“Haven’t you been up all night?”
“Just until three or so.”
Yeah. Me, too.
“Well, if you want to come in and make some extra money, you sure can. But you don’t have to. It’s the day after prom, for heaven’s sake. Actually, I called to see if you have any friends as amazing as you. I’m looking to hire another employee.”
“Penny’s gone, huh?”
“How did you know?”
“You could just tell she wasn’t that into it. Um, my friend Kendra is working at McDonalds, and she hates it, so she might be interested. She’s a hard worker. I’ll ask her.”
“I’ll still have to interview her, of course.”
“Duh.”
I laughed. Why had I ever thought Penny would be more responsible than Cyan just because she was older? Cyan had never been anything but punctual and efficient, and the year before she’d kept Winding Road going by herself when I’d gone to Colorado to look into my brother’s suicide.
“I’m promoting you to assistant manager,” I said.
“Cool. How much more money do I get?”
_____
Bonnie Parr’s face lit up when I entered the room, then fell when she realized I wasn’t one of her doctors’ clients. I grabbed a chair, carried it to her massive reception desk, and made myself comfortable.
“Ms. Ambrose,” she said, the stud in her nose winking in the light from the window.
“Bonnie, I need you to check Elizabeth Moser’s client list for me again.”
This request did not appear to bring her joy.
“Please,” I tried.
“I don’t—”
“You see, Quentin Swenson is dead now.”
She blinked wide eyes.
I went on. “I was trying to save someone when I came in here before and asked all those questions about Elizabeth. I just didn’t know who. It turned out to be Quentin, and he might not be the only one.” That sounded suitably dramatic. Unfortunately, it was the God’s honest truth. “So are you going to help me?”
Her gaze shot to Dr. Simms’ closed door.
“He said it was okay once. I can’t imagine that’s changed.”
Bonnie’s shoulders slumped. Digging around in a lower desk drawer, she asked, “What’s the name?”
“Reyes.” If Cabot’s name wasn’t on Elizabeth’s client list, we were back to all the circumstantial evidence against Victoria
Swenson.
But Bonnie stopped rummaging and sat up in her chair again. “Cabot Reyes?”
Bingo!
I resisted the urge to leap to my feet and do a little dance. Instead, I acted like the grownup I was and merely nodded. “So you knew her.”
Puzzlement wavered across her face. “She came in a few times during the day, but she was one of Moser’s after-hours patients most of the time. The thing is—” she hesitated, and her brow wrinkled.
“What?” I prompted.
“Someone else just called and wanted to know if Reyes was one of Elizabeth’s clients.”
I felt the skin tighten across my face in surprise. “Who?”
“She sounded old. Said her name was Dorothy.”
Oh, dear. My mind raced. Not good. Not good at all.
“What did you tell her?”
“I said I couldn’t give that kind of information out over the phone. That I’d need the approval of one of the doctors even if she came in.”
“So you didn’t confirm it.”
“Well … no.”
I stood and leaned over the desk. “Did you tell her or not?”
Her head jerked back. “You don’t have to yell.”
Deep breath. “I’m sorry. Did you tell her or not?”
Bonnie looked pretty miserable as she said, “No. But she said she could tell from my voice.”
“Damn.”
Willa had said her grandmother lived two blocks away, but I didn’t know the exact address. She’d been listed under Swenson the first time I’d looked the name up, though.
“Let me see your phone book.”
Silent, Bonnie opened a drawer and handed me the slim volume.
“Swenson, Swenson. There she is.” I ripped out the whole page. “Thanks.” And I ran out of there as fast as my little ankle could carry me.
On the sidewalk, I called the Grendel Meadery and asked the breathy young voice who answered if I could speak with Dorothy Swenson.
“I’m sorry. Ms. Swenson is out ill today. May I take a message?”
“Thank you. No message.”
Out ill.
More like home alone with a killer.
I speed-dialed Barr’s cell phone. Again.
Pick up, pick up, pick up.
His hello sounded an awful lot like, “What now?”
I loped across the street toward the Volvo. “Meet me over at Dorothy Swenson’s house.”
A pause, then, “What’s going on?”
“I know who killed Quentin, and probably Elizabeth as well.” The key slid into the lock. I climbed in and started the engine.
“Dorothy Swenson? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No, no. Not Dorothy. Nurse Reyes. I just checked with the receptionist at the Blackwell Healing Center. She confirmed that Cabot was one of Elizabeth Moser’s clients. That’s who she was talking about on the tape. Her file was among those stolen from the office after Elizabeth died. I was right. It wasn’t about getting the ‘S’ files at all.”
“Hang on a minute. So Moser’s receptionist said Reyes was a client. Did she—”
“I wasn’t the only one asking about Cabot. Dorothy called, too. Listen, I promise to explain it all later. Just trust me on this.”
“I’m going to need all the details if I’m going to get a warrant and—”
“No time, Barr. Meet me over there. She lives two blocks from Willa.” I rattled off the address.
“Sophie Mae—”
“Please, please trust me. Cabot killed Quentin, and Dorothy knows that. I’m afraid she could be in real danger. There’s no telling what Cabot might do to that old lady. We’ve got to get over there.”
“Shit,” he said. “I’m on my way, but I’m on the far edge of town. Wait for me. Do not—I repeat—do not go into that house.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. I promise.”
_____
I drove a couple hundred yards past the Swenson matriarch’s house and parked across the street. Painted dove-gray and boasting cedar shakes, it was the largest home on the block. The curtains were open on the second floor, but were drawn across the windows on the first floor. Strange for the middle of the day. Made me think about Normal and Jakie’s meth lab in the woods.
Something wasn’t right.
Twitchy and nervous, I got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk. Could she see me? Maybe I should have parked farther down.
Where was Barr? He’d said he was on the far edge of town, but Cadyville was hardly big enough to have a far edge. He should have been here by now.
The edge of the curtain moved, and I saw a flash of skin. What was going on in there?
The unmarked Impala turned the corner, and Barr pulled up behind me. His boots hit the pavement, and he strode to my side.
“Anything?”
“Curtains are closed in the front room. One of them moved a second ago. At least I think so.”
“I called for backup, just in case. Sergeant Zahn himself is coming.”
“So now we just wait?”
He nodded. “Tell me about Cabot Reyes.”
“Well, I know she was one of Elizabeth’s clients. I don’t think Dorothy knew she was seeing a therapist, though, because otherwise she would’ve put two and two together earlier. After all, Dorothy has known about all the skeletons in her family for a long time. I had to ferret them out.”
And she’d gone to Caladia Acres for lunch. If Felix had asked her how much money Cabot got when Dorothy died, I was going to kill that sweet old leprechaun.
“Why would Reyes kill Quentin Swenson?” Barr asked.
I frowned. “Same motive the rest of the Swensons had: money. And if that was her motive, she had ample opportunity.” I ticked off the reasons on my fingers. “She’s a nurse, so she knows how to use poison to induce a heart attack. She had access to Victoria’s herb garden. She could have known about the poison hemlock growing there. She had access to any number of bottles of mead and could easily have added the poison.”
“There have to be other ways to cause a heart attack,” Barr said, eyes never leaving the Dorothy’s house.
“True. But the poison hemlock isn’t a drug that could be traced to her profession. And if anyone got suspicious, Victoria or Willa would likely be blamed, not Cabot.”
“But Cabot was the only one of them who was Elizabeth’s client,” he said.
I nodded. “If no one had heard Elizabeth’s tape, she would have gotten away with it.” The street was quiet. “How soon will Zahn get here?”
“Any—”
A gunshot split the air. It came from Dorothy Swenson’s house.
Barr took off running. I half-limped, half-loped across the lawn right behind him while my mind scrambled to catch up with the idea of gunplay. Gunplay. Of all the stupid developments. Poisoners and shooters were at opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to violence. In theory at least.
Obviously, not in practice. Not today. Dorothy Swenson wasn’t the easiest or nicest person in the world, but she was in a wheelchair, for crying in a bucket. Had Cabot just shot her in cold blood?
“Stay back,” Barr ordered when we got as far as the yard.
I nodded, hugging the wall to the left of the front door.
He gave me a look that indicated perhaps he had meant for me to stay farther back than that.
Well, I wasn’t going to move now. Someone in there had a gun. And my ankle hurt.
He stood to the other side of the door and banged on it with his fist. “Police! Open up!” His weapon was in his other hand.
Given the circumstances, it was probably wrong of me to feel a giddy thrill at seeing him like that. The pointy-toed boots and Western string tie gave him the look of an old-timey marshal. The expression on his chiseled features made me glad he was on my side.
Across the street, three people had gathered. They murmured and stared at the cowboy with the gun and the disheveled limping wonder squeezed up tight against the gray siding. Another man joined them. Pretty soon there’d be a real gawker knot.
Where the heck were Sergeant Zahn and his merry crew?
“Enter!” The barked word could have come from no other throat than Dorothy Swenson’s.
Barr raised perplexed eyebrows at me. I shrugged, wide-eyed.
“Detective! Enter!” Dorothy demanded.
He reached out a hesitant hand and turned the knob. Pushed the door in, still standing to the side.
“If you don’t get in here this instant, I’m going to shoot her right between the eyes.”
He peered slowly around the door. “Ma’am. No more shooting, please.”
“Nonsense. Is that your wife out there?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I called.
Barr glared at me. This time the expression on his chiseled features made me hope he was on my side.
“You get in here, too.”
“Why?” Barr asked, his voice reasonable. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Poppycock!”
The gun went off again, louder than before, sending me half a foot into the air. Back on land, my heart kept right on jumping, my ears rang, and my ankle throbbed.
Lucky for us, Dorothy’s voice could cut right through hearing loss. “Enter!”
Barr straightened and walked inside, gun pointed at someone in the living room.
I followed.
Cabot Reyes sat on the sofa, arms straight by her sides like a pinned butterfly. Her dark, terrified eyes flew from Barr to me and back to Barr. I could smell the fear rolling off her. It mingled with the dust and doilies and old lady perfume in the dim curtained daylight.
But my husband was pointing his gun at the little old lady who sat across from her in the wheelchair. Who also had a gun. A rather big one, actually, resting in her lap but trained on her nurse companion.
She glanced up at Barr. “Put that thing down.”
“You first,” he said.
Her laugh was bitter. “No deal. This woman killed my grandson. She’s about to confess that to you.”
“How about if she comes down to the station to do that?”
Dorothy considered. “I don’t think she’ll do it then. If she doesn’t confess now, I’ll just have to kill her.”
A car screeched to a stop outside. Great timing, Sergeant. I hoped they wouldn’t come barreling into the house. Someone—everyone—was bound to get shot then.
“We know Cabot killed Quentin,” I said, stepping forward.
Both women turned their heads toward me.
“We know she put poison hemlock in a bottle of mead, allowing the wine to leach out the toxins.”
Something flickered in Cabot’s bird eyes that told me I was right so far.
“Then she removed the plant and put another shrink-wrap seal over the flip-top closure.”
Cabot’s chin swung back and forth in denial. “You can’t prove that. I’m telling you, it wasn’t me.”
“Did Iris take mead home for her husband on a regular basis? Did he have a favorite?”
The nurse was silent.
Dorothy said, “Yes, she took two bottles of sage blossom mead home for him every week. I often saw them in her office on Friday afternoons before she left for the weekend.”
“Providing you plenty of opportunity to switch one with your evil brew,” I said to Cabot. “What if Iris had shared a drink with Quentin that night? Or is that what you were hoping for?”
“No, she …” Her mouth snapped shut.
“Iris prefers sweet mead to dry,” Dorothy said.
“Well, at least there’s that.” I pointed. “So you had the know-how and the opportunity. And you were Elizabeth Moser’s psychotherapy client. You told her the only solution to your problem was to kill someone.”
Cabot’s eyes filled.
“But Elizabeth didn’t name the victim. If we’d known, perhaps we could have saved him.” I looked down at Dorothy. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t look like she wanted to shoot me, either.
“But she had to tell the police, Cabot. Had to tell your potential victim. She had no choice. And where did that leave you?”
The tears spilled, twin streaks down her cheeks. “With no choice.”
“You had to kill her.”
Her throat worked.
“At least it was good practice,” I said. “For the main event.”
“Ambrose! You in there?” Sergeant Zahn banged on the door. Couldn’t anyone just knock politely?
“No one else!” Dorothy said. “Let your wife finish!”
Cabot looked less than pleased at that.
Barr and I exchanged looks. He nodded. “I’ll just go have a word with my boss.”
“No.” Dorothy shook her head. “You’ll let him in. He can come in when we’re done here. Not before.”
When we’re done here? That sounded ominous.
“If I don’t talk to him, he’ll break the door down,” Barr said.
Dorothy responded with a withering look. “Call him.”
If you could dial a phone wryly, that’s what my husband did. “Sergeant? Hold off a bit. Things are a bit … volatile … in here.” A pause. “No sir. No wounded … Yes, two shots.” His eyes raked the walls, stopped near the ceiling above the sofa. “In the wall board, I’d say … Let’s make it fifteen. Okay. Yessir.”
He flipped his phone closed and put it in his pocket. “Happy?”
Dorothy snorted. “Hardly. So the SWAT team will tear down the house in fifteen minutes?”
<
br /> “Something like that.” Barr still pointed his gun at the wheelchair, but I could see the set of his shoulders had relaxed the tiniest bit.
“So anyway,” I said to Cabot. “You stole your file—and a bunch of others—after you killed your therapist.”
Poor Elizabeth, deciding to have a glass of mead before contacting the authorities about her murderous client. I wondered whether she’d realized her mistake as she lay dying, waiting for her pizza to arrive.
“How did you manage to poison her mead?”
Cabot pressed her lips together. For such a tall woman, she had shrunk far down into the sofa cushions.
“You know Elizabeth made verbal notes on cassette tapes, and she kept them separate from her paper files.” I leaned forward. “What we haven’t told anyone is that we’ve tracked down another tape where she talks about you. Specifically. By name.”
Falsehood is perfectly permissible when soliciting a confession. Barr had taught me that much. Practice and more practice had taught me how to lie. The trick was to stick as close to the truth as you could.
“So, we know you did it,” I said. “Whether you confess or Dorothy here just shoots you, we already know enough.”
Cabot blinked.
Barr’s gaze snagged mine for an instant. Something in it. Approval, maybe. Or perhaps just amusement.
I crossed my arms. “The thing I want to know is why you did it.”
The tears on her cheeks had dried, but her laugh was a little unsteady. “You really think I’m going to talk to you in here, like this?”
Dorothy raised the gun and pointed it straight at her nurse’s chest. She had remarkable upper body strength for an octogenarian. Then I caught the look on her face. She was serious; she’d happily execute Cabot Reyes and suffer the consequences.
Cabot saw it, too. Her face crumpled. “I killed Quentin because I couldn’t kill you, Dorothy.”
What?
Confused, we all waited for her to continue. Finally, she did. “I’m your nurse. If there was any suspicion at all regarding your death, it would fall on me first.”
Fury ripped across Dorothy’s lined face. “You little worm. This was about money?”
“You’re in Dorothy’s will,” I said. “Of course.”
“Not anymore, she’s not!”
“Dorothy,” I admonished. “I think that kind of goes without saying, don’t you?”
Wined and Died: A Home Crafting Mystery Page 19