by Lea Wait
“The medical examiner? Hasn’t he finished with Harry?” Maggie’s mind revolted at the images her words implied.
“Harry? I guess so. But he’s going to have to do an autopsy on Susan.” Joe’s tears were still flowing. “I tried to say that Susan wouldn’t want that; that we all knew she had AIDS. She was so upset when the police told her they’d have to autopsy Harry. But the doctor said there’s a state law requiring anyone who dies within twenty-four hours of being admitted to a hospital to be autopsied unless they’re under the continual care of their own doctor. And the doctors aren’t sure why she went into a coma. I never thought so many awful things could happen in two days. We were just packing up on Thursday night, and now it’s Saturday, and they’re gone.” Joe stood up, looking distractedly around the room. “I have to call Susan’s family. I have to get things organized. I have to do something, or I’ll go crazy.” He headed toward the door.
Will got up. “I’ll go with you.” He looked at Maggie. “I’ll make sure he’s all right.”
Maggie nodded as the door closed.
She would have to tell Gussie. But right now all she could think about was the $500,000 in Harry Findley’s checking account. If Joe hadn’t made any legal agreements about it, then his money was now in Harry’s estate. Which would be inherited by Susan. But now Susan was dead, too. Her relatives in New Jersey would probably get the New York loft, the business, and the money.
Someone had killed Harry. Joe had lost $500,000. Now Susan was dead. What more could happen?
Chapter 21
Bloedhond (bloodhound), Dutch, 1911, by Kleurendr, printed at Leiden, The Netherlands. Originally published in an agricultural journal, there are two fold marks. Price: $38.
Officer Taggart and Joe were deep in conversation when Maggie arrived at the show the next morning. Exhaustion had caught up with her; she’d slept later than she’d planned and had just had time to pick up a diet cola and a bagel and get to her booth before the doors opened to the Sunday morning crowd. Gussie motored up immediately.
“Maggie! Where have you been? Have you heard?”
“After I called you last night I went to bed, and that’s where I’ve been, like any sane person on a Sunday morning.” Maggie put her can of soda on the corner of the table, balanced the bagel on top, and pulled her cash box, sales book, and calculator out of her red canvas bag. “Heard what?” As she talked, she reached around her neck and twisted her long hair into a knot, securing it with two ivory hairpins, and pulled off the sheets that had covered her prints for the night.
“The police think Susan was murdered.”
Maggie dropped the sheet she’d been folding and sat down heavily.
“Murdered! She had AIDS; she was under stress; it’s horrible enough that she died so soon after Harry. Why would they think she was murdered?”
“You don’t die just from HIV; you die from another type of infection that your immune system can’t fight. The doctors didn’t see any signs of the usual infections, like pneumonia. And you don’t go into a coma as a result of stress.” Gussie paused. “They think she was poisoned. Her throat was burned.”
Officer Taggart appeared next to Maggie. “I’d like to talk with you for a few minutes, Dr. Summer.” He turned to Gussie. “Would you excuse us?”
Gussie nodded and headed back toward her booth.
The officer reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a small spiral notebook and a pen. “I assume Ms. White”—he gestured toward Gussie’s booth—“has informed you that some questions have come up regarding Mrs. Susan Findley’s death?”
Maggie nodded.
“And I understand you were the last person to speak with Mrs. Findley.”
“I may have been. She wasn’t feeling well yesterday afternoon, so I helped her back to her van so she could get some rest.”
Maggie frantically thought back over the last time she’d been with Susan. “Her stomach was upset; she said she was nauseated and faint. She wanted to lie down.” Maggie paused. “Gussie said you think Susan was poisoned.”
“We’ll have to wait for results of the toxicology tests, of course, but Mrs. Findley’s throat appeared to be swollen and slightly burned. She may have ingested poison.”
Maggie tried to think back to Saturday afternoon.
“Susan was taking a lot of medications, and vitamins. They were in a cooler she had with her.”
“We have the cooler. Mr. Cousins brought it to the hospital when the ambulance picked up Mrs. Findley.” Taggart paused and pushed his glasses back up onto his nose. “We’re confirming that the medications contain what they appear to. But nothing in that cooler, taken as prescribed, could have caused Mrs. Findley to react as she did.” He flipped his notebook to another page.
“Did Mrs. Findley appear despondent in any way?”
“Of course she was despondent! Her husband had just been killed. She had AIDS. She didn’t have enough money to buy medication. Yesterday wasn’t exactly a time for celebration.” Maggie forced herself to slow down a bit. “But if you’re asking if Susan seemed about to commit suicide, then the answer is no. She was tired; she was discouraged; she was having trouble focusing on what she would do next. But she was trying remarkably hard to pull everything together.”
“So you don’t think she would have intentionally taken an overdose of anything?”
“No!”
“How upset was she? Upset enough to have taken incorrect dosages of her medications?”
Maggie thought a moment. “I don’t think so. She knew her medications. Actually, she was somewhat of a health nut. I can’t see Susan making a mistake about medication, even if she was upset.” Maggie thought of the dishes of radishes Susan had been almost obsessive about last year. “She was exhausted when she left here. I helped her to her van so she could lie down because I was afraid she might faint; she said she felt light-headed.”
“Did you stay with her all the way to her van?”
“Yes.” Susan had seemed so fragile; her skin had been so white, and she had been so vulnerable. “I was afraid she might collapse; she was very pale.” Maggie reached up and tucked an escaping strand of hair into the knot at the nape of her neck. “I carried the cooler; she had it with her during the show, and I had seen her taking some pills from it.”
“Did she take anything while you were with her at her van?”
“No. She lay down, and I covered her with a blanket. I just thought she was exhausted from stress. After all, her husband had just been murdered.”
“Did you know she had AIDS?”
“Not until Joe—Mr. Cousins—told me last night.”
“Was anyone else near Mrs. Findley’s van?”
“There were customers near the refreshment stands in the south field, but no one near the vans.” Maggie thought carefully. “No, no one was nearby. All the dealers were in the show, of course.”
“So no one knew you had taken Maggie to her van?”
“The dealers here knew: Will Brewer, and the Wyndhams, and Joe, and Gussie. Oh, and we passed Vince; he knew.”
“That’s Vince Thompson, the show manager?”
“Yes.” Maggie tried to remember the details of that walk to the van. “Other people must have seen us, but no one spoke to us, and I was concentrating on Susan. I didn’t notice anyone else.”
Officer Taggart nodded and made some notes. “And what time was that?”
“About four-thirty. I remember because Abe Wyndham had just left to get us some snacks and we were joking that we had to keep going for another hour and a half.” Maggie looked at the policeman. His hair was thinning, and he had combed it over his forehead in an attempt to look less like Humpty-Dumpty. The attempt had failed.
“We were all tired, of course; we had been up late Friday night, after…after Susan found Harry’s body.”
“You said that Mr. Wyndham brought you all snacks; did that include Mrs. Findley?”
“No; she didn’t want anything.” Som
e customers were looking at Maggie’s anatomy prints. She nodded toward them, and Officer Taggart shrugged agreement.
“May I help you?”
The young woman was holding a print of the torso of a woman.
“This is quite special,” Maggie said, taking it from her. “Unusual because”—Maggie slipped the print out from the plastic envelope protecting it—“the print was designed to show the relation of different internal organs to one another.” She carefully began to fold the print back, revealing a series of three-dimensional foldouts of internal anatomy. “In this case, the print shows the progression of a pregnancy; each sequential fold shows the baby in another month.” Maggie demonstrated. “The final drawing is of the child descending during birth.”
The young woman was intrigued. “Are there many foldout prints like this?”
“Very few; I’ve seen four or five different foldouts of the torso, but only two different ones showing pregnancy. Of course, at that time most doctors were men, and the emphasis was on the male body.” Maggie carefully reinserted the print into the plastic. “I have a similar large print of a tooth, showing the different layers, from a French anatomy book, if you’re interested. I also have a few three-dimensional prints of horses or cows, from veterinary textbooks.”
“I want to show these to my father; he’s a physiology professor.” The young woman looked around. “He and my mother are here someplace.”
Maggie smiled. “Well, you’ll know where the prints are when you see him.” She handed the young woman her card. “If you’re interested in a print of a particular part of the body, I could check my inventory and send you a print on approval. Just give me a call, anytime.”
As the young woman left the booth, Officer Taggart pushed his glasses up. It was getting warm, and his nose looked slippery.
Maggie looked over Taggart’s shoulder. Vince was near Susan’s booth. His jacket was draped over his arm, and he was, almost too casually, carrying something under the jacket. As Maggie watched, he disappeared into Susan’s booth.
“So Mr. Wyndham didn’t bring Mrs. Findley anything to eat.”
“No.”
“Did you see Mrs. Findley eating anything yesterday?”
Maggie thought back. “I brought her a tuna sandwich for lunch, from the concession stand.”
Taggart was taking notes.
“Joe brought her something for breakfast: scrambled eggs on a bagel, I think. I remember thinking that Susan didn’t usually eat anything that wasn’t natural and cooked without fat, but yesterday she was overwhelmed, of course, and I think she ate some food just because people were trying to be kind and were bringing her things.”
Vince was standing in the aisle now, speaking with Will. He didn’t seem to have whatever it was he had been carrying. What had it been? Had he left it in Susan’s booth? The booth had been closed off by placing several straight chairs across the entrance. As she watched, Vince turned and headed back down the aisle.
“Do you remember anyone else bringing her anything to eat?”
“Vince brought Susan some orange juice in the morning. And, of course, she was drinking tea most of the day. Some she made, some Lydia Wyndham made. They always shared herbal teas. Susan said she hadn’t eaten too much, though; I think she just nibbled at what people brought for her.” Maggie looked at him. “Do you think something she ate yesterday was poisoned?”
“It’s possible. There’s no way to test the food. It’s gone.”
“Was anyone else at the show ill? What she ate came from the concession stand, or from one of the local fast-food places.”
“We have no reports of anyone else being ill. We are, of course, checking every possibility.” He closed his notebook and put it back in his inside jacket pocket. “Dr. Summer, will you be staying after the show closes tonight?”
“I was going to pack up and drive back to Jersey late today.” Right now New Jersey seemed a long way from the Rensselaer County Fairgrounds.
“I’d like you to check in with me before you leave. I have your address and telephone number”—he picked up one of her Shadows cards from her table—“and until this issue is solved, you’ll need to be available.”
“Do you mean I can’t go back to Jersey tonight?”
“Right now we have no reason to hold you. Or anyone else. But if Susan Findley didn’t leave her booth from ten A.M. until four-thirty P.M. yesterday, then sometime during that period, while she was here, in the booth next to yours, or after she went back to her van, she was poisoned. Until we can identify what the poison was, we won’t be able to guess at how long it took for her to go into the coma, and then to die. Anyone who might have witnessed any irregular situation could help us immensely if they would tell us about it. And, of course, we need to identify anyone who might have given Mrs. Findley something to eat yesterday.”
Maggie winced. Damn the tuna sandwich. She was a suspect, too.
“Do you have any idea of anyone who might have had a reason to think they would to benefit from Mrs. Findley’s death?”
Maggie thought of Joe’s lost money, and of the estate. But she didn’t know who would inherit. She shook her head. “No.”
“Is there anyone you know of who would have wanted Mrs. Findley to die?”
Vince was fed up with Susan. Joe was concerned about her. Harry had loved her, according to Joe.
“I can’t think of any reason anyone would have had to murder her.”
“What about Mr. Findley? During the past thirty-six hours have you thought of anything that might help us to know who might have wanted him dead?”
She shook her head. Harry had been vastly less popular that Susan, but, despite Maggie’s best efforts, she hadn’t been able to figure out who might have killed him.
“Well, if you think of anything, keep in touch. I’m going to be spending the entire day here at the show. We were never enthused about having all of these out-of-towners arriving twice a year to begin with. And two murders in two days? We’re going to have every detective we can pull in from the county here to help today.” He looked her straight in the eye. “And to make sure everyone leaves a forwarding address before they leave tonight.”
Officer Taggart headed up the aisle toward Will’s booth.
The enthusiasm and excitement of Friday afternoon’s setup seemed months ago.
Chapter 22
Trout-Fishing—the First Cast of the Season, wood engraving of elegantly dressed fisherman standing by a rural stream in early spring putting a lure on his hook. Published in a Harper’s Weekly supplement, August 24, 1878. Double page. Price: $110.
“Is your family going back to Massachusetts today?” Maggie asked Gussie, turning toward her friend’s booth. Maggie had to focus on the job at hand. It was Sunday morning, customers were browsing along the aisles, and everything was as it should be on the closing day of the Rensselaer County Spring Antiques Fair.
Except that Harry and Susan were dead.
“Jim has to get back, so he’s leaving this morning. But the family decided they’d tour the area for the day and then come back tonight and help me pack up before we all head home. We all have to leave reach numbers, of course, but we’ll be off for the Cape early tomorrow morning.” Gussie paused. “The police seem in a quandary. I think Susan’s death caught them short. It seemed such an easy case when they had Ben as a suspect in Harry’s death. But now Ben isn’t the only possible suspect. And with Susan’s dying, there are all kinds of other questions.”
Susan might have died of poison. John Smithson had died of poison last week.
Maggie nodded. “The charming and sweaty Officer Taggart certainly didn’t look thrilled at being here to begin with. I think he’s sure we all intentionally arranged two murders in his territory to ruin his Memorial Day weekend.”
“Makes sense to me,” Gussie agreed. “Did he ask you what Susan had eaten yesterday?”
“Yes; I assume he’s checking everyone’s story against everyone else’s.”
“Before you got here, he talked with Joe, and the Wyndhams, and then with me. And”—Gussie gestured down the aisle—“it looks as though he’s chatting with Will now.” The rotund officer looked like Tweedledee standing next to Will, who towered at least eight inches over him. “And, if he hasn’t already, I guess he’ll talk with Vince.”
“Speaking of Vince, did you notice him near Susan’s booth a few minutes ago? I could have sworn he was carrying something under his jacket.”
Gussie shook her head. “I was busy with a customer. That’s the third person this weekend who’s asked me about twins memorabilia! All of these multiple births resulting from fertility pills seem to have brought back the market for anything to do with twins or supertwins.”
“An interesting marketing angle.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have anything left in those categories to market at the moment!” Gussie rolled her eyes. “A few years ago those items were so specialized only a few collectors were interested. Where was my crystal ball then? I should have been picking things like that up when the prices were lower.”
Maggie nodded. Hindsight was always easy. “Joe’s been on his cell phone for the past half hour.” She looked across the aisle to where Joe’s telephone was balanced between his cheek and his shoulder as he took notes on a pad.
Gussie glanced over. “He’s called a lot of Susan’s and Harry’s friends in New York, to let them know.” She paused. “Although I’d guess the newspapers are doing a pretty good job at communicating the story, too. And I’m pretty sure I overheard him trying to reach his lawyer.”
“Lawyer?” Maggie looked across at him.
“Maybe we should all have them, the way those detectives are checking up on what we’ve been doing this weekend. Didn’t you get Susan some lunch yesterday?”