by Joyce Lavene
“That’s ridiculous.” Sam stuffed another donut in his mouth.
“Good morning, Paul. Are you using your police radar on us?” Peggy took over the conversation before Sam said anything else.
“It wouldn’t take much.” Paul looked at the three of them. “You all look guilty as hell. I don’t know what you’ve done . . . and I don’t want to know. I came by to see how you were doing, Mom.”
“I’m fine, sweetie. Would you like a donut?” Peggy kissed his cheek. “How are you and Mai doing?”
He was obviously irritated by the question. “How did you know? Never mind. You seem to have your own little spy network.”
“I wasn’t spying,” she defended. “If you don’t want people to know about the two of you, maybe you shouldn’t kiss her right outside my door.”
“Oh that.” Red stained his cheeks as he took a donut. “We’d be doing a lot better if she didn’t feel like she had to hide everything you say and do from me.”
“I have to go.” Steve kissed Peggy lightly and shook Sam’s hand. “Let me know if you need anything. Nice seeing you again, Paul.”
“You, too, Steve,” Paul said around a mouthful of donut.
Shakespeare started barking again, and the kitchen door burst open. “Don’t worry,” Hunter told them. “I can get you out of this. Don’t say anything. Even if they caught you in the act, they’ll have to prove what you were doing.”
Paul swallowed the rest of his donut and glanced at his mother. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
“Hunter always comes into a room like that.” Sam got up and put his hand over his sister’s mouth. “We’re going, too, Peggy. See you at the shop.”
Shakespeare whined and turned around several times before he got comfortable again on the rug in front of the door. The kitchen was silent except for the ticking of the clock near the pantry and the hissing of the coffeepot.
“I need to get to the shop.” Peggy got slowly to her feet. The adventure in the Warners’ backyard made her knee sore again. It was going to take her a few extra minutes to ride uptown this morning.
“Mom, you act like this uniform makes me some kind of monster. I know you’re trying to help Keeley. I could help, if you let me.”
She thought about the dead cat in the box that was now buried in her backyard. “I know the uniform puts restrictions on what you can do, Paul. If I do something that’s legal, I’ll let you know.”
“Mom! You’re going to end up in jail with Keeley if you’re not careful.”
“I’ve been careful.” She kissed his cheek. “Thanks for worrying about me.”
“I don’t want to see your name on the arrest sheet.”
“You won’t. Or if you do, you’ll know it was done in good faith.”
Paul wrestled with his conscience and his duty. He sat down at the kitchen table and asked her to join him. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
“Are you sure?” Peggy pulled out a chair.
“I’m sure. Maybe I can help.”
She told him everything she knew about the murder, including her new information about the cat. She didn’t go into detail about moving Warner’s body from the crematorium or digging up the cat. She explained that Steve worked on the cat and left it at that.
Unfortunately, Paul jumped on the legitimate claim of how Steve came across the information about the cat. “We could use that to get a search warrant. If nothing else, it could be for the good of the family. Someone could be trying to poison the rest of them.”
Peggy sighed. She’d tried to keep the rest away from him. “It’s not quite that simple. Steve didn’t send the sample away the first time he looked at the cat. He knew it was poison, but he didn’t know what kind of poison.”
“What do you mean? He went back and got the cat from the housekeeper?”
“In a manner of speaking. You don’t want to know the details. But they wouldn’t impress a judge, and they might get Steve in trouble.”
Paul shook his head. “Then they’d probably get Steve’s partner in trouble, too, right?”
“Yes.” She pushed past that discussion. “The question now is, what we can do with the information we have? I’m sure Julie Warner killed her husband. She probably killed Molly as well. The cat was probably an accident. But the ME will need a base comparison of the poison to know for sure. If I’m right, that’s in her house. We can’t get into her house without a search warrant.”
“And you can’t get a search warrant on illegally obtained information.” Paul understood her dilemma. “You’ll need some other evidence that corroborates what you’ve already got. But it has to be obtained legally.”
“I don’t know what that could be at this point.” Peggy folded a kitchen towel that was left on the table. “Any ideas?”
“Not really. And my advice would be to leave it to Al and Lieutenant Rimer.” He got up and hugged her. “But since I know that’s not going to happen, I’ll think about it today and ask around. Okay?”
“Thanks, honey. I appreciate your help.”
Paul left for work. Peggy locked the kitchen door and went upstairs to get dressed. She didn’t have classes that day. The university was closed for the Thanksgiving holidays. She was grateful for the extra time to consider the problem and get the Potting Shed set up for Christmas.
She was amazed the police were moving so slowly against Keeley. But every day they had a chance to continue looking for answers was a day in her favor. Peggy wasn’t going to let Keeley go to jail when she knew in her heart Julie was guilty of the crime.
She dressed in jeans for the dirty cleanup work at the shop. She tied her Reeboks and slipped the leash on Shakespeare’s collar. She wanted him with her, since she might be working late.
There was half a pot of coffee left from breakfast, despite her guests. “Might as well take this with me,” she told the dog. “It’ll look good in a few hours.”
She took out a small green thermos and started pouring the coffee into it. The action made her remember something else important. Ronda told her Julie was at Mark’s office the night he was killed. What if she’d delivered the poison to him? The bank videotaped everything for security reasons. If Julie was on one of those tapes, she might be able to place her at the bank at the right time to administer the lethal dose.
“I think I’m going to drop you off at the shop, then take a quick trip over to the bank.” She patted Shakespeare on the head. “Let’s see if we can’t find the legal evidence Paul was talking about.”
A FEW HOURS LATER, Peggy was sitting in a small room directly across from the security manager’s office at Bank of America’s corporate headquarters. She told the security chief someone was stealing her plants. He was glad to play back a few tapes that could help her find the person.
It was a small, white lie. Even her daddy couldn’t raise fire and brimstone from it. And it was done with the best of intentions.
The security manager located the tapes from the night Mark was killed. He told Peggy he was glad Mark didn’t die there. “Bad feeling when someone dies on your watch, you know?”
“I can imagine.” She was better able to empathize than he’d ever know.
The security manager left her alone with instructions on how to stop and rewind the tape. Peggy watched the footage carefully, glancing at the bank’s sign-in sheet for the time Julie arrived.
When she got to seven p.M. on the tape, she slowed it down. There was Julie in a fabulous, calf-length black wool coat. She had a colorful scarf tied around her neck and a white pharmacy bag in her hand.
“What’s this?” Peggy asked as the tape moved forward.
There was another shot of Julie in the elevator. Then she appeared again, passing Ronda as she went toward Mark’s office. Ten minutes later, she got back on the elevator, without the white bag, and left the building. The sign-out sheet showed her leaving at seven-twenty.
“That’s it!” Peggy pushed the button to make a copy of that par
t of the tape. “That’s how long it takes to murder your husband. What did you do then, Julie? Wait somewhere until you saw him leave? You thought he was meeting Ronda at the hotel that night. But instead, he went to meet Keeley at my shop. You knew he was still alive when Keeley ran out crying. You had to curb your impatience to see what happened until Mr. Cheever went in and took Mark’s things. Finally, you went in and found him, not quite dead. But you didn’t want to wait for the poison to finish the job. You picked up a shovel and hit him with it.”
Shaking her head over her flight of fancy and the terrible things people did to each other, Peggy took the tape, signed out of the building, and went to see Al.
“YOU DID WHAT?” Al demanded when she explained everything to him.
She left out the body moving of cat and man. She couldn’t understand why he was so upset.
The door to his office opened, and Jonas poked his head around the corner. “Is it okay to come in? It sounds like the Gulf War out here in the hall. Afternoon, Peggy. Are you causing Al to have a heart attack?”
Al got up from his chair. “As a matter of fact, maybe this is exactly what we need.” He glared at Peggy. “My friend has some ideas about the Warner murder.”
“And the Stone murder,” Peggy added without remorse.
Jonas closed the office door and took a chair close to hers. “I thought I asked you not to interfere in this investigation.”
“I haven’t interfered,” she replied. “I’ve exercised my right as a citizen to help solve a murder and put the killer behind bars.”
“I think you watch too much Court TV.” He looked at Al, and they both laughed.
“If you’d be willing to hear me out and take a look at this video, it might make more sense to you.”
“Listen, I know your friend is in trouble.” Jonas attempted to sound sympathetic. “But trying to blame this on someone else won’t help. We’ve worked up a good case against her. I’m expecting the arrest warrant any time.”
Peggy got to her feet and smiled at both men. “That’s fine. I’m going to take this over to the DA’s office. He and I go way back. He went to school with John, you know.”
Jonas shuffled uncomfortably in his chair. He obviously didn’t want to hear what she had to say, but he didn’t want the DA to hear it either. Finally, he made up his mind. “Okay. Let’s take a look at the tape, and you tell me what you know.”
“Lieutenant!” Al was hoping for a good setdown that would make Peggy leave it alone.
“We’ll listen to what she has to say and view the tape, Detective,” Jonas said again, sotto voce. “Then we’ll talk about it. What can it hurt?”
Half an hour later, Jonas and Al sat back in their chairs. Neither man spoke for several minutes.
Peggy collected the tape and put it in her backpack. “Well?”
“It’s enough to question Mrs. Warner, Lieutenant.” The words sounded painful coming from Al’s throat.
“And you’re sure about the rest of this, Peggy?” Jonas asked as he reached for the phone.
“As sure as I’m standing here.”
He shrugged and called his assistant. “Call Mrs. Warner’s lawyer and set up a meeting. I think we have a few questions we need to ask the widow.”
THE REST OF IT HAPPENED quickly. Julie didn’t resist the summons. She met Park Lamont at the precinct, and the two of them were locked in the conference room with Al and Jonas. During that time, the press waited outside, and the police commissioner paced the uneven floors.
Peggy didn’t try to hide. She was convinced Julie killed her husband. She didn’t care if she knew who accused her. Julie stared at her a moment when she first arrived but turned away as her lawyer took her elbow to guide her into the conference room.
But when Julie and Park walked out about an hour later, the look on Al’s face told her it was all for nothing.
“Well, she’s smarter than us.” Al leaned against the door-frame. “Her alibi is airtight. She was delivering his prescription for asthma. That’s why she went in with the bag but didn’t come out with it. We already checked out that prescription bottle. It was clean. We talked to the pharmacist who filled it. She picked it up and dropped it off. That’s all. Rimer is gonna blame me for this. Especially now, when we were set to arrest Ms. Prinz.”
“He was the one who decided it sounded worthwhile,” she reminded him. “What do we do now?”
“We don’t do anything. For God’s sake, Peggy, lay off! We’re having enough trouble with this case. Mrs. Warner probably knows the mayor and the DA personally. The police look stupid and incompetent. Doesn’t that make you feel bad? Your son is still on the job. John must be rolling over in his grave about now. Doesn’t any of that matter to you?”
“I’m sorry,” Peggy said when Jonas joined them.
“It was my fault for listening to you. I made the call. The DA already left me three voice mails on my cell phone. Mrs. Warner didn’t waste any time complaining.”
“I still think there’s something wrong about it,” Peggy replied, not feeling bad about her part in the fiasco.
Jonas frowned at her. “Go home, Peggy, please. Let us get some real work done.”
Al drove Peggy to the Potting Shed. “Looks like everybody is getting ready for Christmas,” he observed, stopping the car outside Brevard Court.
“That’s what I’m going to do,” she told him. “But I have some time. I could buy you lunch.”
“Sorry. Can I take a rain check?” He smiled at her. “I kind of feel responsible for getting Rimer into this. I didn’t think he’d take you seriously. Hell, I didn’t think I’d take you seriously. You had some good ideas, Peggy. And you might be right about Mrs. Warner. But without proof, you might as well forget it.”
“Does this mean you’ll still be serving the arrest warrant on Keeley?”
“Probably. We don’t have anything else that makes sense. We can’t afford to screw up, but we can’t let it hang there either.”
“I understand.” She opened the door and got out of the car.
Al popped the trunk. “Need any help with that bike?”
“No, I’m fine. I tote it all over Charlotte. I’ll talk to you later.”
Keeley, Hunter, Sam, and Selena were waiting impatiently to hear what happened. They pounced on her when she walked in the shop.
“Nothing happened.” She pushed her bike against the wall and braced herself for Shakespeare’s happy lunge when he saw her. “They did the best they could.”
Keeley dropped silently into a chair. Hunter stormed up and down an aisle.
“There has to be something else.” Sam glanced at his sister. “No one is that smart. She made a mistake somewhere.”
“If she did, she’s covering it up right now.” Selena leaned against the counter and sighed.
“I don’t know what to say.” Peggy went to stand beside Keeley. “They told me the DA is ready to issue a warrant for you.”
“Great!” Hunter stopped pacing. “We should get you out of town. If they have to look for you, it will give us more time to trap Mrs. Warner.”
“Is that legal?” Selena asked.
“Keeley hasn’t been arrested yet,” Hunter answered. “Rich people do it all the time.”
“But where would I go?” Keeley wondered. “I’m not rich. My mom lives here in Charlotte. It’s not like I can take off and go to Paris for a few weeks.”
“What about your aunt?” Peggy suggested. “Doesn’t she live out in Montgomery County? It’d be hard to find you out there.”
“That’s true!” Keeley jumped up. “And it’s better than going to jail.”
“Let’s go.” Hunter grabbed her pocketbook and keys. “We didn’t have this conversation. Keeley needs some time away after losing the baby. You’ll each have to decide what to answer if the police ask you if you know where she is. Technically, she’s not a fugitive yet. That could all change very quickly.”
“I was working when this happened, and I
have no idea where she is.” Sam folded his arms across his broad chest. His blue eyes were defiant.
“Besides,” Selena said, “I don’t know where her aunt lives. Even if I knew she was going there.”
“Thanks, guys.” Keeley hugged them all. “I guess I should go.”
“Right now,” Hunter agreed.
When the two of them were gone, Peggy looked at Selena and Sam. “I guess it’s just us getting the store set up for the Christmas rush.”