Poisoned (The Alex Harris Mystery Series)

by Elaine Macko

  I suddenly felt very tired. Going around in circles did that. Maybe Bradley’s foray into the history was just that. No one seemed to care and as June said, they’d all heard it a dozen times.

  I turned the car around and headed for the office of J.T. Smit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  J.T.’s office was located in a small building on the outskirts of town. A very tastefully done complex housed an engineering firm, an architectural group that specialized in the design of elementary schools, and a title company, among others. The office of Rand, Alpers, and Smit Real Estate and Development occupied the second floor.

  I entered through a double glass door and wondered if J.T. was still at June’s. The small entry office looked well appointed with a lush forest green carpet and rich paneling on the walls. A few upholstered chairs in the far corner and several design magazines artfully displayed on a coffee table completed the look. I didn’t know exactly what I expected, but this wasn’t it. Given the man’s sleazy appearance, I imagined something quite different. If this represented his style, I wondered what he thought of June’s house.

  “Can I help you?” A middle-aged woman stood in the doorway of a side office startling me.

  “Oh! I didn’t hear you.” I clasped my hand over my heart. “I’d like to speak with Mr. Smit if he’s in.”

  The woman looked me over. “I’m sorry but Mr. Smit isn’t here right now.”

  “Do you expect him back?”

  “I’m not sure. He had a few appointments, and,” she glanced at a wall clock, “he might not make it back to the office this evening.”

  Especially if June had anything to say about it, I thought. “That’s too bad.”

  “Would this be business or…personal?” the woman said, managing to make “personal” sound sleazy.

  “Oh, business, definitely. I wanted to talk with him about some property in the Farmington area,” I lied.

  “Would that be the parcel that Rand, Alpers, and Smit is developing or selling?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I knew next to nothing about the development business and could feel my face flushing. “I…I think that it—”

  “Renee, the machine jammed again,” a young woman said, as she walked in from the same office that Renee had come from. “I’m going to scream if I have to…” Suddenly seeing me standing by the front desk, the girl stopped short. “Oh, sorry,” she said sheepishly looking at me and then back to Renee. “Can you help? This is the fourth time it’s jammed and there must be several sheets stuck in the duplexer.”

  Renee turned back to me. “I’m sorry, is there anything further I can help you with?” she asked in a harried voice—probably the result of one too many trips to the copier.

  “No. I’ll try to catch him another time,” I answered and suddenly found myself alone in the foyer. I pulled the door opened to leave just as someone from the outside pushed it against me.

  “Are you okay?” J.T. Smit asked with more concern than I assumed he had.

  I picked up my purse and looked at J.T. “Yes, yes, I’m fine.”

  “I figured you’d come by here.” J.T. smiled. “Though not necessarily tonight.”

  “Yes, word does seem to get around.” I fumbled to get the clasp shut on the purse. So much for catching everyone off guard. June probably notified half of Indian Cove the minute I left. “I saw you when I left June’s.”

  “She told me about your visit. I stopped off with some more plans. Would you like to see them?” J.T. spread the papers he still held in one hand onto the small table in the center of the room. “What do you think?”

  I looked over the drawings and in spite of myself, I liked what I saw. The proposed development didn’t look the least bit tacky as I had assumed. My first-impression instincts had obviously taken a hike. J.T. was probably God reincarnated as a slick salesman and Mrs. Brissart was the devil himself. I came back to the present as J.T. explained that the plans only represented a small part of the entire project.

  “Aren’t you jumping the gun a bit?” I asked while I followed him into his office—another tastefully appointed room totally out of character with the slime ball in front of me.

  J.T. fingered several messages on his desk. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the land isn’t yours. Mrs. Brissart will not sign the papers.”

  J.T. looked up and smirked. “She will.”

  “How can you be so certain? I think she’s made it perfectly clear she wants nothing to do with you or your company. And not just your company. She doesn’t want the land developed, period.”

  “Well, first, it’s not just her land. And second, I have a way with people.” He smiled at me and I felt my skin crawl. “She’s not in a fighting mood right about now, so she should be putty in my hands.”

  I looked at him with an open mouth. “Please don’t tell me you’re planning on approaching Mrs. Brissart at a time like this? Her grandson just died. Murdered, in case you forgot.”

  “Exactly. Now is when she would be most vulnerable.”

  “You can’t be serious,” I sputtered, trying in vain to maintain my control.

  “No. I’m not that uncaring, Alex. I can call you Alex? I thought I would wait another week or so.”

  “I can’t bear to hear another word of this. I can understand why Mrs. Brissart wants nothing to do with the lot of you,” I said while heading out the door.

  “I’ll make sure you’re invited to our next soirée.” J.T. called.

  I slammed the door to Rand, Alpers, and Smit, and stopped in the hallway trying to catch my breath. “Well,” I said, happy to find my instincts still intact after all. My first impression of J.T. Smit had been right on the mark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “I can show you to your seats now, if you’d like to follow me.”

  John and I threaded our way past other diners to a table for two in the rear of the restaurant. One of the main attractions of Ginnalli’s was their open-fire pizzas, and I liked sitting close to the fire. The restaurant always smells of fresh garlic and tonight was no exception. I was hungrier than I thought despite all the pickles at lunch.

  A young man came up to our table with a basket of small bits of fried pizza dough. He added some fresh butter and told us our waiter would be back shortly to take our orders.

  Though an Italian restaurant, from the outside the place looked like a weathered fish shack complete with well-worn grayed shingles. The inside certainly smelled like an Italian restaurant but the requisite fishing net and glass floats adorned a side wall. This was, after all, New England and I guess they felt they had a style to uphold.

  “I can never decide what to have. Now if I were Samantha, I’d order a couple of things and be done with it, but, oh, let’s see...” I read the menu. I knew every item on it by heart but still had a hard time deciding. “Okay, I’m going to have a caprese to start and then a marguerita pizza.” I folded the menu and put it to one side.

  John smeared a piece of dough with some butter and smiled. “That’s what you always have.”

  “Yes, and I know that you always get the pasta with four cheeses, which is the other thing I want. This way I can have mine and some of yours, too.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll change this time just to be mean, and maybe that way I can actually get a whole dish to myself.”

  “Won’t work.” I smiled at him over the breadbasket. “I like everything on the menu so whatever you have I’ll take a bite. Just consider me your official food taster.”

  We came to Ginnalli’s often. It was the best Italian restaurant in town, probably the best restaurant in town, period. Papa Ginnalli believed no amount of garlic was too much and I wholeheartedly agreed.

  After we placed our orders, I asked, “How’d it go today?” I hated asking too much, but John seemed so fed up with the family I suspected he welcomed the chance to unload on me.

  “The same. I’m really getting tired of these people. May and June, no, June an
d May, as I’ve been corrected on several occasions, are really something. But I spent most of the day talking with Stuart.”

  “Stuart? He wasn’t there Monday night. Did he come over on the weekend?”

  “No. But he is part of the family and they definitely seem to want Mrs. Brissart out of the way, so he’s a suspect. He could have been working with someone else.” John sighed. “Though a conspiracy theory is rather farfetched. He’s full of himself. A trait, I might add, that he shares with everyone else connected with the family.”

  “Most families have their nut cases, but in this one, I think it’s the sane who are the exceptions.” I told John about seeing Steven at the health club and his possible financial setback, which seemed odd for a man who worked as a financial investor. I asked John if the police had any concrete suspects hoping he could eliminate Mrs. Brissart.

  “No. Everyone’s a prime suspect at this point. Maybe I’m way off base and should be looking outside the family, but I don’t think so. I’ve talked to a few people who worked with Bradley thinking maybe there might be something there; a problem with a coworker or something, but nothing. Everyone he worked with had nothing but praise for him.”

  “Well, can you narrow it down by the number of people who would have access to the poisons?”

  “No, not really. If you want something bad enough, you can find it. Everyone had access to the tool shed in the garden. Mr. Kaminski keeps a lot of insecticides out there for the roses and the vegetables, though I don’t think anything contains cyanide. The lab is checking everything.”

  I reached for another piece of bread and smothered it with butter then just for the heck of it sprinkled on some salt.

  “Several cookies containing poison remained on the plate. I never asked Mrs. Brissart how many she had,” John said.

  “As the saying goes ‘there but for the grace of God, go I.’ Mrs. Brissart could have been killed just as easily as Bradley. Which should eliminate her as a suspect,” I added quickly.

  “Yes, she could. Except if she put the poison there herself… Let’s not get into this,” John said and then continued anyway. “The entire family is full of suspects and then we have Kendra, and Mrs. Platz, and Mr. Kaminski, and let’s not forget J.T.”

  “I’m certain you can scratch Mrs. Platz off your list,” I said casually.

  “Oh, and why is that?” John’s voice did not sound so casual.

  “She’s frightened, John. I think she’s afraid whoever did this will strike again.”

  “Just how do you know this?”

  “I offered her some comfort. We do have the unfortunate luck of finding bodies in common and I thought she could use a shoulder to cry on.”

  John looked at me with resignation on his face. “There’s really no sense in telling you to keep out of this. If I arrested you for interfering in a police investigation, Sam would probably run down to the jail with a file.”

  “Baked in a cake, no doubt, most of which would be eaten by the time she arrived.” We laughed and the tension dropped away.

  When we started seeing each other I had my reservations about dating a cop. But there was so much more to John than just being a detective. He had many great qualities but basically he was just an all around nice guy. My family loved John, and Meme gave him her seal of approval—something she had never given any of the other guys I dated, even Peter. She took to John immediately. That was a good sign.

  I stared at him for a moment, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I am easily satisfied with the very best, and you John Van der Burg are the very best.”

  John reached across the table and took my hand. “I don’t think Winston Churchill had me in mind when he said that. So,” he began again, getting back to the murder, “what about Mr. Kaminski and J.T.?” he teased. “Can I safely eliminate them as well?”

  “I haven’t met Mr. Kaminski so I wouldn’t know if he’s a poisoner or not, but J.T. would go on my list. He’s so, so…smarmy.” I almost told John I saw the developer earlier arriving at June’s, and also at his office, but didn’t want John to know how deeply involved I had become. Asking questions in the Brissart home was one thing, roaming the city in search of suspects quite another.

  John laughed. “Yes, he is that. But he also seems to be exactly what he claims to be. We’ve done a background check. You know that new office complex in Stamford? Well, he did that.”

  “That’s really nice. We have a client over there,” I said, again marveling at the contrast between developer and the things he developed.

  “You sound so surprised.”

  “Well, I guess I didn’t expect him to be involved in anything real. He looks like such a big phony.”

  “As far as we can tell, he truly wants that land for exactly what he claims he wants it for. Now the question is does he want the land enough to kill for it?”

  “I know he certainly plans on getting it.” I realized my slip and tried to look away.

  “How do you know this?” John asked, though with more amusement than annoyance.

  “Okay…” I placed my hands on the table. “I stopped by his office. And before you go getting mad, he invited me. He wanted to show me the plans.”

  “Did you get a chance to see them or did your investigation get in the way?”

  As long as John still had a smile on his face, I decided to come clean. “The plans are quite good. Though I’d hate to see the land torn up like that. Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old,” I quoted, haughtily pointing a finger at John as if he were the enemy. “I’m all for progress but it just sickens me to see that area torn up, though if something has to go there, his designs are as good as any, maybe better. And if you can believe this, he still plans on putting pressure on Mrs. Brissart.”

  “Yes, I can believe it.” John poured a bit of wine into his glass and asked if I wanted any.

  “No. I’m too tired. I’d like to stay awake at least long enough to eat my dinner.”

  On cue, our plates arrived and we ate in silence for a few minutes savoring our dishes.

  “A thought occurred to me…” I reached across the table and poked a fork into an al dente penne lathered in Gorgonzola. “You know, if Mrs. Brissart died, God forbid, wouldn’t her portion of the land go to her son? Because I doubt he would sign it away either. Maybe we should be keeping an eye on his safety.”

  “As a matter of fact, no, the land would not go to Kenneth. It would revert to the surviving sisters. And the last to go gets to give it to her family or the local cat shelter if so inclined. Kind of odd, but that’s how Mrs. Brissart’s father left it.” John sighed and took another sip of his wine.

  “So another good reason for getting rid of Mrs. Brissart surfaces. With her dead, not only could they sell it but those two sisters would get to keep all the profits to themselves and not have to share with Kenneth and Lillian. I say this definitely gets Mrs. Brissart off the hook.”

  “Alex.”

  “I’m sorry. It just makes it seem all the more likely it had to be May or June or one of their children hoping to get something in the end.” John conceded and nodded his agreement. “I wonder if J.T. knows about this arrangement. If he does, that would put him at the top of my list.”

  “If it makes you happy, I am not concentrating all my efforts on Mrs. Brissart,” John said.

  “No? Who else is on your list?” I asked hopefully.

  “No one and everyone at the moment.” John paused to signal the waiter for a glass of water. “We’re checking into the finances of the family. Seems Mrs. Doliveck took out a second mortgage on her home.”

  “Do tell.” I smiled, remembering how shabby the back yard looked and the peeling wallpaper. As for the rest of the house, I chose not to think about it while eating.

  “And, she let her housekeeper go about six months ago. Seems to indicate she’s financially strap
ped.” John took another sip of wine.

  “Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” I reflected. “That explains a lot.”

  “Like what?”

  “Huh? Oh, nothing. Just thinking to myself.” It was time to change the subject. “How’s Jim doing?”

  “Fine. He seems very bright. Quiet, though. Doesn’t say much. When he does, he’s very soft spoken, gentle. I would have never fingered him for police work.”

  I only had contact with the new detective a few times but my impression was much the same. He seemed too tender to make this his life career. John possessed a bit of an edge to him, a confidence, and the absolute certainty he was one of the good guys.

  I looked in the breadbasket and took the last piece. “Maybe he’s just too new to everything. A few more days with this bunch should make him jaded enough. He’ll be fine. Or he’ll decide this isn’t what he’s cut out to do and go into something else. Maybe kindergarten teaching. He seems like he’d be good with kids, very patient.”

  The waiter arrived to clear away our plates and take orders for dessert. John told me his mother wanted us to come for dinner on Sunday, but he refused. His mother Harriett was a short ball of energy, and always happy. His father Stan was a nice man, but a bit quiet. I felt they secretly hoped this was it for John. He came close to getting married to a woman in Boston with whom he had a long relationship, but it ended about two years ago. I never asked for details. Some things I didn’t have to know.

  “I’m sorry about his weekend, but I’m looking forward to seeing Mary-Beth, and Sam and Millie are coming too. I called Meme and she’s coming along as well.” Mary-Beth and I had been friends for years and though we didn’t see each other very often, sometimes only a couple times a year, we always had plenty to talk about. And Mary-Beth always had some good gossip about a former classmate.