A tear slides down her cheek, carrying a speck of mascara with it. “I can’t go on. My creative spirit is broken.”
He feels a stab of sympathy; she seems fragile and vulnerable. “That would be a shame. I’ve enjoyed your books.”
“Detective, I’m terrified. I keep thinking they died because of me! Meanwhile, I’m not licking any envelopes!” She half-laughs, half-shudders.
* * * *
He takes the subway to the address of the next author, a disheveled man reeking of bourbon, never a good sign at 10 AM. The writer shoos a tuxedo cat off the couch then clears a space by pushing aside an accumulation of unread newspapers, mail, beer cans, and pizza boxes. “Sit here. Want a drink?”
Mike declines. The writer picks up a glass of something that looks like water, but isn’t, and takes a goodly swallow. “I’ll confess to an abiding, deep, permanent hatred for all three of them.”
“I confess I haven’t read your book.”
“You and the rest of the English-speaking world. Does literary scandal sell books? The question wasn’t answered, because The Press pulled back all copies and burned them.”
“A memoir?”
“It was fiction, baby, utter fiction. I’m a great writer, and it was a great story. But I’m a bald dork from Ohio and nobody wanted it. So screw ’em, I rewrote it as memoir, sent it to the dead agent who sold it in an auction to the dead publisher, to be edited by the dead editor. All three well aware it was fiction.”
Mike knows the book’s premise: a married couple, parents of four kids, find out they are siblings. The writer had written it as the story of his parents, a tragic yet vaguely icky tale. “So it wasn’t true? Your parents weren’t brother and sister?”
“You’re sharp, Sherlock. That’s what I said. Fiction. And those three left me nailed to a cross to die for their sins.”
“So you hated them.”
“Makes me a suspect, right?” He holds out trembling hands as if to be cuffed.
“Did you kill them?”
“No. But I’ll shake the hand of the sorry bastard who did it.”
Mike isn’t sure he is telling the truth. “I’ll be in touch,” he says. Should he come back with a search warrant? Somewhere in this sad clutter, would they find traces of arsenic trioxide?
* * * *
He phones the third writer on both lists, a child psychologist from Charleston, the author of five books of advice for parents, starting with Baby Your Baby and ending with Talk to Your Teen. She has a breathy sexy voice with an accent marinated in grits, collards, and ’que. “Ah’m devastated. Ah’m readin’ galleys and suddenly the rug’s yanked and bam, Ah’m flat on ma ass with no agent and no publisher.”
Envisioning a pissed-off Daisy Mae in horn-rims, Mike apologizes for the intrusion and asks if she knows of any conflicts involving the victims.
“Absolutely not. We were a team, Detective. Teamwork is what Ah’m preaching in ma new book, Families That Flourish. But now ma team is gone and ma book with it.” She whispers, “Ah cain’t talk about it now, darlin’. Ah have to take ma kitty to the vet.” Mike hears a mournful piercing howl that gives him chills. What is it with writers and cats?
* * * *
Stan, the club performer and new friend of the now-dead publisher, isn’t surprised that the detective wants to talk with him. He has mad ideas for who might have murdered his sweetheart and is dying to share them with a professional.
The detective is a bit overweight but in a firm not flabby way, with a nice face, kind of chiseled and Roman. Stan’s tortie cat likes him too; she weaves around his legs.
“The neighbors heard you arguing,” the detective says.
Stan jumps to his feet in horrified astonishment. “We were arguing? Discussing our feelings! That’s what people do who care about each other!” He can’t believe he might be a suspect. “Furthermore, I never even met that editor. Why would I kill someone I didn’t know?”
The detective shrugs his broad shoulders. “Accident, maybe. What were you two arguing about all night?”
Stan almost forgets his loss for a moment, so wrought up by the unfairness of it all. Also, he is sidetracked by the detective’s pecs and quads. Yummy. Too bad the fellow is a cop; Stan could get arrested, he supposes, for the slightest insinuation of a proposition. This dating thing is damned tricky, like traveling a pot-holed rutted highway, a dangerous bumpy journey almost not worth the effort. So when he’d met the publisher (now dead) and they’d hit it off so well (except for the intrusive presence of the publisher’s ex-wife, also now dead), he’d been so relieved, so glad to have someone who’d understand his emotional needs, assuage his fear of abandonment, tolerate his moodiness and outbursts. In return he had complimented the publisher’s gowns and make-up, suggesting in the most gently tactful way styles that flattered, that disguised the publisher’s burly body and stumpy legs. Now the detective is asking him about the deaths, as though he’s Snow White’s stepmom slipping poisoned apple slices into everyone’s lunchbox.
“I loved him,” Stan says, “we were like that,” waggling his crossed fingers. “You can’t possibly believe I would do anything violent.”
“Poisoning isn’t violent, actually. It’s indirect, removed,” the dreamy cop says.
“Semantics. I could never murder anyone.” He closes his eyes to shut out the distracting man in a well-cut suit—clothes are so important—and thinks about his friend the publisher, now dead, gone forever. He is alone, again. Tears well up in his eyes and he pinches his nose to stop them.
* * * *
The writer notices new tremor in hands. Must taper Xanax. One more letter to prepare, difficult with shaking hands. The cat jumps on the counter, almost spills little jar of powder. Writer shrieks, “Get away!” and then feels bad for yelling at the cat. Lick & stick glue is a great invention. The writer feels stressed.
Doorbell rings and the writer opens door to the hot detective and a uniformed cop pointing a gun. Detective doesn’t miss a trick. The writer is afraid that what is to come will be horrible. The writer runs into kitchen, picks up little jar of powder and throws a good bit down throat. Curious how arsenic trioxide is tasteless.
The detective calls for an ambulance, takes writer in his arms and asks why? The writer explains, enjoys the snuggle, for a little while.
* * * *
They watch the ambulance take the body away, and then the uniformed cop begins to cordon off the apartment with yellow tape. “It looked like she was preparing another envelope,” he says.
“For her ex-husband,” Mike says. “She told me she was empty, she had to get off the treadmill of four books a year. But she owed so much money she couldn’t afford to get out of her contracts. Somehow, she thought that murdering her publishing team would end her problems.”
The uniformed cop, who wants to be a homicide detective some day, has been following the case. “What made you suspect Quincy Quaid?”
“The lab found yellow cat hairs on one of the doctored envelopes. I obtained cat hairs from the most likely suspects, and only Quincy’s cat was a match.” Mike reaches down to pat the cat’s thick golden fur.
“One of the writers lived in Charleston, didn’t she? You didn’t go there.”
“I heard her cat yowl and that was enough—it was a Siamese.”
Seriously impressed, the uniformed cop realizes there is more to detecting than wearing a well-cut suit.
__________
Karen Pullen owns a bed & breakfast inn in North Carolina and teaches memoir writing at Duke and Central Carolina Community College. She has an MFA in Popular Fiction from the Stonecoast program at the University of Southern Maine. “SASE” is her first and last story featuring cats.
NEW AGE OLD STORY, by Sarah E. Glenn
When I was a child, I used to visit the rich ducks in Biltmore Forest. My father and I called them that because they lived in the very heart of the exclusive neighborhood: the pond of the country club’s golf course. I threw bread to the ducks and
said hello; they ate the bread, but snubbed me.
The Forest, originally part of the Vanderbilt estate, was incorporated as a town within a town: it was completely surrounded by the Asheville metropolitan area. The residents, the wealthiest in North Carolina per capita, resided in half-timbered manors set back from pine-lined roads.
Driving through Biltmore Forest today, still out of place in my dad’s old Taurus, I saw that the houses were as secluded as ever. I wondered if the ducks were still as cold-hearted.
* * * *
Sophia Farris was the reason for this drive into my past. She’d phoned Fisher Investigations to say that she urgently needed my help. I had no pressing work, but even if I had I would have made the time. The last time I’d seen Sophia, I’d confirmed her girlfriend’s infidelity and broken her heart. Maybe she was ready to let in someone new.
One wall of her studio was nothing but a huge aquarium, full of tropical fish. The slanted ceiling above the tank displayed a fresco of a woman, naked except for an old-fashioned diving helmet and lying on a bed of seaweed. I realized I was staring, and turned back to the figure pacing in front of me. Hair a sheet of black glass, face resolute as a nun’s, Sophia was just the way I remembered her.
“I’m so glad you came, Lana,” she said. “I called on behalf of Ananda. She’s been arrested.”
“Ananda?”
“Her mundane name is Amanda Calder. She’s charged with killing Henry, her husband.”
“Oh . . . my.” Henry Calder, city council member, had died suddenly last week. The Citizen-Times had reported the death as a suspected heart attack. “It’s murder, then?”
“Ananda called me from the jail. The police say Henry died from some type of poison. They think she put it in his food.”
I could not, for the life of me, figure out why Henry Calder’s wife would ask someone who did goddess paintings for legal help. “How do you know her?”
“Ananda runs the Ladyvisions Gallery—off Haywood near Malaprop’s—and she shows my paintings. She’s also a neighbor.”
Asheville had changed since my childhood, becoming a mountainous Mecca for New Agers. Crystal workers, soi-disant shamans, and aura readers had flooded in from Sedona, Berkeley, and all points weird. Crystal shops dotted Buncombe County, and alternative medicine newsletters could be found in most grocery stores.
I’d seen the gallery, sandwiched between artsy jewelry shops and atmospheric music stores in the Art Deco section of downtown Asheville. Its ballyhooed opening had been about a year ago. “She wants me to investigate her husband’s death?”
“I want you to investigate it.” She shifted, giving me a glimpse of perfect calf below her dirndl skirt. “They’re saying Ananda argued with Henry, that she was having an affair. But I know she didn’t kill him. That sort of act would leave karmic traces in her aura, and I would see them.”
Sophia wanted me to help someone accused of killing a city council member, based on a psychic impression (or lack thereof). I would have no leverage at all except with Amanda’s friends and family, which would help very little if Calder’s political allies closed ranks. I opened my mouth to say as much, and Sophia moved closer. She smelled like honeysuckle.
“Please? I’ll do anything I can to help.”
I found myself nodding.
* * * *
Amanda Calder, dba Ananda Calling of Ladyvisions, held her head high as she entered the visitors’ room. She sat gracefully across the table from us, instinctively smoothing the jumpsuit as if it were a silk dress. “Sophia! I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you for coming, Miss—is it Miss? —Fisher. My friend recommends you highly.”
My heart warmed at the thought of inspiring such confidence in Sophia, even if she had no other detectives for comparison. “Miss Fisher is fine. Let me warn you that despite Sophia’s good opinion, I can’t guarantee that I’ll find anything that the police haven’t. I was an officer myself for several years—” I mentally flinched at the memory “—and they are intelligent people.”
“Certainly. They’re just wrong. I was shocked when my attorney told me they suspected poisoning. I thought Henry’s bad dietary habits had finally caught up with him.”
“What did he eat for his last m—what did he eat last?”
“Free-range chicken, parsley potatoes, corn, blueberry cobbler,” she recited. She’d obviously given the list several times. “And a salad of wild greens, at my insistence. With fat-free vinaigrette dressing, from the co-op.”
“Which dish do they think was poisoned?”
She looked down at her hands, revealing gray roots in her layered blonde hair. “I gave him herbal capsules to clear his body of toxins. Jim Bearcat sells them in his shop. I take them all the time. The capsules can be opened, though, and the police think I put something else inside.”
“Maybe it was an accident,” Sophia said. “Jim orders some of his herbs by mail. The supplier could have made a mistake.”
“If there’d been a mix-up, other people would have died, too. Besides, Jim is careful.”
I interrupted them. “You have to be straight with me, ma’am. Any evidence I find will have to be turned over to the police. Did you kill your husband?”
“No.” Patrician lines formed around her mouth. “I did not.”
“I’ll take the case based on your word, then. I need you to sign a contract, plus a release giving me permission to visit your house, look into records, and so on.” I produced the documents my cousin Allie had copied at the law library in the Buncombe County courthouse and modified for my needs. Allie worked for the pittance my budget permitted, because I let her keep her toddler in the office. I hoped there were no small fingerprints on the forms this time.
“Certainly. Oh! If you’re going to the house, there’s something I’d like you to do.”
“Yes?”
“Check on PawPaw.” The name was incongruous on those cultured lips. “Henry’s father. He has a night nurse, but my son won’t be flying in till tomorrow and PawPaw’s been alone.”
“Certainly, ma’am. Perhaps he even knows something that will help.”
* * * *
We returned to the Forest. Sophia pointed out the proper turns to me, and we approached one of the Tudor-style houses.
PawPaw smiled toothlessly at Sophia and let us in. We followed with baby steps as the old man crept along the edge of the carpet to a recliner. Most of the furniture came from the days before outlets popped up everywhere along I-40. The recliner was new. He carefully lowered himself into the seat. “Sorry, gotta keep my legs raised. So, you’re a detective, eh? Never met a detective before, man or lady. Hold on a sec while I put this in.” He fumbled with his hearing aid and nearly dropped it.
When he was situated, I began the interview. “Mrs. Calder hired me to investigate the death of her husband. Do you have any opinions on what happened?”
“No need for opinions. We had dinner, Henry died. Didn’t see anybody poisoning anything.” His hand trembled on the recliner’s arm.
“You may not have seen the substitution made, but your son received something poisonous. The police think it was administered to him in one of his herbal capsules.”
“My, what big words you use. Slow down, why don’t you? Amanda had nothing to do with it.” His bleary blue eyes fixed on me. “You have to help her, Miss Fisher. She’s all I have here. My grandson is coming down, but he’ll have to get back to his wife and family. Don’t know where I’ll end up if Amanda goes to prison.”
Sophia, who had wandered off, returned to tap my arm. “Come to the patio and see what I’ve found.”
I let her lead me out the French doors into a small courtyard. A faun poured a steady stream of water into a pool of water lilies near the center. The azaleas omnipresent in Southern gardens cupped several small geometric plots with blooming flowers.
Sophia pointed. “Look. That’s foxglove, and there’s monkshood. Both of them are poisonous.”
“That doesn’t sound go
od for Amanda.”
“Perhaps Henry wanted to get rid of her. She’s the one with the money. He could have put some cuttings in the capsules. Only he got them mixed up and took the bad ones himself.”
I had no faith in villains getting hoisted on their own petards. “Like I said, that doesn’t sound good for Amanda.”
“She’s innocent; we just have to prove it. Maybe PawPaw saw Henry in the garden.”
We returned to the living room and questioned the old man. His response was guarded. “Only one went in the garden was Amanda. Her house, her garden.”
My companion sighed.
* * * *
After we left the Calder house, Sophia insisted I take her to an acupuncture clinic on Merrimon Drive. She patted my shoulder before she got out of the car. I vowed to never wash it again. “You’re going to be wonderful. Come back at noon, and I’ll take you to lunch.”
I got out of the boutique shop zone and located a strip mall where I could park and make a few phone calls. The first call I made was to the detective handling the Calder case. I was forwarded to the voice mail of a man whose name I didn’t recognize. After leaving a message identifying myself and my client, my second call was to a friend I still had in Asheville’s Finest. We were beat partners back when my world was young. These days, he focused on auto theft. That wasn’t in the Major Crimes Unit, but maybe he could give me some information.
“Hoo boy,” Jess Davenport said when he heard my voice. “You stepped in it this time, Fisher, working for a homeopathic black widow.”
“Word gets around fast. I need information.”
“Of course you do. When else do you call? Not this time, though.”
“I just need to know why they suspect poisoning. Any chance they found a poisonous herb?”
“Captain Vickers is in charge of Criminal Investigations these days. Word gets back to him, it’s my butt.”
Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology Page 9