. They don’t have enough for the murder indictment, but he doesn’t want Woodridge getting out of jail and skipping while they’re investigating.”

  “Shit. You’ve got to come with me.”

  “Shh,” she said and glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was listening. “No, I don’t, and I’m not.”

  “Look at it this way, Angela. I’ve got a friend on the Chronicle and if you help me, I’ll see to it that he’ll write you up as the one who discovered the injustice that was done and righted it all these many years later.”

  Angela stopped eating and studied my face. Then she turned back to her plate, obviously struggling with herself. For once, I kept my big mouth shut. Let her struggle. Maybe she’d discover that she still had some integrity left, though God knows working for the government—getting along by going along—could destroy it in anyone. At that point I didn’t know who was sicker, Hilary Lawson or the people who wouldn’t take risks to help others.

  I found myself dipping my chopsticks into my bowl of white rice and munching out while I waited for her answer. I don’t even like white rice.

  “Shelton says I should do something, too, Mavis, but I just can’t do it.”

  “Your husband?”

  She nodded. “He works construction and it’s been slow. We’re flat busted. He says we’ll get along, but I just can’t do it. I’d be blackballed at every agency in town.” The mournful expression in her eyes made me feel guilty. I could understand. It wasn’t easy, but I sure could understand her decision.

  We finished what was left of our lunch in silence. When the geisha-type came with the check on the tray, I dropped a credit card on it. I may not have any cash, but at least I still had good credit.

  As we were leaving, I told her that I was going to the police department and that she could come if she wanted to but that I wouldn’t count on it. She shook her head and told me she wouldn’t be there. I thanked her for taking the risks that she had and then I watched as she walked slowly down the street. I could tell that the decision not to help was destroying her.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lunch left me feeling lethargic. I would have much preferred to go home and nap rather than meet with Captain Milton but persuaded myself that it was essential not to waste any time. In a few days the Lawson kids would be gone to camp and Gillian Wright’s job, as well as my own, would be much more difficult. Let’s face it, I would procrastinate if I could rather than have another confrontation with a cop, but there just wasn’t time.

  When I stepped off the elevator, I took a deep breath and waltzed down the hall and into Milton’s office with determined steps. I could see through his mini-blinds that he was occupied with someone but didn’t let that stop me. I darted past his secretary whose desk stands adjacent to his office entrance and flung open his door before she could stop me.


  “Captain Milton, I want my gun back,” I said.

  “You can’t come busting in here,” Milton said as he jumped up behind his desk. He’d loosened his tie, his shirt collar open. His face was a blustering red. I hadn’t been there long enough to get him worked up into such a stew and wondered briefly at the cause of it. I looked to see who he’d been discoursing with and there sat Ben, slouched back in an armchair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, an amused expression dancing around his eyes. He gave me a cursory nod.

  There was some background noise that I think was Captain Milton saying something, but it didn’t penetrate. I was staring at Ben and had this wild desire to run to him and throw my arms around him. It was kind of like finding myself in a slow-motion film clip where the man and woman are in a field of wild flowers about a hundred yards apart, the woman in a flowery dress, carrying a floppy hat in her hand, and she begins running toward the man with outstretched arms, joy written all over her face. Then I remembered that I was supposed to be angry at Ben, so I turned my head and pretended I hadn’t seen him. My stomach churned as I took an aggressive tact with the captain and squared off in front of his desk.

  “You have no right to keep my gun. I want it back. It’s not evidence of anything. I want you to make out a slip so I can go to the property room and pick it up. It’s not safe for a woman to go about Houston without her gun.” I was babbling, but it was all I could think of. I hoped it would stop him from throwing me out.