Poisoned (The Alex Harris Mystery Series)

by Elaine Macko

  “Mrs. Brissart, do you have a drink on a regular basis?” Detective Maroni hesitated for a moment. “I’m sorry, that didn’t come out the way I meant.”

  “It’s all right, Detective Maroni. I understand what you mean. Yes, usually every evening Virginia and I enjoy a drink while we play gin. I always drink the Cherry Heering. Virginia likes sherry. I didn’t have a drink over the weekend. Virginia went to stay with her sister up near Hartford for the weekend and only returned late Sunday night. And Monday, well, after they all left I just went upstairs.”

  “When was the last time you had any?”

  “Friday. No, Thursday evening.”

  “So the poison in the Cherry Heering could have been put in the bottle any time over the weekend or on Monday.”

  “Or anytime,” Kenneth corrected. “You said it might not kill someone right away. Maybe it’s been in there for weeks, months even. Mother,” Kenneth turned to Mrs. Brissart, “have you been feeling ill?”

  “No. Not at all. Nothing.”

  “That puts a bit of a different angle on this whole thing,” Detective Maroni deduced. “Not only are the people who showed up on Monday suspects, but anyone who’s been in the house recently.”

  Mrs. Brissart added, “and there’s one more thing; I never lock my doors.”

  “Mother, I told—”

  “Yes, Kenneth, I know. Detectives, my son has tried to get me to lock up for years, but, well, I’ve lived here all my life and nothing has ever happened. But, oh, dear. Something did happen.”

  “Now, Mother, that’s not what I meant. No one is blaming you.”

  “Of course not, Roberta. You loved Bradley with all your heart, we know that,” Lillian said.

  “Well, I am. I am blaming myself and that...land! If they want it so badly that they killed my grandson, then they can have it.”

  Kenneth and Lillian looked startled. Mrs. Brissart spat out the last words with such venom and a raised voice she probably never used. She looked so tiny and vulnerable sitting in the big overstuffed chair. All three of them, Kenneth, Lillian, and Roberta. What a terrible thing to go through along with the possibility, almost certainty, that one of your own was responsible. And they couldn’t even grieve properly until the police found the killer. How they managed to cope was beyond comprehension.

  “Detective Van der Burg, I’m very worried for my mother-in-law. Obviously, there’s at least one person out there wanting to kill her, probably two. Can we be sure there isn’t anything further in the house that contains poison? What about her safety? Whoever did this, well, might they try again?”

  “Mrs. Brissart, I’ve thought about that myself.” John turned his attention to Roberta. “I suggest you throw out anything that’s been opened and your cosmetics and creams as well. And maybe you and Mrs. Platz should dine alone for a while and order out or go out to a restaurant.”

  “It seems a bit extreme, doesn’t it?”

  “No, it most certainly does not, Roberta,” said Lillian. “We’ve already lost Bradley. We will not—will not lose you, too.”

  I went back to my seat and looked down into the empty teacup I brought into the study and thought for a moment that my stomach hurt.

  “We plan to interview everyone again along with anyone else who’s been in the house recently,” John said. “If I’m right, we’re looking for two different people.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  John warned us to keep this latest bit of information to ourselves. After we left the study he asked Detective Maroni to call everyone. Within an hour, most of the relatives were back. Mrs. Brissart’s two sisters and their friend, Mr. Smit, looked unhappy and threatened several times throughout the morning that “the mayor will hear about this.”

  Kenneth and Lillian retreated. Lillian worked on the death announcements I had never finished, insisting that it was her son who had died and she should be the one to do this most terrible of tasks. I offered to help, but she declined saying she wished to be alone with her thoughts. Her husband seemed at a loss and I spied him out in the back garden several times throughout the morning looking up at the tree house.

  I spent the remainder of the morning making calls for Mrs. Brissart and typing several letters to various credit card companies on Bradley’s behalf.

  Right before noon, a very tired looking John came to talk with me.

  “What’s wrong now?” I asked. When he was tired his handsome features took on a boyish quality and the more tired he became the younger he looked. Right now, I’d place him at about eight.

  “I want to talk with you about something in private.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I know you want to help Mrs. Brissart, but I want you to be careful.”

  I didn’t like the sound of this. “For goodness sake, why?”

  “Because Mrs. Brissart is still a suspect.”

  I almost jumped out of my chair and would have if he hadn’t firmly rested his hand on my shoulder. “You can’t be serious. Have you lost your mind?”

  “No, I have not. It’s my job to be suspicious of everyone. Mrs. Brissart included. I don’t have a personal history with her like you do.”

  “What, pray tell, has brought you to view her in a suspicious manner?” I folded my arms and eyed John with more than a little anger. We rarely argue so I guess we were due for one. “I thought she was the intended victim?”

  “You heard her, she put extra almonds in the macaroons. Probably to hide the taste of the cyanide. She knew her grandson would be here because he came every Monday evening, and with everyone else around there would be suspects galore. She comes off as being on the eccentric side, but it may just be a game to belie her intelligence. And the discovery of the second poison is highly suspect. I think she may have done it to throw us off.”

  “Yes, she knew Bradley would be here, but so what, and how did she know everyone else would be here?”

  “Because her sister told her earlier in the morning.”

  “But she already started the cookies by then. She told me she bought the ingredients on Saturday, so how did she know then that they would all return on Monday?” I asked. “And that reminds me, have you checked the actual ingredients used, not just the cookies? Maybe someone at the grocery store is randomly dropping poison into flour sacks.”

  “As a matter of fact, the police are not as inept as you seem to think,” John said, his own anger showing. “It’s one of the first things we did.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. Which means the cyanide came after they were made.”

  “That still doesn’t implicate her, for pity’s sake. You are grabbing at thin air, John Van der Burg. She made the cookies because she loved her grandson. And, she put extra almonds in them because that’s how he liked them. As for the other poison, I don’t buy her trying to throw everyone off. Anyone could have taken a sip of that stuff.”

  “Nothing would happen with one sip. She knew this and just used it as a ruse.”

  “Well, tell me this, Detective, if you’re so smart. Why didn’t she put poison in all the cookies and kill everyone in the family? Then she would have been done with the whole mess once and for all.”

  “Because she only wanted to kill Bradley.”

  My agitation level grew dangerously high. I usually reserved this amount of anger for drivers who talked on cell phones or texted. “Let’s forget for the moment you told her yesterday she was the intended victim. What on God’s green earth could have made her want to kill her grandson?”

  “Sshhh! I don’t want everyone hearing us.” John walked to the door and shut it. “We thought she was the intended victim because, from our preliminary interviews, no one could fathom why Bradley would have been killed.”

  Becoming totally exasperated, I asked, “So, why suddenly are you stuck on her being the killer and not the victim?”

  “Because the second poison seems too much of a coincidence.”

  I took a few deep breaths and when I
felt certain I wouldn’t slap the face of the man I loved, I stood up and looked him squarely in the eye. “I’m sure you know your job. I know you know your job. Far be it for me to tell you how to do it, but John, you are just simply wrong here. Which brings me back to my original question. Why would Mrs. Brissart want to kill her grandson? A grandson, I might add, that she absolutely adored.”

  John sighed. “The family history. She knew what he would find.”

  I ran my hands through my hair. “What’s that?”

  This time John shrugged. “I haven’t a clue.”

  “Uh-huh. So this is all speculation. No facts to back it up. Nothing. You are way off base on this one, John. Look somewhere else for your suspects, because I can tell you that Mrs. Brissart did not kill her grandson.”

  “And I’m going to tell you something. You don’t know that any more than the police do. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you, stay out of it. You know Mrs. Brissart as a client. But you don’t really know her at all. You’re biased. When is Chantal back?”

  “Hopefully tomorrow. The next day for sure.”

  “Fine. None of what we’ve just discussed leaves this room. To anyone,” John said more sternly.

  “Right.” I nodded while mentally putting Sam, Millie, and Meme on my list of people to share this latest bit of information with. I’m sure he didn’t include them in his “to anyone” comment.

  “Fine. I’ll see you later.” And he walked out.

  “Well…” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small bag of M&Ms. “As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us. Now I really am going to have to find out who the killer is and get Mrs. Brissart off the hook,” I said aloud. And not being one to put off something so important, I marched out to the living room and into the lion’s den.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mrs. Platz put out sandwiches and coffee for the suspects, as Mrs. Brissart now referred to her relatives. At John’s insistence, I promised Mrs. Brissart, Mrs. Platz, and I would only eat things we made ourselves. I stood in the doorway for a moment looking at the food, which made me think of Mrs. Platz and the fact that she seemed to have been automatically eliminated from the suspect list. By whom? I couldn’t remember John mentioning her in connection with anything other than being the unfortunate soul who found Bradley. But the police questioned her, and at some length. Why had she been terminated as a suspect so quickly? Or had she? And what about the gardener?

  The more I thought about it, there were even more people, other than the immediate family, on which to cast suspicion. If you threw in neighbors and committee members who worked with Mrs. Brissart at one time or another, well, the number of potential suspects took on a life of its own. My spirits lifted. This might be easier than I thought finding someone else on which to pin the murder. The fact that no motive presented itself for either killing except for the land, and no one outside of the family would be interested in that, I simply dismissed with an imaginary wave of my hand. Details.

  A slow rumble in the pit of my stomach brought my thoughts back to the small buffet table and the food covering it. Let them eat whatever they want and kill each other, Mrs. Brissart said. I turned away from the food before my gurgling stomach managed to overpower my logic. Mrs. Brissart’s extended family obliviously gorged themselves on sandwiches and fruit. Vowing to go into town in a few minutes and take care of my own appetite, I ventured into the room. Spying a couple sitting over by the window, I went to introduce myself.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Larry Estenfelder and this is my wife, April.”

  I shook hands with the two people before me. April was a spunky looking thing with a head of short black curls—much like Samantha’s first Barbie; the curls anyway, the body looked more in line with reality.

  “Won’t you have a seat?” April offered. They parted and I squeezed into the space.

  “You’re May’s son?”

  “Yes, that’s right. I have a brother, Steven, though I haven’t seen him.” Larry craned his neck and looked around the room.

  “I saw him earlier,” I volunteered.

  “I’m sure he had to pop off to some meeting or another. More than likely playing tennis with some bimbo.”

  “Hush, Larry. You shouldn’t talk about your brother like that, not at a time like this. You’ll have to excuse Larry.” April leaned toward me. “He and Steven don’t get along.” She sat up a bit and glanced across me to her husband giving him a scornful look.

  Larry Estenfelder looked nothing like his brother. Larry was a mess. He wore a pair of pants with just a bit of a flare at the bottom and a plain, off-white shirt in need of a good dose of Clorox. His tie was spotted with some long-ago drip, actually many drips if the assortment of patterns was any indication. He had the thickest white hair I had ever seen and to say it needed a good cut was putting it mildly. A pair of fat earlobes stuck out from underneath the hair and the top button of his shirt pinched one of his chins.

  His wife, on the other hand, looked nicely put together. A small woman with a rounded figure, she had a bubbly personality and a happy face to match. Her clothing was of good quality and looked new, as well as her shoes. When she brought her sandwich to her lips I noticed the ring on her finger. Larry may not have any taste in the clothes department but he was no slouch when it came to a wedding ring for his wife.

  “You’re helping our aunt, how nice.” April daintily put the sandwich back on the plate. “This must be so difficult for her, I mean Bradley dying in her house and all. It’s kind of creepy.”

  “I understand both of you came over on Monday night,” I said, wanting to get on with my own investigation. I needed to take advantage of every moment I could before John poked his head in and saw me. I know I’m tooting my own horn, but after solving the murder a year before—the first murder in Indian Cove in over a hundred years—I thought I really possessed a flare for this kind of work.

  “Why yes, we were,” April said, dragging me away from my reverie. “We never miss one of these family get-togethers. Not that May would let us, mind you. My mother-in-law has a way of getting what she wants.”

  “Didn’t you want to come? I mean, from what I hear, the whole family wanted to sell the land.”

  “Doesn’t really mean much to me or my wife,” Larry said a little too quickly, causing me to snap my head around the other way. “I’ve got my trust fund. We just came along because, well…because.”

  “I think I understand.” I thought for a moment. Larry must have a lot more in a trust fund than I had thought if he lived on it. Mrs. Brissart said that neither May nor June’s husband had left them well off, but maybe all the money went to the kids.

  “Your brother? Is he anxious for it to sell?”

  “Steven? Steven has no use for sentiment. He doesn’t care how long that land and house have been in our family. He’s like the rest of them; all he sees are dollar signs and a bigger bank account.”

  I nodded. Larry just mentioned a trust account and didn’t seem averse to using it. Didn’t that put him in the same league with his brother? And hadn’t Mrs. Brissart mentioned Larry’s inventions never amounted to anything? He must be living off of something, I thought. Maybe his indifference to the land was a ruse meant to throw me, and possibly the entire family, off track. After all, April bought nice clothes and they had two children to support. The sparkle off the rock on April’s left hand brought me back to the conversation.

  “I understand everyone left at the same time on Monday,” I said.

  “Hmmm, excuse me,” April said as she took a big swallow. “That bread really sticks to the roof of your mouth. Yes, that’s right, we all left together. May and June ran the show after all, and when they left, there was no reason to stay.”

  “Did you go straight home, April?”

  “Well, no, we didn’t.” She looked across me again at her husband. “I’m afraid Aunt Roberta didn’t offer much in the way of dinn
er. We were still a bit hungry. We stopped at a restaurant in town for a little something.” April started to bring the sandwich back to her lips. “Hey, I know what you’re getting at. You want to know if maybe we sneaked back in here and put some stuff in those cookies. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  I’m happy to report I had the good manners to look shame-faced. “Well, now that you mention it...”

  April patted my leg. “Don’t give it another thought. I guess we’re all wondering who did it. It’s pretty obvious someone in the family must be responsible. I mean, why on earth would someone from the outside want to kill Aunt Roberta?” April shook her cap of dark curls and popped the rest of the sandwich into her round little mouth.

  “What makes you think they wanted to kill Mrs. Brissart?”

  April brushed a crumb off her slacks onto the floor. “Why would anyone want to kill Bradley?” April looked at me like I lost my mind. “Besides, with the questions the police are asking, it’s pretty obvious who they think the victim was supposed to be.”

  “You don’t think it odd someone would want to kill your aunt?”

  “I think what my wife means,” Larry ventured, “is that my aunt, well, is a lot older and would have a lot more time to accumulate enemies. Not that she has any, at least that I know of, but Bradley was so young and a good kid.”

  “I understand you’re an inventor, Larry.” I changed the subject but hoping to get a better insight as to Larry’s finances.

  “Yep, that’s right.”

  “Have you invented anything that I would know?” I asked with true curiosity. I never met a real inventor before and maybe this guy created Silly Putty or Play-Doh or the Slinky. And maybe he kept a few samples on him and I could get one for my nephew, Henry.

  April reached for another sandwich from her plate. “Oh, he’s invented lots of things, haven’t you dear?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “He invented an air filter system back when all the restaurants in the area converted to smoking and non-smoking sections. He installed one in a seafood restaurant in New Haven, but it didn’t work out very well. The first night it ran a man sitting under the vent wore a toupee and it sucked it right off. He was real embarrassed, from what the manager of the restaurant told us. They had to pay to get his toupee replaced and to extract the old one from the air filter, and right after that they disconnected the thing. We’re hoping they don’t sue us, though there is talk,” April said, and then bit down on her lip.