“Great,” I grinned at her. Maybe Gillian would be a positive role model for Candy. I hadn’t been doing such a hot job lately.
“If anyone can get you like out of this, Gillian can,” Candy said.
“I hope so, but we’re going to have to do some of the work ourselves. I’ve been thinking while we’ve been talking that we need to try to figure out what was in the envelope that Lana said Annette was going to give me.”
“What envelope?” Margaret asked.
“Oh, I forgot—” I proceeded to give them a rundown of the rest of the events.
“Do you think it had something to do with the Lawson kids being adopted and their father being put in jail?” Margaret asked.
“I don’t know. It’s a possibility. Annette could have found some papers about it in Mr. Lawson’s office if she was cleaning it out after he died.”
“Hey, you know, Mavis, maybe the old lady found some papers that show that Mr. Woodridge is like really innocent. Maybe some canceled checks showing that Mr. Lawson bribed some witnesses or something like that.”
Candy flitted around the room like Tinker Bell. “That’d be great, huh?”
“Except every indication is that he didn’t know Hilary framed her husband,” I said.
“Aw, c’mon, Mavis. You don’t believe that, do you?” Candy asked.
Margaret was quiet, watching us.
“What do you think, Margaret? Got any ideas?” It wasn’t that I thought she’d come up with some brilliant notion, but I hated to let Candy overshadow her.
She turned her head to the side and chewed on her lower lip. “I don’t think someone would kill Mr. Lawson for those papers, that’s all. There had to be another reason.”
“God. What a mess,” I said. “We’ve got a frame for sexual abuse of a child thirteen years ago. We’ve got the mother probably having an affair with the man who was her ex-husband’s lawyer. We’ve got a dead man who was having an affair with his employee’s wife. There’s a secretary with her head bashed in who was in love with the decedent. We’ve got people with motives coming out their ears.”
“Don’t forget the dead dog,” Candy said.
“You’re gross sometimes, Candy,” I said. “But one thing about it is that the dog probably wouldn’t have barked if he’d known the person who came to the house.”
“Yeah, but who would go to her house anyhow?” Candy asked.
“And did they get the papers?” Margaret asked.
“Probably,” I said. “I didn’t see any and the police didn’t turn up any that I know of. ”
“Maybe Miss Jensen mailed them to us on her way home,” Candy said. “Or—maybe she mailed them to herself?”
I shook my head. “Only in the movies, Candy.”
“She could have seen that in a movie,” Candy said.
“Yeah, Mavis,” Margaret said.
“I don’t think the killer found them,” I said. “Otherwise why would he or she have been there when I showed up?”
“See,” Candy said, “they could be in the mail.”
“It hasn’t come yet, Margaret?” Let’s face it, you never know.
“Nope. Anytime now.”
“I vote that if the envelope isn’t in the mail, we go out to her house and search it,” Candy said.
My thoughts exactly. “I’ll go out and search it.”
“Let me go with you, Mavis,” Margaret said.
“If anyone gets to go, it should be me, Margaret,” Candy said. “After all, I’m the one who brought the case to the office. I should get to help investigate it.”
“No one is going with me.” I hated it when Candy got that one-upmanship tone.
“When are you going to go?” Candy asked.
“Tonight, after dark. The house is supposed to be sealed, and I don’t want anyone calling the cops on me.”
“You’ll need someone to stand guard for you, Mavis,” Candy said.
I shook my head and glanced at Margaret to see how she was reacting to all this.
“It’s okay,” Margaret said. “I couldn’t go that late anyway. I have a date.”
“With that dude, what’s-his-face?” Candy asked.
“Yeah. It’s okay, Mavis. I don’t mind if Candy goes.”
“You’ll need me, Mav,” Candy said as she gave me her most earnest look. “I can sit in the car and watch out for you. If anyone comes, I could honk the horn. We could park down the street a little from the house in front of another house and I could act like I was waiting for someone to come out. See, you need me.”
“It’s against my better judgment,” I said. “It could be dangerous.”
“Not if I lock myself in the car,” she said. That whine of hers was starting to creep into her voice.
“I’m only planning to do it if the envelope doesn’t come in the mail.”
“Come on, please? I promise I’ll do exactly what you tell me. I won’t get in the way.”
“Won’t your mother wonder where you are on a school night?”
“She’ll never know the diff, Mavis. I go out all the time.”
“Great.” There was a reason why Candy’s mom wouldn’t be named Mother of the Year.
“Please, Mavis? I promise I won’t get into any trouble.”
“I don’t know, Candy. You’re just a kid. I’ve got to take care of you.”
“I’m eighteen now, Mavis. I’m fixin’ to graduate. Besides, all you’re going to do is search the place. What could go wrong?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I didn’t relent. I just couldn’t take Candy with me, and I could tell Margaret didn’t want to go. I’d have to go to Annette’s house alone.
The mail didn’t contain anything from Annette. Margaret left to serve some subpoenas and run some errands. Candy stayed in to answer the phone and do a little typing job we’d gotten, another of our sidelines. I caught up on some paperwork.
Basically, when I’d started out, I’d intended to keep copious notes on every case. It would be accurate to say that I’m not the most meticulous record-keeper in the world. If I could but get a summary of recent events down on paper once a week I was doing good. The most logical thing would be for me to put it all on computer disks, but I had yet to be that ambitious with the computer. Margaret, and even Candy, knew more about computers and the Internet than I did, a situation I knew I must remedy. Perhaps I’d make it my summer project. Maybe I should take a course.
Meanwhile, under my old system, I would often keep a notebook or scraps of paper with information scratched down to formalize later for the file. And I wondered why when I was trying to articulate the problem or organize my thoughts they wouldn’t come together. That was where I was in the Lawson/Woodridge/Jensen case. Lurking in the dark recesses of my mind was a question that needed answering or some information that needed questioning. Unfortunately, I couldn’t for the life of me think of it. I spent the last of the afternoon carefully documenting the events of this weird case from beginning to present day. Still I couldn’t fathom it.
Ben called to let me know that the investigator from the Special Investigations section was out tracking down leads. If they learned anything, he’d tell me later that night when we got together.
Having sent Margaret home for her date, I overcame Candy’s arguments and made her leave at twilight. I stayed to catch up on a few more things before I left.
It was good and dark when the phone rang for the umpteenth time that night.
“Mavis Davis Investigations,” I said.
“Stan, here, Mavis. Good news,” his voice boomed through the wire.
“Great, Stan, give it to me.”
“I’ve definitely isolated oleander and foxglove.”
“I know we have lots of oleander bushes in the Gulf Coast area, but where would someone get foxglove?” I’d read about it. The flowers were pretty, like little fairies, but deadly.
“Hell, you can get anything you want these days if you try hard enough. It grows
up north and on the west coast and Hawaii. I’m not exactly sure what kind of foxglove it was.”
“There’s more than one?”
“Didn’t I tell you to do an Internet search on poisons? You didn’t do it, did you?”
“Yes, I did, I told you. But I don’t have time to read the minute details. After all, you did a doctoral program on it. I don’t have three years or whatever—”
“Okay. Okay. I was teasing.”
“I don’t have much of a sense of humor these days. Anyway, how do you think they got him to ingest it?”
“Oleander would have to be disguised in something strong tasting. Foxglove leaves could be served in a salad.”
“I didn’t see him eat anything. He was drinking a lot, though.”
“They found alcohol in his stomach for sure.”
“Yeah, he definitely was drinking, and a lot, but if someone poisoned his drink, they could have killed anyone.” Except, I thought, schnapps was not a popular drink and for good reason. I bet whoever did it knew that.
Stan laughed.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing,” he said. I could hear a female voice in the background.
“I’ll let you go, Stan. Sounds like you’re busy.”
“Don’t you want to hear my theory of the case, Mavis?”
“Shoot.”
“I think the poison brought on a heart attack before the symptoms could really show up. Otherwise he would have had nausea, vomiting, maybe convulsions, stuff like that.”
“Do you think they knew it would bring on a heart attack?”
“It’s possible that they did, but given enough foxglove, a person can die in, say, twenty minutes or so.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Well, if he’d eaten it earlier in the day, he would have died before you got there, unless they didn’t feed him enough. So we can assume that either he ingested it earlier in the day and he didn’t get enough to bring on the classic symptoms, but enough to tax his system so that he had a heart attack later in the day or the killer didn’t give him enough at first, realized that, and put more poison, oleander at least, in his drink. The vic finally ingested enough to bring on the heart attack and would have died anyway from the poison probably ten minutes to an hour or so later.”
That was one I’d have to mull over. I knew the police had not confiscated all the liquor bottles that had been at the party. A schnapps bottle had been there the following day, but was it the same one? Doubtful. More laughter erupted in the background. “I’ll let you get back to whatever you’re doing, Stan. Thanks for calling.”
“If you need anything else, let me know,” he said. “I’ll be writing up a report and e-mailing it back.” He hung up.
I replaced the phone. I was pretty sure I knew who did it, all the more reason to get to Annette’s for whatever was in that envelope. I was convinced now that she must have hidden it, whatever it was, somewhere in her house and I had disturbed the search.
I started to pack up for the night when I thought I heard someone at the back door of the office.
It was a scratching sound, and it sent shivers down my spine. I knew we didn’t have rats and I didn’t have time to fool with a burglar.
Nevertheless, I tiptoed down the hall until I came to the door. I could hear it plainly now. Someone was trying to pick the lock. Oh, how I wished I had my gun.
The solution to the problem was simple. I’d leave and go down the street and call the police.
I tiptoed quickly back to the front of the office, grabbed my keys and my purse, and ran to the front door. When I opened it, I ran smack dab into Earl Smythe.
I thought I knew who committed the murder. Was I wrong?
“Miss Davis,” he said, taking my arm, “I need to talk to you.”
“Some other time, Mr. Smythe. I’m in a hurry.” I could still hear the movement at the back door. Whoever it was, wasn’t a pro or he’d have been inside long ago.
“No, it has to be now,” he said, and I wondered if that was supposed to be a menacing look on his face or was he just worried about something. The thought occurred to me that whoever it was at the back door might be Smythe’s accomplice. Needless to say, I felt a bit insecure at that moment.
I tried to jerk my arm loose, but his grip was firm. “I’m just on my way out to catch a burger,” I said. “Want to accompany me?”
“Sure,” he said easily. “We can talk while you eat.”
“Well, shit, Earl, if that’s the case, then would you mind checking my back door? I think someone is trying to break in.”
“What? Oh.” He looked at me. “You’re serious?”
I nodded.
He glanced toward the back of the house, then back to me. I nodded again. He ran down the hall to the back door, his hard-sole shoes slapping loudly on the wood floor: I watched while he found a light switch and flipped it on. He jerked at the door.
“It’s locked,” he hollered loudly.
“You don’t hear anything?” I walked toward him.
“Not now. Give me the key.”
I handed him my keys and pointed out the right one. He put it in the lock and opened the door, stepping out onto the stoop. I followed.
“No one here now,” he said as he stood on the stoop and looked around. He went down the steps and looked under the stoop and down the alley. “Whoever it was has gone.”
“Thanks, Earl. I was just leaving to call the police from another location when you showed up.”
He came back up and we went inside. I locked the door behind him.
“You know, you really should replace that antiquated lock. You need a double deadbolt.”
“I know, but my theory is that if they really want in bad enough, nothing will stop them. Why spend the money?”
“It’ll at least slow them down a little bit and force them to make some real noise,” he said.
“I’ll think about it.” We started back down the hall.
“Were you really going out for a burger?” he asked.
“No, to get the police.”
“Let’s talk a minute, then.”
“Okay.” I looked up at him, waiting to see what he had to say. We stood near the open front door. I could hear the cars rushing past. Their lights flashed as they went by.
He looked suddenly sort of sheepish. “I was coming . . . my intention was to tell you . . . to reassure you that I had nothing to do with Harrison’s murder.”
“You already told me that, Earl.”
“Somehow I got the impression that you didn’t believe me, though,” he said. “What would it take to convince you?”
I switched on the outside light, took Earl’s arm, and led him onto the front porch, pulling the door closed behind us. “Well, for one thing, you just performed heroics for me.” I smiled up at him. “And another, well, I know who did it.”
“You do?”
“Yes. And it wasn’t you.”
“Who was it? Hilary?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you just now. I’m still gathering evidence.”
“Oh. I understand.”
“It won’t be long, though, Earl. I hope to get what I need tonight.” I patted his arm. “So you see, you made the trip over here for nothing.”
“Not for nothing. I’ll be able to sleep tonight, knowing that I’m not being investigated.”
“Good,” I said as I reached my car. I wondered why he was worried at being investigated. Oh well, that wasn’t my problem. I had enough on my plate as it was. “Thanks again for what you did.”
“My pleasure, Mavis. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” I stood there while he got in his car and drove away. Then I headed for Annette’s.
I parked my Mustang around the corner and two houses down, grabbed my flashlight out of the trunk, and crept from the sidewalk to the back of Annette’s house. The cops had indeed posted the place by pasting a paper sign to the back door glass. Crime scene tape
hung off the porch.
I inserted the blade of my pocket knife between the edge of the door and the door frame, slipped the lock, opened the door and went inside in about forty-five seconds. I had learned that trick from one of my probationers when I was an adult probation officer. Once when I was on a home visit I got to talking to the guy about how he’d been able to commit so many burglaries without leaving hardly a trace of how he’d gotten inside, so he showed me. Given the right kind of lock, a credit card will work also. I’ll never be as fast as Jud was, but most of the time I’m fast enough.
The house was hot and stuffy since the police had turned off the air-conditioning units after Annette had been taken away. I dripped like I was in a dry sauna. A strange smell permeated the air. I wasn’t about to sweep the premises with my flashlight; I didn’t want to know what it was.
Figuring that Annette had expected me to show up at her place sooner or later—rather than her adversary—I guessed that she hadn’t had much time to think of a really complicated hideaway. I started in the most obvious place. The refrigerator-freezer. I checked both but found nothing. I’d been hoping she would have slid it under the produce in the drawer or under her Tupperware containers on a shelf, but she didn’t. My flashlight floated over her kitchen counters, the insides of the cabinets, the garbage under the sink—now I knew what smelled—and the oven. If the envelope was in the kitchen, she had hidden it ingeniously.
The Sweet Scent of Murder Page 23