Split Second skamm-1

by David Baldacci

  Paint thinner?

  He whirled back around. “Millie, can you show me Bill’s special stash of Scotch?”

  41

  It was the Scotch, or at least Bill Martin’s secret cache, that Mildred Martin had never bothered to tell the police or FBI about. A relatively simple test at the police lab showed the bottle had been doctored with methanol.

  King and Joan sat at the police station while Mildred was thoroughly interrogated.

  Joan looked at King. “You’re lucky she poured yours out from her regular stock.”

  King shook his head. “How’d the poisoned bottle get into the house?”

  A man in a brown suit walked up to them. “I think we found that out.”

  He was one of the FBI agents assigned to the case. Joan knew him well.

  “Hello, Don,” said Joan. “This is Sean King. Don Reynolds.”

  The men shook hands. “We owe you guys on this one,” said Reynolds. “Never would have guessed the Scotch, although she didn’t tell us about her husband’s secret cache. We had the other stuff tested previously.”

  “It was Sean’s catch actually. Though I hate to admit it,” she added, smiling. “You said you know how the doctored Scotch got there?”

  “A couple of months ago the Martins hired a woman to help around the house. To assist with Bill Martin, who was basically an invalid.”

  “Mildred never mentioned that either?” King said incredulously.

  “She said she didn’t think it was important. She said the woman never gave Bill any medication or anything, though she said she was licensed to. Mildred liked to do that herself. And the woman left long before Martin died, so Mildred didn’t think it was relevant.”

  “Where’d the woman come from?”

  “That was the thing. She just showed up one day, said she understood that they might need some help because of Bill’s condition, that she was a professional caregiver and was willing to come cheap because she needed the work. She had papers and stuff to show who she was.”

  “And now where is this very accommodating lady?”

  “She said she’d gotten a permanent job in another town, and that was it. Hasn’t been back.”

  “Obviously she did come back,” said Joan.

  Reynolds nodded. “Our theory is the woman came back to the house the day before Martin died and doctored the bottle, to make sure his next drink would be his last. The bottle of Scotch we found was loaded with methanol. Now, methanol is slow to metabolize into toxic levels. You’re looking at twelve to twenty-four hours. If he’d been young and healthy and been found immediately, maybe Martin could have made it to a hospital and survived. But he wasn’t young or healthy; he was terminal, in fact. And the Martins also didn’t sleep together. After Mildred gave her husband the last pop through his G-tube, the pain probably would have hit him very soon. And he only weighed about ninety pounds. Normally you’d need one hundred to two hundred milliliters of methanol to kill an adult. I doubt they needed anywhere near that to kill Martin.”

  Reynolds shook his head and smiled wearily. “It’s ironic they put it in the Scotch. Scotch contains ethanol, which is an antidote to methanol, because they both seek the same enzyme. However, there was so much methanol in the bottle the ethanol couldn’t have countered it. Martin might have called out in agony, but Mildred never heard him, or so she says. So he might have lain there all night until he finally died. It’s not like he could get out of bed for help. He was a complete invalid by that time.”

  “Mildred was probably passed out on gin. She likes her libations too,” said King.

  Joan added, “And this nurse obviously had learned the routine of the house, that both of them drank and didn’t sleep together. Once she learned he was a Scotch drinker and had his own stash, and also that Mildred never touched the stuff, she had her method of murder. She’d appear to be long gone before the deed was done.”

  Reynolds nodded. “He could have been killed any number of ways, but it had to be in a manner that wouldn’t require an autopsy, because that would have messed up the timing. Martin had to die in his bed. So he did, and Mildred found him there and assumed he died naturally, although the docs tell me death by methanol is by no means peaceful. And methanol metabolizes into formaldehyde, which is toxic, but then it’s oxidized into formic acid. That’s six times more lethal than methanol.”

  “So Martin was basically pickled before he got to the funeral home,” said King.

  “That’s right. According to Bruno’s staff, their boss was scheduled to be in the area that day and the next at a number of events. The procedure at the funeral home was for a body to lie in the viewing area for a couple of days. Martin died on a Monday, and he went to the funeral home Monday night. His body was laid out on Wednesday and Thursday, with burial scheduled for Friday. Bruno came by on Thursday.”

  “Still tight timing,” said Joan.

  Reynolds shrugged. “Probably the best they could do. Otherwise, how else could they get him to the funeral home? They couldn’t very well invite him to Martin’s house. It was probably the funeral home or nothing. Sure it was risky but it worked.”

  “And none of the woman’s background checked out, right?” said Joan.

  Reynolds nodded. “To use a cliché, she’s completely disappeared without a trace.”

  “Description?”

  “Older woman, at least fifty, medium height, a little stout. She had mousy brown hair with some gray in it, though that could have been dyed. And get this: she told Mildred her name was Elizabeth Borden.”

  King exclaimed, “Elizabeth Borden, as in Lizzie Borden who gave her mother forty whacks?”

  “And when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one,” added Joan.

  “So we have some people with a real warped, macabre sense of humor,” said Reynolds.

  Joan eyed him intently. “Okay, they’re intelligent killers who read their criminal history. They’re still killers.”

  “Well, thanks again for your help. I don’t know where this leads us, but it’s more than we had before.”

  “What’s going to happen to Mildred?” asked King.

  Reynolds shrugged. “You can’t arrest someone for being stupid; otherwise, you’d lock up at least half the population. Unless we dig up something incriminating, nothing will happen to her. But if she was in on it, seems like she’d have gotten rid of the Scotch.” He turned to Joan. “I heard you were investigating Bruno’s disappearance on behalf of the family. That’s cool. I know you won’t do anything stupid, and you’ve already found something we missed, so if you need something, just let me know.”

  “Funny you should mention that—I have a list right here,” replied Joan.

  As Joan and Reynolds talked business, King watched Mildred Martin emerge from the interrogation room. She didn’t look like the same woman. Gregarious, salty, full of punch when he first met her, she now looked like she’d soon be joining her dead husband.

  After Reynolds walked off, Sean looked at Joan. “Now where?” he asked.

  “We go to the funeral home.”

  “The feds already picked that field clean.”

  “Yeah, just like they did with Mildred Martin. Besides, I like funeral homes. You hear the most delicious gossip about the dearly departed, usually from their friends.”

  “Joan, you really are a cynic.”

  “Admit it. It’s one of my most attractive qualities.”

  42

  The police dropped off Mildred Martin at her house and then left. Down the street, at the end of the block, a black sedan melded into the darkness, a pair of alert FBI agents inside.

  The old woman staggered into the house and locked the door behind her. She needed a drink so badly. Why had she done what she’d done? It was all so perfect, and she’d gone and messed it up, but then she’d recovered. Yes, she had. Everything was okay. She reached for the gin and filled her tumbler, using barely any tonic.

  She drank down half the glas
s; her nerves began to steady. It would be okay; everything was fine. She was old, what could the FBI really do to her? They had nothing really; she was going to be okay.

  “Mildred, how are you?”

  She dropped her tumbler and let out a shriek.

  “Who’s there?” She backed up against the liquor cabinet.

  The man came forward a little but remained in the shadows.

  “It’s your old friend.”

  She squinted at him. “I don’t know you.”

  “Of course you do. I’m the man who helped you kill your husband.”

  She lifted up her chin. “I did not kill Bill.”

  “Well, Mildred, the methanol you put in his body certainly did. And you made the phone call to Bruno, just like I asked you to.”

  She looked more closely. “That… that was you?”

  He moved forward some more. “I let you get your revenge on John Bruno and become rich with life insurance in the bargain, and found a way for you to put your poor, sick husband out of his misery. And all I asked was for you to play by the rules. That was all I demanded and you’ve disappointed me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said in a quivering voice.

  “The rules, Mildred. My rules. And those rules didn’t include another trip to the police station and further interrogation by the FBI.”

  “It was those people who came here asking questions.”

  “Yes, King and Dillinger, I know. Go on,” he said pleasantly.

  “I… I was just talking to them. I told them what you said to say. About Bruno, I mean. Just like you said.”

  “You were obviously more than candid. Come now, Mildred, tell me everything.”

  The woman was shaking badly.

  He said soothingly, “Calm down, pour yourself another drink.”

  She did so and downed it. “I… we were talking about Scotch. I told him Bill liked his Scotch, that’s all. I swear.”

  “And you put the methanol in the bottle of Scotch?”

  “Yes, in Bill’s special Scotch. The Macallan’s.”

  “Why did you do that, Mildred? We gave you the methanol. You were supposed to just put it in a syringe and shoot it into his feeding tube. Nice and simple. All you had to do was follow instructions.”

  “I know, but… I just couldn’t do it that way. I couldn’t. I wanted it to seem like I was just giving him his Scotch, just like regular. See? So I mixed it in the bottle and then put that into him.”

  “Fine, so afterwards why didn’t you pour the Scotch down the sink, or throw out the bottle?”

  “I was going to, but I was afraid somebody might see me. I throw out lots of empty bottles of booze, but I also know some of my neighbors thought I’d killed Bill for the insurance money. They might go through my trash. And even if I washed out the bottle and even broke it into pieces the police can still find things from little bits of glass. I watch those TV forensic shows—I know! I figured it’d be better if I just left it where it was. And then I just didn’t want to go near it. I… I was feeling guilty, about Bill.” She started to quietly sob.

  “But you mentioned it, and King and Dillinger put two and two together. Now, why couldn’t you have just shown them the Scotch you have in that liquor cabinet there?”

  “It wasn’t Macallan’s. I told that young man that Bill only drank Macallan’s. I… I was scared. I told him I still had the bottle. It just slipped out. I mean, everything was going great and then he just yelled out, to show him the Scotch. I thought if I didn’t show him the bottle, he might get suspicious.”

  “Undoubtedly they would have. My goodness, how very thorough you were in spilling everything to complete strangers.”

  “He was a real gentleman,” she said defensively.

  “I’m sure he was. So they took the bottle, and they analyzed it and found it was poisoned. What did you tell the police?”

  Mildred looked pleased with herself. “I told them a woman, a nurse, came to the house, and I hired her to look after Bill. And that she was the one who put the poison in there. I even told them her name.” She paused and added with a flourish, “Elizabeth Borden. Get it? Lizzie Borden.” She cackled. “Smart, huh?”

  “Amazing, and you thought of all this on the way to the police station?”

  She gulped her drink, lit a cigarette and blew smoke out. “I’ve always been quick that way. I think I would have made a better lawyer than my husband.”

  “How did you say you paid for this woman’s services?”

  “Pay?”

  “Yes, pay. You didn’t tell them she worked for free, did you? One rarely finds such an accommodating soul in real life.”

  “Pay, oh, well, I told them… I mean, I was sort of vague on that.”

  “Really, and they didn’t press the point?”

  She flicked her ash onto the floor and shrugged. “No, they didn’t. They believed what I said. I’m the old, grieving widow. So everything’s just fine.”

  “Mildred, let me tell you what they’re undoubtedly doing right now. They’re accessing your bank records to determine how you paid ‘Lizzie.’ Your records won’t reflect any such payments. Next they’ll question your ‘nosy’ neighbors about this woman, and they’ll say they never saw her, because she doesn’t exist. And finally the FBI will be back to see you, and you can be certain that visit will be very unpleasant.”

  She looked worried. “You really think they’d check all that?”

  “They’re the FBI, Mildred. They’re not stupid. Not stupid like you.”

  He stepped closer to her. She now saw what he was carrying: a metal pole.

  She started to scream, but he lunged forward and stuffed a wad of cloth down her throat and wound duct tape around her mouth and hands. Gripping her by the hair, he pulled her down the hallway and pushed open a door. “I’ve taken the liberty of drawing a bath for you, Mildred. I want you nice and clean when you’re found.”

  He dumped her in the full bathtub, and the water sloshed over the sides. She tried to pull herself out, but he pushed her back under with the pole. With the duct tape across her mouth, and her smoke-packed lungs, she lasted less than half the time Loretta Baldwin had. He grabbed a bottle of Scotch from the cabinet, poured the contents into the bath and then smashed it against her head. Lastly he ripped the tape off her mouth, opened it and stuffed it full of dollar bills he’d pulled from her purse.

  Where does one have to go to get reliable help these days? Where!

  He looked down at her and said, “Just be glad you’re dead, Mildred. Just be glad you don’t have to feel my rage right now, because it’s right off the scale!”

  When he made his plans, he had contemplated killing Mildred too but concluded it would have raised too much suspicion. That decision had come back to haunt him. Still, there was no way to track her culpability back to him. It would be clear, though, that the same hand had struck down both Loretta Baldwin and Mildred Martin. That would probably confuse the authorities more than it would assist them. He didn’t like it yet it couldn’t be helped now. He scornfully looked down at her. Idiot woman!

  He left by the back door and looked toward the end of the street, where he knew the FBI was lurking. “Go get her, boys,” he muttered. “She’s all yours.”

  A few minutes later the old Buick started up and drifted down the road.

  43

  The private plane Joan had engaged was like an upscale club with wings and jet engines. It had mahogany paneling, leather seats, a TV, full galley, bar, accompanying steward and even a small bedroom, where Joan had gone to catch a nap. King remained in his seat, eventually dozing off. The funeral home had yielded nothing helpful. The plane was taking them to Washington, D.C. Joan had wanted to check some things at her office before heading out again.

  As the plane began its final approach, Joan burst out of the bedroom. The steward called out to her, “Ma’am, you have to take your seat now—”

  She gave him a withering look and
kept running up the aisle.

  She reached King, who was still asleep, and shook him.

  “Sean, wake up. Now!”

  He didn’t budge. She straddled his legs, so that she was on his lap face-to-face, and started to slap him. “Wake up, damn it!”

  He finally came around, groggy. When he focused on her and saw she was sitting, barefoot, skirt hiked and thighs spread, across his lap, he said, “Christ, Joan, get off me. I’m not looking for membership in the mile-high club.”

  “You idiot. This is about Mildred Martin.”

  Sean sat up straight now, and she climbed off, taking a seat next to him and buckling up.

  “So talk!” he demanded.

  “You told me Mildred said that Bruno called recently to tell Bill Martin about his running for president? And that she talked to him too?”

  “Right. So?”

  “So you heard the woman’s voice. It’s like a foghorn. Are you telling me that if Bruno recently heard that voice that someone could have later called and impersonated her voice and he wouldn’t have known the deception?”

  King slapped his armrest. “That’s right! I mean how do you do that voice unless you’ve been smoking and drinking for fifty years?”

  “And have adenoids the size of golf balls.”

  “So she lied to us. She did call Bruno and asked him to come and see her at the funeral home.”

  Joan nodded. “And that’s not all. I called Agent Reynolds with the FBI. He wasn’t exactly candid with us. They thought from the start that her story was phony. He’s checking out something that will definitely tell us whether she was in on it or not. Now, the Martins didn’t have a lot of money, so how could they afford a caregiver?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Maybe they could.”

  “Granted, they might have, but if they did, because of their age they’re also entitled to some partial reimbursement under Medicare.”

  King quickly got it. “So Medicare would have a record of that. But if Mildred didn’t file for that assistance, if she claimed she paid the woman out of her own pocket…”