by Nancy Bush
“What do you think of skinny over there?” Gretchen drawled as George looked up from his computer at September.
“Hey,” he greeted her with a wan smile.
“You look great,” September told him.
“Yeah, he’s half the man he was,” said Gretchen. She and George had always had a testy relationship.
“Jeannie’s got me on a diet,” he said, glancing away quickly, as if he’d given away some big, dark secret.
September glanced at Gretchen with questions in her eyes, and Gretchen jerked her head in the direction of the door, a silent signal that she would explain later. As she went toward the break room to pick up her jacket, September asked George, “Is Wes around?”
“He’s working on a case.” George had returned his attention to his computer, but she sensed he wasn’t really paying attention to whatever was on the screen.
Once she and Gretchen were in her Outback, September asked, “What gives with George?”
“Jeannie dumped his ass months ago. She seemed to think he was a big-deal detective, and when she learned he basically sits on his ass all day, she moved on. She did have him on a diet, but the heartbreak is what’s really done the job.”
“He looks better,” said September.
“You think so? Marginal improvement. You were at that benefit, weren’t you?”
“You heard about John Linfield.”
“Yeah . . . one of the Crissman daughters’ husband.”
“Kinda why I called you this morning. I helped him to his car. His wife drove him to the doctor, or away anyway.”
“You helped him to his car,” she repeated.
“The wife, Lucy Crissman, looked frazzled, and the benefit was going on, so I thought I’d facilitate. Get him on his way. It was a shock to see he died.”
“I was going to call you, but you beat me to it. We got a call from the Wharton County sheriff. Told us to make sure we did an autopsy and look for poisoning. Angel of death mushroom poisoning. Didn’t realize you were so personally involved.”
“Angel of death mushroom? Wharton County, where the benefit was held?”
“Yep.”
“What’s the sheriff’s deal? He thinks the poisoning happened there?”
“He’s got his suspicions. Apparently, the angel of death grows all around the Pacific Northwest, associated with oak trees, mainly. Pops up at certain times of the year. Gotta be careful when you’re picking mushrooms because it can look like one you’d eat. Anyway, that specific a request goes through the lab pretty fast.”
September nodded. The lab could be backed up for weeks, but when you knew what you were looking for, processing was much faster. “So, it was poisoning?”
“Yep.”
“And the sheriff thinks it happened at the benefit ... ?”
“Takes a few hours before symptoms appear, so either right before he got there or while he was there.”
“So, early in the day, then. Not while the guests were there.” September’s mind was racing. “Are you treating it like a homicide?”
“Wes’s in contact with the sheriff. Apparently, a tip came in about the poisoning.”
“I want to talk to Wes.”
“And he wants to talk to you, because you were there. Glad you called for coffee, so I could give you a heads-up. Think I could squeeze a scone out of you, too? I skipped breakfast.”
“I’m buying?”
“Yes.”
September slid her a look and realized with a pang how much she missed their camaraderie.
* * *
Lucy sat with Evie in front of the television. If you’d asked her what was playing on screen she wouldn’t have been able to tell you. Evie had picked the show, but if you’d asked her what was on screen, she wouldn’t have been able to tell you either. Evie’s body was snuggled up against Lucy’s, one of her arms slung around Lisa, the French rabbit/dog stuffed animal who was sporting a diamond ring on one of its toes. Costume jewelry that looked surprisingly real. Lucy had her arm around her daughter as well. It reminded her of the time before John, when it had been just the two of them. She’d been worried about money in those days, she remembered, but there had been joy in raising her daughter before her marriage.
Did you just marry him for security? she asked herself harshly. No ... no . . . no, that wasn’t true. She’d married him because she’d wanted a partnership. That’s what she’d wanted. It hadn’t turned out that way, really, but that had been her wish.
And now he was gone.
Her eyes burned. She’d been unable to shed tears, but her eyes had burned over and over again since she’d first learned about John. It was a blur. It was all a nightmarish blur. The past few days since his death, her father, brother, and sister had all come by to help her, and she’d tried to respond, but it hadn’t worked.
The landline rang, and she lifted her head to look over at it. Evie stirred and looked at Lucy, who sat in place. “Mom?” Evie asked.
“Okay.”
Lucy rose heavily from the couch and walked to the phone. She wasn’t surprised to see it was her mother calling. Normally, she would feel dispirited and annoyed, but these weren’t normal times.
“I’m coming to you,” her mother said by way of greeting.
Lucy’s burning eyes finally shed tears. “Thanks, Mom,” she choked out.
* * *
Kate watched through her window at April Academy at the children running around the playground, all of them appearing to be working hard at recess. She picked up her coffee cup by rote, never taking her eyes off the scene of joyous melee. Evie wasn’t at school today, and Daphne had questioned whether she was sick. Kate had tried to explain about a death in the family, and though Daphne clearly understood the words, she didn’t quite get how devastating it all was.
“What happened to her real daddy?” she’d asked when the news had first come down. Daphne apparently felt that John’s death didn’t count at the same level as a real father. Her attitude gave Kate disturbing insight into how she saw Lyle, so she’d doubled and redoubled her efforts to have Daphne see how terrible John Linfield’s death was for Evie.
“John is like her real daddy,” Kate started in, only to be immediately interrupted.
“But he’s not. She doesn’t know who her real dad is,” Daphne assured her.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is, her stepfather was like her real daddy.”
“No. He’s not. Evie doesn’t like him that much.”
“Daphne, he’s gone.” Kate’s patience snapped. “Don’t talk like that. It disrespects him.”
“Who?” she asked, her brow furrowed.
“John Linfield!” she declared in exasperation. “He died, Daphne. He’s not coming back!”
Daphne had reared back in the face of Kate’s fury, her eyes wide. “I know that.”
“Well, then, stop talking that way. It’s not right, and people won’t understand if they overhear you. And don’t say anything like that to Evie, or Lucy. My God.”
They were going to have to start seriously attending church, Kate thought. Somehow, Daphne was missing out on the basics of proper behavior and feelings. It didn’t help that Lyle never wanted to do anything that included worship, even though some very important people went to the church Kate had zeroed in on.
Lyle . . . She loved him. Loved him. He was her other half. Her man. Her husband.
She’d followed Lyle on Monday, even though she’d been reeling in the aftermath of the Denim and Diamonds fiasco. Yes, people had put down their money at the auction and no one had seemed particularly upset about John’s illness at the time, except the family, of course, and that ex-cop who’d been on television who was married to the wiz financial adviser, though, to be fair, no one had understood the severity of John’s symptoms. She certainly hadn’t.
Kate had pulled up to the Pembroke Inn wearing a brunette wig, oversize tortoiseshell glasses, and a bulky coat. She’d sneaked into the restaurant bar,
shooting a quick glance around to see if Lyle had beaten her there. He hadn’t, but then, she hadn’t expected him to; she’d planned on getting there ahead of the assignation.
She’d taken a seat at a table that offered her a view of the door, and then kept the menu in front of her nose to cover most of her face. The waitress had asked her what she wanted, and she’d purposely answered in a lower tone than normal, so that if she had to speak when Lyle appeared, he wouldn’t recognize her voice. She had then ordered an iced tea, her stomach too clenched with anxiety for her to even think about food.
She’d been frightened, not sure what she would do if Lyle found her out. He would be totally pissed and on to the fact that she’d gotten into his phone. Yet she had to know what he was up to.
Even so, she’d just about decided it was all too risky when she saw him enter. She immediately pretended to be searching in her purse, though she dared a quick look his way, relieved to see him stride directly to the bar and take a seat at one end. He was almost out of her range of vision. She could only see his hands. But the seat to his left remained open for whoever he was meeting, and it was directly in Kate’s line of sight.
Okay, okay, she’d warned herself. So far, so good. She’d sent Daphne home with Evie after school; quid pro quo for Kate taking Evie the week before. To leave work early, Kate had complained of a headache and then made good her disappearance before April could question her too thoroughly. This, of course, had been before John collapsed into a coma. He was ill at that time, and Lucy had been somewhat reluctant to have Daphne at her house, but Kate had pushed, needing Daphne to be somewhere else because she hadn’t known how long she would need to be. Of course, none of them had known John was fatally ill. Kate had thankfully picked Daphne up before he’d gone into his coma.
But anyway, she’d been surprised when the woman who took the seat next to Lyle was middle-aged and hard-edged. No, this was not Patricia who’d once worked at Crissman & Wolfe. This Pat had sat stiffly on the barstool next to Lyle and had seemed cold and unforgiving. Looks like a ballbuster, Kate had thought, put off by Lyle’s choice, a bit baffled and also somewhat relieved. She tried to imagine this dried-up witch in the bedroom and failed completely. The woman looked like she’d opt for arm wrestling as her preferred choice of physical contact.
Kate had waited in a kind of suspended horror to see if Lyle would put his hand on her or draw her near, but it didn’t happen. Gradually, she began to think this was a business meeting of some kind, though she couldn’t see what the hell it could be about. It seemed clandestine. There was just something about both Pat’s posture and Lyle’s stiffness, and the way Pat looked around a time or two, as if scoping out the other patrons, that made it appear like an assignation. Whenever she saw Pat glance to her side, Kate made sure she herself was focused elsewhere. She didn’t think she’d been seen, and Lyle hadn’t said anything in the days since, so she felt she was safe.
While they were at the bar, neither Pat nor Lyle ordered anything to eat or drink other than water, and it was only because Kate was looking at them so hard from her peripheral vision that she noticed when Lyle slid Pat a flat packet wrapped in brown paper. Drugs? Oh my God. Was it drugs? Kate still had no idea.
Shortly after the transfer, Pat got up from her stool and prepared to leave. Her coat flipped open a bit as she headed out, and Kate realized she was wearing some kind of uniform beneath it—blue scrubs—like she was in the medical profession. A nurse, maybe? Why was Lyle giving drugs to a nurse? Or maybe a doctor . . . ? Kate didn’t see how that was likely. Pat just looked too ... unimportant. Some other medical job perhaps?
It was all a mystery, one Kate hadn’t had time to unravel because then John had gone into a coma and to the hospital later that night, and here they all were days later, living in a state of shock.
Kate had tried to be supportive to Lucy, but her sister-in-law was unreachable. Totally undone. Kate guessed she would feel the same way if anything happened to Lyle, but she somehow hadn’t expected it of Lucy. Everyone knew about the fight they’d had at Stonehenge. God. Wolfe Lodge. How many times was she going to mess that up?
“Kate?”
Kate jerked as if cattle-prodded and turned toward the voice. “What?” she asked stridently, spying April standing in the doorway.
“Daphne apparently would like to go home.”
Kate glanced at her desk clock. “It’s barely one.”
“I’m just the messenger.” April sniffed, clearly offended by Kate’s tone, but Kate couldn’t seem to rustle up the energy to apologize. She found she was pissed at everybody, John Linfield included. He shouldn’t have died! And now Lyle and Abbott had practically shut her out as they went about their business. Yes, they, too, had tried to comfort Lucy, and she’d seemed to respond to them more than Kate, but everyone—all of the Crissmans—were keeping her at arm’s length, like she didn’t count.
“Okay,” Kate said to April, whose lips thinned before she turned away.
Kate closed her desk and walked to Daphne’s room. There was a young mother holding a baby boy of about nine months in the hall. He was squirming to get down and she set him on the ground as Kate knocked lightly on Daphne’s door. The little boy held on to his mother’s fingers and balanced on wobbly legs. He grinned at Kate, showing two little bottom teeth, his blue eyes mirthful.
The sight of him, the wanting, made her almost physically ill. The teacher came to the door and Kate practically pushed her way inside.
As soon as her daughter saw her, she grabbed up her backpack and ran to meet her, practically throwing herself into Kate’s arms. Kate squeezed her eyes closed, then opened them again, in control once more.
“What is it, honey?” she asked.
“I wanna go home!” Daphne wailed.
“Did something happen? Sure. We can go. Did someone hurt you?” She threw a hard look around the classroom.
“Evie’s dead!” she cried.
“What? Oh, no no no. That’s not true. It’s her stepfather that—”
“I want to see Evie!”
Kate grabbed Daphne’s arm and hurried her down the hall, away from her classroom and all the wide-eyed stares. She yanked her phone from her purse as soon as they were out of earshot. “Evie’s not dead. For goodness’ sake, I’ll call Lucy and Evie right now. Maybe we can stop by to see them.”
“Nowww!”
Kate scrolled to Lucy’s number and depressed the Call button.
Lucy answered dully, “Hi, Kate.”
“Sorry to bother you at this terrible time, Lucy, but Daphne would really like to see Evie. She wants to make sure she’s all right.”
“Ummm . . .” Kate heard her ask her daughter if Daphne could stop by. “Fine,” Lucy said when she came back on the phone, her voice a monotone.
“We’ll be over soon.”
Kate followed Daphne out to the car. Her daughter had subsided, and she was mostly silent as they drove from the school to the Linfield house in Laurelton. Kate had barely pulled into the drive when Daphne jumped from the car and ran to the front door, pressing the bell over and over again.
“Hey!” Kate scolded, hurrying after her, which took a few moments because she’d accidentally trapped the strap of her purse between the driver’s seat and the console and had almost jerked herself off her own feet for a moment. “Give them a chance, for God’s sake!”
Lucy answered the door at that moment, while Daphne was pushing the button again. Daphne dashed past her without a hello.
“Sorry,” Kate apologized to her wan sister-in-law.
“My mother’s coming,” Lucy said, more to herself than Kate. “They’re doing an autopsy on John to determine what killed him.”
“Oh, an autopsy. I guess they would ... do they know what it was?”
“No one’s told me anything. It feels ... strange.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” She shivered. “I just feel like the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet.
”
PART THREE
Chapter Eighteen
Dallas Denton was tired of lies. Tall ones, whoppers, little white ones, teasing ones . . . he’d had his fill. If someone couldn’t own up to their own behavior—good, bad, or indifferent—he could no longer abide it.
This was problematic; Dallas was a defense attorney and the number-one action taken by his clients, when they didn’t like the hard questions, was to lie. He’d heard it all. They were innocent of all wrongdoing. Inordinately persecuted by the police, the prosecuting lawyers, the world in general. It was all a terrible mistake. No one understood them. They’d come to him to put the world right again.
And he had . . . first for a firm he’d slowly decided was venal at its core. Now, on his own.
Currently, he was trying to appear attentive to the woman seated on the opposite side of his desk, not be too judgmental. Joanna Creighton was rambling away. She’d been going on for about fifteen minutes on the attributes of her teenage son, a young miscreant who dabbled in criminal behavior as if he were determined to try everything in the goody bag. He seemed to be fulfilling his bucket list for breaking laws. Thievery, drug dealing and/or using, robbery, burglary, even a bit of extortion on his supposed friends . . . you name it, he’d tried it. He was a bad apple whose good looks and charm had bamboozled everyone in his orbit, especially his mother. That was until the DA had pressed charges. Now she wanted Dallas to defend the boy. She’d brought him in the week before so Dallas could get a look at him, but all the kid had done was examine him resentfully from beneath a swath of blond hair that covered half his face. Dallas had wanted to tell him to straighten up before it was too late, but he’d been in similar situations enough times to learn that if the parents didn’t discipline their children, he was done before he even started.
“Alastair wanted to come again,” Joanna told him earnestly now. “But I thought it would be best if I came alone this time.”