by Jonni Good
She ran out of steam. This was not the Mildred I knew. She runs City Hall like a pro. You need anything done in town, she knows who to call. She’s bright and chipper every morning, which can be downright annoying when you don’t happen to feel chipper yourself. She’s smart, articulate, and talkative.
Usually, that is. Now, grief, or something else, had turned her into a whole different person. I suspected it was something else.
I looked at Josie. I made a tippling motion with my hand and raised my eyebrows. Could Mildred be drunk, so early in the day? If anyone had an excuse to be drunk, it would be this woman. Josie shrugged, maybe.
Mort moved around the table and sat next to Mildred. He picked up Mildred’s hand and felt her pulse while watching the second hand on his watch. Mildred didn’t stop him.
“Her pulse is OK. I checked it earlier, before you came, and it hasn’t changed.”
He reached up and turned the woman’s head towards him so he could look into her eyes. She let him do that, too. “Pupils are still normal. Mildred, are you having any trouble breathing at all?”
Mildred took in a deep breath and let it out again. Then she shook her head, and looked at Josie for an explanation.
She didn’t get one, so she started talking again. “Emma and I were baking Gwyneth’s favorite cookies this morning, because we didn’t know she was dead. Emma has been so moody lately. They used to be so close, before Gwyneth left …”
Her voice trailed off, as if she couldn’t remember what she was talking about. “I think you need to go home, now,” I said. “You aren’t yourself. A little rest would do you good.”
“Well, I—”
I stood and held out my hand, offering to help Mildred up off the couch. She took my hand and stood.
“I should have brought Emma,” she said. “I’ll come back tomorrow, and bring Emma. She wanted to come today to see the baby, but she’s so upset, I didn’t think it would be good for her, and I sent her home. She needs to get some rest. But we’ll come back tomorrow.”
“Yes, that will be nice,” Josie said. “Gavril will be here tomorrow.”
“Who?”
“Gavril. Sonje’s husband.”
“You mean Gwyneth?”
“Yes, Mildred. You come back tomorrow. But now, you need to go home.”
I said, “Mildred, you shouldn’t be driving in the state you’re in. I’ll take you home.” I really didn’t want to, but what choice did I have?
I retrieved Mildred’s coat from the peg by the door and helped her put it on. I drove her home in her car, with Mort following in my little green pickup.
The wind was dying down and it was barely snowing, but there were drifts across the streets. I drove slowly to the north end of town. I pulled into Mildred’s driveway, but I didn’t open my door. She didn’t move, either.
I put my hand on her arm to get her attention. “Mildred, have you been drinking?”
She shook her head in slow motion. “Mark gave me something to make me less upset. It must have made my brain all fuzzy. I’m so sorry—I don’t think I’ve been—”
Her mind wandered off before she could finish the thought.
“What did he give you?”
“Huh?”
She looked at me like I was speaking Swahili. Mort pulled up to the curb in front of Mildred’s house and got out of the truck. I rolled down my window, and when he was close enough, I said, “Could you take Mildred into the house? Mark gave her something to relax. I’ll call Emma to come sit with her until it wears off.”
“No—call Rita Hansen. See if she can come over to sit with Mildred. Tell her we don’t know what’s going on, but it could be painkillers. She should call Louise Martin, over at the fire station. Rita might need a volunteer to bring the Naloxone from the emergency kit if Mildred starts to have trouble breathing. And don’t call Mark Price, either,” he said. “We’ll surprise him.”
He walked around the car, opened the door on Mildred’s side, and managed to get her out of the car and up the steps to her kitchen door.
I pulled out my cell phone and made the call. Rita lives next door to Mildred. It would only take a few minutes for her to get organized and come over. Her father was with her and I told her to bring Pete, too.
Mort came back out of the house. I climbed out of Mildred’s car and into the passenger side of my pickup. Mort took the wheel.
Before he started the vehicle, Mort called the sheriff and told him about the possible poisoning. When he stopped talking he listened, grunted a few times, and then hung up.
“I thought he might want to send a deputy out or have us bring her to the clinic for blood tests or something. I guess not.”
I said, “Naloxone is for an opiate OD, isn’t it? Do you think Mark tried to kill his mother?”
“I think somebody tried to kill her, but he messed up and didn’t give her the full dose. But I could be wrong.”
While he drove, I told him about the talk Josie and I had with the pastor. “I’m pretty sure he came up with John Meecham’s name because he was looking at the flier I found at the diner, but we still have to check it out, I suppose.”
He grimaced. “Great—talking to Meecham will be a whole bunch of fun. I can’t wait.”
To cheer him up, I told him the pastor thought Josie was a bad influence for me. He started laughing and he didn’t stop until we reached Mark’s house on the east side of town.
FIFTEEN
Mark Price lives in a plain, rectangular gray house, probably built in the ‘60s. There’s a lot of these little houses around town. They were well-built back in the day, but they all look exactly alike, with a big picture window in front, a garage attached to the side, and clapboard siding. There was no porch, just a cement stoop in front of the door. The back door would be inside the garage. Mark wasn’t keeping the place up, and it needed a coat of paint.
Mort held the storm door open, and I walked up the steps and stood next to him. Mark answered the door but didn’t move to let us inside. Children were talking in the living room. Then something crashed to the floor and a small child shrieked in anger. Mark winced.
“Utah, Mort. What can I do for you?”
“You can let us in, for starters,” Mort said. “It’s cold out here.”
Mark hesitated. Then he stepped back, opening the door wider, allowing us to enter. It wasn’t an invitation, just an acknowledgment of the inevitable.
“The place is a mess,” he said. “Try to find a place to sit.”
We didn’t move towards the couch. There wasn’t much point. It was covered with clothes, probably a stopping point on the way from the dryer to the closet. Plastic toys littered the floor, and his two children were fighting. Mildred told me the girl was in first grade, supposedly the smartest kid in her class. The older one, the boy, was in fourth grade. He was the best soccer player in school, according to Mildred. Mark made no move to separate the children or stop the fight. The girl seemed to be winning, based on decibel level.
“You have the kiddies all weekend?” Mort asked, raising his voice to be heard over the din.
“No. Millie’s coming for them later. Around five. What do you want, Mort? I’m not really in the mood to chat, if you want to know the truth. It hasn’t been a real good day.”
“Not a good day for your mother, either,” I said. “She came over to the museum to see the baby, but she shouldn’t have been driving, the way she was acting—”
“She said you gave her a pill,” Mort said. “She acted like she was drunk, slurring her voice, stumbling around. What did you give her? You got painkillers around here, with these children?”
“I didn’t give her a pill, you old coot. I just gave her a cup of tea. Her daughter committed suicide last night, and she was upset. I was just trying to help.”
Mort glanced at me, one eyebrow raised. Then he said, “What kind of tea, Mark? It must have been something special to make her act like that.”
Mark had a smug l
ook on his face, and he answered. “It’s that tea that Josie O’Brien gave my wife a few months back. It was supposed to mellow her out, make her less worried about the money situation or something. She got mellow, all right—and then she filed for divorce. She got so mellow, she didn’t even bother to take the tea with her when she moved out.”
Mort looked at me for an explanation.
“Earl Grey tea,” I said. “The oil of bergamot calms the nerves, and it can lower your blood pressure a little if you’re upset. I drink it after every city council meeting. It doesn’t make you act the way Mildred was acting.”
The children were watching us now, instead of fighting. Mort said, “You don’t mind if we look in your medicine cabinet, do you, Mark?”
“Of course I mind. You’re not the sheriff, Mort Schwaab. You have no right to come into my house and scare my kids and make accusations—”
The kids were watching us the way they’d watch the morning cartoons. They weren’t the least bit scared.
I said, in my most diplomatic voice, “Mark, we’re worried about Mildred, that’s all. You see, we think someone slipped Sonje some painkillers, and that’s why she died. Then Mildred shows up, and she’s drugged, too—”
“Sure, we were worried, that’s all,” Mort said. “But you’re right. We should call the real sheriff and have him get a search warrant, like they do on TV. That’s the right way to handle things. I’ll make the call. Utah, go clear a spot on that sofa so we can sit down and wait for Wally, would you, hon?”
He had the cell phone to his ear when Mark said, in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “Can it, Mort. Go look in the bathroom if you want to. I don’t have any painkillers. Then get out of here and leave me alone.”
I headed down the hall while Mort moved clothes aside and sat on the couch. He leaned over to talk to the ‘kiddies.’ Mark left the room. I found the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet, which had all the usual medicine cabinet stuff—Band-Aids, antibacterial creme, toothbrush still in the carton, shaving cream, razor. And a plastic pill bottle. The label said it was a generic, called Zaleplon. I’d never heard of it. I pulled out my cell phone and called Josie.
When she answered, I asked her to turn on my laptop and look up the drug on the Internet. It took her less than a minute to find it and read me the side effects. Drowsiness, of course, since it’s a sleeping pill. Some of the other things on the list were lack of coordination, confusion, unusual behavior, and sleepwalking. I didn’t think Mildred was sleepwalking, but still, three out of four.
I didn’t ask her to look for the side effects of painkillers. Mort would already know, since the heroin and prescription opiate epidemic was already in full swing in the county before he retired.
When I walked back into the messy living room, Mark was coming out of the kitchen holding an open bottle of beer and a carton of Earl Grey tea.
“Hey,” he said, “are you saying somebody killed my sister?”
Mort was rising from the couch. “You’re a little slow on the uptake, Mark, but you do get there in the end.” The children were ignoring us again. The girl was on the floor playing with plastic dolls, while the boy was sitting on a chair with an electronic gizmo. It was making little pinging sounds. When Mort looked at his watch, I did the same. It was a little after noon.
I held out the bottle so both men could see it. Mort took it from me and walked up close to Mark, getting into his space. “You slip one of these pills into your mother’s tea?”
Mark held up the carton of tea, and moved forward, making Mort move back. “This is all I gave my mother. Take her to the clinic, get her a blood test, do whatever you want, because I didn’t give her any damn pill. I gave her a cup of tea. Is there a law against that?”
The little girl started to whimper. Mort handed the pill bottle to Mark, and we left.
On the way home, I asked Mort if he thought Mark tried to kill his mother. “Josie looked up the side effects of that brand of sleeping pills, and Mildred seemed to have most of them. Maybe he ran out of the painkillers he used on Sonje and tried to murder Mildred with what he still had in his medicine cabinet.”
He shook his head. “He’s not the brightest guy in town, but he’s smart enough to get rid of the pills if he tried to kill somebody with them. And his wife took those pills, so he knew just one wouldn’t hurt anything. It would just put you to sleep. The bottle was almost full.”
“So you’re still thinking somebody slipped Mildred some painkillers but she didn’t get the full dose.”
He nodded. “That’s why I wanted Rita to stay with her, in case the bad guy comes back and tries again. He not likely to try anything if there’s a witness. And now we go see John Meecham.”
“No” I said, emphatically. “You go see John Meecham. You can drop me off at the museum.”
He looked at me and frowned. “Why?”
“Because he has no respect for me. Or any woman, for that matter. He might talk to you. He might even accidentally tell you a little bit of the truth, but not if I’m in the room.”
He nodded, seeing my point.
“I don’t know how that man has lived as long as he has,” Mort said. “You would think either his wife would kill him or one of the husbands around town. There’s plenty that have a righteous grievance. What the heck do women see in Meecham, anyway?”
I couldn’t answer that. To me, John Meecham was a pain in the rear, and always had been. He was slightly overweight, rude, a bullet-headed guy with a receding hairline and no sense of style whatsoever. His appeal to women was a total mystery to me.
Mort said, with a chuckle, “One time, down at the Little Perch bar, I thought I was going to see him get his due. He’s damned lucky your Sam is such a level-headed guy.”
I looked at him, and waited. We were only a block from the museum when he decided it was time to tell me the rest of his story.
“Sam’s wife was sleeping around and didn’t care who knew it. She was drinking heavy, hanging out at the Little Perch almost every night. After a while, Sam started coming with her, to keep her company. He’d sit there, nursing one beer, looking glum.
“She drank pretty heavy, and after a few beers she would get all sassy and start flirting with anything in pants, male or female. That’s when Sam would go all silent and depressed. It brought down the mood in the bar, I can tell you.”
He pulled into the parking spot next to the mammoth, but he didn’t turn off the engine or open his door. I sat still, and waited.
He zipped his jacket up a little higher and put his hands under his armpits to stay warm. “So one night when Sam’s wife has gone off to the restroom and didn’t come back, probably because she went out the back door with some guy, Meecham says, real loud, ‘Hey, Two Hawk, what are you doing hanging around here? Go play with your girlfriend. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, ain’t it?’”
Mort rearranged his cap, stalling for more time. “All of a sudden the whole bar goes silent. You could have heard a penny drop. So I turn, and there’s Sam, getting up from his table and heading towards Meecham. He outweighs Meecham by 30 pounds, at least, and Sam actually works for a living, so he’s solid. Even if he wasn’t mad, there’d be no contest, but he was mad.
“He had a beer bottle in his hand, but not right side up—he was holding it with the bottom up, like a little club, and he was heading towards Meecham real slow and quiet, the way a bulldog will come after you when he knows he doesn’t have to prove anything, because he knows he’s gonna win.
“I was sheriff. Off-duty, but still, I shoulda tried to stop him—but I figured Meecham had it coming. Word around town said he was one of the guys who had his way with Sam’s wife.
“So Sam gets up to Meecham, who looked like he was about to wet his pants, and Sam looks him straight in the eye and smiles while he reaches around and sets that beer bottle on the bar, real gentle, right side up. He pats Meecham on the shoulder, and then he heads towards the door. He gave me a littl
e salute on his way out—like he just saved me from cleaning up a mess, and I should thank him for it.”
I fiddled with the zipper on my jacket, just to have something to do with my hands. “Sam had an affair with Carol Kramer, didn’t he?”
Mort opened his door and started to get out. “Sure. Everybody knew that. Girl, you really need to get out more. He divorced his wife a few months after that little dust-up with Meecham. Then he ran for mayor. I figured that little incident was why he won. Made people sit up and take notice of the guy.”
SIXTEEN
The kitchen was empty when I walked in, except for Molly. The bloodhound slipped off the heated bench when I came in the room.
I had a twinge of guilt for making her lie on the hard floor with her old bones. I went into the bathroom and picked up the soft plush rug. When I got back to the kitchen, I made the old dog stand up, and laid the rug down in front of the heater. She ran her nose around all the edges, decided it was good, and flopped down on it, hanging over on both ends. I made a mental note to ask Josie if she knew how to make a rag rug. Or maybe I could find a really big pillow at the thrift store in Randall.
I made a sandwich, found my laptop, and sat down on the couch. I wanted to check and see what they were saying about the murder on the news.
A herd of national reporters were in Randall, waiting in front of the sheriff’s office. They had a video of an interview with Wally, but he didn’t say much. Gavril Constantin was expected at the sheriff’s office as soon as he could get through, he said. It shouldn’t take much longer, because the Interstate was open again.