The Tattered Thread

by B. A. Braxton

CHAPTER TWELVE

  After telling Connery and Slye about her first encounter with Carl Kastenmeier, Elaine was dismissed so that she could get some rest. Due to the circumstances, all household employees were allowed to sleep in the next day. Elaine had expected to jump at the chance to catch up on the rest she’d lost while being detained until three-thirty in the morning by the police, but instead she tossed and turned and found that she couldn’t settle down at all. Betty didn’t seem to have any trouble, however; she was snoring as loud as ever.

  Tasia was still up, though; she and Zach were obviously being questioned by the detectives. Soon the police would find out about Tasia’s nasty habit, and Elaine wasn’t referring to her willingness to sleep with married men. Heroin, cocaine, and crack paraphernalia were stashed everywhere, and it was only a matter of time before Connery and his men found some of it and traced it back to her.

  It was after nine in the morning when Tasia finally came into the room. Sitting down on her cot, she tucked her left foot under her and allowed the other to dangle off the edge. Her red dress was tight and well above the knee, but it didn’t seem flattering at all. As she rested one shoulder against the wall beside the bed, she played with the frill on the mauve and white checkered cotton bed cover.

  “Did the cops talk to you?” Elaine asked her.

  Tasia looked over and acknowledged the question with a nod of her head. “Half the night,” she said.

  “What did they say?”

  “They didn’t have to say anything. I know this means big trouble for me.” Her voice was still soft and sweet despite the horrible situation she was in. “Big trouble. I think they believe that I killed Carl.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The questions they’ve been asking, especially Detective Slye. Man, he’s a real piece of work.” Biting her bottom lip, she took a moment to flex the fingers of her left hand and then shook them as if they felt numb. Ever since her suicide attempt, that hand always gave her trouble.

  “You were in the family room when Mr. Kastenmeier was attacked.”

  “Yes, I was,” Tasia said. “He didn’t like the way I looked, so he tossed me out. Then he came back begging. He even made me a drink, but I threw it in his face and made my own.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “He hit me.” She pointed to the bruise on her cheek. “I told him to go to hell and he went sulking into his office. And that was the end of it, or so I thought.”

  “That was the last you saw of him?”

  “No. I went into his office after I heard the explosion and saw him lying against the tub.” Tasia hesitated, staring at Elaine. “You told the police that he called out my name before he died.”

  “That’s right, he did.”

  “The police probably think it’s a dying man’s accusation. You know, Tasia did it.”

  “Maybe he just wanted to see you one last time.”

  “Or maybe he wanted to screw me over one last time.” Shaking her head and scooting farther back on the bed, she gazed up at the ceiling. “I don’t know why my life has to be so messed up. Ever since Mom died, forget it. Sometimes I think we should’ve died together.”

  “Don’t say that, Tasia. Be glad you’re alive.”

  “For what?” she said, watching Elaine’s face in the half-darkness. Although the sun was well up in the sky, the shades were still drawn. “What do I have to look forward to? Being more miserable than I am right now?”

  “Mr. Kastenmeier’s gone. You can start over….”

  “With what? What do I have left except memories uglier than your worst nightmares?”

  “Did you see that broken mayonnaise jar in the bathroom?” Tasia continued.

  “Yes,” Elaine said, “I saw it. It had been full of water.”

  Tasia snickered, her body jerking from the effort. “I wish,” she said, running her fingers through her long, blonde hair and shaking her head. The curl in her hair from the last permanent had started to relax, and her hair was hanging almost straight again. Her eyelashes brushed against her bangs after every blink, so it was clear that she needed a trim. “If you’d ever picked it up, you would’ve been able to tell it wasn’t water.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It’s not as heavy as water.”

  “What was it?”

  “There was ether in the jar. My ether. I put it under that sink years ago.”

  “So?”

  “So, it caused the explosion.”

  “Caused the explosion? How?”

  “I don’t know exactly. All I know is, it was my jar and my ether, and my fingerprints are all over it.”

  Elaine sat up in bed, tossing her covers aside. “Why in the world did you have ether stashed away, especially if it’s volatile enough to explode?”

  Tasia rubbed her forehead before slamming her head against the wall. If it hurt, she never let on that it did. She closed her eyes tight and said, “I used to freebase, that’s all. I needed the ether to freebase cocaine. Smoking it gives me a faster high.”

  Elaine got up and sat down on the edge of Tasia’s bed. The pink and white flannel nightgown Elaine wore was gathered at the neck and was long enough to touch her calves. It was a study in contrasts to see it next to the red cocktail dress Tasia was wearing. “Then Mr. Kastenmeier picked up the jar of ether, dropped it or something, and it exploded,” Elaine surmised. “The impact of the blast killed him. What happened was an accident.”

  “It was no accident. Someone murdered Carl. He didn’t die from the explosion, but rather bled to death from a stab wound under his right arm. Besides, what happened to John certainly was no accident.”

  “No,” Elaine said and then paused when she heard Betty sneeze. Both women looked over at her, finding her peering up from between the sheets and staring at them with uncommon interest. Gossip and cold creams were all that ever interested her, and this morning she was just overdosing on assumptions and innuendo.

  Despite the eager expression on her face, Betty said, “If you wanna talk, take it outside. I’m trying to sleep.” Rolling over, she covered her head with a pale yellow blanket.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tasia said, putting weight on her wrists to get up from the bed and flinching a little from the pain. She headed for the door. “What I wouldn’t do for a pint of brandy and a gram of snow right now.”

  “Don’t say that,” Elaine said, grabbing a robe and following her down the stairs and into the kitchen. On the way through, they passed handcrafted, glass-front cabinetry, hanging copper cookware, and a cooktop with wine-colored tile behind it. The kitchen countertop was marble, and the tiled floor was trimmed with hand painted fruit and vegetable designs.

  Elaine was surprised to find Silas sitting at the semicircular booth on the servants’ side of the kitchen with what looked like one of those freezer pops specially formulated to contain an electrolyte solution in his hand. He hadn’t had much of an appetite, so he was trying to drink fluids so that he wouldn’t dehydrate.

  “Good morning, Silas,” Elaine said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” he said as Tasia stood beside him for a moment and rubbed his back with the palm of her hand.

  “Your color looks a lot better,” Tasia told him. “You were absolutely gray yesterday.”

  “I always feel better in the morning. I feel crummiest by midafternoon.”

  “Have you taken your medicine?” Elaine asked.

  “Yes, I took it first thing.”

  Tasia sat down next to him after he scooted over, and Elaine sat on the opposite side of the booth. “What do you feel like eating this morning?” Tasia said, staring at him with more concern than she’d ever shown for herself.

  “Dry toast. Maybe with some of that homemade pear butter on it. But first I want to make sure my stomach is strong enough to keep this cherry pop down.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Silas, you’re the chemistry whiz,” Elaine said. “How can ether ex
plode?”

  Snapping to attention, he asked, “Is that what happened last night? Was it an ether explosion?”

  “We believe it was.”

  He looked at Tasia when he made the connection between her drug abuse and the presence of ether in the house. “Freebasing,” he said. “Don’t you know how dangerous smoking that stuff is? Handling all those chemicals is also dangerous because they’re so flammable. Snorting coke isn’t good enough anymore?”

  “Not lately,” she said, her voice deeper from a telltale hoarseness.

  “Did you see the size of the hole that explosion left in the floor? That could have been you, Tasia.”

  “I know it. I never claimed to do everything a good girl should, Silas.”

  “You’re your own worst enemy.”

  She looked bothered by his assessment, and it showed in the next thing she had to say. “I guess I am my own worst enemy now that your father’s dead.”

  Silas looked hurt by those words, but he respected her right to have such an opinion. It was doubtful if he would’ve let anyone else speak that way about his father.

  “I’m sorry,” Tasia said anyway, and although it was hard for him to look at her again, he acknowledged her civility by nodding his head.

  “How did the ether explode, Silas?” Elaine asked.

  “The ether must have been sitting around for awhile.”

  “About two years,” Tasia confirmed.

  “Ether and air react together to form peroxides which are shock sensitive. When the container holding the ether was knocked over, the peroxide crystals, which had settled to the bottom, exploded and that set off the ether.”

  “Wow,” Elaine said. “I never knew ether could do that.”

  “Obviously Tasia didn’t know either, or she wouldn’t have left it there.”

  “Understanding chemical reactions was never my forte,” Tasia said.

  “Tasia, what time did Dad’s meeting end yesterday?”

  “Around three or four in the afternoon. Why?”

  “Did he say anything about how it went?”

  “No, but he was happy. He seemed very pleased about something.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. When I asked him, he wouldn’t tell me.”

  Putting down the pop in his hand, Silas said, “Katerina must’ve taken notes. I’m going to go and check them.”

  “Silas, you know your father doesn’t like you going through his business….” Tasia stopped when she remembered that Carl was dead, and it didn’t matter what Silas wanted to see. The business was most likely his now anyway.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said, waiting for her to stand so that he could get up from the booth and then hurry to his father’s office.