“Well, then, Cindy,” said the first detective, whose initial apparent hostility and sternness had abated. “You are a very lucky woman, a very lucky woman indeed.”
Cindy looked surprised.
“I can see you seem surprised,” said the second detective.
“I am. I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“The lemonade was poisoned, laced with rat poison actually. We believe that this poison was intended for you. We believe that your nephew, Billy Malphrus, had meant for you to drink it, just you, not your friend, and of course, how would he have known Mrs. Zipp would be here?”
Cindy shook her head. There must be some mistake. Why on earth would Billy want to kill her? He was one of the kindest, most honorable and trustworthy people she had known.
“No, there must be a mistake, I think you must be mistaken,” protested Cindy. “What you are saying is ludicrous; that Billy wanted to poison me? Frankly it is the most bizarre thing I have ever heard.”
Both detectives shook their heads. “Well, we have a search warrant; we would like to search your home. Do you have any rat poison?”
“No,” said Cindy, “I certainly don’t, but of course you are free to look. I have never purchased the stuff. I assure you, this house is spotless. I have a dog, two dogs now actually, so no rat would be crazy enough to show his face around here.”
One of the detectives mumbled something, something that Cindy didn’t quite catch, but was pretty sure he had whispered “apart from Malphrus” into the ear of his colleague, who had then stifled a smile.
While the detectives searched Cindy’s house, including her garden shed, Cindy pondered their comments. Billy? Poison? It was just a crazy notion. There had to have been some sort of mistake. Cindy did not accompany the detectives in the search. She knew that there was no poison in the house.
Fifteen minutes later the officers returned to her living room, one of them carrying a canister emblazoned with the words “Rat Poison” in bold black letters.
“We found this in your shed,” said the first detective. “It was hidden, well, at least it appeared hidden. Is this yours?” he said, lifting the container upwards, practically forcing it into Cindy’s face.
Cindy shook her head. “No, I have never laid eyes on it before. Please tell me what is going on? I am confused. You are actually saying that Billy intended to poison me?”
The first detective once again spoke sternly. “It is a line of enquiry. However, there is another possibility, isn’t there Mrs. Mopper?” The detective’s return to addressing Cindy formally did not go unnoticed by her.
“Maybe you poisoned Mrs. Zipp?” said the detective. Cindy was unsure if this was a statement, a question or even an accusation.
“Was there any bad blood between you and the victim?” said the second detective.
Cindy froze. Her smile evaporated, her calm demeanor suddenly replaced by dread. She shifted uneasily in her chair. Oh my God, she thought, yes, there had been bad blood. She had paid an ‘Organization’ over $100,000 to have her friend killed. But that was ages ago. Since then she had tried her best, her very best, to cancel the contract on her friend, once she had realized that she had made a huge mistake. Once she had realized that Carla was not a threat to her and her aspirations of finding love with Elliott Miller. Could this ‘Organization’ somehow have orchestrated this? Could they have poisoned Carla? It had to be. There was no way, she thought, that Billy would ever harm her. The detectives had been playing with her. Surely they knew, surely they knew what she had done. But she didn’t want Carla dead. She was her friend. Her best friend. It had all been a mistake.
“Well, Mrs. Mopper?” pushed the second detective, who had not failed to notice her discomfort.
“Absolutely not,” replied Cindy, “she and I, Carla that is, were best friends. She came here to comfort me and support me that day. Why would I want to harm her? Ask anyone, ask anyone who lives in Gordonston, who lives in Savannah, we were friends. We had our own dog walking club. I would never harm her. What you are saying is totally impossible, and rather insulting. Should I be speaking to a lawyer? Are you accusing me of killing my friend?”
The detectives both shook their heads.
“Look, we understand how you are feeling; we just have to ask these questions. This is all quite a shock, I am sure,” said the first detective. “We are going to take this,” he indicated to the container of poison, “for analysis, and we also have a warrant to seize any computers you may have. It is just procedure. We will return them, or it, if you have only one. Our technical guys just need to do some checks.”
Once again Cindy felt a wave of dread engulf her. Her computer. The same computer that no doubt contained traces of her internet searches, looking for ways to cancel a hit. Containing traces of her attempts to source out the ‘Organization’, containing all the evidence the police would need to charge her and convict for her the murder of her friend.
Cindy composed herself before speaking. “Yes, I have a computer.”
“Then we shall be taking that with us,” replied the detective.
The two detectives spent five minutes unplugging and disconnecting Cindy’s computer. They handed her a receipt for both the poison and the computer and then left. They told her that they would be in touch; that they would be making further enquiries, and they advised Cindy she may want to retain the services of an attorney after all, and, if she was planning on leaving the country anytime soon, or even planning on taking a trip out of town, then not to. She was not under arrest, not yet anyway, they explained, but they were treating her as a suspect in the murder of Carla Zipp.
The following week seemed to be the longest of Cindy’s life. She had two more funerals to attend; the funeral of Veronica Partridge, who had, was alleged, been murdered by her husband. Then there was the funeral of Tom Hudd, again, according to the rumors, most likely murdered by Doug Partridge. The new theory, which she had heard on the neighborhood grapevine, was that Partridge had discovered an affair between his wife and Tom. That he had killed first Tom, burying his body in the park, and he then returned to kill his cheating wife and had kidnapped their daughter, before most likely fleeing back to England. Both funerals, unlike Billy’s, had been well attended. At least these sad events had proved to be a welcome distraction for her. Elliott had attended both burials; Cindy had spoken to him, and he had expressed his condolences for the loss of Billy, and of course the death of Carla. It was also the first time she had seen Kelly Hudd in over four months. She seemed to be returning to her old self. She had lost some of the weight that Cindy had heard she had gained. She was once again looking gorgeous, and seemed, though Cindy could have been mistaken, happy, which struck her as odd. She also noticed something else. Something that briefly worried her, but she had put that to the back of her mind. It was a crazy thought. She had been slightly upset, though, that while Cindy had expressed her condolences to Kelly regarding Tom’s tragic death, Kelly had not even mentioned Cindy’s loss.
Cindy did not retain an attorney. She would confess. She had decided that, once the police had done their traces or whatever they did to find out what people got up to on their computers, she would come clean. She would admit that she had hired the “Organization” to kill her friend; that she was indeed responsible for Carla’s death, and that despite her attempts to stop any harm coming to Carla, she had failed to contact or even find any trace of the people she had hired to kill her. Obviously they had done it. They had somehow gotten into her home as she slept, added poison to Carla’s drink and either forced her to drink it or, unwittingly, and without a clue that this ‘Organization’ had even entered the house, doctored her drink, and left as silently as they had arrived, without Carla’s knowledge.
Cindy knew she was headed to jail. Probably for a long time. She had made arrangements for Paddy and Walter, for whom she now felt doubly responsible, to be ‘adopted’ by the only person she trusted, Elliott Miller.
Init
ially Elliott had been confused by Cindy’s out of the blue and odd request that if anything happened to her, he would promise to take care of both Walter and Paddy. Elliott, being the good man Cindy knew he was, had of course said yes, but told her that he was a little perturbed by her request, and he asked if there was anything he could do to help her. Cindy had merely told him it was ‘just in case’, and luckily Elliott had not pursued his offer to help Cindy, nor ask more questions. It had felt odd, talking to Elliott, after all this had all been done for him, and he didn’t even have a clue. The plotting, the hiring of killers and the eventual death of Carla; all done for love, Cindy’s love for Elliott. Maybe he could have helped her; he was of course the Mayor, so possibly he could ‘have a word’ in someone’s ear. Perhaps if Cindy told him that she had done this terrible thing for him, because she loved him, he would tell her that he loved her too, even tell her not to worry… and they could live happily ever after.
But it wasn’t a fairytale. This was real life, and of course death. There would be no happy ending. There was no magical fairy godmother waving a wand — just the cruel hand of destiny, wagging its finger in Cindy’s face.
Cindy discreetly got her ‘house’ in order. She rewrote her will, donating everything she had not to The Gordonston Residents Association, but to a local animal shelter. She contacted a real estate attorney, and made him her proxy to sell her house. The day the police arrived, she was positive to arrest her, Cindy was busy cleaning her home, so that the next occupant, while she languished in prison, would move into a clean and respectful house. She even sent Walter and Paddy into the cellar, just in case there were rats living with her. But of course, there weren’t, not anymore.
As before, it was the same two detectives who returned to her home, and as before, she welcomed them and offered them apple pie and sweet tea. Cindy would go with dignity, she would remain calm and be polite and she would respect what these police officers had to do. Though she expected them both to decline any offer of food or drink, she was quite surprised when both men accepted her offer of tea and homemade pie.
Once again the detectives asked Cindy to sit, and as before, she led them into her living room, but this time both detectives sat on the sofa, unlike before when the taller one had stood. Cindy took her seat, and was about to confess all, but before she could utter a word, the first detective, the shorter one, spoke.
“We have some rather disturbing news for you, Cindy.”
“I know,” replied Cindy, “I am ready.”
The detectives looked at each other, seemingly confused as to what Cindy meant. Regardless, the shorter detective spoke again.
“Then what we are going to tell you isn’t going to come as too much of a shock to you?”
“No, not at all, I kind of guess I deserve it. You know, I brought this all on myself.”
Again the detectives looked confused.
“Well, there really is no need for you to blame yourself, Cindy, you are just as much a victim as anyone else,” said the taller detective.
“Yes, Cindy, don’t be so hard on yourself. You weren’t to know,” said the shorter one.
Cindy raised her hand before speaking. “No, I have been a silly old woman, and I made a mistake, and it cost the life of my friend, something I deeply regret, something, detectives, I promise you I readily admit and am ashamed of.”
The shorter detective stood from the sofa. So this was it. In any moment, thought Cindy, she would be handcuffed and led away. Something she accepted and deserved. As Cindy prepared to offer the detective her wrists, so he could more easily restrain her, he did something that surprised her.
“Cindy,” said the detective as he approached her, gently touching her shoulder, “none of this is your fault. Please don’t blame yourself. You are not responsible, and you should not burden yourself with unjustified guilt. You are an extremely brave woman, and we, both my colleague and I, are touched and frankly amazed at your attitude. Please don’t blame yourself. You are not responsible for the actions of your nephew.”
The detectives’ words, for a moment at least, and from Cindy’s perspective anyway, seemed to hang in the air. She eyed them both curiously, before she spoke.
“Sorry?” she said. “I seem to be slightly confused. Could you possibly explain what is actually going on?”
Which is what they did.
They had traced the poison found in Cindy’s shed; it had been purchased locally, and a few days before Carla had unwittingly drunk the tasty, yet fatal, lemonade. It had been purchased from the Home Depot, which was located on Victory Drive. They, the police that was, had made enquiries. One man recalled a young man, a skinny man, who roughly met the description of Billy Malphrus, enquiring if rat poison could kill a human being, if, in the unfortunate event it was ever accidentally drank. The police then obtained the video surveillance tapes for that day from the store, and, as they had always suspected, there was video evidence of Billy Malphrus purchasing the rat poison.
Secondly, a thorough search of Cindy’s computer hard drive had been conducted. It had transpired that there had been some recent searches conducted online, for the potency of rat poison and further searches pertaining to the use and dangers of other poisons which could be purchased at any hardware or even grocery store. One search, involving the actual replication of keystrokes, which had been retrieved from Cindy’s computer, was ‘how to poison your aunt’, this was the technology the police possessed, they could trace everything. Furthermore, it seemed that the computer had also been used, many times, to compile internet searches for hit men, killers for hire and professional assassins. It was obvious to the police that Billy Malphrus had been plotting his aunt’s murder for some time. How on earth he thought he would have gotten away with it, what with all the evidence on the computer, was simply mind boggling, the detectives told Cindy. Though they didn’t say it to Cindy, they thought the man was a complete idiot, a buffoon, who had put no thought whatsoever into his plotting. He may as well have entered ‘how to murder my Aunt Cindy’ as an internet search, so compelling was the evidence.
Cindy sat open mouthed, she could not believe what she was hearing. “Billy? Billy tried to poison me? He wanted to kill me?” she asked the detectives. She was shaking and visibly upset.
“Yes,” replied the taller detective, “and it would seem for some time. What was most worrying is that he was even considering hiring someone to kill you. He must have changed his mind, as although he searched online for hit men and such like, he never actually connected with any of them.”
Cindy drew in a deep breath. Of course, the searches were her searches, trying to find the ‘Organization’ so she could cancel the contract on Carla. She recalled how the ‘Organization’ had advised her, the day she had actually hired them, how to completely remove all traces of her visiting their website from her hard drive. Obviously those instructions had been spot on, perfect, as apparently no link nor did trace appear linking the organization to her computer.
“We also have some more disturbing news, Cindy, about your nephew,” said the shorter detective, his tone kind and soft.
Cindy was crying. Tears streamed down her face. Billy had planned to kill her. Why? Why would her loving nephew do such a thing? She didn’t understand. He had no reason to harm her; she had been good to him, and he to her. The boy did charity work. It didn’t make any sense. The fact that her friend had died, killed because she had drank poison meant for her, only added to her grief and confusion. Discovering she was the intended victim of Billy’s poison-laden lemonade was more painful to bear than Billy’s death. Surely, surely this was a mistake.
The shorter detective spoke again, not before offering Cindy a handkerchief to wipe her tears.
“It seems your nephew was not the person who you thought he was. We did some checking. You mentioned that he had recently traveled to Africa and India. Well, there is no record of these trips, no airline records, no trace of him ever returning from either place. Nor
is there any trace of the charities he told you he worked for. In fact, it seems Billy was recently in Florida, Jacksonville, to be precise. He was working as a bus boy at a diner. We contacted the owner. He was fired from there just before he returned here, to Savannah, for stealing tips.”
Cindy could not believe what she was hearing, but there was worse to come.
“We managed to access his e-mail account,” said the taller detective, “and he had actually sent an e-mail, to a friend of his, explaining he was about to come into an inheritance, that he would be set for life, that soon he could return to Europe, and continue, how do I put this, I will use his exact words, ‘ripping off and conning gullible women, just like that stupid lying bitch I told you about’. I am sorry, Cindy, but Billy was no saint; he was a con man.”
Cindy was now rocking in her chair. She was in shock. Billy must have seen her will, the will leaving everything to him. He must have planned this for money. Billy was a fraud. A liar. And he had sucked her in. She was devastated.
“We have spoken to his friend, who had no idea what your nephew was planning. He did tell us though what we already suspected, that Billy was nothing more than a con artist. His whole life, well the life he told you about, was a lie. We contacted Interpol, and it seems he had been traveling around Europe, most recently Paris, pretending to be a Count. Apparently he tricked several women into sleeping with him. We have no idea how many victims there have been as a result of your nephew’s actions. However, his friend did tell us that the ‘stupid lying bitch I told you about’, apparently was from here, Savannah. He met her in Paris. He didn’t mention any names that we could trace, but it seems your nephew did use your computer to search for a ‘Gerry Gordonston’… any idea who that maybe?”
Cindy shook her head. She had no idea who Gerry Gordonston was; odd though, her surname was the same as the name of her neighborhood.
“Anyway,” said the detective, “as Billy is dead and all the evidence points to him, then the case is closed. We are one hundred per cent certain his intended victim in his poisoning plan was you. Sadly, and rather unfortunately, it was your friend, Carla, who drank the poison intended for you.”
Unleashed - The Gordonston Ladies Dog Walking Club Part 2 Page 18